"OURS IS THE LAND": THE TOHONO NATION OPPOSITION TO THE ROSEMONT COPPER MINE

A View Of The Proposed Site For The Rosemont Open Pit Copper Mine Along Scenic Highway 83.

By Judy Jennings

© Copyright 2015

Good news, Tucson!  The proposed Rosemont Copper Mine is far from a done deal.  You’ve probably already heard about the proposed mile-wide, half-mile deep open pit mine along Scenic Highway 83, thanks to the efforts of a group called Save The Scenic Santa Ritas.  

SSSR, which has been staging what film director Frances Causey calls a “robust opposition” to the mine, scored a major victory recently when their lawsuit successfully overturned Rosemont’s air pollution permit.  Other critical permits are in serious jeopardy, as well, such as the Aquifer Protection Permit, a crucial state water permit needed to begin construction of the mine.  SSSR currently has another lawsuit pending in Mariopa County challenging what they call the illegal issuance of this permit.

That position is supported by the Environmental Protection Agency, which stated in a November 2014 letter to the Army Corps Of Engineers that the proposed wetlands mitigation around the mine is insufficient to avoid ‘significant degradation’ of the aquatic ecosystem.  Importantly, the EPA has veto power over the proposal.

This is all great news.  But Causey’s film Ours Is The Land, which screened at The Loft this month, takes this fight to another level.  She makes it personal.

Ours Is The Land tells the story of the connection of the Tohono O’odham people to Ce:wi Duag, or the Santa Rita Mountains, entirely from the perspective of Tohono Nation tribal members.  In their own words, tribal members describe a connection to the land that is the foundation of their culture, both spiritually and physically.

The film brings home an important realization.  While many of us find the idea of an open pit mine in the Santa Ritas abhorrent, there’s a lot more than environmental protection at stake for our neighbors on the reservation, who are fighting for their very way of life. 

Causey’s film is powerful, in no small part because of the way she, herself, gets out of the way.  This is very much a film of the Tohono O’odham Nation, crafted through the words of tribal elders and basket weavers, profoundly conveying a sense of exactly what it is the Nation stands to lose with this mine.

This week’s screening at The Loft was only the second showing of Ours Is The Land, so follow the Facebook page for future show dates.  This is a great time to get informed about this issue!

For a lot more information, visit Frances Causey’s blog at the Huffington Post, where she writes extensively about issues and regulations regarding open pit mining in Arizona.

Ours Is The Land on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/oursistheland1/?fref=ts

Save The Scenic Santa Ritas website:

http://scenicsantaritas.org/home

Frances Causey on the Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frances-causey/

HURRICANE CARLA ON HOW PRACTICING THE DRUMS HELPED HER SAXOPHONE PLAYING

By Judy Jennings

© Copyright 2015

Hurricane Carla and the Bad News Blues Band at the Chicago Bar

Some days you just have to get out of your comfort zone.  That’s what Hurricane Carla did two years ago when she was feeling stuck with her saxophone.

Hall of Famer Carla Brownlee at odds with her sax?  That’s unimaginable, right?  Still, there she was, momentarily going nowhere. 

“I was having a mental block with practicing the sax,” Brownlee confesses.  “I was feeling inadequate.  I was feeling like I’m not there, I’m not there, I’m not there.  I don’t know what to practice, I don’t know how to play.”  Frustrated, she decided to do something that was completely out of her norm.

“I got on a jag where I was practicing drums three, four hours a day,” Brownlee recalls.  “I’m a terrible drummer, terrible.  I don’t play the drums.”  She started “at zero”, playing along with records and simply working out the physical coordination.  

Within a few days, the act of practicing the drums produced results that surprised even Brownlee.  “It brought about a sense of concentration that totally blew away everything else I’d ever practiced,” she exclaims.  “It was the most amazing thing.

“I kept playing along with records, playing the rudiments, subdividing the beat, working with the metronome, just working, working, working hour after hour,” Brownlee explains.  “Then when I’d listen to a piece of music I’d go Oh, I’ve never heard that before!  It just turned on a light bulb in my brain.”

“The main thing with drumming is the concentration has to be complete for an extended period of time.  You can’t stop and sit back, ever.  With the sax, you can play a solo and then sit back and listen to the other soloists, then you play a little more, and you sit back.  Drumming has to be 100% of the time, through the whole thing,” continues Brownlee.

“I haven’t practiced drums in over a year, but it helped my sax playing immediately,” she reflects.  “Because now when I play a solo, I’m thinking in rhythm phrases.  I’m not thinking about any of the notes I’m playing.  The notes don’t matter, but the rhythms matter.  It’s the rhythms that pull people in, they pull you along, and make you dance. 

