Rounding up some of the better items I've found in recent record digs, stretching back to that annual colossus of record shows, the WFMU Record Fair, and including more recent trips to the pride of St. Louis record stores, Euclid Records (sorry Vintage Vinyl, I like you too), and a worthy new discovery, Greenpoint's Co-op 87. There are also one or two finds from Gimme Gimme in the East Village and Permanent Records in Greenpoint here too, plus a couple items on the soon-to-be-obsolete compact disc format.
Grant Green - Goin' West
Grant Green's Goin' West is a somewhat lesser-known link in a tradition stretching from Louis Armstrong's collaborations with Jimmie Rodgers to Sonny Rollins to Bryan & the Haggards. (I also tend to enjoy when the jazz-to-country crossover goes the other way - Bob Wills, Willie Nelson, Jethro Burns, even Merle Haggard have ventured to varying extents into jazz territory with good results.) Though it was released in the late '60s, the early '60s recording date and inclusion of "I Can't Stop Loving You" certainly suggest the influence of Ray Charles' surprise success with Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music in the choice of this concept. Whatever the impetus, this group makes it work, turning some of the potentially hokiest material into music that sounds like golden age Blue Note, which in fact it is. I think a lot of the credit has to go to Billy Higgins, who finds creative solutions for making these tunes swing. Check out Higgins on "On Top of Old Smokey" (feels weird even typing that) - great drummers are often praised for making complex music sound natural and spontaneous, but here you have a great drummer making something fairly sophisticated out of very basic musical materials. A young Herbie Hancock also sounds quite comfortable in this territory, and as for Grant Green, all I can say is that hearing that tone coming out of my speakers is one of life's great pleasures. Oh, and the bass player is Reggie Workman!
Goin' West makes an interesting point of comparison with Bill Frisell's treatment of country and folk material. Frisell revels in the beauty and simplicity of the melodies (check out Frisell's versions of "Red River Valley" with Gary Peacock, a tune that also appears here), whereas Green & co. are more about adding layers of complexity. I could imagine both approaches ending in disaster, but these musicians are too good, too tasteful for that to happen.
Pat Matheny (w/ Charlie Haden & Billy Higgins) - Rejoicing
Although I normally much prefer Bill Frisell to Pat Matheny, I've been enjoying this record more than the Power Tools record (Strange Meeting w/ Frisell, Melvin Gibbs, and Ronald Shannon Jackson) I picked up at the same time. Rejoicing is an ideal companion piece to Song X - quieter, heavy on Ornette tunes but w/out Ornette himself. If you can manage to make a bad album with Haden and Higgins on board, shame on you, but that's certainly not the case here. Everybody sounds good, although I prefer the first side, with mostly Ornette tunes, to the second side, which gets into Pat originals and some guitar synth textures.
Julius Hemphill - Blue Boye
It's probably an unfounded bias, but I tend to steer clear of solo saxophone albums, or really most solo instrumental albums that don't feature piano or guitar. I knew Julius Hemphill would do something worthwhile with the format, though. In any case, Blue Boye is really better described as a "saxophone Conversations with Myself" or a "one-man WSQ" than a solo recital, with most tracks featuring Hemphill overdubbed on multiple instruments. I love the liner note description of Hemphill, one of the masters of writing and arranging for multiple horns, confidently building up the multiple tracks in a series of single takes while still wearing his overcoat in some half-assed, freezing basement studio.
It's often been noted that there was always a strong blues feeling in everything Hemphill did (and though I may be on shaky ground, I would argue that this stronger blues strain is one of the things that distinguished the music and musicians that came out of the St. Louis BAG scene from the closely related Chicago AACM scene), and it is certainly in evidence here, as the album title would suggest. I've been particularly enjoying the bluesy, boppish and truly solo "Kansas City Line" and the funky flute and hand clap driven "Homeboy Tootin' at the Dog/Star", which brings to mind the deep roots of Otha Turner's Mississippi fife & drum pre-blues.
Charles 'Bobo' Shaw & The Human Arts Ensemble (feat. Joseph Bowie) - P'nkJ'zz
This is a NYC loft scene edition (recorded at Sam Rivers' Studio Rivbea) of the Human Arts Ensemble, which had originated with a very different lineup in St. Louis as a racially integrated adjunct to the Black Artists Group. BAG-related figures Joe Bowie (whose punk-jazz fusion project Defunkt would've been operating at this time), Julius Hemphill and Abdul Wadud are on this record, and most of the music resembles the Hemphill-Wadud collaborations (with their blend of free, blues, and African gestures) more than it really touches on punk. The exception is the first track, the wild (and gloriously titled) "Steam Away Kool 1500". While it may be a stretch to call it "punk", it's certainly in your face, gesturing toward rock with a heavy electric bass groove that reminds me a little, but only a little, of Keith Jarrett's "Mortgage On My Soul". It's a bit of a disappointment when the album doesn't continue in this vein, although I also enjoy the Latin or Afro-Latin acoustic guitar-driven vamps of the next two tunes, and the last and shortest track, "Be Bo Bo Be", gives Wadud the chance to go off a bit with a bowed solo.
Especially since reading Point From Which Creation Begins, Benjamin Looker's history of BAG, I've been picking up records here and there from what might be called the post-BAG discography. I haven't yet found another Dogon A.D.-style lost masterpiece, but Hemphill certainly went on to make many strong records in the '70s and '80s (and not just with the WSQ - see above), and I've also enjoyed some of the records where Lester Bowie got together with his old St. Louis associates, such as Fast Last! with Hemphill, brother Joe, Philip Wilson and John Hicks. One I'm on the lookout for is Shaw's Streets of St. Louis, also recorded under the HAE moniker and featuring a monster lineup, including Hemphill and Wadud, both Bowies, and Hamiet Bluiett.
Sonny Rollins - There Will Never Be Another You
This has to be one of the greatest two-drummer albums, with Mickey Roker (who talks a bit about it in his DTM interview) and Billy Higgins (who participated in some notable two drummer recordings with Ornette and Ed Blackwell) burning live in the MOMA Sculpture Garden in 1965. There's some great Tommy Flanagan, and the 16-minute title track is a particular must-hear, with Sonny wandering off mike around the courtyard near the end.
Laura Nyro - Gonna Take a Miracle
The legendary Philly team of Gamble & Huff brought a restrained but meticulous production approach to this record, only unleashing the strings a couple times and putting all the focus on the vocals of Nyro and Labelle (just a few years before they hit big with "Lady Marmalade"). The result, especially on the more sparsely instrumented tracks, is something like street corner harmony in a gloomy cathedral. It's a very precise but hard to describe atmosphere I don't think I've heard on any other record. In retrospect, it was a smart move to do an album of remembered songs, songs that had nostalgic value to Nyro, in what was up-to-date style in 1971. She didn't go to Motown and try to replicate the sound of the original records, instead going with producers and singers who were still on their way up and would go on to help define the sound of '70s R'n'B. Another unexpected but effective move was sequencing what is in my opinion the strongest track last. That song, the title cut, is a tour-de-force heartbreaker, originally a minor 1965 hit for the Royalettes (check out this great video), and a great expression of the breakup-as-Armageddon trope that Jens Lekman was gently mocking/paying tribute to with "The End of the World (Is Bigger Than Love)".
It must be a mark of how much I like Robert Christgau's writing that I can get pissed off about a forty year-old review, but his dismissive B-minus write-up of this record, where the best he can say about Labelle is that they "don't screech once", is pretty galling. I imagine his anti-Nyroism was at least in part a contrarian reaction to her critical darling status amid the earnest atmosphere of the early-'70s singer-songwriter scare, but at least he was able to recognize the greatness of the "Monkey Time/Dancing in the Street" medley. When Labelle start repeating the line "don't forget the Motor City", I get chills.
Roger Woodward - Shostakovich - 24 Preludes & Fugues
This was a WFMU Record Fair find, one of a few 20th Century classical records I picked up, still under the sway of Alex Ross' The Rest is Noise. This is the only version I've heard of this music, and the only thing I've heard from Woodward, who came out of Australia and is apparently still active, having recorded this in his early 30s in 1974. So, I'm thoroughly unqualified to write in depth about this, but I can see where this is in some way a 20th-century response to Bach as well as a chance for the composer to try out a bunch of ideas in short pieces. Though listening to the whole thing in one sitting is a bit taxing for someone of my attention span, there is a variety that sustains interest through the set of 24, with some pieces sounding like Baroque music with a few 20th-century harmonic touches and others more like full-blown Shostakovich squeezed into the prelude-and-fugue form. There's also a Keith Jarrett recording of the Preludes & Fugues on ECM which I'm somewhat curious about. I'm not crazy about his Goldbergs on harpsichord but I'm willing to give Klassical Keith another shot.
Mstislav Rostropovich - Britten - Cello Suites
Another one from the Record Fair. I first discovered Rostropovich through his recording of Shostakovich's first cello concerto, and after hearing this record of the first two of Britten's beautiful and technically dazzling suites for solo cello, I'm on the lookout for more recordings by the great Azerbaijani cellist. There's a record of Britten (on piano) and Rostropovich together that I'd like to hear, and there's also BBC documentary that I think is available streaming online if you do a little digging. I'd also really like to hear the 3rd Britten suite, which was written for but not recorded by Rostropovich. Another win for vinyl: this record has a really cool cover which seems not to have been retained by any of the CD releases of this music.
...and last and also least:
Having Fun with Elvis on Stage
One of music history's most notorious novelty/bizarro items, this is 37 or so minutes of Elvis' stage banter from the Adderol-addled early '70s brought to the public courtesy of Col. Parker's cynical avarice. Judging by this record, Elvis spent much of his time on stage during these years dealing with requests for his sweaty scarves from female fans of all ages.
