Kip Hanrahan | Tenderness | American Clavé

Song Cycle (at least sixteen folk songs from inside the city): 1. “… faith in the pants, not in the prick…” (Vallejo’s Folk Song) 2. “… when I lose myself in the darkness and pain of love, no, this love…” 3. “…she turned so that maybe a third of her face was in this fuckin’ beautiful half-light…” 4. “…at the same time, as the subway train was pulling out of the station…” 5. “…I told him ‘I don’t have to be beaten to be understood’…” 6.“…look, the moon…” (Diahnne’s) 7. “…half of sex is fear…” 8. Gillian’s Folk Song 9. History 10. “…there was something about his anger that was so…inaccessable to me…” 11. “…if I knew how to, if I knew what muscles to relax…” 12. “…you’re no pimp, and I’m certainly no whore…”[wp-audio mp3="http://theshop.free-jazz.net/files/Track137.mp3"] 13. Deep Summer 14. “…look, the moon…” (Carmen’s) 15. in place of an epilog: Lullabye for my Daughter 16. in place of a morale: Geography

All music and words written by Kip Hanrahan except “Gillian’s Folk Song” which was written by Kip Hanrahan and Leo Nocentelli Continue reading

Piri Thomas | Every Child Is Born A Poet | American Clavé

Every Child is Born a Poet: the Life and Work of Piri Thomas is a film that is at the very heart of Piri’s life, soul and vision. He yearns for all unheard broods in every dark part of this disconcerted world to experience refuge, love, joy, creativity, self-esteem and self-fulfillment… to be forever boundless and free. Spiritual emancipation is Piri Thomas’s rite of passage… to repent and rebel through the healing powers of poetry spoken in tongues. Punto! — Juan Sanchez, Visual artist, teacher and activist, June 2005, Brooklyn, New York Continue reading

Kip Hanrahan | All roads are made of the flesh | American Clavé

With it’s subtle evocations of the sexual melodrama of — go, subdued guaguanco rhythms, wisps of Haitian compas and passages of improvisational flair merging together (so that organist Don Pullen’s off-kilter keyboard runs heighten the pulse of the 3/2 clave used throughout), Hanrahan’s new album All Roads are Made of the Flesh is greater than the sum of its parts…. Where much of the new global fusion is rhythm as an intellectual exercise, the rhythms of Hanrahan’s music evoke the many textures of desire and sensuality…” – Peter Shapiro, Wire (London) Continue reading