"Closing Doors: Demise of a Small Record Store"

My friend Mike Johnston of The Northwoods Improvisers sent this my way. It's Tim O'Brien's wonderful and tragic documentary about the decline and death of independent record shops, featuring Mt. Pleasant's New Moon Records.

Closing Doors: Demise of a Small Record Store

Watch it. Heed its warning. And for god's sake, I beg you, stop shopping at the corporate mega-stores! So what if the local, independent folks have to charge a little more: it's a small amount to insure the survival of a true human culture. At Walmart and cronies, the product is you.

'Journey into the Valley' Reviewed on All About Jazz

Journey into the Valley
Faruq Z. Bey with the Northwood Improvisers | Entropy Stereo (2009)


By Clifford Allen

"Though in the jazz world, Detroit and southern Michigan often get the most credit for producing Hard bop talents like Kenny Burrell, Tommy Flanagan and the brothers Jones, there has long been a slow-burning fire of free improvisation and creative music tapping into the Motor City's pulse. Reedmen Faruq Z. Bey and Skeeter Shelton, both onetime co-leaders of the Griot Galaxy, are longtime members of the region's new music community. A somewhat younger set (but not by much) are the Northwoods Improvisers ..." [READ THE FULL REVIEW]

(A review of their song "Rwanda" can be found here.)

Interviewed on "Destination Out"

Mike Johnston, host of the great experimental jazz program "Destination Out" on WCMU Public Radio and bassist for Faruq Z. Bey & The Northwoods Improvisers, called me the other day for an interview and to have me read some poetry for his show.

The interview will air as part of his next broadcast, Sunday, November 16; 11:00 pm (Eastern Time).

If you are in mid- or northern Michigan or the Algoma District of Ontario, you can tune in on one of these stations:

89.5 Mt. Pleasant
90.1 Bay City
91.7 Alpena
95.7 Oscoda
96.9 Standish
98.3 Sault Ste. Marie
103.9 Harbor Springs

Otherwise, you can listen to it online here: http://wcmu.org/radio/listenlivepage.html

We discuss the link between jazz and poetry, current politics, and I read several pieces from both The Moon Cracks Open: A Field Guide to the Birds and Jihad bil Qalam: To Strive by Means of the Pen.

"Rwanda" by Faruq Z. Bey & The Northwoods Improvisers

There are lions and oribi roaming through the savannah during the opening mystery of this song. Dark birds of prey follow their movements.

Mike Gilmore, Nick Ashton and Mike Johnston create a percussive landscape filled with shadow and flashes of light. The flutes of Faruq Z. Bey and Mike Carey begin the journey like winds over the tall grasses and rolling hills, heading toward the volatile waters of Lake Kivu.

When the bass of Johnston thunders into being, you are moving across the surface of the lake, feeling each crest and trough of the blue-black waves of Kivu. The flutes are now calling the barefoot fishermen to dance, dreaming of barbel, catfish and tilapia.

The Tenor Sax of Bey first, and then Skeeter Shelton, pull you into two worlds: you’re still on that deep and dangerous African lake, but at the same time, you are now viewing the streets of Detroit from the backseat of a slow-moving Buick. It’s late summer and the windows are rolled down. The tires hiss and the streetlights flash across your face.

Gilmore’s marimba solo brings you back to that Rwandan plain. Though now you are the lion, stalking the oribi. The saxes come back in, this time with Carey joining the drive and leading the expedition.

Finally, your are returned to the opening mystery. The bass and percussion dissolve the water and land into ethereal winds, and those dark raptors rise in widening circles until they disappear into the silence.


[Faruq Z. Bey & the Northwoods Improvisers Website]

An excerpt of this song is featured in the book trailer for The Moon Cracks Open:


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