Part 15 (1/2)
The inside of the hall was no less colorful or joyful Several thousand young people lined the various foyers and corridors of the Garden, pirouetting to the band's genial rhyth their hands and ar woossaown, her face adorned with multihued sparkles and tiny iridescent roup of dancers ”Hey, mister,” she said ”Did anybody ever tell you you have beautiful eyes? I uy?”
In every Dead show I saw, there was always a moment when it becaatherings-and its sanction of the band-was as much the purpose of the shows as was the musical performances As often as not, I found thatof the Buddy Holly hit, ”Not Fade Away” There cauitars, bass, drums, and keyboards would drop out of the sound, and there was only the band and the audience shouting those old and timeless lyrics: ”Love is love and not fade away/Love is love and not fade away”
”Not fade away, the croould shout to the band
”Not fade away,” the band shouted back
”NOT FADE AWAY!” the croled, leaning forward as one
It would go on like that, the two bodies of thishard to one another, bound up in the pro as one was there, the other would always hold a hope
Now that pro with it perhaps one of the last ful dreams of rock & roll community as well In the seasons since Jerry Garcia's death, I have thought oho smiled, touched my face, and danced away into the darkness of the hallway,to the Dead's rhythms And I have wondered: For ill she dance now? Who will stir her hopes? I don't know, but I know this: We are poorer for having lost such dreaet
I don't knohether to ainst all the terrible forces-including the artist's own self-destructive temperament-that have resulted in such a wasteful, unjustifiable end I do know this, though: Whatever its causes, the e twenty-four, has robbed us of one of thevoices of recent years He embodied just as much for his audience as Kurt Cobain did for his That is, Tupac Shakur spoke to and for rown up within (and maybe never quite left) hard realities-realities that mainstream culture and media are loath to understand or respect-and his death has left his fans feeling a doubly-sharp pain: the loss of a nifier, and the loss of a future volume of work that, no doubt, would have proved both brilliant and provocative
Certainly, Shakur was aeneration of rappers, often pitting his dark-toned staccato-yet-elastic cadences against lulling and clever musical backdrops, for an effect as memorable for its melodic contours as for its rhythmic verve In addition, his four albuainst the World, and All Eyez on Me (a fifth album, Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, was released under the nae of rap's thematic and emotional breadth In the first two albums alone, you could find moments of uncommon tenderness and compassion (the feminine-sympathetic portrayals in ”Brenda's Got a Baby” and ”Keep Ya Head Up”), astute political and social observation (”Trapped,” ”Soulja's Story,” and ”I Don't Give a fuck”), and also declarations of fierce black-against-black anger and brutality (the thug-life anthems ”Last Wordz” and ”5 Deadly Veno mix especially notable was how credible it all see in respectful praise and defense of woue about ”bitches” and ”ho's”-or could boast of his gangster prowess one moment, then condemn the same doomed mentality in another track-and you never doubted that he felt and meant every word he declaimed Does that make him sound like a confusedto own up to and examine his many contradictory inclinations, and I suspect that quality, more than any other, is what made him such a vital and empathetic voice for so ifted actor (his first perfore production of A Raisin in the Sun)-though he wasn't especially well served by such e films as Poetic Justice and Above the Rih it contains Shakur's best perfor Related, were released in 1997) In Juice, Shakur played Bishop-a young man anxious to break out of the dead-end confinements of his community, and who settles on an ar his stature, his ”juice” Once Bishop has a gun in his hand, everything about his character, his life, his fate, changes He shoots anything that obstructs hi friends He kills si so he will eventually shoot through the one thing that hurts him the most: his own troubled heart ”I am crazy,” he tells a character at one point ”But you knohat else? I don't give a fuck” Shakur speaks the line with such sure and frightening coldness, it is impossible to knohether he informed it with his own experience, or whether he was si personal ethos
But it ith his two final recordings-Me Against the World and All Eyez on Me-that Shakur achieved as probably his best realized andwork The two albums are like major statements about violence, social realism, self-willed fate, and unappeasable pain,sensibilities Or they could be read as the corowth-except in Shakur's case, it appears that the growth htenainst the World (recorded after he was shot in a 1994 robbery and during his i a woman) was the eloquent moment when Shakur paused to examine all the trouble and violence in his life, and measured not only his own complicity in that trouble but how such actions spilled into, and poisoned, the world around him
In All Eyez on Me, released a year later on Death Row Records, Shakur gave way to almost all the darkness he had ever known-and did so brilliantly Indeed, Eyez is one of the most melodically and texturally inventive albums that rap has ever produced-and also one of the most furious Tracks like ”California Love” and ”Can't C Me” are rife with sheer beauty and exuberance, and even sos (”Heartz of Men,” ”2 of Ae Me,” ”Got My Mind Made Up”) boast gorgeous surfaces over their pure hearts of stone In both albuainst the sa down on top of hi way So he stood there, waiting, and while he waited, he thof the Eyez project-and possibly of Shakur's career-appears as an extra cut on the ”California Love” single: a track called ”Hit 'E is an attack aimed (mainly) at Sean ”Puffy” Coie Smalls (the Notorious BIG) In the last couple of years, these figures had becoht, owner and co-founder of Death Row Records, and Shakur indicated that he suspected they were involved in his 1994 shooting As a result, ”Hit 'E-it was Shakur's salvo of revenge and warning ”I fucked your bitch, you fat ie S to a rumor about BIG's wife and Shakur But that boast is trite compared to what follows: ”Who shot me?” he barks ”But you punks didn't finish Now you're about to feel the wrath of the e: ”You want to fuck with us, you little young ass motherfuckers?” he rails ”You better back the fuck up or you get sin' draonna kill ALL you ie, fuck Bad Boyand if you want to be doith Bad Boy, then fuck you tooDie slow a? We the as beltsWe bad boy killers/We kill 'e remotely like Tupac Shakur's breathless perfor to pop ression-enough toin punk seem flaccid by comparison Indeed, ”Hit 'Em Up” truly crosses the line from art and ht think Shakur was telling his enemies: We will kill you co last thirty seconds of the track It's as if Shakur were saying: Here I aet you first (In a horrible echo of Shakur's own end, the Notorious BIG was also gunned down a few eles) SO: A MAN SINGS about death and killing, and then the reat temptation for many to view one event as the result of the other And in Tupac Shakur's case, there's so about violence; he also participated in a fair amount of it As Shakur hiazine appropriated for their headline covering his murder: WHAT GOES 'ROUND COMES 'ROUND Still, I think it would be a great disservice to dislib headline su him
I suspect also that Shakur's death will be cited as justification for yet another caainst hardcore rap and troublesome lyrics By this point, it's become one of the perennial causes of the last decade In 1989, the FBI got into the act by contacting Priority Records to note the bureau's official distaste for the groundbreaking group NWA's unyielding, in-your-face song, ”fuck tha Police” In 1990, Neeek ran a cover story titled ”Rap Rage, Yo!,” calling rap a ”streetwise ,” and three years later thecover posting the question: WHEN IS RAP 2 VIOLENT? In 1992, conservative interest groups and riled police associations pressured Warner Bros Records to delete ”Cop Killer” from Ice-T's Body Count album (subsequently, Warner's separated itself from Ice-T) And in 1995, moralist activists Willia Warner's to break the label's ties with Interscope Records, due to Interscope's support of a handful of hardcore rap artists-including Tupac Shakur You can alument: ”Look what has come from the depraved world of rap: real-life murder on the streets! It's tiether unlikely that such a caht have so to reports in various newspapers and tradewhether any further associations with rap and its bad ie will be worth the political heat that labels will have to face
It is true, of course, that certain figures in the rap community have taken their inflaenuinely deadly level It is also saddening and horrible to witness such lethal rivalry between somen with such innovative talents-especially when these artists and producers share the sort of coether Death Row and Bad Boy could have a true and positive impact on black America's political abilities-but that can't happen if the co away at perceived-eneful or valuable victories are to be had
At the saained by censuring hardcore rap-or at least that course would offer no real solutions to the very real problenifies For that matter, it would only undermine much of rap's considerable contribution to popular culture Rap began as a means of black self-expression in the early 1980s, and as itart form of hip-hop, it also became a vital means of black achievean to report on and reveal many social realities and attitudes that ave voice and presence to truths that al to accoaz4Lifeto some observers, but NWA didn't invent the resent about Nor did Ice-T, Ice Cube, or the Geto Boys invent the ghetto-rooted gang warfare and drive-by shootings that they sometimes rapped about These conditions and dispositions existed long before rap won popular appeal (also long before the explosive LA riots of 1992), and if hardcore rap were to disappear tomorrow, that state of affairs would still exist
What disturbed so uilty for-is how vividly and believably it gave force to the circumstances that the music's lyrics and voices illue and sexist debasement-to many, in fact, it came across as actual threat As one journalist-author friend told ystyle: ”I don't buy records froly, such music fans didn't seeroups like the Rolling Stones, the sex Pistols, the Clash, and several others also sang about e, and cultural havoc
Tupac Shakur, like many other rappers, intoned about a world that he either lived in or witnessed-in Shakur's case, in fact, there was a good deal less distance between lyrics and life than is the case with ures Soer and aspired to rise above being doomed by that delimitation; sometimes, he succumbed to his worst predilections And far too often he participated in actions that only spread the ruin: He was involved in at least two shootings, numerous vicious physical confrontations, several rancid verbal assaults, and was convicted and served time for sexual abuse In the end, perhaps Shakur's worst failing was to see too rounds similar to his as his real and mortal enemies
But listen to Tupac Shakur before you put his life away You will hear the story of aas if he didn't fit into any of the worlds around hi that he had been pushed out frohborhoods that he grew up in You will also hear the ifts for sharp, smart, funny perceptions, and for lyrical and ance And, of course, you will hear soly stuff-threats, rants, curses, and admitted memories that would be too h, you hear the tortured soul-searching of a reith and endured so much pain, rancor, and loss that he could never truly overcohtside up, despite all his gifts and all the acceptance he eventually received
In case anybody wants to dismiss thisa ti us that we are vulnerable to people who live in another America-an America made up of those who are fearsome, irresponsible, lazy, or just plain bad; an Aht hard lessons And so we have elected to teach these others their hard lesson In the years immediately ahead, as a result of recent political actions, so like a million kids will be pushed into conditions of poverty and all that will co soine how e from this adventure-all those smart kids, who despite whatever talents they'll possess, will not be able to overcome the awfulness of their youths, and ill end up with blood on their hands or chest, or both
Indeed, what goes 'round co for others is ultimately the America ill make for ourselves It will not be on the other side of town It will be right outside our front doors
ella fitzgerald: grace over pain
Tierald's death in ht, you heard the sareat and whatAmerica's most prized jazz and pop vocalists because, unlike soin a voice that did not confess pain-indeed, she did not allow the emotional realities of her life to infuse or consu one It is true that Fitzgerald did not live a life that made the headlines, unlike Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra, whose legends and whose art see by rhythms born of darkness and despair It is also true that, whereas Holiday found a personal release in the expression of other writers' material, and Sinatra understood the emotional fiber of a lyric better than any other vocalist of the century, Fitzgerald seeing in favor of exalting the purity of melodic composition itself She was often called an instruiven to form, tone, mellifluence, and a brilliant ability to i's cadence and a band's beat Listening to Ella, enuity and balance, and because those things were such a wonder to hear, it did not appear that anguish ht be a part of what had shaped her creativity
Still, there was real pain-possibly even horror-in Ella Fitzgerald's early life, and it al her artistry She was born in Newport News, Virginia, in 1917, the child of a coe She never knew her father-he left the family while she was an infant-and her er That hen her true troubles began According to a 1996 New York Tierald was abused by her stepfather following her e fifteen, was taken in by an aunt in Harle nu street prostitutes avoid police searches Eventually, she was caught by authorities and ended up in an orphanage, the New York State Training School for Girls, where, according to Bernstein's reportage, Fitzgerald-like irls crowded into the school's decaying cottages and dark bases by male staffto at least one source, Fitzgerald never forgot her hatred of that experience
But Ella also found a way to transcend-or at least to drea-so and show dancing, and aspired to dance professionally in one of Harlee as a dancer at an amateur contest at the Apollo Theater, but when her htened to dance Instead, she opened her -a rendition of Connee Boswell's ”The Object of My Affection”-and she won first prize
After that, Ella caught the attention of saxophonist Benny Carter, who had played with bandleaders Fletcher Henderson and Chick Webb Carter pestered a reluctant Webb to give the ungainly-looking young singer a try, and after Ella won the favor of the bandleader's audiences, he arranged for her parole froerald becaest hit, ”A-Tisket, A-Tasket” When Webb died in 1939, Ella became the band's leader for a ti sensibility and her remarkably lucid talent as a balladeer In 1942, she went solo, and as jazzto the coerald's style She was one of the first singers to take the innovations of alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and apply their bebopstyle ofthat beca, and next to Billie Holiday, it established her as the most influential and admired vocalist in jazz
It wasn't until the an to make a major contribution to the recorded body of popular music For several years, jazz producer Norman Granz had featured Ella in his Jazz at the Philharmonic productions-an annual tour series that featured such instru, Cole improvisational jamborees Granz caely wasted on trite, novelty-thy tenure at Decca To offset that mistake, he set out, in 1956, on as considered by er herself) as a risky venture: He would pair Fitzgerald with the great songs of America's finest Tin Pan Alley, BroadwayBerlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Jeroers and Lorenz Hart, Johnny Mercer, and Duke Ellington-in effect creating aThe results proved not only popular and groundbreaking (along with Sinatra's Capitol albus helped define the conceptual possibilities in the new long-player album format), but also historic in the best sense There have been nureat composers of Areat interpreters of that work But nobody outside of Fitzgerald and Granz ever set out to define an entire era's ed to do so with such an epic effect Forty years later, the series still stands as a o on to make several other fine albums for Granz on Verve and his subsequent Pablo label, and would also join in(her most consistent vocal partner), and Frank Sinatra and Count Basie But after the Songbooks-as before them-she was esteemed primarily for her prowess as a live artist I had the pleasure of seeing Fitzgerald in concert a few ti the arded to be in decline, though I've often been drawn to aging singers; it is both instructive and poignant to hear how an older vocalist reconciles earned ee and breath control To my ears, Ella really didn't have much to compensate for; she was, in fact, probably the most vibrant jazz vocalist I've ever watched She could steer through such larks as ”Sweet Georgia Broith asense, cheery phrasing, classical tonality, and gospel-inflected soulfulness with a dizzying aptitude In addition, her frequent duets with her longtiton songs-such as ”Satin Doll,” in which Ella wove a ue around Pass'and joyful Clearly, she had been around this same territory many times before; she knew every s to his favorite homeward route And yet, like a driver who couldn't resist kicking new life into faht an impulsiveness to theride for anybody within range
In her later years, Fitzgerald was beset by increasingly debilitating physical proble eye cataracts, heart trouble, and diabetes She kept perfor In the following year, the condition led to the as below the knee After that, Ella stayed close to her hoain in public, but there was really no need For over half a century, she expressed re, but her voice wasn't just a pleasure to hear: It was also an a in tones filled with joy, but her joy was not a si-it was a joy born from her self-willed refusal to succuradation that her childhood had known Ella Fitzgerald's victories were all her own, and the rest of us-anybody who ever loved her or her voice-can only hope that soh to witness such glorious and hard-won grace in popular erous , 1996 I am seated with several other people on the floor of a bedrooh up in the hills of Benedict Canyon Through the plate glass doors on one side of the roo to fade, and a breeze soughs through the trees and bushes in the house's back yard On the bed before us lies a gaunt, ageda restive sleep
We have all gathered into this room for the same purpose: We are here to watch this man as he takes sleep's journey to death It is not the sort of thing thatis Dr Timothy Leary-one of the ists of the last forty years, and a guiding iconic figure of the countercultural tu pro clinical researcher, helped develop the theory of transactional analysis-effectively changing the doctor-patient relationshi+p in y-and it was Leary, who only a few years later, conducted a provocative series of psychedelic experiments at Harvard University that helped pave the way for an era of cultural and psychosocial upheaval
But nothing Leary has done in the years since has stirred asfor his death A year and a half ago, Leary learned that he had fatal prostate cancer-and he pro almost nobody does in such a situation: He celebrated the news Leary announced to family, friends, andthe same way he once explored the alternative realities afforded by drugs: with daring and with huh, Leary's proclaested that when the efforts of ht take one last psychedelic, drink a suicide cocktail, and have the whole affair televised on his World Wide Web site Then, following his death, a crew of cryonics technicians would co his brain Needless to say, these sort of hints have attracted a fair amount of media interest and have also stirred disdain and criticisht-to-death advocates who felt Leary wasn't taking dying soh ”They'd have me suffer in silence,” he once told me, ”so I can save them the pain”
But when all is said and done, Leary is not dying outrageously Rather, he is dying quietly and bravely, surrounded by people he loves and who love hih, he is still Ti to say
Around 6:30 in the evening he wakes, blinks, wincingfa his stepson, Zachary Leary, and his former wife, Rosemary, who once helped him escape a California state prison and flee the United States He winks at Rose at the rest of his visitors-says: ”Why?”
He smiles, tilts his head, then says: ”Why not?”
A couple of people in the roooes on like that for a few”Why not?” over and over, in different inflections, sometimes funny, sometimes sad At one point he says, ”Esperando”-Spanish for: ”Waiting” A few moments later, after another litany of ”why nots,” he will say, ”Where's the proof?” And still later: ”Go now”
He looks back to Rosemary and mouths: ”I love you,” and she mouths the same back to him Finally, barely above a whisper, he says ”Why?” twice more, then drifts back into his heavy sleep
I FIRST MET Timothy Leary only a feeeks before his death I approached him nervously
Like e in the 1960s, I had been influenced by Leary's spirit and by his teachings As a result I had taken psychedelics-ht see visions that would change uess that's what happened I re for God (a required acid activity at so that God was indeed dead-or that at least if God was a divine power that e and condemn us for our frailties and desires and madnesses, then he was dead in my own heart and conscience Exit God Hasn't been seen since
Another ti after a brother of ood idea), and I plunged into as called (appropriately, I decided) a bad trip That night I saw the death of e-the deaths of my ancestors, the deaths of my parents and brothers, the deaths of the children I had not yet had (and still have not had), and, of course, the death of ht and watched death ht to the ar came It was the only sunrise I have ever been happy to see I was not the saain