December 21, 2024

Category: Arts and Culture

Arts and Culture / Sports

Tim Howard to Belgium: In your face, Flanders!

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That would have been the perfect headline for the New York Post, or some similar tabloid, if only goalie Tim Howard had managed one more save as he heroically withstood the siege, before the absolutely brilliant goal by Opie Taylor, err, Kevin De Bruyne, broke a scoreless tie in the 93rd minute of America’s loss to Belgium in the World Cup.

Most Americans likely recognize the “In your face, Flanders!” as something Homer Simpson spouted when celebrating some temporary advantage over his next door neighbor. Many will not recognize the double entendre, since the average American’s knowledge of geography and history is so poor they do not know Flanders is in Belgium.

Or that Brussels is the capital of Flanders, as well as the national capital.

Or that August 4 will mark the 100th anniversary since the German Empire invaded Flanders, their next door neighbor, on the way to attacking France. Or the fact that this region slightly smaller than Connecticut was the site of the first shots fired on the Western Front, as well as some of the last, with the most obscene warfare ever known taking place in between.

Banners seen at the beginning of FIFA World Cup matches say “Handshake for Peace.” That might appear as a sanctimonious gesture, as if the handshakes of these privileged, cocky young men could help the cause of world peace as they appear on television, having trained for months with the full advantages afforded by their governments, to reach peak physical condition, and then bask under the laurels of their well-rewarded victories. But it is a good thing to remember how governments usually spend their money to train up their young men before sending them off to face those from other nations.

Kevin-De-Bruyne-beat Tim HowardAccording to the Telegraph, the average age of the Belgium squad is 25.2, a couple of years older than the age of the typical infantry private who died in combat in Belgium during the Great War, which was so horrific it was expected to end all wars.

Unfortunately, it took another 22 years and another fast break by the Germans through the Belgian defenses, on their way to scoring a major victory against France at the start of another war, to show us just how barbaric we humans are capable of being to our own species and why that is a lesson we should never need repeated.

            Kevin “Weasley” De Bruyne      (photo: Paul Gilham/Getty Images)

Fortunately, the end result of the Second World War changed the face of nationalism (at least in Europe) to the point that, when we see the young Frenchmen and Germans facing each other Friday afternoon, we can no longer imagine them bashing each others’ brains out with rifle butts, or battle axes, or sticks and stones, as they have through almost every generation since before Caesar was a boy.

Civilization has always depended upon humans learning to channel their most primitive impulses into more acceptable and hopefully peaceful and productive avenues of expression and release. Competitive athletics can help achieve that in some very real ways.

Read the rest of this article HERE

Arts and Culture / Theater

Eli Wallach Remembered

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Here follows my personal reminiscence of Eli Wallach

The revered actor died on Tuesday at the age of 98

When I met him almost five years ago, Eli Wallach was being held up by two persons who were preparing to usher him toward the exit at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where the elderly actor had read with his daughter from Tennessee Williams’ Mister Paradise as part of the ceremonies inducting the dramatist into the cathedral’s Poet’s Corner.

Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, Thomas Keith
Anne Jackson, Thomas Keith, Eli Wallach

For many years, the bulletin board over my desk had a brown and faded copy of a New York Times editorial published just after I arrived in New York City from graduate school. Written by Eli Wallach and his wife Anne Jackson, it concerned their crushed dream of opening a rep company at the South Street Seaport that would offer tickets at affordable prices. It stated that the theatrical establishment would not permit this, since Broadway relied on the half-price booth for its true income, and therefore ticket face value had to remain high, so as to help insure profitable productions. The editorial was basically an apology to New York City for the Wallachs being unable to do what they still felt would have been the right thing.

But I had admired Eli Wallach long before I became aware that his heart was in the right place. As a child, my favorite movie was The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, followed closely by the Magnificent Seven, which I could practically recite from memory, and often did when acting out Wallach’s death scene. It was years later that I recognized the profoundly excellent craft and true artistry that earned him an Honorary Oscar in 2011, and which was demonstrated in films like The Misfits, and Baby Doll.

He was admired even more for his work on the stage, at least by those fortunate enough to have seen him. I never did so, and wasn’t even born when he originated the role I most wished I could have experienced in person.

And so, that evening in the cathedral, I strode past the likes of Vanessa Redgrave and Marian Seldes, Olympia Dukakas and Gregory Mosher, to interrupt the progress of the little old man being shuffled out of the way. I apologized for my intrusion, and then asked if he would sign the paperback book I had placed before him. I was unaware he would be there, and just happened to have a copy with me. Wallach looked down with a furrowed brow, which then leapt upwards as he read the title, Camino Real.

Produced between The Rose Tattoo and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Camino Real was developed at the Actor’s Studio and featured Wallach in the lead role of Kilroy, the all-American boy who does not survive a visit to a corrupt banana republic right out of the Twilight Zone. A surreal dream pageant where the romantic spirit struggles for survival in the age of cold-hearted capitalism, the play was written and premiered on Broadway in the heart of the conventional, conservative 1950s. And being even more ahead of its time than many Williams’ plays, it promptly flopped.

And yet, the script contains such poetic beauty, and the ideals of compassion, justice and brotherhood espoused by characters no less than Lord Byron and Don Quixote, and the all-American boy, that I once carried it around for scraps of inspiration in the same way the narrator in Zorba the Greek totes his Dante. And it was directing Camino Real that became my Masters thesis in graduate school.

