Kravitz Curates Culture Consciousness

Maybe I miss composing music reviews as I did the past six years for About.com, http://dancemusic.about.com/sitesearch.htm?q=Jimi+Bruce+reviews&SUName=dancemusic, and therefore welcomed this opportunity to critique a new CD.  Actually my fiancee`, Nina, is a huge Lenny Kravitz fan and as usual since I met her, came-up with this good idea that I write about him in my blog.  But it took me a month or two to realize what she  meant – the old language translation omitting the urgency (Russian is her native and English is coming along w/my help) – so now in my true “late-bloomer” style, we have the “Black and White America” write-up! Far from an enigma, even though he hasn’t recorded in quite some time, Lenny Kravitz really is one of the hardest working, cleanest, most photogenic and popular (especially among the ladies) musicians of today.

The first time I played a Lenny Kravitz song on the radio I was in 1999. With a name like his, I felt that he had been around a long time, but that wasn’t the case in the northeastern USA on Adult Contemporary and Top 40 radio stations. Yet, “Lenny Kravitz” just sounded familiar as if he had been a mainstay.

There is a nice, semi-consistent brass presence on the album along with other varieties of rhythm and sound. My Nina seems partial to those collaborating with Troy “Trombone” Shorty, judging by the You Tube videos that she has sent me this summer and fall. As James Brown would admonish “Sinclair” in his old band, “Don’t play so much Bone Brotha!”

I’ll in-part employ the Frankie Crocker rating system of denoting a “sure-shot”, “World Premiere” and “Pick-hit” as I rate some selections. “In The Black” is pure, classic Kravitz and the sixteen songs are well placed in-succession to provide a nice mix and flow of the record. “Liquid Jesus” plays next, and I swear he must have been channeling the late Marvin Gaye on this one. It is “Gates” from the first note; Bravo! The title track, which is a plea for the American racial divide to get over itself and catch-up with our times, “Black and White America” is my ‘World Premiere’. He uses his parents as an example when he sings, “In nineteen sixty three my father married a Black woman and when they walked the street they were in danger…” Lenny’s father was a Ukrainian man. “Superlove” is the cute, Brothers Johnson-like song that my past experience as a Top 40 radio DJ tells me would make the charts of a contemporary hit station, and thus is my Pick Hit. By not mentioning all of the other tracks, I do not mean to imply that they are in any way unworthy of my top rankings, but these are ones that have produced the most tune-wedgies in my musical mind since I copped the CD. Speaking of “top rankin” that was a tune by the late Robert Nesta Marley, and Lenny Kravitz apparently did some time well-spent in the Caribbean while composing this album. One of his brilliant skankings is my Sure Shot, “Boongie Drop” featuring Jay-Z. It is a rollicking dancehall adventure of spliffs (in the hip Hop monologue) and booty movements. “Roll sister, roll on it/Don’t make the music stop/Go on make that boongie drop…” Be sure to press “repeat” a few times for the full effect! The jazzy “Looking Back On Love” also caught my ears due to the long instrumental bridge that will have you momentarily thinking another CD entirely or the radio somehow started playing. “Psyche!” I am impressed that Lenny played drums on all of them according to my research. A friend commented about Kravitz apparently being in-touch with his spiritual and/or religious side via frequent references to deities throughout the lyrical content. That’s alright, we know Lenny is our hard-rocker at heart and a little Godly humility may just add to his success and longevity.

PICKHITTS: He is so creative! My fiancee` and I admire his creativity.

Partially, thanks to Lenny’s music we have grown our relationship. Once I found that Nina appreciated music, it was just another solidifying quality! We sent his songs back and forth. Nina’s level of music appreciation is incredible! She sends me Slavic or Russian videos and I send her American music videos; sometimes I send to her to see if she has heard of this or that artist. Music is the best way to cross cultures initially, we found. She and I talk about how he must have a photographer follow him around day and night, there are so many photos of him in all stages of dress (and Undress, LOL)! His harmless vanity is rather amusing. Nina is so proud that Lenny’s roots are in Kiev and we have grown our love partly to Lenny Kravitz’s music (“I Belong To You” for example). Nina says, “Let Love Rule! Bravo Lenny!” Our story is his parents story, redeux! Twenty-first century style! I dedicate the hymn “Dream” off of this album to my Nina and me. She sometimes teases me that I am a dreamer, and I reply similar to the lyric, “It all starts with a dream/The dawn of a new day/The God inside of you will always see you through…” Kravitz parent’s story is now our ‘dream’.