Showing posts with label soul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soul. Show all posts
Friday, January 27, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Best Live Music Seen in 2011
Once again, The Selected Ballads strives to be the last blog to submit a yearly Best Of list. The format this year is my top ten (or eleven, depending on how you count them) live shows of 2011 followed by six honorable mentions and two music-related events worthy of note. The list is in no particular order, except for the first entry, since there was no question that I had to give pride of place to the great, recently departed Paul Motian.
Paul Motian MJQ Tribute Quartet - Village Vanguard
Even if he hadn’t passed away this year, Paul Motian would’ve been my Artist of the Year. I don’t think there was any artist I saw live more times this year than Motian, and as I continued picking up his records, I may also have listened to more of his music than any other artist. The fact that his last year was such an active and creatively fertile one is both inspiring and adds to the sense of loss (what might he have done in 2012?). I think I saw all but one of the groups he brought into the Vanguard in 2011, including two different ones with Masabumi Kikuchi. It’s a tough call, but the MJQ tribute quartet (with a lineup matching the Modern Jazz Quartet’s vibes-piano-bass-drums format) was my favorite. I loved what Steve Nelson on vibes brought to the music, and this group seemed to provoke Motian to some particularly fine displays of beautifully unorthodox swing. If any of the six nights they did play were recorded in some unofficial or official form, I hope the music comes to light.
Ethan Iverson Trio (feat. Buster Williams & Ben Riley) - Smalls
and
The Bad Plus w/ Joshua Redman - Blue Note
I saw almost as much of Ethan Iverson this year as I did Paul Motian, including their trio with Larry Grenadier at the Vanguard and Billy Hart’s quartet featuring Iverson, Mark Turner and Ben Street. I chose to highlight this Smalls appearance, a trio with two masters in Buster Williams and Ben Riley (who I’ve been enjoying on Hank Jones’ Bop Redux, a Bird-and-Monk-only trio record that I picked up over the holidays), simply because it was the most fun, producing moments of surprise and beauty and swing out of some of the most familiar tunes in the canon.
This year, the Bad Plus were coming off arguably their strongest album, and I can’t imagine any instrumentalist stepping in and contributing more to their already strong material than Joshua Redman did. The fact that I was wedged into a remote corner of the Blue Note's bar area for the Bad Plus set (due to my own lack of planning) meant that seeing the trio at Smalls was a bit more enjoyable, but musically, both groups succeeded in achieving their very different ends (or was it that they achieved the same end - making good music - by different means?). They don’t need me to tell them this, but Bad Plus fans with an open ear shouldn’t sleep on Iverson’s other gigs (or Dave King’s newish duo with Matt Mitchell, either).
[Update: just noticed after posting this that DTM linked here the other day. Quite a spike in traffic around these parts. Thanks Ethan!]
Bill McHenry Quartet - Village Vanguard
I saw McHenry numerous times this year, including a fine set at Smalls, but the group he assembled for the run at the Vanguard helped make this the best. Along with two members of Tarbaby (who I regret missing when they played NYC this year), Eric Revis and Orrin Evans (who I also enjoyed this year with his Big Band and sitting in with Ari Hoenig at the drummer’s Monday night residency), Paul Motian was to have been the drummer in this group before his final illness led him to cancel all his gigs. As it turned out, McHenry made an excellent choice in calling Andrew Cyrille, and the group came together beautifully, taking McHenry’s music to places I’d never heard it go. I hope they reconvene soon.
John Hebert’s Sounds of Love - The Stone
This was a one-time, all-star band that totally delivered on its promise, making some of the best music I heard all year with an all-Mingus set. Like an unorthodox general manager assembling a great team out of seemingly incongruous parts, Hebert brought together associates from the different corners of the jazz world he inhabits, resulting in some unexpected but exciting interactions (I’d be surprised if Taylor Ho Bynum and Fred Hersch had ever shared a stage before, for example - the group also included frequent collaborators Tim Berne and Ches Smith). The set was heavy on material from Mingus’ later-period Changes albums (some of my favorite Mingus), and Hersch’s playing managed to be completely right for the material while sounding nothing like Don Pullen, whose piano was such an important element of the original albums. As with Bill McHenry, I saw Tim Berne several times this year with various groups, including Michael Formanek’s (whose latest album with Berne I've just started listening to) and a couple of groups of his own. I’ve also been enjoying the reissue of Julius Hemphill’s multi-instrument solo album Blue Boye on Berne’s Screwgun label.
Bill Frisell Quartet - Village Vanguard
Bill seems to make it into my Best Of somewhere every year, but good is good, and this set was extra-special for me as it fell on my birthday. As a baseball fan, I like to think this quartet’s (Frisell’s usual trio supplemented by cornetist Ron Miles) rendition of the “St. Louis Blues” was a harbinger of the Cardinals’ success (not to mention the resurgence of the hockey team that shares a name with the immortal W.C. Handy tune). The set also included an encore, something rarely seen at the Vanguard, with Frisell and bassist Tony Scherr pulling out acoustic guitars for a loose-but-sublime medley of “Moon River” and “Misterioso”.
Mary Halvorson Quintet - Barbes
By March, Halvorson’s group, now on their second album, had become a more powerful force since I first saw them a year or so before, when the compositions that ended up on Saturn Sings were new and horns had only recently been added to her original trio. On this night, they sounded to me like one of the best working groups around. I don’t know what the future of this lineup is, but If she can keep these players together for another album, there’s no reason to think they won’t continue on their upward trajectory.
Jeff Mangum - Loew’s Theater, Jersey City
I went into this one with some skepticism and cynicism. I’d seen Neutral Milk Hotel a couple of times back in the ‘90s and been strongly affected by them, but I had some doubts about Mangum’s “comeback tour”, playing the same music, with no new material, 10+ years later. Mangum’s still-powerful voice and the thoroughly undiminished power of his songs cut right through my defences, though. The cavernous, slightly spooky Loew’s Jersey Theater was an appropriate venue for Mangum and his ghost-haunted songs. Tantalizingly, he mentioned that he’d like to come back with “the band” and have Julian Koster play the theater’s organ. He mentioned it casually, contributing to the sense that he was just picking up from where he left off in 1999 or so, with no self-consciousness about or need to explain the long gap in his performing and recording career.
Swamp Dogg - Metrotech (Downtown Brooklyn)
Playing to an outdoor lunchtime crowd within the sterile confines of Metrotech - not the ideal conditions for deep soul music to thrive, but Swamp Dogg proved that old school showmanship and professionalism can overcome almost any obstacle if the audience is willing and the songs are strong. I’d thought of Swamp Dogg as primarily a great songwriter who also happened to be a good singer, but had no idea what a dynamic performer he is.
Sean Nelson Sings Nilsson - Rock Shop
Though he sometimes sings Nilsson with orchestral accompaniment, on this night, backed by members of Kay Kay & His Weathered Underground, Sean Nelson brought Harry into the rock club, notably on the set closing ”Jump Into The Fire”, but no less successfully on gentler tunes like “Daddy’s Song”, made famous by the Monkees, and Point favorites “Me and My Arrow” and “Think About Your Troubles”. Nelson is a hell of a singer, which you have to be to creditably sing Nilsson, and hearing songs I’ve loved for so long on record done beautifully live was a moving experience.
Marshall Crenshaw w/ The Bottle Rockets - Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago
I was excited about this pairing as soon as I heard about it, and though I wouldn’t have thought to match them up myself, I went in with high expectations and had them exceeded. I’ve seen Crenshaw a couple of times solo and heard some of his live albums, but I’ve never heard his songs sound as good as they did with this lineup. Crenshaw and Brian Henneman’s contrasting styles of guitar mastery added a good kind of tension and gave extra juice to just about every song, making these electric guitar-based songs somehow more electric. Bassist Keith Voegele ably contributed the harmonies that are so important in Crenshaw’s music, and Mark Ortmann proved to be the perfect drummer for MC’s style, reminding me a bit of Pete Thomas, a comparison that had never occurred to me while listening to Ortmann with the Bottle Rockets.
The Bottle Rockets opening acoustic set (coming off their live acoustic release Not So Loud) was also superb, taking advantage of the well-tuned sound of the Old Town’s hall. Just as the Bottle Rockets helped make Crenshaw’s old songs sound new, some gems from their own back catalog showed hidden facets as banjos were added and tempos were changed, in some cases returning to the form the songs had when first written.
Honorable Mentions
Jeremy Denk - Zankel Hall
A severe workout of a recital, pairing Ligeti’s Etudes with Bach’s Goldberg Variations, from a pianist I enjoyed on record and in writing in 2011 and hope to see and hear more from in 2012.
Logan Richardson (w/ Greg Osby, Nasheet Waits, Sam Harris, Burniss Travis) - Smalls
Tremendous group led by the impressive and still rising saxophonist, with Greg Osby (billed as “Egg Cosby”, in the tradition of “Charlie Chan” and “Buckshot LeFonque”), and the mighty Nasheet Waits on drums (I wasn’t able to catch Waits as much this year as last, but his drum duo with Dave King at the Bad Plus-Bandwagon Prospect Park show was one of the year’s great moments).
SIM Big Band - Brooklyn Conservatory of Music
A who’s who of the Brooklyn scene playing compositions by several of the members. Andrew D’Angelo’s passionate solo on Kris Davis’ composition (the title of which I don’t recall) and the drumming of Tyshawn Sorey throughout were the highlights for me.
Don Byron Ivey-Divey Trio - Jazz Standard
Don Byron, whether on clarinet or sax, plays with a combination of wit and soul that seems to be a genuine expression of his personality. This new edition of his Ivey-Divey Trio project, focusing on Lester Young-derived standards and Byron originals, had Geri Allen and Charli Persip (author of How Not To Play Drums and almost the drummer on Sketches of Spain) in one of the city's classiest and most comfortable venues.
Eugene Chadbourne - The Stone
Chadbourne is someone I’d wanted to see for years, and this solo show reinforced for me what a great songwriter the good doctor is, above and beyond his impressively wacked-out instrumental prowess.
