1queenesther

Believe it or not, there were 78 Grammy Awards handed out last night. The viewers at home saw what only amounted to the highlights -- and of course, they still ran long. Everyone has their favorites and congrats to all the winners but the list of nominees was especially interesting.

Maybe it's me but I felt as though I was subjected to a ton of marketing and promotion for albums that seemed to be everywhere all at once, all of a sudden, all year long -- and strangely, were hardly mentioned during the ceremony. Like Lady GaGa's Born This Way. They made such a big deal out of that album when it came out and there was all this hoopla and and remember when she popped out of that egg onstage at the Grammys last year and there were all those dancers all over the place and everything. The music industry's big night happens and no one even seems to notice what she's wearing.

I'm not a fan but I like Lady GaGa. When you get past whatever she's wearing and that horde that is forever dancing around her, she's a classically trained pianist that works hard to craft good songs and never phones it in vocally. In this day and age, that should be admired. She's a lot like Cher -- she even looks like her, a little! -- and to my ears, that song sounded exactly like Madonna's Respect Yourself.  (Don't believe me? Compare for yourself.)



What about Beyonce's 4 -- two nominations, hardly a mention and she was a no-show. Press, promo and video for that album was absolutely everywhere when it was released. I distinctly recall the last Oprah episode when a stadium of people were overwhelmed with an absolute army of leggy women, stomping around in heels onstage and declaring "we run this mutha..." Everyone was chanting along, weren't they. It was so...um....exciting! Right?

I was genuinely surprised when I found out that album barely sold 2 million copies.



Everyone who listened to the latest releases in pop and rock last year had their favorites. Adele won six Grammys, tying with Beyonce for most awards by a woman in one evening. But let's face it: Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) was the epitome of infectious candy-coated pop. It was the song you liked, whether you liked it or not.

Ah, yes. Adele. A return to real music, some said. Maybe so. But didn't they say that when Norah Jones won five Grammys in 2002 for her very first album?

What many may be thinking and no one is actually saying is that the Grammy Awards are about what's popular, irregardless of genre. Popular = album sales. How everyone stacked up in 2011 internationally just might surprise you. When Norah had her moment in 2002, she sold over 20 million albums worldwide. Adele's latest album has sold over 15 million units. At 5.4 million units sold of her latest album, Lady GaGa holds a distant second place. And Beyonce? Like Katy Perry, her latest album has sold only 2.1 million units. Almost everyone in the top 40 sold over a million units -- but at 15 million and counting, Adele outpaces them all and then some. So was it really a surprise that she won 6 Grammys?

Are videos what make or break an artist? I'm not so sure anymore. It's always nice to be social -- for (most) artists nowadays, it's an imperative -- but Adele didn't sell more than 15 millon albums because of her music videos. Check the stats. Videos get your name out there, they get you famous (and sometimes even notorious) but they aren't what sells albums.

The music industry has been in a kind of financial free fall for years, worth half as much as it was a decade ago. Total revenue from U.S. music sales and licensing plunged to $6.3 billion in 2009, according to Forrester Research. In 1999, that revenue figure topped $14.6 billion. And yes, it's getting worse. But that's not the way they're going to tell it.

The truth is, the recording industry is dying. It's an old model and there are a lot of new ideas that are changing all the rules. Music -- especially independent music -- is thriving. More music is getting released now than ever and more musicians are able to make a living making music than ever. Case in point? CDBaby had a banner year in 2011. How you doin'?

Here's another surprise: in the top 10 albums sales for 2011 internationally, none of them are hip-hop.

Dave Grohl's acceptance speech summed up a lot of my thoughts about music:

"This is a great honour, because this record was a special record for our band. Rather than go to the best studio in the world down the street in Hollywood and rather than use all of the fanciest computers that money can buy, we made this one in my garage with some microphones and a tape machine...

"To me this award means a lot because it shows that the human element of music is what's important. Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument and learning to do your craft, that's the most important thing for people to do.

"It's not about being perfect, it's not about sounding absolutely correct, it's not about what goes on in a computer. It's about what goes on in here [your heart] and what goes on in here [your head]."

What he said -- with a lot of heartfelt sincerity, by the way -- got a standing ovation. And then they cut him off with that techno song by LMFAO, the one that just won't go away. That song is the absolute antithesis of everything he meant. Who pulled that switch in the control room? Ironic and hilarious! (Party right!)

One question that kept popping up on Twitter that didn't surprise me: Where's Duffy?



And no, I can't talk about Whitney Houston. It's way too soon. And that tribute wasn't long enough. They could have at least let Jennifer Hudson sing the whole song but that's just me.

