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How lucky we are to know GREAT COMPANY!
Above, I'm a happy fella with Madame Marie-Marthe Balin Franck Paul in Little Haiti, Miami, January of 2023. after Maryse and I brought computers and JAMBARS for students in Haiti. Photo by Maryse.
Mme. Franck Paul, Maryse's aunt, now 87, is founder and Principal of College Canapé-Vert in Port-au-Prince. Click to visit our Partners in education at stickingupforchildren.com. Again, many are those who do good ... without an iota of A.I.!
Leftward, lights are strung about a Live Oak in New Orleans City Park by a Park volunteer, Christmas-time of 2022. We make these freely adorned lights Symbol for the TRACK-A-DAY feature that's staring on July 30. 2023. Over 100 songs and poems for music have come to me since 1988. What better can I do than give back from the brilliance that partner musicians have delivered?
First track offered on the Sticking Up For Children (SUFC, don't-cha-know?) Jukebox is "Bobee (What A Spirit Walks That Way)" from Roger Lewis' album ALRIGHT!. We start with three excerpts from Roger, Herlin Riley and Kirk Joseph of the Rivers Answer Moons band and then. come Wednesday July 2, "Bobee ..." with Herlin and me on vocals.
Happy as we may be to enjoy great families and friends, wherever we live, we know by now, July of 2023, that we, the working-class and middle-class people of the world, are under Global
Attack. Those Corporations that lack conscience (the 100 Strategic Partners of the World Economic Forum for prime examples) have embarked from 9/11/01 into " 'COVID-19' " forward
on programs to use Big Lies and 21st-century technologies (technologies that are our classes' inventions) to reduce our freedoms more into mass enslavement or mass 'Sudden Death Syndrome'. Our genius, however, rebels and re-arises with irresistible compassion and creativity. My pieces in the Flipping the Script blog over on the WeAreRevolutions website and pieces on the Stands the Human Being blog and Substack are offerings that combine with many, many--millions unto billions--who REALLY 'Improve' humanity through their insights and resistance.
ALBUMS. Three from I/R Records are among the top 25 Jazz albums charted by Roots Music
ReportS for the year 2022. Listen on Bandcamp and Download in full fidelity there.
The World Economic Forum and its 100 Strategic
Partners among especially exploitative Corporations of the Neo-Colonial world are waging a War Against Humanity that has accelerated over the past four years under covers of " 'COVID' " and " 'Climate Change' ". Call it the WEF WAH for short.
The series of WEF Files profiles, offered here through my Stands the Human Being blog and Substack presents leading Agenda Contributors to the WEF as extremely driven and energetic individuals ... who have become pathological imbeciles in their services to the WEF's global Techno-Fascism, the WEF's 21st-century 'New World Order' of enslavement by Banks of the Northern Hemisphere.
Among the profiled are J. Michael Evans of Ali Baba (and once of Goldman Sachs), Helen Hai of Binance and the United Nations, and more obvious subjects such as Bill Gates, Chrystia Freeland, and Justin Trudeau.
"Prosecute 'Em!", cataloging crimes against masses of
humans during our " 'COVID-19' " era, is part of my
'Stands the Human Being' blog and Substack.
You are one / Light among / Many Lights, / Ever-changing, / Invaluable, / And meant to shine / Ev'ry moment of our lives.
"Love Over War, Every Time We Play"
Roger Lewis
alto, baritone, soprano saxophones
Don Paul vocal
Herlin Riley drums-set
Kirk Joseph sousaphone
Michael Torregano Jr.
piano and B3 organ
Mario Abney trumpet
Erica Falls singer
Listen on Bandcamp
Photo by Dr. Gabou Mendy of Mario with Rivers of Dreams
at Café Istanbul, New Orleans.
"Love Over War, ..." and "Glory Glory Glory ..." both came to me in March 2019. Lyrics, melodies, and other parts. Lòlò and Manzè of Boukman Eksperyans and Michael Torregano Jr. and I had fun with them in an impromptu recording in the play-room of Casa Tropicalia, outer Algiers, not home to Mahmouk, during the Thursday of JazzFest 2019. Look for recordings with the beautiful voices and harmonies of Lòlò and Manzè
of four poems/songs from my Port-au-Prince Suite.
Always I heard Herlin Riley and Erica Falls as perfect for these two songs.
The sessions in August 2021 that recorded Roger Lewis and Kirk Joseph and Herlin with me made clear how much music can be made with those three at the shifting center of Rivers of Dreams. They're 150 years + of New Orleans . Their creativity makes magic. We discover new things. Three tracks with them are on WOMEN and MUSIC (Meld #2).
"Love ..." and "Glory" and "Get Your JAM On" we recorded with arranger / composer Michael Torregano Jr. on January 31, 2022 at Rick G. Nelson's Marigny Studio in New Orleans with Adam Keil as engineer.
Roger and I did overdubs with engineer Tiffany Lamsom. Mario and I did overdubs with Adam as engineer. Erica added her singing to the tracks in David Farrell's studio. Adam and I furthered the mixes as Mardi Gras' approach crowded schedules. Michael layered into "Glory ..." and "Love ..." his B3 organ sounds. David and I mixed "Glory .." and mastered all three tracks in mid-March. "And that's the way we get along."
Sometimes sessions get lucky. I feel that "Love ...", "Glory ...", and "JAM" were graced at every step. Every partner essential. Every contribution inspired. The bell of Erica's voice and the melodious syncopations of Mario's trumpet especially bring out my hopes for both
"Love Over War, Every Time We Paly" and "Glory Glory Glory Is For Us All."
"Love Over War,
Every Time We Play "
For some people of this world
There's never enough war
Never enough war to take from the poor
Never enough war on the sweat we share
Never enough war to feel more power
Oh, they're not many
They're indeed a Tiny Few
But they mean death to me
And they mean death to you
War for Debt is the game
That they play behind desks
Death for theft is the game
That they play behind Desks
Marchin' Marchin' Marchin'
To the dreams in their heads
Fightin' Fightin' Fightin'
On fields they don't dare tread
Laughin' Laughin' Laughin'
At the lies we've been fed
For some people of this world
There's never enough love
Never enough love to show for their hours
Never enough love for what life provides
Never enough time to taste all our gifts
Oh, they're a many
Millions, billions, countin' you
But they feed all the tables
And they fill every Rank
All they want is their familes
Have peace and happiness
Workin' Workin' Workin'
Day and night, night and day
Hustlin' Hustlin' Hustlin'
To do more than survive
Dancin' Dancin' Dancin'
To raise light in the eyes
So it's a contest So it's a fight
Will we be led by snakes or led by light
So it's a contest So it;s a fight
Will we be led by snakes or led by light?
You know the answer You know the way home
Death-eaters to Prison, us to music
No more to War and Yes Yes Yes to love
No more to War and Yes Yes Yes to love.
Don Paul, March 6, 2019
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