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Suite: Oakland A Musical Portrait
Bay Area percussionist and composer It begins with sounds of the ocean. Then a Native American pow-wow chant that segues into melliflous flutes, followed by an Andalusian chord progression, a Mexicano mariachi melody, Cuban rumba and Japanese Taiko drums. These in turn make a transition into gospel and funk. All of the tunes from above are part of Berkeley percussionist Anthony Brown's compact disc in progress, Suite: Oakland, to be recorded by Asian Improv Records in June. “The inspiration came when I was in Japan and talking to a film-maker about filming ocean scenes,” he said. “Oakland is a port city and those cities are often the gateways and crossroads not only to commerce, but to culture. And that's reflected in Oakland's cultural diversity. So I wanted to do something to celebrate Oakland.” In composing the suite, Brown worked with Oakland historian Paris Williams to trace the history of the city's migrant communities from as early as 10,000 years ago. She delineated the patterns of migration and Brown looked at each pattern through a musical perspective. Oakland has a rich legacy of musical traditions, according to Brown. “Oakland was always a cutting edge community for music,” he said. But that was overlooked and Oakland “always stood in the shadow of San Francisco.” With his suite, Brown hopes to bring Oakland into the light. The suite begins with a celebration of Oakland's Native American legacy. The first Native Americans to arrive in the Bay Area belonged to the Huchium tribe of the Ohlone people. To acknowledge their respect for nature, Brown opens his composition with sounds from the Bay. The ensuing chant was inspired by the musical transcription of an Ohlone dance performed at the Presidio in San Francisco. “The Ohlone people who lived here, they lived off the land,” Brown said. “They didn't have to grow anything. They fished off the bay and there were plenty of fruits and natural shrubbery. The whole landscape was transformed when the logging industry came in. Before that, it was essentially a paradise.” In the second movement of the Suite, titled Migraci—n, Brown highlights the influence of the Spanish settlers in Oakland with a medley of warm and lively rhythms. This is then followed by the third movement, The Pacific Rim — A Circle of Fire, in which Brown collaborates with Beijing-born musician Liu Qi Chao and Filipino American musician Melecio Magdaluyo. Liu brings in the unique tones of Chinese instruments with the double-reeded souna and sheng (a Chinese mouth organ), while Magdaluyo brings in the Filipino rhythms and sensibilities of Kulintang art. The subtitle,Circle of Fire has several different meanings, Brown said. “One of them is an allusion to the tectonics and geology of this area. It's the newest coast, so it's still shifting. That`s why they have all the earthquakes here. The other meaning is about looking at the whole Pacific Rim as the new circle of commerce and trade.” Brown experiments for the first time with the Indonesian gamelan in “Water Torture,” which was based on an Indonesian composition called “Srepegan.” It is a piece with a sort of calm, soothing New Agey feel to it that plays with new rhythmic cycles. “It was an adopted language,” he said. The piece is a tribute to the large southeast Asian community that now lives in Oakland. Included in the circle is a piece called “General's Order/E.O.9066,” a contemporary arrangement commemorating the Japanese Americans who were sent to internment camps during World War II. Brown was inspired to write the piece when he came across images of Japanese Americans being removed from their homes at the Oakland Museum's photo archives. The following movement, Mandela Parkway, is a tribute to the former leader of South Africa and to the African American community. Brown credits the members of the African American community as the innovators of the contemporary music scene in Oakland. Three decades worth of musical legacies — encompassing rhythms and blues, funk, gospel and rap all come from Oakland. The pieceSouthern Pacific Railway Blues commemorates Slim Jenkins – a sixties night club where all the best black musicians would perform, according to Brown. “It was a real hangout, a real cultural hub,” he said, particularly for black artists who were not allowed to perform elsewhere during the segregation. Oaktown Strut is an “homage” to the whole funk movement with jazz influences. It is also a celebration of the post-World War II black community that hailed mainly from Texas and New Orleans, but came to Oakland to work on the docks. 5:06 recalls the time and day in 1989 when on of the Bay Area's largest earthquakes in history hit and the Cypress Freeway collapsed. “I remember that day very well,” he said. “When the clock stopped and things fell in the house and the telephone poles outside were waving around.” The Cypress Freeway divided a primarily black neighborhood when it was built, according to Brown. Yet when disaster struck, the neighbors came together to rescue earthquake victims from crushed cars. When Brown included the spiritual, “I Heard From Heaven” in his composition, he was looking for a piece that would reflect those heroic rescue efforts. Some of Oakland's musical innovators include Sly and the Family Stone, Edward Hopkins, MC Hammer, Tony! Toni! Tone! and the Pointer Sisters. “It reflected the real rise then of Oakland becoming a rap center,” Brown said. For instance, Tupac Shakur began his musical career in Oakland with a band called Digital Underground. Brown is an internationally renowned percussionist, composer and ethnomusicoligist leading several musical ensembles from coast to coast. He recently returned from a post as curator of American muiscal cultures at the Smithsonian Institute. He performedSuite Oakland as a multimedia concert at Laney College in April 1992 with an international ensemble he founded, the African EurAsian Eclipse. The stage backdrop featured three multi-level screens for a slide show that accompanied the concert, with images and photos created by Oakland-based artists. The members of Eclipse are as diverse as the music they play. They were drawn from some of the Bay Area's most creative musical groups, including Anana, KWC-Complex, the African Music and Dance Ensemble, Erich Hunt Quartet, Pan-Asian Arkestra, Pete Escovedo Orchestra, Pacific Zheng Ensemble and Brilliant Corners. The instruments ranged from Indonesian gamelan to marimba, harmonica, steel drums, electric and acoustic guitars, saxophones, flutes, shengs, suonas and trombones. “It's a celebration of diversity,” Brown said. “It takes so many different kinds of folks to make the world go round, and that's reflected in the music. The band looks like that. So does the music, all the influences, all the different languages. Music is a language — it's a mirror of cultural values and aspirations. It's basically a whole quiltwork of musical cultures and it seemed to work.” |
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