Derrik Jordon's African Adventure

I met Derrik Jordan at the Harmonizing with Humanity positive music festival in Phoenix this past March. I missed his solo performance of original pieces but was impressed with the string work he lent to other artists' performances (electric violin is his first instrument). His playing was sensitive, generous, and supportive – no ego, no agendas.

Late one night, relaxing in the lobby of the hotel, we talked about music, the world, and teaching (we're both part-time "music mentors"). I found Jordan to be amiable and engaging, in keeping with his collaborative style on stage. When he told me about the making of his latest CD, "SuperString Theory Goes to Senegal," I realized that his gracious approach to music and life has been as important to his success as his talents as a violinist, guitarist, songwriter, singer, and percussionist.

The story began when Jordan joined some fellow teachers on a cultural exchange tour called The Senegal-American Project. Jordan is a devotee of World Beat music – he has written, performed, and produced a double CD of Brazilian-inspired tunes called "Braziliance" and won top honors for the 2002 Reggae Song of the Year from Just Plain Folks, the world's largest songwriter organization. He has journeyed to Brazil, Trinidad, Ghana, and Senegal to fine tune his World Beat chops.

He knew his second trip to Africa was an opportunity to record with some great Senegalese musicians. But he also knew that he would have to plan the project carefully, like a safari into uncharted territory. First, there was the issue of establishing good faith with the musicians. Jordan wanted to avoid any whiff of the controversies that accompanied Paul Simon's "Graceland" project.

"I saw the problem as me being a white American guy," Jordan says. "How was I going to be able to build trust with these Africans who might not believe that I had their best interests at heart? I worried that they would think I was trying to rip off their music."

If he had been David Byrne, with the backing of some big music corporation, he could just offer irresistible sums of money and lawyer up if misunderstandings surfaced later. But this would not be Jordan's way, even if he had such means at his disposal. He envisioned the perfect win-win situation: He would offer to make CDs of the local players' music, gratis, then invite them to play and improvise with him and record the sessions. The plan required a huge leap of faith on several levels, and the execution would be challenging.

(Next: Derrik Jordon's adventure continues with a fascinating conclusion.)

The Big Oooh...

This is it.
This is what Eckhart Tolle was talking about. "You have all this important stuff to do," you're ego stews," but you're stuck in the grimy showroom of the Big O Tire store waiting ad infinitum for a set to be put on your car. Your ego would love to highjack your equanimity and get all indignant and irritable because once again "real life" has ground your "real life's purpose" to a halt. But you've been down that dead-end street before and are determined to show that committee of neurotic reactionaries that like to run things in your head (when given the chance) that you're a big boy now and can transcend the slings and arrows of mere circumstance.
And so you notice the air slipping in and out through your nostrils. You feel the weight of the clipboard resting on your thigh... the cool of the fan on the back of your neck. You recall the saying you once noticed on the wall of a Zen Center on the Marin Coast. It said, "Drinking a cup of tea, I stop the war."
Therefore, being a pacifist at heart, you drink in the sunlight glinting off the tile floor, careening off the hubcap displays. You feel the warmth of your body. Hear the rattle of the fan overhead. Take note of the psychological trick of comparative value. This moment is just as valuable as any other— in fact, more valuable than most because you're actually aware of it, You can actually see through the oversized primary-colored lettering on the store front window the pastel retro-fashions on the manikins in the second-hand boutique across the street. It's all there for you— the colors, the sounds, the smells.
No longer trapped in the everyday world, you can peer into it from a vaster dimension called being. Soon the everyday world becomes more like an interesting, innocuous diorama. Emersed in the Big Om that permeates the Big O, you can imbibe of this world without being drowned in it.