FollowNot all sheep are followers! Over the next 2 hours we’ll be sharpening our shears to sheep in jazz: from Ornette’s bleating horns and the black sheep of the family, to Kyle Shepherd, Andrew Lamb, Charles Burnett’s 1977 masterpiece Killer of Sheep and plenty more wooly sounds.
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Louis Moholo: ‘Ba ba black sheep’
Louis Moholo talks sheep with Neo Muyanga at the 2009 Chimurenga Library Sessions
African Jazz Pioneers folic in the “Meadowlands” (featuring Dolly Rathebe)
Hugh Masekela “Grazing in the Grass” (off Still Grazing)
Hugh Masekela made musical journey from apartheid South Africa to the scene in New York City, where he struck gold with “Grazin’ in the Grass”. And even now, as he tells us in his autobiography, Bra Hugh is still grazing….
Andrew Lamb “Dyes and Lyes” (off New Orleans Suite, 2006/2010 reissue)
“Mother Nature just staged the terrorist act on our ass!” declares this saxophonist and reedsman on his recently reissued New Orleans Suite.
Kyle Shepherd “Sweet Zim Suite” (off A Portrait of Home, 2010)
South African jazz has been kinda lost recently… fortunately Kyle Shepherd has emerged to lead the flock home…
Amiri Baraka “Wooden Negroes Appear at a Slam” and several “Low Coups” (5:08)
As Baraka tells us in his Griot/Djali: In the U.S., We is a bunch of I’s without the logical connection. The rap for your cap to wake you from your nap, or wake you to your naps. Ba, Ba, Black Sheep, they asked, have you any wool? Yeh, a whole head full! (Wisdom, the Sufi said. That’s our bag.)
Moses Molelekwa Darkness Pass (off Darkness Pass, 1994)
Moses reveals just what a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing he really was
ahh missd dat – moshe was a tru sheppered, caring en wise en helped many grace even helped dem chew – have dem swallowed – or stuck with dry grass inn mouth, still..he was no wolf – he only muched that piano, bloodless… him lives,givin much thanks to bo’molelekwa for dat blissding 28 years of genes en spirits dat helped one find self
fyah!!
Black Sheep mongrel musician : Charles Mingus “Self Portrait in Three Colours” (off Mingus Ah Um, 1959)
As Mingus says: I’m Charles Mingus. Half black man, yellow man, half yellow, not even yellow, not even white enough to pass for nothing but black, and not too light to be called white. I claim that I am a Negro. Charles Mingus is a musician, mongrel musician who plays beautiful, who plays ugly, who plays lovely, who plays masculine, who plays feminine, who plays music, who plays off sounds, sounds, solid sounds, sounds, sounds, sounds … a musician who loves to play with sound.
Archie ‘Sheep’ and Abdullah Ibrahim “Barefoot Boy From Queenstown – to Mongezi” (off Dollar Brand’s Duet, 1983)
Nathan Wooley pays tribute to Sacrificial Lamb “Yukio Mishima” (off I Know You By My Wounds)
Bleating of horns by Ornette Coleman “Science Fiction” (off Science Fiction)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Oh yes: Kyoto Jazz Massive remix of Electric Sheep feat UA “The Brightness of these Days” (off 10th Anniversary, 2006)
Mountain Goat Lesego Rampolokeng “Rapmaster” (off End Beginnings)
As Ram(p)s says, , I hated poetry. I don’t know if I’ve changed, I perhaps still hate or perhaps still hate even much more because for me it was something that was alienating for me even the nursery rhymes that we were taught bah bah black sheep… I looked at that stuff and I could not identify with the sheep, I was much more of a mountain goat.
Mutton Chops anyone? Sonny Sharrock “Portrait of Linda in Three Colours, All Black (off Black Woman, 1969)
Free guitarist Sonny Sharrock had a pretty mean pair of ‘burns back in the 70s. His playing is prime rib…how are Linda’s vocals on “Black Woman”….sounds like a lamb is being lead to the slaughter?
cute lamb of de gods she sounds – signs not to ever knife/kill it until it be quiet and accepts the sacrifise – so we all wait en listen ..what a ritual `Fayah! not a vegan song at all, hhe hhe…
And More Black Sheep
Salvador Masembe “Karingane” – a traditional Mozambican Chopi poem about the black sheep..
Gonjasufi “Sheep” (off A Sufi and a Killer): a mystical individual caught between the Mojave desert, the LA streets and somewhere more cosmic.
Black Sheep “Party Tonight” (feat. Jean Grae, off From the Black Pool of Genius)
Underground hip-hop crew invites Abdullah’s daughter round for a love-centric relationship jam on this teaser off their new album.
wattt, what!? fyah beee matshidiso a tru brandt, fyah!
Da Sisterhood of Spittin,is aan die Brand !
Killer of Sheep
African-American filmmaker Charles Burnett’s most celebrated movie, the 1977 masterpiece Killer of Sheep, was extremely hard to see for many years, since licensing hassles over some of the soundtrack music drove it out of the marketplace soon after its premiere. Here are some of the sounds that kept it off the screen:
And, ‘take five’ with these gems from the soundtrack to Killer of Sheep
Louis Armstrong “West End Blues”
Elmore James’s “I Believe,” from Let’s Cut It.
Faye Adams’s “Shake A Hand,” from The Herald Recordings (jumping from roof to roof: the Ecstatic cover)
Dinah Washington “This Bitter Earth”
Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Reasons,” from That’s The Way Of The World (Stan’s daughter singing to a doll)
Cutting edge shearing here,makes me feel at Home is where the Music is !
I had no idea how to approach this before-now I’m lcoked and loaded.