More Ukrainians fleeing Russian invasion denied entry at US-Mexico border

A look at immigration policy as people from Ukraine seek asylum. Why then , why not us ? And there's no clear answer because of the policies , because it's discretionary. I'm Jade Hindman with Maureen Cavanaugh. This is KPBS midday edition. As gas prices soar , what's the political impact this has been the most politically salient way that inflation has been experienced by California at the pump , right ? Because , you know , gas is this amazing thing , whether you are buying it or not. You see the price of it everywhere you go. And the mental impact of violent images from Ukraine on those who suffer from combat trauma. Plus here , rare music from the John Coltrane Memorial Black Music Archive. That's ahead on midday edition. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has created a humanitarian crisis as more than two million Ukrainians have fled the fighting in recent weeks , local border crossings have seen an increase in Ukrainian asylum seekers. But a Trump era border policy continues to hinder their journey to the United States. Here is Ukrainian refugee Natalia Palookaville on her repeated struggles to cross the border from Mexico into the United States again and again and again , like 40 times a day. Her car and her on food and different borders here , but nothing. Joining me is KPBS Border reporter Gustavo Solis with more on the situation at the border. Gustavo , welcome back. Oh , thanks for having me. How are refugees from Ukraine ending up at the western US-Mexico border ? Well , it comes down to visa issues , right ? You need a visa to board a plane so people might think it's makes more sense to fly from Europe to , let's say , New York or Miami. But it's very difficult right now for Ukrainians to get American visas. It's much easier for them to fly to Mexico. And generally speaking , they're getting on a Ukraine by a bus or a train , make their way to a western European countries like Germany , and then fly either directly to Mexico or sometimes like Natalia did through South American countries like Colombia. Do we have any idea on the numbers of Ukrainians local border crossings are seeing today ? We don't have daily data right now , but Customs and Border Protection does track encounters at the border on a monthly basis. And the data does show that the numbers have been going up dramatically here in San Diego over the last few years. So , for example , there were fewer than 100 encounters in fiscal year 2020 , and that jumped up to more than 600 in fiscal year 2021. Already just in the first four months of the current fiscal year , there's been more than 900 encounters so far. Why are Ukrainian asylum seekers like Natalia having difficulties crossing into the U.S. ? Yeah , well , not just Ukrainian asylum seekers , but all asylum seekers right now , and they're coming up against Title 42 , which is a Trump era policy that severely limited people's ability to apply for asylum. And can you explain what Title 42 is and and why it was implemented ? Title 42 is a pandemic era health order that the CDC issued in March 2020. We know now through later reporting that top doctors at the CDC actually opposed Title 42. But the Trump administration went over their head and pressured the director of the agency to issue the health order. And basically , it allows Border Patrol agents to turn away asylum seekers at the border because of the pandemic. Now , the policy also gives them the discretion to grant exceptions based on humanitarian reasons. So asylum seekers at the border really have no clear indication of who or when they might get one of those exemptions. And what you get is that they try to cross over and over and over again , like Natalia did. As the Biden administration given any indication that it plans to rescind it , not officially. I mean , the Biden administration has faced calls from his own Democratic Party to end title 42 for the last few months now. And like I said , nothing official has come out , but there has been reporting from last week suggesting that the administration might finally end Title 42 next month. And you reported that one Ukrainian family was allowed to cross , making them the first to cross since the war began. Why were they allowed to cross when so many others can't ? Well , it kind of goes to the discretion thing , right ? There's no clear policy or guidelines of who gets it and why. With this specific family , they were just lucky enough to have legal representation. An immigration lawyer happened to see them at the border after they turned away. She's the lawyer saw a mother crying with three young children. A group of other lawyers and advocates blasted Customs and Border Protection on social media. They were able to call their contacts to lobby the agency to let the family in , and that's great for that family work for them. But unfortunately , it's very rare for asylum seekers stranded at the southern border to get that type of legal representation. Your reporting has also talked about how other groups of asylum seekers , particularly Haitians , are experiencing unequal treatment compared to those from Ukraine. Tell us about that. Definitely. And it's not just Haitians , right ? It's Central Americans , even Mexican asylum seekers that have been getting turned away via Title 42 for two years now. Actually , one