Dorothy Ashby was an American jazz harpist (first ever jazz harpist I’ve ever learned about), singer and composer. Born in Detroit, MI; she grew up in the jazz community and was introduced by her father who had been a self-taught jazz guitarist.

She had released her first jazz LP, The Jazz Harpist, in 1957. It was critically well received but had not sold well with the record buying public. She had released Hip Harp (1958) next, which love the name, and is acclaimed to be one of her best. My introduction to Ashby was her album, Afro-Harping, in 1968.

The first song that I had loved of hers was “Theme From Valley Of The Dolls”, track no. 8. Familiar with the movie and loving the arrangement between harp and grooving drums it became an instant replay on my playlist.

Each track has its own unique groove from a samba style in “The Look Of Love” or a sit back feel in “Lonely Girl” with great emphasis on the offbeats. The bass, drums, horn and most importantly harp make a distinctive sound that Ashby is renowned for. I would recommend this album to anyone who just needs a relaxing afternoon, perfect with a few sun rays or even a cleaning session.

10:31 PM EDT March 11, 2024:

Dorothy Ashby - "Action Line" From the album Afro-Harping (1968)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

It occurred to me that it would be short sighted to post an article about Dorothy Ashby and not pointing at some of the sonic evidence that she could really groove.

Spiritual jazz (or astral jazz)[1] is a sub-genre of jazz that originated in the United States during the 1960s. The genre is hard to characterize musically but draws from free, avant-garde and modal jazz and thematically focuses on transcendence and spirituality. John Coltrane's 1965 album A Love Supreme is considered landmark in the genre.

Origins

Pharoah Sanders in 1981.

Critics usually associate spiritual jazz with the 1960s but the beginnings of the genre can be traced to the 1940s and 1950s in works such as Black, Brown and Beige by Duke Ellington, Zodiac Suite by Mary Lou Williams, and Jazz at the Vespers by George Lewis.

During the 1960s in the United States, the civil rights movement was occurring, causing societal change and political movements. As a result, African-American people gained more freedom to celebrate their culture and to express themselves religiously. This led to a desire to push the conventions of jazz, with some artists choosing to search for transcendence and spirituality in their music.

John Coltrane's 1965 album A Love Supreme is generally considered the genesis of spiritual jazz though Coltrane can be heard developing the sound on the song "Spiritual" recorded four years earlier. Treblezine wrote "Spiritual jazz begins, essentially, with John Coltrane," while Pitchfork wrote "This musical exploration [of spirituality] was epitomized by tenor saxophonist John Coltrane". A Love Supreme and other works by John Coltrane inspired other jazz musicians to create music searching for transcendence. For example, Pharoah Sanders and Don Cherry were considered to have taken inspiration from Coltrane's spiritual works.

After John Coltrane's death in 1967, his wife Alice Coltrane and Sanders—both who had previously played with Coltrane—were some of the first to continue the sound of the genre. Coltrane's 1971 album Journey in Satchidananda combined spiritual jazz with influences from Hindustani classical music, after her journey into spirituality with help from Swami Satchidananda. Journey in Satchidananda used ragas, harps, sitars, and ouds to achieve its sound. Pharoah Sanders took inspiration from Arabic, Indian, and Afro-Cuban music to create early spiritual jazz albums, including Tauhid (1967) and Karma

Quincy’s Craft be like:

A Lupin ZERO vinyl record is coming to the United States this year! 🎶

Releasing on the 30th of April 2024, the gorgeous OST will feature sixteen tracks for the (rather modest) asking price of $43.99.

SIDE A:

1. AFRO“LUPIN'68”Opening Ver.

2. DANGEROUS HIGHWAY

3. ACTION ZERO

4. “MOODY AFTERNOON & HARD AFTERNOON”

5. DARK EYES & Dark. Night

6. “THEME OF LUPIN, II - Blues Harp Ver.”

7. HAPPENING 1

8. THEME OF LUPIN, II - Ending Ver.

SIDE B:

1. AFRO“LUPIN'68” Inst Ver.

2. LIGHTNING TIME & Lighting Time After

3. GUITAR SUSPENSE

4. YEAH! LUPIN & ACTION LUPIN

5. LYRICAL DISTURBANCE

6. Lupin Walkin' T.V. Original

7. HAPPENING 2

8. Lupin Sansei Shudaika II Ending Inst Ver.

This thing that plays in heaven

Some harp performances I collected, both classical and jazz

Jazz harpist LaVilla Tulos preforms "Swanee River"

other videos are under the cut

Pearl Chertok - Around the clock suite performed by Joel von Lerber. Harpist himself comments this piece between movements.

