Spike Lee, Michael Jackson Documentary

We watched the Spike Lee documentary on Michael Jackson this weekend.  Supposedly this is one of a few more pieces to come about his career.  You can see it on Showtime.

What is wonderful about the piece is that it is about how smart, curious and insanely talented he was.  It wasn’t about the person he became or the variety of issues he had but about his brilliance.  Michael Jackson left an tremendous impact on uncountable artists and certainly the black community by breaking through the glass ceiling as an artist that crossed every divide with Off the Wall followed up by Thriller.

Someone made a comment on the show about how music transcends international boundaries.  I remembered when I was in Europe my junior year in college traveling through Italy.  I was on a train that was completely empty and on the next stop we were overwhelmed with members of the Italian army.  They were all going somewhere.  Nobody spoke English so our communication was nil.  Someone cranked up a portable tape player playing Simon and Garfunkel’s America.  Everyone was singing.  They did not understand English but they understood the music.  It was a memorable moment.

Michael Jackson’s music can be heard across the globe and you might not speak his language but you can hear his brilliance through the sounds.