The vexation that prompts the request, tell me about it, can answered by the artist by way of music, painting, poetry or prose, providing the recipient isn't necessarily expecting to hear something nice. And therein lies the problem, for as artists, more often than not, we are expected to say something nice.
To fulfill that expectation, my book Caribbean Sketches would have had to contain sanitized drawings of palm fringed beaches, rather than an uncensored record of life as it was lived in the islands.
Field workers on the island of Grenada
And in the higher enclaves of jazz, this is Billie Holiday telling you about it.
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