NOTICE BOARD in Jamaican Forum

......Black By.....

Black
By The Depth Of My Involvement,
By The Weightiness Of My Commitment,

Black
By That Of My Environment,
By Those With Whom I co-exist..

 Black
By Birth Due To The Colour Of My Skin,
Upon Which My Dreams Might One Day Depend..

 Black
 By When It Was And Where It Was That
Slavery Begun...
Black
By Your One-Drop Rule,
By The Looks I get..

Black
By The Box That You Insist I must Check..

 Beautiful,
Nonetheless,
By The Uniqueness
And Awareness
Of Knowing
Where I stand
And In Knowing
Who It Is That I Am

_ butterflynflight

found this in a forum posted16 Apr 2006
do not know if this is the original author. but it's good

Good and Evil

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between 2  "wolves" inside us all.
    One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy,sorrow,
    regret, greed,  
    arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority,
    lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
 
    The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope,
    serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence,
    empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and 
    faith." 
 
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:  "Which wolf wins?
 
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

pax pacis, otium, pax pacis

Hey there h. this is funny as hell. These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters who had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.

ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
________________________________
ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reebok's.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan.
--------------------------------------
ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't  it  true that when a
person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know  about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
___________________________________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: Uh, he's twenty-one.
________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Would you repeat the question?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Uh....
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition  notice which I sent to your attorney?WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
___________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him! 
______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Huh?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

IN Deep HONOUR of the MAn

Mr

Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiles        Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis

in Memory, respect and appreciation for the happiness shared

Happy Birthdays  26. May

This album not only put Miles Davis on the map, it started a whole new style of jazz music. Miles worked with Gil Evans on this 1949 project and the results were pure magic. The supporting cast of musicians are a nice group too. He even had french horn players (Junior Collins on one session, Sandy Goldstein on another and Gunther Schuller). Most of the musicians Miles worked with on this album were white, because those were the only people he could get hired at the time. Of these musicians, Gerry Mulligan (baritone saxophone), Lee Konitz (alto saxophone) and Kai Winding (trombone) all shine the most. Tracks like "Move" showcase the band's chemistry and innovative, playful harmonies. This song was originally recorded as a bebop tune, but Miles and company give it a little bit more of a cool, swinging style. "Jeru" is the ultimate definition of cool jazz. This Gerry Mulligan composition shows off Miles and Gerry's soloing abilities. It also has a nice theme and some good ensemble playing. "Moon Dreams" is kind of like a musical "still life", this ballad is played with a slow seriousness that makes it a classic. The ensemble playing here is beautiful. "Venus De Milo" is another Mulligan composition and has a somewhat laid-back latin feel. I like this tune because it just sounds nice to sit back and listen to. "Budo" is a classic Bud Powell tune, while this track only lasts about two and a half minutes, it's a classic instantly. The ensemble playing is very energetic and Miles, Lee Konitz and Kai Winding all take great solos. This tune was also recorded by Miles around the time of the 'Round About Midnight sessions. "Deception" is a track that Miles is given credit for writing but it's really another track called "Conception", that Miles recorded later on in the Dig session of 1951. It's a nice tune, with a kind of tension-building theme sequence, along with a nice solo from Miles. "Godchild" has a great theme because all the lower instruments play it making it a fun, playful track. Once again, Miles plays a nice solo and Kai Winding takes a good trombone solo as well. "Boplicity" has credit given to Miles Davis's mom, although she didn't actually write the piece, Miles and Gil Evans did. "Boplicity" is a masterful cool composition and has been recorded many times by other musicians. Gerry Mulligan starts it off with a great sax solo and Miles leads in with the group and then playing a good solo. Other tracks like "Rocker" and "Israel" were very influential in structure and composition, along with John Lewis's "Rouge", which has string bass played and is a very fun and amusing piece. The album ends with the Kenny Hagood vocal feature "Darn That Dream", which is a slow piece that wasn't recorded until 1950 (along with a couple other tracks from the "late" sessions). Hagood's vocal is cool, and Miles plays an outstanding solo in the middle of the piece. The band backs the vocal very well ending the album nicely.
Mister Hip-Hop (The Land Where Hip-Hop And Jazz Live.)

In his professional life, Miles Davis was an agent of change and a permanent self critic. Also, he would always surround himself of the best possible musicians (he said, "I'm hiring a [musician] to play, not for what color he is") to help in materializing his musical vision. Leaving behind the enviable position of musical director of Charlie Parker's group, Miles assembled a nonet (several of its members coming from the ranks of Claude Thornhill's Orchestra), Gerry Mulligan and John Lewis among them, and with their help gave birth to the new sound in jazz at the time: the Cool, an attempt to sound like a big band with a significantly smaller ensemble (a nonet, in this case), by means of a collective writing approach.

The album, recorded throughout three sessions between January of 1949 and March of 1950, marked the beginning of a series of outstanding works of Miles along with musical mentor and genius arranger Gil Evans. Its slower and softer sound resonated throughout the jazz world, taking jazz to a new level and influencing musicians all over the place, mostly in California it would help give shape to a mellow sound that would later be called West Coast Jazz (Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, etc.)

It is hard to pick favorite tracks in such a brilliant production. Four different arrangers and a rich assortment of composers, from Davis and Evans, to Mulligan, Lewis, Bud Powell and several others, along with the assorted lineup of musicians (only Davis in trumpet and lead, Mulligan in baritone, Lee Konitz in alto, and John Barber in Tuba were part of all three recording sessions) allow the careful listener to see tunes from a number of different points of view. For example, how does a pianoless Gerry Muligan tune sounds like ("Rocker"), how does a song arranged by John Lewis sound like when it's also a composition of his ("Rouge") as opposed to when it's someone else's ("Move") or how does Max Roach sound on drums with a bunch of other musicians vs. how does Kenny Clarke sound with the same (well, almost) bunch of guys.

There are so many possibilities to the album that the best favor you can do to yourself is to get it and incorporate it into your musical collection and language from now on. If you are a bit more serious about it, then get a copy of the COMPLETE Birth of the Cool. It's a bit more expensive, but it carries live versions of a number of the tracks, something of a rarity, considering the nonet did a very small number of live dates.
MANUEL J HERNANDEZ "http://askmanny.com" (Orlando, FL)