Late night tracks / Jean Chaumont

From a September 2016 concert with pianist Michael Bond in Hopewell, New Jersey

Recently I've been on a bit of a jazzy kick, thanks to the movie musical La La Land. My feet have been tapping ever since I left the theater. That opening scene alone is worth the watch, but the rest of the soundtrack is a great repeated listen for its splendid fusion of jazz, pop, latin, and bits in between. For better or worse, I find that Ryan Gosling's character and I have a similar taste for big band jazz. I like my horns brassy, my rhythms quick, my saxes sassy. (Fun fact: No body doubles for that pianist!)

And yet, I'm drawn to tonight's listen: a more melodic and contemplative form of the genre, courtesy of French guitarist and composer. Jean Chaumont. It's not exactly music to fall asleep to. It's no Kenny G (thank goodness -- no offense, KG). Clearly it's kept me awake. It's thoughtful, sometimes challenging, hitting me in a way I can't quite place.

Late night tracks / Fantastic Negrito

These days if I can't fall asleep, the last thing I want to do is stare at a computer screen. There are all kinds of studies these days that talk about the havoc wreaked by screens and modern electronics on our sleep cycles (for teens and the rest of us).

But here I am again, and my music of choice tonight is Fantastic Negrito. I might have first heard about him on NPR, but those are vague recollections. It was his first single, "About a Bird" (above), that hauntingly drew me in. I bookmarked it. I also bookmarked an article on Consequence of Sound, detailing his life story and the genesis of his album The Last Days of Oakland. I read it. I was intrigued. I then kept going, listening to the album in its entirety. I took a chance on him.

Sometimes you just need to make light

This is a different spin on the Late Night Tracks series.

It's been a bit of a rough few weeks, and sometimes when life gets thick and hairy, you just need a laugh.  To make light.  To find joy in the midst of trying circumstances.  To see yellow in the gray.  And music can be a great source of lightness, especially because it can go on repeat.

Although I'm not a big pop music fan (even though secretly you may find some 90's-to-early-00's boy band music on my Spotify), I somehow really truly like this song by fellow Pennsylvanian Taylor Swift, "Shake It Off" from her most recent album 1989.  One of my students mentioned the song to me, and now I watch the music video every once in a while when I need a laugh and something to bob my head to.  (Surfing YouTube will also bring you to some thousands of parodies of this song, too.  Imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?  Maybe?)

(Edit: That viral 80s aerobics video plus the perfect soundtrack, with some insight into its genesis.  How come our opening ceremonies don't look more like this nowadays?)

I'm also occasionally nostalgic about my ballet days, so watching the dancing is a treat, too - like seeing a baby elephant among, well, ballerinas.  This outtake goes behind the scenes to see how Taylor and the dancers work together on the choreo.  I'm pretty wowed by the fact that she put so much effort into learning - then unlearning - all these different dance types.  The other outtakes are also worth a watch.

And because the album name is an ode to birth years and childhood, as a bonus I'll share a bit of myself from the wonder years:

Guess which one is me?

Late night tracks / Gueldy René

Another late night, and another singer-songwriter!  And lest you think my musical tastes run one genre wide, take a listen.  Gueldy René is different.  In his own words, "My guitar is my weapon, and peace is my goal."  He's fighting prejudice, injustice, corruption, and poverty with his music.  Whew -- makes me feel lazy in comparison!

Gueldy is from Bois Neuf on the outskirts of Cite Soleil, Haiti's largest slum.  The place has a violent reputation, but he and others are trying to change that.  I first heard about Gueldy from friends and acquaintances working in Port-au-Prince.  They launched an Indiegogo campaign to help record his first album, and with the help of many backers he's on his way to the studio!

While I've never met Gueldy in person, his charisma in the video above -- a song written in the wake of the 2010 earthquake (with a great little back up singer) -- and in others makes me like him a lot.  But it's his lyrics and the meaning behind his songs that really launch him beyond just "nice" music.



Here there is a clip from his song "Konbit," a Creole word for cooperative communal labor that is the essence of community and working towards a future together.  The lines that struck me the most:

"The winds of change are coming.

...

Konbit, konbit, to save our nation
Konbit, konbit to save our youth."

The song calls for education, for governmental accountability, for mutual respect, for "democracy free of demagoguery."  Even for clean canals and planted trees.  It seems like a laundry list of impossibilities, but there's progress being made through various communal efforts (like Konbit Soley Leve) and the help of outside organizations to get things rolling.

