I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
We have talked about Langston Hughes, and we will talk about Langston Hughes again. At the age of 18, Hughes wrote the above short poem - which here, could not be excerpted. Hughes had been writing poetry since he was a child, and as you can see possessed a true gift for expressing the feelings of the multitudes around him.
Here is Hughes as you know him communicating like a Transcendentalist about the issue and history of his people in the universe. Using elements that are common in time (rivers, his central image) and common to us as humans (blood, perhaps older than rivers themselves) this is the experience of being African-American in a concise ten lines of free verse.
Sixteen years later, Hughes would write a one-act tragicomedy that invested in reality to become - in his words - "jarring." Like those famous masks of theatre, here are two styles of theatre combined to produce shock and laughter hopefully. Like Shakespeare's plays, Hughes is out to paint a portrait of a world where these two forces are in motion at first against each other, and eventually together. Hughes' tragicomedy lacks the romance of Shakespeare. It even sacrifices the "jarring" differences between classes, in favor of a painful implication.
Written in 1936 and published in 1937, Hughes' one-act 'Soul Gone Home" translates the realism of Brechtian theatre into a work where the contrasts are less stark. The scene is a rundown tenement apartment. As in allegories (Voltaire's "Candide") and future Absurdism (Samuel Beckett,), our characters are Mother, Son, and Two Men. All that you need to know can be presumed from Hughes' stage directions. The room is "ugly, bare, dirty" lit by "an unshaded electric light bulb."
As we enter the play, so does Mother to find that Son has died. We see her pouring out her heart to the limp young man with pennies on his eyes. Like many in a state of overwhelming grief, Mother asks that Ronnie speak to her again from the "spirit-world." Son speaks. Son has returned from the dead to tell her "You have been a bad mama."
Without a doubt, this is not what any of us want to hear. However, in Hughes' tragicomedy, he is shaking things up. Ronnie is not there to soothe or comfort. In death, he has discovered the power to put up a fight. Mother, while loving, put her child out on the street to sell paper as soon as he could walk. To us, as viewers, we are shocked by these reactions and revelations. However, without them, we would never stop and think.
Hughes sees no crime in a mother forcing her child to be an adult. He sees it as a survival mechanism. As he understands it (and implies continuously,) Mother could have done more. This conclusion is not meant to belittle parents who cannot provide. Instead, it is a jolt for us as viewers to arouse the common emotion that resides in us all - that we could have done more.
The trauma of this post-tragedy guilt is normal. However, Hughes teased it out via this transom above the larger door that everyone else may have taken avoids pathos, which to be honest may be the enemy of this socially aware vision of reality.
We tread even more lightly now through the text. The conversation between Mother and Son must be closely analyzed. One fascinating addition from Hughes is how Son has lived in this "spirit-world" for "no more'n an hour" yet gained more education. Here we are nearly one hundred years later, statistics regularly show the life expectancy of the so-called "underclass" dropping again.
"Why did Son perish?" has hung heavily on our brains since starting this brief work. Our answer is painfully simple in Hughes' hands. Son contracted TB. Mother was told by the doctor, he needed "milk and eggs." Hughes plays with words like it's a comedy. "Manners and morals," and "milk and eggs" are repeated for comic effect. Under the veil of this loss, Hughes is allowing the conversation to escalate like a sketch. Must admit, this is hard to fathom. Most theatre has its peak built-in. Hughes is being far more subversive. Mother and Son are meeting in the middle.
MOTHER [advancing sentimentally] Anyhow, I love you, Ronnie!
SON [rudely] Sure you love me — but here I am dead.
We all carry with us the memories of family we have lost. That sentimentality is now separated from this play. This exchange puts them on equal ground. Mother is now displaying a new unseen set of emotions. Ronnie was a "big child" in her estimation. When she releases this coded judgment, Mother immediately backpedals to talking about his birth weight.
Son, still thinking he has the higher ground, is about to have to deal with the reality of her life as a single, poor, unwed mother. In the penumbra of her new character facet, we see she shielded Ronnie from these facts. In the play's second chilling question of fault, they both assign that to the father who disappeared.
We need to pause. Hughes provides it as the Two Men appear from the ambulance outside to pick up Ronnie's body. All along, Hughes has been using Son to make value judgments of Mother. Having Ronnie go back to his arms crossed and pennies on his eyes state, Hughes turns her performance into a chance for us to pass judgment on her. The Son is gone, and he took the "comedy" with him.
It is rumored that Hughes shied away from public performances of this play after he wrote it because his own Mother was dying of cancer. For her sake, he let it sit unstaged until 1954. When Ulysses Kay turned "Soul Gone Home" into an opera, Hughes had the temerity to provide a couple of notes. "This is not a heavy tragic sentimental play," Hughes wrote, "There should be as many laughs as possible in the way the SON's part is written and played." If these directions still seem startling after reading the play, it is safe to say Hughes created a very bleak reality.
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Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
NEW MUSIC This Week
VOIR DIRE [SILVER LP/CD/CS](Tan Cressida/Warner) • This star-laden collaboration from Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist is a good match for them both. Earl's low-rolling laconic flow takes some adaptation ("27 Braids,") but his lyrical choices seem to fill out a very spacious production from The Alchemist. When the pair find a slinky groove ("Vin Skully") about "snake-oil salesmen," you get the best feel for where they can go if they choose to do this again.
