82nd birthday of Virginia Hamilton

(Born 12 March 1934, Yellow Springs, Ohio, US)

Distinguished prolific author of children’s books including the critically acclaimed MC Higgins, the Great

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196th birthday of Harriet Tubman

(Born c1820, Dorchester county, Maryland, US; dies 10 March 1913, Auburn, New York, US)

Activist exponent of African American freedom who works intensely and expansively on the historic underground railroad liberatory network

(Wynton Marsalis Quintet, “Harriet Tubman” [personnel: Marsalis, trumpet; Joe Henderson, tenor saxophone; Marcus Roberts, piano; Bob Hurst, bass; Jeff “Tain” Watts, drums; recorded: BMG Studios, New York, US, {? ?} 1991])

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FWD: Nigeria genocidist state scores appalling #58 out of 60 countries in this “Best countries for education” global study; ignominious score of #57 of 58 countries in the “Best countries” study category

Shocking but least surprising result… Nigeria is Africa’s foundational post-(European)conquest genocide-state, having murdered 3.1 million Igbo or one-quarter of this people’s population during 44 months of comprehensively unrelenting savagery (29 May 1966-12 January 1970). This genocide goes on as these lines are written... Expansive massacres by Nigeria occupation forces in Biafra in towns Onicha, Enuugwu, Igwe Ocha, Aba, between Wednesday 2 December 2015 and today, Saturday 13 February 2016…

Surely, as the link (below) to the “Best countries”’s results shows, no one should expect genocidist Nigeria to be anywhere at the top of the league of any study on “Best countries for education” nor indeed “Best countries” on the planet. No country spends a generation trying to destroy one of the world’s most resilient peoples and at the same time be a success on a “Best countries for education” assessment. It should be noted in the study, though, that Britain, which, for 50 years, has rigorously supported Nigeria in prosecuting the Igbo genocide politically, diplomatically and militarily is #1 in “Best countries for education” and #3 for “Best countries”. The toady Nigerian genocidist-“boys”’ response to this glaring result contrast would probably be, “… our massa, he clever …”:
(http://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/education-full-list, accessed 12 February 2016)

(O Obusonjo: ... one of the most notorious operatives in genocidist Nigeria’s campaign against Igbo people)

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Ornette Coleman, freedom, Biafra

(Born 9 March 1930, Fort Worth, Texas, US)

Today is the 86th birthday of Ornette Coleman. Alto saxophonist, trumpeter, violinist, composer, one of the very top inventive jazz artists of all time – a leading exponent of the avant-garde/free jazz movement, beginning late 1950s/early 1960s, when his varying working quartets (personnel: Coleman, alto saxophone [tenor saxophone on Ornette on Tenor only], Don Cherry, cornet/trumpet/pocket trumpet; Charlie Haden/Scott LaFaro/Red Mitchell/Percy Heath/Jimmy Garrison/Don Payne, bass; Billy Higgins/Ed Blackwell/Shelly Manne, drums) and quintet (Something Else!!!! only, with Walter Norris on piano) record seven classic albums (Something Else!!!! [1958], Tomorrow is the Question [1959], The Shape of Jazz to Come [1959], Change of the Century [1959], This is our Music [1960], Ornette! [1961], Ornette on Tenor [1961]), and an eighth, this time recorded by an octet (Coleman, alto saxophone; Cherry, pocket trumpet; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet; Haden, bass; LaFaro, bass; Blackwell, drums; Higgins, drums), pertinently titled Free Jazz (1960).

Biafra

In this revolutionary epoch in which stretches of peoples and nations across the globe but especially in the African World have risen against centuries of pan-European conquest, occupation and subjugation, Coleman’s music has consistently offered an infectiously gripping optimism for freedom.  As the world keenly watches the march of the strikingly innovative freedom movement of the people of Biafra in southwestcentral Africa presently, two compositions from the Coleman repertoire couldn’t be more appropriate to capture the immense transformational possibilities that success in Biafra will have for constituent peoples in the region and elsewhere in Africa: “Turnaround” (February 1959) and “Change of the century” (October 1959).

(Ornette Coleman Quartet, “Turnaround” [personnel: Coleman, alto saxophone; Don Cherry, trumpet; Red Mitchell, bass; Shelly Manne, drums; recorded: Contemporary’s Studio, Los Angeles, US, 23 February 1959])

(Ornette Coleman Quartet, “Change of the century” [personnel: Coleman, alto saxophone; Don Cherry, pocket trumpet; Charlie Haden, bass; Billy Higgins, drums; recorded: Radio Recorders in Hollywood, California, US, 8 October 1959])

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81st birthday of George Coleman

(Born 8 March 1935, Memphis, US)

Distinguished tenor saxophonist, composer, bandleader, educator

(Wynton Kelly Trio with George Coleman, “Mr PC”  [Kelly, piano; Coleman, tenor saxophone; Paul McLure, bass; Jimmy Cobb, drums; recorded, live, Left Bank Jazz Society, Baltimore, Maryland, US, 22 September 1968])

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Biafra – new dramatic priceless evidence for the Igbo genocide prosecutor’s briefcase: Al Jazeera’s Martine Dennis’s determined offer to screen video footage of the 9 February 2016 Aba massacre for Muhammadu Buhari during an interview in Qatar is rejected by the Nigeria head-of-regime

(Martine Dennis)

Martine Dennis (Al Jazeera):  … I could show you the video…

Muhammadu Buhari: No, thank you!

…

(Focussed Martine Dennis offers to screen Aba massacre video during the interview...)

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59th anniversary of restoration-of-independence in Ghana

6 March 1957: Restoration of independence of the peoples – terminating 90 years of the British conquest and occupation of Ghana with the triumph of the freedom movement begun in the 1940s and led by Kwame Nkrumah, political theorist and philosopher

(Jackie McLean Sextet, “Appointment in Ghana” [personnel: McLean, alto saxophone; Blue Mitchell, trumpet; Tina Brooks, tenor saxophone; Kenny Drew, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Art Taylor, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 1 September 1960])

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