of the lawyers who helped that Ukrainian family get into the US , she was in town to help Haitian families. And right after she held the Ukrainian family , she turned around and went to a migrant shelter in Tijuana that caters to Haitian families. And when she got there , she got a lot of questions like , Hey , why ? Why then why not us ? And there's no clear answer because of the policies , because it's discretionary. There's a pretty clear that people on the ground are seeing. This discretion is not being applied equally , and it's difficult for people from Central America , Mexico , Haiti to see Europeans having easier access to asylum that they've been asking for for well over a year now , have border officials given any information on what discretion they use to determine who can successfully cross the border and who can't ? They have not , at least not that I'm aware of. I've reached out to them and haven't heard back anecdotally. They they seem to be at least in the Ukrainian cases in the last week or so. They seem to prioritize families over individuals traveling by themselves and talk a bit more about that with him giving preference to families. Two years ago last year , they were separating families at the border. Yeah , that's right. I mean , that's kind of border policy the last few years , in a nutshell , right ? There's no real rhyme or reason or transparency why one thing happens over the other. I mean , just a couple of months ago , we were talking about the migrant camp at El Chapel , which was mainly made up of Central Americans. They were camping out just south of the San Ysidro port of entry. They want it to be as close as possible so that when Title 42 went away , they would be the first ones to cross the city of Tijuana. At the pressure from the U.S. government shut down the camp , and all those migrants are now scattered in shelters or homeless or renting apartments in Tijuana. Do you have any update on the status of Natalia Polly Cova ? Has she been able to cross into the United States yet ? I do have an update , and it's actually a positive one. Just this morning , about an hour ago , her aunt told me that she was finally allowed to cross and she's in California now. This was after spending a week in Tijuana. So right now , she's driving up to L.A. to be reunited with her aunt. And I think just when I talked to her last week , the only thing she wanted to do was take a shower and sleep. I've been speaking with KPBS border reporter Gustavo Celis. Gustavo , thank you so much. Thank you , Jane. The price of gas continued climbing in California over the weekend , although not as much as the nearly 50 cent a gallon jump , the average price has taken since the beginning of March. The ban on Russian oil , coupled with pandemic production issues , are making the weekly commute a drain on drivers budgets , and economists say high gas prices will only increase inflation , potentially pushing the high price of food , clothes and rent even higher. The public's concern and growing anger over this economic squeeze has prompted attention from politicians. Last week , Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration suggested a tax rebate proposal might be offered to help consumers. Other lawmakers say the state should issue a new round of stimulus checks or lift the gas tax for a limited time. What kind of relief would make the most sense for the public and the politicians ? Joining me is Thad Couser , political scientist at UC San Diego , and Thad. Welcome. Thanks for having me , Maureen. Give me your sense of how increased gas prices and high inflation are affecting California. Well , this has been the most politically salient way that inflation has been experienced by California at the pump , right ? Because , you know , gas is this amazing thing , whether you are buying it or not. You see the price of it everywhere you go. It's broadcast on these giant billboards. And so it's it's the thing that crystallizes everyone's concerns about inflation in the economy. And yet if you drive an electric car , you still see this. If you're not driving an electric car , you're really feeling it. Every time you fill up , you fill up your gas tank. And so it and it bears a larger burden on people who have lower incomes and it squeezes their income more. So it's a big issue right now in California. One of our listeners , Lynn Lohman , says that he feels he's going to be hurt by this , even though he does have an EV. You know , it's not going to affect me at all. The increase in gas prices for as far as transportation goes , but I know other. Commodities will go up in price because of transportation , and I see that that is one of the reasons we have to get off of fossil fuels. How is all this affecting the political climate in California at that ? Well , it's really crystallized demand for some kind of tax relief , and I think we're going to see that right. It looks like we'll have about a $21 billion surplus in California government , just like we had last year , a really large surplus. And that's actually going to kick in kind of old and obscure and almost forgotten. Part of our state constitution called the game limit , which says when when tax revenues rise by so much , you got to give back. Politicians have to give back at least $2.6 billion to taxpayers. The political bet is that to really respond to this need with inflation and to curry favor with voters in an election year. Gavin Newsom is going to propose a really large tax rebate of some kind. In fact , that was his only policy proposal in the state of the state address that he gave last week. Well , because California lawmakers actually have this huge $21 billion budget surplus , they now have options to help consumers out. So let's go through some of the ideas being floated in Sacramento. There's lifting the gas tax that's supported by a number of Republican lawmakers and at least one of our listeners. Really , an immediate solution is is needed. A pause on the gas tax at least would ensure that Californians are able to , you know , continue working. But more importantly , feeding their families and living where we live. That is listener Charlene Pulso Nettie. And so , Thad , what about lifting the gas tax ? How much of a difference would that make ? Yeah. So this is something that Republican lawmakers in Sacramento are proposing. California has a 51 cents a gallon gas tax. It's the second biggest in the nation. So if you lifted it right , it would reduce the cost of gas. And that would bring some immediate and very focused relief to the people who are feeling the greatest pinch at the pump. That's the good side. On the other hand , well , where does the money go , right ? It goes to transportation and transit projects , all the things that make those of us who are driving on the roads better off. And so if you get rid of the gas tax but don't replace that money , that means in the long term future , OK , we may be paying less at the pump , but will be sitting longer in traffic. And also , if all of the gas tax is that savings is passed along to consumers. Gas would still be over five dollars for most of us because it's only 51 cents a gallon. And second , all of that tax savings may not be passed on to consumers. Some of it may be maybe kept by by the the fossil fuel industry as as we've seen with other cuts in the gas tax. So there are pros and cons of that approach. OK , then the governor is suggesting some sort of tax rebate instead. Do we have any idea how that would work ? Yes. Governor Newsom wasn't particularly clear about exactly what he had in mind last week with the state of state. But one thing governors are doing in some other states is essentially mailing a check to everyone who's got a car registered in California and may be mailed to Texas if they have two cars , right ? So the idea here is you're not taking away the gas tax , so you're not hurting that income stream for all those transportation and transit projects , but you're giving real clear , immediate relief to people who are squeezed right now. And that's the good side. The bad side is , is this equity issue , right ? It doesn't go to people who don't drive cars , but who are still also feeling the cost increase of transportation costs and everything that they buy and more of the money. It would go to people who can afford more cars if you do it per car , and that could create a big equity concern. And I know a lot of this is unclear , but is it your sense people would have to wait until next year to get the tax rebate ? No , I think what we're seeing across the country and what we saw from Gavin Newsom in the run up to his recall where he gave sent these stimulus checks to anyone making seventy five thousand or under California total of $12 billion. Biggest stimulus , biggest tax rebate in American state history. I think you'll see something like that again , and especially because this is an election year , you don't want to wait until next March or April to give people relief , and you don't want to wait until they know you're doing something for them. You want to send him a check with your name on it right now , if you're a California political leader. Well , the idea of sending a check he could just go to sending out another round of stimulus checks. Would that be faster and more equitable ? Well , it wouldn't be. It wouldn't be any faster , necessarily , but it would. It would address those equity concerns that I raised and that legislative leaders are particularly interested in. So there it was. There's a tweet last week sent out by by the leaders Toni Atkins and Anthony Rendon of the state legislature. These Democratic leaders have said yes , Gavin Newsom. We like what we're doing , but everyone is feeling the pinch at the pump , whether they're buying , whether they are buying gas or buying food. Or paying rent , everyone is seeing their prices go up. Let's give something to everyone so we could see another round of stimulus that could be framed as a response to gas increases. But it would go to people who have cars and who don't have cars , but are still paying indirectly this this increase and it could be targeted at people at certain income levels , or it could be given to everyone because frankly , the states got enough money it could afford probably to make just about everyone happy. And more stimulus , though , could keep the spiral of inflation rising. Isn't that right ? Well , any time you have money going into the economy , it's part of what leads to inflation , right ? That the the Fed's policies over the last several years that kept our economy going through the pandemic. That's part of what caused the inflation problem. Right. We could be having a depression instead of an inflation problem if the Fed had not acted , if we had not had federal and state stimulus packages. Inflation may not be. That is not the only terrible thing that can happen in economy. And so there's always that tradeoff of stimulus versus economic drag. I think if you're a politician , you certainly want to give people something to pay the increasing bills that that that every Californian now has because we know that the bigger inflationary pressures are coming at the national level and through international pressures such as , you know , as supply chain issues and wars. The last round of stimulus checks went to people who made less than $75000. That means a chunk of the middle class was left out. Do you think that would happen again if we had another round ? You know , I think California political leaders are increasingly recognizing that that folks in that middle and and in many states lower upper class people making between 50 and $150000. And in many states , those are those are really affluent people in California. It's a fight to survive , given what our rents are like and what our housing costs are like. That's the group of Californians that are most worried about its future and most concerned about present day economic pensions. And so I think you may see political leaders if they can afford it , try to cast a wider net with stimulus checks , especially if they're framed as a response to the inflation that everyone's paying and and the cost of the gas prices that at least directly or indirectly all of us are feeling right now. Now that you've written that , there's nothing politicians like to do more than send out checks to the voting public , especially in an election year. Do you think that's going to prompt the governor and lawmakers to get on this quickly ? I think so. I mean , where we see political inaction is when we have these really difficult choices. So think back 10 years ago , when we had this worldwide recession , the state had a huge budget deficit and had to choose between raising who to raise taxes on and what services to cut. Now they have a big surplus. The question is who do we give money back to and what services do we increase ? That's a really good political choice. I think that will lead to a potential bipartisan agreement on on a fairly quick response. And I think Californians can expect and demand action over the next two to three months as the budget solidifies. What could the fallout be to this gas price inflation spiral in California ? In other words , do you think more people will leave the state ? Could this possibly revive the GOP ? What effects do you see it having ? Well , I think when you have any kind of economic bad news , you see that hurting the incumbent party , right ? And so the real question is , where is that incumbent party vulnerable and the governor's race ? Probably not. We don't see any major candidate. Kevin Faulconer did not emerge as a candidate in the governor's race to try to unseat Gavin Newsom. Twenty twenty two Republicans took their best shot in the recall. I don't think he's very vulnerable , but there could be some Democrats in politically competitive districts in the state legislature who may pay a price for this. Clearly , Congress , where you're again going to have swing districts in Calif. , all across California , including in San Diego , that is where the the response and the voter anger over inflation and and voter discouragement over the direction of the nation in the state. That's where they could play out in the 2022 election. I've been speaking with Bad Couser , political science professor at UC San Diego. That , as always , thank you so much. Thanks for having me. This is KPBS midday edition. I'm Maureen Cavanaugh with Jade Heinemann. The war in Ukraine is producing a steady stream of violent images. These images can have a profound effect on those who suffered trauma in combat. KPBS military reporter Steve Walsh looks at one vet plagued by survivor's guilt and a warning to our listeners. The story references suicide. In the months prior to the fall of Kabul in August 2021 , Nic Pelosi was reaching out to help other veterans. Last July , he described for me a helicopter crash she narrowly survived 15 years ago and its lasting impact. The crash killed 10 soldiers in Afghanistan , including Justin O'Donoghue of San Diego. The damage that comes from this stuff is unbelievable. These families are ever going to be the same. Pelosi questioned why the war had dragged on so long. Appearing on a virtual panel about the war , sponsored by KPBS in September , he sounded weary when I asked him how he was doing. It's been pretty tough to watch what's going on over there , having so many friends that died. And , you know , I was wounded and tons of friends were wounded. You kind of question what it was all about in February , months after most of us turned away from the daily images coming out of Afghanistan , Pelosi killed himself. After the war ended , his brother , Anthony , says Pelosi fixated on the idea that his friend's sacrifice was meaningless. He just immersed himself into news articles , YouTube news stations on TV. It was pretty rough. The easiest way I could describe it was he was a drug addict. The news was his drug. Anthony says Nick was getting counseling at the local VA and working with veterans groups near his home in upstate New York. Occasionally , he would open up to his brother , but