Come. Help us recite some of our greatest poets. Bring your favorite or read one of ours. And, as a special gift to you, Will will share some of his most recent, original poetry.
Didj'all ever have a real jazz station up here in Madison? You know, the one all the black folk would tune into on Friday and Saturday nights from 10pm to midnight? My soul craves this, terribly. Back in the late 70's, everybody who was anybody tuned in to, arguably, the most symbolic testimony to soul outside of the Bethel AME church. Jazz music on WHUR (Howard University) or WEAA (Morgan State) radio stations were mind numbingly Black. So much so that they named their programs "the Quiet Storm". You know the tune Smokey would sing. And if I could, and most of the time I couldn't, I would tune my parents' floor model Magnovox to WHUR FM. These stations were, in a word, mellllooowwww.
The groove was so deep that the entire "DC metro area" a then new term which included Baltimore, seemed to synchronize the community as one on this vibe. But when the stereo light flickered and the station would cut out, you would quickly spin that knob all the way down the dimly lit scale to catch Morgan State's show, complete with Kweisi MFume' for its DJ. It was his call-in radio show from 8 to 10pm that put him at the center of Baltimore's political scene. All his listeners became part and parcel of the consciousness of diaspora. King had been taken from us only ten years ago, then...
You remember how it was. How things used to be.
Well let's be honest, we ain't teens no more, for sure. But there were some songs we'd play with a scarf over the lampshade, hoping not to burn it. When they'd come on, she'd sigh. Incense and candles always helped a brother too.
There's nothing more authentic to our era than the 3 to 5 seconds of anticipation, waiting for that first note ... on a vinyl record. There was no digital in analog recordings. No zeros and ones, just wave lengths. Only the smoothest of brothers learned the touch .. how to lower the needle down so its connection was barely noticeable to the ear. This took persistence if not romantic, practice. But once the needle was in place, it was those few seconds of crackling - and it was only a few - ear drums poised at attention while the rotating vinyl disk would draw the needle closer to that first note... those teasing seconds were treasured almost much as the song itself. It gave you a few seconds to run and grab your brush, run in front of the mirror and lip synch your heart away... Over and over again. And if it was a great album? You still know what song is next, one after the other. The album is another crease in your cranium.
