143rd birthday of Paul Laurence Dunbar

(Born 27 June 1872, Dayton, Ohio, US)

Prolific poet, novelist, playwright, songwriter (writes lyrics for In Dahomey, the very successful 1903 musical which appears in Broadway and elsewhere), essayist, whose critically acclaimed output foreshadows the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s-1930s

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

78th birthday of Reggie Workman

(Born 26 June 1937, Philadelphia, US)

Versatile and celebrated bassist with an expansive collaborative recording register that includes ensembles led by John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach, Art Blakey,  Lee Morgan, Mal Waldron, Wayne Shorter, Archie Shepp, John Tchicai, Freddie Hubbard and David Murray, band leader, composer, academic whose outstanding music education initiatives stretch beyond the confines of the academy to address varying community needs and aspirations particularly those involving the youth

(Reggie Workman Quintet, “Summit conference” [personnel: Workman, bass; Julian Priester, trombone; Sam Rivers, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute; Andrew Hill, piano; Pheroan AkLaff, drums; recorded: live, Yoshi’s, Oakland, California, US, 2 August 1995])

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

102nd birthday of Aimé Césaire

(Born 26 June 1913, Basse-Pointe, Martinique)

Poet, playwright, essayist, cofounder (with Léopold Sédar Senghor and Léon-Gontram Damas) of the “negritude” movement in Paris in the 1930s-1940s, one of the preeminent intellectuals of African World affirmation in the wake of 500 years of pan-European enslavement of African peoples, conquest and occupation of Africa, author of classics Cahier d’un retour au pays natal (1939; English: Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, 1956) Discours sur le colonialisme (1950; English: Discourse on Colonialism, 1953), Toussaint Louverture: La Révolution française et le problème colonial (1960, study on the Haitian restoration-of-independence revolutionary), Une Saison au Congo (1966; English: A Season in the Congo, 1968 – play on life and times of Patrice Lumumba, which actor Chiwetel Ejiofor demonstrates a stellar performance on the London stage, 2013) and Une Tempête (1969, English: A Tempest, 1986 – a play, an African-centred rereading of Shakespeare’s The Tempest), teacher and major influence on Frantz Fanon, fellow Martinican and celebrated liberatory scholar and author of The Wretched of the Earth  

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

FWD: Chidi Ekwe-Ekwe (15), Devilish Darlings

Stanza 1:

“Can I help you?” the sky said.

The ethereal beauty believeth not of their grass rustleth, amused at their brazen nature but suddenly a two-legged wildebeest shall be their gaoler with their misshapen frame destined to bring despair to their tailor…

“What shall we do?” the leaves whispered, a sinister undertone tinkered, sure enough, the wind initiated its vengeance, slamming into the wildebeest like a ferocious pillar, the beast’s liver gurgled, mentally their neck the passing crow circled, the environment was about to be encapsulated violence. The wildebeest paused. The sky preparing to call the cavalry, silently roared.

“What we must do” it said…

Chorus:

Greetings Destroyer, Beast, thou spend time chanting Satanic prayers. But we the dragons that must be the slayer, mistaken of your identity, trespassing in our humble garden. Therefore we must be your devilish darlings.

Stanza 2:

The sky hurriedly heroically called the crow saying, “The wildebeest’s disciples continue the work hitherto and beyond, which is of course hereditary”. Then the crow cried, “On my honour, I will strike the beast so hard I fear shamelessly I may give him dysentery!” So of course the crow proceeded to call its avenging angels – the hawk and the fox to treat nature’s bystanders to a sight that had never been witnessed, potentially hideous, but performing Moksha vanquishing the insidious, praying that the separate segment could elicit jealousy from the coniferous…

The work completed-

The grass mused at the unrecognisable wildebeest-

… Not that it cared about the past tense but it was hesitant about the wildebeest’s cattle, typically ignorant and innocent, a bad combination contrary to a beautiful constellation, thunder abruptly destroyed that fantasy and lightning threatened casualties but as the cattle ran for their sanity, the sky repeated the two words but with a new anomaly: “Devilish Darlings are a separate family”.

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe 

92nd birthday of George Russell

(Born 23 June 1923, Cincinnati, US)

Pianist, bandleader, conductor, versatile composer (including, especially, The Jazz Workshop, Jazz in the Space Age, Statusphunk, Ezz-thetics, The Outer View, The Essence of George Russell, Listen to the Silence, Live in an American Time Spiral, The African Game)  and very influential music theorist, author of the classic, The Lydian Chromatic Concept of  Tonal Organization (1953)

(George Russell Sextet, “Honesty” [personnel: Russell. Piano; Don Ellis, trumpet; Dave Baker, trombone; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone; Steve Swallow, Joe Hunt, bass; drums; recorded: Riverside Records, New York, US, 8 May 1961])

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

95th birthday of Eduardo Mondlane

(Born 20 June 1920, Manjacaze, Mozambique)

Historian and sociologist, academic, UN research staff, cofounder and president, Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, FRELIMO, the liberation movement which frees Mozambique from nearly 500 years of Portuguese conquest and occupation

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

FWD On Christopher Okigbo, Africa’s leading poet, the state in Africa and the Igbo genocide: Harvard University, 22 September 2007

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe