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THEATER MOVIES BOOKS MUSIC TV ART DANCE we’ve got soul BELIEVE IT. R&B IS ALIVE AND WELL ON THE DOCK OF THE BAY. by Kevin Berg- er eshell Ndegeocello has WHILE THE people who are not me. Not an hour before, the presence of a boxer, the OLD SCHOOL I had been reading a biography of Herman faith of a preacher, the heart HAS SOLD Melville, where I came across these lines of a poet. This past May, in OUT TO from his novel Redburn: “American blood… MADISON a rare club appearance, the is as the flood of the Amazon, made up of AVENUE, MEast Bay singer strolled onto the stage at a thousand currents all pouring into one. AND TODAY’S Bimbo’s, a slow, deep funk brewing behind SOUL-POP We are not a nation, so much as a world.” her; a striped wool cap, pulled down over KIDS CARE Lingering over those sentences one minute her forehead, gave her the look of a woman ONLY ABOUT and then living them the next transformed under pressure, ready to burn. She fixed MTV, LOCAL the show into one of those special nights her eyes on the crowd. “Gonna play some SOUL ARTISTS when all of the planets seem aligned. And, ARE KEEPING new shit for you tonight,” she said. She of course, the music knocked us out in all THE TORCH began to sing—a leathery tenor, riveted OF OTIS the right ways. with anger. “You sell your soul like you sell REDDING For Ndegeocello, the gig was a coming- a piece of ass,” she intoned, beats churn- BURNING. out party for her fourth album, Cookie: The ing, tempo rising. “Remember what Jesse Anthropological Mixtape, a musical collage used to say: ‘I am somebody.’” We were of hip-hop and soul, a lyrical farrago of under her spell, willing to follow her down radical politics and dreamy sex. For me, it any dark street. was a heartening return to soul, a musical And we were an extraordinary retinue: field from which I’ve strayed since Prince white, straight, black, lesbian, brown, yel- lost his mind, somewhere over the Graf- low, and gay. We were men in tailored fiti Bridge. To my unending delight, I’ve suits and women in silk gowns, guys with discovered that Ndegeocello defies current gray ponytails and girls in floppy flowered Meshell record-industry conventions and puts Ndegeocello dresses. How magnificent, I was thinking, genuine soul back into pop music, as do shows off her as the deep, dark funk was gathering lighter side. Oakland’s Ledisi and San Francisco’s Mar- steam on stage, to be dancing alongside 88 SAN f r a n c i s c o Photograph by JAMES CHIANG July 2002 89 tin Luther. They’ve inherited the more than a jingle of rampant she never sounds heavy-handed. THEATER maverick wind of the Bay Area, consumerism, the sound track Rather, she comes across like a which first blew San Francisco’s of a commercial to sell a $30,000 bighearted inner-city counselor, Sly and the Family Stone onto the SUV, a Buick Rendezvous. BERGER’S with nothing to offer but com- airwaves, and later Oakland’s Tony One of the problems with con- JULY MUSIC mon sense and compassion. MOVIES Toni Toné and En Vogue. These temporary soul is that it is the PICKS Ndegeocello, I might add, who three bands, you could easily sound of the marketplace, music Ledisi at times breaks her connection argue, virtually created the mold designed to fit a specific demo- The local soul with listeners with sententious that has been used to stamp out graphic niche. I realize it sounds diva shows her moralizing and hazy metaphysics, BOOKS an assembly line of hit makers in crotchety to complain about the sultry ways with could take a lesson from Ledisi, the past decade—Boyz II Men, streamlined beats and bubblegum pop standards who knows the beauty of a simple Destiny’s Child, and the rest of melodies of Usher and Brandy, on most Monday metaphor and light touch. nights at Mecca the soul-pop kids who dominate which are written for teenagers, Similarly, Martin Luther’s MUSIC and gets down MTV and popular radio stations to whom radio stations and MTV and funky at rockin’ soul, punctuated with rap like our KMEL and KYLD. can sell Pepsi and Sony Play- Cafe Du Nord and turntable scratching, ventures I started wondering about new Stations. But I have the same most Thursday deep into the bowels of urban BOTH TV soul music only a few months trouble with the light jazz or nights. injustice, as only a musician who ago, when on a whim I grabbed acoustic soul or whatever that IN S.F. grew up and still lives in