No boundaries

Bright Moments around the world in two days

by Ed Hazell

There are festivals, for all kinds of music -- blues, jazz, world music, country. Sometimes music from one category crosses over into a festival for another, but that's generally in an effort to boost attendance. Bright Moments is different. The all-day music festival at UMass Amherst, which marks its 20th anniversary this year, is eclectic by design, transcending categories to reveal the essential unity among different kinds of music. So when soul singer/guitarist Johnny Rawls walks onto the outdoor stage on the Campus Pond Lawn at noon next Friday, he'll kick off a program that includes big-band free-jazz proponents the Sun Ra Arkestra, soca superstar Arrow and his Multinational Force, and the unique Zairian rumba-Cuban son montuno fusion of Ricardo Lemvo and Makina Loca. "The whole idea," says producer Glenn Siegel, "is to break down some of those barriers between musics that are put up in our culture."

Bright Moments showcases the various musics of the African Diaspora -- the countries in the Western hemisphere to which the slave trade dispersed African culture hundreds of years ago. African music influenced the creation and development of blues and jazz in the United States, a range of music in the Caribbean from reggae to calypso, as well as music in South America. Traveling by radio, record, and cassette, this music eventually found its way back to Africa, where contemporary musicians have incorporated it into new forms of African pop music. And so the African influence in music bounces back and forth over the Atlantic, leaping between musical styles as easily as it flies over the ocean. "We hope that the concert will show that both Johnny Rawls and the Arkestra knows something about the blues," Siegel says, "and that the soul influence heard in Rawls's music is reflected in Arrow's soca. And, of course, Ricardo Lemvo makes a direct connection between Zairian rumba and its Cuban roots."

Bright Moments, which takes its name from a tune by jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, began as a jazz festival associated with the Jazz in July workshops conducted by pianist Billy Taylor and master drummer Max Roach, a UMass professor until his retirement in 1993. A faculty jazz recital featuring invited guests is still an integral part of the event. This year the concert takes place on Friday night at the Fine Arts Center Concert Hall and features pianist Taylor, vocalist Sheila Jordan, recently retired faculty saxophonist and composer Fred Tillis, and special guest tuba virtuoso Bob Stewart.

But about 10 years ago, the festival began to expand its horizons to include other music with African roots. Each year on consecutive Thursdays in July, the festival introduced audiences in Western Massachusetts to the likes of reggae star Judy Mowat, Benin Afro-pop chanteuse Angélique Kidjo, Nigerian Afro-beat revolutionary Fela Kuti, South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and Ekaya, and mambo king Tito Puente. "We can't afford to produce the really big names," says Siegel, "but in a way, that's an advantage. We get in on the ground floor with emerging talent that will someday be really big. In fact, I'd rather turn people on to someone like Ricardo Lemvo, than go with the obvious stars."

As it enters its third decade, Bright Moments has consolidated its separate concerts into a one-day blow out, but it hasn't changed its artistic vision. This year's festival is as provocative mix of styles as you are likely to find on one stage.

The Johnny Rawls Revue with the Nutmeg Horns kicks things off. Rawls honed his deep South soul sound as the musical director for soul legend O.V. Wright and touring with Z.Z. Hill, Little Johnny Taylor, and Latimore. His latest album, Louisiana Woman (JSP), is a blend of Stax/Volt style blues-soul and his stinging blues guitar work. The 46-year-old Mississippi native has a rich, versatile tenor voice that never rings false, whether he's exuding romantic charm on "It's All in the Game," or revealing his vulnerability on "You Got Me Going Through Changes," or venting his righteous wrath on "It's a Shame." His horn charts also have sophistication and range, and the band hit an unerring groove that should get the audience up dancing.

The Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen take the blues and gospel in a whole different direction. There have been many big bands in jazz, but none even remotely like the outrageous ensemble who the late pianist/composer/visionary Sun Ra put together more than 40 years ago. Starting life as a bebop big band, the Arkestra developed over the years into an eclectic band who tackled atonal free jazz, swing-era classics by Fletcher Henderson or Duke Ellington, as well as revival-meeting theatrics featuring Ra's space-age imagery and messages of liberation. Most of the current Arkestra, including 75-year-old saxophonist Allen who now directs the band, have spent years learning the intricacies of Ra's music, so a performance is much more than an exercise in avant-garde nostalgia, it's an event in the tradition of an American original. Poet and political activist Amiri Baraka, recently seen in Warren Beaty's Bulworth, will make a very rare appearance with the band and read a poem dedicated to Sun Ra.

If you've never heard of Alphonsus Cassell, better known to happy dancers around the world as Arrow, you almost certainly have heard his greatest hit, "Hot, Hot, Hot." David Johanson, masquerading as Buster Poindexter, covered the song a few years back, and it's turned up in TV commercials, too. One of the biggest-selling singles of all time, the 1982 mega-hit pretty much sums up Arrow's style: party-time lyrics, bubbling guitars, and an infectious calypso groove. His message may be fairly one-dimensional, but Arrow has broadened the calypso music of his native Monserrat with soul music (the term soca comes from the first two letters of the music's two main sources: SOul-CAlypso) and even reggae, funk, and African rumba. His style was controversial among calypso traditionalists when he first developed it in the early '80s, but Arrow's happy sound has taken the world by storm and made him "King of Soca."

Ricardo Lemvo and Makina Loca are adept at mixing rhythms too. Lemvo's cross-cultural fusion of African and Latin music sounds like Havana one minute, Kinshasa the next. Born in Zaire and raised in Los Angeles, Lemvo followed in the foot steps of such Afro-pop greats as Tabu Ley Rochereau and Franco's T.P. OK Jazz, and he blends the African and Afro-Cuban music he adored as a youth into his own distinctive sound. Fluent in five languages, Lemvo sings in a lilting tenor that generates as much excitement as the rhythmic stew cooked up by his band. On his newest release, Mambo Yo Yo (Putumayo), the percolating guitars of Congolese rumba and son montuno horns and clave rhythms wed in a dynamic dance music that, like the festival he headlines, truly belongs to the world.

The jazz concert with Billy Taylor, Sheila Jordan, Bob Stewart, and the Jazz in July All Stars takes place at the Fine Arts Center Concert Hall at 7:30 p.m. on July 17. The all-day concert with Johnny Rawls, the Sun Ra Arkestra, Arrow and his Multinational Force, and Ricardo Lemvo and Makina Loca begins at noon, rain or shine, on the Campus Pond Lawn on July 18. Call the Fine Arts Center Box Office at (413) 545-2511 or (800) 999-UMAS.