Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby, House Concert, Media, PA 6/6/10

The Prof Returns: Tuli Kupferberg Benefit

Hey there, cats and kittenheads, it's your old prof again, back from the travails of mid-year grading and endless colds that hang onto your respiratory system like that dead turtle grips that branch in Cool Hand Luke. Because of the clever machinations of Mr. Pink and his bride, the Prof was hustled unknowing to the very doors of St. Ann's Warehouse a few weeks ago and surprised to find he was being treated to a seat at the Tuli Benefit. Furiously texting the TA as the lights went down, the Prof basked in the glow of Tuli-love as a sundry roster of performers performed a set of (mostly) Kupferburg kovers.

Jingle Jammin' III: Leo's Bells

The Prof nods! How could I forget Leo Watson's "Jingle Bells"? (I guess if George Harrison forgot Billy Preston at the Concert for Bangladesh, I can be forgiven.)

To learn about this great idiosyncratic scatter, a bridge between swing and bop, click here to read Leonard Feather's reminiscence in The Jazz Years: Earwitness to an Era.

Watson was dubbed the James Joyce of Jazz because of his enthusiastically free associating as he scatted, evident in the lyrics here:

Jingle bells, jingle bells,

wedding bells,

bells of the wedding,

wedding cake,

cut the cake,

snowflake,

snowflakes of Chicago,

Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin' town...

Oh, yeah, and the band is led by a raucous Vic Dickenson on trombone with piano by "Jellyroll Lipchitz" (Leonard Feather, who put the session together, you could look it up, himself)!

The Prof Returns: Catching Up I: Nichols, Drury, Takagi (and a touch of Duncan)

When the Prof got into this interwebs racket, he was determined that it was about fun--fun for the reader foremost, dear friends, but fun for the Prof, too. When the school year begins that proposition is sorely tested, occupied as the Prof becomes with reading the writing of about one hundred and twenty other folk. But here, at last, is the Prof again.

I thought this blog would be about the arts in general with a specific focus on the actual events I see and hear (you know, cats and kittenheads, the etymology of "blog" is "web" + "log") so the next few posts play catch up with October's and November's events. Posts will soon follow on anniversaries and new discoveries.

The biggest story in events is October's exhibition/concert in the New Gallery Concert Series at the Community Music Center Boston. Prof Pals Steve Drury and Yukiko Takagi played works for two pianos by Reich, Feldman, and Adams, and Beethoven's own transcription for four hands of the Grosse Fuga for string quartet. The Gallery was hung with the latest works by artist Warren Nichols (another Prof Pal known on this site by the handle Mr. Pink) and a further contribution by Prof Pal Barry Duncan (aka Master Palindromist, or should that be Profpalpalindromist?).

I'd seen most of the works in the show before, and my acquaintance with them varied over time.
But seeing them arrayed together in respective groups, carefully balanced throughout the space, gave them a cumulative force that increased their power. Apparently hanging them in these eloquent groupings took some doing on the artist's part in the brief time he had and in the, er, idiosyncratic geometry of the gallery's walls! By the way, check out Nichols' site for succinct explanations of the different groups. In different ways they re-conceive visually the classical notion of oracle as simultaneously revealing and concealing vital knowledge. I suppose by that I mean they explore the difference between information and truth. At first I felt the softly radiant colors of the Rapture series signaled some kind of hope after doubt, a kind of relief from the monochrome approach of the other pieces, like the three minutes of Andrei Rublev's frescoes at the end of Tarkovsky's film. But all the works are sensually inviting--the sure draughstmanship of the cluster of miniature studies and the luminous sheen of the white brushstrokes on the larger canvases alike.

