William Hooker's
Evidence: The James Baldwin Suite
The "Year of Baldwin" was very important to me. I took stock of this great writer and social critic by revisiting his works and looking at the new works being published---all in an effort to be inspired enough to dream a story that would include music, dance, and his own illuminating words as a form of homage to this great man. He is very complex.
He loved freedom and justice----as all great men do. However, he had the gift of insight and abstraction enabling him to create beautiful works of art to explain life and its paradoxes. His words spurred me along--when the music and the strength of my interpretation were questioned.
I have absorbed the inner and the outer. The wheat and the chafe---and with the help of my own creative friends---I am giving you this homage.
James Baldwin rose to accept the challenge of life. This is all of us--in one. We are all of us---in him. Thank you, James Baldwin....for shining light...William Hooker.
And with the above thoughts Mr. Hooker set about creating a masterpiece of art, music, and words that swept you into the world of James Baldwin, making you not only feel the power of his words but the music which flowed behind his words. You also saw the beauty of how dance could be performed to the music created, and all together this homage brought you into a parallel universe until the last note was played, the last words spoken and the dancer had vanished from the stage. Yes, Mr. Hooker you paid homage to James Baldwin at St. Peter's Church no less; but more than that you created a world with words, dance and music that we could enter and not leave.
The Company: Fay Victor - Vocals, Mark Harmon - Piano, Ras Moshe - Saxophone & Flute, Jesse Henry - Guitar, Eric Robinson - Trumpet & Electronics, William Hooker - Drums
Leave a comment, subscribe for future events. Leave a note.
I hope people continue to read Baldwin's works, which are as relevant today as they ever were. "Go Tell It on the Mountain" remains one of the great coming-of-age novels of American literature, but I find his nonfiction works especially stimulating, dealing as they do with issues of race in America that never seem to go away. One of my favorites is "The Devil Finds Work," which deals with film, but I also recommend "Notes of a Native Son," "Nobody Knows My Name," "No Name in the Street" and especially "The Fire Next Time." - Brian
ReplyDeleteI do too, and I want to add the performance by William Hooker "Evidence, The Baldwin Suite for your viewing pleasure.
ReplyDeletehttps://thetaoofevents.blogspot.com