Dave Chappelle's Block Party:

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This Ain't No Disco

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Part documentary, part satire, part road trip, part concert film, Dave Chappelle's Block Party is ultimately a film about the unlikely commonalities that are at the heart of America. Directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Block Party ostensibly chronicles Chappelle's quest to throw the ultimate block party. The resultant film is a resonant, albeit somewhat disjointed, look at how the heartland and the 'hood, regardless of how both ends of the spectrum would deny it, speak with the same unconscious, but universal voice.

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Block Party opens in Chappelle's rural Yellow Springs, Ohio (pop.4500) hometown, but it's anything but a celebrity homecoming. Rather, the movie goes to great lengths to depict the town's inhabitants, and Chappelle himself, as representative of the American Heartland. From the outset, though, the understated sarcasm that is part and parcel of his brand of humor becomes the underlying thread that weaves through the entire film. Chappelle's ulterior motive is to load the citizenry on a bus to Brooklyn for the "ultimate block party." It's a motley crew who signs on for the trip, from the woman who sells him cigarettes at the corner store, to the town's two probation officers (one white, one black, neither known for soul), to the entire Central State University Marching Band.

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Chappelle doesn't disappoint them--or the viewing audience, for that matter. While Block Party is billed as a concert film, it works on a number of levels, not the least of which is social commentary. The characters that populate the film are real people, the kind of Americans who may have slipped through the cracks of mainstream society but have built a reality for themselves. Take, for instance the owners of the Broken Angel House, which serves as a backdrop for the block party. At first glance, they seem like the oldest surviving acid casualties in the world--which they probably are-- but between Gondry's direction and Chappelle's conversational interview techniques, they ultimately come across as a lovely couple whose marriage has endured over forty years.

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All that notwithstanding, Block Party shines as a concert film unlike any before it. Perhaps it is

because Gondry is French and sees hip-hop culture from a distanced perspective or perhaps it is because Chappelle is from the Heartland and romanticizes Brooklyn as a mythical land, the finished product is dazzling in its sheer exuberance. There simply is not one bad performance in the concert--not surprising since the roster includes Kanye West, Erikah Badu, the Roots and Mos Def, not to mention the finally reunited Fugees, fronted by Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean.

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Block Party may not be one of the great concert films by iconoclastic standards, but like Woodstock, it presents to the social mainstream a musical and cultural idiom that shows no sign of retreating. Nor should it. Rap, when done right, is nothing short of street poetry. The musicians, such as Dead Prez and Common, represented on Block Party bring that point home forcefully, and Jill Scott, Erikah Badu and the Fugees eloquently delineate the intricacies of hip-hop.

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The DVD unrated edition of Block Party offers extended (read that full) performances of the acts in the concert, as well as the obligatory "making of" featurette. While that is often interesting, the "Ohio Players" featurette, about the people from Ohio and their impressions of Brooklyn, stands alone as entertainment in a home video meets Comedy Central kind of way.

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All in all, Dave Chappelle's Block Party is a must-have for anybody with more than a passing interest in popular culture, and a "you really gotta see it" for everybody else.

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Bakithi Kumalo:

Transmigration.

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If the drum is the lifeblood of all music, then the bass is its pulse. You don't just hear the bass so much as you feel it--it courses through you on a visceral level and guides you through the more obvious melody. In the hands of a master, such as Stanley Clarke or Jaco Pastorius, the bass is a musical force with no peer. On Transmigration, Bukithi Kumalo proves himself to be such a master.

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While Transmigration is his third album, Kumalo is probably best known to American audiences for his work on Paul Simon's world beat-driven Graceland, where his swirling bass playfully danced with Simon's alliterative lyrics to help create one of the first commercially successful "world beat" albums. It's safe to say, I think, that Kumalo's work there has helped to establish much of Simon's signature sound since.