In Warren's opening remarks he acknowledged Steve's crucial role in the art by recalling how Steve had helped open his ears to new music (and New Music) and how much listening had influenced seeing in his work. (Warren's quip: "He shares some of the culpability for what you see here today.") Steve and Yukiko's performance certainly resonated with what was on the walls. John Adams' "Hallelujah Junction" combines the rollicking rhythms of Meade Lux Lewis' boogie woogie "Honky Tonk Train" with gospel harmonies--the Pentecostal feel of the piece suited Warren's own brand of "speaking in tongues." Steve and Yukiko's fierce concentration on Steve Reich's "Piano Phase" left the audience breathless. The pianos begin with a unison statement of a twelve-note theme which is put through permutations as one begins to phase out with the other; the emerging harmonies nevertheless feel inevitable and not at all "wrong." Once again the apparent fact--here's the melody--gives way to a different sort of truth. If Warren's different groups seemed to hold up to the light different related subjects arranged in a way to illuminate each other, the Grosse Fuga certainly felt apt--the subjects of the most notorious modern music of its day (we're still catching up to it) weaving together in a soundscape that is clearly meant to convey some spiritual message, but one beholden to no specific creed.

As a lagniappe there was also Barry Duncan's contribution. Delivering on a long-outstanding commission from the artist, Barry framed a palindrome on the theme of aging in astonishing proportions--121 words in 431 letters--which imagined the metamorphosis of Mr. Pink's body and mind as he runs out of gas, "Re: No Gas in Age? Beware." The descriptions tersely and wickedly trace the amusingly horrifying breakdown of matter, time, and meaning ("Era we began is a goner"). Warren was so pleased with the results that he framed the palindrome and placed it beneath one of the groups of his work. The facts, ma'am? It reads the same backwards as it does forwards. The truth: puzzling through the auguries artists construct can lead to raptures no sacerdotal utterance ever adduced.

70 Years Ago Today: Roy Eldridge Recorded Live at The Arcadia Ballroom

Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric at Record Collector, Bordentown, NJ July 25

Set List:

First Set

Other End of the Rainbow
Creep
Why Do I
Another Saturday Drive-In
Raisin' the Bar
I Get Out of Breath
School
Reconnez Cherie
It's Not Safe
Here Comes My Ship

Second Set

Red Rubber Ball
Excuse Me
Don't Ever Change
Please Be Nice to Her
Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again?
Cynically Yours
The Ballad of Easy Rider
33s and 45s
Last Night I Was Dancing with Joey Ramone
Hit and Miss Judy
You Tore Me Down
Balls

Encore: I Still Miss Someone

St. Petersburg Quartet with Teddy Abrams at Princeton 7/13

Program:

Beethoven: Op. 95
Prokofiev: Quartet No. 2
Brahms: Clarinet Quintet

Peter Stampfel et al at Frankford Gardens 6/27/09

live

Spurred by a tip from the redoubtable TG the TA, the Prof set out for a destination indicated in an item in Arthur Magazine online. The item promised a concert by Peter Stampfel at a location called Frankford Gardens so the Prof pointed the GPS at the designated address and found himself cruising the main drag in Fishtown, Philly (or is that Phistown, Filly?) and circling the block a few times until he spotted the tiny sign on the gate asking for a donation for the concert. The Prof opened the gate and suddenly felt he wasn't in Kansas anymore for he beheld a rich green prospect--lawn, overhanging boughs, little groves in some corners dotted with benches, and patio for a performing area festooned with strings of electric lights. Where the holy modal rounder was I?
Surrounded by chatting shiny happy people of all ages, the Prof tossed his donation in the indicated bowl (encouraged by a friendly nod from one of the hosts) and made his way toward the speakers in front of the stage area. The pleasantly dislocated sensations continued abetted by the sounds issuing forth from the electromagnetic field--was that gamelan? A little later there was some Indian music, gospel sermonizing, highland piping and fiddling, something that sounded like a comedy record from Middle Europe, and a whole lot more that this world music fanatic couldn't ID fast enough.
Turns out the DJ for the pre-concert entertainment was Ian Nagoski, composer and record shop owner (True Vine in Baltimore) and 78 rpm maven, who curated the wonderful compilation of 20's and 30's 78s from around the world Black Mirror. He sat in front of two discmen with a wallet of CDRs containing digital transfers from his shellac collection and segued from country to country, genre to genre, lost label to lost label. With his mane of flowing hair and trim beard he looked like a cross between Lord Byron and Alan Lomax. When the prof got to talk to him later near the improvised little merch table covered with a dozen CDR comps, he found Ian to be a charming and alarmingly knowledgable



