I’d like to call your attention to an era barely mentioned in any of the obituaries of the great singer songwriter Abbey Lincoln, a time when she literally found her voice. Even Wikipedia is silent on what she was doing between 1970 and 1990, but I know she was working hard, because I saw her perform in New York City five or six times in the 1980s. You may have heard the expression “command a room,” but if you did not see Abbey Lincoln sing at the Village Vanguard in those years, you do not truly understood what that means.

As for recordings, this period begins with People in Me, an album recorded in 1973 but released in 1978 on Inner City Records. Recorded in Japan with Dave Liebman, Al Foster, James Mtume and some local musicians, this was her first album since 1961’s Straight Ahead. People in Me represented her first somewhat mature steps as the artist we would come to know—wholly original poetic songs, a beautiful and fully confident voice, an approach that made no bones that she was the unquestionable “owner” of her current repertoire, and a rhythmic pulse she was unafraid to use in order to shape a song and push her fellow musicians into following her.

The next decade found her working with a range of musicians and releasing some of her most interesting recordings. Golden Lady, released on Inner City Records in 1981, features Archie Shepp and a number of compositions that would become standards in her own oeuvre: “Painted Lady,” “Throw It Away” and “Caged Bird.” This album also hints at her ability to identify material by others that she would make her own, like Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” and Stevie Wonder’s “Golden Lady.” That same year, Maestro, an album by Cedar Walton on Muse Records, featured her vocals—her version of “In a Sentimental Mood” is so convincing that you’d swear it was written for her.

In 1984, she released the album Talking to the Sun, issued on the German label Enja. Here she was totally in charge, picking young New York-based musicians as her band and doing the arrangements. As she says in the liner notes: “Everything I sing about deals with some kind of freedom. Mostly it’s freedom of the spirit.” I’m guessing that’s what led her to record two live discs of her singing songs associated with Billie Holiday in the late 80s. Though occasionally marred by the recording and some of the playing, it is still a joy to hear Lincoln’s takes on some of these classics.

Every time I go to the post office, I’m surprised at the range of the new stamps I see for sale. It’s hard to believe that every single theme was deemed worthy of releasing as a series, but there you have it: Cowboys of the Silver Screen, Adopt a Shelter Pet, and the Simpsons. Every ethnic and special interest group appear to be quite well served with stamps enabling them to express themselves on every piece of communication they send through the U.S. Mail. Granted, we send fewer and fewer letters these days, but it does seem that stamps are the new bumper sticker, though with an audience of one: the recipient of a piece of mail.

Within a very limited piece of real estate, a message has been crafted on a every single one, the essence of which is something along the lines of “I like National Parks,” “I celebrate Hanukkah,” or “I identify with the Navy.” Because the stamp designers are acutely aware of scale, they’re able to communicate their messages efficiently in these small spaces. Sometimes they even play with scale–the Abstract Expressionist series has many different sizes, just like the paintings they represent.

The Post Office has taken the idea of personal expression to its ultimate conclusion, however. You’re now able to use an image of your choosing to create a personalized stamp. (I have to say that the examples on the USPS site are not particularly inspiring—see images to the left .)

Will we be seeing stamps soon specially concocted for elections? They certainly don’t seem to be pushing that on their website, but with this year’s Supreme Court decision to allow corporations to openly support candidates for office, it may only be a matter of time. Maybe bumper stickers are on the way out.

Puerto Rico. Palm trees. Beaches. Sun. Rum. And almost 4 million people—about 1,000 people per square mile. At the end of the Spanish Civil War, the island was ceded to the U.S., and though the people of Puerto Rico were all made U.S. citizens in 1917, they’ve lived in an incorporated territory for a long time.

There’s a bill now in Congress to authorize a plebiscite that could give voters in Puerto Rico the option to become a full-fledged state. Just how would they  bring “Old Glory” up to speed?

Hmmmmmmm……….