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On his previous solo efforts (San' Bonan and In Front of My Eyes), South African native Kumalo focused his efforts on the African textures that are his roots. With the aptly titled Transmigration, however, he draws on those roots, fleshes them out and gives them truly international wings. As a journey of the soul, as its title loosely implies it is, Transmigration is a tour de force of musical idioms united by the commonality of jazz and a determination to return to its wellspring.

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The journey that is Transmigration begins in the decidedly urban landscape of "Twilight Fire" and ends, appropriately enough, with the haunting "Africa". It's the stops along the way, though, that make the album a fully realized excursion. And throughout it all, Kumalo's bass effortlessly guides us through the various landscapes, speaking to us in a commanding way not heard since Stanley Clarke's heyday. Kumalo's thumb-slapping style lends itself naturally to pieces like "Looking Forward", sliding smoothly from the percussive lead of the bass to the complimentary keyboards and back again, as he does similarly on the sax-infused "Step by Step." And on the one vocal number, the R&B influenced "Only Your Love", his bass serves as an almost erotic counterpoint to former Chaka Khan background singer Penny Ford's vocals.

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Kumalo is by no means a dilletante, however. While he is one of the very few bassists capable of elevating the instrument to the status of lead--which he does formidably on several tracks here-- he also recognizes the value inherent in the traditional role of the bass in jazz. In "Trio", he eschews his electric bass in favor of an upright accoustic and commandingly complements Bill Smith's piano and Damon Duewhite's drums. It's a song that both plays tribute to the fifties roots of progressive jazz and stands alone as an evolution of the genre.

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But it is "Africa" that stands as the true tribute to the roots of jazz and indeed, all music. It is not only the finale but the centerpiece of Transmigration. A solo effort in which Kumalo plays wood flute, guitar, bass, drum, as well as delivering a haunting vocal chant, "Africa" takes us to that primal well from which all music evolved. It is in that haunting simplicity that we first found our voice and it is in that same simplicity that we evolve.

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What Bakithi Kumalo has done with Transmigration is taken us on a flashback exodus from the current state of urban jazz to the very roots from whence it arose. He, along with producer and sometime collaborator Chris Pati, has lifted jazz from its stagnant state of the last decade and returned it to its rightful position of grace. While we're only six years into it, Transmigration may very well be the most important jazz album of the 21st century thus far.

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The Canvas:

A Mosaic of Pastel Cool

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It's another unforgivingly hot and humid day in Dallas, made all the worse by mid-week traffic snarl and workaday frayed nerves, compounded all the more by the nervous energy that is pursuant to what passes as a weekend. It's a reality that we'd rather not be a party to.

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Anyway, that's the world outside my window.

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In this little corner of what passes as my office, though, it's cool and a little smoky, in a Cafe Americain sort of way. I'm relaxing with a glass of red wine and drifting into another time, another place, reminiscent of a Parisian jazz cafe in the thirties or a tucked-away fifties cool jazz joint in New York. And I'm listening to the debut album by the Canvas, simply titled Random Thoughts.

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On a casual first listen, it would be easy to dismiss the Canvas as pleasant background music of the sort one might find in an edgier-than-thou restaurant. And in certain regards, that would be true. This is not an album that screams to be noticed--no histrionic guitar solos, no bass runs that meander forever, no in-your face drum work. Rather, this is a work full of subtle nuances made by a trio of musicians working as a cohesive unit.

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To be sure, Random Thoughts is an unassuming work, and it is that very aspect that makes it so engaging. The trio that comprise the Canvas--Shahin (guitar), Casper (bass) and Brett (drums)--are enamored not with fame, but with the joy of playing music. They don't even use their last names.

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And play music they do-- building on a basic jazz groove, and evoking at various points, elements of funk, ragas and blues--all coming together in a sound that can only be described as universal. It's not what one would expect to come out of Arlington, Virginia, but then again, Liverpool was an unlikely music hotbed at one time.

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It has always been my practice not to review an album before at least three listens--the catchy hook wears thin by then. It's the albums that offer something new on each listen-- that something you didn't hear before-- that catch my attention.

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I'm on my seventh listen on this one, with no signs of putting it away.

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Bush versus....Batwoman?!?

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An already beleagered Bush Administration was delivered what some are already calling a "potentially devastating" setback when Batwoman announced this weekend that she is a "lipstick lesbian." Her announcement could not have come at a worse time for the President, who is promoting a Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage.

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While some neocon pundits dismissed Batwoman's self-outing as another ploy by liberals to undermine "traditional family values," White House insiders admitted that her confession further undermines Bush's efforts to regain the public's confidence. With polls indicating that voters' biggest concerns are the Administration's handling of the war in Iraq, rising energy costs and the ongoing debate on illegal immigration, many view Bush's sudden rush to ban gay marriage as a diversionary election year tactic.

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The President made no mention of Batwoman in his speech to the faithful today, which most on both sides of the gay marriage issue agreed was his best tactic in the face of Batwoman's popularity. At 5'10, and closer to 6'2 in those spike heels, she has been the subject of speculation and a tabloid favorite in a record short time, eclipsing even Britney Spears. Unlike Batman, who has not been heard from in the past few months, Batwoman does not shirk from publicity. In fact, recent polls indicate she may be more popular than the President.

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Mr. Bush chose instead to gear his speech to a faction that claims to have elected him--the Religious Right. While he made a valiant attempt to boost the theory that marriage is between a man and a woman only, he failed to address civil issues that confront all couples, regardless of their orientation. His arguments, therefore, fell on largely deaf ears.

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Batwoman's unabashed admission only made the Administration's position weaker in many circles. It's long been known that superheroes are among the most diverse groups in America, and her coming out of the closet only cements that notion. The so-called "Bat Family," while dysfunctional and the subject of lurid gossip for decades now, has nonetheless always connected with the American psyche by doing what they set out to do.

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If it's all PR, the President would be well advised to learn from it.

The Bush and Blair Farewell Comedy Tour

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Make no mistake about it-- the comedy duo of Bush and Blair (or as they're known across the Pond--Blair and Bush) will forever be remembered in the annals of humor. While their roots go back to the great duos of the 20th century--Hope and Crosby, Martin and Lewis, Ren and Stempy--detractors claimed that B&B in fact lifted their material from Pinky and the Brain.

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I say nothing could be further from the truth. While Pinky and the Brain did originate the "try to take over the world" routine, Bush and Blair made it something that none but the most cynical would deny was truly unique. Who can ever forget skits like "Bring It On" and "Shock and Awe?" Classics to be sure, and while they weren't popular in France, they certainly played in Peoria.

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Bush and Blair have always been an unlikely team, at least supercially, and perhaps that's what has kept us laughing for the past three years. Who would have thought that a bumpkin urban cowboy and a soft-spoken, Savoy Row Brit could have clicked so well? And yet, they did. It was percisely their public personnae that struck a nerve, albeit a raw one, in our collective pop mindset. That simple formula of Bush misspeaking with arrogance and Blair playing straightman with a conciliatory, but equally meaningless, turn of phrase had us rolling time and again.

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But of late, the rumor mill has been in overdrive with reports that the duo may be going their solo ways. Call it the changing tastes of a fickle audience or maybe the material is merely growing stale, but Bush and Blair's fortunes have been on the wain these past several months. Their attempts at touring separately--Bush in the States, Blair in Britain--have been savaged by critics and audiences alike.

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Their appearance in Washington last Thursday did little to dispel the gossip that the duo of Bush and Blair are nearing the end of their career as a comedy team. Indeed, it was reminiscent of the break-up of Martin and Lewis in some ways-- both members going through the motions of a routine that both had lost all interest in but went through the motions of performing nonetheless.

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Though they opened in classic fashion, with Bush setting Blair up for the inevitable straightman fall, their much-touted reunion quickly deteriorated into a series of one-liners that had none of the punch of their heyday. Bush, hoping to play on what has now become a cliche in comedy circles, said that maybe he should have been more "sophisticated" when he used his immortal line "Bring it on!" What?!? Mr. Bush, don't mess with a classic punchline, if I may be so bold.