Jason Moran/Mark Helias/Tom Rainey - The Stone
A novel opportunity to see Jason Moran in a piano trio that wasn’t The Bandwagon. The greatness of Moran w/ Tarus Mateen and Nasheet Waits is well-known, but this was more than a novelty, as these three entered into a high-level dialogue on their first time out.
Two Music-Related Highlights of 2011
Shadows - Collapsible Hole
The Hoi Polloi company, under the direction of Alec Duffy, very creatively exploited the potential of an unusual, garage-like theater space in Williamsburg, to bring John Cassavetes’ 1959 "Beat movie" to the stage. Also a fine study in maximizing available resources, Rick Burkhardt’s music used limited instrumentation to great and varied effect, creating an appropriately hip, improvisational feel without restoring to pastiche or mere "jazziness". Shadows was somehow both irreverent toward and respectful of its source material, managing to generate real emotion and atmosphere.
Nick Tosches - Jefferson Market Library
A theatrical, borderline demonic reading by the dark bard of American music’s underbelly, with an appropriately gloomy, Gothic setting in the Jefferson Market Library and an audience that included major rock’n’roll figures like Little Steven Van Zandt and Lenny Kaye, as well as one of the original Jaynettes (who Tosches writes about in Save the Last Dance for Satan, the book he was promoting at this reading) in attendance.
Paul Motian MJQ Tribute Quartet - Village Vanguard
Even if he hadn’t passed away this year, Paul Motian would’ve been my Artist of the Year. I don’t think there was any artist I saw live more times this year than Motian, and as I continued picking up his records, I may also have listened to more of his music than any other artist. The fact that his last year was such an active and creatively fertile one is both inspiring and adds to the sense of loss (what might he have done in 2012?). I think I saw all but one of the groups he brought into the Vanguard in 2011, including two different ones with Masabumi Kikuchi. It’s a tough call, but the MJQ tribute quartet (with a lineup matching the Modern Jazz Quartet’s vibes-piano-bass-drums format) was my favorite. I loved what Steve Nelson on vibes brought to the music, and this group seemed to provoke Motian to some particularly fine displays of beautifully unorthodox swing. If any of the six nights they did play were recorded in some unofficial or official form, I hope the music comes to light.
Ethan Iverson Trio (feat. Buster Williams & Ben Riley) - Smalls
and
The Bad Plus w/ Joshua Redman - Blue Note
I saw almost as much of Ethan Iverson this year as I did Paul Motian, including their trio with Larry Grenadier at the Vanguard and Billy Hart’s quartet featuring Iverson, Mark Turner and Ben Street. I chose to highlight this Smalls appearance, a trio with two masters in Buster Williams and Ben Riley (who I’ve been enjoying on Hank Jones’ Bop Redux, a Bird-and-Monk-only trio record that I picked up over the holidays), simply because it was the most fun, producing moments of surprise and beauty and swing out of some of the most familiar tunes in the canon.
This year, the Bad Plus were coming off arguably their strongest album, and I can’t imagine any instrumentalist stepping in and contributing more to their already strong material than Joshua Redman did. The fact that I was wedged into a remote corner of the Blue Note's bar area for the Bad Plus set (due to my own lack of planning) meant that seeing the trio at Smalls was a bit more enjoyable, but musically, both groups succeeded in achieving their very different ends (or was it that they achieved the same end - making good music - by different means?). They don’t need me to tell them this, but Bad Plus fans with an open ear shouldn’t sleep on Iverson’s other gigs (or Dave King’s newish duo with Matt Mitchell, either).
[Update: just noticed after posting this that DTM linked here the other day. Quite a spike in traffic around these parts. Thanks Ethan!]
Bill McHenry Quartet - Village Vanguard
I saw McHenry numerous times this year, including a fine set at Smalls, but the group he assembled for the run at the Vanguard helped make this the best. Along with two members of Tarbaby (who I regret missing when they played NYC this year), Eric Revis and Orrin Evans (who I also enjoyed this year with his Big Band and sitting in with Ari Hoenig at the drummer’s Monday night residency), Paul Motian was to have been the drummer in this group before his final illness led him to cancel all his gigs. As it turned out, McHenry made an excellent choice in calling Andrew Cyrille, and the group came together beautifully, taking McHenry’s music to places I’d never heard it go. I hope they reconvene soon.
John Hebert’s Sounds of Love - The Stone
This was a one-time, all-star band that totally delivered on its promise, making some of the best music I heard all year with an all-Mingus set. Like an unorthodox general manager assembling a great team out of seemingly incongruous parts, Hebert brought together associates from the different corners of the jazz world he inhabits, resulting in some unexpected but exciting interactions (I’d be surprised if Taylor Ho Bynum and Fred Hersch had ever shared a stage before, for example - the group also included frequent collaborators Tim Berne and Ches Smith). The set was heavy on material from Mingus’ later-period Changes albums (some of my favorite Mingus), and Hersch’s playing managed to be completely right for the material while sounding nothing like Don Pullen, whose piano was such an important element of the original albums. As with Bill McHenry, I saw Tim Berne several times this year with various groups, including Michael Formanek’s (whose latest album with Berne I've just started listening to) and a couple of groups of his own. I’ve also been enjoying the reissue of Julius Hemphill’s multi-instrument solo album Blue Boye on Berne’s Screwgun label.
Bill Frisell Quartet - Village Vanguard
Bill seems to make it into my Best Of somewhere every year, but good is good, and this set was extra-special for me as it fell on my birthday. As a baseball fan, I like to think this quartet’s (Frisell’s usual trio supplemented by cornetist Ron Miles) rendition of the “St. Louis Blues” was a harbinger of the Cardinals’ success (not to mention the resurgence of the hockey team that shares a name with the immortal W.C. Handy tune). The set also included an encore, something rarely seen at the Vanguard, with Frisell and bassist Tony Scherr pulling out acoustic guitars for a loose-but-sublime medley of “Moon River” and “Misterioso”.
Mary Halvorson Quintet - Barbes
By March, Halvorson’s group, now on their second album, had become a more powerful force since I first saw them a year or so before, when the compositions that ended up on Saturn Sings were new and horns had only recently been added to her original trio. On this night, they sounded to me like one of the best working groups around. I don’t know what the future of this lineup is, but If she can keep these players together for another album, there’s no reason to think they won’t continue on their upward trajectory.
Jeff Mangum - Loew’s Theater, Jersey City
I went into this one with some skepticism and cynicism. I’d seen Neutral Milk Hotel a couple of times back in the ‘90s and been strongly affected by them, but I had some doubts about Mangum’s “comeback tour”, playing the same music, with no new material, 10+ years later. Mangum’s still-powerful voice and the thoroughly undiminished power of his songs cut right through my defences, though. The cavernous, slightly spooky Loew’s Jersey Theater was an appropriate venue for Mangum and his ghost-haunted songs. Tantalizingly, he mentioned that he’d like to come back with “the band” and have Julian Koster play the theater’s organ. He mentioned it casually, contributing to the sense that he was just picking up from where he left off in 1999 or so, with no self-consciousness about or need to explain the long gap in his performing and recording career.
Swamp Dogg - Metrotech (Downtown Brooklyn)
Playing to an outdoor lunchtime crowd within the sterile confines of Metrotech - not the ideal conditions for deep soul music to thrive, but Swamp Dogg proved that old school showmanship and professionalism can overcome almost any obstacle if the audience is willing and the songs are strong. I’d thought of Swamp Dogg as primarily a great songwriter who also happened to be a good singer, but had no idea what a dynamic performer he is.
Sean Nelson Sings Nilsson - Rock Shop
Though he sometimes sings Nilsson with orchestral accompaniment, on this night, backed by members of Kay Kay & His Weathered Underground, Sean Nelson brought Harry into the rock club, notably on the set closing ”Jump Into The Fire”, but no less successfully on gentler tunes like “Daddy’s Song”, made famous by the Monkees, and Point favorites “Me and My Arrow” and “Think About Your Troubles”. Nelson is a hell of a singer, which you have to be to creditably sing Nilsson, and hearing songs I’ve loved for so long on record done beautifully live was a moving experience.
Marshall Crenshaw w/ The Bottle Rockets - Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago
I was excited about this pairing as soon as I heard about it, and though I wouldn’t have thought to match them up myself, I went in with high expectations and had them exceeded. I’ve seen Crenshaw a couple of times solo and heard some of his live albums, but I’ve never heard his songs sound as good as they did with this lineup. Crenshaw and Brian Henneman’s contrasting styles of guitar mastery added a good kind of tension and gave extra juice to just about every song, making these electric guitar-based songs somehow more electric. Bassist Keith Voegele ably contributed the harmonies that are so important in Crenshaw’s music, and Mark Ortmann proved to be the perfect drummer for MC’s style, reminding me a bit of Pete Thomas, a comparison that had never occurred to me while listening to Ortmann with the Bottle Rockets.
The Bottle Rockets opening acoustic set (coming off their live acoustic release Not So Loud) was also superb, taking advantage of the well-tuned sound of the Old Town’s hall. Just as the Bottle Rockets helped make Crenshaw’s old songs sound new, some gems from their own back catalog showed hidden facets as banjos were added and tempos were changed, in some cases returning to the form the songs had when first written.
Honorable Mentions
Jeremy Denk - Zankel Hall
A severe workout of a recital, pairing Ligeti’s Etudes with Bach’s Goldberg Variations, from a pianist I enjoyed on record and in writing in 2011 and hope to see and hear more from in 2012.
Logan Richardson (w/ Greg Osby, Nasheet Waits, Sam Harris, Burniss Travis) - Smalls
Tremendous group led by the impressive and still rising saxophonist, with Greg Osby (billed as “Egg Cosby”, in the tradition of “Charlie Chan” and “Buckshot LeFonque”), and the mighty Nasheet Waits on drums (I wasn’t able to catch Waits as much this year as last, but his drum duo with Dave King at the Bad Plus-Bandwagon Prospect Park show was one of the year’s great moments).
SIM Big Band - Brooklyn Conservatory of Music
A who’s who of the Brooklyn scene playing compositions by several of the members. Andrew D’Angelo’s passionate solo on Kris Davis’ composition (the title of which I don’t recall) and the drumming of Tyshawn Sorey throughout were the highlights for me.
Don Byron Ivey-Divey Trio - Jazz Standard
Don Byron, whether on clarinet or sax, plays with a combination of wit and soul that seems to be a genuine expression of his personality. This new edition of his Ivey-Divey Trio project, focusing on Lester Young-derived standards and Byron originals, had Geri Allen and Charli Persip (author of How Not To Play Drums and almost the drummer on Sketches of Spain) in one of the city's classiest and most comfortable venues.
Eugene Chadbourne - The Stone
Chadbourne is someone I’d wanted to see for years, and this solo show reinforced for me what a great songwriter the good doctor is, above and beyond his impressively wacked-out instrumental prowess.
Jason Moran/Mark Helias/Tom Rainey - The Stone
A novel opportunity to see Jason Moran in a piano trio that wasn’t The Bandwagon. The greatness of Moran w/ Tarus Mateen and Nasheet Waits is well-known, but this was more than a novelty, as these three entered into a high-level dialogue on their first time out.
Two Music-Related Highlights of 2011
Shadows - Collapsible Hole
The Hoi Polloi company, under the direction of Alec Duffy, very creatively exploited the potential of an unusual, garage-like theater space in Williamsburg, to bring John Cassavetes’ 1959 "Beat movie" to the stage. Also a fine study in maximizing available resources, Rick Burkhardt’s music used limited instrumentation to great and varied effect, creating an appropriately hip, improvisational feel without restoring to pastiche or mere "jazziness". Shadows was somehow both irreverent toward and respectful of its source material, managing to generate real emotion and atmosphere.
Nick Tosches - Jefferson Market Library
A theatrical, borderline demonic reading by the dark bard of American music’s underbelly, with an appropriately gloomy, Gothic setting in the Jefferson Market Library and an audience that included major rock’n’roll figures like Little Steven Van Zandt and Lenny Kaye, as well as one of the original Jaynettes (who Tosches writes about in Save the Last Dance for Satan, the book he was promoting at this reading) in attendance.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Best Of 2010 - Best Live Music
Well, it's mid-January and I'm finally posting my best live music of 2010. My "long list" became a "short list", at which point I remembered a few shows I'd forgotten about and had to rethink. In the end, I gave up on having a neat, even number of shows on the list, and the order is very loose. The best of the best is generally at the top, but don't take the order too seriously - I didn't. At least from my perspective as a fan and listener, it was a great year for live music, and I think this list conveys that.
1. Solo shows
As far as list making conventions go, this is a total cop-out, a blatant attempt to squeeze in extra entries, and an arbitrary conglomeration, but I'm putting this group of shows at the top to point out what a great year it was for solo performances. I mentioned a few in my previous list, but here are six more (in alphabetical order) that helped make 2010 a year of brilliant loners and rugged individualists:
Marc-Andre Hamelin at Le Poisson Rouge
The only classical show here, Hamelin's LPR appearance had more in common with the other shows on this list than you might think: it was a club gig, a CD release "party", and unlike most classical piano recitals, Hamelin was performing his own compositions. Hamelin left me wanting to hear more of him and resolving to hear more classical piano in general in 2011.
Brian Henneman Christmas Show at Iron Barley
Brian Henneman (of the Bottle Rockets) carried on his St. Louis holiday tradition with a set of songs (familiar favorites and rarities, new, old, and half-remembered) and stories, both of which he has in abundance. The tagline of The Best Show on WFMU doubles as a good description of this night: Three Hours of Mirth, Music, and Mayhem. There were no Christmas songs, but Henneman did give some gifts, ranging from vinyl rarities to cheap sunglasses, for some of those with the opportunity, good sense and taste to make the journey to deep South St. Louis on Christmas night.
Fred Hersch at the Village Vanguard
Matthew Shipp at the Blue Note
A straight-through, seemingly free-associative recital very much of a piece with his latest solo record, 4D, part of the Blue Note's credit-due Monday night "stuff we might not book on other nights" series. Nobody gives the left side of the keyboard a workout quite like Shipp. A brilliant mind thinking out loud through the piano.
Jeff Tweedy at Bowery Ballroom
The solo format gives Jeff Tweedy an opportunity to show how he's built and sustained such a large and devoted fanbase with Wilco - by writing lots of great songs and performing them well. A simple formula that is not so simple to execute. Tweedy has become a masterful solo performer, keeping the crowd in the palm of his hand and successfully taking songs familiar in their often densely arranged Wilco versions back to the way they were presumably written, by one man with an acoustic guitar. Tweedy's use of effects was sparing, but effective, as when he used some combination of reverb and volume pedals to substitute for the sweeping pedal steel in "Wait Up" (from Uncle Tupelo's March 16-20, 1992).
David S. Ware in Park Slope
2. Reid Anderson/Ethan Iverson/Mark Turner/Nasheet Waits at Smalls
and
Tarbaby (Orrin Evans/Eric Revis/Logan Richardson/Nasheet Waits) at Jazz Gallery
Nasheet Waits was hands down the drummer of the year in my book. I didn't hear all the records he played on this year, and certainly didn't catch all of his gigs (he's a busy man), but these two shows plus the universally praised Ten, Tarbaby's The End of Fear, and Waits' 2009 release Equality: Alive at MPI (which I only discovered in 2010) left me increasingly more impressed with his playing. His deep connection with bassist Tarus Mateen is well-known, but he sounds great with Reid Anderson and Eric Revis, too. Same goes for his playing with William Parker in Tony Malaby's Tamarindo, though I didn't hear them together until 2011.
3. Apex at Jazz Standard
The musicians in Apex are talented enough that they could sound good playing just about anything - standards, free improv, loosely sketched out "blowing tunes" - but that's not what they do. Instead, they're working with a set of strong, distinctive compositions, many of them instantly memorable. It was this combination of tremendous musicians fully engaged with strong material and each other that made this show a no-brainer Best Of.
4. Syl Johnson at Southpaw
An unforgettable performer. Records are great. I love records. But records last, while people go away. When you have the opportunity to get in the same room as a legend, grab that opportunity while you can.
5. World Saxophone Quartet & M'Boom at Birdland
My comments under Syl Johnson pretty much apply here too. The opening "Hattie Wall" from this show was certainly a contender for my favorite single musical moment of the year. The feeling it gave me is something you can't get from a recording.
6. The Dutchess & The Duke at Mercury Lounge
Little did I know it would be my last chance to see this duo, as they've apparently broken up (something I learned only after putting this show on the list) If this really was their last NYC show, they left us with a beautiful memory.
7. Jens Lekman at the Green Building on Union
I'm not sure if the new songs he played are quite up to the high standard set by Night Falls On Kortedala and internet single "The End of the World", but it's possible he'll have a whole new batch by the time he records his next album. Lekman hinted at multiple releases in 2011 and we can only hope he follows through. After his previous tour featuring a large, all-female band clad in matching white outfits, Lekman went with a much simpler setup at the Green Building, using the acoustic guitar w/ a stand-up drummer format associated with Jonathan Richman, whose one true heir I believe Lekman to be. Some of the tunes from Kortedala were supplemented with prerecorded backing tracks, with some even bringing a dance-y element to the show, and a saxophonist joined in for a couple songs near the end. Despite these additions, the generally bare bones arrangements helped Lekman show off his chill-inducing vocal abilities. The occasional goofiness puts you enough off guard to be cold-cocked by the power of his voice when he really cuts loose. He also engineered some effective transitions between songs - best of all might've been the perfectly conceived, euphoric segue from "At The Department of Forgotten Songs" to "Black Cab" (both from You're So Silent, Jens, as good an introduction to Lekman as the similar early singles compilation Suburban Light is to the Clientele).
8. Paul Motian/Bill Frisell/Tony Malaby/Mark Turner at the Village Vanguard
and
Bill Frisell's Disfarmer Project at the New York Society for Ethical Culture
Paul Motian likes to mix it up, constantly trying different combinations of musicians, many of which are able to create magic under his leadership. The two-for-one substitution of Tony Malaby and Mark Turner for Joe Lovano during the first week of the Motian/Frisell/Lovano trio's annual Vanguard run was done for scheduling reasons rather than just to shuffle the deck (the trio is Motian's longest running group), but something new and exciting was created just the same.
Bill Frisell likes to mix it up, too, working with a gradually expanding universe of top-notch and, like Frisell, cross-boundary players. For the Disfarmer Project, a set of music to accompany the work of Arkansas photographer Mike Disfarmer, Frisell turned to musicians who have appeared with him on some of his more country/folk/roots-oriented projects (the Disfarmer group even played a little rockabilly). Though I've seen Jenny Scheinman play several times (with Frisell and others), this was my first opportunity to see the modestly brilliant multi-instrumental steel-and-slide specialist Greg Leisz and stoic, consummate-pro-making-it-look-easy bassist Viktor Krauss in person. Though these were the same musicians as on the fine Disfarmer record, the music, arranged as a sort of loose song cycle, came alive in person and in the company of the projected images in ways that it didn't in the studio versions.
9. Henry Threadgill's ZOOID at Roulette & Jazz Gallery
If not for the Bridge On The River Kwai-style "hot box" that was The Stone for Bill Frisell's August workshop, Roulette (at least on the November night I saw Threadgill) would've taken the prize for Hottest Venue of 2010. The excessive radiant heat was making me groggy, but the music kept snapping me back to attention, so that I experienced much of the show in a sort of half-consciousness, which is actually not a bad way to hear music that resists rational analysis (though there is clearly a system at work). It's often said that no other music sounds like this, and as far as I can tell that's absolutely true. I think an interesting comparison could be made with some of Ornette Coleman's more recent music, especially in the rhythms and the use of multiple bass instruments, but the total effect is still quite different. I was more conscious for ZOOID at Jazz Gallery, but you might not know it from reading my rather odd post about the experience. And check out this video of Threadgill in '88 - it ends in the middle of a solo, but Wow!
