tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87475211467955392252024-03-13T14:05:21.770-07:00THE CULTURAL WORKER by John PietaroJOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.comBlogger225125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-79972173571237841172023-06-16T16:37:00.003-07:002023-06-16T16:37:57.465-07:00Liner notes, Bobby Kapp Plays the Music of Richard Sussman (2023)<p style="text-align: center;"><i> </i>Liner notes,<i> Bobby Kapp Plays the Music of Richard Sussman </i>(2023)</p><p>by John Pietaro</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSbPzkNRD4RgFuOm1oHcGLrynWWrjKaJlo_aFZ5Ao2JsC4HKpSGkb51nfEo_e5sVCpM-LR7jvcsfjlgXQPccVR8AL18nU4Mf0jQH39ZlsMv-FxzzGdjV_ZLpwXF8R5bs5EsVcwWqaIkerrN0tA727_UdZq7ellBrt3-BJji2Iky79JqmNfHBHdDe2y/s1053/Bobby%20Kapp%20Plays%20the%20Music%20of%20Richard%20Sussman%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1047" data-original-width="1053" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSbPzkNRD4RgFuOm1oHcGLrynWWrjKaJlo_aFZ5Ao2JsC4HKpSGkb51nfEo_e5sVCpM-LR7jvcsfjlgXQPccVR8AL18nU4Mf0jQH39ZlsMv-FxzzGdjV_ZLpwXF8R5bs5EsVcwWqaIkerrN0tA727_UdZq7ellBrt3-BJji2Iky79JqmNfHBHdDe2y/s320/Bobby%20Kapp%20Plays%20the%20Music%20of%20Richard%20Sussman%20cover.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BOBBY KAPP</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">, musical sojourner, has made a mission of advancing
truth within his art. During childhood, back in Perth Amboy, his natural talents
led to the drums and a need to carry this musical message far and wide. As both
drummer and vocalist, Kapp’s flights, built of the improvisational moment, guided
forays throughout the US, into Cuba, and then Mexico, his base since the 1990s,
shredding the soundscape with such legends as Marion Brown, Gato Barbieri, Gene
Perla, Matt Shipp, Dave Burrell and Ivo Perlman. His canon is one most empathic.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Kapp’s road-less-traveled is now walked in the company
of composer and pianist Richard Sussman, another icon of sounds bold and unique.
“I’ve spent most of my career playing free; the “compositions” began with the
red light in the studio”, Kapp explained. Yet, in his 81<sup>st</sup> year, he
commissioned Sussman to write an album’s worth of pieces which take
orchestration toward its most vexing, compelling the ear toward a deeper listening.
With <i>Synergy: Bobby Kapp Plays the Music of Richard Sussman</i>, the veteran
improvisor revels in colors reminiscent of Gil Evans’ explorations. But the chordal
clouds of another Miles compatriot, pianist/composer Bill Evans, also thrives amid
this mesmerizing, expansive ensemble and its leader’s dynamic time machine. Watch
carefully and you’ll almost see the sounds draining off the nib of Sussman’s calligraphy
pen. Throughout, Bobby Kapp’s course of empathy is matched only by the restless
surge of change. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cast, sojourner, so transient be your berth!<o:p></o:p></span></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-22691784850794244662023-06-16T16:32:00.004-07:002023-06-16T16:53:03.396-07:00Reportage: Pride Month, Music, and the LGBTQ Community<p> Originally published in "Allegro" magazine (the journal of Local 802 AFM)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><h1 style="text-align: left;"><b>Pride Month, Music, and the LGBTQ Community</b></h1>by John Pietaro<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiequ1PctxDfuX58cuZrYF2QrxqRw0zPpUVGNCPjua-Y_wrjsgB_Tc3Q8mBeMxXcSn-hHCdhHBoZmJ5gb6_vl98OECcG9qHTbombBXgk_7Rg9r-qfkJC-C7TZMdnjB57vd_sCAWrmupC2YFxNLcC2-ms_48nGeNYEO_XIPG5A2sgKxWdVVfbRwWjIEE/s523/Pride-2023.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="523" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiequ1PctxDfuX58cuZrYF2QrxqRw0zPpUVGNCPjua-Y_wrjsgB_Tc3Q8mBeMxXcSn-hHCdhHBoZmJ5gb6_vl98OECcG9qHTbombBXgk_7Rg9r-qfkJC-C7TZMdnjB57vd_sCAWrmupC2YFxNLcC2-ms_48nGeNYEO_XIPG5A2sgKxWdVVfbRwWjIEE/s320/Pride-2023.png" width="320" /></a></div></div><span face=""PT Sans", Lato, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #3f4245; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>At even a precursory glance, the role of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and trans people as leading voices within the arts is immediately evident. Yet this relevance alone has not been enough, particularly in years past, to combat the ignorant fear if not the visceral hatred of far too many toward the LGBTQ community. Personal lives had to remain tightly closeted to avoid government and police persecution, as well as ostracization from producers, arts administrators and, in many cases, fellow artists. The practice of having “marriages of convenience” (really, of necessity) and worse, the denial of one’s lifestyle and actual life partner, amounted to a further ghettoization of some of the greatest creative minds. Pride came only with the boldest activism of the Stonewall Inn uprising of June 28, 1969, and surely during the cruel years of the AIDS crisis.<br /><br />Cut to the present and LGBTQ+ visibility has increased globally with the work of “out” creatives and “out” characters featured in film, literature, visual art, stage works and on television screens. Perhaps it’s unfathomable here from my office on West 48th Street, but the current hysterical backlash to progressive gains is boiling over not only in rural enclaves but the state houses of Florida, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and other primarily conservative regions.<br /><br />As of May 23, the <a href="https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/roundup-of-anti-lgbtq-legislation-advancing-in-states-across-the-country">Human Rights Campaign’s Year-to-Date Snapshot</a> of Anti-LGBTQ+ State Legislative Activity told the awful truth: so far, over 520 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in state legislatures, a record; over 220 bills specifically target transgender and non-binary people, also a record; and a record 70 anti-LGBTQ laws have been enacted so far this year, including: 15 laws banning gender affirming care for transgender youth, 7 laws requiring or allowing misgendering of transgender students, 2 laws targeting drag performances, 3 laws creating a license to discriminate, 4 laws censoring school curriculum, including books.<br /><br />For musicians identifying as LGBTQ, the struggle has often been dire, particularly in genres deemed particularly macho, i.e. jazz and rock. Gary Burton has been acknowledged as one of the most important vibraphonists in the history of the instrument, and his music crosses boundaries between many genres. The endless accolades, however, didn’t allow him to feel safe as a gay man, at least not until the publication of his 2014 autobiography, “Learning to Listen”, which details his experiences in music and life. When asked why he’d chosen to come out at this later stage of his life, he answered inasmuch that it was due time. Burton’s fearlessness allowed others to come forward, happily, but it’s just as important to look back, particularly into the lives and careers of two Local 802 musicians who survived through times more arcane.<br /><img src="https://www.local802afm.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/bernstein-640x360.jpg" /><br /><br />Leonard Bernstein conducting at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 1963.<br /><br />LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918-1990) is perhaps the most celebrated conductor-composer in the canon of American music. Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts (itself the site of a vastly important mill strike by the Industrial Workers of the World in 1912), Bernstein studied piano as a child and quickly took to orchestral music. At the age of 14, he attended a concert of Arthur Fiedler’s Boston Pops which made a profound impact on his life; among the material was Ravel’s “Bolero”. In 1935 he became a student at Harvard, studying with Edward Burlingame Hill and Walter Piston, serving as accompanist to the Harvard Glee Club, performing numerous contemporary pieces and staging a production of gay composer Marc Blitzstein’s “Cradle Will Rock”, among other credits.<br /><br />His professional baptism by fire was with the renowned New York Philharmonic, taking over the baton for an ailing Artur Rodzinski with scant notice, and drawing international praise. Bernstein’s credits number far too many to list here, but what has been less publicly acknowledged is his life as a gay man.<br /><br />Though Bernstein married Chilean actress Felicia Cohn Montealegre in 1958 and the couple remained together, successfully raising a family, he continued to see men. She wrote to him: “You are a homosexual and may never change — you don’t admit to the possibility of a double life, but if your peace of mind, your health, your whole nervous system depends on a certain sexual pattern, what can you do?” (from “The Letters of Leonard Bernstein” edited by Nigel Simeone).<br /><br />They separated in 1975 when Bernstein lived with a boyfriend, but he returned to Felicia when she became terminally ill, only parting after her death some three years later.<br /><br />As has been quoted often, his West Side Story collaborator Arthur Laurents, stated that Bernstein was “a gay man who got married. He wasn’t conflicted about it at all. He was just gay.” And according to “The New Yorker”, prolifically so. While this was rarely a secret, Bernstein’s passionate, intimate relationship with a young Tokyo man, Kunihiko Hashimoto, has only come to light in recent years. Hashimoto became an important collaborator as well as lover, and the relationship continued across oceans and through the remainder of Maestro’s life.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.local802afm.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/spivy-seven-gay-med-640x550.jpg" />BERTHA “MADAME SPIVY LEVOE” LEVINE (1906 — 1971) was a celebrated pianist-vocalist, actor and early activist for the LGBTQ community. Born in Brooklyn, as a young woman she began performances in area speakeasies which, by the mid-1930s, led to engagements in major New York nightclubs where she was lauded “the female Noel Coward” due to her satirical, double-entendre-filled lyrics. “The New York Times”, in 1939 wrote: “Spivy’s material, witty, acid, and tragicomic, is better than most of the essays one hears about town, and her delivery is that of a sophisticated artist on her own grounds. She knows the value of surprise in punching a line, she uses understatement unerringly, and her piano accompaniment is superb.”<br /><br />A special target were the right-wing politicians and especially the Daughters of the American Revolution, who were lampooned in the barely veiled “100 percent American Girls”: “Our country is so fine, it will really be divine, when we get everyone but us to move away.”<br /><br />In 1940 Levoe opened her own nightclub, Spivy’s Roof, on the penthouse of 139 East 57th Street, which became a highly successful gay and lesbian center of midtown nightlife. Due to the homophobia of the day, the establishment was private and without signage yet attracted major film and Broadway stars in the know, particularly those living closeted lives. A pair of grand pianos across from the bar assured that Spivy could join in with the house pianist, usually Liberace, to the thrill of the crowds. Regulars included Mabel Mercer, Thelma Carpenter, and Martha Raye. “It was the place in those days,” Davis said, “especially for men,” who adored her. Women did too, including her current lover, usually seated at the bar, and friends such as Tallulah Bankhead and Patsy Kelly, whom she entertained at specially reserved tables. Paul Lynde, on the Tonight Show, added: “Judy Garland and Martha Raye and Judy Holliday… they used to come in and Spivy would entertain all night long for them….”.<br /><br />The writer Ignacio Schwartz reminisced: “She was a plump lady (one writer said that she was “squat like a bulldog.”) She wore her hair in a tight pompadour with a white streak down the middle. She would place a tall glass of what was probably chilled gin on the piano before her. During her time on stage, she would drain a couple, but her singing — her low, throaty voice — would always be perfect.” <a href="https://sfbaytimes.com/spivy-last-fleur-de-levys/">https://sfbaytimes.com/spivy-last-fleur-de-levys/</a><br /><br />A recent blog post on Madame Spivy described her favorite means of introducing a song while capturing attention: “This is VERY sad and we must be VERY quiet, please.” She would then launch into a number that was anything but either of those things.” <a href="https://brianferrarinyc.com/2020/02/22/madame-spivy-aunties-face/">https://brianferrarinyc.com/2020/02/22/madame-spivy-aunties-face/</a><br /><br />So popular had she become, that the entertainer was signed to Commodore Records for a series of 78 RPM sides compiled as “Seven Gay Sophisticated Songs”, which were followed by several albums for other labels. Spivy’s songs, both original and those of other composers, were utterly timely and bravely satirical.<br /><br />Following her club’s 1951 closure, Spivy focused on acting and was soon cast in several film roles and one noted episode of the “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” television program (many will recall “Specialty of the House”). Among her film work was the 1960 adaptation of James T. Farrell’s “Studs Lonigan” and Rod Serling’s powerful “Requiem for a Heavyweight” of 1962.<br /><br />In closing this Pride article, here is the full lyric of “100 percent American Girls”:<br /><br /><i>Members of the Daughters, Aunts, Mothers and Second Cousins of the War of 1812, form into double file.<br /><br />Stop twitching at that bunting Carrie and smile.<br /><br />Take off that feather boa, Mary Louise this is a parade, not a charade.<br /><br />Vera, you go right back to Washington, you’re not supposed to be marching at all! You’re supposed to be keeping THOSE people out of Constitution Hall.<br /><br />Please… you on the float there. Lord Calvin is sagging. Yankee Doodle is flat. Your powder is wet. And your Mayflower is dragging.<br /><br />Oh thank God here’s George III. Alright Lizzie, stand right there and sneer.<br /><br />Please Consuela, someone has to be the rabble. You throw the Boston tea right in this little box over here.<br /><br />Remember the things we said we’d never abandon. Remember we’re still true to Alfred M. Landon.<br /><br />Remember when the Bill of Rights…. HMMMM ….. tried to get fresh with me!<br /><br />My Westbook Pegler ‘tis of thee. Ah ha! The bugle! Formation girls:<br /><br />Nelly pull your belly in — it’s for the U.S.A. We’ve got to be adorable today.<br /><br />Oh aren’t you excited? And isn’t this a binge? Lets unfurl every curl in our lunatic fringe.<br /><br />Tilly, Queenie, Magnolia, Hillaire… to arms!<br /><br />Nelly pull your belly in and hold your chin up high. We’ll give the crowd a treat as we pass by.<br /><br />The Pricker unit forward, the Bilbo club behind….And Bessie you keep waving what your grandpa signed.<br /><br />All together now: Comb your hair for California, wash your neck for Io-way.<br /><br />Our country is so fine, it will really be divine when we get everyone but us to move away.<br /><br />Take a Benzedrine for old Virginia, where our daddies sniffed their snuff with dukes and earls.<br /><br />We are for the human race, which is lovely (in its place). We’re 100 percent American Girls!<br /><br />What? Do I see one of you lag when before you is marching the flag?<br /><br />Did Washington crossing the Delaware say “Let’s call it off, boys — I’m not in the mood for rowing”?<br /><br />Did Betsy Ross say “Fold up the banner girls — I hate sewing”?<br /><br />Hmmm. Really girls! Eyes up! Curls up and away!<br /><br />Annie pull your fanny in — it’s for the U.S.A. We’ve got to be adorable today.<br /><br />When Valley Forge was icy and up to here in snow… did Dolly Madison say “No”?<br /><br />Myrtle, Cissy, Prissy, Mamie — to arms!<br /><br />Annie pull your fanny in — it’s for the U.S.A. We’re 100 percent American Girls!</i><br /><br />–composed by Charlotte Kent for the album “An Evening With Spivy” (Gala Records 1947)<br />JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-86800130910143408352023-06-16T16:25:00.001-07:002023-06-16T16:25:09.680-07:00Reportage: Harvey Brownstone Honored at the Stonewall Inn<p><b> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Harvey Brownstone Honored at the Stonewall: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Canadian
Talk Show Host, Activist Kicks Off Pride Month</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By John Pietaro<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiDOIvQ_iskFH9exdU4JmbIPgnrEWbUKmn3S6aLwlBggbXcY-MLXg_8Kuo9aLduvEb4MNkz3xbFqfhx0wQwdyEhXU4jmWjL2OlfWes0fct8vLKL-7Z0iDhmy_MsUiSm5ZEBElaApQAUqwb36yDbNhjPNUaGJKTopMM3ymS8UcvRV7G5eaXCmbbRcjT/s2010/Harvey%20Brownstone%20at%20Stonewall%206.23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1154" data-original-width="2010" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiDOIvQ_iskFH9exdU4JmbIPgnrEWbUKmn3S6aLwlBggbXcY-MLXg_8Kuo9aLduvEb4MNkz3xbFqfhx0wQwdyEhXU4jmWjL2OlfWes0fct8vLKL-7Z0iDhmy_MsUiSm5ZEBElaApQAUqwb36yDbNhjPNUaGJKTopMM3ymS8UcvRV7G5eaXCmbbRcjT/s320/Harvey%20Brownstone%20at%20Stonewall%206.23.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Just who is Harvey Brownstone?</span>
</i></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">For the many residing south of Niagara’s Rainbow Bridge, the celebrity host
with an audience of 5 million+ may not be immediately recognizable, but his legend
and impact are unmistakable. 2023’s Pride Festivities in New York were given a
special commencement with Brownstone’s appearance at the Stonewall Inn, June 5.
The birthplace of LGBTQ Liberation anchored Harvey’s New York City debut with in-depth
discussion about his life, career, and ‘Interviews’ program, alongside guest
speakers and live music. It was produced and hosted by public relations maven
Laurie Towers.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The former Canadian judge—that
nation’s first openly gay jurist—made history by marrying countless same-sex couples
from the provinces as well as throughout this nation. The New York contingent
was so numerous that Brownstone’s dedication earned a 2008 Proclamation by NYS State
Senator Tom Duane. His marriage officiating occurred continually—and free of
charge--around an already full Family Court docket. At the Stonewall,
Brownstone offered, “It was always so moving. There were so many desperate to
finally hold that legal commitment, I couldn’t turn anyone away.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Among those he couldn’t turn
away were New Yorkers Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer, married by Brownstone after
42 years as a couple; their union came to trigger the Supreme Court litigation which
ushered in legal marriage for LGBTQ people across the U.S. The latter story was
ardently told in documentary <i>Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement</i> which
includes footage of the pair’s wedding ceremony at Toronto Pearson Airport.
Among the guest speakers at Stonewall was Judith Kasen-Windsor who became the second
wife of Edie Windsor following Thea Spyer’s lengthy battle with multiple
sclerosis. Kasen-Windsor offered details of the fight, not only for recognition
but that which Windsor endured leading up to the Supreme Court decision. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Grammy-nominated songwriter
Harriet Schock (“Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady”, a massive hit for Helen Reddy),
moved by Brownstone’s “coming out” story, composed “I Am Yours”, now released by
vocalist and pianist Gary Lynn Floyd on his album <i>Present Schock: The Songs
of Harriet Schock</i>. Floyd flew in from Houston to perform a riveting set
including this song and Schock’s reworking of “Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady”,
adding, “This time it’s from the male perspective and it’s actually my own
coming out story”. He also performed a rousing original with vocalist Denise Lee,
another out-of-towner in for the occasion (“And I also came to see my baby
performing in <i>Shuck’d</i> on Broadway!”, she excitedly added). The duo lit
the house with Floyd’s classic, warm baritone and Lee’s Mavis Staples-inspired vocal
flight. Jim Keaton, president of the Helen Reddy Fan Club, spoke powerfully
about the songs of Schock and the relationship he developed with Reddy and her
team. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Award-winning mixologist
Maria Gentile who’d crafted special libations for the evening including the
Marvy Harvey, Love Wins, Justice for All, and the Brownstone (with Canadian
Club whiskey, natch), emerged from behind the bar to lend her vocal talents to
the goings-on. “If I Was a Boy”, a deeply touching piece recalling Gentile’s
own childhood struggles within the LGBTQ reality, was emotionally performed by
this veteran cabaret singer with emotive piano accompaniment by Floyd. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Other features of the
evening included an address by long-term activist and WBAI radio host David
Rothenberg. “I may be older than water”, he joked, nonplussed, “but I can still
get up on stage”. Rothenberg, who’d spent decades as a Broadway press agent,
was also founder of the Fortune Society. His activism for civil rights, civil
liberties and peace expanded in 1973 “when I was asked to be on the David
Susskind Show to discuss gay and lesbian issues. That was my coming-out story.
I lived across the street from this place in 1969 during the uprising, but was frozen,
deep in the closet then. I haven’t looked back since.” Others in the crowd
included television, film and stage actor Louise Sorel (whom Rothenberg
recalled from his earliest press rep days), and breakthrough TV screenwriter
Susan Silver, among many more. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Wendy Stuart, actor,
activist, and host of the ‘If These Walls Could Talk’ show, clarified just how
fragile the situation is right now, in the face of ultra-conservative
legislation stripping human rights through the most extreme of right-wing voices.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">During his years on the bench,
Brownstone also became a best-selling author with the groundbreaking “Tug of
War: A Judge’s Verdict on Separation, Custody Battles and the Bitter Realities
of Family Court”, leading to numerous appearances in media, but his lifelong desire
to host celebrated actors and writers came to be only following retirement from
law. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Since its debut in 2021, ‘Harvey
Brownstone Interviews’ has counted Louis Gossett Jr, Linda Evans, Sir Tim Rice,
Robert Wagner, Louise Sorel, Ruta Lee, even the elusive 93-year-old Mamie van
Doren among his notable guests. The show is broadcast globally on Brownstone’s
own YouTube channel as well as XPTV1 throughout the U.K., among other sources. Honoring
the show, the Breakfast at Dominique’s fair trade, environmentally friendly
coffee company premiered its ‘Talk Show Blend’, suited to Brownstone’s specific
taste. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As the Stonewall
celebration came to a close and the over-filled glasses were drained down to their
rocks, so to speak, the house system played “Oh, Canada”, with host Towers
proclaiming, “This is New York’s ‘thank you’ to you, Harvey. For all you’ve
done!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Here-here.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Links: <o:p></o:p></span></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Harvey Brownstone Interviews website: <a href="https://www.harveybrownstoneinterviews.com/">https://www.harveybrownstoneinterviews.com/</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Harvey Brownstone Interviews” youtube channel: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaE5NJCAmpqkFvyJRpOpokw">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaE5NJCAmpqkFvyJRpOpokw</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Harvey Brownstone Interviews” XPTV1: <a href="https://xptv1.com/">https://xptv1.com/</a> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Harvey Brownstone Interviews” Spotify channel: <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/5uGlhWQ3Z63di2kem431eB">https://open.spotify.com/show/5uGlhWQ3Z63di2kem431eB</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Harvey Brownstone Interviews” Apple: <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/harvey-brownstone-interviews/id1555774578">https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/harvey-brownstone-interviews/id1555774578</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gary Lynn Floyd: <a href="https://garylynnfloyd.com/">https://garylynnfloyd.com/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Harriet Schock: <a href="https://harrietschock.com/#choices">https://harrietschock.com/#choices</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Breakfast at Dominique’s Hollywood Blends coffees: <a href="https://hollywoodblends.com/">https://hollywoodblends.com/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-42669782367557936972023-04-09T09:34:00.002-07:002023-04-09T09:34:17.096-07:00Album review: Curlew, CBGBs, NYC, 1987<p> <i>The NYC Jazz Record</i>, March 2023</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Curlew, </b></span></span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>CBGBs, NYC, 1987</b></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Review by John Pietaro</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This historic reach back to 1987, one of the high
years of “downtown”, opens in the hallowed crush of CBGB (there was no “s” in
the title) with Curlew’s pulsating rendition of “Ray”. The <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>piece by saxophonist George Cartwright was inspired
by novelist Barry Hannah. Like Cartwright, Hannah was an artist stemming from
the deep south who thrived in dark humor. But Curlew’s urgency leaves little space
for laughter. One reference point is Ornette’s Prime Time, had that ensemble been
reared not in a Prince Street loft, but across Bowery and over. The linear work
of each member of Curlew reached as far as any band at CBGB would, or could. “Ray”,
angular, swinging, funk-infected, is a celebration of musical liberation that lusciously
conjoins into a raw Coleman-like piece, the B-section of which will send shivers
down the spine of latent listeners. The wonderfully restless electric bass of
Ann Rupel, tenaciously seeking news paths through the thicket, pushing the
primal-scream solos of Cartwright, guitarist Davey Williams, and especially
cellist Tom Cora, as well as the sonic explosions of drummer Pippin Barnet, remains
an essential showcase of the downtown sound. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Kissing Goodbye”, which follows, is perhaps the
missing link between Prime Time and the throttling polyrhythms of ‘80s King
Crimson, peppered by the essence of stale beer that perfumed Bowery and
Bleeker. Ornette’s penchant for folkish melodies is often realized in Cartwright’s
compositions, the improvisation’s this inspired are nothing short of legendary.
And as an aside, aspects of Crimson’s 1973 “Lark’s Tongues in Aspic” are evident
within the ominous pulsations of “To the Summer in Our Hearts”, but then Rupel
turns that harmonic structure on its head. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Curlew was founded in 1979 not long after Cartwright arrived
in NYC. His biography, intertwined with that of the band, is the stuff of East Village
legend, and by the time this set was recorded (directly off the mixing board), the
ensemble had found its classic line-up which demonstrated again and again the necessary
ingredients. Yet it remains vexing as to why Curlew has so often sat on the music’s
periphery. The answer may be found in its interchangeable line-up, even with
the downtown A-list on hand. Earlier, Bill Laswell, Fred Frith, Nicky Skopelitis,
and Denardo Coleman held chairs, and later Chris Cochrane, Kenny Wolleson, and Sam
Bennett, among other notables. The scene overflowed with talent and there was a
vast array of venues, encouraging transience for many. Just a year after this
performance at CBGB, Ann Rupel founded No Safety with Cochrane, Barnett, Zeena
Parkins, and Doug Seidel, thriving on Curlew’s magic. Around the same time, Tom
Cora co-led Skeleton Crew with Fred Frith, and Frith continued his own
trans-Atlantic foray, including the Golden Palominos and Massacre with Laswell.
The cross-pollination was impossible to avoid, but so daring the synthesis that
even in casting ‘the shock of the new’, its presence was fleeting, an emulsion.
Such a capture as Curlew at CBGB, though remains immortal. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">CREDITS:<o:p></o:p></span></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">George Cartwright - saxes<br />
Tom Cora - cello<br />
Davey Williams - guitar<br />
Ann Rupel - bass<br />
Pippin Barnett - drums<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">1. Ray <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">2. Kissing Goodbye <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">3.To the Summer in Our
Hearts <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">4. Barking <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">5. Moonlake <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">6. One Fried Egg <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">7.The Hardwood <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">8. Oklahoma <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">9. Agitar / The Victim<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">10. Light Sentence<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">11. Mink's Dream <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">12. First Bite <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;">13. Shoats <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;"><br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--></span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 16.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 16.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-31899900010828159812023-04-09T09:31:00.005-07:002023-04-09T09:31:52.262-07:00Performance review: “Jazz Gypsies”: MAC GOLLEHON & OMAR EDWARDS<p> <i style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
NYC Jazz Record</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; text-align: center;">, JOHN PIETARO, NY@Night column, March
2023</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">“Jazz
Gypsies”: MAC GOLLEHON & OMAR EDWARDS<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">2/7/23,
The Hard Swallow, NYC<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
Hard Swallow, a classic East Village bar, swelled throbbingly on this oddly
warm Tuesday night (February 7). The duet Jazz Gypsies--Mac Gollehon, trumpet/samples/voice;
Omar Edwards, dance/voice--commandeered the atmosphere, their manipulated pre-recorded
orchestral hits and rhythm tracks shredding the whisky-soaked night air. Gollehon
blared a warning call and Edwards tossed himself into a flurry of tireless movement,
part jazz and tap, part hip hop, his syncopated steps ricocheted off the platform
with abandon. Edwards’ triplet attacks sprayed the club like tommy gun bullets
as Gollehon, a multi-instrumentalist and mean jazz trumpeter whose session work
is legendary, improvised bop heads, defying the dancer at each turn. The swing
was killing, with Edwards popping quarter-note triplet figures on one foot against
16</span><sup style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">-note and 32</span><sup style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">nd</sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">-note triplets in the other, like Gene
Krupa or Papa Jo Jones tearing into accented rim shots. By the time the duo
took on Paul Desmond’s “Take Five”, Hendrix’s “Third Stone from the Sun”, or something
by Jaco, Omar was drenched in sweat, dancing in odd time like it was common
(pun intended). Various Latin and funk pieces had Gollehon rapping and
vocalizing over the thunder and then moving throughout the tightly crowded
space, trumpet aloft, the crowd dancing and clapping wherever the backbeat may
lay. At points, percussionist Jeanne Camo added to the thicket on snare drum,
but otherwise the sizzling, soaring music and visuals were owned by this
marvelously unlikely pairing. These Jazz Gypsies may be solely responsible for
an entirely new genre.</span></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-12803891365106187302023-04-09T09:30:00.002-07:002023-04-09T09:30:35.742-07:00Women’s History Month Profile: HAZEL SCOTT, Allegro Mar '23<p> <i>Allegro</i>, the Journal of Local 802 AFM, March 2023</p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Women’s History Month Profile: HAZEL SCOTT</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">John Pietaro<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By the time Hazel Scott reapplied for
membership in Local 802, she’d lived more in her 46 years than most could in a
lifetime. From child prodigy to renowned performer, she was a major recording
artist and noted film actor, as well as the first African American artist to
host her own programs on both radio and television. In a tragic turn, this
acclaim was followed in 1950 by a racist, red-baiting campaign by the forces of
reaction, particularly the House Un-American Activities Committee. Almost
immediately thereafter, her television show was canceled, and Scott suffered the
indignity of media blacklisting and a mental breakdown. By the late 1950s, her
prominent marriage to Adam Clayton Powell had eroded and she’d left New York
for Paris, returning only with her own healing and the racial advances of the
next decade. Still, her story is one that has rarely been told. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Trinidad-born pianist and vocalist began her
prodigious career as a child, and in 1924, when she was four years of age, relocated
to New York City with her family. Scott’s perfect pitch and outstanding
instrumental ability led her mother Alma Scott (also a musician), four years
later, to bring her to the attention of Julliard professor Oscar Wagner who
provided Hazel advanced musical training. By the age of 11, she’d already made
her professional debut. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A performance at Roseland led to a contract with WOR
radio and, over the next few years, celebrated gigs at increasingly prestigious
nightclubs. When she was 19, Scott began a residency at Café Society, casting
an important series of Swinging the Classics, bridging the jazz she loved (and would
go on to perform with the likes of Charles Mingus and Max Roach) and the
classical music she’d showcased over the years. Barney Josephson, Café
Society’s owner and a virulent opponent of segregation, became Scott’s manager
and assured that her bookings were for integrated audiences, and supporting her
when racist incidents occurred along the way. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In such a climate, with neighborhoods (and the active U.S.
military) so coldly separated by race, one might assume that an artist like
Scott could never proliferate, yet she was called out to Hollywood and offered
a Columbia Pictures contract. Pridefully, she insisted on terms that were
shocking at the time, including the control of character and costume, making
several movies including one with Lena Horne. Following a successful protest
action when she refused for the other Black actresses in a film to be dressed in
soiled aprons (holding up production for three days!), Columbia head Harry Cohn
threatened to close Scott out of all film work; she returned to New York and
resumed her successful music career. Later, she markedly stated: “From Birth
of a Nation to Gone with the Wind, from Tennessee
Johnson’s to My Old Kentucky Home; from my beloved friend Bill
Robinson to Butterfly McQueen; from bad to worse and from degradation to
dishonor—so went the story of the Black American in Hollywood.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In 1944, the FBI opened a file on Scott, citing her
involvement in the Civil Rights Congress and the ACLU’s American Committee for
the Protection of the Foreign Born as well as her professional association with
the openly left-wing Barney Josephson. Her marriage a year later to the
dashing, newly-elected Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr and the headlines
they achieved after protesting Scott being barred from performing at
Constitution Hall by the notorious Daughter of the American Revolution was
apparently what the festering right-wing was seeking. Scott was a force,
establishing a 1950 battle against the National Press Club’s racist admission
policy and a civil rights lawsuit against a Spokane WA restaurant that refused
to serve her (following a USO performance). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That same year, Scott’s successes in television guest
appearances led to the premiere of The Hazel Scott Show, a music and variety
series, historic as the very first for any African American performer. The
slanderous write-up of the pianist’s “communist sympathies” (i.e., her
activism) in the pages of archconservative “Red Channels” magazine put Scott
into the sites of the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee and the
myriad neo-fascist organizations who breathed life into it. Voluntarily, Scott
agreed to appear before the Committee and made all attempts to separate herself
from the Communist Party but used the occasion to speak out against the
influence of “Red Channels” on the industry, and the very blacklist she would
soon find herself in the midst of. A single week after her appearance before
HUAC, the network canceled her television show, meanwhile Scott’s performance
schedule was scrutinized and heavily strained. By ’51, the tension evolving in
her life led to a total breakdown and the need to be hospitalized. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Though she resumed aspects of her career, the wider
exposure of television proved more elusive. In 1957, Scott chose to leave the
country, moving to Paris where she continued to speak out against both racism
and the McCarthyism and the rightist politics that fuel them. With her marriage
to Powell apparently in distress, the couple formally separated by the close of
the decade. Yet, she stood strong, appearing with the great writer and voice of
liberation James Baldwin in support of civil rights. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In preparation for her relocation back to New York,
Scott reactivated her long-held 802 membership in June, ’66. She resumed
performances, with a highlight at the New York Paramount in in 1968, and with
the blacklist formally broken, she returned briefly to television. Scott
endeavored into the Ba’hai faith, performing for its various large events here
and abroad with Dizzy Gillespie, and continued being a voice of pride and
power. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Hazel Scott died of cancer at Mt. Sinai Hospital in
1981. She was just 61years old. But her legend remains and was recalled by
Alicia Keys during the 2019 Grammy Awards, and the latter-day memorials include
a Dance Theatre of Harlem celebration in 2022. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hazel
Scott’s FBI file:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xwdPLMZqxkSO8b-CkU3UQdKI8iXCAmlG/view"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xwdPLMZqxkSO8b-CkU3UQdKI8iXCAmlG/view</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hazel
Scott, Discography: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Prelude In C Sharp Minor, Op. 3, No. 2 /
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 In C Sharp Minor</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1940)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Piano Greats - Andre Previn*, Earl Hines,
Hazel Scott, Matt Dennis, Barkley Allen, Hazel Scott - Prelude In "C"
Sharp Minor / Country Gardens</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1941)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 In "C"
Sharp Minor / Valse In "D" Flat Major</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1941)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Ritual Fire Dance / Two Part Invention In
"A" Minor </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(1941)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Hazel's Boogie Woogie / Blues In B
Flat </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(1942)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Her Second Album Of Piano Solos With Drums
Acc. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(1942)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">People Will Say We're In Love /
Honeysuckle Rose</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1943)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Body And Soul / "C" Jam Blues</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1943)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A Piano Recital</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1946)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Great Scott! </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(1947)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Swinging The Classics. Swing Style Piano
Solos With Drums - Volume 1</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> <i>Swinging The Classics. Swing
Style Piano Solos With Drums</i> <i>- Volume 1 </i>(1949)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Two Toned Piano Recital</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1952)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Hazel Scott's Late Show</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1953)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Grand Jazz album </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(1954)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Relaxed Piano Moods</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1955)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> <i>Round Midnight</i> (1957)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Man I Love / Fascinating Rhythm </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(1945)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I'm Glad There Is You / Take Me In Your
Arms </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(1945)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sonata In C Minor / Idyll </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(1946)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A Rainy Night In G / How High The Moon</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1946)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Butterfly Kick / Ich Vil Sich Spielen</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1947)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On The Sunny Side Of The Street</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1947)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Take Me, Take Me / Carnaval</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1957)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Hazel Scott Joue Et Chante </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(1957)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Im Mantel Der Nacht</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1958)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Viens Danser</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
(1958)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Le Desordre Et La Nuit </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(1958)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Hazel Scott</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (1965)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Fantasie Impromptu / Nocturne In B Flat
Minor</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Brown Bee Boogie</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">How High The Moon / I Guess I'll Have To
Change My Plans</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Valse In C Sharp Minor / (A) Sonata In C
Minor (B) Toccata</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Round, Fine And Brown / Noages</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Always </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(1979)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For
more information on Hazel Scott</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://broadcast41.uoregon.edu/biography/scott-hazel#paragraph-111"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">https://broadcast41.uoregon.edu/biography/scott-hazel#paragraph-111</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/04/24/hazel-scott-jim-crow/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/04/24/hazel-scott-jim-crow/</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-17021584446160976572023-04-09T09:28:00.002-07:002023-04-09T09:28:16.884-07:00Performance review: Studio Rivbea Revisited<p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
NYC Jazz Record</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, JOHN PIETARO / NY@Night Column, February
2023<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Studio
Rivbea Revisited<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">We
Free Strings and Ensemble Rivbea Revisited<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Jan
8, 2023, Gene Frankel Theatre, NYC<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Studio
Rivbea, founded by Sam Rivers in the Loft Jazz days, remains the stuff of
legend. Arts for Art celebrated it over a five-day period, capturing the revolutionary
brilliance still ruminating within 24 Bond Street. Creative spirits never die,
surely not within current occupant, the Gene Frankel Theatre which played host
to this fest (January 8), in particular day five’s overflowing gifts. Violist
Melanie Dyer’s We Free Strings harbors the raw radicalism, cultural pride, and multi-media
plausibility that filled the Lofts. Dyer’s group swings, burns, sizzles and swoons
through the composed and the improvised (and the seemingly composed but
improvised) as heard on its latest album. But this concert, a thrilling preview
of her “Rebecca”, added Dyer’s rich prose, spoken word, film and photography to
the mix. Dedicated to her 90-year-old aunt, the work explored heritage, lineage,
the larger family, the self. </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“A few poems the love of my youth never read in
a coat pocket full of tacit apologies, acts of hubris, lint”.</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> The literature
stood as vitally as the music, however Charlie Burnham and Gwen Laster (violins),
Alex Waterman (cello), Rahsaan Carter (bass), Newman Taylor Baker (percussion),
and Dyer herself simply transcended. And then Ensemble Rivbea Revisited,
comprised of Loft Jazz vets (William Parker, Juma Sultan, Joe Daley, Daniel Carter,
Ted Daniel,) and younger musicians (Ingrid Laubrock, Brandon Lopez), played a transporting
improvised set. And a special closer had Parker offering invaluable tutelage on
Rivbea and its day as well as the everlasting lesson of both.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><br /><p></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-85036791700022659112023-04-09T09:27:00.000-07:002023-04-09T09:27:01.798-07:00Performance review: The Art of Counterpoint<p> <i style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
NYC Jazz Record</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; text-align: center;">, JOHN PIETARO/NY@Night Column, February
2023</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Closing
Concert: The Art of Counterpoint<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Stephan
Haynes, leader<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Jan
10, 2023, Zurcher Gallery, NYC<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
very air within Zurcher Gallery (January 10) bred community and spoke fluently
of downtown’s thriving. “The Art of Counterpoint”, a high point in Zurcher’s already
alluring season, featured inner visions of the music via artwork of several
notable musicians, Bill Dixon, Marion Brown, Oliver Lake and legendary poet Ted
Joans (grown from the free jazz circle) among them. This closing concert feted
not only the stunning visuals, but free improvisation itself with a line-up headed
by cornetist Stephen Haynes, and a string ensemble of Joe Morris, Jessica
Pavone, Sarah Bernstein, Charlie Burnham, and Lester St. Louis. Well before the
downbeat, the room filled with area visionary creatives warmly greeting one
another with hugs, laughter, memories, and plans for future collaboration. Once
the music began, however, the audience sat in riveted silence. “Fifty years
ago, when I was 18, I met Bill Dixon”, Haynes began, redoubling the sense of
heritage and family. The ensemble, then, cast a gorgeous atonal mosaic of modal
string heterophony, aerial muted cornet, and Morris’ acoustic guitar filling each
crevice. Within the prodigious musicianship, violist Pavone stood out,
expressing passages lustrous and incendiary, seemingly davening as streams of muscular,
pulsating bowing threatened to spark a fire. And with Haynes’ soaring, knowing
commentary above and below, Burnham’s and Bernstein’s violins took flight, crafting
imagery of the outsider jazz adaptation of </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Le Sacre du Printemps</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that never
was. Appropriately, cellist St. Louis deftly captured the house with moving, whispery
fanfare and a hunter’s bow. Unforgettable.</span></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-6127751993839511962023-04-09T09:25:00.002-07:002023-04-09T09:25:30.611-07:00Reportage: Night of Oh, So Many Stars: Wendy Stuart’s Birthday Feted at Pangea<p> <i>THE VILLAGE SUN</i>, Jan 2023</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Night of Oh, So Many Stars: Wendy Stuart’s Birthday
Feted at Pangea<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By John Pietaro<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The scene was unmistakably Pangea, that home of outsider
hip, as the bar and club overflowed with a timeless sense of bacchanal. The occasion
on Sunday January 15 was the birthday fest of Wendy Stuart, actress, model and
comic, tenacious social activist, deliberate night owl, planetary traveler, author,
and host of her own television and radio shows. Stuart is also highly active in
the Imperial Court of New York, so the opulence of birthday cake and libations
paled in comparison to the surplus helpings of camp. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rapidly, the space filled with well-wishers and others
of glitter and glam, including fashionista Nick Lyon, as both front stage and cabaret
room swelled with performers from on- and off-Broadway. Joe Preston, a friend
of Stuart’s and the official guardian of Jackie Curtis’ estate stated: “There’s
no more magnificent place to be than right here, right now”, adding that Pangea
alone stands as “the new Max’s” within a sea of venues in the city. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Stuart initially took on MC duties, wryly informing
the room, “I’m still trying to figure out why I’m not famous yet.” She then performed
an original send-up of Nena’s “99 Luftballons”, exchanging its Cold War disconcert
for coronavirus anxieties. But the message was far from grave, in fact, Stuart--who
began by assuring all that she’s no singer—burnt through the parody with tongue
firmly planted in cheek. Stuart added: “In 2020 we were set to produce a sit-com
and it turned out to be covid. So, instead, I wrote a book about <i>not</i>
being famous” (her <i>Last Model Standing</i> remains a favorite in such quarters).
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Among the performers was powerhouse vocalist Darius
Anthony Harper who took time off touring (was that with <i>Kinky Boots</i>?) to
set this house on fire. Others on hand included Tym Moss, singer-songwriter and
red carpet reporter who is Stuart’s co-host on <i>If These Walls Could Talk</i>,
sensational young vocalist AVIVA who belted out Four Non-Blondes, stand-up
comic Ike Avelli (also serving as host), vocalist/dancer and a founder of the
vogue movement Coby Koehl, celebrated drag artist Gio Michaels lampooning Judy,
recent cabaret sensation Cecile Williams and off-Broadway vet Brian Alejandro
who sang a dazzling rendition of “That Old Black Magic”. Stuart’s husband, fashion
photographer and artist (whose paintings adorn the walls of Pangea) could be
seen out front, shooting the performers and surrounding merriment. <i>ICON</i> <i>Magazine</i>’s
Lothario DeAmour, commenting on the honoree: “What can I say about Wendy? She’s
old school in modern times.” And one pair of revelers, Peter and Zach added
that “The range of people Wendy brings together, every shape and face, everyone
being themselves, it’s just amazing.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If These Walls Could Talk</span></i></b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">,
</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Wendy
Stuart and Tym Moss’s weekly one-hour entertainment interview show with
celebrities, authors, cabaret artists and personalities, airs Wednesdays at 2pm
EST</span> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">on
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/@WendyStuartTV">www.youtube.com/@WendyStuartTV</a>
, and is also broadcast on UBC TV <a href="https://ubctvnetwork.com/">https://ubctvnetwork.com/</a>
and Glewed TV</span> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.glewed.tv/">https://www.glewed.tv/</a>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Stuart’s radio program, <b><i>Triversity Talk</i></b>
can be heard each Wednesday evening at 7pm EST: <a href="https://w4cy.com/shows/triversity-talk/">https://w4cy.com/shows/triversity-talk/</a>
. For more information on these shows as well as Stuart’s many ongoing projects
visit <a href="https://wendystuarttv.com/">https://wendystuarttv.com/</a> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-14071863461023454942022-12-18T09:16:00.003-08:002022-12-18T10:22:56.314-08:00BEST OF 2022<p style="text-align: center;"> <b>THE BEST IN NEW MUSIC, JAZZ AND INDIE MUSIC, 2022</b></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">THE MUSIC has experienced an expanse over recent years,
particularly with spoken word and the other arts moving into a rediscovered
place up front. As a poet and organizer, this aspect carries great personal
weight. I feel this advancement--seen earlier in NYC strongholds of modernism, <i>The
Masses</i>, dada, Mabel Dodge’s salon, the Harlem Renaissance, <i>The New
Masses</i>, the Beat Generation, the Black Arts Movement, the New York School, renegade
theatre, the cinema of transgression, punk, post-modernism, Art Against AIDS, the
hip hop movement and the obvious strength of a united arts front--captures the very
best in new music, free jazz, latter-day composition and a bold, Left
outspokenness. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">2022 produced new artists of a decidedly radical
nature and only confirmed our veteran creatives’ stance at the “downtown”
vertex. A wide array of ages, cultures, races and gender identities have
happily claimed their rightful space on stage and are increasingly seen within the
audiences of the hippest venues in this hippest of cities. To that end, we’ve
seen a rise in cultural workers organizing, here and across the country,
driving campaigns in theatres, colleges, museums and the press. These actions of
arts and entertainment unions are occurring as a new generation of rad arts
workers recognize the inherent power of collectivism and join within a labor
movement that is experiencing an inspiring level of activism, much grown
directly from the fight-back of the women’s marches, the BLM movement, and the
protests on behalf of trans lives and the fight directly opposing the Supreme
Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade and the ongoing conservative banning of
books. But we need to do even more to create the necessary balance for independent,
daring arts to thrive. It requires a knowledge of where we came from as well as
the fearless, fully inclusive push forward. It has always been about the
advance, the struggle forward within a unified voice. John Reed, for one,
called it well over a century ago:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Muse, you have got a job before you,--</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Come, buckle to it, I implore you.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I would embalm in deathless rhyme<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The great souls of our little time:<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Inglorious Miltons by the score,--<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Mute Wagners,--Rembrandts, ten or more,--<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And Rodins, one to every floor.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">In short, those unknown men of genius<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Who dwell in the third-floor gangrenous,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Reft of their rightful heritage<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">By a commercial, soulless age,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Unwept, I might add—and unsung,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Insolent, but entirely young.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Yet we are free who live in Washington
Square, <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">We dare to think as Uptown wouldn't dare, <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Blazing our nights with arguments
uproarious; <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">What care we for a dull old world
censorious <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">When each is sure he'll fashion something
glorious? <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Blessed art thou, Anarchic Liberty <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Who asketh nought but joy of such as we!<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">-John Reed, “The Day in Bohemia”, 1913<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">ON, THEN, to my picks for the Best of 2022....</span></p><p align="center" style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><i>CRITICS POLL 2022: New Music/Jazz/Indie<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></p><i><b></b></i><p></p><p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><i> John Pietaro<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; tab-stops: 45.8pt 91.6pt 137.4pt 183.2pt 229.0pt 274.8pt 320.6pt 366.4pt 412.2pt 458.0pt 503.8pt 549.6pt 595.4pt 641.2pt 687.0pt 732.8pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">MUSICIANS OF THE YEAR<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; tab-stops: 45.8pt 91.6pt 137.4pt 183.2pt 229.0pt 274.8pt 320.6pt 366.4pt 412.2pt 458.0pt 503.8pt 549.6pt 595.4pt 641.2pt 687.0pt 732.8pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> <i>Lifetime achievement</i>: Amina Claudine Myers </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmKhBMdNqRSX9xRlAmdPYtoSmgtsPAMoW1h85niOoBezoXAbo-ZeMdwkZ9XI5YisclXBgp1nSotORkcjyS7kjOnwIDALBqULVFNtZv7azPEooNguQ6OaHr8KTdr7PFqaQLspY_G3xPlCC2a3S5bmKUAdLaatnD6QmZfHIhVyPGgx6YlQVBdzRl7QW_/s1760/1c%20amina.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1320" data-original-width="1760" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmKhBMdNqRSX9xRlAmdPYtoSmgtsPAMoW1h85niOoBezoXAbo-ZeMdwkZ9XI5YisclXBgp1nSotORkcjyS7kjOnwIDALBqULVFNtZv7azPEooNguQ6OaHr8KTdr7PFqaQLspY_G3xPlCC2a3S5bmKUAdLaatnD6QmZfHIhVyPGgx6YlQVBdzRl7QW_/w200-h150/1c%20amina.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; tab-stops: 45.8pt 91.6pt 137.4pt 183.2pt 229.0pt 274.8pt 320.6pt 366.4pt 412.2pt 458.0pt 503.8pt 549.6pt 595.4pt 641.2pt 687.0pt 732.8pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Violin: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Gwen Laster</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Viola: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Melanie Dyer<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Cello: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Lester St. Louis<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Harp: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Zeena Parkins<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Flute:</span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> Nicole Mitchell<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Clarinet:</span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> Ned Rothenberg<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Bassoon:</span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> Claire de Brunner<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Trumpet: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Mac Gollehon<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">French Horn:</span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> Vincent Chancey<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Trombone: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Steve Swell<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Tuba:</span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> Joe Daley<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></i></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Soprano saxophone: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Sam Newsome<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Alto saxophone: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Darius Jones<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Tenor saxophone: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">James Brandon Lewis<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Baritone saxophone: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Claire Daly<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Electric guitar: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Chris Cochrane<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Acoustic guitar: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Marco Cappelli<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Various fretted instrument: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Cynthia Sayer (plectrum banjo)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Upright bass: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Ken Filiano<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Electric bass: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Jamaaladeen Tacuma<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Piano: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Mara Rosenbloom<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></i></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Drumset: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Michael Wimberly<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Percussion: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Warren Smith<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Vibraphone: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Patricia Brennan<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Multi-instrumentalist: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Scott Robinson<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Vocals: </span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Fay Victor (female), Eric Mingus (male)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Spoken Word:</span></i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> Tracie<i> </i>Morris (female), George
Wallace (male)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zx61WJUKqkhaENoso_ylejfaVO1iRYAtUmTd4CU7isKhFX-Z-tiuT5uGUk2JG7Y7ClIbh0E-p3v_XJY8An4m25xX6rXGzrfWqC1RBkI_X4YrPjNntSToaXchx6Pex1XqDCk4MLn5HPmHT00DfLM_BSTs5765LjxzG6uNxfqYq_Y2qQTh_Z7I34wB/s2048/1c%20tracie%20morris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zx61WJUKqkhaENoso_ylejfaVO1iRYAtUmTd4CU7isKhFX-Z-tiuT5uGUk2JG7Y7ClIbh0E-p3v_XJY8An4m25xX6rXGzrfWqC1RBkI_X4YrPjNntSToaXchx6Pex1XqDCk4MLn5HPmHT00DfLM_BSTs5765LjxzG6uNxfqYq_Y2qQTh_Z7I34wB/w150-h200/1c%20tracie%20morris.jpg" width="150" /></a><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3G7zi9gniElCM8C6_5zDtE6aGSboZd2R4CcUAVFTBOm-4XIrtwsUMqxdf3cAZvh-d7BEimQ1ilm2d9fR9PI10ia3R_pwqK-bCJKEQRwUTxktIQ4RNg-DIx5nRCCKph5k0nAVO-oYldcwVB4LF1-Xdo_WsVJNY8MiLDuDMwajqG0RNF3pyO5MEg-H-/s2048/1c%20george%20wallace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3G7zi9gniElCM8C6_5zDtE6aGSboZd2R4CcUAVFTBOm-4XIrtwsUMqxdf3cAZvh-d7BEimQ1ilm2d9fR9PI10ia3R_pwqK-bCJKEQRwUTxktIQ4RNg-DIx5nRCCKph5k0nAVO-oYldcwVB4LF1-Xdo_WsVJNY8MiLDuDMwajqG0RNF3pyO5MEg-H-/w150-h200/1c%20george%20wallace.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">DUO: </span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">MorriSharp<b> (</b>Elliott Sharp and Tracie Morris) <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">SMALL GROUP: </span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Ceramic Dog (Marc Ribot, Shazad Ismally, Ches Smith)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">MID-SIZED BAND:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> Gene Pritsker’s Sonic Liberation<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkgMWYCPNEUyPtTGrWkbp8vyUQDU1pS5ZPEqjQ3ZGWuOpCzBNF7veHBNjnGxcG-qexu30MwEEJoHrSYhZPJKyYbt9ovSx1w9PUckf2uyQjFuhUthGMYYqcfQ9yvpYKajTkIIK6Tw3KCI7wflyVOntGKiPSYG3vBpDgOvjxJ8ELpZ3Y08DgNQ8F6PNV/s2048/1c%20ed%20palermo%20big%20band.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1122" data-original-width="2048" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkgMWYCPNEUyPtTGrWkbp8vyUQDU1pS5ZPEqjQ3ZGWuOpCzBNF7veHBNjnGxcG-qexu30MwEEJoHrSYhZPJKyYbt9ovSx1w9PUckf2uyQjFuhUthGMYYqcfQ9yvpYKajTkIIK6Tw3KCI7wflyVOntGKiPSYG3vBpDgOvjxJ8ELpZ3Y08DgNQ8F6PNV/w200-h110/1c%20ed%20palermo%20big%20band.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">LARGE ENSEMBLE</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">: Ed Palermo Big Band </span><p></p><br /><o:p></o:p><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">PERFORMANCE:<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">1)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">John Zorn’s New Masada Quartet</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">, 6/11, the Sultan Room, Brooklyn NY<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -0.25in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrCPnMO_vMn3z82ZnKxUWIB7zqQaPK1YLfVAAyHI9r9wbXjKlmyG4XaISB4f2YYTJHijHqptW90wxiOCEr9jobkjqZsccUtWyXYkEihFJqbxVZACia37NHZZcg_hB7lWE21PIiuq_2hSpv85hE5syI2GJekq7gvG0kGasD1dnDzFzZ55cVUYAGnU4n/s750/1c%20elliott%20sharp%20and%20eric%20mingus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="553" data-original-width="750" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrCPnMO_vMn3z82ZnKxUWIB7zqQaPK1YLfVAAyHI9r9wbXjKlmyG4XaISB4f2YYTJHijHqptW90wxiOCEr9jobkjqZsccUtWyXYkEihFJqbxVZACia37NHZZcg_hB7lWE21PIiuq_2hSpv85hE5syI2GJekq7gvG0kGasD1dnDzFzZ55cVUYAGnU4n/w200-h148/1c%20elliott%20sharp%20and%20eric%20mingus.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">2)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Elliott Sharp & Eric Mingus</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> with Steve Swell and Andrea Centazzo, 10/10/22,
White Box Gallery, NYC <br /><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">3)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Catalytic Sound Festival</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> (Zeena Parkins, Ned Rothenberg, Chris
Corsano, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Brandon Lopez, Sylvie Courvoisier, Ceceila Lopez,
David Watson, Lotte Anker), 12/10/22, Shift 411, Brooklyn NY<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">4)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Ictus Festival</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> (Andrea Centazzo, Chris Cochrane, Sam
Newsome, Michael Foster, Jessica Pavone, Dafna Nephtali, Stephan Haynes, Jeff
Schwartz, Wendy Eisenberg, Shazad Ismally), 10/6/22, Shift 411, Brooklyn NY <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">5)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Christian Mc Bride Three</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> with Greg Tardy and Jonathon Blake, 8/11/22,
Village Vanguard<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; tab-stops: 45.8pt 91.6pt 137.4pt 183.2pt 229.0pt 274.8pt 320.6pt 366.4pt 412.2pt 458.0pt 503.8pt 549.6pt 595.4pt 641.2pt 687.0pt 732.8pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> VENUES:
</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Café Bohemia
(Manhattan),<b> </b>Shift 411 (Brooklyn)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ssbGZCCX8rurrlP9vhZWixd-8D8Qk2KT-PPgxUxc8dm2Tl-OqjGDcIavE-sLYIjllFwC3ikbWXZ9YTiU1EnbMvM5NKIk-hIyr87fx-8Vgz9AqTSZQD0b3KGUDhZNYKHKITppaVZY9NYc8okWQAp2Bd9OYdQdsg-qmWTXRTro72DHUD3Pzi2FIF69/s1760/1c%20sun%20ra.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1174" data-original-width="1760" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ssbGZCCX8rurrlP9vhZWixd-8D8Qk2KT-PPgxUxc8dm2Tl-OqjGDcIavE-sLYIjllFwC3ikbWXZ9YTiU1EnbMvM5NKIk-hIyr87fx-8Vgz9AqTSZQD0b3KGUDhZNYKHKITppaVZY9NYc8okWQAp2Bd9OYdQdsg-qmWTXRTro72DHUD3Pzi2FIF69/w200-h133/1c%20sun%20ra.webp" width="200" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">RECORDINGS:<o:p></o:p></span></b><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> <b>New Releases </b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 1in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">1)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Sun Ra Arkestra, <i>Living Sky </i>(Omni
Sound) <br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 1in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 1in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">2)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Ches Smith,<i> Interpret It Well </i>(Pyroclastic)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 1in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><a name="_Hlk121768862"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">3)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Elliott Sharp and Eric Mingus,<i> Songs
From the Rogue State </i>(Zoar)<o:p></o:p></span></a></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 1in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">4)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">We Free Strings,<i> Love in the Form of
Sacred Outrage </i>(ESP-Disk)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 1in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">5)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Bi Ba Doom, <i>Graceful Collision </i>(Astral
Spirits)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 1in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">6)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Mac Gollehon, <i>The End is the Beginning</i>
(Nefarious Industries)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 1in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">7)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Heroes Are Gangleaders, <i>LeAutoRoiOgraphy</i>
(577)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 1in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">8)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Gene Pritsker’s Sound Liberation, <i>Let’s
Save the World Suite </i>(Composers Concordance)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 1in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><i><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">9)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></i><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">John Zorn, <i>Meditations on the Tarot </i>(Tzadik)<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 1in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">10)</span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Cint Bahr, <i>Puzzle Box </i>(MoonJune)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwnfVXIfe8OFSZm7HwyEkUiTieDhxzojUlLe1cqU3iHX2Dsqa8IfUxcUvO90Ti06WwAkGkkyUskKEmv61bqrrlIHvH-amlBcuMjsuSMTRNpsHzAB2Ou3AoBv0YGZKU6OJ9QbzJGesi94c2s1VzBrFFI0W43mza099knR9CH-AizFueVZ88cevVxA01/s1200/1c%20no%20safety%20spill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwnfVXIfe8OFSZm7HwyEkUiTieDhxzojUlLe1cqU3iHX2Dsqa8IfUxcUvO90Ti06WwAkGkkyUskKEmv61bqrrlIHvH-amlBcuMjsuSMTRNpsHzAB2Ou3AoBv0YGZKU6OJ9QbzJGesi94c2s1VzBrFFI0W43mza099knR9CH-AizFueVZ88cevVxA01/w200-h200/1c%20no%20safety%20spill.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> Historical albums:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">1)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">No Safety, <i>Spill </i>(Cuneiform) <br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">2)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Cecil Taylor, <i>The Complete, Legendary,
Live Return Concert </i>(Oblivion)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">3)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Blondie: Against the Odds, 1974-1982 (Capitol)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">4)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Nikki Giovanni,<b> </b><i>The Way I Feel </i><a name="_Hlk122178717">(Modern Harmonic)</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">5)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The Dance, <i>Doo Dah Dah</i> (Modern
Harmonic)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">6)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Jill Kroesen, <i>I Really Want to Bomb You</i>
(Modern Harmonic)<i><br />
</i> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Vocal album</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">: Elliott Sharp and Eric Mingus,<i> Songs from
the Rogue State </i>(Zoar)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Debut album</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">: Bi Ba Doom, <i>Graceful Collision </i>(Astral
Spirits)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; tab-stops: 45.8pt 91.6pt 137.4pt 183.2pt 229.0pt 274.8pt 320.6pt 366.4pt 412.2pt 458.0pt 503.8pt 549.6pt 595.4pt 641.2pt 687.0pt 732.8pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Live album: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">No Safety,<b> </b><i>Live at the Knitting Factory </i>(Cuneiform)<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; tab-stops: 45.8pt 91.6pt 137.4pt 183.2pt 229.0pt 274.8pt 320.6pt 366.4pt 412.2pt 458.0pt 503.8pt 549.6pt 595.4pt 641.2pt 687.0pt 732.8pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Solo album: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Ava Mendoza,<b> </b><i>New Spells</i>
(Relative Pitch)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; tab-stops: 45.8pt 91.6pt 137.4pt 183.2pt 229.0pt 274.8pt 320.6pt 366.4pt 412.2pt 458.0pt 503.8pt 549.6pt 595.4pt 641.2pt 687.0pt 732.8pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Large ensemble album:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> Sun Ra Arkestra, <i>Living
Sky </i>(Omni Sound)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Record labels
of the year:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">1)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Cuneiform<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">2)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">577<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">3)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Shimmy-Disc<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">4)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">ESP-Disk</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">5)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Modern Harmonic</span></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-37434192526666881342022-11-16T17:21:00.002-08:002022-11-16T17:21:53.623-08:00Album review: Gene Pritsker’s Sound Liberation, Let’s Save the World Suite<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Gene Pritsker’s Sound Liberation</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, <i>Let’s
Save the World Suite</i></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (Composers Concordance 2022)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">--originally published in <i>The NYC Jazz Record</i>--<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gene Pritsker is the kind of left-wing composer that
proliferated in the 1930s in the John Reed Club and its off shoot, the Composers
Collective of New York which boasted the talents of Aaron Copland, Elie
Siegmeister, Marc Blitzstein, Ruth Crawford, Charles Louis Seeger, Henry Cowell
and other modernist rads. Pritsker, founder of Composers Concordance, has often
thrived on messages of social justice within his work and uses activism not
only as fodder for compositions but also entire conceptual albums (2020’s <i>Protest</i>
was cultured by the Black Lives Matter movement and the police killings which bore
it). </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8elMnDocKhEVSVGCFXCFKIxEtmQO3x8lunaFsIGv1q36Gq1bgq11zzq-18zQbRUH8oS61MZ6zCCj3clYUJ8hJJdbauhd5PnZZG4hUH9C996KE1mLGkqQ6l1urJHe-tLrJzR79RnNcRKMuMewtxHlboS2SEi5H7bX_4Uv3I9FuLX0Nm4TtG9MieJFc/s640/1%20pritsker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="639" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8elMnDocKhEVSVGCFXCFKIxEtmQO3x8lunaFsIGv1q36Gq1bgq11zzq-18zQbRUH8oS61MZ6zCCj3clYUJ8hJJdbauhd5PnZZG4hUH9C996KE1mLGkqQ6l1urJHe-tLrJzR79RnNcRKMuMewtxHlboS2SEi5H7bX_4Uv3I9FuLX0Nm4TtG9MieJFc/w320-h320/1%20pritsker.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pritsker’s muse is a restless one, and through it, he very
successfully balances the roles of artist and militant, contemporary composer
and free improviser, guttural rocker and aerial jazzer. His latest is the
7-movement <i>Let’s Save the World Suite</i>, realized by his Sound Liberation ensemble.
The band’s name recalls Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, but the
suite’s title bears resemblance to ‘Change the World’, the <i>Daily Worker</i>
column of revolutionary writer Mike Gold. Even with so much history inherent,
this suite is based on the poetry of “proser-poet-performer” Erik T. Johnson
whose words and declamation are utterly contemporary. Behind and through
Johnson’s spoken word performances (on three cuts), Pritsker’s music soars, testifies
and exemplifies the struggle. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The work opens with a gripping prelude, commencing in the
leader’s haunting, mildly atonal guitar intro and the somber melody heard in Franz
Hackl’s resounding trumpet and Paul Carlon’s tenor saxophone. This edition of
Sound Liberation is small, a combo really, rounded out by Jose Moura (electric bass)
and Damien Bassman (drumset), and of course the central voice of Johnson. He
enters, proclaiming:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Listen
honey, there’s not enough pain in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If
there was, someone would notice,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Do
something about it, give it a pulpit,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Found
it a faith, pay dearly to take its name in vain;<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Then
in reason, overthrow it…<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The music attaches itself to his reading, coating word
and breath, until the melodic content seems to transform into the speaker’s own
voice. This opening line becomes the title of the Suite’s second movement, built
on an early ‘70s groove (think Cobham’s Spectrum, heavy on the bass). Carlon
takes the first solo of the set, far too briefly, resounding in old-school Blue
Note as much as R&B, culminating in Pritsker’s harrowing guitar improv, its
rapid-fire fretwork, squealing octave-leaps and distortion claiming the piece as
something post-Altamont. An instrumental interlude follows and here the quasi-bossa
rhythm and open harmonies of the horns contrast beautifully with the leader’s deftly
dropped sus chords and pedal point, the effect being ominous as ancient modes singularly
wield. Movement IV, “We Don’t Have Much Time Left”, with a lingering modal
quality raked over a vexing, funky, odd-time signature which seems to glide
from rough 7/8 to 5/8 and back to common time. It’s just the traverse for
poetry which begins:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
train is waiting but we’re too poor for the ticket.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Once the improv section takes flight, Pritsker seems
to channel the expressionist soundscapes of Robert Fripp, but one hears John
McLaughlin and bits of Jimi Hendrix in there, too. This sets off the unmistakable
progressive rock and fusion woven through the next interlude, its biting unisons
culminating in Bassman’s sizzling, crackling drum solo. However, movement VI, “Or
Pretend to Beauty” slows the atmosphere with a throbbing 2-beat recalling
Weimar-era Berlin, Pritsker’s guitar doing its best plectrum banjo mimicry and
Bassman leaning into toms and snare. And yet with the horns sounding like a hard
bop frontline, the already complex melody only grows outward with rhythmic
twists as the work expands. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The album closes with Postlude, a sister to the Prelude
but with new musical forays and poetry so dark, it speaks to the ages:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Said
the man to a woman, said the man to the man,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Went
with the children; held them in his hand.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Over
cloud black hills, there’s a stream running white;<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It
don’t slate no thirst or pretend to beauty.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
stream is shut up.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“I’m
taking you there”, said the woman to the child.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The
hell you will”, said the man to them all.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cried
the children to the mother; cried the sister to the dead.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Laugh
the man to them all; put them<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In
his hand.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">CREDITS: </span></u><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gene Pritsker -
composer/guitar , Franz Hackl – trumpet , Paul Carlon – sax<a name="_Hlk116932598"> , Jose Moura – bass , Damien Bassman – drums</a> , Erik
T. Johnson - narrator/poet<u><o:p></o:p></u></span></p>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Prelude<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There’s Not
Enough Pain in the World<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Interlude<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We Don’t Have
Much Time Left<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Interlude No.
2<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Or Pretend to Beauty<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Postlude<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-39967897840988550832022-04-25T20:36:00.005-07:002022-04-25T20:50:56.686-07:00CD Review: POETRY THREE-FER<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Originally
published in <i>The NYC Jazz Record</i>, April 2022<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk97321836"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Heroes Are Gang Leaders, </span></b></a><a name="_Hlk97651318"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk97321836;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">LeAutoRoiOgraphy</span></b></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk97321836;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></b></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk97321836;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(577, 2022)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk97321836;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Nelson
Cascais, Remembrance: The Poetry of Emily Bronte</span></b></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk97321836;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> (Fundacao GDA, 2022)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk97321836;"></span>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk97321882"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Eliot Cardinaux, Will
McAvoy, Max Goldman, Out of Our Systems</span></b></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk97321882;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
(The Bodily Press, 2022)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk97321882;"></span>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-CD
review-<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The heritage of jazz poetry reaches far, with roots in
the slave poem, work song and blues narrative, and blossoming within the Harlem
Renaissance. The driving mechanism for the poet within jazz has been the music’s
rhythm and phrasing, as well as its socio-politics, a topographical schematic
if you will, with which to construct verse and, in performance settings, to present
the execution of same. At times, however, the music has been wholly created around
standing literature and these recent albums were scored to integrate the
artforms while still embracing sound, shape, cause and color. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Heroes Are Gang Leaders</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> is
the contemporary ensemble most fully embodying this heritage while not only acknowledging
the socio-political but fully embracing its necessary radicalism. Founded in
2014 and led by poet Thomas Sayers Ellis, the band is an organic multi-art event<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: #0d0d0d;"> "</span></span>dedicated
to the sound extensions of literary text and original composition”, as per . For
LeAutoRoiOgraphy Heroes Are Gang Leaders--a dozen strong!—was recorded live at
Paris’ Sons D’Hiver Festival performing a commemoration of Amiri Baraka (aka LeRoi
Jones, hence the title). Though some of these selections were initially heard
on earlier studio album, The Amiri Baraka Sessions, these captures are vital, with
the band coming to full power on stage. Featured musicians James Brandon Lewis (tenor
saxophone, also the band’s composer), Melanie Dyer (viola) and Devin Brahja Waldman
(alto saxophone) in the company of vocalist/spoken word artist Nettie
Chickering, and poets Randall Horton and Bonita Lee Penn, as well as the leader
himself, profoundly bring the inspiration of Baraka into the here and now. Chickering’s
looming presence and Lewis’ smoldering music on the 3-movement “Amina”, for Amina
Baraka, the poet/actress who is Amiri’s widow, adds a beautiful gravity to the atmosphere.
Chickering calls out on the first movement, “The Dutchman’s Three-Buttoned Suit”
(referring to Baraka’s commanding drama The Dutchman):<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Damn
was it something I said?<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Did
I do something wrong?...<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Were
there more people burnt as witches than<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starting
a revolution over the price of tea…<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Lewis and Dyer, and then double bassist Luke Stewart, pianist
Jenna Camille and guitarist Brandon Moses, take to the skies, painting it
darkest blue and then purple, emitting an interactive soundscape which feeds
into a network of voices, both spoken and sang. Quotes from some of Baraka’s
most powerful works are woven through poetics and emotional releases on Penn’s “Poetry
iz Labor”, a statement that Amina Baraka includes in her works till this day.
And Section three, “Forensic Report” artfully combines classic free improvisation
with spoken word: War-gasm!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Shrimpy Grits” has Ellis up front along with Waldman
whose alto brandishes an amazingly diverse collection of timbres (in every
setting, his horn so easily mimics a soprano or C-melody saxophone), but the
full ensemble tosses an aural palette at the hall’s ceiling, the drippings splattering
in flourishes. The title work speaks to the progression of Baraka’s writing and
activist career over years, with Chickering singing over Camille’s moving piano
work, most akin to musical theatre or cabaret until the full ensemble enters,
soaring through gorgeously advanced harmonies. Lewis’ admiration of Sun Ra, the
Art Ensemble, and Karl Berger becomes evident as the horns, particularly the aerial
trumpet of Heru Shabaka-Ra, and the thrilling, melodic drummer Warren Cruddup
III herald in the new day that Baraka spent a lifetime seeking out. The core of
the album, “Mista Sippy”, is bold sonic and literary commentary on the fallout from
American racism. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
best kept secret in American politics…<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Contradiction…<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Emoted testimony, sloping jazz, dramatic dialog, gospel
and avant blues pervade, a veritable cornucopia of rebellion. Brief solos by
Dyer, Lewis, Shabaka-Ra and Waldman are a captivating gateway to the poetry of Horton
and Ellis. On closer “Sad Dictator” Chickering sings through Ellis’ poetry as
Penn raps Amina Baraka’s empowering “I Wanna Make Freedom”. The longing in Shabaka-Ra’s
horn recalls Don Cherry’s lamentations while the best of New Thing jazz, performance
art and protest song cross-pollinate in real time. Ellis’ outpouring of literary
social justice, fueled by that of the Barakas, should serve as the soundtrack
to every struggle for social justice within range. As Amiri once noted: “I
think anybody who is serious about language, always sees the written as a
conduit for the spoken for the perception of reality. The spoken word is
alive.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On Remembrance: The Poetry of Emily Bronte, Lisbon’s <b>Nelson
Cascais</b>, double bassist and composer, offers a project honoring the great British
novelist and poet. The album is comprised of ten pieces, six of which feature
the brilliant, somber writings of Bronte, woven together to depict the haunts
of her times. Claudio Alves, in a clear but quietly moving tenor, conjures her
words to life, emoting within a restraint most Victorian. On the opening track,
“The Night is Darkening Round Me”, following a brief solo bass introduction and
sinewy alto saxophone-led melody, Alves softly donates in a cautious sing-song
voice:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Clouds
beyond clouds above me,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Wastes
beyond wastes below;<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But
nothing drear can move me,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I
will not, cannot go<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The saxophonist, Ricardo Toscano, lushly expands the piece’s
direction with valiant, terse improvisations, churning the intensity with pianist
Oscar Marcelino, drummer Joao Lopes Pereira and the leader’s bass. All aspects
of the writer are embraced in this set. For Bronte’s deftly moving “All Hushed and
Still Within the House”, the ensemble’s improvisations match and then goes
beyond the complexity of emotions found within the source poetry, that which
demarcates the loneliness and losses of her brief life (Bronte died at age 30, following
the deaths of her mother and siblings).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><a name="_Hlk98848236"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">All
hushed and still within the house</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">;<br />
Without – all wind and driving rain;<br />
But something whispers to my mind,<br />
Through rain and through the wailing wind,<br />
Never again.<br />
Never again? Why not again?<br />
Memory has power as real as thine.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The title track feels much more through-composed and vibraphonist
Eduardo Cardinho adds silvery highlights at once thickening and aerating the
tapestry. His solo statements reach beyond the mere sonority of the instrument,
with Cardinho almost grasping the bars for rhythmic marimba-like rolls and alluring
motifs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cold
in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">From
those brown hills, have melted into spring.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Over several instrumental pieces, the band demonstrates
skillful musicianship within Cascais’s largely tonal works. “Intimations of
Mortality” is reminiscent of Steps Ahead, clouded of texture with a saxophone/vibraphone
lead and harboring an inner pulsation subtly evocative of the ensemble’s Portuguese
culture. And as the album moves toward the finale, harmonies darken (the piano intro
to “Fall, Leaves, Fall”, thickets of beautiful atonality, is indicative) and both
music and poetry turn pensive, almost still. Ironically, the melody here
recalls strains of Coltrane’s “Moment’s Notice”, albeit heard in a slow tempo. Later,
such echoes fade and it’s within the art song tradition that Remembrance: The Poetry
of Emily Bronte comes to a close. Delightfully packaged, the cover imagery of a
windswept landscape sets off inserts including a translucent “contents” page and
a fold-out of the included Bronte poems. This collection is a lasting document.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Reading his own poetry with aplomb and removal, poet, pianist
and composer <b>Eliot Cardinaux</b> continues the music/verse travail with bassist
Will McEvoy and drummer Max Goldman on Out of Our Systems. For album opener “Lying
in the House of You (Piano Day)”, Cardinaux’s piano only enters at the half-way
mark, ceding to McEvoy’s upright bass bowed just off the instrument’s bridge, and
the whispery drumming of Goldman.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
Silent: cold fire,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
wolf’s eyes flicker into no one’s language…<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A searching, distant sounding work, particularly once
the leader’s piano enters, its gorgeously complex harmonies modulate through the
darkness and jarring light of his composition. The rhythm section, as it were, is
orchestral in approach; Goldman makes grand use of gamelan-like choked, muffled
cymbals played with mallets. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cardinaux’s means of threading art forms is explained
in his recent statement on the Poems and Poetics blog: </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">“I am a poet of the lyric lineage, favoring the lucidly
bent, bare syntax of George Oppen, & the strange torn off clarity of Paul
Celan. Mine are poems of compressed language, of a self folded in on itself…” The
austere but deeply emotional confluence is also found within Oppen: an ex-pat
in Paris, he returned to New York, founding the Objectivist school of poetry. However,
during the Great Depression, he ceased writing to become a community and labor organizer
within the Communist Party. A decorated War veteran, he was driven out of the U.S.
under threat of the House Un-American Activities Committee, returning home in
1958. Oppen was, a decade later, awarded the Pulitzer. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">As we saw with the Cascai
album, Cardinaux is sure to reflect his poetics within the music and the lengthy
instrumental section of “Toxin”, like Evans’ and Bley’s early ‘60s modernism, is
an intellectual brand of jazz driven by restlessness. Further, McAvoy’s “Unwound”,
one of two compositions he contributed to the disc, is gray, pensive, sparse of
melody, sparser still of harmonies. It features his bass deliciously repulsing
the framework, and then Goldman’s solo of artfully deconstructed triplets, leading
in a slow, pervasive lessening and then muting of emotion. Such darkness drove
the life of Paul Celan, a Romanian Jew who witnessed Kristallnacht, lived in a Nazi-occupied
ghetto where he translated Shakespeare, and finally escaped both a prison camp
and the Soviet bloc. Living out his days in Paris, Celan struggled with emotional
turmoil and berating obscurity. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So much of both poets is felt in this collection, and visualized,
too, in the Zoe Christiansen artwork, but Cardinaux himself remains the defining
pulsation. The improvised fire music about “A Black Box for the Holy Ghost”, its
poetry of doubt, denial, reimagining rebellion, perhaps guilt within the sound
thicket exemplifies Out of Our Systems as our necessary step in the tradition.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Maria, Maria, Maria…<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Uncontained testing certain freedom…<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The temple stands for the midnight cipher…<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Negation, negation, negation…<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">----<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Heroes
Are Gang Leaders<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Thomas
Sayers Ellis, bandleader poet, James Brandon Lewis, tenor sax, Luke Stewart,
bass, Melanie Dyer, viola, vocals, Nettie Chickering, voice, Jenna Camille,
piano, vocals, Randall Horton, poet, Devin Brahja Waldman, alto sax,
synthesizer, Bonita Lee Penn, poet, Heru Shabaka-ra, trumpet, Brandon Moses,
guitar, Warren "Trae" Crudup, III, drums<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Amina (The Dutchman's
Three Buttoned Suit / Poetry Iz Labor / Forensic Report) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">The Shrimpy
Grits <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">LeAutoRoiOgraphy
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Mista Sippy
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sad Dictator (I Wanna Make Freedom)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Nelson
Cascai, Remembrance: The Poetry of Emily Bronte</span></b><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;"> (Fundacao GDA, 2022)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Cláudio
Alves: voice . Ricardo Toscano: alto sax . Eduardo Cardinho: vibraphone . Óscar
Marcelino da Graça : piano and synths . Nelson Cascais: bass . João Lopes
Pereira: drums<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">The Night
Is Darkening Round Me<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Remembrance<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Ellis Bell<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Shall Earth
No More Inspire Thee<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Intimations
Of Mortality<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">All Hushed
And Still Within The House<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Fall Leaves
Fall<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Gondal<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Bronte<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">She Dried
Her Tears<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Eliot Cardinaux,
Will McAvoy, Max Goldman, Out of Our Systems</span></b><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;"> (The Bodily Press, 2022)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Eliot
Cardinaux: piano, poetry, compositions; Will McEvoy: double bass, compositions;
Max Goldman: drums, cymbals, percussion<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Lying in
the House of You (Piano Day) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Little
Waltz <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Toxin <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Unwound <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">A Black Box
for the Holy Ghost <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">When We
Went (Someone Else's Mystery) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif;">Rosary <o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p><p></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-14495798737062315302022-04-23T13:33:00.001-07:002022-04-23T13:33:16.783-07:00Performance review: ELLIOT SHARP live film score<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Originally published in <i>The</i> <i>NYC
Jazz Record</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, John Pietaro, NY@Night column, May 2022<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvjdbTWOZL4tFvE-wx0f08-Ti3De7gcY4hNlqGBSTWa_5MIrKxmeP7FsoQYysD5TKAtglBUdML3f7P3k80m8UGja4xOuXi73wlBQFiDkPXdION7FJSCqr3iOJ1fion68U6fQgSOqq4byw4_FEIk4VH9eq2ZvtouZEeyyMDUfI_RkJr2zJqunxtVuSf/s3370/elliot%20sharp%204.22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3370" data-original-width="2831" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvjdbTWOZL4tFvE-wx0f08-Ti3De7gcY4hNlqGBSTWa_5MIrKxmeP7FsoQYysD5TKAtglBUdML3f7P3k80m8UGja4xOuXi73wlBQFiDkPXdION7FJSCqr3iOJ1fion68U6fQgSOqq4byw4_FEIk4VH9eq2ZvtouZEeyyMDUfI_RkJr2zJqunxtVuSf/s320/elliot%20sharp%204.22.jpg" width="269" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><b><span style="font-family: "Agency FB", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elliott
Sharp, live film score</span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">White
Box Artspace, </span><span style="font-family: "Agency FB", sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">New
York NY</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Elliott Sharp is a Downtown original. Composer,
guitarist and woodwind player of eminence, his music, more than four decades
into such a career, maintains a sense of wonder and innovation. Among his most
profound pieces are those created collaboratively, and this was evidenced at
the Whitebox Artspace (April 5). Sharp, playing an 8-string electric
guitar/bass further expanded by effects, performed live to segments of film by
Janene Higgins. The designer/video artist’s work is as severe, expansive and mercurial
as the East Village itself (her alliances with Zeena Parkins, Christian Marclay,
Ikue Mori, many others, speaks volumes) and these selections from Sharp’s opera
installations, and a work with interdisciplinary artist Rena Anakwe,</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">were
visually compelling and sonically riveting. </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Port Bou</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, an opera based on the
final moments of the great Marxist philosopher Walter Benjamin, just prior to
his execution by the Nazis, sports dark fascist imager countered forcefully by
Sharp’s hammer-ons, tapping and long held distorted tones. The opera
installation </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Filiseti Mekidesi </i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">of 2018 explores the search for solace and
belonging by refugees via intertwined genome-like designs and visions of deep
space. The score (pre-recorded but enhanced by Sharp’s live performance) featured
repetition and phasing in the flute and brass sections and throbbing
percussion, but this was far from the minimalist brand. And </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Die Grosst Fugue</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
(2021) was an emotional firestorm, depicting Beethoven at 250, mad, detached,
deaf and falling into fugue states which had Sharp’s searing, canonic guitar lines
conjuring Robert Fripp over stunning visuals.</span></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-56626963879129983182022-04-23T13:24:00.003-07:002022-04-25T20:28:07.280-07:00Album review: Javon Jackson/Nikki Giovanni, The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Originally published in <i>The</i> <i>NYC
Jazz Record</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">, May 2022<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Javon Jackson, <i>The Gospel According to
Nikki Giovanni</i> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">(Solid Jackson 2022)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> CD review <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGhIvVzpJg634Pn9Ye49CqbsjcEW0PF4QzL064eWLOu-JqrZ5piogHarlNkKC2dbeWz801vomnSzyVWplKN4YWoh4t6U9MArZ0ckvffmsPUym8n8l5hGhesQnrWNMcNrMDokh8pUh2EeHOn5lCY13xlHyC37b3EcQwVV-FPyt5DaXfc-vPzNHvznQ9/s1024/nikki%20giovanni.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="1024" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGhIvVzpJg634Pn9Ye49CqbsjcEW0PF4QzL064eWLOu-JqrZ5piogHarlNkKC2dbeWz801vomnSzyVWplKN4YWoh4t6U9MArZ0ckvffmsPUym8n8l5hGhesQnrWNMcNrMDokh8pUh2EeHOn5lCY13xlHyC37b3EcQwVV-FPyt5DaXfc-vPzNHvznQ9/s320/nikki%20giovanni.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Nikki Giovanni is a national treasure, a landmark in
the annals of the Civil Rights and Black Liberation struggles and a stalwart
poet of renown and a certain fearlessness. Presently, just shy of her 80<sup>th</sup>
birthday, Giovanni continues to be tireless in her roles as a Virginia Tech
distinguished professor and as a vital literary figure. Her sizeable body of work
has primarily focused on the socio-political, but never with a loss to art; she
is living, breathing evidence that works of protest need not be fleeting. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Giovanni has a long history as a performance poet within
the Black Arts Movement and several of her most important records of the 1970s featuring
commanding spoken word with jazz or gospel backing by David Fathead Newman,
Cornell Dupree, Richard Tee, Steve Gadd, Bernard Purdie and others were deeply
impactful. Happily, the Modern Harmonic label has, just this year, re-released
several of these historic works. In contrast, on her new album with Javon
Jackson, he late of the Jazz Messengers, Giovanni stands as guide, surely inspiration,
who selected the spirituals that comprise the album. While that is of great
significance, her direct participation is leveled at only two pieces. <span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">High points of <i>The
Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni</i> include “Wade in the Water” and the
single track featuring the poet, “Night Song”. The latter is notable as Giovanni’s
only recording as a vocalist. Further, it is dedicated to the late, great Nina
Simone, a dear friend of Giovanni’s.</span> A lasting part of Simone’s repertoire, “Night Song” is a Charles
Strouse/Lee Adams number from the Broadway musical production of Clifford Odets’
<i>Golden Boy</i> (playwright Odets was a fighting cultural worker of the ‘30s).
The poet’s voice, appropriately strained with age, easily depicts her long and
noble struggle as well as the warm connection to a lost friend. <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Wade in the Water”, an allegory of
revolution, is here expanded by Giovanni’s “A Very Simple Gift”:</span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">i should imagine we shall lose our souls<br />
since we have so blatantly put them up<br />
for sale and glutted the marketplace<br />
thereby depressing the price<span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Jackson’s bold-faced tone as a tenor saxophonist is
quite the match for this body of work, mid-ranged, he exudes Coltrane’s “Alabama”,
particularly with the moody, dark interpretations of “Wade in the Water” and especially
“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”. Jeremy Manasia’s piano thrives on
the Freedom Summer influences, flawlessly capturing the atmospherics, so
profound, so grounded, and Jackson organically touches upon the encoded
messages built into these works which guided liberation from slavery. While a
powerful authenticity is felt in many selections, somehow there are points when
the material settles into an uncomfortable, possibly unforgiveable “soft jazz” realm.
Most vexing is the bossa nova that became of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. Largely,
however, this record makes a relevant adjunctive statement to Giovanni’s earlier
albums, <i>Truth is on Its Way</i>, <i>That’s the Way that I Feel </i>and <i>Like
a Ripple on a Pond</i>, all of which remain highly recommended. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-11913056219161783312022-04-23T13:20:00.002-07:002022-04-23T13:20:33.233-07:00Feature article: L Shankar<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Originally published in <i>The NYC
Jazz Record</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, April 2022 feature<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkjNEB0x5XoO26DrtE1fBanoiNuOC_p3GpRuUKU-GMjlPf3YAA2TkFgxxhQkaWVpZHZ9l1yTks8azOfz2-onQpUya4vUdK8B77uqUKbaLxnpewZNsOSSv6iq2BKRmgLr8k5YxDr-gURUtZOesfckeTGPyeFrPLUMyeLMuMbyOxTCb0VsxZSC26ddYg/s844/l%20shankar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="721" data-original-width="844" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkjNEB0x5XoO26DrtE1fBanoiNuOC_p3GpRuUKU-GMjlPf3YAA2TkFgxxhQkaWVpZHZ9l1yTks8azOfz2-onQpUya4vUdK8B77uqUKbaLxnpewZNsOSSv6iq2BKRmgLr8k5YxDr-gURUtZOesfckeTGPyeFrPLUMyeLMuMbyOxTCb0VsxZSC26ddYg/s320/l%20shankar.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span><p></p>
<h1 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">L. SHANKAR</span></b></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">To describe L. Shankar as a chameleon is nothing short
of trite. The violinist’s drive toward change has continuously been in the
service of growth. Shankar’s tapestry embraces Indian classical, free jazz, fusion,
folk and world music, pop, rock, dance, and no wave. This global view guided his
founding of Shakti with John McLaughlin, and cast a mind-numbing CV boasting
Jan Garbarek, Don Cherry, Lou Reed, Alice Coltrane, Frank Zappa, Ed Blackwell, Swans,
Peter Gabriel, Kenny Wheeler, Public Image Ltd, and Madonna. And while reveling
in such creative ventures, Shankar, so committed to the experience, developed a
reputation as vocalist rivaling his fame as a violinist, and has been known to alter
both name and appearance to fit a given musical moment. This month at Roulette he’ll
perform a fusion of Carnatic and Hindustani ragas and world sounds with tabla drummer
Abhijit Banerjee and mrdangam player Rohan Krishnamurthy. Such fluidity is born
of an inexhaustible spirit. “I know it’s confusing”, Shankar explained, brushing
back the strawberry-blonde locks of recent years. “For the last two albums I
went back to ‘L. Shankar’, though many recall my ECM years when I was simply ‘Shankar’.
But I’ve been billed as ‘Shenkar’ on pop recordings. This gives you a clean
slate. I’ve been around for some time and listeners sometimes don’t want anything
else, so, I become what’s needed.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 171.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Shankar was born in Madras,
India, 1950, relocating to Sri Lanka where his father V. Lakshminarayana was a music
professor. Shankar’s mother, L. Seethalakshmi, was a vocalist and veena player,
and the children were viscerally engaged in music. Formal tutelage in voice
began at age two, and within several years Shankar was studying violin and mridangam.
At seven-years-old, he’d performed in concert, but the family fled the area during
the 1958 ethnic riots, returning to India. Several years later, Shankar and his
brothers L. Vaidyanathan and L. Subramaniam began performing as a professional trio.
While they found acclaim playing Indian classical music, Shankar desired expanse,
the blending of Carnatic (southern) and Hindustani (northern) styles. But experimentalism
was met with consternation. “In India those who were close minded were afraid
of the dark. People have to learn that there’s light in darkness. But I cannot
stop at the simple. We must educate the listener”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 171.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Indian culture flourished
in the west throughout the 1960s, from Gandhi’s teachings, already decades old,
to trends in yoga, meditation, even Nehru collars. Integration began as early
as the 1950s when U.N. delegations presented sitar master Ravi Shankar (no
relation) to the U.S. Within a decade the sitar was heard on commercial records,
most influentially to western ears via George Harrison of the Beatles. But traditionalists
shunned the opportunities and, seeing no room for advancement, the violinist moved
to the US in 1969, studying at Wesleyan University. “The cold was hard to get
used to, but no one was telling me what to do. John McLaughlin came to Wesleyan
to study veena and we started jamming. I told him he can apply the same music he’d
been playing to Indian music. Jimmy Garrison was also teaching in Massachusetts.”
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 171.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">1975 saw the premiere of Shakti,
the ensemble Shankar founded with McLaughlin and brilliant percussionists Zakir
Hussain and Vikku Vinayakram. The guitarist’s celebrity as both a protégé of
Miles and Mahavishnu Orchestra helmsman foresaw Shakti’s path to fame, yet Shankar
was uncertain. “Our first gig was at the Bottom Line. We were all sitting on stage,
never expecting what the future might hold”, but suddenly there were world tours
with Weather Report. Shankar, by then living in NYC, recorded three critically acclaimed
albums with Shakti, crossing paths with luminaries. Looking back on the period,
Shankar explains how such multi-culturalism developed: “Improvisation is
central to Indian music. It goes on as long as you want; you can play until the
cow comes home. I’ll sing for 14 hours, play violin, without being tired. I can
travel and still focus. I meditate within myself so every time I’m playing, it’s
like playing in my living room, even if in a stadium filled with people.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 171.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The stadiums continued
even after Shakti’s dissolution. Shankar toured with Frank Zappa who then signed
the violinist to his label, releasing <i>Touch Me There</i> in 1979. It featured
Shankar’s electric 5-string and standard violin with guitarist Phil Palmer and drummer
Simon Phillips. Zappa’s vocal on one cut, split with Ike Willis from his own band,
demarcates the endorsement given Shankar. Prominent is “Darlene”, a beautifully
flowing work of continuous meter shifts which the violinist continues to
revisit. “It’s one of my most complex pieces; it includes so many cycles. I had
just come off a tour of India and the band rehearsed in England for ten days. But
“Darlene” required 57 takes”, he explained. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 171.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">However, the boundary
shredding continued. In 1980 Shankar reconceived his instrument, designing the electric
10-string double violin which covers the orchestral string family’s range. “Some
said I was ruining the instrument. In India I had a press conference with 500 in
attendance. I told them we had to be open, that no one can stop time. The audience
in the past was 60 years old, but after we started expanding the music, the youth
came.” The instrument was unveiled on <i>Face Value</i>, the acclaimed solo debut
of drummer/vocalist Phil Collins, and Shankar’s own <i>Who’s to Know?</i> with the
violinist comfortably straddling atmospheric hit “In the Air Tonight” and ECM’s
expansive sonorities. “Manfred (Eicher) put me on a long European tour, a double
bill with Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell. I had no band, so I used effects and asked
them to join me on some pieces. Don really loved Indian music and I invited him
to a big show with Alice Coltrane, Trilok Gurtu and Zakir Hussain: the Bombay Jazz
Festival. We played an outdoor stage on the beach.” Among his ECM releases, <i>Song
for Everyone</i> remains most memorable. “It’s a highlight that stays with me,
the melodies keep coming up in my playing. We toured this widely, sometimes
including Nana Vasconcelos. In (Eastern Bloc) Yugoslavia there was a huge concert.
When we ended, the audience was crying.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 171.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Over years, Shankar’s contributions
to both planes has been continuous. “When I worked with Peter Gabriel and Martin
Scorsese on <i>The Last Temptation of Christ</i>, I was only on vocals. It’s funny
because I was raised as a singer and practice voice as a primary thing. When
you hear my violin, I’m singing.” Shankar toured with Gabriel and became part
of the “Sun City” record, raising awareness for Black South Africans, and then joined
the Princess Trust and Human Rights Now tours. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Composing for film saw his relocation to Hollywood, supplementing
work with Talking Heads, Marianne Faithful, Sting, and much-loved
collaborations with the World Music Institute. “Madonna came to Gabriel shows
and loved my <i>Passion of the Christ </i>score. Her producer asked me to lay
down tracks and the next day, Madonna wanted me to tour with her. But I needed to
play my own music. I didn’t begin playing for money. I chose to continue my
education.” Shankar’s progressive vision was never at the expense of artistry. “Lou
Reed asked me if I can play real emotion in four bars. I said four bars is more
than enough”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Shankar’s released two dozen albums under his own <span style="color: red;">leadership</span> and guested with Archie Shepp, Yoko Ono, Material,
Adam Rudolph, Maurice Jarre (<i>Jacob’s Ladder</i> score), Ginger Baker, and Swans,
and was prominent on Public Image Ltd’s <i>Album </i>which boasted Tony
Williams, Bill Laswell, Steve Vai, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Nicky Skopelitis, Jonas Hellborg,
Malachi Favors, and Steve Turre. He returned to his homeland in 2016 to teach
at the Shiva <span style="color: red;">Conservatory</span>. “Music is about
unity. I’m a U.S. citizen and can return any time, but I left when Trump was
elected. There was so much hatred.” Still, he’s maintained a busy, fluid
career. 2020s <i>Chepleeri Dream</i>, composed during brutal storms in India
and bearing the sounds of relentless downpour, remains a global sensation. Now,
amid a 7-city tour, Shankar muses, “You must be humble. It’s very important as
a human being to embrace others as students of life. If I thought I knew
everything, I’d simply stop playing.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 171.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-57586481246885881072022-01-30T13:04:00.004-08:002022-01-30T13:04:14.324-08:00Album reviews: Open Question, 'Open Question, Vol. 1' // Pause & Effect, 'Attitude!' <p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Originally published in<i> The NYC
Jazz Record</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, February 2022</span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Open
Question, <i>Open Question, Vol. 1</i></span></b><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
(577)</span></span></p>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk92550666;"></span>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>2)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pause & Effect, <i>Attitude!</i> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(ESP-Disk)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Tenor saxophonist Ayumi Ishito first came to the
attention of this writer several years ago at the debut performance of Attitude!,
prior to that band actually having a proper name, but the Japanese-born Berklee
grad has been residing in New York for nearly a dozen years. Formal tutelage
with George Garzone and certainly less than rigid mentorship by downtown’s own Daniel
Carter has seen her working with a wide range of like-minded spirits and leading
her own ensembles. And in spite of the silences, divisions and closures shrouded
in covid fallout, Ishito has remained vital, garnering only more due attention.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Open Question</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">
is one of those projects Daniel Carter has thrived in lo these many years. Equal
parts young and old(er), east and west, blue, cool, hip and caustic, with some Prince
Street wail, and a deep-listening sort of improvisation included. His multiple woods
and brass along with Ishito’s tenor soars through four works recorded in a Brooklyn
studio late in 2020; just another pick-up gig? NO. The band demonstrates a damned
amazing ability to play utterly free over varying arrangements and dynamics as
if reading charts of through-composed music. Shades of <i>In a Silent Way</i>, <i>Bitches
Brew</i>, even <i>Kind of Blue</i> with handfuls of Houston Street and Coltrane
tossed into the mix. Things start immediately in this direction with “Blues”, in
which the front line wraps itself around a wildly expanded blues form. “Dimly-lit
Platform”, a delectable piece, is flute-driven, wreaking of mysterioso and noir,
not simply film noir but the still earlier novels; think Dashiell Hammett and
Cornell Woolrich. A quiet restlessness akin to a soaked, steaming mattress in
an airless bedroom of 1930s’ Lower East Side is felt throughout and Ishito’s tradition-haunted
tenor, reedy and dark, bores new tonalities through Carter’s floating melody. “Confidential
BBQ”, the next cut, seems more like a second movement of the former title as it
retains the shadowy vibe, albeit over double-time groove. Here, her tenor is
again matched by Carter’s flute and muted trumpet, and the clouded rhythm
section—upright bassist Zach Swanson and drummer Jon Pannikar—glides, smokes
and burns at <i>mezzo-piano</i>. Mid-way through, this moves into early
electric Miles’ way, Erik Plaks’ pointed Wurlitzer commands the swarming thicket
like a latter-day Zawinul, particularly against Carter’s muted trumpet. This is
brilliant, lasting music. I can hardly wait for Vol. 2. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Another side of Ishito is demonstrated on <b>Attitude</b>’s
<b><i>Pause and Effect</i></b>, based around the revolutionary spoken word of
poet Rose Tang who on this album doubles on electric guitar, piano and
percussion. Her trio with Ishito and drummer Wen-Ting Wu stands out as not only
as—by intent--all-female, but all-Asian, and from varying parts of the east. Tang,
the Brooklyn-based journalist and survivor of 1989’s Tiananmen Square uprising,
has been experimenting with improvisational music over several years and
brought this band together as part of her statements against sexism and anti-Asian
hate and the struggle of Hong Kong against mainland China’s military rule. “I’m
not a China doll, I’m not your geisha…I’m not Yoko Ono…I AM ME”, Tang exclaims in
righteous anger over burning, far-reaching free music. “Gimme a Mic” and “Who
Flung Dung” are radical calls to order, shouted, demanded and specified as
poetic free jazz. But listen, too, for the gravity of “Flames with No Names” and
Ishito’s spiritual horn claiming Coltrane’s “Alabama” for the cause as Tang
meditates on the rapes, the pillages, the theft of women. “You can never beat
us. You can kill us, but you can never kill all of us”, she states. “This is
your last hurrah…”. Wu’s fluid, rapid-fire mallets on tom-toms conjure the
imagery of Asian folk music as easily as Ed Blackwell. And the fiery propulsion
of “8 Steps/7 O’Clock”, with Ishito’s sinewy, ‘80s-inspired head, let alone the
lengthy “Conversation” (nearly 25 minutes in length) are so steeped in the Fire
Music tradition that listeners may be assume these to be lost cuts by John Zorn
or Alice Coltrane, respectively. Not bad company.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">CREDITS:<o:p></o:p></span></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Agency FB"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Agency FB";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Open Question, <i>Open Question, Vol. 1</i>
(577) – “Blues”, “Dimly-Lit Platform”, Confidential BBQ”, Synchronicity”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Daniel Carter-trumpet,
flute, clarinet, soprano, alto, tenor saxophones / Ayumi Ishito-tenor saxophone,
FX / Erik Plaks-piano, Wurlitzer / Zach Swanson-acoustic bass / Jon
Panikkar-drums<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.5in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Agency FB"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Agency FB";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Attitude!, <i>Pause and Effect</i> (ESP-Disk)
– “Gimme a Mic”, “Who Flung Dung”, “Flames with No Names”, “8 Steps/7 O’Clock”,
“Conversation”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rose Tang-voice, electric
guitar, piano, percussion / Ayumi Ishito-tenor saxophone, voice / Wen-Ting Wu-drums,
voice<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-39943966420118924432022-01-30T12:23:00.001-08:002022-01-30T12:23:11.314-08:00Concert review: ANDREW LAMB’S CIRCADIAN SPHERES OF LIGHT PROJECT<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Originally published in<i> The
NYC Jazz Record</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, NY@Night Column, January 2022<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;"><b><i>ANDREW
LAMB’S CIRCADIAN SPHERES OF LIGHT PROJECT</i></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Dec 1, 2021, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Roulette,
Brooklyn</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi-6QMpaP4Pi-3Ke65L_NYENZSZEAQViyZ4bQH-3D-29RXJhsFQOi4ekt5erCegFOYeedCX19a3YMpqhbS6OXxQb2jg1tIyrJrDc0GaFbKyCC37YHO8z5lwiiuQaZSENyyvGB52TmkHosEWRhGypfiOQ4PelF55O377r5IXhkSIcyyDUzf_9VljBwNs=s2016" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi-6QMpaP4Pi-3Ke65L_NYENZSZEAQViyZ4bQH-3D-29RXJhsFQOi4ekt5erCegFOYeedCX19a3YMpqhbS6OXxQb2jg1tIyrJrDc0GaFbKyCC37YHO8z5lwiiuQaZSENyyvGB52TmkHosEWRhGypfiOQ4PelF55O377r5IXhkSIcyyDUzf_9VljBwNs=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><i>Andrew Lamb I(center, seated) and the Circadian Spheres of Light. Photo by Pietaro</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Ensconced
within an all-star ensemble, saxophonist/composer Andrew Lamb brought new life—</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">new
lives!</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">--to inter-disciplinary performance, and Roulette (December 1) was
the perfect breeding ground for the Circadian Spheres of Light Project. Lamb’s music
has always walked between the epic and the shock of the new, but with the
influence of study into music’s influence on the brain, and in the company of
poet/multi-instrumentalist Ngoma Hill, a compatriot of Amiri Baraka, the artful
became a statement of both awakening and cultural pride. “I am the original man”,
Hill proclaimed just after his didgeridoo introduction, moving to the sweep of visual
artist Jimmy James Green’s brush work. The ensemble eased in but spoke in
torrents through Lamb’s series of motifs realized across the eleven
instrumentalists who had freedom of pitch through each unison. </span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This 90-minute,
multi-themed work erupted into the fire music we love, with the house quaking beneath
the celebrated Warren Smith’s timpani throb and broil. He was one of four
percussionists covering a glittering wealth of metals and idiophones at stage rear:
Newman Taylor Baker (washboard, more), Lloyd Haber (drumset, gongs) and Jose
Luis Abreu (hand drums, shakers). </span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Trombone giant Dick Griffin seared the atmosphere
with the circular breathing that still mystifies, and Melanie Griffin, the most
essential jazz violist today, played heart-wrenching improvisations,
particularly when paired with dancer Trashina Conner. Far too much to fit into this
column, but other astounding soloists were bassist Hill Greene, violinist Gwen
Laster, and maestro Lamb himself.</span></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-65843721573002741452021-12-19T10:10:00.004-08:002021-12-19T15:04:03.884-08:00BEST OF JAZZ AND NEW MUSIC, 2021 (a personal view)<p style="text-align: center;"><u> <b><i><span style="font-size: large;">BEST OF JAZZ AND NEW MUSIC, 2021: John Pietaro</span></i></b></u></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">This year in which we celebrated the return of live performance and simultaneously foresaw a rise in virus numbers and the resumption of show and venue closings, the pervasive issue remains on the anti-vax know-nothings affecting the lives of the careful, caring and compliant. Health regs and advisories as simple as getting a lifesaving vaccine are not too much to ask for, yet conservative talking heads retain their manipulative stronghold over the frightened Right, conveniently confounding vacc mandates as anti-liberty. That's a rancid swill of "states' rights", xenophobia, guns-lobbies, white citizens' councils (spelled with three Ks), sexist old boys' clubs and corporate dollars. While the effects of this on the creative community shouldn't be first in the complaint line, the fact is, artists and arts institutions have been decimated and the prospect of yet another lockdown has already seen tours cancelled and records labels rethinking contracts. Still, artists will make art---and have. The outcome of this year's anxious output has been something special, and this much we can revel in. And should. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">And then going forward, let's simply close out anyone who selfishly risks YOUR life and the lives, health and lifestyles of everyone around us. The arts are about healing and such ignorant, self-centered arrogance should not be tolerated by artists and art-lovers of conscience. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">jp</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Now then, following is my personal BEST OF JAZZ AND NEW MUSIC, 2021...</span></p><p><u><br /></u></p><p><u>MUSICIANS-</u></p><p>alto sax: David Lee Jones / Darius Jones / Devin Brahja Waldman</p><p>tenor sax: James Brandon Lewis / Andrew Lamb</p><p>baritone sax: Claire Daley / Dave Sewelson / Gary Smulyan</p><p>flute: Nicole Mitchell / Cheryl Pyle</p><p>trumpet: Kirk Knufke / Mac Gollehon / Ingrid Jensen</p><p>trombone: Steve Swell / Chris McIntyre</p><p>violin: Sam Bardfeld / Sarah Bernstein / Gwen Laster</p><p>viola: Melanie Dyer / Joanna Mattrey</p><p>cello: Lester St. Louis</p><p>acoustic guitar: Stephane Wrembel </p><p>electric guitar: Aurelien Budyack / Vernon Reid / Bill Frisell</p><p>upright bass: Ken Filiano / William Parker / Cameron Brown</p><p>electric bass: Jamaaladeen Tacuma / Bill Laswell / Steve Swallow</p><p>piano: Vijay Iyer / Helen Sung / Mara Rosenbloom</p><p>drumset: Ches Smith / Hamid Drake / Cindy Blackman-Santana</p><p>percussion: Warren Smith / Bobby Sanabria</p><p>vibraphone: Joel Ross</p><p>multi-instrumentalist: Elliot Sharp / Daniel Carter </p><p>vocals: Sheila Jordan / Fay Victor</p><p>spoken word: Anne Waldman / Patricia Smith / Ngoma Hill </p><p><br /></p><p><u>MISCELLANIOUS INSTRUMENTS-</u></p><p>banjo: Brandon Seabrook / Arnt Arntzen</p><p>harp: Zeena Parkins</p><p>washboard: Newman Taylor Baker</p><p>laptop: Ikue Mori</p><p><br /></p><p><u>UP-AND-COMERS-</u></p><p> Lee Odom (soprano sax) </p><p>Luke Stewart (upright and elec bass)</p><p><br /></p><p><u>LARGE ENSEMBLES-</u></p><p>Mingus Big Band /Afro-Yaqui Music Collective / Maria Schneider Orchestra</p><p> </p><p><u>SMALL GROUPS-</u></p><p>Three Layer Cake / Ceramic Dog / The Fringe</p><p><br /></p><p><u>CONCERTS OF THE YEAR-</u></p><p>1) Mingus Big Band, 11/9/21, the Django at the Roxy Hotel, NYC</p><p>2) Anne Waldman (with William Parker and James Brandon Lewis), 9/30/21, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Brooklyn</p><p>3) Andrew Lamb’s Circadian Spheres of Light Project, 12/1/21, Roulette, Brooklyn NY</p><p>4) Ceramic Dog/the Messthetics, 10/2/21, the Bell House, Brooklyn NY</p><p><br /></p><p><u>COMEBACKS OF THE YEAR-</u></p><p>Bush Tetras, 11/13, 21, Le Poisson Rouge, NYC / Ivan Julian- new album and performance!</p><p><br /></p><p><u>LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT-</u></p><p>Warren Smith / Sheila Jordan / Dick Griffin / Legs McNeil</p><p><br /></p><p><u>VENUES-</u></p><p>Manhattan: Le Poisson Rouge, Clemente Soto Velez Center, the Django</p><p>Brooklyn: Roulette, Barbes, Mama Tried</p><p><br /></p><p><u>RECORD LABELS-</u></p><p>ESP-Disk / Rare Noise / 577</p><p><br /></p><p> <u>NEW ALBUM RELEASES-</u></p><p>Ceramic Dog, <i>Hope</i> (Northern Spy)<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p>James Brandon Lewis/Red Lily Quintet, <i>Jesup Wagon</i> (Tao Forms)</p><p>Three Layer Cake, <i>Stove Top</i> (Rare Noise)</p><p>Benjamin Boone, <i>The Poets Are Gathering</i> (Origin)</p><p>New Muse 4Tet, <i>Blue Lotus </i>(Muffymarie)</p><p>Sarah Bernstein, <i>Exolinger</i> (577) </p><p>Francisco Mela featuring Matthew Shipp and William Parker, <i>Music Frees Our Souls </i>(577)</p><p><br /></p><p><u>SOLO ALBUM-</u></p><p>Sarah Bernstein, <i>Exolinger</i> (577)</p><p><br /></p><p><u>UNEARTHED GEM-</u></p><p>Sheila Jordan: <i>Comes Love</i> (Capri)</p><p><br /></p><p><u>BOXED SETS-</u></p><p>Bush Tetras, <i>Rhythm and Paranoia </i>(Wharf Cat)</p><p><br /></p><p><u>RADIO STATION (broadcast)-</u></p><p>WFMU-FM / WKCR-FM</p><p><br /></p><p><u>RADIO STATION (streaming)-</u></p><p>Give The Drummer (WFMU.org)</p><p>Sheena’s Jungle Room (WFMU.org)</p><p>Maker Park Radio (MakerParkRadio.NYC)</p><div><br /></div>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-85519149575379644532021-12-18T11:47:00.009-08:002021-12-19T09:13:29.546-08:00Essay/Review: BUSH TETRAS: Riding the Downtown Epoch<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Originally published in <b>PLEASE KILL ME</b>, December 3, 2021 </span>under the title: </span></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana;">"</span></i><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>BUSH TETRAS: A HAPPY SAD CELEBRATION OF DOWNTOWN GIANTS"</i></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 107%;">BUSH TETRAS: Riding the Downtown Epoch</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">Band debuts new line-up, celebrates boxed
set ‘<i>Rhythm and Paranoia’</i> at LPR</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">by John Pietaro<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgjE6sHARhVJesIVCpbXoPaBTw4iEriaifeOtcr_fayTgYW_y_Z1gFINJ6eaTPkmXtRmzTtLbQz343NI0bUdVNKE_CPTUysE_kGU06qi33SJDzz4-oPd6vCNoa4pMiwvLhZd-HIpCC5dxawyCA5huQWVtTc5xIyVQ_S4re_Iyl5BrlruJg0sYSkZq77=s1520" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1520" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgjE6sHARhVJesIVCpbXoPaBTw4iEriaifeOtcr_fayTgYW_y_Z1gFINJ6eaTPkmXtRmzTtLbQz343NI0bUdVNKE_CPTUysE_kGU06qi33SJDzz4-oPd6vCNoa4pMiwvLhZd-HIpCC5dxawyCA5huQWVtTc5xIyVQ_S4re_Iyl5BrlruJg0sYSkZq77=s320" width="303" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><br /><br />13 November, Le Poisson Rouge, New York City. As the audience, ranging from 20-somethings to senior citizens, filled the hallowed ground, the DJ was spinning funk through a wall of pulsating woofers, the bar quickly busied, and the Village buzz only swelled. This crowd, yes, this crowd has been ready forever. <br /><br />But backstage, the mood lingered thick with anticipation and mournfulness. It’s been only weeks since the sad, unexpected passing of Dee Pop and as Bush Tetras prepare for their post-lockdown homecoming, the loss is experienced in ways unique to each member’s history with the late drummer. <br /><br />Pat Place in 1979 founded the band with Pop, bringing on Cynthia Sley almost immediately thereafter, and the three remained a family over some four decades, altercations, separations and divorces notwithstanding. The guitarist, smiling softly through radiant, moistened eyes, remarked: “We miss Dee so much---not only as a band member but as a dear friend”, while Sley added somberly, “I’m just trying to hold it together.” Even sound-check, she explained, had been painful. “I don’t want to break down on stage.” <br /><br />Dee’s place in music history, long secured, was reinforced by the release of Rhythm and Paranoia: The Best of Bush Tetras (Wharf Cat Records, 2021), the ultimate BTs historic document. No small irony that “new, permanent drummer” Don Christiansen--a no wave/new music original as well as visual artist--too maintains a connection to Pop; he held the drum chair during the latter’s earlier absence. And bassist R.B. Korbet, underground music stalwart that she is, met Dee while on staff at Coney Island Baby and he later recruited her into the band. Each member of this ensemble holds a valued spot in the city’s downtown heritage, one which reaches back and over through its roots, branches and a prism of foliage. <br /><br />As the band sat in the club’s green room, participating in a shoot by celebrated photographer Dustin Pop (no relation), the stage was occupied by the youthful performance artist Austin Sley Julian aka ‘Sunk Heaven’. Ensconced in laser lights and vibrantly deafening sound, this son of Cynthia Sley and guitarist/songwriter Ivan Julian may be among the heirs apparent to downtown’s epoch. His set was followed by Public Practice, a compelling band deep in the tradition, though more of the B-52s’ ilk; it was an embarrassingly welcome brand to we aging post-punks in the house. And just as the music drew the crowd into throbbing rhythmicity, Bush Tetras privately gathered for one last collective breath before hitting the lights out front. <br /><br />Photos of Dee Pop were projected onto a large screen as Pat Place plugged her guitar into its amplifier. Cynthia Sley, already standing at center, told the hungry audience: “We are here to celebrate our new boxed set---and to celebrate Dee”, as Christiansen and Korbet took their places in the line-up. Within moments, however, it became clear that this is indeed a band in the truest sense. They opened with a couple of oldies, “Punch Drunk” being preceded by Sley banter about living in their 1st Street East Village rehearsal room in those early days. This song was recorded at the same session as the three on the BTs’ first 7” E.P. release (99 Records, 1980) but was unissued at the time. As noted in Rhythm and Paranoia’s 46-page biographical insert, this track and those on that first E.P. were actually co-produced by Don Christiansen, who’d been a bandmate of Pat’s in the Contortions. The downtown epoch’s roots hold firm, the reach of its branches remains unyielding. And whole swaths of are contained within the writings and rare photographs in the L.P.-sized booklet of the vinyl boxed set. <br /><br />The collection befittingly presents the music in chronological order, with the celebrated arch-funk and razor accents of “Too Many Creeps” right up top. All of the selections, however, were artfully remastered, bringing to life each slash of Place’s guitar, the tremble of Pop’s bass drum and his every walloping rimshot. But, listening still more intently, Laura Kennedy’s unbridled bass rings out, her slap punctuations sting through radical picking in extended harmony. Her bassline, wrapped about Sley’s hyper, rhythmic vocal, is the core of the piece, carrying it through the angular guitar assault and relentless pulse. It can be said that Kennedy’s extra-tonal concept was the no wave within Bush Tetras. Rhythm and Paranoia (a 1981 term of Kennedy’s when asked to describe the band’s sound) is comprised of three L.P.s pressed onto 180-gram vinyl, assuring a stunning balance among the studio and live recordings which tell the BTs’ story. Of course, the set is also available as a download, or as a pair of CDs (with a disc-sized booklet). <br /><br />PAT PLACE, A NATIVE CHICAGOAN, MOVED TO NEW YORK IN 1975 after earning a BFA at Skidmore. At the time her relocation was based purely on the pursuit of a visual art career, and this period included the prerequisite day job at Pearl Paint. “We could afford to live here as the city was bankrupt. We were paying $160 per month on East 6th Street then”, she stated, citing NYC’s deep-freeze brittle years, as then-President Ford infamously extended a conclusive ‘drop dead’ in place of a federal bail-out. <br /><br />Concurrently, a wealth of artists flocked not only to the city, but specifically to the creative mecca downtown, one that had been attracting artists and Lefties since the bohemian 1910s. But in the 1970s-80s, what with the poverty, burnt-out buildings, crime, and heroin and then crack in its midst, the creative community was of the underground, albeit a far more urgent underground built on rampant experimentalism and amalgamation among genres and disciplines. “It was all melding at that time”, Place explained. “We were a bunch of art-damaged kids and these little art bands started. They were anti-everything, didn’t want to sound like anything done before. It was anarchistic”. <br /><br />She’d studied piano as a child and played some guitar during adolescence, so after stepping into this fertile setting, Place decided to re-examine the latter. Within weeks of obtaining an electric guitar, she was invited by James Chance (who liked her hair) to join his new band, the Contortions. “The no wave bands made me realize I could do this too”, she said. “They were coming from other art genres, very conceptual. Bands like DNA and Teenage Jesus were quite brilliant. Lydia (Lunch) had 10-minute sets! It was a new way”. The Contortions also included Christiansen, keyboard player Adele Bertei, guitarist Jody Harris and bassist George Scott III. <br /><br />Simultaneously, Place came to the attention of no wave film makers Vivienne Dick and Beth and Scott B who included her in their experimental films being exhibited in the same spaces that were growing the music. Such a fusion was far beyond mere emulsion. <br /><br />The guitarist has stated that her limitations on the instrument were clear, so she began by playing an instinctual brand of slide guitar, similar to that of Lydia Lunch. “I remember James early on playing with jazz musicians. I wasn’t involved in that. I can’t believe I had the balls to ever do it”, she said, laughing. Still, she developed a free-reign style, casting sound art as much as ‘music’ throughout arthouses and clubs, most of which have sadly since faded. But this elusive moment was captured by Brian Eno on the revered No New York album. The Contortions, along with Mars, DNA and Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, indeed made history with those sessions, even if none thought the album would make a dent. “Eno was very lovely and nice and professional. We were well aware of him, and I was a bit intimidated, but once you’re in it, it becomes about the work”. Place said that the band felt highly motivated to enter the studio with the auteur, but “we didn’t really expect (No New York) to go anywhere. We had no idea it would be historic.” Barely suppressing laughter, she added: “Adele and I drew all over the back of the album cover, over all of our faces. Moustaches and scars on everyone!” <br /><br /><br /> <br /><br />The tenuous career of the original Contortions wouldn’t outlive even the brief no wave movement. “There was a huge fight in the band where Anya (Phillips, manager) fired (bassist) George (Scott III) during the session, and hired Dave Hofstra to recut his tracks. Jody was really pissed about that. I was just trying to hold up my own. A lot of drugs were being thrown around those sessions”. Phillips, Chance’s partner and girlfriend, sought to create a solo career for the sensationalistic saxophonist and asked only Place to remain in their fold, “but I was friends with the boys”, she added conclusively. Scott went on to work with downtown luminary John Cale and joined Lunch’s 8-Eyed Spy before co-founding the Raybeats with Jody Harris and Don Christiansen. Scott would tragically die of an overdose by 1980. <br /><br />In the Contortions’ wake, Place organized the Bush Tetras’ first line-up, uniting Kennedy and Pop (“When I met Dee”, Place recalled, “he was drumming but was also a rock writer”) with guitarist Jimmy Uliano, and Adele Bertei as vocalist. Following the band’s outing at Artist Space, Bertei and Uliano moved on, and Cynthia Sley took over vocal duties. This classic line-up debuted at another gallery, Tier 3, but soon began filling Irving Plaza, Danceteria, the Mudd Club and the Peppermint Lounge, among others. As stated in Marc Masters’ introductory article in the boxed set booklet, Sley’s “Too Many Creeps” was written just the day prior to the band’s first victorious Irving Plaza gig, opening for the Feelies. <br /><br />“MY CAREER HAS BEEN KIND OF ALL OVER THE MAP”, Dee Pop explained in an interview with this reporter just months ago. “I like so much music and have just delved into things. I’d spend three or four years playing free jazz, blues or Greek music”. The son of a Downbeat magazine photographer, Pop was exposed to a wide range of jazz, rock and classical music throughout his formative years. “Mom taught me that some of the music of her generation was great. She said I needed to realize—as Ellington said—there is only good and bad music. If you don’t see that, you nullify everything that happened before”. Resultantly, Pop was imbedded into the music of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, as well as the Beatles and Stones, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, and earlier traditional jazz. “My grandfather was Louis Armstrong’s florist, so I met him when I was a little kid. I used to ride with my grandfather’s delivery man to his house in Flushing”. <br /><br />Dee began playing a rudimentary drumset within a childhood vocal group, but never studied the instrument formerly. “I’m a self-taught drummer but studied both flute and clarinet for ten years. And I still play these instruments!”, he said, clarifying that such occasions are never before an audience. <br /><br />With the guidance of the music around him, Dee’s explorations on drums eventually saw his travel from Queens to the East Village. “In 1979-80, I was squatting on 7th Street by the corner of Ave C. My two running buddies were Bobo Shaw and Dennis Charles. Dennis was sitting on the corner of 6th Street playing with an old crappy snare and a box for a bass drum. For a year, I didn’t realize it was Dennis Charles. I would hang out with Bobo, and we worked on drum shit together. Bobo had been with Defunkt. There was so much cross-pollination. No wave and out jazz made sense (to rock and rollers)”. In this period, playing on the burgeoning punk scene, Pop was well aware of Pat Place and became the natural choice to be her new band’s drummer. <br /><br />“We liked that avant edge”, Pop said. “And the funk part of it, where Pat was coming from at the time. But I guess I kind of destroyed no wave by putting a 4/4 (beat) to it. That’s what made the Bush Tetras a little more possible; listeners could figure out where the “1” was”, he wryly added. <br /><br />Akin to rest of the scene, the fledgling band actually thrived within its own limitations and restrictions. “Pat had never played music before the Contortions. Laura was self-learned. I knew how to play a backbeat and recognized the standard form of a song and tried to hold them together. We practiced a lot, but it was all very organic.” <br /><br />CYNTHIA SLEY, VISUAL ARTIST, POET, WOULD-BE CLOTHING DESIGNER, moved from Cleveland to downtown Manhattan just in time. The relocation was inspired by a visit to the city to see Jim Jarmusch, an old friend. But by then, plans to attend FIT were all but left behind. “New York was a real free city then”, she recently told Grand Life, still speaking with enthusiasm for the inter-connectedness of artists and genres in the time and place. She’d known Laura Kennedy back home; the two were even in a Cleveland performance piece together which featured a pseudo-band built around Sley’s poetry. The combined encouragement of Kennedy and Place, a new close friend, rendered her somewhat willing to become their frontperson. <br /><br />Joining Bush Tetras at its dawn, Sley was central to the band’s creative process, which at that point probably owed more to William Burroughs than any contemporary rock songwriter. “We used to work on lyrics together by cutting up notebooks we had written in and pasting them kind of Dada style”, she told Grand Life. <br /><br />Numerous songs came together immediately though she’d never imagined herself a vocalist. Bush Tetras’ tendency to write material grown in jam sessions allowed for a looser approach with Sley’s sprechgesang vocal style, bridging the sung to the spoken, affording poetic space as well as room for repetitive, splintered fragments perfectly countering Place’s sawtooth guitarisms; both remain compelling signatures of the BTs sound. <br /><br />The band’s following built rapidly over numerous, ongoing tours, both national and global. Perhaps the greatest support, outside of New York, was found in the UK and they quickly became darlings of the Brit punk and post-punk circle. They’d opened for the Clash’s historic Bond’s residency in New York, and then, in London, were recorded live for Stiff Records’ 1981Start Swimming compilation. The BTs’ ominous rendition of John Lennon’s “Cold Turkey” in this setting takes on innate urgency reflective of the drug culture plaguing the Lower East Side as well as the band itself. Listening to this cut on Rhythm and Paranoia, the contemporary ear catches “Cold Turkey” at its despondent and dejected core. None of Lennon’s primal scream therapy, however, is attempted here, let alone replicated in Sley’s vocal. Instead, it’s relived in Place’s guttural, shrieking guitar lamentations. <br /><br />The London performances proved fortuitous as British label Fetish Records signed the band for the single “Things That Go Boom in the Night”, the guitar riff of which bears a resemblance to that of “Cold Turkey” but is all the more biting on this re-mastered collection. More so, the Clash’s Topper Headon had developed a close relationship with the BTs, Dee Pop in particular, and acted as producer on their next E.P., Rituals (1981), recorded at Electric Lady Studio back in the Village. Later, Pop would return the favor by subbing for Headon when the bands toured together. He was later considered for membership in the Clash before Headon’s return. “Cowboys in Africa” came from this E.P. set and remains a perennial; brimming with enthusiasm when played at Le Poisson Rouge on 11/13, the room was left pulsating. <br /><br />In 1982, Cynthia Sley married Ivan Julian, downtown denizen and a founding member of Richard Hell and the Voidoids. Within the year, both Pop and Kennedy, spent from the relentless touring, left the band. Dee explained “I felt that the Bush Tetras had gone as far as we could, and I wanted to do more”, in which time he both explored free jazz, and played with the Gun Club. When not out with that band, or his own units Floor Kiss and Radio I-Ching, Pop collaborated with a dizzying array on all sides of the seeming musical divide, including Billy Bang, John Sinclair, Borah Bergman, Gary Lucas, James Chance, Chuck Berry, the Shams, Roy Campbell, Jayne County, Can, Freedomland (with Daniel Carter, Dave Sewelson, William Parker and Dave Hofstra), Richard Lloyd, Odetta, Darlene Love, the Waldos, Nona Hendryx, Lenny Kaye, Marc Ribot, and the Slits. <br /><br />Place and Sley attempted to keep the band together, recruiting Christensen (who was by then one of the Raybeats) and Bob Albertson, on drums and bass respectively, and while this line-up-maintained performance dates, it would not prove lasting. Later that year, Bush Tetras officially disbanded. In the interim, Cynthia Sley and Ivan Julian worked together in the Lovelies, recording one album, and in 1989 their son Austin was born. Into the 1990s, following the couple’s divorce, Sley returned to graduate studies in education and embarked on a career as a public school teacher. <br /><br />Pat Place, meanwhile, re-focused her attention on visual art before recording with Brian Kelly, and then considered a major change. “I’d gotten sober, and decided to go back to school—to study social work. I was at NYU for one semester but then Maggie Estep called and offered $10,000 to go one the road”, she said, referring to the ‘90s spoken word celebrity. The Maggie Estep Combo recorded No More Mr. Nice Girl (1994). In addition to the guitarist it included multi-instrumentalist Knox Chandler, and drummer Steve Dansiger of John S. Hall’s King Missile. “Maggie was having her moment on MTV, so we put this band together to play nine dates with Hole and did The Arsenio Hall Show. But she’s really a writer—six books were published—she’s not really a performer”. Within a decade, Estep would sadly die of a heart attack at age 50. <br /><br />The mid-90s would bring some new attention to not only Bush Tetras, but other post-punk artists who’d foreseen the “grunge” genre. The market demanded a compendium of the BTs 1980s work, Boom in the Night, which had briefly been seen on cassette under the title Better Late Than Never (ROIR). 1995 found the quartet ready to move forward, so they began writing new material and recorded Beauty Lies (Tim/Kerr), produced by Nona Hendryx, a giant of R&B who’d also been active with Material and Talking Heads. Henry Rollins, always a BTs fan, also produced a track for a new 7” single, “Page 18”. On this recording, Sley’s voice takes on a newfound intensity, a thicker alto that grasps at the primal scream she hadn’t mustered in years prior. Place’s buzzsaw guitar also attains this higher level of distortion, a melding of her earlier chordal bare-knuckle punches and lengthier grunge rock sound. (NOTE: the download includes yet another piece from the Rollins sessions, the harsh “Cutting Floor”, thought lost for decades.) <br /><br />Happy, a second album, was also recorded (this with Don Fleming as producer), but the label was then purchased by Polygram and the new parent company coldly abandoned the project. “When Bush Tetras was dropped by Polygram in ’98”, Dee Pop stated pensively, “all I wanted to do was play jazz. My friend had been booking avant-garde jazz shows at the Internet Café and when he left, I took it over. I wanted to play with guys like William Parker and Sabir Mateen. I knew that if I booked the place, I’d get to know them.” After the Internet Café closed, Pop established his beloved series at CBGB that lasted several years. Later still, he moved it to Brooklyn. <br /><br />Place, thoroughly outraged by corporate rock, went on to perform in several indie outfits, including Fat with Don Christensen, and then, much too briefly within the reunion of Chance’s original Contortions: “We played in Tokyo, sold out night. England, Leone, Barcelona. It was great to have the band together. I remember thinking this could be amazing, but things fell apart”, she recalled. <br /><br />Having accomplished important growth in their personal lives, by 2005, the BTs were anxious to try it again, but Kennedy’s ongoing health concerns saw the need to call on replacements. She’d been living with and suffering from the effects of Hepatitis C for some years and as the band finalized plans for a European tour, she recognized the need to step down. Kennedy died of liver disease in 2011, a crushing blow to the others. The boxed set booklet includes a page of photos featuring several significant bassists who’ve played in her stead over the decades and offers a poetic, telling quote from Felice Rosser: “…I started learning Laura Kennedy’s basslines…I marveled at how they wove in and out and around keys, and always locked to the groove. Rhythm King. Rhythm Queens. The bass like a street with black tar that we all walked down. Dee Pop and Pat Place painted drum and guitars.” <br /><br />Through the recording of 2018’s Take the Fall E.P. (Wharf Cat), the release party at Bowery Electric, and the band’s 40th anniversary show later at Le Poisson Rouge, the members of Bush Tetras have only strengthened as artists and individuals. The latter two shows were victories best described as visceral, with loving hometown crowds only seeking more, but then all were sidelined by the covid beast. During lockdown, Dee Pop experienced many difficult hours, expressing bouts of dysphoria in his isolation, ironically alternating with a tenacious sense of survival. <br /><br />“This reminds me of where AIDS was,” he said. “How many millions could have been saved? But I’m looking for silver linings in this. I’m not dead and I’m not sick, and there are good things. So, we have to sit around and be patient.” Dee looked forward to resuming his latest free jazz series, at Truest in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, as well as going back on the road with Bush Tetras. <br /><br />THIS YEAR, AS PLANS DEVELOPED FOR THE BOXED SET, BASSIST RB KORBET WAS BROUGHT INTO THE FOLD. A multi-instrumentalist as well as a visual artist, she moved to the East Village in 1980 and soon found herself at the helm of proto-hardcore band Even Worse, documented on the ROIR compilation New York Thrash. She then began an important and lasting collaboration with John S. Hall including as drummer of his band King Missile. “I really love working with John in any guise, whenever we get the chance. We've been friends such a long time, it's a really comfortable and fun relationship”, she told this reporter in a recent interview. <br /><br />In addition to work with the noted downtown spoken word artist, Korbet was a prominent member of the Missing Foundation, both the 1980s band and radical movement, led by Peter Missing. She played guitar for their performances, many of which were at the scene of agitated demonstrations and designed their incendiary flyers. “We really blasted the LES with our propaganda”, that which called for affordable housing and relief for the poor as millionaires’ condo buildings like the Christodora grew around them. The ensemble, with its two tribal drummers, thrived on the revolutionary fervor and propelled crowds into a frenzy. “My guitar sound consistent largely of feedback and metal riffs played through a huge bass amp”, she said. During a performance at the original afterhours site of the Fort, facilitated by anti-folk founder Lach, the over-burdened amplifier blew up and caught fire, causing an abrupt end to the show when the fire department arrived in force. “Crazy night.” <br /><br />Korbet’s activities in the downtown underground never ceased, though she did spend a period of time as a member of the celebrated Pussy Galore and also lived in the UK for some years. Still, her place within Bush Tetras seems to have been waiting all along. <br /><br />FLIPPING THROUGH THE RHYTHM AND PARANOIA BOOKLET, even the casual reader will recognize names and faces beyond those of the BTs’ members. Greetings from Thurston Moore, Nona Hendryx, Topper Headon, Ann Magnuson and Gang of Four’s Hugo Burnham are a testament to the band’s vital standing. Note in particular Burnham’s very British recollection: “Bush Tetras rather scared us. We were all shouty and angular and interesting, but they were shouty, angular and interesting from New York City. Far cooler.” <br /><br />The band’s compelling history daily feeds its own legacy. The roots, the branches, are always spawning, and downtown, even in light of the bistros and shining glass towers now in place of bodegas and illegal afterhours joints, lives on in the music, poetry, film, paintings, journalism, performance art and theater which simply refuses to go away. <br /><br />IN THE EARLIEST HOURS OF OCTOBER 9, THE DAY OF THE BOXED SET LAUNCH AT HOWL HAPPENING, DEE POP UNEXPECTEDLY DIED. The event served largely as a remembrance and memorial. As they recalled their drummer and close friend, Pat Place and Cynthia Sley announced that they would continue with performance plans, returning to Le Poisson Rouge on November 13 — “and it will be for Dee.” <br /><br />With only three weeks’ prep time before the performance, Don Christensen took on the role. Backstage at the club, in the company of Place, Sley and Korbet, Christensen appeared assured. “Don is one of us”, Sley said warmly. <br /><br />He’d first arrived in New York City in 1971, another aspiring painter though back in Kansas City he’d been for years drumming in R&B bands. His Big Apple welcome was the theft of half his drumkit, yet Christensen managed to begin working Manhattan’s busy circuit, and was soon befriended by Dave Hofstra and Jody Harris. The latter would help usher the drummer into the Contortions where both worked with bassist George Scott III, whom Christensen has referred to as “a visionary musician”. Scott later brought the guitarist and the drummer into the Raybeats but also encouraged Christensen to engage in sessions of solo improvisational music. The drummer, in turn, went on to produce the “impLOG” recording series featuring his own multi-instrumental excursions, and score numerous indie films. He also had a long-term friendship with Philip Glass and played with the noted composer in several performances including Glass’s well-recalled spot on Saturday Night Live. <br /><br />In more recent times, Christensen has refocused his creativity on fine art and painting in particular (see his website, fully dedicated to post-modern works!), saving the music gigs for occasional Contortions reunions (this writer is hoping for more of those) and outings with Harris and Hofstra. Apparently, when he received the call from Place and Sley, his priorities again expanded. Even with Pop’s insistent drumming now at rest, the pulse will continuously rumble into each groove. Downtown is never truly out of reach. <br /><br />Luc Sante, prodigious author and chronicler of LES arts, declared in the boxed set’s closing statement: “They’re Our Band’. Rhythm and Paranoia, declared dead many times over the past 40 years, has again risen in the land, and Bush Tetras are here to blast you through.” Grunge got nothin’ on this. <br /><br />BY THE TIME BUSH TETRAS’ SHOW AT LE POISSON ROUGE had reached its zenith with “Too Many Creeps”, the stage quaked with dancing audience members pogoing in place and gliding among the quartet. Pat Place’s razor-wire fretboard stabs ran through Cynthia Sley’s severed vocalese like butter. Korbet’s classic Kennedy line taunted the tonality as Christensen’s bass drum ripped a four-to-the-floor hole in the atmosphere. <br /><br />And the Village Gate spirits emitted a deep sigh of times gone and downtown vibes newly woke</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p style="background-color: black;"> </o:p></span></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-9153496830666937312021-10-27T20:00:00.003-07:002021-10-27T20:00:42.907-07:00Obit: Dee Pop<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Originally published in THE VILLAGE SUN, Oct 11, and then quoted vigorously by THE NEW YORK TIMES, Oct 26 </span><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"> Dee Pop, Bush Tetras drummer, dies at 65; Played with wide array of musicians, from experimental to punk </h2><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MMA4bsbz8LY/YXoSDowQ7II/AAAAAAAACpU/qUnli2NOsrQG-ffBRZnNflhvQJILopndgCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/1%2Bdee%2B4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1658" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MMA4bsbz8LY/YXoSDowQ7II/AAAAAAAACpU/qUnli2NOsrQG-ffBRZnNflhvQJILopndgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/1%2Bdee%2B4.jpg" width="259" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><i>Photo by Sherry Rubel</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>BY JOHN PIETARO |
Dimitri Papadopoulos, known as Dee Pop to a fan base of millions, died in his sleep at his home in Brooklyn on Oct. 9. He was 65. </div><div><br /></div><div>The drummer, a founding member of the celebrated Bush Tetras, performed with an astounding array of artists over the past four decades, from punk royalty to several generations of Downtown experimentalists.
He is survived by a son, Charlie, and daughter, Nicole. </div><div><br /></div><div>The band — including the other Bush Tetras founders, Pat Place and Cynthia Sley — was set to celebrate the release of their boxed-set compendium, “Rhythm and Paranoia,” at Howl Happening in the East Village on the very night of Dee’s passing. The event instead served as a remembrance and memorial for the drummer. </div><div><br /></div><div>Born in the Forest Hills section of Queens in 1956, Papadopoulos’s immersion into music came about in childhood and was varied from the start. He explained to this writer in an interview several months ago: “Mom was a photographer for Downbeat magazine and when I was a kid, she brought home records by the Stones, the Beatles and Elvis. I had seen them all on Sullivan.
“But my mother also taught me about Miles, Coltrane, Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong. My grandfather was Louis Armstrong’s florist, so I got to meet him when I rode with my grandfather’s deliveryman to his house in Flushing.” </div><div><br /></div><div>At age 10, idolizing Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich, as well as Ringo Starr and Keith Moon, he was given a snare drum kit with a small cymbal attached to the stand, casting him into a certain creative fate. Papadopoulos was soon playing in a vocal group he’d formed with a young guitarist friend, but also seeking out expansive musical ideas.
“I was living with my grandparents at the time, and they had someone there to help out, Mrs. Bell, who was so cool,” he said. “She brought me James Brown records and taught me how to dance.” </div><div><br /></div><div>Instrumental tutelage, however, was not on drums but flute and clarinet, instruments he continued to play over the years.
“The one song I wrote for Bush Tetras was actually composed on flute,” he noted.</div><div><br /></div><div> During his teen years, while Papadopoulos, a self-described “long-haired stoner kid,” was interested in rock music, he refused to fall into the rule of distrusting anyone, or any sound, over 30.
“My mom taught me that some of the music of her generation was great,” he noted. “She said I needed to realize — as Ellington said — there is only good and bad music, regardless of when it was created. If you don’t see that, you nullify everything that happened before.”
Proving the point, Dee’s mother brought him to the Beatles’ concert at Shea Stadium, “but she also took me to see Coltrane,” he said. Resultantly, Dee refused to comply with friends’ requests to play Jethro Tull songs on flute as he veered toward Rahsaan Roland Kirk. </div><div><br /></div><div>“I just couldn’t explain the music to them,” he said. </div><div><br /></div><div>Pop also spoke of a chance meeting in this period with one of his drumming heroes: “In 1971 I was 15 and The Who was playing Forest Hills Tennis Stadium and I really wanted to go,” he recalled. “Members of the tennis club could get onto the grounds, but not the rest of us. So I hopped the fence and landed on Keith Moon, who was sitting backstage. He grabbed me by my collar and said, ‘What do we have here?’ And I ended up getting to watch all three shows — from his drum riser.” </div><div><br /></div><div>Making this amazing happenstance all the more memorable, Dee, rocking in his place, was burned more than once by Moon’s spotlights!
When the punk movement’s D.I.Y. ethos developed on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Papadopoulos was drawn into it, particularly along its radical edge. Fascinated by the crosspollination of underground genres, the community among filmmakers, painters, poets, actors and musicians, in 1979 he moved into a squat on Seventh Street and Avenue C.
In a frank statement, Dee explained, “My two running buddies were Bobo Shaw and Dennis Charles. Dennis was sitting on the corner of Sixth Street playing an old crappy snare and a box for a bass drum. For a year, I didn’t realize it was him. I would hang out with Bobo, and we worked on drum shit together. Bobo had been with Defunkt. There was so much happening [Downtown]. For me, no wave and out jazz just made sense.”</div><div><br /></div><div> Some months later, Bush Tetras came to be. Guitarist Pat Place had only begun playing her instrument several years prior within the ranks of the Contortions.
“They were groundbreaking,” Pop recalled. “I’m in the audience on the cover of their first record!”
But, in fact, all Tetras members were self-taught.
“We liked that avant edge,” he said. “The funk part of it, where Pat was coming from at the time, became central to our sound. I guess I kind of destroyed no wave by putting a 4/4 beat to it. That’s what made the Bush Tetras a little more accessible; listeners could figure out where the ‘1’ was,” he said, with a laugh. </div><div><br /></div><div>During its formative stage, the band rehearsed at length, creating a unique, infectious repertoire. Rapidly developing a club following, Bush Tetras released its first single, “Too Many Creeps,” in 1980. With its lyrics an acerbic commentary on the place and time over frenetic guitar, churning bass and throbbing, crackling drums, it remains the band’s signature song. </div><div><br /></div><div>Recording more and touring widely, the Tetras disbanded in 1983, regrouped again in 1995, and then after another breakup three years later, reformed in 2005. During each dissolution, though, Pop remained highly active.
“When Bush Tetras was dropped by Mercury Records in ’98, all I wanted to do was play jazz,” he said. “My friend had been booking avant-garde jazz shows at the Internet Café and when he dropped out, I took it over. I wanted to play with guys like William Parker and Sabir Mateen. I knew that if I booked the place, I’d get to know them.”
After the Internet Café closed, Pop established his series at CBGB.
“I had asked Hilly for the basement room on Sunday nights,” he recalled. “No need for sound or a doorman, just one bartender — and he said yes. It cost him nothing to give me the space, that’s why I was able to keep it running for four years, eventually expanding to three nights per week.
“I booked out rock things and straight jazz in the middle of it, too. Steve Swell used to give me so much crap about that. ‘You’re getting the Wynton Marsalis crowd down here,’ he’d argue with me, but I wanted diversity. And I wanted to challenge people, too.” </div><div><br /></div><div>After CBGB’s sad closure, Dee attempted to continue his series at both 5C Cultural Cafe and Jimmy’s Down Under, but these wouldn’t prove lasting. The effort, in any case, had been a labor of love.
“I paid a lot of people out of my pocket,” he said. “It was insulting to offer John Zorn, Pete Brotzman and Milford Graves just the door. A lot of them were very humble about it. Tazz [Roy Campbell] was like that: ‘A couple of Mai Tais and enough to get me home.’”
Over the years, Pop performed or recorded with a dizzying array of musicians on all sides of the seeming musical divide, including Billy Bang, Borah Bergman, Gary Lucas, James Chance, Chuck Berry (at the Peppermint Lounge), Immaculate Hearts, The Shams, Black Flies, poet John Sinclair, Jayne County and the Amazing Cherubs, Freedomland (with Daniel Carter, Dave Sewelson, William Parker and Dave Hofstra), Fur, Michael Karoli, Can, guitarist Richard Lloyd, Odetta, Bobby Radcliff, Patti Palladin, Darlene Love, Andy Shernoff, the Waldos, Nona Hendryx, Band of Outsiders, Lenny Kaye, Daniel Carter, Jahn Xavier, Eddie Gale, Marc Ribot, Mark Helias, The Slits, Dick Griffin, the Hanuman Sextet and the aforementioned Parker and Campbell. </div><div><br /></div><div>He also performed with The Clash, closely considered for full membership before Topper Headon’s return. In addition, Pop was a co-leader of experimental band Radio I-Ching, and a member of thunderous post-punk outfit the Gun Club.
“My career has been kind of all over the map,” he explained. “I’ve loved so much music that I’ve just delved into things. I’d spend three to four years playing free jazz, blues or Greek music. When I first left Bush Tetras in ’83, one reason was that I felt we’d gone as far as we could with what we knew how to do. I was very dissatisfied and looked at all of my influences — my love for Bela Bartok or King Oliver or 1940s and ’50s R&B, and that wasn’t what Bush Tetras was about. So, it’s taken me 40 years to recognize that this is what Bush Tetras does and I can still seek out those other opportunities.” </div><div><br /></div><div>Reviewing such opportunities, Pop recalled several, including work with noted antiwar activist and MC5 manager John Sinclair.
“People forget that John Lennon wrote a song about this guy! Shit! I made two records with him,” he said. “One had Wayne Kramer and Mike Davis from the MC5 on it. When you find out about some people firsthand, you realize that time forgets, and history gets blotted out.”
During the COVID-19 lockdown, Pop experienced many difficult hours, expressing bouts of dysphoria in his isolation, ironically alternating with a tenacious sense of survival.
“This reminds me of where AIDS was,” he said. “How many millions could have been saved? But I’m looking for silver linings in this. I’m not dead and I’m not sick, and there are good things. So, we have to sit around and be patient.”</div><div><br /></div><div> Dee looked forward to resuming his latest free jazz series, at Truest in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, as well as going back on the road with Bush Tetras. As to the latter, the band’s celebration of the new box set was to be topped only by a Nov. 13 gig at Le Poisson Rouge, the top-line New York City music club. </div><div><br /></div><div>Most recently, Pop had an unfortunate biking accident, in which he was sideswiped by a car, but he brushed it off. He passed on just days later.
On the evening of Oct. 9 at Howl Happening, as they recalled their drummer and close friend, Pat Place and Cynthia Sley announced that they would continue with performance plans, returning to Le Poisson Rouge in November — “and it will be for Dee.”
Even with his insistent drumming now at rest, the pulse of Dee Pop will continuously rumble into each groove of his beloved Bush Tetras.
</div>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-85336298638297903642021-10-27T18:52:00.003-07:002021-10-27T18:52:54.642-07:00Essay/Book Review: Michael Gold: Writer Out of the Shadows<p> <b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Michael
Gold: Writer Out of the Shadows</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Biography
and new generations ponder the rebel proletarian novelist<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">by John Pietaro</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0pGolF9JJLQ/YXoA0ZS7SGI/AAAAAAAACoA/4DeozSjGw0caMzJtyXfcbLqCgdmdMM-ogCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/Mike%2BGold%2BChange.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0pGolF9JJLQ/YXoA0ZS7SGI/AAAAAAAACoA/4DeozSjGw0caMzJtyXfcbLqCgdmdMM-ogCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Mike%2BGold%2BChange.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>In the pantheon of 1930s revolutionary
writers, Michael Gold has too long faltered on historic periphery. A close
associate of the leading literary voices of his time, Gold was not only overshadowed
by the celebrity of others but blighted by decades of enduring discord from within
and rabid anti-communism from without. And while his novel Jews without
Money was a bestseller in 1932, catapulting him to renown, Gold’s own story
has been purposely disappeared. </i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Michael Gold (born Itzok
Granich, 1894) came of age in a New York that is but a distant memory. His
Lower East Side was a stifling encasement of the poor, an exhausted swath of
immigrant sights and sounds in the shadows of tightly winding cobblestone streets.
The organic sense of deprivation as much as the cultural pride and
revolutionary furor of his time remained glaring, outlasting the decades. Gold
matured into a decidedly radical author who chronicled strife as he engaged in fearless
activism. But the fight that emitted from his pen went beyond the realm of the
Left press he shaped, and even surpassed his call for art as a weapon. Gold
offered a pioneering style which established the model for urban storytelling
and in doing so forged the American proletarian novel. His work may be
described as a <i>literary Ashcan</i>: dark realism, sure, but with a hyper
sense about it. Hell, Gold wrote in social realism. His words were streamed in
a plainspoken manner which felt conversational yet were anything but. The
challenge, the confrontation, was always lurking just behind orderly dialogue.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Writers on the political left,
in any case, have always looked to the breadth of Gold’s mission: literary fiction,
poetry and dramaturgy thrived as much in his work as gripping, outspoken reportage.
The prolific <i>Daily Worker</i> columnist and editor of <i>New Masses</i> was also
a champion cultural organizer and inspiring public speaker. Odd that with so
much literary adoration about him, with equal amounts of derision from other
quarters, Gold’s biography would arrive at this juncture, some fifty-three
years beyond his lifespan. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But given the
depth of quality in Patrick Chura’s <i>Michael Gold: The People’s Writer </i>(SUNY
Press, 2020), the long, ridiculous wait was worth every decade. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Chura, an English
professor at the University of Akron, tore into definitive research to tell the
story, enliven the realities, and reveal the once hidden. The biography, written
not in the language of the academic but more in narrative fashion, shines,
glows with investigative detail. Made clear is Chura’s profound ability to
absorb streams of journalism, unpublished poetry and early pencil visions of fiction,
memoir notes, letters, seemingly lost first drafts as well as overlooked and forgotten
works of certain stature. It’s all here, interspersed with first-person
interviews and of course Gold’s FBI file.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As biographers are wont
to do, Chura exposes the reader to the days of his subject, offering not only
facts and analyses, but the ability to see these through his subject’s eyes, to
feel the sweat and survive the strain of his often conflicted life. As told by
Chura, Gold’s early years of poverty were centered around his family home, a crowded,
nearly airless flat infested with lice and crushing dysphoria. Gold faced long
hours of child labor when his ailing, bed-ridden father lost his newfound business,
and the family was left destitute. An excerpt of one of his earliest writings
stated, “The streets of the East Side were dark with grey; wet gloom; the boats
of the harbor cried constantly, like great bewildered gulls, like deep booming
voices of calamity…”. Much later, Gold would write of his formative years: “It
was in a tenement that I first heard the sad music of humanity rise to the
stars. The sky above the airshafts was all my sky; and the voices of the
tenement neighbors in the airshaft were the voices of all my world. There, in
my suffering youth, I feverishly sought God and found Man.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Knocked to the ground by
a policemen’s nightstick during a Union Square protest, he moved rapidly to a
macro view of the problem and delved into newfound militancy. After one of his
pieces was published in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Masses,</i> then-Itzok
Granich began writing for this iconic magazine and other progressive periodicals.
Membership in the Industrial Workers of the World came, too, in 1916 and he
spent some time in anarchist circles, absorbing a kind of DIY individualistic
approach to the Marxism he’d thrive on in the years to come. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By 1917, the youthful
writer resided in Greenwich Village—the heart of bohemian life and radical
cultural work—and became affiliated with the Provincetown Players. Founded by
author Susan Glaspell, this left-wing playwrights’ collective included Edna St.
Vincent Millay, Eugene O’Neill, Floyd Dell, John Reed, Louise Bryant, Emjo
Basshe and Theodore Dreiser. Like most of the other intellectuals in his
circle, Granich joined the Socialist Party but quickly declared his sympathies
for the Bolshevik Revolution. His art and politics were driven by the same
passion and intricately enmeshed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">During the first World
War, to evade conscription into a war he morally opposed, Granich moved to
Mexico. He was back in New York for 1919’s tumultuous Palmer Raids and began
using the pseudonym “Michael Gold”, named for a noted Jewish veteran of the
Civil War. His ties to the literary Left were strong enough that Gold became an
editor of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Liberator</i>, the
Communist journal which grew from the embers of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Masses</i>, silenced by reactionary forces. <i>The Liberator</i>
was a formidable voice against right-wing injustice and boasted the talents of
not only the usual Village suspects but the likes of Claude McKay, Dorothy Day
(later the founder of the Catholic Worker movement), illustrators Hugo Gellert
and Boardman Robinson, Bertrand Russell, Louis Fraina, Louis Untermyer, Norman
Thomas prior to his celebrity as a noted pacifist and leader of the Socialist
Party, modern art painter Stuart Davis, and Helen Keller, then an anti-war
radical traveling the circuit, communicating her dissent to huge crowds with
the assistance of a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>translator.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Biographer Chura isn’t a
New Yorker, but his book is an accurate capture of the city’s streets and shadows
over the years bridging the early 20<sup>th</sup> century and Gold’s later
years, but in particular his 1920s-40s period of greatest activity. The reader is
walked through the headquarters of the John Reed Club at 102 West 14<sup>th</sup>
Street, and offices of the Communist Party, then at 35 East 12<sup>th</sup>. It’s
no small irony that rent for a single bedroom apartment in either now tops
$5000 per month and apartment sales in the latter recently averaged at more than
$4 million. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The biographer also brings
alive Mike Gold’s grave financial and emotional struggles while briefly at Yale,
his relationship with Dorothy Day and entry into and unfailing dedication to
the Communist Party. Some of Gold’s dramatic sketches were published in Party
periodicals including his <i>Strike!</i> of 1926, a “mass recitation”, and Futurist
play, <i>Hoboken Blues</i>, that same year, not long after he and Day were arrested
for protesting the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti. In 1927, Gold established <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">the New Playwrights Theatre</span> with John
Howard Lawson and John Dos Passos. So strong was the output of this new collective,
both artistically and politically, that they drew attention in mainstream press.
<i>Time</i> magazine, in March of 1927, took note: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The New Play-wrights—John
Dos Passos, John Howard Lawson, Francis Faragoh, Michael Gold, Em Jo
Basshe—impatient with the restraint of conventional theatre, have set up one of
their own...Here, at old Bim's, now the 52nd Street Theatre, they propose to
experiment with those radical dramatic forms of whose marketability the
commercial producers are suspicious. As expected, it is staged against a
"constructivist" background and presents the subjective state of the
principal characters as well as their objective actions. The virtue of such
staging is that, by affording the playwright several planes of action on one stage,
it allows greater flexibility than is permitted by the rigid three-walled
limitations of ordinary theatre…By proper punctuation and emphasis, such a
production may be made colorful, clear, rapid, nervous, like jazz music.” (</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,846123,00.html#ixzz1HoPY32nN"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,846123,00.html#ixzz1HoPY32nN</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But Gold’s ‘creative
writing’ was never exclusive to poetry, fiction or drama. In his 1921 article “Towards
Proletarian Art”, he eloquently warned that, “a mighty national art cannot
arise save out of the soil of the masses.” And of the Sacco and Vanzetti executions
in 1927 Boston, he presciently reported, “It is August 14<sup>th</sup>, eight
days before the new devil’s hour... I am writing this in the war zone, in the
psychopathic respectable city that is crucifying two immigrant workers…Boston
is possessed with the lust to kill…the subconscious superstition that the death
of Sacco and Vanzetti can restore their dying culture and industry. At last
they have a scapegoat…They are insane with fear and hatred of the new America…”
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This packed biography reveals,
too, the protagonist’s battles with major depression and his lesser-known literature
including previously lost or forgotten verse, such as the 1929 collection <i>120
Million</i> (after Vladimir Mayakovsky’s <i>150,000,000</i>), long out of print.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gold’s numerous speaking engagements are
cited, including moments experienced at lecterns here and abroad. Gold traveled
on behalf of the Communist Party, to Los Angeles, San Francisco and then through
much of Europe. This stint included stays in London, Paris (for the First
International Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture), Berlin, and
ultimately the Soviet Union to Kharkov, for the International Union of
Revolutionary Writers conference. Interactions with European notables including
Andre Gild, E.M. Forster, Vsevolod Meyerhold and Mayakovsky, Poet Laureate of the
Soviet Union, are highlighted. The Constructivist Theatre of Meyerhold and
Mayakovsky melded standard theatre productions with pantomime, acrobatics and
formalized scenery as non-verbal communication with the audience. Gold was
greatly influenced by this daring brand of drama and was a major proponent after
returning to New York. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1929, the notorious year
of the Crash, saw the birth of <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">the John
Reed Club</span>. The Communist Party cultural brain trust led by V.J.
Jerome, Joseph Freeman and Gold quickly set plans for a radical artists’ force
in Reed’s name, focusing on writers but encompassing cultural workers of every
fold. Once proven in New York City, the John Reed Clubs nationally took the
lead in the push for a proletarian literary drive while producing events by
musicians, actors, dancers, painters, filmmakers and others. The Reed Clubs hosted
classes, lectures, concerts, readings, plays, screenings and exhibits; it founded
<i>Partisan Review</i>, published a series of magazines, newsletters, pamphlets
and books, and offered tutelage combining social change with the arts. Membership
included the celebrated, the up-and-coming and the fledgling who sought to
create artworks of social, or at least creative revolution. Langston Hughes, John
Dos Passos, Kenneth Fearing, Richard Wright, Josephine Herbst, William Gropper
and Art Young were among its noted members and Maxim Gorky held honorary membership.
The Clubs also spawned a series of off-shoots specific to different genres including
the modernist concert music Pierre DeGeyter Club and its Composers Collective
of New York (which counted Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell, Alex North and Marc
Blitzstein in the ranks), the Red Dancers (led by Edith Segal) which produced modern
dance of social conscience, and the far-reaching Workers Film and Photo League.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In January of 1930, Gold,
by this time the best-known radical journalist and a high priest, so to speak,
of cultural work, wrote of the origins of the John Reed Club, its multi-disciplinary
nature, and his intent to guide it in a manner securing the artist’s
relationship with the worker:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The John Reed Club was
organized about two months ago here in New York. It is a small group of
writers, artists, sculptors, musicians and dancers of revolutionary
tendencies…Several activities have begun. The artists arranged an exhibition at
the Workers Co-Operative House in the Bronx. About 35 pictures were hung. The
exhibit will be shown for about four weeks. Over 300 workers came to the opening.