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While one expects Mr. Blair to play the foil to Mr. Bush, saying that we should have been more "conciliatory" in the "de-Baathification" of Iraq simply had no zing, straightman or no. In the past, one could always count on Blair, in his stiff upper lip composure, to laugh along with Bush.

During Thursday's performance, Blair seemed, if not embarrassed by this cohort's, one-liners, vaguely disinterested.

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To his credit, Bush did introduce us to a new buzzphrase-- "I sowwwwy." Whether it was Abu Ghraib or American fatalities or Iraqi civilian casualties, he merely shrugged his shoulders and did that little nervous chuckle we've come to love and muttered , "I sowwwy." Even that little gem, however, did little to elicit applause. I think it may be the line for which he will be most remembered in retrospect.

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After the show, Bush was asked what he would most miss about Blair when they do go their seperate ways. "I'm going to miss his red ties," he said flatly.

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Then he added, "Tony, can I buy you dinner?".

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We can only hope that that is not the epitath of the first great comedy team of the 21st century.

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The Soul of the Streets,

The Rhythm of America

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Simply put, Playing for Change is a documentary about American street musicians. That being said, I would hasten to add that some works cannot be "simply put," that they transcend such artificial categorizations to become something universal, something that speaks to the collective soul.

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Playing for Change is such a work.

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This is not a gritty documentary focusing on the hardships of making a living on the streets-- rather, it is a colorful celebration of what is at the core of the American Dream: the pursuit of happiness. Directed by Mark Johnson and Jonathan Walls, Playing for Change examines a central, but too often dismissed, aspect of American culture-- the music of the streets.

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And it does so admirably. Linked by the motif of a single groove-- a percussion riff laid down by a cajone (a sort of Brazilian steel drum)-- the film is part road trip, part slice-of-life vignette documentary and all music. It begins innocuously enough, with a folksy singer named Lily Holbrook playing on a street corner in Santa Monica, and that sets the tone for the rest of the film. Immediately, any preconceptions we may have had about street musicians as homeless panhandlers are dispelled. Instead, we are presented with a well-scrubbed, articulate young woman who has taken to performing on the streets as a means of overcoming her insecurities--and to sell a few CDs in the process.

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Deeper into Los Angeles, we're introduced to the Carribbean group Los Penginos, and it is here that the plot, such as it is, of Playing for Change is set. After the cajone beat is recorded, the theme of the movie becomes a quest to travel cross-country to produce a jam that will eventually become the movie's centerpiece song, "Playing for Change Blues."

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Filmed in 2003 (but only released to DVD last April), the film moves from southern California to a pre-Katrina New Orleans, where street musicians abound in genres from Dixieland to bluegrass. It is here that Playing for Change is most poignant, if only in retrospect. There are references from one musician about Mayor Nagin wanting to "clean up" Jackson Square to make way for a more "modern" New Orleans. But more importantly, there is the music, the vibrancy of diverse styles all coming together in a relatively small area in a way that may never happen again. A Flying V blues riff is laid over the beat, and a slide guitar over that, before the film leaves the Big Easy.

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The pace becomes more frenetic as the locale transitions to New York, and more eclectic, as one might expect. Here, the musicians range from an acapella doo-wop band called the Inspirations to the sci-fi subway sounds of Simon 7 to old school blues to anything and everything in between. And it is here that a blind singer named Robert Bradley lays over the vocal track for "Playing for Change Blues."

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It's a beautiful, powerful climax to the movie, and filmed exquisitely, with the various musicians playing their various parts in their various locales, but united by the common thread of the groove, the groove of the universal language of music.

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Playing for Change serves not only as a look at an unapologetic musical lifestyle, but as a metaphor for life itself. These are the real, if unsung, American Idols.

