Who wants your video: the Jazz Journalists Association
What kind of video: produced and posted publicly in 2012
Time: under 10 minutes
Content: NOT basically performance videos or animations.”
Application form: Please use this simple form http://bit.ly/WapBaA
Deadline: none
Related post: Event review: 2011 Jazz Journalism Awards
Here’s last year’s award winner: The making of jazz saxophonist JD Allen’s album, “Victory”.
Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
WFMU is one of my favorite community radio stations on earth. I was there once: Sunday, April 12th, midnight – 3am: Kurt Dahlke aka Pyrolator, a German DJ, producer, label owner and electronics specialist, and me appearing as a guest on tenor sax. The host was Daniel Blumin. During the three hours long interview we played in between live music. The music we performed was a mix of ambient, minimal, noise and a little touch of oriental sounds. I really enjoyed the performance and also the interview was very well done by Daniel. He knew almost everything about Kurt’s career. Before the show started Daniel guided us through the whole radio station. Especially the LP archive was very impressive (watch the video below).
WFMU is now hosting the Hell and High Water fundraising marathon and DooBeeDoo is supporting it.
Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
In April when I was shopping with my wife at CB2, a furniture store in Manhattan, I started a conversation with the CB2 doorman who was from Burkina Faso and has been living in New York for a while. He came to the States for only one simple reason: to make some money here. When we talked about music, I asked him, whether he knows the NY/Burkina Faso band BURKINA ELECTRIC which he didn’t know. Then we talked about his country and it’s name. He told me that it got its deep name from Thomas Sankara in 1984 who was the president of that time. Burkina Faso stands for “the land of upright people” made out by the two major native languages Mòoré and Dioula, Figuratively, Burkina could be translated to “men of integrity” from the Mòoré language, and Faso means “fatherland” in Dioula. This doorman was surprised that I didn’t know anything about his hero and inspiration Thomas Sankara. I promised him that I would do some research and write about him in DooBeeDoo.
Before I say anything about Sankara I would like to say, how I think about the continent Africa and the African countries. First of all I love Africa, its people and of course its music. I have played with a lot of African musicians from Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, South Africa, Morocco, etc… As you know I love Salif Keita from Mali whom I owe a lot as a musician. Playing with my African music colleagues taught me that there’s no way from my side to superimpose my way of thinking on them. But, if I’m their leader and they respect and trust me, they would listen to me. Good examples of respected leaders in the African music world are musicians such as Salif Keita, Yousou N’Dour, Doudou N’Diaye Rose, Fela Kuti, Baaba Maal, etc.They don’t play only music but represent their people and get involved with them as well. You could call them music activists. When they make money, part of it goes to their community or village. Some of them get involved into politics and try to become a senator or even the president of their country. Fela Kuti and Yousou N’Dour are very good examples.
Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
Due to my trip to Tokyo I can’t doobeedoo constantly for a while. I’ll be back to New York September 13th.
Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
One of my heroes, when I was a teenager, was Muhammad Ali. I loved him for what he was and stood for. He was not only a boxer but also a political activist. I loved the way he expressed himself inside and outside of the ring. I still remember when I was a teenager watching his fights late at night in front of the black and white TV due to the time difference between the US and Germany. It was exciting to watch him fighting and talking in the ring. Although Ali was such a great boxer I never thought of becoming a boxer myself. Guess I was scared and knew that boxing is a dangerous sport.
When Ali retired I lost interest in boxing. But this changed again when I met my wife who loved boxing. It was the time when Mike Tyson became a big shot and eventually achieved something nobody of his change had ever achieved by that time: becoming the youngest heavy weight world champ!