There was a furious discussion led by Lozowick, Basshe, Gropper, Klein and
others…At the next meeting I shall propose the following:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“That every writer in the
group attach himself to one of the industries. That he spend the next few years
in and out of this industry, studying it from every angle, making himself an
expert in it, so that when he writes of it, he will write like an insider, not
like a bourgeois intellectual observer. He will help on the publicity in strikes,
etc. He will have his roots in something real. The old Fabians used to get
together and write essays based on the books they had read. We will get close
to the realities” (Gold, Michael. <i>The Daily Worker</i>, January 1930;
source: Dilling, Elizabeth, <i>The Red Network: A Who’s Who and Handbook of
Radicalism for Patriots</i>. Self-published, 1934, page 180). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Apparently, many years of
struggle proved productive for Gold, and by 1932, he gained his personal
celebrity with the novel <i>Jews without Money</i>. Though a fictionalized
account of a poverty-stricken family on the Lower East Side, it is based on his
own family’s experiences, thus quite visceral in the telling. He’d been publishing
bits and pieces as fiction in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New
Masses</i>, but once compiled into a solid, beautifully composed novel, the
concept of the proletarian writer became an accepted—and popular—standard of
literature. With this degree of success, <i>Jews without Money</i> brought him
national attention. Two years hence, Gold’s status as an important new voice of
radical literature had gone global, at least for a period. The second printing
of the novel was translated into French, Swedish, Bohemian, Bulgarian, Romanian,
Slavic, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Ukrainian, Russian, Yiddish, Dutch, and
other languages. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And while biographer Chura remains a proponent
of Gold, the bitter discord surrounding the man is here examined with jarring
clarity. Though deeply committed to both the Communist Party USA and the wider Communist
International, Gold’s rebellious, unbridled nature never allowed for the
discipline exhibited by other Party officials. The missed meetings and avoided
functionary duties soon clarified that Gold’s decades as a revolutionist began in
the company of anarchists. Ironically, his fights with Party bureaucracy were eclipsed
by the attacks he launched on progressive and liberal writers in his position
as the CP’s most profound and controversial arts critic: Gold denounced the
works of progressive novelists, dramatists and screenplay writers whenever they
softened or strayed from doctrine. Following early battles with <i>Masses</i>’ editor
Max Eastman, his association with Claude McKay, too, became embittered (though
he described McKay’s sonnets as “crystal songs”). Gold sought to shred Thorton
Wilder and railed against Gertrude Stein, stating in blind anger that her work
resembled, “the montonous gibberings of paranoiacs in the private wards of asylums...”</span><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Stein,
an avant gardist, was an out lesbian, a social and literary revolutionary who
forged a new modernism in Paris. Yet Gold wrote: “The literary idiocy of
Gertrude Stein only reflects the madness of the whole system of capitalist values.
It is part of the signs of doom that are written largely everywhere on the
walls of bourgeois society." <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Communist writer also
lobbed continuous pot-shots at Albert Maltz (whom he accused of social fascism)
and Howard Fast, among others. In his book <i>The Hollow Men </i>(1941), an overview
of writers he saw as having refuted the cause, particularly those of wealthier origins,
Gold’s opinions were unfettered, often bloodthirsty in the pursuit of forging
an all-important literary force toward an egalitarian society and in opposition
of fascism. And its title doesn’t seem to have been selected randomly; T.S. Eliot’s
epic poem of sixteen years prior was so named in describing the post-World War broken,
empty “straw men”: “Our dried voices/when we whisper together/are quiet and
meaningless…Shape without form/shade without color…sightless, unless the eyes
reappear…between the essence and the descent/falls the Shadow…” The inspiration
seems all too obvious, albeit, angled outwardly. Gold saved a particular
hellishness for former friends, most blatantly “Ernest Slummingway”. After publication
of <i>For Whom the Bell Tolls</i>, Gold’s review called the book “a minor story”
in spite of its “narrative genius” as it was “so painfully fair to fascists”. Hemingway’s
heroic figure of Robert Jordan, according to Gold, was ignorant of the class
conflict in Franco’s Spain, so central to the story. Famously, Hemingway left a
message at the <i>New Masses</i> office directing the critic to “go fuck
himself”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This raises the question:
what is the mission of an artist of radicalized activism? It was impossible, it
seemed to some, to be both revolutionary and disciplined-- Gold himself fell
victim to this conflict throughout his career. Perhaps, he was not aware of how
to rise above this and became entrenched in the murk of uncertainty. Gold’s despair
over the Moscow purges and Nazi-Soviet Pact, as well as his championing of
experimental theatre works, belied doctrinaire sensibility. Yet, simultaneously,
he both disavowed modernist art as a bourgeois tool and remained a leader of arts
organizing within the Party and Popular Front. The conundrum rolled on. This
combination—and a constant rain of blows from the Right--established an array
of opponents that stretched over a lifetime. Still, following his own advice to
young writers, Gold would “write, persist, struggle”, toeing the Party line through
depressive episodes and doubt.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gold's <i>Daily
Worker</i> column ‘Change the World’ included praise for the early
folksong revival, then largely ignored by American Leftist leaders, and he
offered insight into the need for, "a Communist Joe Hill", referring
to the legendary martyred songwriter-organizer of the Industrial Workers of the
World. Gold's words did not go unheeded, for they alerted the CP to the
importance of home-grown music as a voice of the people; by 1939, the Party had
discovered Woody Guthrie, whose ballads of the Dustbowl, poverty and strength would
be widely celebrated and whose song "This Land is Your Land" would eventually
be called an alternative national anthem by many. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">During the worst of World
War II, Mike Gold was a constant source of strength for intellectuals and other
<i>Daily Worker</i> readers in the fight against fascism. And though a target
of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and constantly profiled by the
FBI, he maintained a busy literary and speaking schedule into the 1950s and ‘60s.
A respected editor of the Cold War-era <i>Masses & Mainstream</i>, Gold
anticipated the coming global liberation fight for indigenous peoples as an
outgrowth of his continuous work towards racial and religious equality.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Still, Gold was embattled
by obscurity during most of his life. Largely, critics ignored his post-<i>Jews
without Money</i> work; when it received any press at all the notices were negative,
often severely so. The irony was that his peers, even through critical
lambasting, held the writer in high regard. Perhaps the best description of the
radical literary figures Mike Gold walked with in his time is supplied by Gold
himself in a 1946 article, perhaps in anticipation of the post-war Red Scare, already
developing among opportunistic conservatives:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Marxism flourished…during
the first half of the 1930s…New writers wrote “proletarian novels”, plays and
poems and became a main stream in our national culture, that formed the finest
literary epoch our country has known since the Golden Age of Whitman, Emerson
and Melville. It was a fighting art, a Marxist art, and frankly a weapon in the
class struggle then raging so openly…We must find our way back to the main highway…We
must rebuild the Marxist cultural front, with its literary magazines, theatres,
music and art.” (Gold, Mike, <i>Daily Worker</i>, March 1946<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">).</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">According to historian
Alan Wald in his study of Leftist writers, Gold more than any other established
the proletarian novel: “All who came after Gold would stand on the shoulders of
his legacy”, citing “his colorful semi-autonomy from the Party officials...The
dazzling blend of proletarianism, bohemianism, romanticism, and even a strain
of modernism that comprised the early 1930s mix of Left poetry was quite evident
in Gold’s own personality and career. (Wald, Alan M. <i>Exiles from a Future
Time: The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth Century Literary Left</i>. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina, 2002, pp 39-40).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In a bitter irony, Gold
aged into poverty, stifled by depressive episodes and physical ailments. He lived
out his final years not in New York but San Francisco, writing his ‘Change the
World’ column for the Party’s west coast paper, <i>People’s World</i> until not
long before his 1967 death. He was never able to complete the second novel
planned for so long but remained a survivor of our nation’s notorious red scare
periods, each carrying its own butcher’s bill of repression, conviction, deportation,
and ruination: 1919-20, 1938-9, and 1947 through each frigid year of the Blacklist
and Cold War. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">While
our New York City is today crippled for the people by astronomical rent costs
and harshly gentrified neighborhoods, the Lower East Side in which Gold lived,
worked and fought now stands as a community marred and ruled by trendy wealth. One
asks where the poor can call home, thus, the Communist writer’s proletarian
literature becomes deeply, sorely missed. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gold, always one to analyze
Marxian, seeking the wider, greater reality, wrote near the end of his life of
the red scare terrors, citing on manifold levels: “the lined faces which had
seen the trouble and white hair as the result of sleepless nights…We had lost
all our youth”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The biography, <i>Michael
Gold: The People’s Writer</i> by Patrick Chura PhD, is available via SUNY Press.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-47824688256968539012021-10-27T18:42:00.002-07:002021-10-27T18:56:46.711-07:00CD review: Afro Yaqui Music Collective, Maroon Futures<p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"> Originally published in <b>JazzRightNow</b>, August 2021</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Afro Yaqui Music Collective, <i>Maroon
Futures</i> </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">(Neuma, 2021)</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lc1f65WQUgI/YXoCyTwXT3I/AAAAAAAACoM/76_KJ0bFs6c2QOOtdbLY8wMmWWEqPKBVACLcBGAsYHQ/s750/1%2Bafro.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="750" height="241" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lc1f65WQUgI/YXoCyTwXT3I/AAAAAAAACoM/76_KJ0bFs6c2QOOtdbLY8wMmWWEqPKBVACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/1%2Bafro.png" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Ben Barson, baritone saxophone, contrabass clarinet,
orchestration /Gizelxanath Rodriguez, vocals / Charlotte Hill O’Neal, vocals /
Nejma Nefertiti, EmCee / Daro Behroozi, tenor saxophone, ney / Roger Romero,
tenor saxophone / Alec Sander Redd, alto saxophone / John Bagnato, electric
guitar / Yang Jin, pipa, zheng / Mimi Jhong, erhu / Chris Potter, keyboards / Randaiz
Wharton, keyboards / Beni Rossman, electric bass / Julian Powell, drums / Hugo
Cruz, percussion</span><p></p>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small; line-height: 107%;">Nonantzin
(Salvador Morena)<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small; line-height: 107%;">Sister Soul
(Barson, Nefertiti, O’Neill)<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small; line-height: 107%;">La Cigarra (Perez
Soto)<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small; line-height: 107%;">Ya Habib
(Nefertiti, Bason, Rossman)<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small; line-height: 107%;">We refuse to
be Used and Abused (Ho, Barson, Nefertiti)<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Insurrealista
(Barson, Nefertiti)</span><o:p style="font-size: 12pt;"></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">CD review by John Pietaro</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Within the pantheon of <i>new music</i>, that which
was birthed through jazz in particular, the political content has been brazenly,
pridefully Left. Sounds of protest easily predate the artform as we know it,
indeed slave poetry, field hollers and the roots of the blues were foremost the
folk art of liberation, but as jazz came to be, the struggle for expression itself
was profound to a population enchained. To those paying attention, the question
of why a certain artist within this music is “so political” is itself a
misnomer. By nature, jazz, especially in its more radical form, is a political
statement. Taking this concept into the post-modern, works both through-composed
and freely improvised, orchestrated or formed by conduction, and with the addition
of international cultures and revolutionary poetry, the struggle of a people becomes
the struggle of a cause. Social justice in many hues, many voices.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The Afro Yaqui Music Collective, the self-described “post-colonial
big band”, is the embodiment of this expanded struggle even while thriving on
the aesthetics of an advanced music. Guided by Ben Barson Ph.D., a protege of
the late Fred Ho, this 15-piece ensemble wears its multi-cultural,
multi-lingual coat of arms with pride and intent. The band’s socio-politics shines
as much as its inherent swing, groove and the captivating orchestrations of its
leader. <i>Maroon Futures</i>, the Collective’s sophomore release, is dedicated
to the cause of Russell Maroon Shoatz, political prisoner of the Pennsylvania system
for some fifty years, thirty of which he bore within solitary confinement. Barson
was at the heart of one of Ho’s final works, a suite which raised funds and
awareness for the cause of Shoatz. That work was directed in performance by
another radical stalwart, Salim Washington due to the state of Ho’s illness at
the time, still, Barson has advanced the cause to a new level. The Afro Yaqui Music
Collective seems to have picked up where Charlie Haden’s grand Liberation Music
Orchestra left off, though comprised of lesser-known artists. No small feat. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The album’s liner notes speak of the effects of 2020’s
pandemic as well as its uprisings: the people’s fight against (as Shoatz dubbed
it) “patriarchal capitalism” as realized in racist policing, rampant sexism and
the commodification of natural resources. Most profound is the call for a revolutionary
matriarchy to effect necessary change. Appropriately, the album opens with “Nonantzin”,
for Mother Earth, which marries jazz-funk to the ancient language of Nahuatl,
itself an example of a pre-Columbian, maternalistic society. Composed by
Salvador Moreno, the melody is carried by the flowing vocal by Gizelxanath
Rodriguez, a principal of the Collective whose own origin is Mexican. Barson’s
low horn covets the bottom as handily as Rodriguez’s voice soars above the supple
arrangement. The multiculturalism expands further with the use of stop-time to
herald in solo statements, particularly when drummer Julian Powell’s backbeat,
in the absence of other instruments, recalls that very traditional and stark
blues stomp. But this cut is where the one-world sound only begins. “Sister
Soul”’s Chinese pipa lead (by Yang Jin) is initially retained beneath the
gorgeous vocal by Charlotte <a name="_Hlk75949004">O’Neal</a>, and then onto the
hip hop spoken word of Nejma Nefertiti and O’Neal. The call for that
revolutionary matriarchy couldn’t be clearer, but bassist Beni Rossman’s sinewy
R&B chops are also standout here. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The global unity takes flight on “La Cigarra” by
composer Raymundo Perez y Soto, a roving work which floats between 6/8 and 7/8
meters, calling on memories of apropos Spanish Civil War songs and the vast Middle
Eastern musical tradition. Daro Behroozi’s moving solos on both tenor saxophone
and ney flute walk between these worlds, traditions old and of-the-moment, as
the lyric symbolizes the underground existence of political prisoners. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">However, the central work of <i>Maroon Futures</i> is
one by Fred Ho, brought to new life under the hand of Barson and company. “We
Refuse to Be Used and Abused”, also known as “Unity (for the Struggle of
Workers”), the strength of this message is as apparent in the Collective’s realization
as in Ho’s revolutionary intent. Listen for the story as told within solo
statements by electric guitarist John Bagnato, alto saxophonist Alec Zander
Redd, and Barson. But the work rolls out with deliberation and utmost urgency through
an alluringly Ellingtonian saxophone section theme. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems too easy to state that the band is on
fire here, but this critic can find no better description. The thematic
material shimmers in that 1930s Harlem manner but then turns heavy on the
pocket groove as Nefertiti’s empowering rap lyric is accompanied by the band’s
shouts. Classic big band swing with hip hop interplay in the post-colonial global
village. Listen once to eat up the vital statements, but then listen again to
focus on the solos, particularly that of Bagnato who simply shreds the
atmosphere. The Afro Yaqui Music Collective is not your father’s (or grandfather’s)
big band; it is the one we’ve been waiting for. But if they should take on the Savoy
Ballroom, the resonance will be historic. <o:p></o:p></span></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-74502179753461735132021-06-05T12:36:00.003-07:002021-06-05T12:36:53.229-07:00Reconsidering Peter Sinfield: King Crimson Lyricist as Wandering British Poet<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;">-Originally published in <i>PleaseKillMe</i> as "Bringing Words to King Crimson's Court", May 2021-</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IX3RFdsKl2M/YLvSJxfMp_I/AAAAAAAACmU/beIN2M9GV9YtpSlvMHgCLGiZE0gbR2vyQCLcBGAsYHQ/s750/Peter_Sinfield_main_750.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="750" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IX3RFdsKl2M/YLvSJxfMp_I/AAAAAAAACmU/beIN2M9GV9YtpSlvMHgCLGiZE0gbR2vyQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Peter_Sinfield_main_750.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Reconsidering Peter Sinfield</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; text-align: left;">:
</span><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">King
Crimson Lyricist as Wandering British Poet</span></b><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">By John Pietaro<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">In the Court of the Crimson King</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">,
beyond bestowing progressive rock’s hierarchy to King Crimson, brought with it the
canonization of Robert Fripp and his ever-shifting band of brothers. But with each
variant of line-up, from explosive debut through ongoing reconstruction, the
lyrical content has been eminent to the legend. Whether coated in psychedelia,
painted by otherworldliness, misted in wayfaring balladry or haunted with
rueful agitation, the voice of King Crimson is found within its verse. That it
all began with a young, wandering poet is too often lost in the band’s
tenacious history. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Peter John Sinfield was born in the Fulham section of
London on December 27, 1943. The circumstances of an absentee father and a jocular,
bohemian mother offered young Sinfield a foundation of equal parts wonder and upheaval.
His formative years, however, were largely spent in the company of the family
housekeeper who’d been a member of the Flying Wallendas aerial circus act. One
can easily imagine the impact this intriguing mélange had on a bright, creative
child. At age eight he was sent to a suburban boarding school where he gained a
rich introduction to literature. When asked in a 2010 interview about his literary
origins, stated: “I think that it was probably in my mother's womb, because I
was born with a tyrannical talent to consume and put forth words. At the age of
10 I wrote poems for the school magazine and a little bit later, used to waste
my time in geography lessons rewriting the words to the current hits.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Leaving his studies at 16, Sinfield took up with art
school students (as nascent ‘60s rockers were wont to do) and traveled through
the continent and on to Morocco, writing, playing a newly purchased Hofner guitar,
and earning keep by selling hand-made craft items. He’d by then fallen under
the influence of 17<sup>th</sup> Century Japanese master haiku poet Matsuo
Basho “when it became fashionable for myself and others on the
"Underground Scene" to investigate the literature, music and
philosophy that was becoming available from all over the world. George Harrison
discovered Ravi Shankar and I discovered Basho. Perhaps Haiku appeals to me as
a lyricist since it seems I have been forever trying to describe life, love and
the universe (to sit with music) in the minimum of words.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">By 1967, once back home, Sinfield founded a band with
saxophonist/flutist Ian McDonald. Though short-lived, Infinity as it was known,
introduced the pair to Michael Giles, Peter Giles and Robert Fripp, the trio of
which was now expanded to include singer Judy Dyble (an early Fairport
Convention member), and a repertoire framed by the Sinfield-McDonald “I Talk to
the Wind”. The song reflected the restlessness and vision shared by so many in
this generation. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Said
the straight man to the late man,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Where
have you been?<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve
been here and I’ve been there and <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve
been in between.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I
talk to the wind,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">My
words are all carried away,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I
talk to the wind,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
wind does not hear.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
wind cannot hear.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(lyric excerpt, “I Talk to the Wind”” by P.
Sinfield, Universal Music)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">First recorded as a single by Giles, Giles & Fripp,
“I Talk to the Wind” wouldn’t make it to the band’s singular album<i>. </i>Recorded
in 1968 but not released for some 35 years, <i>The Brondesbury Tapes</i>
featured the song. It is notable that Greg Lake had replaced bassist Peter
Giles by this point and his presence was central to Fripp’s next project. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 21pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Giles, Giles & Fripp: “I Talk to
the Wind”</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXiWbV0d2w0"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXiWbV0d2w0</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The lyric by Sinfield made enough of an impact for
Fripp to recognize the need for a poet in King Crimson. After naming the new band,
Sinfield wrote the lyrics so powerfully emoted by bassist/vocalist Greg Lake throughout
<i>In the Court of the Crimson King</i>. Alternately shocking in its literary
challenge and familiar in its drug-induced expanse, Sinfield’s poetry balanced
the great instrumental force. The album’s opening number, “21<sup>st</sup>
Century Schizoid Man” functioned as urgent commentary on post-modern societal
provocations – as well as the life, bare income and single-minded pursuit of
the poet, the artist. Sang by Lake through a blizzard of distortion and played with
both shrieking free improvisation and the tightest, most orchestrated precision
unisons, the song alerted listeners to Crimson’s ultimate journey:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Cat’s
foot, iron claw,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Neurosurgeons
scream for more<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">At
paranoia’s poison door.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Twenty-first
century schizoid man.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Blood
rack barbed wire<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Politicians
funeral pyre,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Innocents
raped with napalm fire.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Twenty-first
century schizoid man.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Death
seed, blind man’s greed,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Poet’s
starving children bleed.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nothing
he’s got he really needs.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Twenty-first
century schizoid man.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(lyric, “21<sup>st</sup> Century Schizoid Man” by P. Sinfield, EG Music
Ltd)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 21pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">King Crimson: “21<sup>st</sup>
Century Schizoid Man”</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OvW8Z7kiws"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OvW8Z7kiws</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
lyric conjures, more than any other, the scarlet entity that Fripp would claim
to be haunted by over decades, whereas the title song painted this myth with
medieval imagery, casting the crimson king amid prism ships, pattern jugglers,
yellow jesters and dancing puppets. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
rusted chains of prison moons<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Are
shattered by the sun.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I
walk a road, horizons change,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
tournament’s begun.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
purple piper plays his tune,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
choirs softly sing<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Three
lullabies in an ancient tongue<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">For
the court of the crimson king. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(lyric excerpt, “In the Court of the Crimson King” by P. Sinfield,
Universal Music)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Overall, King Crimson’s debut offering was a critical
and popular success, launching international tours for the band. But what place
for the Blake-inspired poet who toiled over the lyrics during the forging of
such an album? Sinfield, who also demonstrated skill as a visual artist, became
the band’s lighting tech, drenching the performers in purples, reds and
flourishes, as the case may be. He was also called on, sparingly, to add
additional keyboards to the soundstream, but largely stood as Crimson’s “pet
hippie”, according to Sinfield in an early interview. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The working ensemble, by 1970, was fractured with the exit
of Ian McDonald, drummer Michael Giles, and then Lake soon after. Sinfield
sought to maintain stability with Fripp and King Crimson’s sophomore album, <i>In
the Wake of Poseidon</i>, was completed under considerable duress. In the end,
Lake agreed to cover the majority of vocals, and both Michael and Peter Giles
(bass) were on the sessions. Fripp also called on such musicians as woodwind
player Mel Collins, pianist Keith Tippett and drummer Andy McCullough, all of
whom would return for the band’s third release and remain Sinfield associates
well beyond. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Marked by the lyricist’s initial attempt at record production,
<i>In the Wake of Poseidon</i> offered him a wide breadth of material even if
much of the imagery perpetrated sword-and-sorcery depictions. Still, Sinfield’s
poetry shined as it called out the complexities about him, railing against the
excesses of urban capitalist society:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Concrete
cold face cased in steel,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Stark
sharp glass-eyed crack and peel,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Bright
light scream beam brake and squeal,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Red
white green white neon wheel…<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk69505288"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(lyric excerpt, </span></a><a name="_Hlk69426237"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk69505288;"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Pictures of a City”, </span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk69505288;"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">P.
Sinfield, Universal Music)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk69505288;"></span>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 21pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">King Crimson: “Pictures of a City”</span></b><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7QdzDssvqY"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7QdzDssvqY</span></a><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">More so, the album’s single, “Cat Food”, an acerbic
condemnation of commercial impurities, brandished a lyric that skids cleverly over
the music by Fripp/McDonald which moves in and out of a 19/8 time signature.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Lady
Supermarket with an apple in her basket<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Knocks
on the manager’s door.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Grooming
to the muzak from a speaker in the shoe rack<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Lays
out her goods on the floor.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Everything
she’s chosen is conveniently frozen<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Eat
it and come back for more!”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(lyric excerpt, “Cat Food”, P. Sinfield,
Universal Music)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 21pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">King Crimson: “Cat Food”</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmnqX4iNBpI"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmnqX4iNBpI</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">A year or so later, jazz vocalist Annie Ross included
her rather uncomfortable version of the song on live album <i>You and Me, Baby</i>,
complete with alley cat moans and hisses. This wasn’t the first time a jazz
artist tried their hand at the repertoire: in 1970 trumpeter Doc Severinsen, primarily
known as Johnny Carson’s bandleader, recorded an intriguing instrumental
version of “In the Court of the Crimson King” on his <i>Doc Severinsen’s Closet</i>
album. A variety of international pop and rock artists also produced their own
adaptations of Crimson material over the years, offering the lyricist his share
of royalties, as the case may be.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 21pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Annie Ross, “Cat Food” </span></b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFBjC6kD2h4"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFBjC6kD2h4</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Sinfield’s role as King Crimson lyricist was
maintained over the next two albums, he and Fripp providing the only solidity
of an often shattered ensemble. For <i>Lizard</i> (1970), Sinfield’s poetry
delved into alchemy, the occult and tarot card imagery. With hindsight, one may
assume that 11<sup>th</sup> Century sorcerers and Mongol invasions were more of
a comfort than the session battlegrounds the band couldn’t seem to shake. <i>Islands</i>,
a year later, would too suffer from its lack of cohesion. Fripp, after completing
the recordings, briefly abandoned the project and Sinfield not only completed production
but chaired post-production as well. Unfortunately, his conception wasn’t thoroughly
successful. Lester Bangs, writing for <i>Rolling Stone,</i> had no problem
attacking the musical and lyrical vagueness, labeling it “a fusion of jazz and
rock and folk and corn”. He also cited Sinfield’s lyrics as
“quasi-Victorian/Shakespearean doggerel”, adding that they’re “worth quoting if
not much else”. Interestingly, Bangs describes the lyric of “Ladies of the
Road” as “an elegantly punk macho trip” several years before the actual punk
movement would develop on the Bowery. Bangs somehow missed the humor:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Stone
headed Frisco spacer <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Ate
all the meat I gave her.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Said
would I like to taste her’s <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">And
even craved the favour.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(lyric excerpt, “Ladies of the Road”, P.
Sinfield, Universal Music)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The irascible rock critic added that the song’s primary
benefit is as a sleep aid, posting a warning to Fripp and Co. to “recapture
some of the primal drive.” Even die-hard fans tend to agree: the music, its
breadth and weightiness, had become extremely dense and hyper-dramatic. Fripp would
go on to reshape King Crimson into a leaner, harsher ensemble but first the
band went on tour in 1971 with Fripp, bassist/vocalist Boz Burrell (later of Bad
Company), saxophonist/flutist Mel Collins and drummer Ian Wallace plus Sinfield
who occasionally appeared onstage, adding bits of keyboards, but continued his
role as lighting director. The capture of their concert at Frankfurt’s Zoom
Club, following months of rehearsal, indicates the band’s strengths as a
working unit, though this line-up too would recede into the mists of Crimson lore.
But the founding lyricist’s role, particularly on the road, had become painfully
obscure.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 21pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">King Crimson: “Ladies of the Road”</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sckkHW487y0"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sckkHW487y0</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Sinfield, in any case, sought his own path. Back in
London he produced Roxy Music’s successful 1972 debut, attracted to the band’s
“mixture of kitsch and burlesque, and so clever”, earning him considerable
attention within the industry. And then the poet began work on his own album, <i>Still</i>.
While his vocals and guitar playing were not deemed strong enough for King Crimson,
Sinfield regardless envisioned a solo career fronting a band. Encouraged
heartily by Greg Lake, already several years into Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Sinfield
plotted out his audio “variety show” (as stated in the liner notes), recorded just
down the hall from the studio KC labored in for their own upcoming release. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Influenced by the structures of later Beatles’ albums,
Celtic finger-picking guitar styles, macro-biotic eating and the country atmosphere
of West Cranmore, Sinfield composed “the sort of stuff that I left off with in
King Crimson.” And this connection extended to the guest musicians as well.
