97th birthday of Jaki Byard

(Born 15 June 1922, Worcester, Mass, US)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

PIANIST, pianists’ pianist whose “encyclopaedic knowledge”, to quote the recurring phrase from many a critic of the jazz piano repertoire, ensures he ranges effortlessly in his solo take from the stride traditions of the 1920s-1930s (James Johnson, Willie “The Lion” Smith, Fats Waller) to the late 1940s/early 1950s revolutionary breakthroughs of Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols and the later flights of Cecil Taylor but still sounding Jaki Byard; academic; indelible footprints on the Charles Mingus jazz workshop – particularly the classic sextet: Mingus, bass; Johnny Coles, trumpet; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, flute; Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Byard, piano; Dannie Richmond, drums

(Jaki Byard Trio, “Trendsition zildjian” [personnel: Byard, piano; David Izenzon, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: Prestige, New York, US, 31 October 1967])

(Charles Mingus Sextet – featuring Eric Dolphy, Live in Oslo 1964, “So long Eric” [personnel: Mingus, bass; Johnny Coles, trumpet; Dolphy, alto saxophone; Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone; Jaki Byard, piano; Dannie Richmond, drums; recorded: live, University Aula, 12 April 1964]) 

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

88th birthday of Flora Nwapa

(Born 13 January 1931, Ugwuta, Biafra)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

OKEE NWANYI MMADU, first African (continental) woman published novelist – Efuru, 1966, and, soon after, Idu, which she begins to work on at the onset of the Igbo genocide (mid-1966) and later publishes in 1970.

Nwapa’s landmark works as well as those of sociologist Kamene Okonjo’s project the legacy of the historic complementarity of Igbo gender relations, not the fractious/antagonistic/conflictive relations which define/defined the experiences and inheritance in some other histories, some other geographies… Thus, Nwapa and Okonjo’s foundational works open up the expanse of possibilities in Igbo Women/African peoples-centred studies in which the scholarship, artistry and writings of subsequent generations of intellectuals, working worldwide, have flourished immensely.

(Jaki Byard Trio, “Trendsition zildjian” [personnel: Byard, piano; David Izenzon, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: Prestige, New York, US, 31 October 1967])

*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is great for Africa (2018)

(https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Donald-Trump-great-Africa-ebook/dp/B07KFQHXKV/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1542585950&sr=8-1)

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

Compelling lessons for African peoples on this 52nd anniversary of the Anglo-Nigeria launch of the Igbo genocide

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

THE state in Africa, as presently constituted, can only lead Africans to perdition. 

The European World “abandoned” a toxic waste that goes by the name “state” in Africa and Africans, themselves, must get rid of it to survive. African peoples, just as others across the world, are in the position to construct organic state forms that are responsive to their worldviews and progress.

IT IS a dreadful proposition to conceptualise any progress of human or other lives in a genocide state – the likes of Nigeria, the Sudan, the Congo … or whatever their ghastly signatures denote. These are contraptions of murder and murdering; nothing else.

The state is a transient relationship that exists at the behest of the goodwill and aspirations of its constituent people or peoples. If the logic of its existence is to murder and pulverise, it is impossible to see any prospect for its future. Does a Nigeria, for instance, realistically see any future of meaningful development in the wake of the Igbo genocide, in these past 52 years? After murdering 3.1 million and tens of thousands Igbo people? Definitely, definitively, no.

Nigeria collapsed in a heap, irredeemably, that Sunday mid-morning, 29 May 1966, when it launched the Igbo genocide with its unleashed assailants bludgeoning to death every Igbo child and Igbo woman and Igbo man across its cities and towns and villages and every other conceivable space signposted for the premeditated murder mission. Surely, there is no future for a genocide state.

#Biafra #Biafra #Biafra #Biafra #Biafra

(Jaki Byard Trio, “Trendsition zildjian” [personnel: Byard, piano; David Izenzon, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; recorded: Prestige, New York, US, 31 October 1967]) 

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe