Live review: 'A Suite for Ma Dukes' at Luckman Fine Arts Complex
As Los Angeles and the world writ large slurped shrimp cocktails and Camembert while focusing on silk gowns and slumdogs, 11 and a half miles east of the Kodak Theatre, roughly a thousand people gathered at Cal State L.A.’s Harriet and Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex to pay tribute to James Yancey, one of hip-hop’s fallen icons. As far as name recognition goes, J Dilla might not boast the familiarity of J.(erry) Lewis, who took home a humanitarian award Sunday evening — but anyone who has ever listened to the late Detroit producer can attest to his ability to brew beats as singular and special as any potion Lewis’ famed nutty professor would’ve concocted.
Accordingly, the underpinnings of “A Suite to Ma Dukes,” the second installment in VTech, Mochilla and Art Don’t Sleep’s Timeless concert series, stemmed from the conceit that Dilla’s skill behind the boards was so deft that his compositions would translate to the symphony hall, backed by a white-clad, baby-faced, 40-piece orchestra. And as re-imagined by Joaquin Phoenix doppelgänger Carlos Niño, and curly, copper-haired composer Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, the cuts of the cream of Conant Gardens successfully transmogrified from basement burners to high-brow suites suffused with a bow-tied respectability.
But if the night were merely dedicated to the pursuit of adding weepy woodwinds and sappy strings to Dilla’s air-raid assaults, it wouldn’t have maintained nearly as much impact. Its raison d’être was binary: to pay tribute to Dilla’s mother, Maureen “Ma Dukes Yancey,” who also suffers from the debilitating effects of the same Lupus disease that felled her son at the tender age of 32; moreover, it was about paying tribute to the trite but tender notion that music matters — specifically, that J Dilla’s music mattered more than nearly any artist in his field.
Led by Ferguson’s manic gesticulations, the first 45 minutes featured genteel renditions of songs from the upcoming EP “Suite for Ma Dukes": permutations of Dilla’s beats for Tribe Called Quest’s “Find a Way,” Slum Village’s “Fall in Love,” Dwight Trible & the Life Force Trio's “Antiquity” from the "Love Is the Answer" album and Common’s “Nag Champa.” Beats that once banged with delirious kick were swathed in an almost Disney-esque softness, rap re-imagined as the score to "Fantasia" — the quivering strings and ebullient bass lines lending a favonian bliss to the proceedings, pregnant with a patience almost alien to Dilla’s Motor City crush.
It was a vastly different experience than the slashing ice and hail of Dilla’s hard-core beats, and the cosmic sanguinity of his love songs. As re-conceived by Ferguson and Niño, “A Suite for Ma Dukes” unveiled the restrained classical elements of Dilla’s compositions — sweeping away the street burnish to reveal the high-art ear.
The concept of love loomed large over the proceedings, present in the song selection, the audience address given by Ma Dukes, Dilla’s younger brother Illa J and a tuxedo-clad Common, and the surprise cast of collaborators (AmpLive, Bilal, Dwele of Slum Village) that colored the second half. While the absence of Dilla’s gritty drums tended to steer the early compositions toward over-politeness, guest Karriem Riggin’s virtuosic drum fills and smashing snares unleashed the nonpareil funk and soul that dominated Dilla’s sound.
In particular, a rendition of Stan Getz and Luis Bonfa’s “Saudade Vem Correndo,” the original sample source for the Dilla-composed, Pharcyde-rapped “Runnin,” revealed the lapidary genius of the deceased legend. While lesser lights rely on facile sample loops and computer-aided shortcuts, Dilla wielded a unique brilliance for manipulating his influences into something unmistakably new — parts jazz, funk, soul, classical, avant-garde and, always, hip-hop.
But the capper was the coda — the orchestra launching into De La Soul’s “Stakes Is High,” and the thousand-plus people simultaneously bobbing their heads, tapping their toes, mouthing from memory the words to the trio’s 1996 ode to the rote commercialization of hip-hop, a trend Dilla always bucked. Suddenly, with a slick strut, Posdnuos of De La Soul leaped onstage and kicked his lyrics, aided by a dynamic Talib Kweli rapping over Trugoy the Dove’s portion. With the orchestra wailing and the full cast of collaborators onstage, the audience took to its feet and clapped along, every mouth murmuring two words over and over again: “love” and “vibrations.” At that moment, even the most steel-souled cynic would’ve been hard-pressed to tell you that it was ever about anything else.
-- Jeff Weiss
Photo by Azul "213" Amaral for www.Mochilla.com
