Another Power Packed weekend of Entertainment

Last night that was one of the biggest crowds I had seen at one of the Parks and Rec events with Mixed Waters featuring Veeda performing, a fact that Dan Ellison agreed with when I saw him today...He would like to see some greater diversity at the concerts because it seems like they are in his opinion either predominately white or predominately black....There used to be a nice mix in the crowd at the American Tobacco concerts last year, and there is a definite mix at Brightleaf...I think part of that is because of the types and selections of groups which often times were dance kind of music or easy listening type sounds......I fear that was not the case this year at American Tobacco since it was mostly a folk-country kind of lineup and I wasn't as attracted to most of their lineup this year though there is a blues one coming up that Music Maker is involved with at American Tobacco that I want to catch...
Coming back to the band, Veeda, Johnnie Hudson and the rest of the band really cranked some classic soul sounds and I enjoyed talking to the comedian Liz and telling her and her beau about NACA and another showcase opportunity in New York and the need to connecct her with Ronnie Warner about some possible film work and she remembered that I was supposed to connect her with Katreese and the whole Saturday Night Live experience which she feels needs a strong Sista voice......Carl kenney who I had seen earlier said he would love to host and put together a Jazz series at West village similar to the one that they did for a few years with Blues and asked me to help find some sponsorship which I will try and do and I told him how I have always been amazed at the amount of talent accross the musical spectrum that exists in Durham that covers everything from Polka to Jazz to Blues to Rock and Hip Hop and i could have added Latin, Reggae, Funk, Folk, etc and I how I would love to do a showcase of that at the Carolina Theater which might conclude with a really funky jam session that would bring some interesting colllaboratives together that night and possibly in the future......Speaking of collobarations I earlier had reconnected finally with Mertie Snead who told me she wants to put together a project that will expose youth from Durham to the global world and global cultures.....I think this would be so cool.....
Later that evening I went over to a couple of other art spots including Vega Metals where I saw Michael Waller who is still very interested in doing a statue dedicated to Brownie McGhee here in Durham and who was telling me about the statue dedicated to Music and the Sugar hill area that Maceo Parker is throwing his support behind in Kinston and how it is going to be part of the African American Music Trail but he feels that Durham needs to be involved in this effort as well....I also watched the movies that Tom Whiteside was showing and he said he would love to get a good copy of Negro Durham marches on and I told him that we have some good copies of old African American movies here at Hayti and that Charlene Register and the Oscar Michaux society might have some good films that he could as well..he was showing a good film on Chevrolet featuring an early Evil Kneivel type and a old classic Popeye...I love those old classic movies.......At the end of the day, stopped by a art studio near the Marriott and reconnected with the potter Susan and met some other really cool artist as well and hung out with them until the wee hours of the morning..
Somehow on little sleep managed to get up and do work for the Symphony Board at Centerfest and also connected with some great friends like Stephenie McLean, Pat Murray of Skywriter, Brian Spann, and others...I enjoyed teasing the new executive director of the Symphony's son and teasingly threatening to auction him and his friends off for a date to raise money for the Symphony........Also met the new director of Urban Ministries and she is definitely hoping to do some funky partnerships here in Durham.....There were some really cool artist including a guy who does some panaromic type photography from Baltimore and Darius Quarles and a couple of artist that had musical ties to their art and my friend Andria Linn always has cool art even though I was threatening to court her sister even though I found out she is like almost just a little over half my age.....hey luv knows no age...SMILE......
At the end of the day, me and Stephenie stopped by some folks doing migrant activist work and learned how devestatingly high their drop out rate is and they are raising funds for some housing for some of the migrants and I told her about some possible fundraising groups they might want to check out...
Right now I am working Hayti where Megafaun and Fight the Big Bull are about to do some cool music featuring the sounds of legendary producer Lomax......One of the Duke Performance regulars is asking me Movie questions like my favorite movie of 2009 was and I gave as answer Up in the Air...also said I had to admit I liked Avatar..he said the Swedish vampire film Let the One Right In and the film Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Conception are all great films........another worker and me were talking about Mingus and I mentioned the film at Full Frame that I saw about him and his relationship with one of the Rothschilds and she said that relationship was mentioned in the book But Beautiful which apparently has some really cool jazz artists perspectives in...P.S. several people both here and at Centerfest asked how the Blues festival and I definitely got the feeling people missed the community aspect of being outside.
I also learned from here that Aaron has a hard time connecting with Ira Wiggins and he would love to have a better relationship between Central's great jazz students and some of the great musicians that perform here from around the world and he also said that because so much of SHA and NCU's sound is passive and non-vocal they have pulled their announcements from that stage of the media.....Hopefully now that we have more community minded people in charge in opinion at WNCU that can change is what I let them know...well let me stop and hear some of this music.....

Downtown Durham and Centerfest

Once again it is time for Centerfest in the downtown Durham......as I have stated before I definitely prefer it throughout downtown versus being in the Parking lot area near the YMCA.....maybe one day it can return to the downtown area......just like I hope that one day the Blues Festival can definitely have a ballpark atmosphere again....the many vendors and people mingling around along with the music definitely give a true festival feel.....Now if we can have that and then add various locations throughout town so it's a Big festival feel like what they have in New Orleans and other cities that have great festivals that would be ideal.....The festival was still great with music from Buddy Guy who went into the audience and really pleased the audience with his history lessons of the Blues in addition to great performances.......and another great act was Wild Magnolias who had the members of the audience, yours truly included, get on the stage and dance with them........yeah I know I have two left feet but it was still a blast....SMILE.....Betty Lavette also gave a soulful peformance and the performance by my friend Melva Houston as well as newer friend Jo Gore were also good and of course it was fun having some activities on the outside with two bands even though I had to do some hustling and some conversating to make sure we had some sound but things worked out finally......
Friday night was good at Hayti as well and I was so glad to hear MSG do a rendition of one of their songs that is one of my favorites called Mean Church People...you know we have all run into those and a painting that Spencer did was real good and definitely captured the essence of local legend John Dee Holeman......The kids group that Hayti put together also did a really good job and folks also enjoyed the kid from Asheville and of course Mel Melton definitely got the crowd pumped up.....
Just finished checking out King Kenney doing his steal the art event where people were getting some great art, in some cases actually for free in the downtown area....He was also remembering his days of being a teen in Durham and playing some great pick up games with Duke stars like Brian Davis, Grant Hill, and Christian Laettner and realizing they have major game and could even hang with the street ball players......King was also talking about getting away from the throwing party thing though he said he would love to put together a black Rock club here in the area and also likes hitting the house parties in Raleigh and Charlotte......His art work is definitely eye catching and he is getting some good prices for it...he was just recently commissioned by the Sienna in Chapel Hill to do four pieces for them....He speculated that Casbah will be about half the size of Cat's Cradle but it does have good sound system and that the other new club near Trotter will definitely be about the size of the Cradle....
Now I do regret missing Chuck Brown in Raleigh a couple of weeks ago and Public Enemy last week but that was the weekend of the Blues festival and the other weekend was a work weekend if memory serves me right....But maybe I can catch them on a rebound show somewhere. Getting ready to go check out Veeda and Mixed Water in downtown Durham....Just ran into a friend of mine who is trying to figure out a way to expose our youths to the kind of travel opportunities she got to enjoy going to places like Brazil, the Caribbean, and Paris for our work at Glaxo Smith-Kline which she just retired from..I think I might have some contacts for her in that realm.......By the way on a lighter note I won my first game in Fantasy Football in Tuffa last week...Maybe this is a good sign and I can finally win a big prize...one can only hope...SMILE....