he didn't see this coming. Sonya Norman is with the San Diego VA and the VA National Center for PTSD. Even if it's just I didn't deserve to survive. Who am I ? When these other people had , families were doing these other things. She never met Pelosi. But she says survivor's guilt is strongly linked to PTSD. It can come up years later as a person's view of what happened changes , and the guilt gets in the way of treatment. With this , I don't deserve to feel better , and I don't deserve good things and and kind of that's self-destructive piece , and you can see how it can be this be involved in this downward slide toward suicide. Duane Francis , a combat vet who is also a therapist who counsels veterans some of his patients were distressed last summer , but images coming out of Ukraine can also trigger past trauma. You can't tell when that distress may lead down the path to suicide. Dozens of things have to go wrong in someone's life for them to get to the place where they're in a suicidal crisis. But maybe only one thing needs to go right. So there are a number of protective factors that may keep servicemembers and veterans from getting into a suicidal crisis. Keeping connected , seeking counseling. Overall , the number of veterans suicides are slowly declining still. Veterans make up about seven percent of the U.S. adult population , but account for 20 percent of all suicides. It wasn't a factor in Pelosi's death , but a majority of veteran suicides involve firearms. So asking a friend to hold a firearm or at least keeping their guns under lock. The VA and the other organizations will provide free trigger locks. It can be just enough time for a veteran to reconsider. You want to be able to to be with them , to be there with them when they need you the most. Ross Birkoff is a retired captain. He served two tours in Afghanistan with the 10th Mountain Division. Pelosi is the fourth suicide among those he served with. Birkoff always feels like he needs to do more to keep in contact the Facebook. I'm here for you , buddy kind of message. That's fine. I'm sure it's well-intended , but I don't know the answer here. How do we stop this ? He answers his own question. You just need to keep reaching out. Steve Walsh KPBS News. If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide , help is available 24 hours a day. Call the National Veterans Crisis Line at one 800 two seven three eight two five five. A new initiative at the San Diego Botanic Garden aims to study the medicinal aspects of plants , and it's doing so through the lens of indigenous traditions. The grant funded program will create a living laboratory to give researchers insights into the benefits and effects of plant life , often overlooked by Western research. Joining me now with more is Loren Jamiat , a reporter at the San Diego Union-Tribune who covers the region's indigenous communities. Lauren , welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having you did. So can you start off by telling us how this new project came about and what researchers hope to learn from it ? So there's been a collaboration between the Botanic Garden and the CME Group at Hummel Indian Village and East County for about 20 years now and now , about 20 years back , they started going through and naming all of the native plants by the to my name to bring more visibility to the tribe and that tradition of using these plants as food and medicine. So this newest effort or collaboration is thanks to a grant from the Conrad Friedman Foundation , about three hundred eighty four thousand dollars grant. And so they're going to kind of build on that history of what they've been doing by researching these plants to see how they can be used for new pharmaceuticals to treat different ailments. So how does the approach of this new initiative differ from more widely used methods to study medicinal plants ? I do know from a native medicinal plant usage perspective that a lot of these plants we have traditions of using over millennia and Mohawk or the younger gardener from upstate New York. And , you know , we have lots of medicines that we have used generation after generation that have been passed down through oral traditions. And we know that they work for treating different elements like using echinacea tea to treat a cough or sore throat or using strawberries to help regulate your body temperature during the summer. But a lot of times these traditional medicines are seen as kind of like folklore or folk medicine and haven't really been studied by scientists , so they don't have scientific proof of how these affect the body and how these can be used in harness to treat different ailments. And so this new effort is helping to bring some some insight and light to how these international's traditional medicines work and how they can be used for them. We're talking about this as a new program , but they're just now studying what indigenous people have known for centuries. How does this program use this knowledge , do you think , to further Western medicine ? I think the collaboration is really great. You know , the Kumai , I have been in this region of what we know in San Diego County today for at least ten thousand years. We have archaeological evidence that shows that. And so they have a huge long history of using the native plant life to help treat their ailments. And I think having the actual scientific research behind that brings more visibility to the tribe. It potentially can help find cures for four ailments that we have that we don't have cures for. Certain cures don't work for everyone I know. I personally have issues with a lot of pharmaceuticals that I just can't have , like penicillin , oxytocin and not. I'm not able to take a lot of Western medicines because of that. And so this could potentially fill that gap for people that do have allergic reactions to those kinds of drugs. Geographically speaking , it seems advantageous that this program would be developed here in San Diego , given the region's impressive biodiversity. And what can you tell us about that ? Yeah. So San Diego is the most biodiverse county in the contiguous United States , so we have the greatest number of individual plant species and animal species of any other county. And it's also kind of interesting because San Diego also has the greatest number of individual tribes of any county in the United States. So I think those two things are kind of interesting that they both work together and with that biodiversity. You have different climate regions within your county. You know , it could be seventy degrees by the beach when it's a hundred plus degrees over in the desert. And each of those byler regions within the county has its own different type of plant life. And those plants , you might have plants that grow in each of those areas , but they grow differently because of the conditions that they're in. And so that's something that this research is going to be looking into is if you manipulate the drought conditions or the temperature conditions for a certain plant , does it develop other chemicals that can be used in harness that you wouldn't get in other conditions ? You touched on this a bit earlier , but is there a hope from local tribal leaders that this will lead to a wider understanding about the history of the coming people ? Yes , absolutely. And speaking with Lisa Comparer from the Hormel Indian. She was mentioning that aside from the scientific benefit of studying these medicines more thoroughly , that she's hoping that it'll bring a greater understanding to just the community at large about the community tribe. There is always this kind of idea when you look at history and books that indigenous tribes were the people of yesteryear that they used to be from this area or , you know , they're kind of here still. But there's rarely kind of affirmative statements about people still being here and still living these traditions in the modern world. And so they're hoping to bring more visibility to the tribes and the history that they continue to contribute them. I've been speaking with San Diego Union Tribune reporter Lauren J. Map. Lauren , thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman with Maureen Cavanaugh. A recent article in the San Diego Union-Tribune describes the collapse of a deal between SDSU and a local music collector who had been planning to donate his rare music archive to the university. Brahm Dykstra has spent the last 65 years amassing an expansive collection of black music , which , alongside many other rarities , includes every album ever released by jazz great John Coltrane. It's been called one of the major music collections in America , and among the archives , nearly 50000 records are countless jazz , blues , R&B , Latin reggae and other world music albums , all in pristine condition and some so rare that they are nearly impossible to find in the present day. After learning about this collection in our own backyard , we wanted to hear the music and share some of it with you , so we reached out to Bram Dijkstra. I started by asking about the importance of this collection and the scope of the music and it. Well , it's called the John Coltrane memorial collection , because essentially as a Dutch boy , I became absolutely fascinated with the sound of John Coltrane , which I started with Miles Davis. I began to study is music and essentially became the reason why I came to the United States some 60 years ago. Talk to me a bit more about what you feel when you listen to John Coltrane. What I feel is absolute creativity , a kind of a sense of wanting to find out more about everything , about life , about creativity , about the world in general , a pushing style of creativity that might push the world into a different direction. Coltrane was one of the most creative people in not just jazz , but in the entire world of music and culture. And I have always seen him as one of my greatest inspirations. There isn't just jazz in this archive , this is an extensive collection of gospel , blues , R&B , Caribbean African cumbia. I mean , how interconnected are these different forms of music , in your opinion ? Well , the interconnection is through rhythm , the through the various polyrhythms which come out of Africa and then spread through a diaspora of various forms of rhythm. Different cultures pick up certain kinds of rhythm , emphasize certain kinds of rhythm , but they all weave back into a sound that is really a form of communication that is extremely important. The interesting thing is that in the music of the Dogon from Mali , there is a myth that the drum taught humanity how to speak. That notion that the drum taught us how to speak is is really something that weaves through all the forms of the music that are connected with the