10. Belle & Sebastian w/ Teenage Fanclub on the Williamsburg waterfront
11. Bloodshot Records Showcase (Bottle Rockets, Scotland Yard Gospel Choir, Cordero, Graham Parker) at Bell House
The Bottle Rockets are long time favorites that always deliver, and it was fun to finally get to see Graham Parker, but Scotland Yard Gospel Choir was the surprise of the night for me - I'd heard none of their music prior to this show but came away a fan. Although it was released in 2009, SYGC's "Tear Down The Opera House" was one of the songs of 2010 for me.
12. Oliver Lake Organ Quartet at Jazz Gallery
13. War Paint w/ Family Band at Music Hall of Williamsburg
I would call Family Band's sound "dark pastoral psych-folk" or "music to listen to while cultivating an urban farm in Bushwick or foraging in a slightly sinister patch of woods". I'd love to see a bill with them and Arbouretum. Headliners War Paint are serious up-and-comers, tight, with chops and songs. A not quite place-able mix of cool influences and some no-joke bottom end from a fun-to-watch, no-joke rhythm section.
1. Solo shows
As far as list making conventions go, this is a total cop-out, a blatant attempt to squeeze in extra entries, and an arbitrary conglomeration, but I'm putting this group of shows at the top to point out what a great year it was for solo performances. I mentioned a few in my previous list, but here are six more (in alphabetical order) that helped make 2010 a year of brilliant loners and rugged individualists:
Marc-Andre Hamelin at Le Poisson Rouge
The only classical show here, Hamelin's LPR appearance had more in common with the other shows on this list than you might think: it was a club gig, a CD release "party", and unlike most classical piano recitals, Hamelin was performing his own compositions. Hamelin left me wanting to hear more of him and resolving to hear more classical piano in general in 2011.
Brian Henneman Christmas Show at Iron Barley
Brian Henneman (of the Bottle Rockets) carried on his St. Louis holiday tradition with a set of songs (familiar favorites and rarities, new, old, and half-remembered) and stories, both of which he has in abundance. The tagline of The Best Show on WFMU doubles as a good description of this night: Three Hours of Mirth, Music, and Mayhem. There were no Christmas songs, but Henneman did give some gifts, ranging from vinyl rarities to cheap sunglasses, for some of those with the opportunity, good sense and taste to make the journey to deep South St. Louis on Christmas night.
Fred Hersch at the Village Vanguard
Matthew Shipp at the Blue Note
A straight-through, seemingly free-associative recital very much of a piece with his latest solo record, 4D, part of the Blue Note's credit-due Monday night "stuff we might not book on other nights" series. Nobody gives the left side of the keyboard a workout quite like Shipp. A brilliant mind thinking out loud through the piano.
Jeff Tweedy at Bowery Ballroom
The solo format gives Jeff Tweedy an opportunity to show how he's built and sustained such a large and devoted fanbase with Wilco - by writing lots of great songs and performing them well. A simple formula that is not so simple to execute. Tweedy has become a masterful solo performer, keeping the crowd in the palm of his hand and successfully taking songs familiar in their often densely arranged Wilco versions back to the way they were presumably written, by one man with an acoustic guitar. Tweedy's use of effects was sparing, but effective, as when he used some combination of reverb and volume pedals to substitute for the sweeping pedal steel in "Wait Up" (from Uncle Tupelo's March 16-20, 1992).
David S. Ware in Park Slope
2. Reid Anderson/Ethan Iverson/Mark Turner/Nasheet Waits at Smalls
and
Tarbaby (Orrin Evans/Eric Revis/Logan Richardson/Nasheet Waits) at Jazz Gallery
Nasheet Waits was hands down the drummer of the year in my book. I didn't hear all the records he played on this year, and certainly didn't catch all of his gigs (he's a busy man), but these two shows plus the universally praised Ten, Tarbaby's The End of Fear, and Waits' 2009 release Equality: Alive at MPI (which I only discovered in 2010) left me increasingly more impressed with his playing. His deep connection with bassist Tarus Mateen is well-known, but he sounds great with Reid Anderson and Eric Revis, too. Same goes for his playing with William Parker in Tony Malaby's Tamarindo, though I didn't hear them together until 2011.
3. Apex at Jazz Standard
The musicians in Apex are talented enough that they could sound good playing just about anything - standards, free improv, loosely sketched out "blowing tunes" - but that's not what they do. Instead, they're working with a set of strong, distinctive compositions, many of them instantly memorable. It was this combination of tremendous musicians fully engaged with strong material and each other that made this show a no-brainer Best Of.
4. Syl Johnson at Southpaw
An unforgettable performer. Records are great. I love records. But records last, while people go away. When you have the opportunity to get in the same room as a legend, grab that opportunity while you can.
5. World Saxophone Quartet & M'Boom at Birdland
My comments under Syl Johnson pretty much apply here too. The opening "Hattie Wall" from this show was certainly a contender for my favorite single musical moment of the year. The feeling it gave me is something you can't get from a recording.
6. The Dutchess & The Duke at Mercury Lounge
Little did I know it would be my last chance to see this duo, as they've apparently broken up (something I learned only after putting this show on the list) If this really was their last NYC show, they left us with a beautiful memory.
7. Jens Lekman at the Green Building on Union
I'm not sure if the new songs he played are quite up to the high standard set by Night Falls On Kortedala and internet single "The End of the World", but it's possible he'll have a whole new batch by the time he records his next album. Lekman hinted at multiple releases in 2011 and we can only hope he follows through. After his previous tour featuring a large, all-female band clad in matching white outfits, Lekman went with a much simpler setup at the Green Building, using the acoustic guitar w/ a stand-up drummer format associated with Jonathan Richman, whose one true heir I believe Lekman to be. Some of the tunes from Kortedala were supplemented with prerecorded backing tracks, with some even bringing a dance-y element to the show, and a saxophonist joined in for a couple songs near the end. Despite these additions, the generally bare bones arrangements helped Lekman show off his chill-inducing vocal abilities. The occasional goofiness puts you enough off guard to be cold-cocked by the power of his voice when he really cuts loose. He also engineered some effective transitions between songs - best of all might've been the perfectly conceived, euphoric segue from "At The Department of Forgotten Songs" to "Black Cab" (both from You're So Silent, Jens, as good an introduction to Lekman as the similar early singles compilation Suburban Light is to the Clientele).
8. Paul Motian/Bill Frisell/Tony Malaby/Mark Turner at the Village Vanguard
and
Bill Frisell's Disfarmer Project at the New York Society for Ethical Culture
Paul Motian likes to mix it up, constantly trying different combinations of musicians, many of which are able to create magic under his leadership. The two-for-one substitution of Tony Malaby and Mark Turner for Joe Lovano during the first week of the Motian/Frisell/Lovano trio's annual Vanguard run was done for scheduling reasons rather than just to shuffle the deck (the trio is Motian's longest running group), but something new and exciting was created just the same.
Bill Frisell likes to mix it up, too, working with a gradually expanding universe of top-notch and, like Frisell, cross-boundary players. For the Disfarmer Project, a set of music to accompany the work of Arkansas photographer Mike Disfarmer, Frisell turned to musicians who have appeared with him on some of his more country/folk/roots-oriented projects (the Disfarmer group even played a little rockabilly). Though I've seen Jenny Scheinman play several times (with Frisell and others), this was my first opportunity to see the modestly brilliant multi-instrumental steel-and-slide specialist Greg Leisz and stoic, consummate-pro-making-it-look-easy bassist Viktor Krauss in person. Though these were the same musicians as on the fine Disfarmer record, the music, arranged as a sort of loose song cycle, came alive in person and in the company of the projected images in ways that it didn't in the studio versions.
9. Henry Threadgill's ZOOID at Roulette & Jazz Gallery
If not for the Bridge On The River Kwai-style "hot box" that was The Stone for Bill Frisell's August workshop, Roulette (at least on the November night I saw Threadgill) would've taken the prize for Hottest Venue of 2010. The excessive radiant heat was making me groggy, but the music kept snapping me back to attention, so that I experienced much of the show in a sort of half-consciousness, which is actually not a bad way to hear music that resists rational analysis (though there is clearly a system at work). It's often said that no other music sounds like this, and as far as I can tell that's absolutely true. I think an interesting comparison could be made with some of Ornette Coleman's more recent music, especially in the rhythms and the use of multiple bass instruments, but the total effect is still quite different. I was more conscious for ZOOID at Jazz Gallery, but you might not know it from reading my rather odd post about the experience. And check out this video of Threadgill in '88 - it ends in the middle of a solo, but Wow!
10. Belle & Sebastian w/ Teenage Fanclub on the Williamsburg waterfront
11. Bloodshot Records Showcase (Bottle Rockets, Scotland Yard Gospel Choir, Cordero, Graham Parker) at Bell House
The Bottle Rockets are long time favorites that always deliver, and it was fun to finally get to see Graham Parker, but Scotland Yard Gospel Choir was the surprise of the night for me - I'd heard none of their music prior to this show but came away a fan. Although it was released in 2009, SYGC's "Tear Down The Opera House" was one of the songs of 2010 for me.
12. Oliver Lake Organ Quartet at Jazz Gallery
13. War Paint w/ Family Band at Music Hall of Williamsburg
I would call Family Band's sound "dark pastoral psych-folk" or "music to listen to while cultivating an urban farm in Bushwick or foraging in a slightly sinister patch of woods". I'd love to see a bill with them and Arbouretum. Headliners War Paint are serious up-and-comers, tight, with chops and songs. A not quite place-able mix of cool influences and some no-joke bottom end from a fun-to-watch, no-joke rhythm section.
