High Noon
Indigenous in the News Featured Artist ReviewThe Way It All Began
I am filled with grieving
at the loss of my brother Dave last week and I am looking for relief
from this mean ass darkness and I want to hold his memory close without
trembling in fear. Generally when I feel like this I like to listen to
Pow Wow drumming and singing.
The notes on the CD insert
state, “Holder of six World Championship titles for their singing and
drumming, High Noon carries one of pow wow’s most enduring and honored
singing traditions. Beginning more than two decades ago on the
Thunderchild Reserve, Saskatchewan, they continue to be among pow wow’s
most respected groups. Singing in the original Plains Cree style, High
Noon maintains the pride of their people and sings from the heart
whenever they sit around the drum.”
Consisting of members (Cree
Tribe unless otherwise noted) Ted Noon, Ron Noon, Marlon Deshamps,
Travis Meguinis, Jay Dusty Bull (Blackfeet), Faron Lujan (Tiwa),
Shaylen Gopher (Chippewa/Blackfeet), Shane Redstar, Jacob Faithful,
Irvin Waskewitch, Galen Sharp. The women singers are Betty Noon, Elisha
Noon, Stacey McGilvery, Candace Faithful, Lateachia Pemma
(Potawatomi/Ho-Chunk); I am excited at the prospect of some desperately
needed spiritual healing.
Today the Rezz Dogg rides a
stationary bike. A what? A damn stationary bike! It’s well, it’s 30?
below zero wind chill outside and it’s snowing overtop a layer of ice.
What bike rider in his right mind would ride on a day like this. Well,
I’ve done it. You could say that I was not cohesive with myself at the
time. But, today I feel a little older and wiser. It’s just that
there’s no motion. No scenery. No feel. Very little inspiration. I drop
an Italian travelogue tape about Italian villas along each coast into
the VCR and flick it on. I smudge and start up the I-pod so I can
listen to the latest assignment High Noon/The Way It All Began and I
jump on the stationary to go for my morning constitutional.
There are no titles to any
of the songs. The notion that everything needs a title is only just a
little pretentious in a sense since the song is an entity of itself
that in a spiritual realm identity would not be necessary only just
being. To breathe the song into life and leave it to speak on its’ own.
A really truly four directions type of thought. This was a lesson that
I learned only just recently from a participant at a writer’s workshop
at Shakopee Women’s Correctional Facility who happens to be a
particularly gifted writer. It was a tremendously fascinating
experience but we can discuss that more later.
High Noon is a collection
of several Intertribal songs, contest songs and a great grass dance
song. There is something so tradish about this CD it makes me tingle
all over. The intertribal songs are for intertribal dancing meaning
these are songs to be sung during a dance where participants from
various tribes may be dancing together within the dance circle. Contest
songs are songs sung specifically for the fabulously colorful and
strenuous dance contests that are now very common among our people.
Grass dance is a northern Plains style of dance. The Grass Dance
assumed its contemporary form in the mid and late 1950’s. Modern grass
dance outfits are heavily fringed with yarn, which emphasizes a flowing
dance style. Resembles the blowing wind through the prairie grass.
It is important to any drum
circle for the drumming and singing to be strong and on. Not just
ordinary on but on all the time. The voices and the drumming must sound
as one. The sound of the men and women singing together should sound
like a harmony of sorts. High Noon delivers at all levels in every
regard. I am lifted up through the fog into another realm where the
grief don’t hurt so bad and your memories are only fond ones, where
death can’t touch ya, and you feel no pain. I’m gonna miss you Dave.
One of these days I’m goin’
to that pow wow in Naples, I understand the Italians can really sing
and dance and dance and the countryside is very ancient and beautiful
but on the whole, I’d rather be in Tucson.
Thank you for your attention to this. I think it ties more of the previous elements together, Uncle Jams.
ReporterJamison Mahtojamison@iicoc.comwww.iicoc.com