Lake offered a joint lead vocal with Sinfield on the title cut, also electric
guitar and backing vocals on two others. Mel Collins overdubbed a plethora of
woodwinds on opener “Song of the Sea Goat” which also included KC alumni
drummer Ian Wallace and pianist Keith Tippet, as well as bassist John Wetton
who’d join that year. Other tracks included Boz Burrell on guitar and a 5-piece
horn section arranged by Collins. But the core band was drawn from new associates
in the country after leaving London. Sinfield would later muse over the
hardships of recording the album, standing as its lead vocalist in a time when
he had no concept of changing a song’s key to better suit his voice. Later, he would
recognize his near inability to grapple with rock and roll vocals and “the
danger in using your friends…when your friends don’t get it right 12 hours
later, it gets very, very difficult.” The final product progresses slowly,
pensive to a fault, but readily builds with increasing points of horn-driven
improvisational intensity. But for all of its positive aspects, <i>Still</i>
never made the impact Sinfield desired. Other than a handful of live and
television performances (including BBC’s ‘the Old Grey Whistle Test’) with
Collins, Burrell and Wallace, among others, Sinfield’s solo career has woefully
faded from memory. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 21pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Peter Sinfield: “Song of the Seagoat”</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzoxJT74W0w"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzoxJT74W0w</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The philosophy within the verses of the title song
remains vibrant, baring traces of Thoreau, Marx, Gandhi, perhaps Abraham Maslow
too:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Still
I wonder how it is to be a stream<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">From
a dark well constant flowing,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Winding
seawards over ancient mossy wheels<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yet
feel no need of knowing?<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Still
I wonder how it is to be a tree,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Circles
servant to the seasons,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Only
drink on sky and rake the winter wind<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">And
need no seal of reasons?<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_Hlk69076394"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(lyric excerpt, “Still”, P. Sinfield,
Manticore Music)<o:p></o:p></span></a></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 21pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk69076394;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Peter Sinfield: “Still”</span></b></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk69076394;"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
</span></span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9EC51RwMf4"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk69076394;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9EC51RwMf4</span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk69076394;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk69076394;"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk69076394;"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk69076394;"></span>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The poetic landscape, even with the tension of the
helm about him, was wide open. On “A House of Hopes and Dreams” Sinfield wrote <i>Across
the floor lies broken bowls of pride</i>, and on “The Night People”, his tale
of life on tour, <i>Blue neon clock fingers</i>. But he also used the
opportunity to air the stressors with Fripp. He’d later state, “I do a bit of
angry every so often”, specifically on “Envelopes of Yesterday”:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I’m
upside down, I’m an empty town<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">My
eyes are full of ghosts<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Of
dusty windowed certainty and spider-webbed almost.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I
love, I hate this rock and roll, <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
ladies and the lights<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Ate
my flowers long ago but the roots came through all right.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Whilst
now my toast is the crossroads post <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I
hear just out of sight<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">That
the Black Pick’s found this Chaldean lamp<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">After
years in a concentration camp<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">But
I fear he’s still out on ice<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">With
his bagpipe mouth and cup of crimson speiss<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(lyric excerpt, “Envelopes of Yesterday”,
P. Sinfield, Manticore Music)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Unfortunately, at other points Sinfield fell through
the usual portals of myth and magic. In the end such excesses of leading a band
in the King Crimson orbit proved to be ineffectual. Greg Lake had invited him
to compose lyrics for Emerson, Lake and Palmer the year prior, while Sinfield
was constructing <i>Still</i>, and after completion of the album the time was
right; the poet’s ELP immersion came at an opportune point. <i>Brain Salad
Surgery</i> (1973) was the trio’s first album of both public and critical
acclaim, from its fold-out cover by H.R. Giger to its surprise of a hit single,
“Karn Evil 9” (the title of which was another Sinfield gem). The full work, a
nihilistic vision of a computer-ruled society, was built over three Impressions
totaling a near half-hour in length. Sinfield’s major contribution was in the
lengthy latter Impression, though he also worked with Lake in other sections. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Man
of steel pray and kneel<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">With
fever’s blazing torch<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Thrust
in the face of night;<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Draws
a blade of compassion <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Kissed
by countless kings<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Whose
jeweled trumpet words blind his sight.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(lyric excerpt, “Karn Evil 9, Third
Impression”, P. Sinfield, Manticore Music)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Simultaneously,
Sinfield partnered with Procol Harum’s Gary Booker in writing a series of songs
for that artist’s first solo outing. While ELP toured the world amidst laser
lights and pyrotechnics, performing all of the complexities of <i>Brain Salad
Surgery</i>, Sinfield was back at home working with the trio’s label Manticore.
He produced the 1973 album of Italian progressive ensemble PFM and, with Mel
Collins, opened for that band’s European dates. 1974 saw the publication of Sinfield’s
poetry collection, <i>Under the Sky</i>, the title piece of which reached back
to the roots of his collaboration with McDonald, signaling both a release from
and rapprochement to the crimson one. That same year he produced PFM’s second release
and its first live album, and in ‘75 wrote the lyrics for and produced a widely
successful single for Lake, “I Believe in Father Christmas”, which included a
60-piece orchestra and 30-voice chorus. And it was just about the holiday
season that Sinfield decided, for the second time, to leave the glitter of
London for a quieter locale, this time the Spanish island of Ibiza. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In
1977, over several months, ELP released both of their momentous <i>Works</i>
volumes, carrying Sinfield’s lyrics over turntables and stages across the
globe. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Spare
us, the galleon begged,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">But
mercy’s face had fled.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Blood
ran from the screaming souls<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
cutlass harvested<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Driven
to the quarter deck, the last survivor fell.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">She’s
ours, my boys, the Captain grinned, <o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">And
no one left to tell.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(lyric excerpt, “Pirates”, P. Sinfield,
Manticore Music)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Ironically,
most of the poetry apart from the above was restricted to love songs like “Lend
Me Your Love Tonight” and “Watching Over You”. Odd that the band at the helm of
stadium-geared progressive rock, after releasing albums of the highest order, felt
the need for such a formula. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
unfortunate fall of both ELP and Sinfield’s lyric contributions, however, came
in the form of <i>Love Beach</i>, the album that moved more rapidly to LP
cut-out bins than even John Travolta’s fateful leap into music. From the
open-shirted, tanned Bahamian imagery to the unexpectedly commercial sounds,
the album strayed far from rock art song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In a bizarre turn, when looking back on the single “All I Want is You”
as well as the title song, one detects pop hooks of quality and Lake’s voice is
surely in top form. The all-star band Asia, which included Carl Palmer, would form
within two years in an attempt to popularize such prefab progressiveness, forging
an emulsion of electro-pop and prodigious playing, just where <i>Love Beach</i>
left off. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 21pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Emerson, Lake
and Palmer: “Love Beach”</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABKtXIWJmko"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABKtXIWJmko</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Through
1979 and into the ‘80s and ‘90s, Sinfield’s production and writing credits
continued. In 1980, he returned to London and began work with songwriter Andy
Hill on several projects including “The Land of Make Believe” for UK singer
Bucks Fizz which quickly went to number one. The pair wrote several others for
Fizz, little known on these shores, as well as for Lulu (“If You’re Right”), Leo
Sayer (“Have You Ever Been in Love?”), and the hit for Celine Dion “Think
Twice”. As before, Sinfield was called on by foreign-language artists to write
English lyrics to their songs, but also worked with Chris Squire (“Run with the
Fox”), Moon Martin (“X-Ray Vision”), Eric Clapton (“Leave the Candle”), Bad
Company (“Smokin’ 45”), John Wetton (“Get What You Want”), among others. Sinfield,
with a select band drawn again from KC forces, performed on Spanish television
in a rare performance. But perhaps his most intriguing credit was the debut
album of Unrest for their song “Manhattan”, “an adaptation of Gershwin's
"Rhapsody in Blue" from the Woody Allen film <i>Manhattan</i> with
King Crimson & Half Japanese lyrics recited simultaneously”, as stated in
Sinfield’s discography. The description alone remains a total draw. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">1993,
the 20<sup>th</sup> anniversary of <i>Still</i>, saw a reinvention of the album
under the title <i>Stillusion</i> which the poet has since disavowed due to the
label’s disorder of the tracks. He continued working as lyricist for other
artists and contemplated a second solo album, working at points with John
“Poli” Palmer, vibraphonist/flutist of Family. In 2005, after recuperating from
open-heart surgery, Sinfield mused over the place of poetry in rock music,
offering: “<span style="background: white; color: black;">Well I would class Randy
Newman as a man who conjures intelligent, 'poetic writing' with depth and disturbance.
With him sits the mighty Mose Allison; in fact dozens of old blues legends.
John Lennon of course, Bob Marley and Youssou N' Dour. There are so many; very
recently a young singer called Laura Marling (another old head on young
shoulders) whose new album, " I Speak Because I Can", I am currently
listening to.” Never one for complacency, in recent years he appeared in the BBC
documentary <i>Prog Rock Britannia: An Observation in Three Movements</i>, and also
collaborated with experimental Italian musicians <a name="_Hlk69509364">Max
Marchini and Paola Tagliaferro</a>, offering both his own spoken word
performance and a lyric for Tagliaferro’s vocal. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 21pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Max Marchini and Paola Tagliaferro: “Blossom on the Tree”</span></b><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fdl7z27B3s"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fdl7z27B3s</span></a><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Residing
today in the coastal English town of Aldeburgh, Sinfield is an active writer
working primarily in haiku who has been featured in numerous European festivals
of poetry. He is still reading Blake, Kahlil Gibran, Shakespeare, Basho, Dylan,
when not engaging in farming, natural cooking and herbal medicines. Rumors of
his planned second album remain pervasive.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><b><u><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">References:<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><u><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="text-decoration: none;"> </span></o:p></span></u></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sinfield website:<u> </u></span><a href="https://www.songsouponsea.com/"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">https://www.songsouponsea.com/</span></a><u><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></u></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><u><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="text-decoration: none;"> </span></o:p></span></u></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Smith, Sid: liner notes, <i>Still</i>,
2009 re-release (Esoteric Records)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><u><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="text-decoration: none;"> </span></o:p></span></u></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Smith, Sid: “Happy Birthday Peter
Sinfield”<u> </u></span><a href="https://www.dgmlive.com/news/happy-birthday-peter-sinfield-and-the-making-of-still"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">https://www.dgmlive.com/news/happy-birthday-peter-sinfield-and-the-making-of-still</span></a><u><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></u></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><u><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><span style="text-decoration: none;"> </span></o:p></span></u></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Rockerilla Magazine</span></i><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, May 2010, Sinfield interview by Max Marchini, </span><a href="http://www.songsouponsea.com/galleries/press/rockerilla2010.html"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">http://www.songsouponsea.com/galleries/press/rockerilla2010.html</span></a><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>King Crimson website: </span><a href="https://www.dgmlive.com/"><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">https://www.dgmlive.com/</span></a><span face=""Agency FB",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-67655490102588743532021-02-10T11:16:00.001-08:002021-02-10T11:16:31.119-08:00Book review: Edward D Wood, Jr., Selected Poems, Unexpurgated Edition<p> </p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Monotype Corsiva"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Originally
published in Sensitive Skin magazine, February 2021<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Monotype Corsiva"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 16.0pt;">The
Literary Odyssey of Ed Wood: Beyond the Notoriously Bad Films, Here’s the
Unearthed Poetry </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Edward D Wood, Jr.,
Selected Poems</span></i><span style="font-family: "Agency FB",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">,<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>Unexpurgated Edition (Black Scat Books,
2020)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eSfxpOuatYE/YCQwTXida8I/AAAAAAAACks/vpHRALnFfkAz9b8FCqkX8u7EcTA1sp59ACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/ed%2Bwood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eSfxpOuatYE/YCQwTXida8I/AAAAAAAACks/vpHRALnFfkAz9b8FCqkX8u7EcTA1sp59ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/ed%2Bwood.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> by John Pietaro</o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yes,
it really is that Ed Wood. Recalled in cult movie circles as the bizarro planet’s
Orson Welles, Wood was writer-director-producer of </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Plan 9 from Outer Space, Glen or Glenda?</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Bride of the Monster</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> among other Golden Turkey recipients. Yet,
there is more to Edward Davis Wood Jr than the mere obvious. Beyond the movie
infamy, Wood is probably best known for his cross-dressing, but within a filmmaking
and fiction-writing career, latent credit is due for his bold introduction of a
once secret drag society to a conservatively fearful America. The fact is </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Glen or Glenda?</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, which featured Wood in
the titular role(s) and included others from the L.A. trans community, premiered
in 1953—the year of the Rosenbergs’ executions--as the Hollywood Blacklist, loyalty
oaths and whitewashed conformity raged on. The seventeen years leading to the
Stonewall uprising was, in effect, a lifetime away.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Wood’s
output through the ‘60s focused on horror, crime and the supernatural,
increasingly incorporating lurid sexual imagery (i.e. - </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Orgy of the Dead</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">). At baseline bizarre, these films often walked the
line between pseudo-experimental and merely exploitative. Into the 1970s, suffering
from major depression and alcoholism, Wood earned a meager living writing porn and
taking the odd role in X-rated films. He died in 1978, just 54-years-old.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">A
review of Wood’s rather sordid writing life clarifies that he was a kind of
prodigy, even if largely of the bad, having completed at least one work of
non-fiction, engaged unsuccessfully in authoring drama for the stage, and penned
multiple articles, numerous screenplays, and some 80 pulp novels (occasionally under
the pseudonym Ann Gora) including </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Take It
Out in Trade</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Raped in the Grass</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">,
</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Necromania</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Death of a Transvestite</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">. Somehow overlooked, though, was the poetry.
According to legend, Wood in 1968 decided that these poems were worthless and released
the chapbook manuscript into the La Brea tar-pits. Posthumously, </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Selected Poems</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> was published in a
limited edition in the 1990s, followed by a brief run by Black Scat Books that has
since fallen out of print, leaving very few with the knowledge that this work
even existed. However, on November 7, as per the publisher’s announcement: “In
honor of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Donald Trump</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘s
historic election loss we’re bringing back an out-of-print classic from our Absurdist
Texts & Documents series”. Certainly seems timely.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Unexpurgated
as it is, the title page shows a photo of the author’s original cover, handwritten
in fountain pen. Also included is the image of one of his typed interior pages
decorated with corrections, deletions, blotches and even a line of poetry, long
lost. Far from deeply artistic, the work remains a fascinating document. Some
of the poetry is grown from screenplay synopses and science-fictional visions,
while others are based on the author’s wider musings and ideals, much of it
leaving the reader with only more questions. Opener “There is No Here There, Either”
(page 11) is dedicated to Gertrude Stein, yet his focus remains on the
supernatural. Or does it?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><i style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There’s something out there/out there in the cemetery/that’s
too near/for comfort there</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
piece begins with a seeming renunciation of fantasy escapism, committing to
only the “you” cited herein; as per the dedication, the subject is Stein, the
celebrated author and fully out lesbian of a still earlier, even more groundbreaking
time. The symbolism seems of particular import (</span><i><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">and
I’m locked up here/not there</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">), though far too brief a gaze into Wood’s
personal struggles. Unfortunately, there is no indication as to when these
poems were actually written. He offers more insight with “The Woman Thing” (pp
16-17) which was composed “for Glen and Glenda”, perhaps a challenge to those
refusing to accept the trans lifestyle. Later in the book, Wood responds with
more overt militancy in “Screw You, Mistress Crowley” (page 24):</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><i style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Can your heartthrob stand/my shocking corset/the
mink straitjacket/</span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’m a pretender in the nightlight/and there’s no
pretender!<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
poems, however, which directly relate to his 1950s films are, as expected, bizarre
enough. See “Poem Nine from Outer Space” (page 20) and “Second Thoughts” (page
15), both of which appear to be stage direction excerpts from the script of </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Plan Nine</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, the latter actually having
been read aloud on screen to the footage of Bela Lugosi, that which was shot briefly
before the actor’s death.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">So
much of Wood’s work, in every media, was riddled with conflicted sexual concepts,
often of a violent sort, so a piece like “Paula” (page 18) opens with generally
erotic imagery that is soon realized as the rape of a sleeping or drugged
woman. Halfway through the poem, the rape is ironically attributed to Eros, the
Greek god of love, but it ends hauntingly cold:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><i style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Paula running/Paula running/running beside the road.</span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">This
theme is also evident in “Nothing from This World” (page 13) which vacillates
between the other-worldly and the brutally guttural:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><i style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s getting dark/where she is pointing/ </span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">His awful wife/buried in the ground/<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Pointing up while he/lies down sealed in a vault<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">Within
this mix of emotional upheaval and splintered symbolism, Wood closes the
chapbook with a particularly notable piece, one indicating his inclusion in both
the literary underground and the LGBTQ community as well as the sorrowful
reality of unsuccessful arts careers. It is dubbed “Howl” (page 25) and opens
with a sharp, possibly satiric awareness of Ginsberg:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i><i style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I saw the best flicks of my generation destroyed/by
critics/ranting hysterical mutants/</span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Dragging directors in drag through the mud
like/blood-thirsty bullies<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Here,
Wood deems himself </span><i><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“the angel-headed
genius in the orange neon dusk of Hollywood”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, and observes his audience both
laughing at and cheering him in the cinema before</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><i style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">They staggered off into the sunset strip/</span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Leapt off the Hollywood sign into the bliss of the
curvaceous cult-womb/<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That wrapped them forever in its loin-lit angoric
embrace<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">For
more information on<i> Selected Poems of
Edward D. Wood Jr.</i> - </span><a href="https://blackscatbooks.com/2020/11/07/the-saucer-has-landed/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">https://blackscatbooks.com/2020/11/07/the-saucer-has-landed/</span></a></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8747521146795539225.post-74899320255055524282021-01-11T20:36:00.002-08:002021-01-11T20:36:34.086-08:00Jazz/Poetry: Phillip Levine, Yusef Komunyakaa, Elliot Levin<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: center;"> IN HONOR OF THE LATE <b><span style="font-size: medium;">PHILLIP LEVINE</span></b>'S BIRTHDAY, HERE'S MY <i>NYC JAZZ RECORD </i>CD REVIEW OF A JAZZ/POETERY THREE-FER FROM 2018.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Originally published in <i>the NYC
Jazz Record</i></span></b><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">,
</span></b><b style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">May 2018</span></b></p></blockquote><p><b style="font-family: arial;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-woYrSRICRQI/X_0kZiu7FzI/AAAAAAAACj4/cQHPiAJZ8AoGmwjeIZi-fVSBcnhwwDDkQCLcBGAsYHQ/s984/PHILLIP%2BLEVINE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Phillip Levine" border="0" data-original-height="553" data-original-width="984" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-woYrSRICRQI/X_0kZiu7FzI/AAAAAAAACj4/cQHPiAJZ8AoGmwjeIZi-fVSBcnhwwDDkQCLcBGAsYHQ/w320-h180/PHILLIP%2BLEVINE.jpg" title="NPR" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Phillip Levine (NPR)</span></td></tr></tbody></table></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Benjamin
Boone/Philip Levine, <i>The Poetry of Jazz </i>(Origin
2017)</span></b></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Yusef
Komunyakaa/David Cieri/Mike Brown, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">White
Dust</i> (Ropeadopa 2017)<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Elliot
Levin/Gabriel Lauber Duo, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yu</i>
(Dimensional Recordings 2017)<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The tendency of poets to break out of the
two-dimensional boundary is often seen as a post-War phenomenon, yet poetry was
oral long before written language emerged; this lineage extends back to the
oldest of folk forms. The African American jazz tradition, begotten from a
brutal melding of divergent cultures, cast a certain boundlessness. The music’s
central swing and bop allows the poet to emote and embellish with shifts in
meter, stress, dynamic, repetition and, surely through improvisation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The fusing of verse and music is exhibited quite
classically on <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the Poetry of Jazz</i></b>. This encounter pairs <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Philip Levine</b>, Pulitzer Prize recipient and US Poet Laureate, with alto
saxophonist and composer <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Benjamin Boone</b>.
The two collaborated while teaching at Cal State, Boone being a musician
constantly drawn to words, and Levine a perpetual jazz fan who grew with the
music. The album was recorded in 2012, three years before Levine’s death,
documenting the moment and the movement. The poetry flows through Levine’s lips
most fluidly. Of special note are homages to jazz heroes backed by charts embracing
the honorees and poet alike. But the album opens with the poet’s musings on
drinking gin in youth and its symbolism of adulthood’s challenges. Boone’s
music effortlessly captures the vibe of the late ‘40s-early ‘50s, particularly
the West Coast sounds. Arrangements are clean, sumptuous and driving and the
album boasts an array of musicians including Greg Osby and Tom Harrell (on a
gorgeous piece dedicated to Clifford Brown). Karen Marguth’s vocalization tops
off the melody on two cuts recreating the era anew. Oh, this is hip. But on
“Making Light”, Levine calls on “the blue light like no other”, describing
summer in the west within a cool waltz that ends abruptly, only to land upon “the
Unknowable”, a piece dedicated to Sonny Rollins’ quest for a higher musical
truth on the Wiliamsburg Bridge. “Singing through the cables of the bridge that
were his home” recites Levine as Chris Potter’s tenor obbligato becomes a solo
flight, and the poet wonders “how he knew it was time to inhabit the voice of
the air”. While most of the journey is a celebratory exercise of Levine’s
poetry of (and through) jazz itself, the album closes with a somber
recollection of “What Work Is”, here the struggle for dignity among the
unemployed in painful expectance, and those lost in toil.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">White
Dust</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, the project of poet <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Yusef Komunyakaa</b>, however, focuses on the subtlety of emotion
within this chapter of the author’s cultural- and self-awakening. The CD opens
with the words: “I love how it swells into a temple where it is held prisoner,
where the god of blame resides” and affirms his individualism as well African
heritage. Komiunyakaa states: “A ghost hums through my bones like Pan’s
midnight flute” and later, speaks of “West Africa’s dusty horizon”, where it
seems he may have composed this piece. A Pulitzer Prize winning poet,
Komunyakaa was a correspondent during the Vietnam War and his works are
politically aware and interwoven with the soaring of jazz and the blight of the
unconscionable. If James Baldwin had sought a career in spoken word, this is
probably what it would sound like. Masterful. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The quietly prideful improvisations of pianist David
Cieri, bassist Mike Brown, and alternating percussionists Sam Ospovat and
Shahzad Ismaily carefully lures the poetry, read in a dark baritone, static but
never unmoving. Drawing on the legacy of blues as much as an ethereal timelessness,
the music embraces the atmosphere as much as the words. “Dolphy’s Aviary” makes
artful use of space to build tension and then colors it with the waterphone and
distant, Eastern-sounding vocalization of Cieri. The mix is magic. And yet the
pianist, who created the score for Ken Burns’ outstanding “Vietnam” series,
leans into a raw, almost rural blues just as cannily (ie-“Letter to Bob
Kaufman” and “More Girl Than Boy”). Brown, Ospovat and Ismaily appear to
welcome the ambience like it’s another improviser. Ospovat’s brushes tell the
story as do Ismaily’s use of found metals, percussives and Moog. Take special
note of bassist Brown’s probing, searching counterpoint to all spoken and left
unsaid. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Philadelphia’s<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">
Elliot Levin</b> is a monster of the tenor saxophone and flute, a musician of
unique command who plunders his instruments’ histories in a manifest of
experimentalism. His early work with Cecil Taylor notwithstanding, Levin has left
an indelible mark in the annals of the underground. But he’s also a studied
poet with several books of verse to his credit. On <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yu</i></b>, his new duet CD with
drummer <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Gabriel Lauber</b>, Levin makes
judicious use of both his musical and spoken word skills in this tour de force
of free jazz. Lauber, a Swiss musician residing in Mexico, founder of the
Dimensional record label, flawlessly reflects and expands via a barrage of skin
and metal. The album is comprised of nine varied selections, with opening and
closing pieces “Yu” parts 1 and 2, respectively. The first is a sonic blast, a
joyously manic conversation which leads into the more subtle “Be Tasty, Be
Poetry, Be Fado”. Here, Levin blows and then moves into spoken word, initially
at a whispery tone which feels Ginsburgian. Then with full-voiced, Kerouac-like
jazz phrasing under Lauber’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">post</i>-post-bop
accompaniment, the spoken word serves as another lead line, colored with neologism
and vocalization. There is an enduring magic in this art. “Some Are of Sadness”
and “Berlin Mystic Dawn” put Levin’s voice at center, under which Lauber’s
breathless improvisation speaks to the ages.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
Poetry of Jazz</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gin/</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Making Light of It /</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Unknowable (Homage to Sonny Rollins) /</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yakov/</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> They Feed They Lion/</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> I Remember Clifford (Homage to Clifford Brown)/</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Music of Time /</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Soloing (Homage to John Coltrane) | Benjamin Boone/</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Arrival/</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">A Dozen Dawn Songs, Plus One/</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Our Valley/</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Call it Music (Homage to Charlie Parker)/</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">By the Waters of the Llobregat/</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">What Work Is</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Philip Levine - poetry and narration</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Benjamin Boone -alto/soprano saxophone <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Tom Harrell - trumpet<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Branford Marsalis - tenor saxophone <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Greg Osby - alto saxophone <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Chris Potter -tenor saxophone <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Stefan Poetzsch - violin <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Karen Marguth - vocals <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Max Hembd - trumpet <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">David Aus - piano <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Craig von Berg - piano <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Spee Kosloff - bass <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Nye Morton - bass <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">John Lauffenburger - bass <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Brian Hamada - drums <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gary Newmark - drums <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Atticus Boone - French horn<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Asher Boone - trumpet<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">White
Dust:<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Andodyne/Letters to Bob Kaufman/Charmed/Dolphy’s
Aviary/Jumping Bad Blues/Loneliness/More Like a Girl Than Boy/New Black
Yoga/Ode to the Qud<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Yusuf<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Komunyakaa- poetry<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">David Cieri=keyboard, piano, waterphone, voice<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Mike Brown- contrabass, looping<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Shahzad Ismaily- percussion, MoogSam
Ospovat-percussion<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Yu:<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Yu/Be Tasty, Be Poetry, Be Fado/Wam Warn Awning/some
Are of Sadness/Under Cover Army of Salvation/Berlin Mystic Dawn/Prayer for the
Ancestors/Like When We Were Young/Yu<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Elliot Levin-poetry, tenor saxphone, flute<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Gabriel Lauber- drums<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>JOHN PIETAROhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17379247464220805781noreply@blogger.com0