Monday, December 13, 2010
2B LVD + SYL PWR
I may have mentioned this before, and I may mention it again, but here is one of the greatest, most soulful vocal performances of all time, for your listening pleasure. I remember where I was when I first heard it - a stretch of Interstate 55/70 in Illinois - and I'm just glad I didn't have to engage in any defensive driving maneuvers while it was playing or I might not be typing this right now.
Speaking of soul, I just received the massive doorstop of a boxed set that is Syl Johnson: Complete Mythology, and this weekend, I took my first dip (let's try another metaphor) in the Numero Group's bubbling, six LP/four CD cauldron of soul/blues/r'n'b stew. I was fortunate enough to catch Johnson live at his recent, wall-to-wall packed show at Southpaw in Brooklyn. He was thrillingly good: a harp-wailing, Strat-slinging, proto-rapping, unpredictable fireball of impish energy and pure entertainment.
Calling out (and getting) twenty-one hits from the band. Doing a "Take Me to the River" to make you forget (if just for a night) all about Al Green and Talking Heads. Johnson's performance made it absolutely clear that there's no substitute for the real thing, the original article. You can be as meticulously retro as you want in putting together a band sound or making a recording, but you can't duplicate what someone like Syl Johnson has - his thing is too idiosyncratic, with way too much experience behind it. R'n'b has moved on, producing new, equally inimitable masters - R.Kelly comes to mind - but when Johnson and his peers are gone, those extra elements that you can't get from a record will exist only in memory, as unrecoverable as the stage presence of Bessie Smith or the cornet tone of Buddy Bolden.
Speaking of soul, I just received the massive doorstop of a boxed set that is Syl Johnson: Complete Mythology, and this weekend, I took my first dip (let's try another metaphor) in the Numero Group's bubbling, six LP/four CD cauldron of soul/blues/r'n'b stew. I was fortunate enough to catch Johnson live at his recent, wall-to-wall packed show at Southpaw in Brooklyn. He was thrillingly good: a harp-wailing, Strat-slinging, proto-rapping, unpredictable fireball of impish energy and pure entertainment.
Calling out (and getting) twenty-one hits from the band. Doing a "Take Me to the River" to make you forget (if just for a night) all about Al Green and Talking Heads. Johnson's performance made it absolutely clear that there's no substitute for the real thing, the original article. You can be as meticulously retro as you want in putting together a band sound or making a recording, but you can't duplicate what someone like Syl Johnson has - his thing is too idiosyncratic, with way too much experience behind it. R'n'b has moved on, producing new, equally inimitable masters - R.Kelly comes to mind - but when Johnson and his peers are gone, those extra elements that you can't get from a record will exist only in memory, as unrecoverable as the stage presence of Bessie Smith or the cornet tone of Buddy Bolden.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The Holiday Season Is Box Set Season
I
Six discs of Orange Juice?!? Bring it on. OJ had a concept, a sound, that shouldn't have worked: awkward, white Scottish guys trying to play funky, dance-y, r'n'b-flavored pop/love songs in a DIY/post-punk milieu, fronted by a singer with a voice that, on first listen, seems completely, almost laughably wrong for this kind of music. The first time you hear them, you have to readjust your ears and your expectations. And then, if you're lucky, at some point it clicks and you get it. Off-kilter white "funk", a guy that can't sing doing a sensitive, vulnerable thing - these are elements that became somewhat common in the '80s underground/indie scene (and have been revived and recycled ever since), but even if you're familiar with the context, there's still something jarring and, ultimately, fresh about the way Orange Juice deployed/combined them to create their sound. The Housemartins were on to something similar, but they had a better, if still unconventional, singer in Paul Heaton and their aesthetic seems a bit easier to parse (Northern soul, gospel, Marxism, delivered with a bright tempo and mood). Orange Juice's influences, the components of their sound, don't come through so cleanly, perhaps (especially on their early Postcard material, documented on The Glasgow School) because of a simple lack of competence, a classic case of ambition outpacing ability to spectacular effect.
I don't know how long the link will be active, but the Guardian has a bunch of streaming preview tracks here.
II
Also on my Christmas list is this super-deluxe-looking Syl Johnson box from The Numero Group. I only know a handful of Johnson's records, mostly his top shelf (and sometimes uncannily Al Green-like) Hi Records work and the phenomenal "Is It Because I'm Black", so I'm very much looking forward to digging into this treasure trove. I'm also hoping to catch the man live at Southpaw in December, having missed him last time he was in town. Syl Johnson is right up there with O.V. Wright in the category of Undeniable Soul Masters who deserve to be more widely known.
III
Speaking of treasure troves and six-disc boxes, I recently got the Paul Motian Black Saint/Soul Note set, which consists of six complete albums Motian made for the Italian label(s). Black Saint and Soul Note played a crucial role in picking up the slack left by American labels in documenting the most creative jazz that was happening from the late '70s into the '90s. The box includes One Time Out, an early (but not the first) Motian-Lovano-Frisell trio album, which contains some of that group's wildest excursions and one of Bill Frisell's freakiest guitar tones on record. There are also piano-drums duos with Paul Bley and Enrico Pieranunzi. The Pieranunzi (Flux and Change - attention Crap Jazz Covers, if you haven't seen this one, you need to check it out), a live record arranged into a series of suites or medleys combining improvised sections with standards, gave me a fuller appreciation of the Italian pianist's range. I'd previously thought of him as a fairly conventional, if brilliantly fluid, classically-inflected player in the Bill Evans line, but this album demonstrates his imagination and his ability to move between free playing and changes while keeping up a dynamic, exciting interaction with Motian. It's a fun listen and shows why this duo has continued to collaborate over the years (this looks like it could be a worthy sequel).
Three of the discs document the predecessor to Motian's long-running trio, the Paul Motian Quintet, with bassist Ed Schuller and saxophonist Jim Pepper along with Lovano and Frisell. I hadn't heard anything from this group before buying this box (although I had heard the earlier version of the Quintet with Billy Drewes instead of Pepper), but can now say definitively that these albums are prime Motian. If you're a fan and you don't have The Story of Maryam, Jack of Clubs, and Misterioso, you've got a serious gap in your collection and some good listening ahead of you. These albums include many Motian compositions that he would record again later, but the versions here are almost uniformly excellent, if not necessarily definitive. Motian the composer was fully formed by this point (the mid-'80s); these discs are full of characteristically beautiful and mysterious tunes like "Cathedral Song", "Trieste", "Byablue" (a gorgeous solo performance by Frisell), and the Motian tune par excellence, "Abacus". While some of his compositions, like "Circle Dance", can resemble bright, major-key folk songs, many of them achieve beauty while defying listener's expectations on a note-by-note level. The melodies don't progress or resolve in ways that we're accustomed to hearing; they strenuously avoid cliche. The next note is always a surprise, and so the tunes remain fresh and elusive. Monk's compositions (some of which appear in this box) often feature aggressively or humorously "off", "wrong", or discordant notes. Motian's compositions thrive on the unexpected note, the one that doesn't so much sound "wrong" as surprising or counterintuitive.
(Strangely enough, this is not my first post that mentions both Syl Johnson and Paul Motian)
Six discs of Orange Juice?!? Bring it on. OJ had a concept, a sound, that shouldn't have worked: awkward, white Scottish guys trying to play funky, dance-y, r'n'b-flavored pop/love songs in a DIY/post-punk milieu, fronted by a singer with a voice that, on first listen, seems completely, almost laughably wrong for this kind of music. The first time you hear them, you have to readjust your ears and your expectations. And then, if you're lucky, at some point it clicks and you get it. Off-kilter white "funk", a guy that can't sing doing a sensitive, vulnerable thing - these are elements that became somewhat common in the '80s underground/indie scene (and have been revived and recycled ever since), but even if you're familiar with the context, there's still something jarring and, ultimately, fresh about the way Orange Juice deployed/combined them to create their sound. The Housemartins were on to something similar, but they had a better, if still unconventional, singer in Paul Heaton and their aesthetic seems a bit easier to parse (Northern soul, gospel, Marxism, delivered with a bright tempo and mood). Orange Juice's influences, the components of their sound, don't come through so cleanly, perhaps (especially on their early Postcard material, documented on The Glasgow School) because of a simple lack of competence, a classic case of ambition outpacing ability to spectacular effect.
I don't know how long the link will be active, but the Guardian has a bunch of streaming preview tracks here.
II
Also on my Christmas list is this super-deluxe-looking Syl Johnson box from The Numero Group. I only know a handful of Johnson's records, mostly his top shelf (and sometimes uncannily Al Green-like) Hi Records work and the phenomenal "Is It Because I'm Black", so I'm very much looking forward to digging into this treasure trove. I'm also hoping to catch the man live at Southpaw in December, having missed him last time he was in town. Syl Johnson is right up there with O.V. Wright in the category of Undeniable Soul Masters who deserve to be more widely known.
III
Speaking of treasure troves and six-disc boxes, I recently got the Paul Motian Black Saint/Soul Note set, which consists of six complete albums Motian made for the Italian label(s). Black Saint and Soul Note played a crucial role in picking up the slack left by American labels in documenting the most creative jazz that was happening from the late '70s into the '90s. The box includes One Time Out, an early (but not the first) Motian-Lovano-Frisell trio album, which contains some of that group's wildest excursions and one of Bill Frisell's freakiest guitar tones on record. There are also piano-drums duos with Paul Bley and Enrico Pieranunzi. The Pieranunzi (Flux and Change - attention Crap Jazz Covers, if you haven't seen this one, you need to check it out), a live record arranged into a series of suites or medleys combining improvised sections with standards, gave me a fuller appreciation of the Italian pianist's range. I'd previously thought of him as a fairly conventional, if brilliantly fluid, classically-inflected player in the Bill Evans line, but this album demonstrates his imagination and his ability to move between free playing and changes while keeping up a dynamic, exciting interaction with Motian. It's a fun listen and shows why this duo has continued to collaborate over the years (this looks like it could be a worthy sequel).
