more la baker

i've read a bio or two about josephine baker. i know the trajectory of her life, stateside and in paris -- her poverty stricken childhood in east st. louis, her initial successes, her delusions, her children, that bombastic ego, her downfall, her triumphant return -- but whenever i see her take the stage, it shakes me to my core. in the clips from the 60s and 70s, she is clearly not a young woman by any far stretch of the imagination. and yet, she is gorgeous, she is vibrant, she is sexy, with this lean, toned body that's so full of energy and vim, it's absolutely astonishing. as a performer, she's even more of a powerhouse than eartha kitt -- and that's saying quite a lot.

some time ago, someone told me that i reminded them of josephine baker. i didn't really get it at the time. they said that it's because i like to talk to the audience spontaneously, especially when things go wrong onstage. apparently, miss baker was a regular chatty cathy, too. i can't stand the idea of a dead mic. if something goes wrong, it's my job to deal with it head-on -- not walk off-stage until it gets fixed. if people got off the couch and paid good hard earned money to come and see me perform, the least i can do is give them a show.

they said that like la baker, i tend to drift towards elegance when i sing onstage. who doesn't look pulled together in a gown? i'm not so sure how far i delve into fantasy, though. clearly, she's a showgirl of the highest order, at all times. sylvester is definitely the male embodiment of that aspect of her performance. he actually met her before she died and she told him, it's all about the fantasy, give them the fantasy.

i'm kind of annoyed that she's wearing pants in the first clip because her legs are kind of fantastic.

there is something buoyant about all the charm she displays in these clips. so highbrow and yet so accessible and real. she looks like someone who should hold themselves away from you and yet she reaches out to you warmly, wanting to hold onto you, wide-eyed and friendly and smiling incessantly.






i know the following video says it's from the 50s but it was actually shot in the 60s. la baker was nearly 60 years old. (!!!)

the first uptown/downtown performance: chinatown

last night was some kind of wunderbar.

zipped to chen dance center, for the first night of uptown/downtown in no time at all: fully made up, fully dressed up and ready to rip it up. i looked like a drum magazine pin-up girl -- actually, i look like an african pin-up girl no matter what i wear. i stopped fighting that one a long time ago. i made a pitstop in a chinese bakery for tea and a sticky bun of some sort. while i was in there, i watched a bunch of ultra black folk who were shopping for a ton of fortune cookies explode with glee as they recognized some pastry from a jackie chan/chris tucker flick. is it true that most people seem to learn about other people and other cultures from movies and television? from behind the counter, the chinese baker's puzzled but somewhat bemused expression seemed to mirror my thoughts.

chen is a hoot. lean and strong and really up and interesting and kind of a prankster. he's one of those dancer/artists that's seen and done everything. some rock n' roller's name will come up and he'll go on about how he stood in the mud and saw them at woodstock and someone will go, you were at woodstock and then we're off to the races. it was nice, watching him walk through the place, greeting people, making suggestions, hanging out.

we had a brief meeting at 6:30pm and somewhere in there, my permanent boyfriend shows up along with daniel carlton, who gives him a digital camera to shoot our segment. (yes, they're shooting everything -- but i'm paranoid.) i'm bobbing in and out of the holding room that's filled with everyone's personal effects, actors chatting sotto voce, someone putting on makeup here, setting props up over there -- and of course, dancers in varying stages of dress, warming up.

it's a small black box situation and i had a short tech rehearsal earlier in the day so everything is well-lit and mood inducing. amazing, the way lights can create a set. daniel and i were in the second half of the evening, so we could take it easy sort of, run lines, whisper. once the audience is seated, the 40 inch plasma screen in the vestibule comes to life, and everyone gathers around it quietly and watches and observes, occasionally nodding at each other and smiling with these knowing looks. it's all very relaxed and serious and fun, with a high degree of that flying by the seat of your pants sensation buzzing in the air.

and then all of a sudden, it was over. (and coming soon to my youtube channel!) daniel and i are a real gang of two -- and he is the king of props.

there was a talkback afterwards that felt awkward because we couldn't say anything while the audience shouted all this stuff off the cuff. we seemed to glide out of the place, lost in thought. one of the coolest things about being married to an artist that's also an intellectual (why he won't cop to that last part, i'll never know) is that i can talk to him in depth about what i do. as we walk along, we unhinge all of it from the inside out and share ideas. he has a lot of insight.

of course, all of that is predicated on the fact that he is a safe place. but that's a whole other conversation.

and so, as my permanent boyfriend and i noshed on vietnamese food afterwards and traipsed westward through the narrow streets in the dead of night, we held hands like lost toddlers and somehow managed to simultaneously float down a sun drenched memory lane that was flooded with sweet loving moments from our earliest days as a twosome.

happy days.

Queen Esther and the Hot Five at Joe's Pub

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words would a video inspire?

This one comes to you courtesy of videographer Chris Carlone, who shot the show at Joe's Pub earlier this month. We did a short set of songs for aboriginal Aussie artist Richard Bell's party from the upcoming jazz CD, tentatively titled What Is Love? that should be available for purchase before the end of the year. Aussie artist Tracey Moffatt had a lot of fun hosting the event. (Yay!) This is song is called Stardust.

Oh, I almost forgot -- ultra super secret listening party at the speakeasy Dutch Kills coming up very, very soon. Like, right after I master the CD and get it manufactured. Gimmie a few weeks, I'll get right back to you. Especially if you sign my mailing list.

Until then, enjoy.

...and now, i give you the song "ken lee"...

why does everybody want to sing?
why does everybody think they can really sing when they really can't?
why can't anyone tell them how bad they sound?
why can't they hear how bad they sound?

with the worldwide onslaught of american idol, has bad singing become a cottage industry? is it really so mesmerizing, to listen to bad vocalists?

listening to this woman sing with such absolute conviction and be so far off the mark all the way across the board -- she even thought she was singing in english! -- was nothing short of astonishing. but then again, people lie to themselves all the time, about all kinds of things. this is just more blatant and obvious -- and funny! -- than the rest. i think it freaked me out because it made me wonder what i was unconsciously lying about to myself.

maybe bad singing is relative. for years, i couldn't stand bob dylan's voice. then one day i sat and listened to "tangled up in blue" and after i pushed "replay" for the fourth or fifth time, i knew the deal. i know some singers who feel the same way about billie holiday, and i've always loved her. but i think it's universally understood that as a vocalist, billie holiday is bringing way more to the table musically than ashanti or mya or beyonce or andre 3000 or a lot of others i could name. the question isn't whether or not any of them can sing. the question is, will anyone be sitting around listening to their music in 50 years?

chocolate rain, anyone?

the black mac

i'm sure that i'm probably the only person in the world that hasn't seen this infamous pc vs. mac spoof -- but just in case i'm not, here it is.

video coming soon!

the gig at the gatehouse for sekou sundiata's wedapeople cabaret on saturday was stellar. there were at least two photographers (aside from the one that i brought with me) and two videographers on the scene to document everything -- so i'm hoping for something good to put online via youtube.com for mass consumption, and more pictures for the blog. stay tuned.