Manafonistas

White bird must fly or she will die. IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY. Mit lachendem, weit geöffnetem Mund und Sonnenschein in den Augen kurbelte sie sich und ihn hinüber ans andere Ufer. Auf der Fußgängerfähre war heute nicht viel los. Er filmte sie ungefragt. Sie wusste nicht, dass er nur mit ihr spielte. Ihr helles, kurzes Sommerkleid war durch den Fahrtwind hochgeschoben. Einen Slip trug sie nicht. Auf der anderen Seite der Meuse verabschiedeten sie sich. Sie umarmte ihn, er hielt steif die Kamera in die Luft, als ob sie nass werden könnte.

Wieder Zuhause konzentrierte sie sich auf das Nähen ihres Mantels. Sie würde morgen in ihrer Loge zum Gesellen befördert werden. Ihr Baustück hatte sie bereits verfasst. Bruder Redner würde sie sicher unterstützen.

Am nächsten Abend wartete sie aufgeregt auf den Einlass in den Tempel. Als der Zeremonienmeister dreimal mit seinem Stab pochte, bewegte sie sich langsam vom Westen her an dem Vorsitzenden vorbei, der bereits im Osten an der u-förmigen Tafel saß. Schwester Schatzhüter hatte ihr unbemerkt ein Zeichen gegeben, wohin sie sich setzen sollte. Die Kerzen waren bereits angezündet. Der Meister begrüßte die Gemeinschaft und schob dann sein Weinglas über das Tischband hinaus, was bedeutete, dass Bruder Falk das Wort ergreifen durfte. Seine Rede über ICH und DU beeindruckte alle. Auch sie hatte sich mit Martin Buber beschäftigt und an ihrem Baustück so gefeilt, dass es zu dem Leitmotiv: ERKENNE DICH SELBST passen würde. „Wenn wir eines Weges gehen und einem Menschen begegnen, der uns entgegenkam und auch eines Weges ging, kennen wir nur unser Stück, nicht das seine, das seine nämlich erleben wir nur in der Begegnung.“

Jetzt wurde der ganze Raum erhellt. Ihr wurde ein Gurt und ein Band mit zwei Schlüsseln umgelegt. Dann richtete sich der Meister an Bruder Talent.“ Haben Sie noch ein musikalisches Baustück?“

Sie blickte auf die feierliche Tafel und wünschte für sich allein: THE SWIMMING SONG. Es erklang eine Sonate von Bach. Der Raum verdunkelte sich langsam. Der Vorsitzende bekundete, dass sich Mitternacht näherte. Alle standen auf. Beim Hinausgehen dachte sie an gestern und dass sie noch an sich arbeiten müsste. Vielleicht würde sie aber auch den Meißel und das andere Werkzeug der Freimaurer ganz anders einsetzen.

 

 
 
 
BLACK ORPHEUS August 5th, 6.30pm.

BABYLON August 5th, 8.30pm.

NOTHING BUT A MAN August 12th, 6.30pm

BLACK POWER MIX TAPE August 12th. 8.30pm

SHADOWS August 19th, 6.30pm

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL August 19th, 8.30pm
 

Soul Jazz Records curates this season of music-related films – from Motown and Civil Rights Jazz through to Reggae, Bossa Nova, Jean-Luc Godard’s ground-breaking documentary on the Rolling Stones, & more. All of these films rely heavily on the relationship between music, film, politics and society. More importantly – they’re all wicked!

Soul Jazz Records‘ founder Stuart Baker will introduce each of the films and Soul Jazz Records’ Soundsystem DJ’s are in the bar before and after each screening!

I started the mix of the first three chapters of „the book of the manafonistas“ one day ago. Again and again (in between searching  and searching and searching the fitting texts and „interims“) I realized how great the idea is, regarding form and structure. And how time-consuming. Time is not on your side here. Well, it´s fun mixed with the myth of Sysyphos. It will definitely not work without anyone offering me 125.000,00 Dollars. Seeing good ideas fail along the way, is part of life. So, for my part, I just want to inform you that Joey can send the raw material to all of you – and then you know. Or try it for yourself. It might take ten days of work (six hours every day) to get it into shape and kind of class. Honestly, I can only warn anyone to follow this „schnapsidee“ – you can see this whole process as a study of illusions at work. Seeing apparitions vanish. I think, I still prefer detective work. One of my jobs at hand is to find out how to make the best cider of La Bretagne (nearly no commercial distribution at all, simply rumours, and small quantums of treasure hunt romanticism) find its way to my cellar. The spare leads make it necessary to travel to Paris, and, later on, to a small village near Brest, to a farm with wild dogs and high tech-security systems. (I`m so sorry Gregs can`t join me on that trip – the dogs would kill him). If I get that going – far from easy – every manafonista will be invited for the biggest apple cider party ever in this hillside region of Germany.

