“I am a firm believer in the power of storytelling. It is a path, I am sure, out of the darkness.” — Marla Mase (mother of Lael Summer; founder of The Lael Project)
Words by Jason Lee
Back in the distant mists of London circa 1978, the Tom Robinson Band—-a short-lived British agitprop band known for playing the Rock Against Racism festival that summer decrying the rise of neo-Nazism and anti-immigrant sentiment in the UK at the time, led by its namesake “openly gay, outspoken, left-wing, charming first-wave UK punk rocker with melodic tendencies”—-released their debut LP Power in the Darkness whose title track urged listeners to “stand up and fight for your rights,” including the “freedom to choose what you do with your body” despite “frightening lies from the other side,” w/the album also including the landmark “Glad To Be Gay” which soon came to be considered the de facto LGBTQ national anthem of the UK…
…so here was a rather short-lived band (the TRB broke up in 1979) but one with a long-lasting impact (inspiring a generation of listeners, some of whom later formed bands of their own) by standing up for society’s most marginalized and assuring (via some undeniably great tunes) not only that one day they shall be released but also that in the meantime there’s a massive potential community out there of mutual camaraderie and support if only they were able to easily locate one another—with the ruling classes of course working overtime to keep them all in the dark and preserve their own power—with music serving as a crucial medium for bringing light to the darkness, using words to paint mental pictures and tell stories and music to infuse these stories with emotive power, preserved for all time in sequences of notes and syllables serving as a beacon for outcasts of all stripes to rally around…
…and while we’re not sure whether to be more depressed or reassured at how much all this still holds true today with music crucial as ever for resisting the forces of darkness inherent in bigotry, greed, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia, massive economic inequality, etc. etc.—forces which in some ways have only grown more ruthless and efficient over the years—by erecting walls of sonic resistance not only against these external forces but also against the inner demons these external demons tend to cultivate and perpetuate (currently it’s estimated that 1 in 5 Americans suffer from mental illness, which by some accounts is an all-time high) we can at least take comfort in the fact that there’s still musicians out there speaking truth to power while encouraging listeners to do what you want and be who you are…
…and if yr into compelling, contemporary artists imparting just such a message then please allow us to introduce you to the music of Lael Summer whose jazzy, soulful cover of Hall & Oates’s “Do What You Want, Be Who You Are” (performed below at legendary West Village jazz ’n’ blues mecca The Blue Note) puts across the song’s overriding message (there ain’t no right or wrong way […] but you can’t conceal what’s deep inside you) with a bracing mix of melancholic resignation and steely determination that (arguably) only a torch singer in the classic mold can fully attain from Adele to Sade, from Édith Piaf to Billie Holiday…
“I used to picture happiness as a destination–an emerald city at the end of a long yellow brick road of suffering. But now I see that it’s here all around us, all the time…and we have to incessantly fight for it. For some of us, the fight is harder.” – Lael Summer
…which as Lael points out above is an ever-ongoing journey with no final point of arrival, a “good fight” fought perpetually and collectively or as her original song “The Good Fight” puts it, she’s “gotta keep pushing on / even if I do it blindly” in an anthem dedicated to “all those out there who struggle with an eating disorder, depression, suicidal thoughts and other mental health issues” with the modest goal of seeking to “help just one person”, a song about resilience, strength, and finding the courage to keep going, a song intended to inspire others to keep fighting their own battles, knowing that support is out there [and] a reminder that healing is possible, that your story could be the light someone else needs…
…and while sadly, tragically, Lael Summer’s flame was snuffed out by her own hand in 2017 at the age of 24—a native of New York City, Summer suffered for most of her life from serious bouts of depression, body dysmorphia, suicide ideation, and extended stays in residential treatment programs, but who as a complex human being was by all accounts just as prone to unadulterated joy, taking great pleasure in her tight-knit circle of friends who loved to go out clubbing on weekends and in the ceaseless creatively she bequeathed to listeners far and near, explicitly seeking to provide light in the darkness through her songs, performances, and recordings—a flame that will never be fully extinguished, and will continue to give off light, thanks to that very music…
…and perhaps in response to Lael’s respect for and valuing of the ongoing journey as described above, her mother—the playwright, actor, musician, raconteur, record label C.O.O. (True Groove Records) and native Brooklynite Marla Mase known for her raw, poetic activism—just last year launched the The Lael Project which seeks not only to preserve Lael’s legacy through “an ongoing series of releases featuring both original songs and covers recorded by Lael during her brief but impactful music career…comprised of re-mixes, never-before-released material, live recordings, and remastered versions of her two existing albums, Burden to Bear (2013) and Life in Color (2015)”, but also “to encourage open discussions about suicide, mental illness, eating disorders, and depression” in hopes that “through the sharing of stories, music, and song, healing can begin [because] these conversations can save lives”…
…with the flame stoked anew and doused with new fuel thanks to all the remixes and releases of previously unreleased material putting her music into conversation with admiring musicians, producers, remixers, and other collaborators lending their own take to Lael’s tunes and lyrics—from finished recordings to demos to vocals recorded on voice notes—thereby lent added resonance thru highly personalized interpretations and interpolations, the most recent of which being the high-energy if not entirely Hi-NRG remix of Lael’s summer-appropriate ode to disco diva-dom and female fulfillment entitled “I Need a Man” (to take me to the finish line, indeed!)…
…reimagined for the dance floor by producer Touchy Feely a/k/a James Dellatacoma (known for his work with Herbie Hancock, Nine Inch Nails, and Matisyahu among others with the also-quite-funky-but-in-a-totally-different-way original version produced and co-written in 2012 by producer/guitarist Tomás Doncker who also had a hand in the remix) that’s all but guaranteed to make you and everyone within earshot wanna shake your tail feathers at tomorrow’s backyard barbecue when you put it on the jambox or the bluetooth speaker and turn it up…
…with the remix quite appropriately having been released on 6/24 in honor of Pride Month (DJ Touchy Feely: “Once I heard the chorus, I knew—this could be a club banger”; Marla Mase: “Her gay friends loved this song—it resonated as deeply with them as it did with her girlfriends”) as the fifth posthumous release by the Lael Project—with the song perhaps just as appropriate to celebrating our national birthday this year at a time when the very same dark forces noted in the opening paragraph above are seeping into our body politic to a startling, disturbing degree, a song in regards to which Marla notes that “Lael wasn’t defined by her mental illness. She was fierce, funny, focused—and she struggled. This remix reminds us of the joy she brought into the world” and boy could we all use a little joy right now…
…especially joy that’s explicitly aligned with a community for whom mental health struggles and self-harm are especially insidious (one recent study of LGBTQ+ teen suicide rates found that one out of four suicides in adolescents age 12 to 14 were among LGBTQ+ youth with the above-median rate continuing well into young adulthood) and with the current administration ending proven–to-be-effective specialized suicide prevention services for LGBTQ+ youth later this month (The Trevor Project) it feels like we’re all out here stumbling around in the dark doesn’t it…
…with the deleterious effects of all these various (fully intended to be) sadistic actions and hate-fueled policies gradually ripping outwards which only makes raising our voices an even more crucial resource than before cuz how else can we even begin to communicate in the dark as the dark gets darker and practically our only means for leading each other to the ligh once it’s finally found after much stumbling around being to call out and as the Lael Project makes clear this includes voices no longer with us that thanks to the gift of music continue to echo into our very souls…