Dorothy Ashby ‎– Afro Harping (1968) From an album by famous jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby.

Another famous jazz harpist Alice Coltrane performs harp solo at international jazz music festival Jazz Jamboree in Warsaw, Poland in 1987.

Aram Khachaturian - Dance of Pink Girls (from Gayane ballet) performed by harp quartet from Higher School of Music of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)

Bernard Andres - Jazzy - Ragtime performed by Harp trio: Diana Grubišić Ćiković, Marta Ćiković and Veronika Ćiković

Deborah Henson-Conant - Baroque Flamenco performed by author

Juhi Bansal - Trail of Stars performed by Lee Yun Chai

Brandee Younger's Tiny Desk concert. Beautiful jazz music and amazing vocalist.

All this harp concert is worth listening, but I want to show you the last piece (starts from 1:35:27) because I didn't find it separately but it sounds so cool! Valeriy Kikta - Akathist to Vera Dulova for six harps and percussions

House of Feanor

🇫🇯🇵🇬🇵🇬 🇸🇧🇫🇯🇵🇬 🇫🇯🇻🇺🇵🇬

This is a companion to Melanesian descendants of Indis but with the descendants of Miriel. Miriel and Celegorm are albino.

Part 4 of toi’s indigenous tolkien series

I also wanted to put the photos I used for the children of Fingolfin here so that people can appreciate the images in full (I love them)

Fingon and Turgon:

Aredhel and Argon:

Image is faceclaims of the House of feanor on a background of fire. They all have a name by their faces.

Feanor is a handsome man from savusavu fiji

Nerdanel is a woman from bougainville Papua New Guinea in a grass top

Maedhros is a child with a red afro from bougainville Papua New Guinea

Maglor is a Nggela child from the solomons. He has a bamboo mouth harp (galevu hohamamu)

Celegorm is a albino fijian child

Caranthir is a Papua New Guinea child, he has red/blue/white facepaint and shell necklaces

Curufin is a fijian boy

Ambarussa are vanuatuan babies they have ginger short afros

Miriel is a albino Papua New Guinea woman holding her (not albino) young baby.

Image description of nolofinweans is from previous post.

Fingon: a Papuan boy smiling widely. He has dark skin, coily dark hair and a yellow headdress made of grasses.

Turgon: a serious-looking Korafe Papuan boy. He has yellow-orange ceremonial facepaint, many necklaces of stones and shells, and a feathered headdress.

Aredhel: a young Sepik Papuan girl with dark skin, black hair and white face paint. She is holding a small baby crocodile and grinning at the camera.

Argon: a young Papuan boy with dark skin and black hair. He has stripes of white paint on his face, layered decorative necklaces, and a hat lined with what looks like fur.

Sprite De La Rosa

Character Lore:

Sprite De La Rosa is a vivacious, pint-sized 17-year-old Mertilian born of Dominican and Haitian descent. She was born within the Caribbean Sea near Haiti and the Dominican Republic, but her family swam to the Pacific Ocean near Westshore when she was 10 years old.

She enjoys being a hairstylist for her friends, especially Terrina. She loves to moisturize Terri’s curls and she loves to give her ponytails and afro puffs.

Sprite speaks with an American accent, and her Spanish has Dominican dialect.

Sprite has scales on her back that give her the ability to breathe underwater in her human form.

As a Mertilian, she transforms into a human when she's out of the water, and back into a mermaid when her entire body is submerged in water.

Alongside Bailynn Lo-Shanta, she often participates in social justice activism to help improve her community. She speaks out against issues like racism, genocide and slavery.

She is surprisingly knowledgable in human history. She knows about the Taino genocide in the 15th century and enslaved Africans being imported to the Caribbean in the 17th century.

Sprite is fluent in English and Spanish and she doesn't play when it comes to speaking Spanish. Having spent her life near Haiti and the Dominican Republic, she knows that Dominican Spanish isn't the same as Mexican Spanish, or Castillian Spanish.

“Deja que fluya” is her major moral, it means “go with the flow” in English.

Sprite and Izzy are the ultimate tag team, they love to sass their enemies and throw comebacks at them.