Janis Joplin performing in San Jose in 1968. (Photo by Jim Marshall)

History changes with time. Views of the past are said to be products of the era in which they are examined, and  I think this is also true on a much smaller scale: how we, as individuals, understand the world at any given moment.

From time to time, I will revisit something—a recording, an artist, a piece of literature—to see if I still dislike it. Occasionally I change my mind. Why? Just as our understanding of historical events changes because of where we sit, so, too, does our take on specific examples of culture because of the time in which we live or the experiences we’ve accumulated over the years.

Last night I decided to do the opposite of my usual exercise—rather than wanting to check on whether something was as “bad,” as I remembered it, I wanted to verify that I was holding onto a memory that still resonated with who I am now. When I was in 9th grade, Janis Joplin returned to Austin, Texas after a long absence to give a concert. My remembered experience places the performance among the best I’ve ever seen. That is saying a lot—I see live music as often as I can, though it feels more and more like “I’ve heard that already.”

A music blog I was reading recently included a link to two clips of Joplin performing during the last years of her life on the Dick Cavett show. She goes from being interviewed (about 2 minutes in) to a stage with her band and inhabiting the songs in a way that most musicians can only dream of. Her official recordings—mostly done in a studio—do not reflect the amazing transformation that took place on those television studio stages. As I had only these albums as touchstones, I began to doubt the validity of my experience. I am happy to report that the videos I saw eliminated any doubt about my memory of the concert I attended.

It occurs to me I was also confirming something about myself. We accumulate a wealth of core experiences throughout our lifetime, and these things contribute to defining who we are. There was something about the honesty and directness of Joplin’s performance that made me realize how important it is to remember what is possible in a world defined by the status-quo. It takes courage and commitment to get to magic. Maybe we should reprise the slogan “Be Here Now.”

Excuse me, I have to sign off now. I’ve got to watch that video again.

NOTE:

Check out the book Trust: The Photographs of Jim Marshall.

Too often we dismiss white space in art and print and silence in music as nothing. The reality is that it is very much something—as much a part of what we understand about the art we encounter as what we might call the substantive part. In fact, the absence of these “nothings” would propose very different readings of pieces before us.

In Josef Alber’s famous book, Interaction of Color, he talks about how colors do not exist in a vacuum. Individual colors are understood in context; that is, what surrounds a color is an important part of how we perceive it.

The same is true in music. Morton Feldman composed many pieces that forced his listeners to consider notes differently than usual because of the space with which he surrounded them. Remove them, and they become entirely different pieces.

Of course, the most famous piece about silence, 4’33″ by John Cage, is not really about silence at all. It is about listening.

Besides the reverb which bathes each recording on the German label ECM, every one of their CDs start with 4 or 5 seconds of silence. In this way, the first sounds of the performance are heard differently than if they began instantaneously. That approach has another effect: it separates the music you are about to hear from the world of ordinary sounds. (Think of what we consider to be ordinary sounds these days as compared to 100 years ago!) It is the label’s way of setting the experience apart from normal life, should you choose to really listen. Not unlike what is attempted during the services in sacred buildings.

A print or drawing with a mat around it in a frame is saying the same thing: this is special—pay attention, and you’ll be rewarded. The “white space” of the mat helps to ensure that other elements in the area in which the art is displayed do not become part of the viewer’s experience.

Often I have clients tell me that I have an excellent opportunity to add more information to an ad or brochure because of the white space I have employed—usually used deliberately to make the piece more effective. The irony is that less will be communicated because it would have become more difficult for a viewer to enter and engage with the material. (In many cases, it is a question of the client not having gone through the exercise of deciding what are the most important messages to be delivered and wanting to cover all their bases: a case of too much is not enough.)

I’ve talked about the effect that these “nothings” have on the “substantive” part of things, but what about looking at it the other way around? The spaces and silences are all bordered by their opposite, and so are limited by their borders. Sounds like shapes to me—again, that’s really something!

Long live nothing.