Here's my question: why didn't they didn't eulogize Don Cornelius in the in memoriam photo montage? Or Gil-Scott Heron? How did they leave him out? He is the Godfather of hip-hop, no question. Would Don have even gotten a mention afterwards if a black man weren't hosting the show?

How about a performance tribute to Gil-Scott Heron? Only Etta James gets a moment in the sun? I know, I know -- too political, right? Still and all, it would have been nice to hear Whitey on the Moon performed by, say, Public Enemy. But that's my Grammy Awards show...



Unfortunately, there were other Grammys that were doled out earlier and mentioned in passing as things rolled along, so i thought I'd explain what they are and list the recipients.

In 1962, The Recording Academy created Special Merit Awards. There are three categories: the Lifetime Achievement Award honors "lifelong artistic contributions to the recording medium"; the Trustee Award "recognizes outstanding contributions to the industry in a nonperforming capacity"; and Technical Grammy Award honors "individuals and companies who have made contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field".

This year's Lifetime Achievement Trustees Award honorees are:

• The Allman Brothers
• Glen Campbell
• Antonio Carlos Jobim
• George Jones
• The Memphis Horns
• Diana Ross
• Gil Scott-Heron
  
  The Trustees Award honorees are:
• Dave Bartholomew
• Steve Jobs
• Rudy Van Gelder
  
  The Technical Grammy Award honorees are:
• Celemony
• Roger Nichols

well, i gave it the good ol' college try -- at least i thought i did, until just about everyone i knew told me in passing that they hadn't heard anything about my kickstarter project and when was i going to send them some information? i was supposed to bomb y'all every other day with my stuff, just to keep it floating in your periphery? oy gevalt! i really didn't know my way around it. i didn't want to serve up a whole lot of spam, even if it was diced, fried and covered with pineapple. i'm just now working my way around a monthly newsletter, more or less.

the truth is, there's some things i'm not happy with here and there but for the most part, the album is just about nearly finished. i have no idea where the post-production money will come from -- a publicist is an absolute necessity, i think -- but when you're doing it yourself, that's always the heavy dilemma. somehow, i got past it then, and i'll work my way through it now. i'll wallpaper the world with way more information later, but wow. it's so wonderful to have gotten the encouraging words and pledges i did receive. and all of this has filled me with a deep resolve to make more art. a LOT more.

hopefully, i'm going back into the studio in february, to finish recording and mixing the album. i'd love to hand it over to a publicist by early may. please stay tuned. and as always, thank you for your support.

i don't know why but lately it seemed that everytime i turned around, someone was telling me something about kickstarter. how they did it. how they knew someone that did it. how they knew of a project that blew up like crazy and it got off the ground because of it. how they had just contributed to a project on it. on and on and on they went, about how amazing kickstarter is. eventually it became this cavalcade of well-intentioned folk swirling around me, chanting kickstarter, kickstarter, kickstarter. the only thing that would stop all that noise was to go to kickstarter and see what the deal was for myself.

maybe God was trying to tell me something.

i am bound and determined to finish this album i'm working on but unfortunately i've run out of gasoline.

actually, i'd gotten the you should do kickstarter speech! awhile ago and when i did, i jumped onto the website and was promptly told that participating was by invitation only. i didn't know this was such an exclusive situation. i thought it was totally democratic -- you know. automatic for the people. how do i get an invitation? i remember thinking. i was getting a tension headache just thinking about how much running around i'd have to do, to even begin to figure out a way into that maze. and i had all this other stuff to do. like make a living and pay my rent. until everyone in the world kept mentioning kickstarter in this really offhanded way, i totally forgot about them.

so yeah, i went back to kickstarter. and wow, i didn't need an invitation. i pitched them my idea and they got back to me right away and said yes, your project has been accepted.

here's what that means. (and yeah, you probably already know how this goes but i'm gonna tell it to you anyway.)

the idea with kickstarter is that i offer everyone "rewards" -- anything from every kind of swag imaginable to private house concerts and whatever else i can think of -- for financially backing my project. i have an account that gives me all the time in the world to assemble my project with video (which improves my odds tremendously, according to the faq section), links, a bio and a comprehensive listing of what folks get for pledging specific amounts.

the video might take a minute. or not. it's all about assembling this stuff the right way, and right about now, i'm figuring out what i can give that won't half kill me. something besides a cool t-shirt. like a freshly baked pound cake. or voice lessons. or a handmade kwanzaa present.

here's the kicker (heh.): if you don't successfully meet your funding goal, you get none of the money. all or nothing crowdfunding. i like that. if that doesn't motivate you to beat the bushes, nothing will.

so get ready to kickstart me before the end of the year.  let's see what develops.

