Happy Monday, Everyone! This week’s featured artist is the great Jazz Bassist Mr. Charles Mingus.
CHARLES MINGUS, Freedom (Part I)
CHARLES MINGUS, Freedom (Part II)
Wiki: Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was a highly influential American jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader. Mingus’s compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third Stream, free jazz, and classical music. Yet Mingus avoided categorization, forging his own brand of music that fused tradition with unique and unexplored realms of jazz. He once cited Duke Ellington and church as his main influences.
Mingus focused on collective improvisation, similar to the old New Orleans jazz parades, paying particular attention to how each band member interacted with the group as a whole. In creating his bands, Mingus looked not only at the skills of the available musicians, but also their personalities. Many musicians passed through his bands and later went on to impressive careers. He recruited talented and sometimes little-known artists, whom he utilized to assemble unconventional instrumental configurations. As a performer, Mingus was a pioneer in double bass technique, widely recognized as one of the instrument’s most proficient players.
Nearly as well known as his ambitious music was Mingus’ often fearsome temperament, which earned him the nickname “The Angry Man of Jazz”. His refusal to compromise his musical integrity led to many onstage eruptions, exhortations to musicians, and dismissals.[1] Because of his brilliant writing for midsize ensembles, and his catering to and emphasizing the strengths of the musicians in his groups, Mingus is often considered the heir of Duke Ellington, for whom he expressed great admiration. Indeed, Dizzy Gillespie had once claimed Mingus reminded him “of a young Duke”, citing their shared “organizational genius”.[2]
Donna NoShock @NoShock
Follow
Wow! Wow! Wow!!! -> This Is the 161-Year-Old New York Times Article About 12 Years a Slave http://gawker.com/this-is-the-161-year-old-new-york-times-article-about-1-1535199589 …
6:26 PM – 3 Mar 2014
http://youtu.be/cgAWIoKEuDs
Out of the mouths of BABES. Tell the truth, missy.
Wendell Pierce ✔ @WendellPierce
Follow
Lupita Nyong’o is this year’s it girl! Hopefully Hollywood seize the moment. I would like to co star with her in a remake of A WARM DECEMBER
6:24 PM – 3 Mar 2014
https://twitter.com/VanityFair/status/440625045245665280/photo/1
Lupita was born in Mexico. Watch her give an interview in Spanish. Just thinking about all the little Black girls who speak Spanish listening to her and looking at her.
………………………
http://youtu.be/IYnZo0kkruc
Don’t listen to Obama’s Ukraine critics: he’s not ‘losing’ – and it’s not his fight
The ‘do something’ pundits rear their heads. Just like they did on Iraq, Afghanistan and every other crisis of US ‘credibility’
Michael Cohen
Theguardian.com, Monday 3 March 2014 12.19 EST
In the days since Vladimir Putin sent Russian troops into the Crimea, it has been amateur hour back in Washington.
I don’t mean Barack Obama. He’s doing pretty much everything he can, with what are a very limited set of policy options at his disposal. No, I’m talking about the people who won’t stop weighing in on Obama’s lack of “action” in the Ukraine. Indeed, the sea of foreign policy punditry – already shark-infested – has reached new lows in fear-mongering, exaggerated doom-saying and a stunning inability to place global events in any rational historical context.
This would be a useful moment for Americans to have informed reporters, scholars and leaders explaining a crisis rapidly unfolding half a world away. Instead, we’ve already got all the usual suspect arguments:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/03/obama-ukraine-russia-critics-credibility
Luvvie did an Oscar Post:
10 Reasons Why the 2014 Academy Awards Were the Best EVER
[ 10 ] March 3, 2014 | Luvvie
The 86th Academy Awards was the best one I’ve ever seen and I am so pleasantly surprised. Could this be the beginning of the end of the snoozefest? Let’s hope so. Yesterday, I said I was only watching the Oscars to see if Lupita won and to see some of Ellen’s monologues. I was not planning on watching the whole show because I had work to do and its typically not enough to keep my attention for 3 hours. Well, shut my mouth WIDE open because not only did I watch the entire thing but I actually enjoyed it.
Everyone’s speeches were super dope and memorable, Ellen Degeneres killed it as host and had us laughing every time she was on stage (and even when she wasn’t) and the right people won awards tonight. It was hilarious, engaging and RIGHT.
So let me get into why this Oscars was like no other before it.
Ellen.
………………..
Lupita.
Everything about Lupita Nyong’o at the Oscars was a complete win and she continues to slay effortlessly. First of all, she had the nerve to show up in cotton candy blue, looking like a fairy tale and putting Cinderella’s dress to shame. I lived IMMEJATELY!
Princess Lupita Oscars
She stole the show and looked like the prettiest princess Disney never had. I swooned! Her inability to flaw is just admirable. So flaw deficient that the word flaw has to move out her way when she’s coming.
Then she won for “Best Supporting Actress” for her role in “12 Years a Slave” as Patsey.
And my soul sang and my eyes leaked as if I knew her personally. *lays on the floor rolling on the altar* LOOK AT GAWD WORK IN LUPITA’S LIFE!!! LOOK AT HIM WERKKKKK!!! I needed to call the plumber for my eyes because LUPITA WONNNNNNN!!!
She got on stage and gave another gracious speech that made us all fall in love with her all over again and I couldn’t help but grin. I could not be more proud to see a mirror of myself on the world’s stage, showing brown and black girls everywhere that their wildest dreams can come true and they have a right to them. Her mere existence on that stage is enough to inspire the hell out of anyone.
HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE HER LONG TIME?!?! I’ve signed a multi-year contract to be a member of the Lupettes/Lupistas/Lupitians. Our love is gonna go for a while and I am here for her.
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2014/03/2014-academy-awards-best.html#comment-394700
more pics of Ellen & Co.
10mo old son hates brian Williams but not President Obama.
So FUNNY!
that was hilarious
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/440535737180504064/photo/1
Lidia Kelly @LidKelly
Follow
Russia MICEX index sees its market capitalisation down $58.4 bln in one day – more than the $51 bln or so Moscow spent on Sochi Olympics
8:13 AM – 3 Mar 2014
http://youtu.be/V4wRQOhM9Zs
Love this!
:) I’ll try it!
Michelle Obama to make first trip to China
By Justin Sink March 03, 2014, 10:53 am
First Lady Michelle Obama and her daughters, Malia and Sasha, will take a weeklong trip to China later this month to meet with the wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping as well as high school and university students.
The trip, reported by the Associated Press, will includes stops in Beijing, the ancient city of Xian and the Western economic hub Chengdu. The visit is expected to focus primarily on education, and the first lady and Obama daughters will visit both a high school and university in Beijing as well as a high school in Chengdu.
The March 19-26 trip will be Michelle Obama’s first visit to China, and will overlap partially with President Obama’s trip to the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Saudi Arabia.
http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/china/199692-michelle-o-goes-to-china#ixzz2uv14coya
Whoo Hoo!
http://nj1015.com/girl-costs-family-80k-over-facebook-post/
Michael Jackson’s Estate Now Flush With Cash
After the Prince of Pop’s death almost five years ago, his estate was in financial ruin. Now executors are claiming that the estate is not only out of the black but turning a profit.
By: Stephen A. Crockett Jr.
Posted: March 3 2014 8:13 AM
hen Michael Jackson died almost five years ago, his finances were a disaster. Comedians joked that the llamas on his Neverland ranch were going to be sold as tall pit-bulls in Los Angeles just to recoup money owed to collectors.
Now the executors are claiming that the estate is not only out of the black but turning a profit.
According to documents filed in a California court and viewed by the New York Daily News, the Prince of Pop’s estate now holds $18 million cash and has earned $600 million in revenue.
Jackson’s children, Prince, Paris and Blanket, are the main beneficiaries of the estate and therefore profiting from the influx of cash. According to documents, the three enjoy an $8 million per year luxury lifestyle that includes $3 million on education, $300,000 on vacations—a single trip costs $250,000—$15,000 in pocket money, $600,000 in security and a rental mansion with $28,500 monthly rent, the New York Daily News reports.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/03/michael_jackson_s_estate_now_flush_with_cash.html?wpisrc=mostpopular
Ukraine: What a Difference Partisanship Makes
Mar 2, 2014 by DORIAN DE WIND, Military Affairs Columnist
Meanwhile, as fellow blogger Janet Shan points out, Conservative pundits are wasting no time in slamming President Obama’s handling of the Ukraine crisis.
They are bashing the president for being “all talk and no action,” and are ridiculing his statements of “deep concern” and of “unacceptability” of the Russian actions that “jeopardize” Russians’ relations with the United States and Europe.
On Special Report, Charles Krauthammer explains that when the president says that the United States will stand with the international community he really means that “we are going to negotiate with a dozen other countries who will water down the statement” and that when the president affirms that there will be costs: “meaning in making a statement not even imposing a cost, but in making a statement about imposing a cost — for any military intervention” — whatever that means.
“What [the president is] saying is we’re not really going to do anything and we’re telling the world,” Krauthammer says.
At this point I have to disclose that the president making the remarks, above, about the Russian invasion is not President Obama but rather President Bush in August 2008, during the Russian invasion of Georgia.
However, Krauthammer’s remarks are indeed Krauthammer’s and are directed not at his ideological idol, President Bush, but rather at his favorite punching bag, President Obama, and the comments are in reference to the present Russian military intervention in Ukraine.
I really don’t know what Krauthammer had to say about President Bush’s “deep concern,” “fierce condemnation” and his desire to consult, confer and negotiate “with a dozen other countries” while Russian tanks were rumbling into the city of Gori and thrusting deep into Georgian territory and while, according to Georgian officials, “Gori was looted and bombed by the Russians.”
I don’t know what Krauthammer had to say about Bush debating with allies on “ways to punish Russia for its invasion of Georgia, including expelling Moscow from an exclusive club of wealthy nations and canceling an upcoming joint NATO-Russia military exercise” while “waiting for the results of a European Union initiative led by French President Nicholas Sarkozy” and while Georgia was being trampled by Russian tanks and soldiers.
Today, nearly six years later, Russian troops remain in Georgia.
Read more at http://themoderatevoice.com/192167/ukraine-what-a-difference-partisanship-makes/#Lx08YOZEl4tzhdlh.99
http://ioneblackamericaweb.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/bpomek0cmae2hx7.jpg?w=600
3/2/2014
“Are George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn “protecting” us?”
Excerpt:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Are-George-Zimmerman-and-M-by-Martha-Rosenberg-George-Zimmerman_George-Zimmerman_George-Zimmermans-Girlfriend_Guns-140302-632.html
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/440495517206712320/photo/1
https://twitter.com/BattyMamzelle/status/440388314533593088/photo/1
Oscars WERQ: Lupita Nyong’o in Prada
Posted on March 03, 2014
What? Like this is a surprise. Let’s just get this out of the way.
Did you gasp? We gasped. We admit that the neckline’s a bit too broad and a bit too plunging for our tastes, but the color is ridiculously good on her and the flow of the skirt is breathtaking. Top it off with that regal headband, those stunning earrings and that even more stunning face and you’ve got a killer look. Just perfect.
And could her speech have been any more charming? She better get a ton of work out of this. If not, it’s pitchforks and torches time, amirite?
At any rate, you WERQ that moment, girl. PRINCESS snaps of WIN in an L formation.
http://tomandlorenzo.com/2014/03/oscars-werq-lupita-nyongo-in-prada/
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Rikyrah,& Everyone! :-)
Ametia,
I really LOVE the Charles Mingus selections for today!
Thank you for introducing me to him :)
TYVM! Hope you enjoy the week with Mingus.