No longer with Virgin Records, Lenny is now managed by Craig Fruin and Howard Kaufman (HK Management) and heard on RoadRunner Records distributed by Atlantic; I’ve heard rumor there is VINYL of this! Well you know I want one! LOL

I give it 4.5 out of a possible 5 stars! Worth the wait.

I wonder what advice Lenny’s parents would have for Nina (the Ukrainian beauty) & Naphtali (the Black American man) today?

Please DO Comment! Thanks Nina for the inspiration – again(-:

“Cafe Skype”: International Love Story Docu-Film Motivation

The Following is submitted under the heading, “Anything Can Happen”

People are still asking, here in 2014, “What is next for the documentary story and couple known as “Cafe` Skype” ?

It should not have been this difficult for a Ukrainian, Russian-speaking, Woman and an American man who solidified the foundation of their love on the internet to overcome her Visa and his passport and financial hurdles in order to marry and live together – but it was. Can’t you just hear the deep-voiced movie trailer announcer selling this? Now that the debt is paid…when will we see a picture of these lover together?…

Naphtali finally traveled to Kiev to see Inna-Nina! However, she had accepted a temporary Nursing assignment in Rome, Italy to earn money she apparently could not earn in Zaporozhye to help her ailing mama. So they missed each-other “like ships in the night”. That added another “twist” to the plot of our story! Do you want to be the film crew to reenact this historic and long-awaited event? Please read-on! Contact us! We need help to happen! Calling all film Investors! Get your name or company listed in our Rolling credits for $100.00!

” A short documentary-film about The Timing of Life and Money vs The Timing of Love…Ukrainian beauty meets veteran NYC radio/club DJ and Author who lived in Nashville at the time, they fall in “love” and both must overcome passport, cold war-era Visa rules,immigration financing, family elder care and financial challenges to be together…” The truth and one of the main sub-plots is that my bride-to-be has sent me money to help pay a debt that allowed my passport to be granted… I repayed it back to her after two years of expectations, hoping to ease our first and only rift. “Money isn’t everything…”, my Mum once said. However, in this story, it was what we thought was the final hurdle that will help us overcome the Visa issue to help get Her to the USA.
Meanwhile, Nina had to take work as a Nurse to help her family back in Ukraine in Rome, Italy part-time in silent, losing hope for their meeting, despair…as I flew to Kiev.

Video and text from our short-falling crowd-funding campaign for our international marriage story with important messages for the U.S. and Slavic world gov’ts. you can hear one of our protagonists, Nina, speak about it from our crowd-funder on Kickstarter two years ago, here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cafeskype/cafe-skype-a-lil-multicultural-love-overcomes-obst/posts/97291?ref=email&show_token=d02fa023d6daa5ae

There are sample videotrailers for you to view! just email us at the contact address to the right sidebar on this page, and you get the links. Personal interview and social media promotional video with the happy couple for $1,000!

All too often, when you hear about a romance between an American man and a Russian lady, people don't take it seriously, laughing with a wink and a nod behind his back, diminishing it as if the guy is getting scammed, tricked or insulting it as a mere "international booty-call" or something. Yes, often some women do try to con a guy via internet scams, but Nina never asked Naphtali for one penny! In fact, she magnanimously helped Naphtali overcome a debt and that completed his first U.S passport get! Don't sell US short on intelligence, OK? This is not the case with Nina & Naphtali. Forget the negative and accentuate the POSITIVE! What is going to happen next leading to the day when she jumps right through the Skype web camera, into his waiting arms?

You can help fund the film by using the yellow “donate” button in the upper-right of the sidebar.

Back-story:Naphtali finally achieved his U.S. passport, thanks to Inna and a Brooklyn long-time friend’s financial help to overcome an unjust tax from his past. So, if you truly want to see how this interesting story comes to a happy ending, donate now! We have the backing of the Fiscal Sponsor, “From The Heart Productions”, http://www.fromtheheartproductions.com/ making it easier for you to write-off your donations come tax time! The message of this film is necessary on many levels as a wake-up call, to achieve the path to unity that the Creator assembled us, various peoples on Earth for, as well as untangle some of the U.S legal system from uneven/unjust “taxtics” by states that can override the federal government’s rules and deny passports.
Proposed length: 27 minutes; Target audience: PBS, NPR, BBC, IFC.

Call our “legal Eagle” and head of fund-raising escrow, Bruce, at the law firm (718-855-6840) with your question, donation or comment! You can use your check, money orders, cashier’s checks, bank debit card so that the goal of funding this message film moves forward. 

