LeRoi Jones, Larry Neal, and The Cricket: jazz and poets' Black Fire

African American Review, Summer-Fall, 2003 by Christopher Funkhouser

Ben Caldwell's cover image on the fourth volume shows a pair of musicians blowing, and overtly demonstrates the inter-arts flexibility of The Cricket, as Caldwell's contribution is in a completely different form than in Issue 3. The revolutionary journey demands expansive mental and expressive efforts, though it is not without play and colloquial moments, as illustrated by the black-on-white title-page of the essay "Trippin'--A Need for Change," Mtume's opening blast in the fourth and final issue of The Cricket. Mtume begins by stating that "the Black musician must, as any other revolutionary artist, be a projector whose message reflects the values of the culture from which his creation owes its existence" (1). Clearly, as editors of an arts periodical, Jones and Neal, with their own "do it yourself"-for-and-from-your-people production ethic, successfully achieved this objective. The Cricket blended traditional senses of what a magazine is with a contemporary, instinctive, polemical/by any means necessary aesthetic and awareness. "Trippin'" asserts a redefinition for the music. Mtume writes, "We ... have as an act of self-determination chosen to define our music as 'Trippin', as opposed to using the word Jazz, for that is what the artist does when he plays and involves us in his journey in search of new sounds, new colors, and new realities beyond the comprehensions of this dimension" (2).

Mtume's essay effectively sums up the impetus for the late '60s' collaborations between Jones and Neal, American Black Nationalist activists and writers whose poetry and poetics pronounced the spirit and intentions of revolutionary arts. Their efforts ventured into powerful new artistic and social territory; their endeavors were bold moves toward implementing transformation on a collective human scale. Yet in an ironic sense, the "Trippin'" motif, in effect announcing the final issue, also unintentionally indicates or foreshadows what soon resulted, that the force fell over; their project-at-large was not to proceed in this form. Baraka has expressed regret that their focus turned to less creative areas: "We had gotten so deeply immersed in the political aspect of it [Black Nationalism] that really the kind of edifying things like The Cricket were let slip.... We left that to concentrate on public education and the school systems. These were correct decisions to a certain extent, but to let go of the culture work to the extent which we did was an error" (Interview).

The words in "Integration Music," by Jones (now named Imamu Ameer Baraka), wail about selling out:

   Re: Jimi Hendrix
   Sly & F.S.
   5m Dim

      The principle is the same as
   Guess Who Went Out To Lunch. It is
   for the money#! But for the feeling (as
   money. Money as feeling, or, more
   clearly, Money, as a way of life.
   Fahamu?) Money, here, and "success"
   are interchangeable. Success in a particular
   vein. JH, of course, being an
   actual freak. The rest as artfull
   dodgers, from real, all the way back
   into white shadows. (3)