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Happy New Year!
Addis Ababa street concert
Happy new year! It’s 2002 in Ethiopia, which is on a different calendar. It’s a wonderful gift to be able to go back in time and be younger than you were when you entered the country! Tonight Addis Ababa is celebrating New Year’s Eve. We filmed a New Year’s Eve concert, which was packed out. They had chairs going out the door and spilling out on the sidewalk–probably more than 1500 people in the building and an unknown number more outside. Our band performed their set along with some local musicians, and during one extended Ethiopian jam, the building erupted in a wave of stomping, jumping, hand-waving joy. It was quite a sight to behold. I wasn’t able to get any decent still photos of tonight’s concert, but I do have one of yesterday’s impromptu street concert in one of the poorer neighborhoods where we went to visit some of the children. It was so much fun to watch the children running from all directions to take in this concert.–Carolyn McCulley
Nagongera
We are wrapping up a week in Nagongera, Uganda. Yesterday was our highlight as we held a benefit concert at the children’s homes in the rural village of Nagongera that is served by Covenant Mercies. We filmed several local bands playing indigenous instruments, including the extremely talented Macedonians. They are a band of 21 people who play thumb pianos, local drums, shakers, and long drums. That concert and the rehearsal the day before were a highlight for our team as they were immersed in the sights and sounds of the local culture. (You can see what I’m talking about in this video previously made of the Macedonians in Nagongera.)
Joshua Ijala, the leader of the Macedonians, is also a pastor. The region he serves has a large number of orphans. But they are parentless because of the Lord’s Resistance Army, that heinous group of rebels that has kidnapped children and forced them to become child soldiers and kill the adults in their land. It was shocking to find out that this is a daily reality for Joshua after spending these last few days with him and listening to his joyful music.
Africa — a land of contradictions.
Trip Preparations
The team gathers with Covenant Mercies executive director Doug Hayes, on left, in early July to discuss logistics.
It’s one thing to hold a benefit concert. It’s another thing to take that show on the road and hold that event three times in three weeks — in three nations. But that’s what we have to pull off for the Africa tour this September for A NOTE OF HOPE. I’ve shot in Africa before but I’ve not had to worry about the complexity of adding live events to the shoot schedule. Fortunately, I have a lot of enthusiastic support from the musicians involved with this project, not to mention the fantastic crew I’ve been blessed to work with over the years. Plus, Covenant Mercies is providing us with editorial access and ground support because they know these communities so well.
Our plan is to visit Nagongera, Uganda; Ndola, Zambia; and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to learn more about the challenges each community is facing with children orphaned by AIDS (primarily) and how local solutions are being crafted, supported by resources coming from abroad. In each of those areas, our team will host a free concert to draw attention to the work being done by these groups within these communities. During these performances, John Blake and the other musicians will have the opportunity to talk about the songs they are performing, their African influences, their heritage of faith and social justice, and why it is important to keep alive this natural connection between the music and humanitarian causes. The group will also be able to give workshops and children’s concerts in the various local schools. We will then wrap up our visit with a trip to Ghana to visit the same “slave castle” that President Obama visited during his recent tour, among other sites.
This is just one part of the film’s shooting schedule, which will capture different events over the course of about a year. –Carolyn McCulley
Developing the Documentary
Carolyn McCulley and Andrew Gallo film the 2009 Note of Hope benefit concert.
This film is rooted in the friendship of a group of jazz musicians who saw the opportunity to use their talents for the good of others. Vocalist Rosella Clemmons Washington rounded up some of her long-time friends to perform a benefit concert for Covenant Mercies, a Philadelphia-area organization that, among other things, helps children who are left fatherless by HIV/AIDS in several African nations.
The second benefit concert was held in May, 2009, and a few months prior, executive director Doug Hayes told me about the jazz arrangements of traditional Negro spirituals that violinist John Blake, Jr. was doing for the concert and how John was keen to preserve the heritage of this unique American art form. As I listened, I realized there was an unusual connection between these songs and issues of social justice and humanitarian concerns. These spirituals were songs created by people who suffered under the hardship of slavery, yet could still be creative. They did not let the injustice of what they endured completely define their existence. And as they sang these songs, they expressed their faith in God, communicated important clues about the Underground Railroad, and contributed an important element to American culture.
Centuries later, these songs were also the soundtrack to the American civil rights movement. They were the songs most of the musicians involved in this benefit concert grew up with — so it was quite natural to them to be interpreting them in another genre and keeping these songs alive for a new generation. It was also quite natural to keep the humanitarian and social justice connection alive in this present generation. Using their musical gifts and talents to draw attention to one of the paramount concerns of the 21st century — the looming crisis of children left parentless by HIV/AIDS — these musicians are building the legacy of the spirituals.
That’s how I got involved with vocalist Rosella Clemmons Washington, violinist John Blake Jr., bassist Gerald Veasley, pianist Sumi Tonooka, and drummer Harry “Butch” Reed. I wanted to explore the journey they were on as musical ambassadors for this cause. So the Citygate Films production team began filming A NOTE OF HOPE in the spring of 2009, beginning with a concert and lecture that John Blake gave at Howard University, and then progressing to a four-camera shoot near Philadelphia, PA, in early May.
That May concert was the where the film obtained its name, for it was the second benefit concert for this AIDS charity and the signage was all over the stage. I couldn’t improve upon all the connotations in that name, though — so now the forthcoming film and soundtrack bear the same label, too. — Carolyn McCulley
Photo credit: Carissa Batten Gallo