What am I provoked by? 

Artifacts- One for Longing, One for Desire, 

Where are you most evidenced collectively? 

Where are you most evidenced individually? 

How am I tending to structures that require less energy? 
Am I evidenced when....

Collectivity + frequency- Together every Sunday

BlackSociality + praxis- Divide- queerness in discrete entities- to live and learn in community-community pending 

disciplining and specificity and specialization- roles in the church. 

Deep, expansive, 

Rigorous + devotional practice- to move deeply

Clubbing- sociality- sermons on clubbing 

Protocol See the place see what is around I want you to notice when I not around—> 
When Black queers disappeared, did anyone notice? Did anyone speak of them? 

I would sum it up as a great friendship founded in the experiences of our youth and first coming out as gay, our mutual love of music and the spoken word, and the synergy those elements created. Aside from my parents, he probably had more influence on my life than anyone. I can't imagine who I would be had I not known him, been his friend, and worked with him as a performance partner.

I first met Essex as a college freshman at the University of Maryland, College Park. I'd been housed in the dorm for about 2 weeks because, as a music major, I came to campus early to participate in marching band practices. I'd been "out" for about 6-8 months and already knew I would seek out the gay student organization on campus, having heard members of the group interview on the "Friends" show on Georgetown University radio earlier that year. We lived in what was supposed to be a single dorm room, so ironically, the result of what well may have been a racist move of cramming us together resulted in the serendipity of our becoming friends and (later) collaborators. When Essex moved in, as soon as he walked in the door (literally, within 5 seconds) I said, "well, I'm gay, so if that's a problem you'll have to find another roommate." Essex took it in stride (and silence, if I remember). He wasn't really out yet, and I like to think I helped nudge him on the way a bit.

We hit it off immediately, mainly through our love of music and pot smoking. Essex showed me some of his poetry written in high school, some images of which I still recall: something about coming home after a hard day's work to "count the brown pennies of this day." Essex was an imagist poet. His greatest strength, I think, was to deliver a really powerful message wrapped in a compelling visual image or metaphor. We didn't really dwell on his writing that much as roommates though. We explored the culture of the early to mid 1970s, which, contrary to the stereotypes of cheesy-ness, was really revolutionary. Saturday Night Live had just started that year, and it was astounding. We also enjoyed Monty Python's Flying Circus. We listened to music of mine like progressive/psychedelic rock (Yes, Pink Floyd) and Essex's jazz collection (early George Duke, ECM label works, female jazz vocalists). This kind of cultural sharing was foundational to our later artistic relationship.

Essex dropped out of school in sophomore year and moved to Los Angeles. I remember thinking how brave it was to move all the way across the country like that. Like many men, he left town to complete his process of coming out. When he returned after a few years, we hung out occasionally. Around 1980 or so, Essex began performing with Larry Duckette, and the two of them created the "choral poetry" style we became known for. Brass Rail is the iconic example of this style, with its weaving of the voices (see my YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Wayson+Jones; skip the ad and rewind the track!). The main tenet of our approach, as I later understood it through experience and my conversations with Essex, was to consider the voice as an instrument and the poems as music. Although we spoke, and did not (generally) sing, we explored the nuances of pitch, rhythm, and inflection in the voice from a musical perspective. My history as a music major, and our common trait of sensitive musicality, made these explorations natural and fruitful. I'm speaking of both my later duo work with Essex and the trio Cinque, as Larry was also a musician.

So, after Larry and Essex had been performing for a while, Essex and I met for lunch one day (in '82 maybe?), and he invited me to join forces with them as an instrumentalist. This was limited to incidental, "sound effect" types of things with handheld percussion, bamboo flute, and the like. In fact, the first time I performed with them, at the ENIKAlley Coffeehouse, I was up in the loft area while Essex and Larry performed below on the ground (main) level. That isolation quickly ended, and I became a voice in Cinque as a performance poetry trio.

That's all for now; more to come. But, please tell me if I'm giving too much information in response to your question!

Thanks,

Wayson

bodily surrender 

Openness 

Performative 

black spirituality 

encounter between the Holy Spirit 

Clapping - shouting to express worship 

Look at: 

dancing in one spot #6 

sermon for a longing in blue 

Annunciated life

Sermon Set: 

Sculptures and structures that are found in black churches 

Questions: 

How is difference named in the black church?

How can we be vulnerable that undermines the ways that we live? 

What does inheritance mean for a queer being that is navigating and desiring communal worship? 

How are spiritual desires constructed through the lens and experience of a isolated being? 

My Relationship to the black church is MUSIC 

connected through music...

Flamboyant as a choir director

We live in a homophobic world 

Urgency and intensity 

How can I cultivate a practice?

Scared space - a space where we can feel a sense of self. To reach something more urgent and more fundamental...something that is deeper ... something that is more extra existential then what the surface can allow...music allows us to really reach something within ourselves .. a space to be held and becoming. 

a series of work that I’ve been working on. 

water- relationship with bodies of water- blackness- our history- from slavery 

A site of refuge - but also a site of trauma 

what is a blue light basement party? 

Hype Williams 

Black people going down below into self. 

Find feeedom in it. 

- underground vernacular —- the Underground Railroad - the club -negro spirituals - basement parties - what are the connection between these? How can we investigate the underground? But we don’t want ti be under grounded.. we want to be released into the world. We want to be liberated..

James Baldwin- up above my head - chapter gospel singer ...

Praise Breaks on YouTube 

Liberation - Freedom 

Shouting slipping into something that is felt. 

Praise is in community 

Praise takes work 

Praise you sweat 

Praise takes your fleshly energy

Practice of Praise 

What does praise look like? Or how can it be presented in new ways? 

What’s the choreography from the church? 

I want to use the choreography from the church. 

A search to be held and to hold. 

The use of sweat , water, 

seeking freedom 

Ashon new book:

Hammond organ it’s relation to blackness and queerness. 

William and Brian from Philly.. they were together and William died of hiv.. and Brian cried 

Disorienting nature can be liberation 

Boundless 

 

What kinds of way can we start? 

 

Where’s the respect for how I wanted to come to the room? 

 

Room to give up?! Making space for difference

 

I’m going to make a playground, figure out how to play! LOL 

 

Dancing in the space of indeterminacy? Where who you are enters? 

 

Where is sovereignty in relation?