drum. Because the drum is essentially the articulation of what we really feel are emotions and drives our emotions. And it's just fascinating to me to see how different cultures bring out these elements. And we also know that Africa's music also heavily influences other genres of music. Can you talk about that ? Well , for example , the whole focus of reggae music , especially that in the 70s and 80s was the focus on Ethiopia and on the influence of Ethiopia , the idea of returning to Africa. So a lot of reggae uses African rhythms to indicate that. Look at every man. Now , right at the same time , for example , there is so much influence of African music on Latin American music in general. Call me back at Betty by the end , make sure you hold me back to getting to find out base. Maybe as you. You can hear it in our cast. You hear it in the various forms of cumbia. And all of these are also part of the collection , of course. But guess people who are keyed up ? Well , we've been talking about this music in your collection , so we might as well hear some specific selections from it. The first song that we're going to hear is a track by jazz great Art Blakey and his band , The Jazz Messengers. What can you tell us about the song Avila and Tequila ? Well , Avila and Tequila is essentially Blakey's attempt at blending new world jazz and rhythms with African rhythms as well. What he would do some point during his concerts is put together a drum track as musicians , people like the wonderful tenor saxophone player Hank Mobley , the great pianist Horace Silver and Kenny Dorham , a wonderful trumpeter. And they would all take rhythm instruments and start playing them. And Blakey , who was probably the most aggressive drummer you could possibly imagine , would play over all of that. That was Avila and Tequila by Art Blakey and the jazz messengers. Our next track takes us to West Africa from Tell US About This next song Bonsu by singer and musician Joe Mensah. Joe Mensah was a Nigerian and was creating music around the same time that Anikulapo-Kuti started to play his music , and they were both heavily influenced by American jazz. The interesting thing is that where it would be played , tenor sex , mostly Joe Mensa actually played an instrument that has disappeared into history , and that is the Moog synthesizer. That's bound to make judgments. Moving right along , we have a track from noted Cuban percussionist and bandleader Mongo Santamaria Brahm , what can you tell us about this recording of El Toro ? Well , El Toro is absolutely one of the most magnificent pieces of music that I know of. It has great solos by Mongo Santamaria , but also by all his musicians. And what is fascinating here is that some of his musicians were U.S. American , and some of his musicians were South American or Cuban , and they all blended together in the most amazing fashion and they were afraid that you're not going to be here , much of it. This is absolutely what it most fabulous pieces of music you could imagine. And you're listening to El Toro by Mongo Santamaria. Next , we have a song by Haitian composer and saxophonist Raul Guilherme. What can listeners expect from the track Balon say ? Yeah , it's actually an early Haitian piece of music that precedes but became later compound music. No , I don't say I think it is a form that is called the Congo. I don't know why they called it the Congo , but it includes clearly a lot of elements that come from Africa. And so the link between Africa and Haiti , which is quite obvious , of course , is very striking in that piece. I see you as a young guy out. Do you shop by buy ? And the song you're hearing is Balance Air by Haitian musician Raul Yeom. Next is a politically charged track by the noted Nigerian activist and bandleader we mentioned earlier Fela Kuti Brahm. What's the story behind this track zombie ? Essentially , it's one of Fela's many attacks on the political situation in Nigeria. The way in which the Nigerian government was trying to force people into doing the political will of the government and zombie is an indication of what he thought the Nigerian government wanted to make to the people of Nigeria and to me when I was door to job at the world , to me when I was going door to door to door to door Bollywood. The song is called Zombie by legendary Afrobeat musician Fela Kuti. Finally , in our exploration of the John Coltrane Black Music Archive , we have a track featuring the collection's namesake from Tell US About This Track , Just Friends by the Cecil Taylor Quintet. What is fascinating is that Cecil Taylor was when this album was recorded in 1958 , he was on his way up as a real experimental musician. At the time is music hadn't evolved the way it would later on , and at the same time , John Coltrane's music was on the way to an evolution to something entirely different from his hard bop environments. So Cecil Taylor and Coltrane came together , and I think what is most fascinating about hard driving jazz , which is this album , is that they inspired each other. And that was just friends by the Cecil Taylor Quintet featuring John Coltrane , a longer playlist of the tracks and more selections from the John Coltrane Memorial Black Music Archive can be found online at KPBS dot org. I've been speaking with the collection's curator from Dijkstra and Brown. Thank you so much for joining us today. You're welcome.