Jive Culture
-
Dancing Girl – Terry Callier. Windy City Mellow.
I remember where I was when I first heard this: the local round-the-way record store. The carpet was checkered with the maytag logo in bittersweet on brown (harkening back to the store’s past life). There we stood in a communal experience that began with the shop owner saying, “You’ve got to hear this record”. We…
-
Baby Be Mine: Johnny Williams’ Record Row Gold
Above, enjoy DuSable High School’s own Johnny Williams with Baby Be Mine, a classically Chicago-styled mid-tempo shuffler. A delicious record, it was recorded at Brunswick Records here in Chicago (1449 South Michigan Avenue, to be exact) for their Subsidiary label, Bashie. Get a whif of those cheering flutes on the tail end. A beast. Pictured…
-
Ronald Fair: Griot of Chicago Tales
1932— Ronald Fair is perhaps best known as a teller of crisp, satirical, and unsentimental Chicago Tales: inner city stories of struggle, morality, and overcoming (not unlike his own Chicago story). Born in Chicago on October 27, 1932, Fair attended public school. He was inspired as a young man by fellow Chicagoan Richard Wright to begin writing.…
-
Tapes Lost to Time: Chicago Stories
I am bothered by tapes that disappear, the same tapes that record our collective story. The sort that get erroneously misplaced, taped over, or buried (true stories, all). It’s happened often in Chicago to bits of media that palpably documented Chicago Cultural History. It seems to have happened too many times for my taste. Here’s a…
-
Operation Breadbasket, the seed of PUSH
I have dedicated a number of posts here at Darkjive to the PUSH Expo, a 1970s exercise in Black Economic Empowerment (or Black Power as it was then known). The PUSH Expo phenomenon was borne from the seed of Operation Breadbasket (a department of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference), but the roots…
-
And now, a word from Chicago’s own Lady Terror
Lady Terror (aka Tricia Hersey-Patrick) says she’s a menace on a mission. Terrorizing for a cause. Be it staging a soapbox rant in front of Rothschild’s Liquors (clamouring for more grocery stores) or engaging in impromptu yoga at a Harold’s Chicken Shack (calling for inner city yoga centers for the sake of public health), her…
-
Tofu Chitlin Circuit Presents: A La Carte, Watermelon Edition (What’s the Funny)
This installment explores comedy through the lens of Stand-up comics & Improv/Sketch groups. Join Tofu Chitlin Circuit at their monthly forum discussion on performance arts issues and controversies. The Bronzeville-based Theatre Conservatory has put together a panel featuring Chicago Improv Festival producer Jonathan Pitts, comedian Meechie Hall, female Asian comic Leah Eva, ‘King of Bronzeville’ Brian Babylon, Cameron…
-
Dancing Lesson: Jamaican Import circa 1964
thanks to Mr. Catano for the headsup on this video…. At the bottom of this post, Tony Verity breaks down ska dancing (quite anthropologically, I might add). Byron Lee and the Dragonaires play backup. Plays out a bit like the movie Hairspray, only with a Jamaican twist (the original, of course…John Waters kept it gritty, yet sufficiently…
-
Esser says: She’s Never Satisfied
I caught the video for “Satisfied” by Esser on cable access recently, and consequently can’t get the tango-inflected song out of my head. British artist Esser is a young chap with a notable ear and notable hair. The level of camp in this clip is high. Sort of makes me crave some Kid Creole &…
-
Mos Def Performs Billie Jean in Chicago
Recorded at the House of Blues here in Chicago a few days back. It’s Mos Def, and his homage to the gloved one: a fresh interpretation of “Billie Jean”. Somehow, it works. Invention isn’t dead, after all. Jive on!
darkjive.com 