Personnel:

* Peter Stampfel/ vocals, banjo, fiddle, guitar, ‘juke (steel strung National Steel Ukulele tuned like a banjo), assorted percussion
* Jeannie Scofield/ vocals, percussion
* John Cohen/ vocals, guitar, banjo, mandolin
* Hubby Jenkens/ vocals, guitar, percussion, ‘juke, ukelele
* Eli Smith/ vocals, banjo, harmonica, fiddle, ukulele
* Jane Gilday/ vocals, banjo, harmonica, fiddle
* Walker Shepard/ vocals, banjo, guitar, fiddle, ‘juke
* Annabelle Lee/ vocals, guitar, percussion


Set List:

First Set

Shombalar
One Night When I Got Drunk
Chevrolet 6
Days of '49
Will Your Dog Catch a Rabbit
Donald Trump
Great Day
Hang It on the Wall
There'll Be No Distinction/ White Man's World
Last Chance/ Carpe Diem
Simple Tune/ Nobody Knows the Troubles I've Seen
The Tea Song
Gallows Pole
Old Dog Blue
I Will Survive

Second Set

Georgia Stomp
Buckwheat Girls
John Henry
Golden Slippers
I Wish I Was a Single Girl Again
When I Was Young
Happy Rolling Cowboy
Bayside Tavern
Wake Up, Jacob
Ain't That Trouble in Mind
John Johanna
Hey on the Island

Wussy at Main Street Music, Manayunk, PA 6/14/09

One of America's great bands and a Prof favorite, Cincinatti's Wussy have come through again with their third fine album. The Prof was dismayed that toiling in the groves of academe would prevent him from seeing them in Brooklyn with TG the TA, but lo! their website informed him they'd be setting up for free practically in his backyard. More details to come in an expanded version of this post. Meanwhile, here are the facts, ma'am.

Set List:

Little Paper Birds

Jonah

Gone Missing

Death by Misadventure

Maglite

Muscle Cars

Funeral Dress

Discography:

Funeral Dress (2006)

Left for Dead (2007)

Cure for Rigor Mortis (EP) (2008)

Wussy (2009)

All on Shake It Records. I recommend you go to the Shake It Records site to purchase the band's CDs. Call them up and they'll cheerfully ship you product at the lowest cost in very quickly. If you want the whole catologue for even cheaper (and I highly recommend that), you can get the first two CD's bundled together (click here) and the EP and the latest CD (click here).

More Links!: The band's website is http://www.wussymusic.com/.
Good reviews by The Dean.

Philadelphia City Paper's blurb.
Ken Tucker on NPR 6/21.

Happy 100th Birthday, Benny Goodman!

The Prof and others celebrated The King of the Ray's centennial by attending a glorious concert organized and starring that louche loupgarou of the licorice stick, Dan Levinson with James Langton's New York All-Star Big Band, ably assisted by Molly Ryan, vocals. (Happy Anniversary, Dan and Molly!)

Set List

First set:

Bashful Baby
Don't Be That Way (arrangement by Fletcher Henderson)
King Porter (arrangement by Fletcher Henderson)
Frelechen Swing (And the Angels Sing)
Clarinet a la King (arranged by Eddie Sauter)
One O'Clock Jump (arranged by Basie and Durham)
Silhoutte in the Moonlight
Life Goes to a Party (arranged by Harry James)

Second set:

Bugle Call Rag
You Turned the Tables on Me
He Ain't Got Rhythm
Down South Camp Meeting (arranged by Fletcher Henderson)
Roll 'Em (arranged by Mary Lou Williams)
Sing Me a Swing Song
Avalon (trio)
These Foolish Things (arranged by Jimmy Munday)
Stealin' Apples (arranged by Fletcher Henderson)
Why Don't You Do Right (arranged by Mel Powell)
Sing Sing Sing
Goodbye