Sunday, September 6, 2009
Bumbershoot 2009 Day Two:
Roy Ayers and Melvin Van Peebles
The rain was heavy for the first few hours of day two, but it cleared out and turned out to be one of those damp cool but not too wet days and evenings common with this season around here. My mission today was to have optimal experiences at Roy Ayer's concert and Melvin Van Peebles' appearance. I was successful for both.
Roy Ayers at Fisher Green Stage
I have been anticipating the opportunity to see Roy Ayers perform again. His genre bending funk/soul/jazz first caught my ear back in the mid seventies days of Earth Wind, and Fire. Like the elements, Roy had solid jazz credentials when he was experimenting in this territory when he was in this twenties. He always seemed to secure a role as an opening act for folks like Herbie Hancock or Chic, but not securing headlining spots for himself. He released a large amount of music, most of it under the band identity of Ubiquity.
If not ubiquitous, he was a visible force in music until the eighties. I didn't hear much about Roy Ayers at all until the Seattle Rocket profiled him as "The Godfather of Acid Jazz." A solid R&B groove is an essential component to the acid jazz movement, basically this meant that lots of turntablists were sampling Roy's funky 1970s output.
Some folks want to crunch him in with the smooth jazz people, but I say his music is way too hard and funky to categorize it in such a fashion. He is appreciated in England, where several live albums at Ronnie Scott's Club allowed those that have been brought into his world to hear what he has been up to. His annual tour schedule seems to consist of some club dates on the east coast and some festivals in Europe, so the opportunity to see Roy outside, live in full Bumbershoot effect was very attractive to me.
The opening certainly had the Roy Ayers sound. His second number was Dizzy Gillespie's Night in Tunisia. It was one of those barn burning arrangements where everyone in the band ends there time with a comedy bit and a novelty solo. I was hoping to hear as many Roy tunes as possible, not to watch his drummer with a towel on his head playing on the ground or the bass player with baby marracas and a harmonica. Mercifully, the number ended after a while.
At last, Roy and Band launch into Everybody Loves the Sunshine, and somehow I end up riding the rail looking at the stage and the typically surly looking guy in a yellow jacket in front of it. They also played a medley of You Can See Me/Running Away/Evolution, We Love in Brooklyn, Baby. and a lovely closer of Good Vibrations. It was tasty, but I would have liked more.
Melvin Van Peebles at the Literary Arts Stage
Stan Shields, a programmer with the Seattle International Film Festival who served as moderator for the Bumbershoot event with Melvin Van Peebles described him as a provocateur in the world of culture and film. His story of going from Air Force veteran to SF cable car driver to author in Paris to filmmaker in Paris returning to the San Francisco International Film Festival to win the Critics award at the festival and the attention of Hollywood, where he eventually was the first black director to do a feature "in the castle," not out on location as Gordon Parks and Ossie Davis had.
One of the audience members acknowledged the accomplishments of Van Peebles asking if he had a mentor. He said yes, it was the words "N-----, You can't Do That." Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Songwas his response. "The only way I could get to do it was in a certain way." He had a vision of how he could make the film work and went for it even down to the details of how it would premiere. He insisted Sweetback's play in Atlanta and Detroit, cities with a significant black population, as a single feature and that it would make money.
He never was hired by the big studios after the film proved to be successful. Instead, his success became a kind of gold rush for desperate studios to tap into the urban and ethnic audience. He claims he is a happy pioneer and enjoys seeing folks have opportunities he didn't have. "I own everything (he has done) because no one would go in with me."
He has recently created a new film and accompanying graphic novel titled Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha and the Seattle appearance is part of his tour promoting these. He showed two different trailers that had been created for the film. He considers them to be mixes of the same song.
Melvin was also the first African American to work on the American Stock Exchange as a broker.
I bought my Confessions graphic novel before the Q and A and had brought my pocket book version of Sweetback's My Melvin moment was quick, but he seemed kind of impressed I had seen 3 Day Passand that it still held up. Regardless of all that, it was just cool to be talking with Melvin Van Peebles, American iconoclast.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:56 PM
Comments:
Mr. Hughes,
This is Stan Shields, the MVP moderator from Bumbershoot. I haven't been able to track down still photos from that event. Would you mind if I put a copy of that photo in my Facebook photo album?
This is Stan Shields, the MVP moderator from Bumbershoot. I haven't been able to track down still photos from that event. Would you mind if I put a copy of that photo in my Facebook photo album?
Mr. Hughes,
This is Stan Shields, the MVP moderator from Bumbershoot. I haven't been able to trackdown still photos from that event. Would you mind if I put a copy of that photo in my facebook album.
This is Stan Shields, the MVP moderator from Bumbershoot. I haven't been able to trackdown still photos from that event. Would you mind if I put a copy of that photo in my facebook album.
Stan, Can post me a link when you get it set up? What event are you looking to post from? MVP? I can say this much both Melvin and Ray are Most Valuable Players for sure! Bob
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