“So I’m thinking a whole different way than I’d ever thought before,” Brownlee concludes.  “I’m not thinking tones, notes, how many notes can I play?  I’m not thinking any of that.  I’m thinking Do these rhythms work?  Is it a phrase?  Is it varied enough? 

“You know what I’m saying?”

NEW CD REVIEW! AMBER NORGAARD RELEASES “POSSIBILITY”

Doug Floyd, Nick Coventry, Ralph Gilmore, Amber Norgaard, Jay Trapp, and Joe Ferguson.
Photo Courtesy Of Nancy Herndon.

By Judy Jennings

Copyright © 2015

 “There were days I lost my way, and now I see

The way home revealed to me

In the Breath of Life, the Breath of Love

The breath we all breathe as One . . .

Where we are free, we are free”

(From “Possibility”)

What’s so unique about Amber Norgaard?

Photo By Nancy Herndon 

It’s no one thing in particular.  It’s everything, together.  While Norgaard is an accomplished songwriter, vocalist and pianist, the incredible magnetism of her music is to be found in the message it delivers.  Norgaard is on a mission that’s “not about the money or the name,” and that “goes deeper than fame” (from “Alchemy”).  Amber Norgaard’s mission is about using her musical talent as an instrument for healing on a mass level.  “Possibility”, from its exuberant opening track to meditative outro, is a reflection of that intention.

“It feels like a communion with something bigger,” Norgaard says of “Possibility”, referring both to her message and to the spirit of collaboration that went into the making of the album.  Co-produced by Norgaard and Steven Lee Tracy of Saint Cecilia Studios, “Possibility” is Norgaard’s most sophisticated effort to date.  While four previous CDs provide an excellent platform for her uplifting lyrics and soaring vocals, “Possibility” marries that with powerful instrumentation and masterful studio mixing that lifts this album to another level.

Norgaard and Tracy were in synch during production in another way too:  Both agreed from the start that all of the musicians on the album would be paid for their work.  Surprisingly, that’s not a given.      

As are most of Norgaard’s songs, “Possibility” is filled with

Photo By Nancy Herndon

metaphors based on the connection between human beings and the natural world.  “Everything I experience goes into what I’m writing, from day to day interactions, to nature, to what’s going on in the world,” Norgaard says.  “The life cycle continues on and on.  A lot of that comes into my music.”

The title track is a celebration of spiritual and emotional release, symbolized by the hummingbird.  Nick Coventry is uncanny in his channeling of the bird, with his swooping, insistent viola, vibrating against the soothing background of Michael G. Rondstadt’s cello.  The bluesy breakdown in the middle of the song where the gospel choir comes in is one of the most fun parts of the album.

Photo By Nancy Herndon

“Alchemy,” the first track, pays homage to Norgaard’s midwestern roots.  In fact, the song is dedicated to her Dad, who’s still working the family farm in Iowa where she grew up.  A rock and roll anthem about the power of the land and the power of choice, this song features Norgaard’s long-time band members Doug “Hurricane” Floyd wailing on guitar, Jay Trapp on bass, and Sabra Faulk on harmony vocals, along with Ralph Gilmore on drums and Steven Lee Tracy on the organ.

“Possibility” ranges from the intimate solo acoustics of “Made Of Light,” to Norgaard’s rewritten version of the classic “Morning Has Broken”, complete with a clapping, stomping choir finale, to the blue collar rock and roll of “Alchemy”.  One of the most powerful songs on the album, though, is a bluegrass-infused number that’s among Norgaard’s most recent songs. 

When you think about it, Amber Norgaard has three fan bases; the folk-rock community, the spiritual community, and the community organizations with which she works.  “Wide Open” is a song that plays to all three audiences.  Big enough that anyone could read anything into it, this highly sing-able song might become a groovy hymn, or as Norgaard puts it, simply relate to a personal “journey of depth and resurrection.”  Doug Floyd’s electric twang and the acoustic finger-picking of Joe Ferguson craft a joyful bluegrass sound through which Norgaard sings her way from darkness into light, and makes us believe we can do that, too.

“Possibility” is the result of a state of creative explosion that has consumed Amber Norgaard for the past year, a brilliant showcase for her evolving talent, and a promise that there’s more where that came from.  Judging from Norgaard’s talent, dedication, and commitment to serving a higher purpose with her music, the possibilities seem limitless.

Purchase the CD at www.cdbaby.com/cd/ambernorgaard4@