Nippising
Dennis Gomo
Independent
1999
15 tracks
Just like compulsive stamp collectors ... we wrap them up in cellophane, and we store them on our kitchen shelves - Then we gather at the ceremony, - to congratulate ourselves... - Dennis Gomo, "The Scientists are Learning"
Prejudice, judgement prior to full knowledge, is the great destroyer. In the arts, this has become especially so. From the beginning and until fairly recently in the greater scheme of things, Art was inclusive of all its forms. Then began the dissection, the separation of painting and music, and theatre, and sculpture, and literary writing, and so on. This appears to have begun about three hundred years ago with the birth of public media and been nurtured by academics and critics ever since. It's as though these writers had been and are unable to handle Art except in small bites. Anything larger would be too rich for them to stomach.
Now, as we begin this twenty-first century, we find every facet of art ripped apart by these critical hounds. Genre and classification, it seems, is all that matters anymore and God help the artist who dares mix one genre or form with another. While this tide now seems to be beginning to turn, even today only a very few artists can manage this transition. The audience has learned to pre-judge, to dismiss a work of art before they have had a chance to learn about it.
Where this problem of artistic prejudice is especially apparent is at the juncture where poetry meets song lyrics. There is a small number of writers who perform spoken word over music. The folk music crowd don't like this. They say they don't want to hear "poetry readings" at their music events. They forget their "musical" tradition is all about storytelling. The literary crowd don't like this. If the words are performed over music, these literati say they are concerned the quality of the poetry will be substandard. They forget that until recent times, poetry was a popular medium, created for and spoken or sung to the common people. In either case, it's a very narrow, cliquish point of view. It offends me.
What has all this to do with Dennis Gomo? Gomo is another in a growing number of artists who, although they don't call it that, are writing and recording spoken word performance pieces. How shall we classify Gomo? Into which glass case shall we pin this butterfly? Or shall we just accept him for his unique self, and let him fly?
Of the fifteen songs on Nippising, three are spoken word performance and another three are presented in a style which is as spoken as sung. Among these are the best songs on this release. Even where the words are sung, the instrumentation and arrangement echoes a style often used by several prominent American poets in presenting their work.
Will these songs get much airplay? I have my doubts. If we ignore hip hop music, the last admittedly spoken word recording I remember making the hit parade before the lightweight "Everyone's free to wear Sunscreen" was Les Crane's "Desiderata" from the album of the same name almost thirty years ago. Should they get airplay? I think so.
"Away (Ode to Akhunaton)" is a delicious paean of love. Although dedicated to an ancient Egyptian god, these words and Gomo's presentation have a sensual reality to them that could as easily be a metaphor of love between a man and a woman. Like Crane's hit, "Away" mixes spoken verses with a sung chorus to great effect. Unlike Crane's hit, this song is quiet and gentle, the words floating over a bed of softly strummed guitar and soothing harmonica.
"The Universe is Watching" appears at surface to take a larger view. Without being big and preachy, this is a millennial poem. Rather than attempt to forecast the future, Gomo's lyrics invite the listener to consider some questions of where we go from here. There are echoes here too. Some of the lines (and that tiny voice laughing in the background) seem to echo themes from Sheb Wooley's "Purple People Eater". One almost expects the voice to say "Tequila" at the song's end. On the literary side, were this lyric not about the Universe, it might as easily be about a man and a woman, just another version of "had we but world and time enough...."
In other songs, Gomo adopts a sort of Tony Joe White patter, not quite spoken but not quite sung, telling the story with power and emotion.
Also outstanding on this release is Gomo's treatment of the blues. Here are quiet, evocative blues played in a very traditional style, with the vocals a marriage of the great black artists and white bluesmen like Jimmie Rodgers. The result is a powerful and universal blues style that lulls the listener into Gomo's world. "Big Stars" stands out as a very fine treatment of the blues genre by this artist.
It's interesting to note that lyrics are included for all songs except the two blues songs, "Big Star" and "Four-Track Blues," and the final song, "Waiting." It would have been interesting to read them. "Big Star" especially is an excellent treatment of the traditional blues lyric. There is nothing in the liner notes to indicate why these lyrics were omitted.
Will the folkies accept this as more than just a poetry reading? Will the literati accept that these lyrics also qualify as poetry? If they don't, it's their loss. This release is solid and succeeds in all respects: as music, as poetry, as performance.
For those interested in hearing the best of contemporary spoken word and sung performance, I highly recommend that you add Nippising to your music shelf....I was sitting calculating, when I received a telegram - It needed no translation, it said I feel therefore I am. (Dennis Gomo, "The Scientists are Learning") Yeah, these are my songs. Write them any way I choose. Yeah, when I speak my mind, you know it keeps away the blues. (Dennis Gomo, "Four Track Blues")
If you want to know more about Dennis Gomo, go to his home on the internet.
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