BLACKBERRY SMOKE - Be Right Here [GOLD LP/CD] • Eight albums into their career and Blackberry Smoke's evolution continues to bring the Georgia Southern Rockers closer to another family Peach State family. "Azalea" is their acoustic detuned "Melissa"-style exploration. "Hammer and The Nail" is a Black Crowes-ian Country Rock stomper that would benefit from fewer cliches ("ran away with the circus," "beatin' the odds and comin' up roses.") However, when they get soulful on "Little Bit Crazy," they summon a Stonesy romp to show some growth.
IDLES - TANGK [PINK LP/ORANGE LP/ CLEAR 2LP/CD](Partisan/Redeye) • With a textbook runup of pre-release singles, Bristol's brutal Post-Punkers IDLES return with what they call "their love album." Now we are not certain what carnival barker Joe Talbot loves, but the union of Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich and Hip-Hop awesomeness Kenny Beats is inspiring so far. First salvo "Dancer" is a muscular but weirdly glittery jam featuring LCD Soundsystem. The second shot "Grace" is easily one of their best-written tracks ever. Over the Beastie Boys-esque serpentine groove, Talbot seems to be earnestly praying. Purposely written in short glass shards, hearing Talbot croon "No God/No king/I said love is the thing" is the stained-glass image coalescing. Finally, there's the steamroller "Gift Horse." A blistering almost "Brutalism"-style cut, the entire band is at its most minimal for parts but combines them into a swinging hammer. In what would be silly lyrics in other hands, Talbot spits like a rapper ("Cause he moves like a generator/He puts the foot down and see you later." With the band's groove on lock, IDLES get in THREE major turns. First, the doubling of the 'Watch watch my my steed steed go go far far" versus the atomic burst of "Look at him gooooooooooooo!" While there is nothing to this bombtrack, IDLES at their most free are absolutely freeing. No wonder they write songs that mention "love."
OMNI - Souvenir [SILVER LP/CD](SubPop/AMPED) • ISTA - Ista [2LP](Greenway) • Atlanta's wild mathematical rockers Omni are still quite underrated. Unlike the other scientifically specific guitar-led indie bands, Omni hit with energy first. "Plastic Pyramid," a duet with Izzy Glaudin, is a near-genius level whirl around the signature spiky, angular melodies that most Post-Punk poppers go for. "INTL WATERS" slows down the typical Post-Punk rhythms to straighten out around their staccato parts. Behind it all, Omni continues to wield art-punk lyrics and an upside-down Eighties New Romantic sentimentality. The opening exchange on "Plastic Pyramid" is classic MTV brilliance as Philip Frobos deeply intones in his almost Phil Oakey voice "Are you hydrated baby?" Izzy Glaudini purrs in response "What are you, a tall drink of water?" In other words, serious riffs from a band that does not wish to be taken seriously.
Brooklyn's ISTA is some swinging Psychedelic Pop/Rock. Their male/female vocal duo routine tends to make each song a celebration ("Make It Happen.") While they switch technicolour Sixties Rock channels regularly, they toss out some punishing riffs ("Crystalize") and Glam Rock punch ("Do What Feels Right.")
SEAROWS - End of the World [GREEN LP](Believe/AMPED) • While Alec Duckart is another of those wispy, helium-voiced confessional singer/songwriters, "End of the World" is made more riveting because of his ability to build a song ("Older") and use his phrasing ("I have more than enough") to be melodic and use internal rhyme. As the first artist signed to Matt Maltese's label, the next Searows will likely have a lot more variation.
In tandem with Maltese's Twenties-ish strummer duet "Philadelphia" released last week, "End of the World" will see Searows' profile heighten this year.
Reissues this week
LEE MORGAN - Search For The New Land [LP](Blue Note) • JOE HENDERSON - Mode For Joe [LP](Blue Note) • On this pair of 1966 Blue Note releases, the star bandleader/players reached a little farther than usual in their Post-Bop composition cycles with larger ensembles. Recorded in 1964 after his massive hit "The Sidewinder," Lee Morgan's elegant song cycle "New Land" was shelved until his audiences might be more prepared for his modal swing. Backed by saxophonist Wayne Shorter (who just passed in 2023,) Herbie Hancock, and guitarist Grant Green, trumpeter Morgan leads them through his moody Miles-ian tracks. Once the fifteen-minute magnum opus of the title cut is over (although, its numerous shifts between the twinkling holds and hard swing could go on for an hour,) Morgan begins trading licks in a genius way. "The Joker" throws in a couple of stuttering stop/starts to keep his potent rhythm section of bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Billy Higgins on their feet. Hancock gets a daring almost Free Jazz solo in on "Mr. Kenyatta" while Green massages the chords. Morgan even demonstrates complicated balladry on the emotional "Melancholee." A classic in Jazz that is too often overlooked.
Saxophonist Joe Henderson leads his big band (pianist Cedar Walton, trombonist Curtis Fuller, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, drummer Joe Chambers, and the legendary bassist Ron Carter..and you guessed it trumpeter Lee Morgan) through a Hard Bop set that swerves well into Blues, Funk, and even pre-Seventies Soul Jazz. Unlike "New Land," Henderson's heat is coming from tangling with all of his selected players. "Mode For Joe" is a modal wonder because Hutcherson's soulful chords act as the anchor - thus, letting everyone waaaaaail. "Caribbean Fire Dance" is an unexpected Latin groove. "Granted" is the rare late Sixties Jazz cut where all the instruments get to cook on the head, before trading licks. One thing is for sure, when Henderson is soloing anywhere here - he is blowing some steam. If Hard-Bop was about to disappear into the haze of Free Jazz, Fusion, and other Jazz derivations, "Mode For Joe" is played like these gentlemen thought it was going to last forever.