One of Inna’s beloved artists is Lenny Kravitz, whose father just-so-happens to be Ukrainian and his mother a Black Woman! Here is the first Kravitz video that Nina ever sent to Naphtali to express how their communications via email, you tube, postal mail, telephone and Skype made her feel “in stomach” – ‘Butterfly’.

Thanks to you who look, like, listen, think pro-actively and “outside of outside of the box”. See you at the movies or in syndication.

Nina, Naphtali, Nate, Nan, Cheetah    

The “Cafe` Skype” docu-film project production team

For Perks descriptions & more information:

http://www.webspawner.com/users/cafeskype/index.html

How will the plot turn next? You write the conclusion and we will play it out in real life/on-screen for your $5,000 donation! There will be remixed versions!

PICKHIT: Naphtali has repaid his monetary debt to Nina and there will be happy updates into 2014, Your support will help both of our elderly Mother’s health issues. Will we just have to snag a random stranger to document the meeting at an airport? Or will your film crew be on-hand to save the moment? You have already lost two chances!

SURESHOT Urgent Update! February 28, 2013: After a great civilian protest that toppled Ukraine’s corrupt and Russian ass-kissing “President”, Putin the puppet-master orders troops to Crimea which is not all that far from where Nina lives with her elderly mother and son. What the fuck is next that will pop-up as a hurdle to our togetherness away from Ukraine? What is next?? I am so chagrined, you would not believe it – but do not show it. All help appreciated because this could become VERY bad, and then I become afraid that we might never fulfill our dream. ~ N.

World Premiere Update. It is now February, 2015 and thanks to paranoid Putin, the Russian “President” and his war by proxy, the prospects for our marriage and a happy ending to this story are grim. The frontline of the war is currently only about 225 miles from Nina’s city in southeastern Ukraine!! Help!! Unfortunately, my last crowdfunder only raised slightly over $500US and I sent her most of it for he family (aliing, elderly mother), the rest used to begin a savings account for eventual refugee status. Heaven only knows how far Putinitler’s goons will march into Ukraine now. I still prospect for any ideas to raise the major thousands of dollars to help. I pray that the United States, together with its allies going back to World War II soon send the necessary arms and assistance to help Ukraine deter any further Russian aggression. Your ideas are welcomed to help the “Cafe` Skype” story live on in the comment section of this post. Sadly…I thank you ~ N.

Thanks for Reading. We invite you to share this post. We still need your support to complete our story and this film as we rendezvoused together in London, U.K. in October of 2013!!!! What a journey…Look out for the book version to be released in early 2016. Someone will have to do better than “sorry”.

Your comments are strongly encouraged!

My Vinyl – “Tiny” Teena Marie

Now comes the truly sad news that Teena Marie is no longer with us in the physical world after only fifty-four (54) years….pause for tears.  To me, Teena was always the Petula Clark or Leslie Gore of her times.  Soulful hits that transcended the categories of the music business or American society (I’ve always had a more “Top 40” musical head).  I first heard of her when Programmer extraordinaire, Frankie Crocker, referred to her as “Tiny” Teena Marie over the airwaves of WBLS FM, New York City as the strains of “I Need Your Lovin'”  or “Behind The Groove” grew in the background.  During my glory days as a radio personality, I never got to meet nor share a stage Emcee-style with her, but I feel like I knew her just the same.  There is always that link between her and the late “Slick” Rick James, yet, I don’t recall ever being so “surprised” about her skin color visa v her material as many people profess to be and tried to make an issue out of  in the early 1980s.

So here is where I list my top ten (because I own only ten) Teena Marie vinyl records: On Gordy Records (“a product of Motown Record corp.”) 1980’s “Lady T” with the hit “Behind The Groove”, and where I noticed that the girl could write some very readable liner notes which is one of her unsung talents and now a legacy. I dug the baseball uniform she sported on the back cover! The 12″ DJ version with “I need Your Lovin’ ” on side one and “Behind The Groove” on the flip-side; also Gordy Records.  I remember like yesterday how excited I was to get this platter so I could play it at my next gig!  Next is my favorite front cover of the ones I own, and the second album to drop in the year 1980, “Irons In The Fire”.  What a warm and cozy pose without overt sexuality by Teena, with the fireplace roaring and herself wrapped in a satin quilt, OMG!  This album’s smash was “I Need Your Lovin’ ” which still should fill dance-floors whenever played in a club!  I noticed that all of these Gordy albums were “written and produced by Teena Marie” (the first one had someone named Richard Rudolph as co-producer), a source of some contention as I remember back then.  She dedicated “Irons…” to her father, Thomas Leslie Brockett, who passed away in 1976 – his picture on the back cover.

