The East Jazz Healing Society

This song came on today while I was at work (not doing work of course, but scrolling through Tumblr). It was one of those things where I wasn’t paying attention to the music until the song was more than half way through and then all of a sudden I heard it and started listening. I clicked over to Spotify to see who was playing and saw that it was Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s  “Seasons”. How fitting. This last week has been a lesson in accepting the seasons of life. Remembering and letting go knowing that all good things come back again. Rumi said “Do not grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” This song reminded me of that. Thank God for faith and wisdom.

#nowplaying Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain”

I’m gonna take myself a piece of sunshine
And paint it all over my sky
Be no rain…
Be no rain…

I’m gonna take the song from every bird
And make em sing it just for me
Bird’s got something to teach us all
About being free, yeah
Be no rain…
Be no rain…

And I think I’ll call it morning
From now on
Why should I survive on sadness?
And tell myself I got to be alone
Why should I subscribe to this world’s madness?
Knowing that I’ve got to live on
Yeah I think I’ll call it morning
From now on

I’m gonna take myself a piece of sunshine
And paint it all over my sky
Be no rain…
Be no rain…

I’m gonna take the song from every bird
And make them sing it just for me
Cause why should I hang my head
Why should I let tears fall from my eyes?
When I’ve seen everything there is to see
And I know there is no sense in crying
I know there ain’t no sense in crying
Yeah I think I’ll call it morning
From now on
I’ll call it morning from now on, yeah

Cause there ain’t gonna be no rain
Be no rain…
Be no rain…
From now on

”’Tribute’ is the final track on Robert Glasper‘s fantastic 2007 release, In My Element. It was written for Glasper’s mother, Kim Yvette Glasper Dobbs, who along with her husband Brian was murdered in April 2004. Kim’s impact on her son’s life and on his music was incalculable, and so it was only fitting that he recorded and released ‘Tribute’ for her.

The song is beautiful any way you approach it, but what elevates it from pure melancholy to joy is the inclusion of Rev. Joe Ratliff’s eulogy, delivered at Brentwood Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. I would kill the spirit of his moving words by analyzing them here, so I exhort you to just listen to them.

And remember that whether you are a mother, honoring a mother still with you, or thinking of one who is gone, remember the dash…”