JHELISA / “Ooh Child”

I got an email one time from a sister who signed herself Jhelisa. She wrote to say that she really dug an essay I had written. I responded thank you and kept on stepping. Didn’t think too much about it. Although I was familiar with Jhelisa because of three of her albums Galactica Rush, Galactica Moods and Language Electric, I did not immediately make the connection.

I receive so much email every day that, as I try to respond to each one, I often respond without concentrating on who wrote it.  Moreover, at some level it never occurred to me that Jhelisa the singer whose work I admired would be emailing me.

Rush was Jhelisa's debut album and I was excited about it, but as much as I liked Rush, I found myself liking Moods even more. Much later I found out that so many people had been doing remixes of Galactica that when the record company approached Jhelisa about doing some remixes herself, she decided to simply do live remixes with mainly acoustic instruments. It was stunningly beautiful. The Language Electric album I was less excited about. I thought of it a very interesting but flawed experiment. A couple of the tracks were really strong, but overall it was just a little bit off to my ears.

Shortly thereafter, I got an email that Jhelisa was in New Orleans and can we meet. She dropped by the office I used to have in the Treme section of New Orleans. She said, I don’t know if you know me but... I cut her off, went to the CD cabinets and pulled out her three albums. I told her I had played two hours of her music one night on my show, The Kitchen Sink. And, of course, from there we engaged in a long conversation about her career and her plans. She said after spending over ten years in England, she was thinking about living in the States for a while. We agreed to stay in touch. And we did. After traveling around the country a bit and doing some international gigs, Jhelisa ended up relocating to New Orleans.

Which is where this Tipitina's cameo comes in. I received a call from one of the owners, he wanted me to meet some guys who were coming to town as one stop among many to make a documentary, a follow-up to 1 Giant Leap. I told Adam, yeah, I was familiar with the music documentary 1 Giant Leap—I had even showed the video in our Neo-Griot Writing Workshop. When Adam broke it down what the deal was, I immediately thought of Jhelisa, gave her a call to clue her in. She said she was going to be there because on that same night she had agreed to do a cameo on the set of a local artist, Tandre.

Long story short there was a rough recording of Tandre’s set, which is the origin of the live Jhelisa cuts. Moreover, when I brought Jhelisa next door to the guest house to meet the cats from England, turns out she knew one of them and they had a mutual good friend back across the water. So they hit it off fabulously. Jhelisa ended up singing a song, which they recorded for probable use in the 1 Giant Leap sequel. I never did hook back up with them and ironically saw them at the airport as they were leaving and I also was headed out of town.

Back in late March or early April 2005 Jhelisa recorded an album in New Orleans which has some stellar moments on it. It’s called Sunday In Algiers. Algiers is the name of the part of the city that is located on the West Bank of the Mississippi River.

From time to time, I would drop in on Jhelisa’s regular Tuesday night gig at the Hookah Café or stop by her house, or she would call me and we would check in with one another.

Then Katrina. Jhelisa made it out and is in New York about to head back across the water. And so it goes. Not only do natives miss New Orleans, but there was also a large community of musicians who had moved to New Orleans and called it home. Now all of that too is gone.

In light of all of the above, “Ooh Child” is a particular apt song of hope that takes on a special significance in the current situation we face. Jhelisa only did the two numbers in the jukebox. Although she had not worked with these musicians before, it was a one-off that went off swimmingly. I particularly like the broad dynamics of the song and Jhelisa’s scatting with her growling nod to Louis Armstrong.

The Starfishing Project is a whole other enterprise. It too is unreleased and is from a set of material that Jhelisa hopes to get out there in the near future. If I’m not mistaken, “Far I Have Come” is also from The Starfishing Project. Again, although recorded years before Katrina, these songs take on an added resonance in the current atmosphere. “Far I Have Come” is a determined song of a weary traveler vowing to keep on keeping on, a sentiment that most of our people know well.

Like “Ooh Child,” “Starfishing” is an affirmation, but this time with heavy cosmic vibes. Once Jhelisa dropped in for an extended show on the Kitchen Sink and she lined out the song on the piano, sang a verse and talked about how a songwriting team sent it to her and as soon as she heard it, she decided to record it. It was a magical moment. Hopefully you will find it as beautifully moving as I do.

—Kalama ya Salaam

 

     Really digging 'Far I Have Come'    

 I like a lot of Jhelisa's work and these songs are no exception. While I like all of the posted songs, I really dig "Far I Have Come." It's on some ol' Cassandra Wilson / "Rastaman Chant" / early Zap Mama type of vibe. If I wasn't sharing a bedroom with three other people, I'd put it on repeat and listen to it for the next few hours. Ah well....

 —Mtume ya Salaam

 

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 11th, 2005 at 12:03 am and is filed under Cover. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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