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Idols 'R' Us

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The American Idol season finale airs tonight, and the nation is collectively aflutter with anticipation. In the end, though, it doesn't matter whether Katharine McPhee or Taylor Hicks claims the dubious title of "Next American Idol." We lose either way.

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And I'll tell you why.

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American Idol has almost nothing to with with scouring America for the next

musical phenomenon and almost everything to do with demonstrating the power of a well-oiled PR machine. It's a simple formula: open with a seemingly fruitless quest to find an incredibly talented, but undiscovered, musical pearl among the Great Unwashed of the American populace--assuming the talent can make it to the auditions, which are invariably held in a tourist trap city, such as Vegas, LA or Austin. From that point, parade a series of delusional miscreants and clowns before the cameras to illustrate just how daunting the quest is.

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Obviously, that formula can go only so far--approximately 3-4 weeks in the Idol universe--before it wears thin, so the producers spice it up by showing the intrepid "judges" wading through the flotsam of humanity and plucking that one or two who perhaps are marketable--

"marketable" being the operative term here.

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Because marketing is the wellspring from which all things Idol flows, the PR blitzkrieg kicks into full gear at this point, and what began as harmless little talent search is elevated to an all-encompassing gladiatorial fete that only we, the American public, can decide. And if we don't vote, we have only ourselves--not Simon, Paula, or Randy--to blame.

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And, boyoboy, do we eat it up. The artificial frenzy builds over the next weeks as we systematically destroy careers with a single Cingular text number. Then the debates begin in earnest--little Paris Bennett is gong home? She was too young anyway. Rocker Chris Daughtrey sent packing? True rockers don't do American Idol to begin with. And so it goes, till we do what we always do when left to our own devices.

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We elevate mediocrity to godhood.

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All of this brings us full circle to McPhee v. Hicks on tonight's finale. In this corner, Katherine McPhee, a curvy, doe-eyed little songbird who goes in swinging with the advice, "girls should keep working on themselves." And in this corner, Taylor Hicks, the choreography-challenged leader of the Soul Patrol, who wants nothing more than to "inject as much soul as I can into the American public."

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Both opponents are strong contenders, obviously, but in the end, only one can ratchet the level of mediocrity up or down a notch, depending on one's point of view. The oddsmakers favor Hicks by a narrow margin. After all, he's already a hero to millions of karoake bar-hopping good ol' boys and the bored administrative assistants who love them. Drunken dance moves are funny, if not downright cool, as we all know.

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On the other hand, Katharine McPhee can wow a crowd merely by kneeling and begging audiences to love her. She's a role model for depressed female adolescents and an iconic fantasy for millions of stressed-out office managers.

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It's a tough call, to be sure, but in the end, it will get down to this: who challenges us least? That person will win it all tonight. They'll be heralded as an artist for a month, maybe two, before we get bored and the American Idol cycle begins anew.

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As to who I think will win, I haven't the faintest.

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Nor do I care overmuch.

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I'll be listening to the Dixie Chicks.

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24 "Day 5" Season Finale:

A Cautionary Cliffhanger

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Jack Bauer has the coolest job in the known universe. Okay, it's a little stressful, but what a perk-- save the world as we know it in 24 hours and take off therest of the year. How cool is that? Sign me up right now!

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For five seasons now, 24 has led us down a serpentine path strewn with corruption at the highest levels, deception at every corner, gunplay 'round every bend and enough general mayhem to make Quentin Tarentino come off like an altar boy. And we've followed every second of those 24 hour timelines, no matter how implausible. After all, plausibility has never been a prerequisite for thr action adventure genre. Nobody ever paused to think about Indiana Jones' transatlantic trip perched on the periscope of a Nazi U-boat in Raiders of the Lost Ark, for example.

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It's all about pacing, and in that area, perhaps no other series in the history of network television has done it better than 24. It invariably hits the ground running, and moves at such a breakneck pace that we don't even think about how no way could that happen in that timeframe. We want to believe that it could, maybe just maybe could, and we become willing participants in the milieu. And that, friends, is genius.