Back in 2011, I visited Haiti for a research fact-finding trip (or, a "I don't know what I'm getting myself into but here goes!" kind of trip).  The Tall Man (at the time my Tall Boyfriend) and I were too chicken to visit Cite Soleil during most of the week, but we finally threw reservations to the wind when we were given the opportunity to tag along with friends from Haiti Communitere, the NGO we were staying with.

What had I expected?  Maybe something scary?  I had been to various parts of other development countries before, but never in a post-disaster situation and never feeling so out of my element and exposed.  I have written a bit about this before but will write again that what I found was stunning.

One of my favorite photos from the trip

Clean, paved roads.  Planters with trees and saplings along the drainage trenches.  A nascent recycling operation to encourage people to clean out the clogged canals and earn some income.  This was accomplished with the initiative of a then-13 year old who was tired of having his shoes reeking with the stench of sewage and wanted things to be different.

So the neighborhood of La Difference within Trois Bébés in CS transformed over time with tireless work from the community, and more neighborhoods are undergoing change as you're reading.  (There is even a Cite Soleil Peace Prize!)

Change (chanjman in Creole) comes with a soundtrack, and one of those voices is Gueldy's.

Good night for now!

Late night tracks / Leyla McCalla

Once again, it's a late night and I'm lazing on the couch, listening to songs on repeat.  And maybe the night has a certain velvety atmosphere to it because just like last time, I find myself serenaded by yet another singer-songwriter.  (Nothing wrong with that!)

Tonight's soundtrack features the talents of Leyla McCalla, a New Orleans-based Haitian-American singer with her hands strumming across an ensemble-full of instruments: cello, banjo, guitar - and probably others that are slipping my mind at this hour.

What I enjoy the most is the simplicity of the instrumentation and yet the richness she is able to achieve with such elements.  Some of her songs are in Haitian Creole (kreyol ayitien), some are in English, some are folk songs or based on Langston Hughes poems, but all are soulful and lilting.  It's like having a living room jam session, Nawlins-style.  And something more.

From her new album released earlier this year, Vari-Colored Songs, one of my favorites is "Mesi Bondye," a folk song sung to the jaunty tenor banjo.  Some lyrics (kreyol and English):

Mesi Bondye, gade kijan la mize fini pou nou. 
Mesi Bondye, gade kisa la nati pote pou nou. 
Lapli tonbe, mayi pouse. 
Tout timoun ki grangou, pwale manje. . . .

Thank you God, look how misery has ended for us. 
Thank you God, look what nature has brought for us. 
Rain has fallen, corn has grown. 
All the hungry children are going to eat. . . .

The conclusion is: let's dance!  That should be the conclusion to many things, right?

I didn't find a great video of this song, though, so included a different kreyol song about the Arbonite region of Haiti, with great instrumentation (plus, just watch the musicians get into the groove!).  And here's another:

I discovered Leyla through the Twittersphere, which is serendipitous and makes me feel indebted to Ta-Nehisi Coates, who happened to hear her music in his friend's car.  (Yes, 140 characters can contain this much information.)  This little episode showcases one of the reasons why I even joined Twitter in the first place: the ability to discover unexpected new things, like bread crumbs in the forest when you weren't even looking for food (or a trail).

Late night tracks / Blair Bodine

Blair Bodine — Rosaline from Michael Batchelor on Vimeo.

This is one of those nights when the Tall Man goes to sleep before I do, and I'm whiling away the time with a mix of business and miscellany.

If you're like me, you have a gazillion tabs open at once, like a "reading/watching" list that always seems to grow when I'm not looking.  Well, these late nights are good for reducing those tabs and actually paying attention to those links I opened to "save for later" (when "later" sometimes means "never").

Well, if I could choose someone to croon me to sleep, it would be Blair Bodine, a singer-songwriter and non-profit gur current residing in Nashville.  If you listen to the video above from a recent recording session with Kettle Pot Tracks, you'll agree!

I remember meeting Blair my freshman year in college, when she became my suitemate.  We discovered that we had grown up just 10 minutes away from each other.  Her smile and mighty bear-hug laugh could fill any space.  Her room was the "loud" one in our suite, with late night jam sessions spontaneously bursting out in the wee hours and, during the day, the activity of an equally loud other suitemate who liked to knock the rhythms of Christmas carols on the wall between our rooms.  My own roommate ("Anne from Japan") and I ("eLo") were a bit more mellow in comparison and attempted sleep at 10 or 11pm each night.  We mocked for going to bed soo early for college freshmen, but that just meant that we got nearly nightly serenades from Blair.

Take a listen ... and another ... and be both inspired and rocked into a happy, soulful slumber.