I am doing 43 things.

last night, my band the hot five and i performed at the legendary lenox lounge in an evening called blazing tongues: the singers and writers of lenox lounge for harlem jazz shrines, a jazz festival -- harlem's first one, believe it or not -- assembled by jazzmobile, harlem stage and the apollo theater.  they wanted a literary component to the evening, to incorporate the spoken word tradition that was a part of that venue, so zora neale hurston was paired with billie holiday. and since i have this undying urge to twist everything in the other direction, hostess farah griffin and i found unexplored material from both icons. so it was an evening filled with fresh new ideas. the place was completely packed, with a warm, responsive audience. i think everyone was pleasantly surprised.

just above our heads, something lingered in the air.  i wonder what it was.

lenox lounge is such an important space, historically.  bessie smith used to hang out there. there's a particular booth in the zebra room that billie holiday used to sit in as she waited to sing. alex haley and malcolm x began to unravel the beginnings of malcolm's autobiography in that bar. langston hughes read new work there, as did james baldwin.  miles davis performed there. so did coltrane. the list goes on and on. 

and since everyone understands just how much this spot matters, there have been gobs of photo shoots, movie shoots and the like that have featured it, big time.  foreigners aplenty insist on elbowing their way into the place, to stand in the same room that these greats once breathed life into, with effortless grace and mastery.

as i stepped out of my yellow chariot and stood in front of the bar, draped in 1930s vintage attire, i had an epiphany that illuminated my entire evening. it was so bright, it will probably light up the rest of my year: i realized that a bigger part of the dreams i held onto as a tiny tot had come true. they'd been "coming true" for years.

 i live in harlem, just as my performer/heroes did, back in the day. i was headlining at lenox lounge (something that i had done before, truth be told) a venue they frequented and performed in regularly. (actually, i perform there regularly, too -- open mic nights are a fave.)  i was strolling in the way of the ancestors -- figuratively and literally. it suddenly dawned on me that if you somehow catapaulted me into the early 1920s and planted me in the middle of Harlem as a singer/performer, I'd fit right in --- with absolutely no problem whatsoever. early 1920s? heh. the 30s too, probably. but i probably would have bounced to paris by then, with bricktop and alberta hunter and of course la josephine.

don't get me wrong. God knew exactly what He was doing by putting me right here, right now. i don't doubt that for an instant. still and all, it's remarkable, to look over my shoulder and glimpse all of those beautiful sepia-toned faces and sense how easily and effortlessly i fit amongst their ranks. it's true: i am a cultural atavist -- one foot firmly planted in the past, rooted in the present, looking toward the future.

it's a beautiful thing, when dreams come true. now is the time to dream something else.

oh, and yes, the evening was fully documented -- video and photos will be ready shortly. (yay!)

The memorial service for pianist, composer and educator Dr. William "Billy" Taylor will be held on January 10 at Riverside Church in Harlem at 6pm, located at 490 Riverside Drive at 120th St.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in Dr. Taylor's name to the organization that she founded, Jazzmobile. Donations may also be made online.

Jazzmobile, Inc.
154 W. 127th St.
New York, NY  10027
http://www.jazzmobile.org

Jazzmobile's mission is to present, preserve, promote and propagate JAZZ, America's classical music. For most people, Jazzmobile is synonymous with its summer festival. which has presented free public festivals in Harlem neighborhoods and other neighborhoods in New York City for more than 40 years.  Jazzmobile's presentation of high-quality jazz education programs, its service to underserved communities and its services to the field of jazz are well understood by its stakeholders, colleagues and audiences.

imagine this, if you can. (and let's face it -- if you call yourself an r&b/hip-hop artist/performer/producer nowadays, there's a fairly strong chance that you probably can't.)

the year is 1923. you're a singer, doing an important recording session for a well-known label. for the sake of this little illustration let's say a name you probably know: columbia records.  all of the musicians are in the same room, of course. in the best case scenario, the engineer and the producer are in a control room. now, here's where things get interesting: you, the vocalist, must sing into the broad, gaping mouth of a huge conical horn that etches your voice onto the groove of a waxlike disc. technology will only allow one playback in the studio, and because of this, the first recordings were balance tests. once the desired sound was achieved, the session continued unabated. the thing is, you didn't hear the result for a few days -- not until you got those test pressings back from the factory. that's why artists would perform a song over and over again in the studio until it sounded right -- and then perhaps they'd make a spare take, just in case.

that's right.  all of you collectively have to play through the whole song -- no stops, no mistakes, no do-overs -- without even being able to hear what you've just done to gauge as to whether it's any good, if you've got the right feel, if you're on the right track or any of that other feel-good flotsam and jetsam that happens when you're recording. it's got to be good -- it better be way more than good -- straight out of the hatch. 

an acoustic performance? no amplification whatsoever? into a gigantic cone? yeah, you'd better have a powerful voice. that song you're doing, you'd better know it like the back of your hand. it's probably something you've crisscrossed the country performing in sideshows and minstrel shows and town halls and whatnot. and that band you've got backing you -- they've worked together for years, haven't they.  they can really, really play.

of course, those of you who are up on your game in terms of music history know that i'm referring to bessie smith's first recording session with columbia records. and now (as paul harvey would say) you know the rest of the story...

today's recording technology is completely digital. you, the "vocalist" (because we really can't call a lot of that stuff singing, can we?) can have your performance played back immediately and any flaws can be done over as many times as you like, so as to fit seamlessly into the song. even if you're tone deaf (and yikes! so many are!), we can raise certain notes to where they should be -- with autotune! -- and that process is seamless, too. i've often wondered what it would be like to put r&b/hip-hop artists/producers in a recording studio circa 1920. how would rihanna fare under those circumstances? i suppose quincy jones said it best (even after he tried to clean up his rather pointed remarks) but still and all, i wonder: whatever would those musical titans think of kanye as a music producer and his inability to play an instrument, to arrange or orchestrate, or even compose? wouldn't fats waller or duke ellington or lil armstrong wonder why he was there in the first place?

if i had a sketch comedy show, that would be the first send up: a hip-hop producer traveling back in time to work with alberta hunter and joe "king" oliver's hot five, which featured louis armstrong. or bessie smith in the here and now, with that powerhouse voice of hers nailing everyone to the wall.  demanding ice cold gin in an old jelly jar.  and someone, black or white, getting in her way, mouthing off and getting their ass handed to them.

this is the stuff i think about as i stand on the verge of completing my second black americana album. i'm doing this on 2 inch tape, by the way -- at the maid's room in new york city's lower east side. i've got three covers on this one. the rest are songs that i've written. most of the takes are simultaneous and the vocals are sung all the way through -- one pass at a time, steady as i go. i don't believe in "punching it in" if i can help it. i'm convinced that it kills the emotional continuity inside my voice. i don't believe in reverb, either.  actually, there's a lot of stuff that people who sing use nowadays that i don't believe in.  this is very hard to explain to some people in my life who watch way too much mtv/vh1/bet. because of this, they think that they know way more about the music industry than i do.  frankly, i wouldn't be surprised if they did.

don't get me wrong, i'm not against sounding like a robot when you sing -- whatever blows your hair back, i say -- but when someone like lil' wayne decides to stop it with the vocoder, you'd think it would give some of these folks reason to pause.

spent the better part of the week in portland maine, decompressing. when i wasn't half-naked and sequestered in a clean, well-appointed hotel room -- curtains drawn, chugging ice water, working on a handful of new song ideas and watching foreign movies on netflix -- i was taking long walks through cold sunny streets that were filled with freaks and wierdos, and wandering in and out of cool bookstores, second hand clothing stores, and coffee shops. the evenings would find my permanent boyfriend and i eating in some low brow five star over the top situation that was overwhelming gastronomically in all the right ways.  this town is a foodie's wet dream.  

am i making progress? am i getting anything done? is all of this noise making its way through me like some crystalline dream, so heavy with the burden of my happy guilt? is everything moving this fast? is anything moving at all? am i the one that's moving -- or am i standing still?

that's a theory of relative motion, isn't it. special relativity. objects moving in a frame of reference have their own frame of reference. i wish someone had explained that to me as a little girl. i would have felt a lot better about forging ahead and being my own person.  but that's something else.

everything is a blur, a cy twombly blur. hopefulness, vivid and pungent, smears itself onto me in thick globs of despair and longing. my backdrop stays plain and full of words.  and suddenly, as is often the case, there is a sudden explosion. an idea, a thought. a conversation. happy moments, stitched together into a few days of blissful wonder. a list of things i have to do, a somewhere i have to be. i glide through my gotham cityscape in sing-song: there is work and there is fun and there is too much to be done... 

and yet in spite of this, in spite of my best efforts to stay busy, in spite of whatever happiness there is, and the joy that is forever and abundant, there are moments when grief overwhelms me. and suddenly, as is often the case, the residue is everywhere.  i don't see him in my dreams, but God knows i see him everyplace else. not as before, but clearly now. and with so much love, it hurts.

this is what the songs are made of. this is the dna that runs through them. and for all the brighter moments when i am glazed and obtuse, when all that grief has dulled me out past the point of caring, something sparks anew.

i can only hope that someday will i ever know exactly what it is.