I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Laramie, Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES— an exhibition entitled Brian Maguire: In The Light Of Conscience— an overview of human rights-focused paintings (with graphic images of war and human remains) — is at the Missoula, Montana Museum of Art to August 13th.
YOUR WEEKEND READ is this National Conservatism manifesto from the Edmund Burke Foundation. Not quite as incendiary in tone as the Texas GOP statement, but just as fascistic and signed-on-to by many wingers (not just from one state).
TRANSPORTATION NOTES— a Nigerian firm named ThinkBikes is producing award-winning clean electric cargo tricycles (for the last-mile, on-demand delivery and logistics industries) with over 90% of the components sourced locally.
WISH THAT I COULD offer some words of encouragement after a dark week .. but have none.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Attlee the Cat— the new British parliamentary kitteh, named by speaker Lindsay Hoyle after Clement Attlee (prime minister from 1945-1951).
I WOULD, HOWEVER, ADVISE readers not to be too upset at the plaudits being given to folks like Brad Raffensperger and Jeffrey Rosen (at the January 6th hearings) merely for doing their jobs. True, it rankles.
Yet in order to learn about skullduggery (in the highest ranks of government) leading-up to January 6th: virtually no Democrats (or even career civil servants) would have still been around by that stage of the rancid 45 administration. We were limited to questioning GOP operatives.
Plus, the committee (from Bennie Thompson on down) is not aiming to please libturds like us (nor MAGA nation). Instead, by focusing on themes of patriotic duty, their religious faith, et al: they are aiming squarely at the very small group of centrist/apolitical types, hoping to change a few minds. How well it will work remains to be seen … but given the vitriol by GOP congress-critters (and the new death threats aimed at committee members this week) … it seems the wingers fear ... it might work.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Archie the Cat— an English kitteh among three finalists in this year’s Most Caring Cat category in the UK: for the support he gives to a woman who has been on dialysis for 23 years (after developing kidney failure aged 14), and staying with her at night despite the noise her machine makes.
BRAIN TEASER— try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz.
IMPORTANT NOTE ON TODAY’S POLL— regular readers are aware that I restrict this poll to either (a) miscreants who finally got their comeuppance, or (b) to otherwise OK folks who screw-up. Sometimes I will post a Trump-centric poll when I will be away on vacation (or a long weekend) — and one of which will take place the 1st weekend in August (for those of you awaiting one).
I’m quite uncomfortable listing pure victims in such a poll: partly as (a) “The American People” would be the top choice many weeks … but mostly because I find the concept of listing someone wronged by (say), the justice system ... in the same listing as a convicted crook, sexual harasser or murderer … to be grotesque.
Yet I’m aware that some readers will be seeking such choices, given the events of the week. Accordingly, I posted a Victims Poll last night — just use this link.
FATHER-SON?— two star jazz musician/bandleaders: drummer Chick Webb (the first to hire Ella Fitzgerald as a singer) and pianist Horace Silver.
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… for awhile, he was simply known as an early jazz-rock saxophonist/flutist … but in time, Jim Pepper became known for fusing his Native American roots into his music, and thirty years after his death: his story is worth telling anew.
Born in Salem, Oregon in 1941, his parents (of Kaw and Creek heritage) spent several summers in the family’s ancestral Oklahoma, where Jim learned songs and dances of the inter-tribal powwow circuit from his grandfather.
Pepper grew-up in Portland and in 1964 he moved to NYC where he joined The Free Spirits— as one reviewer noted, “a blend of mid-60s garage rock and jazz” (with future jazz-rock icon Larry Coryell on guitar) from 1965-1967. The band ended when vibraphonist Gary Burton lured Coryell and drummer Bob Moses into his Quartet.
Jim Pepper and the remaining band members formed Everything is Everything, which spawned one hit single in its short life (which will be profiled later on). In playing at rock clubs, audiences were unused to hearing opening twenty-minute solos by that band … which became more common as the 60’s evolved. Jim Pepper even had a 1969 guest performance on flute for a song by The Fugs (of Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg fame).
Pepper went on to record as a sideman with many jazz musicians (Joe Lovano, Dewey Redman, Bill Frisell and others) yet perhaps the most important collaboration was with trumpeter Don Cherry (the stepfather of Neneh Cherry). Don Cherry always encouraged musicians around the world to incorporate some of their indigenous music into their playing .. and on a State Department tour of Africa, he noted that audiences responded well to Jim Pepper’s use of indigenous Native American themes.
Venturing out on his own: he released his first solo album Pepper’s Pow Wow in 1971, a 1984 release Comin’ and Goin’ (jazz versions of Native songs) and 1987’s Dakota Song (focusing more on Great American Songbook classics such as Polka Dots and Moonbeams).
In 1982, he was a musical director for Night of the First Americans— a self-awareness concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. — and supported the American Indian Movement (AIM). He relocated to Austria in his later years, finding a more receptive audience before his death (from lymphoma) in 1992 at only age fifty.
Among his legacy was a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999 by First Americans in the Arts and the following year inducted into the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame. In 2007, the National Museum of the American Indian accepted his tenor saxophone as an exhibit, and a 1997 documentary five years after his passing will hopefully provide a portrait of a unique artist.
That song mentioned earlier is Witchi Tai To— derived from a peyote chant — which Jim Pepper sang while in Everything is Everything and in 1969 reached #69 on the US charts — the only Top100 song ever to feature an authentic Native American chant in Billboard’s history. Numerous cover versions (instrumental and vocal) by jazz and world musicians have followed (with Brewer & Shipley, plus Harper’s Bizarre as two of the pop bands). And just this year: a 1969 recording was finally released, believe it or not, by …. The Supremes. Below you can hear Jim Pepper’s original.
Witchi-tai-to, gimee rah Whoa rah neeko, whoa rah neeko Hey ney, hey ney, no wah
Water spirit feeling Springing around my head Makes me feel glad That I'm not dead
Witchi-tai-to, gimee rah Whoa rah neeko, whoa rah neeko Hey ney, hey ney, no wah