Hunters the indispensable James Brown languid-tempo music is called Mingus Point can. But on his 1999 album, collection Star Time from my that is supposed to appeal to Amungus The Calling, and his recent Rebel ART shelves, dusted it off, and put it people my age, who, apparently, Not only do they Soul Music, Luther always emerg- in my car. It sat there for days have been robbed of all their tap the soul of es on an uplifting note, even with alongside recent albums by sentient brain cells by adulthood. Charles Mingus, a laugh, with some sweet melody they remake the New Order, Bob Dylan, Radio- The first Sade album in 1984 and wicked little guitar riff that DANCE bebop master’s head—typical middle-aged rock was a refreshing blend of exotic tunes in the evoke Donny Hathaway and Jimi critic stuff—until one evening on a rhythms and airy melodies. But I hip-hop image Hendrix, his spiritual mentors. drive to the Oakland coliseum don’t hear any real distinction or of our times. “Ain’t no love, ain’t no trust in I popped it into the CD player. style in Erykah Badu or India.Arie And positively our own community,” he lovingly Somewhere around High Street, or Alicia Keys (although I like the groove live. sings. “The darkness that you JULY 3, YOSHI’S, creeping along in traffic, as last few songs on her monster hit keep inside must one day find the OAKLAND. one musically taut, emotion- album, Songs in A Minor, when light of day.” As a vocalist, Luther ally explosive song segued into she gets way jazz weird). Mostly James Brown sounds on one song as velvety as another—horns charging, rhythm what I hear is a producer in the He’s 69 years Barry White, as jovial on another as old, and age guitars riffing, Brown pleading—I studio saying, “Let’s use brushes funk master George Clinton, who won’t mean thought, “My God, where are on the drums in this song, alto a thing the makes a guest appearance on the the artists like this today?” sax, and wind chimes. That way, moment the new album’s “Pimpmobile.” It’s a genuinely rare experience we’re guaranteed to be played on Famous Flames “I represent the Frisco bay, to hear the pure genius of old quiet-storm radio stations.” rev up and where the best are made, inde- soul music these days. It can only You’ll hear no such complacency the Godfather pendently bred, and I refuse to happen in those Zenlike moments on Ledisi’s vibrant Soulsinger, or, burns through be played,” Luther raps on Rebel the tightest soul when your mind is free of the for that matter, on her album of Soul Music. It’s a playful line, but ever. JULY 17, noise and clutter of the mass sinuous jazz standards, Feel- SOLANO COUNTY it speaks volumes about him, media. For all practical purposes, ing Orange but Sometimes Blue. FAIR, VALLEJO. Ledisi, and Ndegeocello. They the nostalgia industry, made up Instead, you’ll hear the magnetic simply won’t “be played” by the Neville Brothers of classic-rock stations and over- personality, dynamic tempos, and rules of the fragmented market- They are the wrought Hollywood movies star- bold social declarations of Aretha living history place. They are determined to ring Meg Ryan, has ground the Franklin and Marvin Gaye, artists of New Orleans transcend the spiritually empty gears of soul music into dust by who didn’t write for market niches soul, and—as trends of the time and follow the overusing them to create a cheap but for people of all colors and their brilliant, borderless and color-blind music and easy magnet for audiences. ages everywhere. As a vocalist, world-beat- in their hearts. Only months ago, Early soul artists were robbed of Ledisi, who has sung for years influenced I figured soul music had been left album Yellow royalties by double-dealing man- with Beach Blanket Babylon, Moon shows— for dead. But now I’m here to say, agers and music publishers, but ranges far beyond the MTV hit so much more. at the risk of sounding like a chart- how many more times do they makers into the rarefied lands of JULY 18, THE er member of a Bay Area booster need to be repaid? Can the money Sarah Vaughan. But it’s not her FILLMORE, S.F. society, that soul music is alive justify the damage they’ve done technique you notice when you and well in our backyard, played to the joy and romance of their hear her live; it’s her smile and by three artists with their eyes on songs by selling them to Burger passion, which light up the room.
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