A year later in 1981, I was fortunate enough to get the Gordy DJ copy of  “It Must Be Magic”, an album with an all-star cast and hit-after-hit-after-hit!  From the title song to “The Ballad Of Cradle Rob And Me” to the sultry “Portuguese Love” or her first foray rappin’ to the beat on “Square Biz” (with brief Rick James cameo), to “Yes Indeed” with Patrice Rushen on keyboards, this was her best all-around album insofar as my ears are concerned.  And yours too?

Next, my library finds Teena on Epic records, where I had al great DJ-to-promotion department relationship, and that is probably why I ended-up with two copies of 1983’s “Robbery” album.  I suppose the relationship with Gordy finally disintegrated and the CBS group snapped her up, agreeing to her writing, producing and arranging all.  The standout on this album was/is “Casanova Brown” – not to be confused with the Gloria Gaynor disco jam with the same name, lol!

One thing is for-sure, Teena was always busy in the eighties; it didn’t take long before Epic added another 12″ to my collection, 1984’s “Jammin” (Radio Mix-vocal) culled from her next album, “Starchild” that I never was able to get my fingers on, but it didn’t matter, I had the first hit !  I say “first” because straight-away came a song that many defined Teena by to her dying day; also from “Starchild”, it was (in my library) the Special 12″ Dance Mix of “Lovergirl” b/w the Instrumental also off of the album “Starchild”.  Larkin Arnold was in the background as Executive Producer by now, and the polish and crossover access  available by being part of one of the ‘big three’ record labels paid off.  I played this song at a lot of weddings and parties during that decade.  

Next of mine, a curious and seldom-played 12″ Extended Version Dance Mix of “14K” which apparently was part of the soundtrack to a movie called “Goonies”.  I don’t remember either – maybe I have to go and play it right quick here!  Ok, L8R, only two more vinyls to go…the very green like St. Patrick’s Day, 1986 “Emerald City” effort.  I actually don’t think I ever played this record because as I write these words, I am pulling it out of the jacket, still neatly tucked in the inner sleeve and not turned face-out for easy DJ access, and…holy moly!  The vinyl IS really GREEN!! Who knew?  Haha!  I know why I didn’t play it though, as the final and tenth wax in my Teena library is the 12″ single “Lips To Find You”, which I remember, sounds a bit like “Lovergirl” beat-wise.  Hey, I just played side one for maybe the first time and there is a jam on there, “You So Heavy” – it says “for Rick”; I wonder if it is that “Rick? Regardless, what a strong song!!  Amped lead guitar solo takes it home Hendrix-style! The studio and musicians that Epic used changed some of her background sound to that “eighties beat”; kind of Prince-style sometime, but thankfully nobody could change her vocal approach.    

In 2009 I received what was at the time her “latest” (and probably last) album in CD form, “Congo Square”.  I was happy to see it on the legendary “Stax” record label, but initially disappointed by the material.  I guess I was still hoping for the “Lovergirl” who talked about “Square Biz”, but what I heard soon became unlistenable after she got bogged-down in trying to recreate the “torch-song” feeling of “Fire & Desire” too much, in my opinion.  I learn now, that is where she was at and at peace with it, having alluded to pain that she “suffered through the last few years…” on the interior liner notes – again very literate about herself.  What exactly the sources of those pains were, I can only guess in retrospect, but as I listened to that CD again multiple times today, I still like the first track, “The Pressure (featuring M.C. Lyte)” the best only because it is uptempo and her fast stuff shaped my fondest party memories of “Lady T”, however, the singing on the remainder of the album; the soulful way she portrayed every note of each selection from her heart, makes it every bit the portrait that each of her vinyl album covers displayed. For example, track four, “Ear Candy 101” has a bridge that evokes a Marvin Gaye groove! “Tiny” Teena left us with sixteen soulful, heartfelt songs, and I miss her for the future in the manner I miss what Jimi Hendrix would have become artistically, already.

**PICK HITT: and this one, “Behind The Groove” is most popular to dance to, as Frankie Crocker and WBLS FM 107.5 ran it into the ground to success!

“Cause M-O-N-E-Y never did a thing for L-O-V-I-N. I’ll never understand what peoples heads are in, oh,
Ask me what I need…”