the saxophone player introduced the song saying this song is about when you call someone you love for no other reason than to tell them. the quintet was covering Stevie Wonder. they all looked like they were having such a good time, as did the people there, as was i. the groove is in the heart.
at the protests this week, the songs and the instruments carried the energy, held the conviction. at different points a tuba, noisemakers, a trombone, people singing, people dancing. people moving together. and the drums. the chant also a song. the gathering a commitment to life force. the people hit the street to express their devotion, children, elders, in the wind under the grey skies.
Joseph Jarman (a musician himself) wrote in the opening of his poetry collection Black Case Vol. I & II, “Exile is a state of mind that people get into in order to escape from the reality of themselves in the world of the now - is is a safe place inside the mind full of mostly lies and false visions that allow the being to think that it is free of the responsibility of living in a world with all other living things. if you are “in Exile” this book as small as it is - is to say to everyone, without exception, that you are loved and can indeed RETURN.”
i think about whiteness as a condition of exile, of militarism as a condition of exile.
we can. without exception.