How I/We Got Over

100 today if she’d physically stayed on the planet, only 60 when she left it.  I’m writing/researching about Mahalia right now and will write more soon.  Wish I could cut out of these midterms to be in her hometown right now, celebrating with Bernice Johnson Reagon who will give a talk at Xavier tomorrow night called:  “Notes From My Freedom Song Journey and the Solid ‘Sonic’ Grounding of Mahalia Jackson”…my my.

“I’m gonna join the heavenly choir…sing and never get tired” 

Treat yourself to footage of Mahalia singing “How I Got Over” at the March on Washington before Dr. King delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech…this morning watching it I notice how she keeps singing, “how did we make it over” and she blasts this smile to the crowds.  Then just now I found this powerful quote from Rev. Otis Moss, Jr in an essay at the start of the African American Heritage Hymnal:

“It is incomprehensible to think of Dr. King as the leader of a songless movement.  African and African American theology has never been and never will be a songless theology.”

“I Have No Words” Moroccan Hallelujah Moments

(I just came across this draft of a post I was trying to write while in Fez…I’ve have been asked about that trip a couple times recently and notice I’m drinking a lot of mint tea lately in nostalgia…love these photos so here goes an incomplete, belated hallelujah post)

I’m smiling cause right after I typed “I have no words” the power went out…so “I had no words and no wireless” (!)  Joyful greetings from Morocco and the World Sacred Music Festival in Fez, where I am so filled with sounds I don’t yet have the presence to process, so here are just a few images (including the shot I took of the exstatic crowd for a free show of Moroccan legends, Nass El Ghiwane in Bab Boujloud) from my first ever digital camera.

That’s Urbain Phileas from Reunion Island…watching him catch all the spirits for some reason put me back to 2000 D’Angelo’s Voodoo Tour.  And how ’bout that tree?  (This is at the Musee Batha)

And I like this sort of haunted image I got of the ever haunting Youssou N’Dour at Bab Makina.

(Insha’allah I will be able to visit Morocco and this festival again soon and hopefully be more rigorous with my documentation…)