Her parents named her Sprite because she reminded them of fairy figures from the surface world’s fairytale books.

Her favorite books are romantic fiction and fantasy.

Mertilians are free to roam the ocean on their own once they turn 13. Her parents are deeply protective of her safety, but they’re trying to let their daughter enjoy life in Westshore.

She LOVES to dance when she's on legs, mostly to salsa, boogaloo and hip hop.

Sprite can talk to sea creatures like dolphins, whales and fish, but she can't talk to land animals.

She has a special Siren Song that hyptonizes those who hear her singing voice. She rarely uses it at all, but she only uses it for when she needs to save her friends.

Sprite is skilled in playing the guitar and the harp. If the Terrestrial Kids were a band, she would play the bass guitar.

She is fascinated with the concept of peanut butter, and she loves to spread peanut butter on everything she eats.

Sprite is the biggest cheerleader to her team. She loves to encourage her friends to prove their worth even when they’re faced with impossible challenges or foes.

Terrina has a huge fishbowl for Sprite to swim in for when she brings her to El-Doe.

Her favorite treats are Dulce de Coco (Coconut Sweets) and plantains.

Her body constantly smells like the ocean. It's mostly a pleasant smell of coconut and sunscreen. She often "stinks like seaweed" after swimming in the ocean in mermaid form, but she covers it up with perfume.

One of her favorite places to visit are the islands of Puerto Rico, Haiti and the beaches of Florida.

She hates the bitter cold of winter on the surface land. Sure, she can handle cold waters, but not cold air. Expect her to wear a huge puffy coat in the wintertime.

Mertilians have different concepts than humans: When a Mertilian dies, their bodies evaporate into seafoam. Their bodies are strong enough to withstand the pressure of the underwater trenches, and they're even stronger than humans when they're on land.

Sprite has a crush for Izzy, but she doesn't know how to express her feelings for them. The two are currently in a situationship in which they are crushing on each other, but not interested in a serious romantic relationship.

Sprite yearns for independence from her parents to spend her life in Westshore, but she is learning to hold a job so that she can be able to financially support herself as a human.

Tagged by: @mngomch (thanks for the tag 🤗)

Nickname: Fee (my most common nickname though, I do have specific pet names from specific people)

Sign: Aquarius ☀️🌙 & Gemini rising

Height: 5 ft 2.5 in (but I'm 5 ft 3 in with my afro 🥴)

Last thing I googled: "Does Rover offer dog sitting services" (lol I'm in a group chat and someone is thinking of getting a dog)

Song stuck in my head:

(I've been in a lovey mood)

Number of followers: Hehe 🤫 enough to truly be grateful that many people enjoy my blog or catch my vibe or think I'm cute 😉

Amount of sleep: Varies - when I manic four to six hours and when depressed seven to twelve hours

Lucky Number: 13 (It's cute number and I love Friday the 13th)

Dream job: "I do not dream of labor" (quoted from someone I cannot remember)

Wearing: My black headband, Rasta bonnet, black dress, undies and my Tokyo Ghoul knee-highs (fuck bras)

Movie/book that summarizes me: The Killing Joke (DC comic or movie), Christopher Robin (movie 2018), The Giant Book of Poetry edited by William H Roetzheim (book) & The Annotated African American Folk Tales by Henry Louis Gates Jr and Mara Tatar (book)

Favorite song:

Favorite instrument: The harp or the cello (I can't play any instruments though, I love the way they sound)

Aesthetic: A black hole, a supernova, Mother Earth as the seasons' change, a cat, and a feral deer that just wants to talk to you about your car's extended warranty

Favorite author: I don't have one yet

Favorite animal noise: a cat's meow

Random: I'm a queer, my gender is sweet bean and I adore being on Tumblr. Going to someone else's blog is like seeing a tiny glimpse into their mind; it's an exquisite sight - sometimes comforting.

I'm making this my official introductory post though, anyone is welcome to do this for themselves, if they so please 💕 (feel free to tag me and I'll happily read it :3)

Check my main hashtags if you wish to explore me: #my diary #note to self

08/30/23 Mondo Radio Playlist

Here's the playlist for this week's edition of Mondo Radio, which you can download or stream here. This episode: Untitled ("Soul Vibrations"), featuring classic soul jazz and more. If you dig it, don't forget to also follow the show on Facebook and Twitter!

