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CDs by Chocolate
Milk
Action Speaks Louder Than Words /
Best of /
Ice Cold Funk /
In Funk We Trust
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Chocolate Milk: "Action Speaks Louder Than Words”
Breath
of Life Music
Commentary by Mtume ya Salaam
& Kalamu ya
Salaam
New Orleans is internationally known as one of the major
music cities of the world. Visitors are always looking
for “real” New Orleans music, meaning, I suppose, music
that is different from the commercial music on the radio
that one can hear anywhere in the world, music that
seems to be oblivious to industry demands, music that
seems to just grow organically out of the atmosphere; in
other words, music that doesn’t exist anywhere else in
the world—and if the truth be told, such music hardly
exists in New Orleans anymore.
Today, music everywhere is influenced, if not outright
determined, by the dominant forces of the marketplace,
even so-called independent music is judged by whether it
has a definable audience. Pre-Katrina, there was a
strong local audience for some forms of music that don’t
exist anywhere else in the world, but post-Katrina…
well, let’s just say it’s going to be a long, long time
before there is a large, local, neighborhood-based
audience. But there certainly was a time…
The eight-piece funk band Chocolate Milk is one great
example of real New Orleans music. The band members
during their major period were: Amadee Castanell (tenor,
& soprano sax), Ernest Dabon (bass), Robert Dabon
(piano, clavinet, moog), Joseph Smith III (trumpet &
flugelhorn), Frank Richards (lead vocals, percussion),
Dwight Richards (drums), Mario Tio (lead & rhythm
guitar) and Kenneth “Afro” Williams (percussion).
Although they had a number of singles that charted, they
never had a top-10 hit. During their major years
between 1975, when they first signed with RCA and
released Action Speaks Louder Than Words, until their
last album, 1982’s Friction, they wanted to top the
charts and tried everything from funk to soul ballads to
disco.
They first scored attention as the backing band for
Allen Toussaint’s live performances and as a house band
for Toussaint’s Sea-Saint studio productions. Their
debut album was the strongest of eight releases over the
eight year period of 1975 – 1983. Four of the five
tracks in the jukebox are from Action Speaks Louder Than
Words. “Groove City” is from 1979‘s Milky Way album.
Each of the five selected cuts has its own flavor and
together the songs give a full representation of
Chocolate Milk.
Chocolate Milk is a uniquely New Orleans mix of funk and
lyricism, hip dance music and sing-a-long melodies.
Regardless of not making a major splash as a commercial
band, Chocolate Milk is classic late seventies Crescent
City funk and their aptly titled “Action Speaks Louder
Than Words” remains not only a classic musical
statement, the song is also a parentally/perennially
important social statement.
—Kalamu ya Salaam
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The REAL New Orleans
Kalamu is of Chocolate Milk’s generation. He remembers
how they got together and he remembers that this album
came out then and that album came out there and so on.
But I was just four years old when Action Speaks Louder
Than Words came out. Obviously, I don’t remember any of
those things. For me, Chocolate Milk songs like "Action
Speaks Louder Than Words" and "Groove City" were just
kind of "always there." When you’re a kid and there’s a
family get-together or a barbecue or what have you, you
don’t choose the music. You don’t even think about the
music. It’s just part of the atmosphere. To a kid, the
music is inseparable from the people, the food, the
grass and the trees. It’s like the air you breathe. What
I’m trying to say is, these songs remind me of the New
Orleans I grew up in. The REAL New Orleans.
There’s this show
on Fox named K-Ville. It’s set in post-Katrina New
Orleans. As a born-and-raised New Orleanian who’s chosen
to live somewhere else, I really wanted to like the
show. I wanted the show to make me feel good about my
city. But I couldn’t even get all the way through the
first episode. I don’t know why I expected more (maybe
it was just wishful thinking), but K-Ville was nothing
but one cliché after another…and not even good ones. It
presents an image of New Orleans that comes straight out
of the fantasies and nightmares of people who don’t know
anything about the city. In the first thirty minutes of
the show, there was a jazz funeral, two jazz
performances, at least two episodes of the lead
character drinking hard liquor while on the clock (and
he’s a cop) and three or four major characters whose
last name was some weird Creolized French-sounding thing
that may or may not have been invented.
(Note to anyone
who’s going to do a movie or show or story about New
Orleans: many, many black people in New Orleans are
surnamed Smith or Jones or Williams or Johnson or
whatever else they’re named everywhere else in America.
The "Creole" thing is a subculture of New Orleans.
Everyone IS NOT named Boulet or Lebeau or whatever. We
also don’t attend jazz funerals everyday. (I think I may
have been to three or four in my lifetime.) Our cops
generally aren’t drunks. Mardi Gras only comes once per
year and some of us are actually happy when it’s over.
We don’t go to blues clubs every weekend - the tourists
do that. Etc., etc., etc.)
Chocolate Milk’s music reminds me of everything the show
was missing. It’s a lot of what New Orleans sounded like
when I was growing up. It’s nothing flashy or
pretentious. Just real, ordinary, funky music. It’s also
music that is consciously trying to gain a wider
audience. That’s part of what New Orleans is too. New
Orleans is a landmark city, but it’s not New York, L.A.
or Chicago. For that matter, it isn’t even Houston,
Miami, San Francisco or Atlanta. It’s a great city, but
it’s not a big one. New Orleans is always falling just
short of being what it wants to be. When it comes to
succeeding economically, New Orleans is a perennial
"almost" city. But there’s also a near-mysticism about
New Orleans, something that generates a lot of curiosity
for people who don’t know the city. Here in San Diego,
co-workers and friends always ask me what New Orleans is
really like. I don’t try to tell them because there’s no
short way to tell anyone what a city, any city, is all
about. I just say, it’s really hot and the food is good.
And the music is good too. But a lot of it—especially
back when I was coming up—is more like Chocolate Milk
than Dixieland jazz.
—Mtume ya Salaam
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posted 24 September 2007 |