Three of the discs document the predecessor to Motian's long-running trio, the Paul Motian Quintet, with bassist Ed Schuller and saxophonist Jim Pepper along with Lovano and Frisell. I hadn't heard anything from this group before buying this box (although I had heard the earlier version of the Quintet with Billy Drewes instead of Pepper), but can now say definitively that these albums are prime Motian. If you're a fan and you don't have The Story of Maryam, Jack of Clubs, and Misterioso, you've got a serious gap in your collection and some good listening ahead of you. These albums include many Motian compositions that he would record again later, but the versions here are almost uniformly excellent, if not necessarily definitive. Motian the composer was fully formed by this point (the mid-'80s); these discs are full of characteristically beautiful and mysterious tunes like "Cathedral Song", "Trieste", "Byablue" (a gorgeous solo performance by Frisell), and the Motian tune par excellence, "Abacus". While some of his compositions, like "Circle Dance", can resemble bright, major-key folk songs, many of them achieve beauty while defying listener's expectations on a note-by-note level. The melodies don't progress or resolve in ways that we're accustomed to hearing; they strenuously avoid cliche. The next note is always a surprise, and so the tunes remain fresh and elusive. Monk's compositions (some of which appear in this box) often feature aggressively or humorously "off", "wrong", or discordant notes. Motian's compositions thrive on the unexpected note, the one that doesn't so much sound "wrong" as surprising or counterintuitive.
(Strangely enough, this is not my first post that mentions both Syl Johnson and Paul Motian)
Monday, August 30, 2010
When The Right Singer Finds The Right Song...
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Roundup of Recent Music Things
Realized last night that I was extremely remiss in overlooking the death of Willie Mitchell, which occurred early this year, between those of his fellow Memphis legends/recording artists/producers Jim Dickinson and Alex Chilton.
As a producer and label head at Hi Records, he was responsible for some of the best-sounding records of all time. Some of these productions, most notably Al Green's peak period hits, still stop me in my tracks even though I've heard them countless times. Check out the documentary Gospel According To Al Green for a peek into Mitchell's soul factory (a converted movie theater).
------------------
Speaking of notable drum sounds, listening to the new Paul Motian record (Lost In A Dream, recorded last year at the Vanguard) and seeing him at the Vanguard (with Jason Moran and Greg Osby) got me thinking about live music vs. recordings of live music. My home stereo setup is, to say the least, not hi-fi, but I have a strong sense that even on the beautifully recorded Lost In A Dream, some of the sound that the musicians made got left behind in the room (I get the same feeling listening to Fred Hersch's also beautifully recorded Vanguard record). Being in the room, especially that room, in the moment, there's just more music. I guess this is an obvious point, the existence of an indefinable (at least for me) gap, the thing that drives audio engineers to keep pushing toward truer and truer sound reproduction.
A couple more quick notes on the Motian-Moran-Osby trio:
It seem to me that the Motian-Moran hookup has become a little deeper since the last time I saw them together (the week Lost In A Dream was recorded, when it was already quite deep). As with so many of the fleeting pairings in today's jazz world, it's a shame they don't play together more often.
Osby has a substantially different sound than Chris Potter, who appears on Lost In A Dream, and he brought some things to Motian's music that I hadn't heard from any of his other collaborators. On one tune, he achieved a very bird-like (though not especially Bird-like) sound, almost reminiscent of the gentler moments of Eric Dolphy. He turned another tune into a clinic on the discipline and rewards of playing very softly, something he's given substantial thought to lately.
On the closing "Drum Music", I experienced the pure pleasure of seeing and hearing a 78 year-old man beating the living f*ck out a drum kit. By the way, I think today is Motian's 79th birthday - WKCR and Phil Schaap, isn't it about time to give this man a birthday broadcast?
-------------------
At the risk of running this post into the ground by hitting too many of my usual subjects, I thought I would toss in a few notes on this week's Clientele/Field Music show at the Bowery Ballroom:
Going in, I would have just referred to it as this week's Clientele show, but Field Music was just about good enough to receive co-billing. Walking to the show, I overheard someone with an English accent outside a bar say something like, "they're great, like XTC meets Yes". I thought it was funny at the time, but at the show I started to suspect that he'd been talking about Field Music. They are a fun band to play spot-the-influences with, but they've been around long enough now to have integrated the various strands of their sound into something pretty cohesive and individual. Hearing their new album in a record store over the weekend, I thought I detected hints of Steely Dan, Grizzly Bear, and Emitt Rhodes (all mostly in the vocals and melodies), but live I could see where XTC might be present in some of the rhythms (though this may just be a more generalized post-punk thing). There were also some sounds that said "70s" to me without pointing to any specific acts, though at a couple points, I half-expected Jeff "Skunk" Baxter to step on stage and take a solo.
These guys are all really good on their (multiple) instruments, and the well-structured songs allow them to show off a tight group sound and one of the more distinctive vocal blends going (having a pair of siblings as vocalists usually helps). If I was feeling flippant, I'd be tempted to say that Field Music, from the wilds of Sunderland, NE England, has got more going on right now than anyone in Brooklyn, but that would probably be going too far.
The Clientele was sharper than the last couple times I'd seen them (perhaps seeing them at the end of a tour helped), and the songs from Bonfires On The Heath especially seem to have benefited from some road time. Mark Keen (drums) and James Hornsey (bass) are always in the pocket, but the whole band was more consistently together than at last year's Music Hall show. Maybe following Field Music for several nights pushed them to raise their game. The Violet Hour's "Lamplight" (with the usual NYC addition of Gary Olson on trumpet) was a highlight, possibly the best version of it I've seen, with Alasdair's psych freak-out solos sounding particularly inspired. The addition of pedal steel (courtesy of a member of Vetiver whose name I didn't catch) to a few songs was a nice surprise, but didn't stray far from replicating some of Bonfire's slide parts. Might've been fun to hear what steel would've sounded like on some older Clientele material.
And I was glad they brought back their stellar version of "Nighttime" as an Alex Chilton tribute. I don't really think of the Clientele as a Chilton- or Big Star-influenced band, but "Nighttime" points up something they share, the rare ability to imbue a simple vignette or image with the emotional resonance of a suddenly resurfacing memory.
Bonus Links
A Field Music interview (in which they deny any Yes influence)
As a producer and label head at Hi Records, he was responsible for some of the best-sounding records of all time. Some of these productions, most notably Al Green's peak period hits, still stop me in my tracks even though I've heard them countless times. Check out the documentary Gospel According To Al Green for a peek into Mitchell's soul factory (a converted movie theater).
------------------
Speaking of notable drum sounds, listening to the new Paul Motian record (Lost In A Dream, recorded last year at the Vanguard) and seeing him at the Vanguard (with Jason Moran and Greg Osby) got me thinking about live music vs. recordings of live music. My home stereo setup is, to say the least, not hi-fi, but I have a strong sense that even on the beautifully recorded Lost In A Dream, some of the sound that the musicians made got left behind in the room (I get the same feeling listening to Fred Hersch's also beautifully recorded Vanguard record). Being in the room, especially that room, in the moment, there's just more music. I guess this is an obvious point, the existence of an indefinable (at least for me) gap, the thing that drives audio engineers to keep pushing toward truer and truer sound reproduction.
A couple more quick notes on the Motian-Moran-Osby trio:
It seem to me that the Motian-Moran hookup has become a little deeper since the last time I saw them together (the week Lost In A Dream was recorded, when it was already quite deep). As with so many of the fleeting pairings in today's jazz world, it's a shame they don't play together more often.
Osby has a substantially different sound than Chris Potter, who appears on Lost In A Dream, and he brought some things to Motian's music that I hadn't heard from any of his other collaborators. On one tune, he achieved a very bird-like (though not especially Bird-like) sound, almost reminiscent of the gentler moments of Eric Dolphy. He turned another tune into a clinic on the discipline and rewards of playing very softly, something he's given substantial thought to lately.
On the closing "Drum Music", I experienced the pure pleasure of seeing and hearing a 78 year-old man beating the living f*ck out a drum kit. By the way, I think today is Motian's 79th birthday - WKCR and Phil Schaap, isn't it about time to give this man a birthday broadcast?
-------------------
At the risk of running this post into the ground by hitting too many of my usual subjects, I thought I would toss in a few notes on this week's Clientele/Field Music show at the Bowery Ballroom:
Going in, I would have just referred to it as this week's Clientele show, but Field Music was just about good enough to receive co-billing. Walking to the show, I overheard someone with an English accent outside a bar say something like, "they're great, like XTC meets Yes". I thought it was funny at the time, but at the show I started to suspect that he'd been talking about Field Music. They are a fun band to play spot-the-influences with, but they've been around long enough now to have integrated the various strands of their sound into something pretty cohesive and individual. Hearing their new album in a record store over the weekend, I thought I detected hints of Steely Dan, Grizzly Bear, and Emitt Rhodes (all mostly in the vocals and melodies), but live I could see where XTC might be present in some of the rhythms (though this may just be a more generalized post-punk thing). There were also some sounds that said "70s" to me without pointing to any specific acts, though at a couple points, I half-expected Jeff "Skunk" Baxter to step on stage and take a solo.
These guys are all really good on their (multiple) instruments, and the well-structured songs allow them to show off a tight group sound and one of the more distinctive vocal blends going (having a pair of siblings as vocalists usually helps). If I was feeling flippant, I'd be tempted to say that Field Music, from the wilds of Sunderland, NE England, has got more going on right now than anyone in Brooklyn, but that would probably be going too far.
The Clientele was sharper than the last couple times I'd seen them (perhaps seeing them at the end of a tour helped), and the songs from Bonfires On The Heath especially seem to have benefited from some road time. Mark Keen (drums) and James Hornsey (bass) are always in the pocket, but the whole band was more consistently together than at last year's Music Hall show. Maybe following Field Music for several nights pushed them to raise their game. The Violet Hour's "Lamplight" (with the usual NYC addition of Gary Olson on trumpet) was a highlight, possibly the best version of it I've seen, with Alasdair's psych freak-out solos sounding particularly inspired. The addition of pedal steel (courtesy of a member of Vetiver whose name I didn't catch) to a few songs was a nice surprise, but didn't stray far from replicating some of Bonfire's slide parts. Might've been fun to hear what steel would've sounded like on some older Clientele material.