Artist - Song - Album

The Cannonball Adderley Quintet Feat. Nat Adderley - This Here (Live) - The Cannonball Adderley Quintet In San Francisco

Gene Ammons/Sonny Stitt/Jack McDuff - Shuffle Twist - Soul Summit

Jimmy Smith - Back At The Chicken Shack - Back At The Chicken Shack

Jimmy Smith & Wes Montgomery - 13 (Death March) - Jimmy & Wes: The Dynamic Duo

Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder - The Sidewinder

Big John Patton - Let 'Em Roll - Let 'Em Roll

The Underthings - Being A Clown Has Its Ups And Downs - The Underthings

Shirley Scott With Stanley Turrentine - The Soul Is Willing - Soul Shoutin'

Stanley Turrentine - Let It Go - Let It Go

The Horace Silver Quintet Feat. Stanley Turrentine - Psychedelic Sally - Serenade To A Soul Sister

Lou Donaldson - Alligator Bogaloo - Alligator Bogaloo

The George Benson Quartet - Ain't That Peculiar - Anthology

The Ramsey Lewis Trio - The 'In' Crowd (Live) - The In Crowd

Eddie Harris - Live Right Now - What It Is!: Funky Soul And Rare Grooves 1967-1977

Lonnie Smith - Slow High - Turning Point

Brother Jack McDuff - The Shadow Of Your Smile - What It Is!: Funky Soul And Rare Grooves 1967-1977

Charles Earland - Here Comes Charlie - Black Talk!

Charles Earland - Black Talk - Black Talk!

Dorothy Ashby - Afro-Harping - Afro-Harping

Dorothy Ashby - Soul Vibrations - Afro-Harping

The Politicians Feat. McKinley Jackson - The World We Live In - Psycha-Soula-Funkadelic: The Hot Wax Sessions

The Politicians Feat. McKinley Jackson - Politicians Theme - Psycha-Soula-Funkadelic: The Hot Wax Sessions

thank u to the awesome !!!! @thelambliesdown1974 and @majortomwaits for tagging me to post my favorite first listens of 2022 !! :D i waited until now to make this tagged post bc i have been listening to new music up until the end !!

dorothy ashby -> afro-harping

karen dalton -> it's so hard to tell who's going to love you the best

vashti bunyan -> just another diamond day

neil young -> after the gold rush

michael nesmith and the first national band -> magnetic south

townes van zandt -> townes van zandt

judee sill -> judee sill

bob dylan -> blonde on blonde

the flying burrito brothers -> the gilded palace of sin

i do have the best music taste ever if i am honest

tagging @interimsliebenden @bbbrianjones @hazardutypay amd anyone else who wants to do this !!!

7:01 AM EST January 3, 2023:

Dorothy Ashby - "The Look Of Love" From the album Afro-Harping (1968)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

AlinaHipHarp - Afro Blue / Paris Sur Le Toit + remixes - another player in the burgeoning jazz harp field

In the tradition of Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane, Alina is innovating the use of the Harp in Jazz with contemporary melodies overlaying fresh Hip-Hop beats. Utilising live instrumentation and the contributions of the cream of UK Jazz talent (Tony Kofi, Jay Phelps, Julie Walkington among them) Alina has created two tracks that will be massive additions to the Jazz and Black music canons. This re-imagining of 'Afro Blue' features a wonderful vocal performance from Vimala Rowe which interplays with the Harp solos over a strongly percussive bass driven track that lends itself to the dance floor as the Latin feel of the track builds and builds into a series of solos from the horns, percussion and drums. 'Paris Sur La Toit' is a masterclass in Jazz Hip-Hop with rhymes laid down in French and English by SANITY and Tom TheyThem. Here Alina's Harp provides the changing dynamics of the track, giving the atmosphere which bridges from the break beats to the stunning vocals. Having these original materials to work with, the creative inputs of both DJ Spinna and Sly Johnson are at the top of their respective games bringing new resonances and nuance to 'Paris Sur le Toit'. Paris based composer and vocalist Sly Johnson presents us with his TAGi remix that strips back to the beats in order to bring forth the inter-play between the spoken word, the sung vocals of the chorus and that wonderful harp playing. Brooklynite DJ Spinna's remix brings us a fuller sound where the slow funk of the synth bass drives the vocals along and provides a space for those harp melodies to dance in. This EP is a digital release with seven tracks including the original groove of 'Afro Blue' along with the remixes and instrumentals of 'Paris Sur Le Toit'.