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Then there is the character of Jack Bauer himself. As portrayed by Keifer Sutherland, Bauer serves as a metaphor for American frustration-- tense, sweaty, set adrift in events larger than himself with seemingly no hope for survival. Yet he prevails, teeth clenched against all odds. We see in Jack Bauer what we want America to be--a steadfast figure bowing to no evil in whatever form it takes, but never flinching from a fundamental ethic of justice, determined to save our way of life, even if it means taking on the President himself. In other words, Jack is us. The only difference is he knows who the bad guys are. We have only our vague suspicions.

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From the start, the fifth season (or "Day Five", to use the jargon) of 24 played to our national paranoia, beginning with the assassination of former President Palmerthreading into a Chechnian nerve gas terrorism threat that involved an assassination attempt on the Russian president which in turn was engineered by the US President working on behalf of oil interests with the misguided attention of rescuing America from foreign energy dependency.

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With me so far?

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Good.

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Because of the "real time" format of 24, there is no way humanly possible to bring the unitiated up to snuff on all the intricacies fo the plotline of "Day 5." The last couple of episodes made it screamingly apparent that there were only two ways it could end, neither of which were particularly politically correct. Either the President had to be brought to justice as a traitor, or he would get away with his acts in the interest of maintaining the dignity of the office.

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In the end, the producers managed a climax that had it both ways, and without giving too much away, did so in a manner that served both justice and the almighty cover-up. But that was not the end--there are no endings on 24, unless you count ragged edges as endings. All is right with the world as the sun rises, except for Bauer's world. He's on a slow boat to China, courtesy of the Chinese government, who have not forgotten his assault on their embassy during "Day 4."

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All that aside, the 24 finale served up generous portions of all the elements that make the series relevant. Even I had to admit early on in this arc that the series might have finally jumped the shark. There was no way they could make this work, i thought.

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I was quickly proven wrong, and it wasn't because of all the smoke and mirrors the show employs. It was because, no matter what else you might say about it, 24 raises your heart rate. And it's not just the often cartoon-like action. It's because it speaks to us on a visceral level-- the idea that one man can make a difference, and revolutions really do begin with one person.

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Besides, I just have to know where the Chinese are taking Jack Bauer for the 2007 season.

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The Will and Grace Finale--Finally

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Will and Grace was a hit for one reason, and it had little to do with the show's lofty intentions. It drew viewers inweek after week because it was just funny--slapstick vaudeville naughty (but not too naughty) funny. It has been obvious the past couple of seasons, though, that the series was running out of steam. The spark was gone as the focus shifted into issues that are more "serious."

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Thursday's finale reflected both the brightest and dimmest of Will and Grace. NBC, desperate for anything to pull it out of its slump, heralded it as a two-hout "event,", and promoted it as if the course of western civilization hinged upon its climax. The network's webpage was laden with emails (presumably genuine) all saying how the respective writer would cry as the series ended.

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Truth of the matter is the hype shamelessly oversold the show. It was far from an event, two hour or otherwise. It was two seperate programs--one done quite well, the other--not so much.

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The first program, "Say Goodnight, Gracie," was a one-hour retrospective of the series' eight season run, and it reminded us how hilarious Will and Grace could be, especially when it was Jack and Karen in the spotlight. Will and Grace themselves were too neurotic to be consistently funny, but Jack and Karen never strayed too far from loony land, and they were ultimately the glue that held the show together.

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The highly trumpeted finale was a letdown, though. After a promising opening--a clever take-off of the dreaded dream ending, the episode drifted aimlessly through a series of predictable vignettes tracing the characters' life paths over the next twenty years. It wasn't so much that it was painful to watch but that it was drab and lifeless. If the series' principals wanted to go out on a poignant note, they never quite made it.

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Without giving away the ending, NBC did leave open the possibility of a spin-off--Will and Grace: The Next Generation perhaps?