And I was glad they brought back their stellar version of "Nighttime" as an Alex Chilton tribute. I don't really think of the Clientele as a Chilton- or Big Star-influenced band, but "Nighttime" points up something they share, the rare ability to imbue a simple vignette or image with the emotional resonance of a suddenly resurfacing memory.
Bonus Links
A Field Music interview (in which they deny any Yes influence)
Friday, November 20, 2009
Roundup of Things Seen/Heard/Eaten Lately
Saw the Paul Motian Octet + 1 at the Village Vanguard. 2 bass + 2 guitar + 2 sax + viola + piano + drums = "Octet + 1" Though I thought the ensemble became a bit unwieldy and sagged a little under its own weight in a couple of places, this was another rewarding set of music from the relentless, 78-year old creative force of nature that is Paul Motian. If nothing else, the assemblage on stage was a remarkable sight. Motian's fruitful years with Keith Jarrett, what might be considered the second (or even third?) major phase of his career, were already behind him before some of the musicians in the Octet + 1 were born.
Many of Motian's defining characteristics were in evidence with this group: his affinity with pianists and electric guitarists (almost all his best work has been with one or both of these instruments), his deep feel for standards, the mystery and beauty of his own compositions, and most of all, the vitality and freshness of his drumming. A few songs into the set, the thought came very clearly into my head, "Damn, he's playing great!"
----------
Finally saw the underground/cult classic video "Heavy Metal Parking Lot". The original movie itself is only about 16 minutes long, but the filmmakers have made good use of the remaining space on the DVD, loading it up with sequels (including the almost-as-good "Neil Diamond Parking Lot", related documentaries, etc, etc.
One that I found strangely compelling was a feature on a collector and record store owner with a basement literally full of Judas Priest memorabilia. For several minutes, the filmmakers just keep rolling as he slowly flips through a stack of records, essentially narrating a critical history of Priest's entire discography. What could have been a throwaway bonus feature turned out to be one of the best portraits of the obsessive rock'n'roll collector type I've ever seen.
Also recommended along similar lines is Banks Tarver's "Beautiful Plastic", a short that's available as a bonus feature on the DVD of Tarver's Guided By Voices doc Watch Me Jumpstart. It's eight minutes of Robert Pollard going through boxes of old lyrics and collage materials from his basement. There's almost as much insight about Pollard's personality and creativity to be found packed into this short as there is the full-length movie (I don't mean that as a knock on Jumpstart - it's fantastic and essential if you're a GBV fan).
----------
Went to Geoff Dyer's reading at the Central Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. He read from his most recent book, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, which I've written about here, and from two older books which have recently been reissued, Out of Sheer Rage and But Beautiful. He also read an unpublished piece, a strange, funny tribute to John Berger which took the form of a deliberately stilted, cliched essay on Jackson Pollock. Dyer is almost shockingly tall and thin in person, and has the type of English manner that many Americans find irresistible, a major component of which is an effortless wit of the dry and self-mocking variety. In his readings and answers to audience questions, Dyer showed his wide range of interests: art, photography, travel, jazz, D.H. Lawrence. The readings drew a lot of laughter from the audience, and were mostly genuinely funny, with the notable exception of the moody, impressionistic pieces from But Beautiful, his book on jazz.
A semi-dramatic moment occurred during the Q&A when a young woman from Varanasi, who was sitting in the front row with her mother, asked if he had gone to the city with the intention to write about it or if the idea had come about later. Dyer indicated that he dreaded being confronted at readings by people that might be in a position to harshly judge the accuracy of the portrayals in his books (he mentioned jazz musicians, having confessed to some inaccuracies in But Beautiful), and he seemed quite relieved when the woman from Varanasi seemed to agree with him about the impossibility of "misrepresenting" a place as complex as her home city (if it's impossible to misrepresent a place, is it also then impossible to truly, accurately represent it?).
----------
Tried the new burger at fancy hot dog joint Bark in Brooklyn a couple of times. Very good small burger, with the variety of pickled things and the "special sauce" working perfectly with the meat and bun. I only wish it was possible to get it a bit rarer - the default is medium/medium-well whereas I'd prefer medium/medium-rare. Black Iron in the East Village, where I've also eaten a few times lately, will cook their (also fairly thin) burgers to order, but your results may vary depending on who's on the griddle. Bark is more consistent, but when Black Iron is on their game I'd give their burger a slight edge.
----------
Sorry to have missed:
Ethan Iverson/Tootie Heath/Ben Street at Smalls. Smalls is the place to see a piano trio, as I found out when I saw Fred Hersch there. Apparently Iverson/Heath/Street are playing again this winter at Iridium with Lee Konitz and Mark Turner, so hopefully I can catch that. (Very Cool Thing: Smalls is streaming the sets on their website, so I can feel a little less bad about missing out in person.)
The Eccentric Soul Revue (feat. the highly underrated Syl Johnson). I imagine Johnson's career and reputation was held back a bit by his being in Al Green's shadow when they were both on Hi Records. He may have adhered too closely to the (obviously commercially viable) Al mode on some of his singles, but the fact that he was so convincing in this style (which may have really been the Hi style more than the Al Green style), coming within a hair's breadth of the master himself, is a testament to his enormous talent.
Big Star at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple. Waited too long on this one, and it sold out. Review here in the Voice (including a typically, unnecessarily nasty comments section).
Many of Motian's defining characteristics were in evidence with this group: his affinity with pianists and electric guitarists (almost all his best work has been with one or both of these instruments), his deep feel for standards, the mystery and beauty of his own compositions, and most of all, the vitality and freshness of his drumming. A few songs into the set, the thought came very clearly into my head, "Damn, he's playing great!"
----------
Finally saw the underground/cult classic video "Heavy Metal Parking Lot". The original movie itself is only about 16 minutes long, but the filmmakers have made good use of the remaining space on the DVD, loading it up with sequels (including the almost-as-good "Neil Diamond Parking Lot", related documentaries, etc, etc.
One that I found strangely compelling was a feature on a collector and record store owner with a basement literally full of Judas Priest memorabilia. For several minutes, the filmmakers just keep rolling as he slowly flips through a stack of records, essentially narrating a critical history of Priest's entire discography. What could have been a throwaway bonus feature turned out to be one of the best portraits of the obsessive rock'n'roll collector type I've ever seen.
Also recommended along similar lines is Banks Tarver's "Beautiful Plastic", a short that's available as a bonus feature on the DVD of Tarver's Guided By Voices doc Watch Me Jumpstart. It's eight minutes of Robert Pollard going through boxes of old lyrics and collage materials from his basement. There's almost as much insight about Pollard's personality and creativity to be found packed into this short as there is the full-length movie (I don't mean that as a knock on Jumpstart - it's fantastic and essential if you're a GBV fan).
----------
Went to Geoff Dyer's reading at the Central Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. He read from his most recent book, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, which I've written about here, and from two older books which have recently been reissued, Out of Sheer Rage and But Beautiful. He also read an unpublished piece, a strange, funny tribute to John Berger which took the form of a deliberately stilted, cliched essay on Jackson Pollock. Dyer is almost shockingly tall and thin in person, and has the type of English manner that many Americans find irresistible, a major component of which is an effortless wit of the dry and self-mocking variety. In his readings and answers to audience questions, Dyer showed his wide range of interests: art, photography, travel, jazz, D.H. Lawrence. The readings drew a lot of laughter from the audience, and were mostly genuinely funny, with the notable exception of the moody, impressionistic pieces from But Beautiful, his book on jazz.
A semi-dramatic moment occurred during the Q&A when a young woman from Varanasi, who was sitting in the front row with her mother, asked if he had gone to the city with the intention to write about it or if the idea had come about later. Dyer indicated that he dreaded being confronted at readings by people that might be in a position to harshly judge the accuracy of the portrayals in his books (he mentioned jazz musicians, having confessed to some inaccuracies in But Beautiful), and he seemed quite relieved when the woman from Varanasi seemed to agree with him about the impossibility of "misrepresenting" a place as complex as her home city (if it's impossible to misrepresent a place, is it also then impossible to truly, accurately represent it?).
----------
Tried the new burger at fancy hot dog joint Bark in Brooklyn a couple of times. Very good small burger, with the variety of pickled things and the "special sauce" working perfectly with the meat and bun. I only wish it was possible to get it a bit rarer - the default is medium/medium-well whereas I'd prefer medium/medium-rare. Black Iron in the East Village, where I've also eaten a few times lately, will cook their (also fairly thin) burgers to order, but your results may vary depending on who's on the griddle. Bark is more consistent, but when Black Iron is on their game I'd give their burger a slight edge.
----------
Sorry to have missed:
Ethan Iverson/Tootie Heath/Ben Street at Smalls. Smalls is the place to see a piano trio, as I found out when I saw Fred Hersch there. Apparently Iverson/Heath/Street are playing again this winter at Iridium with Lee Konitz and Mark Turner, so hopefully I can catch that. (Very Cool Thing: Smalls is streaming the sets on their website, so I can feel a little less bad about missing out in person.)
The Eccentric Soul Revue (feat. the highly underrated Syl Johnson). I imagine Johnson's career and reputation was held back a bit by his being in Al Green's shadow when they were both on Hi Records. He may have adhered too closely to the (obviously commercially viable) Al mode on some of his singles, but the fact that he was so convincing in this style (which may have really been the Hi style more than the Al Green style), coming within a hair's breadth of the master himself, is a testament to his enormous talent.
Big Star at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple. Waited too long on this one, and it sold out. Review here in the Voice (including a typically, unnecessarily nasty comments section).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
