'Toward End of Candomblé'
A poem from Salvador, Bahia, Brasil, performed with DHYANI DHARMA MAS and then with ALEX DE GRASSI and HAMID DRAKE. One audio, one video, and many other LINKS.
Hamid Drake and Alex de Grassi perform ‘Toward End of Candomblé’ with me in a Benefit for the SPACE Theater, Ukiah, California, April 14, 2014.
Above, a collage by Matt Gonzalez, titled with you on the vocal chords bridge. Matt’s art relates to the ‘ […] Candomblé’ poem, to powerful women and free expression, and to the musicians I want to share with you here.
August 11, 2024
Women’s exploits in Track & Field at the Paris Olympics over the past 10-or-so days have reminded me of ‘Another lesson’, taught by a Madré of Candomblé through the ‘JOLT and JOLT’ (see below) that her hands and her consciousness provided.
As always, athletes have exceeded their Olympic settings. Athletes are artists in their devotion and pursuits. Boy, Wow, and Hallelujah, have we seem many, men as well as women, excel in disciplines that now range from Break-Dancing to Weight-Lifting!
Transcendent they are in the edges of human consciousness that they explore, the powers of mind and body they push past limits! And the smiles!! The transcdendent smiles! The smiles of individual and team Medalists! They give us exultant emblems of joy from fulfillment. They express powers of which Madré Maria dos Nevés wanted —’Shoving to spin / Shoving to spin’—to remind me are our deliverers of breakthroughs. Many Olympic Medal-winners thank God or Allah or another author of Creation for enabling their performance.
Video-still of U.S. and Netherlands’ Womens’ 4 X 400 Meters Teams celebrating after their finishing 1st and 2nd respectively in the Olympic Final, August 10, 2024.
The musicians here, Dhyani Dharma Mas on Guitar and then Alex de Grassi on 18-string Sympitar and Hamid Drake on Frame-Drum, are themselves Champions, I think. All great!
Before we began our project of recording the album Poems from Flares in Summer 2004 (the book Flares was published in 2002, as I remember, with a nice Foreword by Matt Gonzalez), Dhyani said that he wanted his “arm” to be “the extension” of my voice. His “arm” I took to mean Dhyani’s boundlessly profound gifts and skills with Guitars. Likewise, Alex and Hamid with instruments to which they, too, have devoted decades. Watch how Alex is compelled to simply pause as Hamid works his Frame-Drum into patterns so complex and rapid that they exceed anything that can be programmed…. Kind of like athletes in their external and internal competitions and expressions exceed boundaries. Kind of like the divine powers we can find in Salvador, Bahia and everywhere.
‘Toward End of Candomblé’ with Dhyani in his very compact, say, apartment in San Francisco’s Mission District (16th and Folsom, to be more precise), Summer 2004.
Photo above by the painter Julig, Dhyani’s partner, in 2004.
The painting by Julig, ‘Virgin Field’, that serves as front-cover for Dhyani’s and my album Powers from Flares with Guitar.
‘Toward End of Candomblé’ with Alex and Hamid in the SPACE Theater of Ukiah, California, April 14, 2014, during our benefit for the SPACE school there. Thank you again, great Frey Vineyards, for your sponsorship here.
Flares somehow $902.81 through Amazon in 2021. I don’t know how that $2.81 came into the picture—I don’t know how any of this online-sales stuff happens.
The poem is on page 3 of the 2001 book.
Matt Gonzalez, as said, wrote a nice, I think, Foreword for Flares, shortly after he was elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors in the year 2000.
One of Matt’s deep collages is below. His art is represented through the Dolby Chadwick Gallery. He has many colorful sides!
Above, Matt Gonzalez’s collage titled with you on the vocal chords bridge.
RESOURCES
HAMID DRAKE
https://thequietus.com/interviews/bakers-dozen/hamid-drake-interview-favourite-music/
http://www.vilniusjazz.lt/2022/performer.php?id=1662390647
ALEX DE GRASSI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_De_Grassi
DHYANI DHARMA MA
Hamid Drake Alex de Grassi and your poem "Toward End of Candomble" (had to look up that word)
at 5 a.m. led to much more Hamid Drake. Amazing all of it thank you. Here's my cut -up (?)of Matt Gonzalez' titles (such a terrific forward to your book!)which I quickly did while listening again to it all. I want to change it maybe - but that's how it came so...
Just wonderful! Your poet voice yes, over the years, yes so moving. Many thanks.
Enshrined Blue
Thistle-loaded language blooms
as how else
Quince yellow outside
skyward, slow-motion choirs sing
Beauty will be lifted
Pushed through the lifted arms.