The universal language

I just finished watching a segment of Bill Moyer’s Journal on public television, on independent film maker Mark Johnson and the film he produced over ten years called Playing for Change: Peace through Music. The segment was run a few weeks ago and the show was overwhelmed with response from viewers who loved it. One woman said she and her family had been very adversely affected by the recent downturn in the economy, and watching the few minutes of this segment, for the first time in a long time she had a feeling of absolute joy.

I felt exactly the same way, both times I watched the segment.

Johnson’s initial inspiration for producing this film were two monks he saw playing and singing in a New York subway. He was struck by the fact that a good 200 busy, hard-nosed New Yorkers simply stopped, transfixed, and listened. Music, he realized, had this won-derful ability to draw people together, however different they and their lives might be.

What he ended up doing was recording a hundred musicians and singers all around the world singing and playing the same songs, in their own distinctive way. The two songs that we heard were Stand by Me and Bob Marley’s One World. Johnson said it all started with a Ray Charles-like singer named Roger Ridley, whom he heard singing on the streets of Santa Monica, where he lived. He asked Ridley if he, Johnson, could bring a camera and some sound equipment and record Ridley singing Stand by Me. Ridley said sure, why not, and we were the beneficiaries. And after that there was a tubby, elderly black blues singer in New Orleans (who was wonderful), a group of singers in South Africa, a drummer in Spain, a sax player in Italy, a cellist in ?, a group of American Indian pow wow drummers (the Twin Eagle drum group from Zuni, New Mexico), a back yard jazz combo in South Africa...all contributing their take on Stand by Me. And Johnson had done a marvelous editing job, so that the different groups became a tuneful collage of what is a very hopeful, upbeat song.

During the interview that Bill Moyers had with him, Johnson mentioned a caption on a picture that his brother had given him, of a group of musicians in South Africa. The caption was something to the effect that “One of the most dangerous townships in South Africa finds solace in backyard jazz.” And of course, music provides solace to people everywhere. Johnson both demonstrated that fact through his film, and carried it on, by making and sharing the film. The proof of that is in the many, many comments on PBS’s blog for the Moyers show, and requests of “where can I get a copy of this to give to my friends?’ (Alas, the film is actually out of print, but I gather this public demand is supposed to produce a new DVD soon.)

The icing on the cake as far as Playing for Change goes, is that Johnson has also been working on establishing music schools for children in such places as that dangerous and depressed township in South Africa. What a great cause! Where do I send money? How much better to be learning to sing or play an instrument, than learning to hate and blow yourself and others up.

I saw yet another demonstration of music bringing diverse people together later in the evening when PBS ran the Yanni Live! Concert, from Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Yanni was a guest in the Maine PBS studio, and during one of the pledge breaks, he mentioned that 15 different countries were represented among his musicians. Talk about universal.