P.S. We´re enthusiasts, storytellers, music lovers and much more. Surprise is a constant element of reading this blog, isn´t it? So here another announcement that may surprise longtime readers or listeners of my radio shows. I will not be at the Punkt Festival this year. Ten times in a row I`ve been there. It was such a long period of time in which I saw human relationships and  musical  ideas grow, thanks to the commitment of the artistic directors Jan Bang and Erik Honore – and the creative and supporting  input of so many people around. Kristiansand has become a musical power spot in all those years, and I can highly recommend anyone to go there. This year I simply had to make a decision between two options. A win-win. Now, funny as some of these lines may appear, they do definitely have a serious sub-text: making decisions. Breaking patterns. 

1) Polar Bear: Same As You (the one that totally blew me away, here the word“spiritual” might make sense even for atheists, a love of life-album that is terrific in its own ways of suspending time and floating on and on and on)

2) Matana Roberts: Always (a solo alto saxophone album, released on a small label of enthusiasts, Relative Pitch Records, no overdubs, breathtaking recording quality, deep listening – the small problem is, you won’t get it in your local store, it’s a “killer”, believe me, and, for some strange reasons, Matana’s solo excursions remind me of the joyful intensity of Marion Brown’s “Geechee Recollections“)

3) David Torn: Only Sky (a solo guitar album that is so much more than a solo guitar album: a journey through textures, spheres, landscapes; blue moods of exstacy!)

4) Schneider – Kacirek: Shadow Documents (one of the best 50 album of teutonic kraut- and chamber rock ever, with electronics, bass and drums changing roles and going deep to the bottom)

5) The Unthanks: Mount The Air (the sisters from Northumbria are digging deep again; old sources feel fresh without musical botox; if epic dimensions or chamber-like intimacy: they know how to send you places)

6) Keith Jarrett: Creation (the most introspective solo recital since “The Melody At Night With You”, going to the essence without playing old games)

7) Hilde Marie Holsen: Ask (wide spaces, alien trumpet sounds & a constant sense of wonder)

8) The Mountain Goats: Beat the Champ (a record with a sense of yearning, or is longing the better word – and it’s about wrestling, sort of – like the brillant Whiplash is about jazz:) – John Darnielle even adds jazz colors to his heartwrenching songs that cut deep with sharp lyrics and the reinvention of childhood, the constant presence of loss, forgotten rooms and empty parking lots)

9) Rickie Lee Jones: The Other Side of Desire (finally back, and in brilliant form, with lyrics that sound conversational, incl some special New Orleans vibes)

10) Sufjan Stevens: Carrie and Lowell (song cycles about life, love and death cannot be more naked, more intimate. Low-key heartbreak, and a perfect song like “4th of July” that finds solace amidst the knowledge that “we’re all going to die”)

11) John Potter: Amores Pasados (art songs, pop songs, who cares? Old Spanish poems and other sources – set into motion by two lutes and two singers. Captivating.)

12) African Express Presents Terry Riley’s “In C” (excellent cultural transfer from a classic of minimalism to the busy street life of Mali, highly inventive – and you can hear Brian Eno sing a long ooooo)

13) Sam Lee & Friends: The Fade In Time (like a walk through an old English garden, and though you think this all is quintessentially English, the seeds come from the Himalaya, Indonesia and faraway greenlands.)

14) Second Moon of Winter: One For Sorrow, Two For Joy (three friends create magic in a cellar room in Cork County: a clarinet, a synthesizer – and an operatic voice that gets lost in strange areas between forgotten folk songs and electronic meditation)

15) Ghost Harmonic: Codex (the violin in the machine, the in-between-world of hidden overtones and secret echoes – only for seconds, Brian and Arvo lurk around the corner)

16) Paul De Jong: If (one half of the former “Books” delivers a stunning collection of word-play, absurdity, and (not expected) sometimes heart-wrenching melancolia)

17) Jakob Bro: Gefion (full of atmospheres and quietness and slow-building climaxes, archetypal ECM-production with so much care for details … but you go with the flow and wonder how time can pass so quickly when nearly everythng is running slow)

18) Huntsville: Pond (how to get lost in atmospheres & grooves without grooviness and sweetness)

19) Paolo Fresu – Daniele Di Bonaventura: In Maggiore (fabulous exploration of the physicality of the trumpet and the bandoneon, simultaneously delivering a beautiful series of melodies between far away Uruguay and old tunes from Sardinian backyards)

20) V. A. – Radio Vietnam (soundtripping through Eastern Radio, a roller coaster of sampling voices and sounds)

Beside the poplar trees
Where I like to go

Away from busy rhythms of the city
To the languid river Mersey

Beneath the rain-filled clouds
The wind carries a song

Away from all the chaos
Into Fletcher Moss…

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