Eli Wallach looked up at me with his lips parted in surprise. He then returned to the book I was holding, putting his hand flat upon it, like a courtroom bible, before looking back at me to say, in that uniquely gathered voice of his, “This is a wonderful play!”

He began to stir, and suddenly aware of his bonds, looked at each of his handlers to repeat the urgent sentiment, “This is a wwwwWONderful play!!”

After scribbling his name on a leaf inside, he handed me the script, looked out at the small crowd gathering around him to proclaim, “I got to be Kilroy!”

“You got to create Kilroy.” I responded out of reflex.

Eli Wallach snapped his head toward me, peered into my eyes with a puzzling look that said, “Who ARE you, and how did you come by all this?” And then a change came over the old actor, as the crow’s feet melted away and he stood more erect with an expression of distinct pride.

A gleam came into his eye, and his lips twitched as his mouth searched for words around a flickering tongue, as if he was savoring the tasty memory of being 38 again and starring in his second major Tennessee Williams play on Broadway.

“Kazan would Wwwwork it up. And then we would shhhow it to Tennessee…” he said like a master storyteller, to the arc of listeners gathered before him. But just then, two more people pushed through the crowd to put a stop it and take him away.

He looked at me with the regret of a child whose play date has been cut short. “I’m sorry. I have to go.” He said to me, as if we were the only two people in the room. And I could tell, he truly wished we could go off together and continue our conversation.

“It’s OK.” I said. “We can talk more about it next time.” And his eyes replied, ‘Really? I hope so!’

I thought about that night, this past Monday, when I was attending a wonderful panel discussion on directing Tennessee Williams, featuring Emily Mann, Austin Pendleton and others, and moderated by Thomas Keith, the Williams scholar and editor, and my friend for nearly 40 decades, who also organized the evening in the cathedral.

I had sort of hoped that Eli Wallach would have been in attendance, among those others in the audience who had known the playwright well. I then got word that he had passed away the very next day.

“I worked with Eli and his wife Anne Jackson when they wrote a forward to the volume Mister Paradise and Other One-Act Plays. I’ve had the chance to meet many artists of stature, but few have had the natural electricity that Eli Wallach did.” That is how Thomas Keith put it, as we emailed each other with the sad news at just about the same time.

Now there will never be a next time for me and Eli. And I shall never walk under the stained glass of St. John the Divine again without saying to myself, “Kilroy Was Here.”

And that is one man’s word on…

The passing of Eli Wallach, actor, age 98

Arts and Culture / music / NYC / Review / Uncategorized

Life in a Blender – New CD Review

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We Already Have Birds That Sing, the new CD from Life in a Blender, is an album of tunes developed through live performance, and perfected in the recording studio, with the addition of extra guitar parts, refined arrangements for the resident strings, and a hard-hitting horn section of guest artists.

But the blood and guts of each cut on this, their 8th album, is the rock n roll core of drums, bass, and electric guitar propelling the singing that is voiced by the guy next door, with an affable lilt that can change to carnival barker or shrieking banshee on a dime.

Life in a Blender
photo: Quigley Media

Life in a Blender arose in the post-punk art rock scene of the mid-1980s. The current lineup has been together over twenty years, with a loyal fan base that continues to grow, thanks to the inventive thinking man’s rock composed by an ensemble of veteran musicians, and the sneakily adroit lyrics of front man Don Rauf, which are like little short stories, filled with quirky characters defined by the imagery of a specific time and place, yet achieving the cathartic impact of broader human experience.

The album opens with a blast of raucous horns, leading into Tongue Cut Sparrow, a boisterous burlesque number, closely based on the published biography of a young Japanese-American singer who was initially forced to work as an exotic dancer at Forbidden City, a popular men’s club in 1950s San Francisco. Shunned by all her family, except a grandmother, she ultimately finds her voice and career as a chanteuse.

In Shards, a man describes his daily life to an old acquaintance, and exhibits a confident outlook even if things could be better, and then suddenly reveals the private, backyard anguish of loss and lamentation. The juxtaposition of human façade and interiors is a theme Don Rauf has explored on previous records, as with the upbeat transient with the broken heart in the song Professional Mover (from The Heart is a Small Balloon, 2007,) along with the eccentric crank of a neighbor who turns out to be a friendly, regular guy once you get to know him, in Hoot Owl (Homewrecker Spoon, 2011.)

But in Shards, the switch between outward appearance and inner reality is more poignant and more surprising, as the brass-driven funk of the first part underscores the growling declaration that, “I’m looking fine. I bump and grind…,”only to have the music and the singer suddenly stripped to the basic beat, as the violin rises up to play on the heart strings while accompanying the strained confession of regret. It is a classic example of just one life in a blender, found in the canon of this long-lived band of the same name.

A less weighty lament is expressed by a lonely guy out on the town, in Mamanama, a romping, stomping two-step, complete with electric fiddle solo. He searches for companionship and good times across the expanse of Los Angeles, appealing to bar flies and surfers alike, with a chorus of “Can’t you see? I’m good company!”

Life in a Blender photo by David Barry
photo: David Barry

In the song Falmouth, a cheery fella imposes his unquenchable optimism on an emotionally distressed friend going through some unnamed crisis, and not taking no for an answer. A press release reveals information about the character’s specific situation. But Falmouth works so well on its own exactly because of the tight focus details of chicken, flowers, and roller derby, set before the background of ambiguous emotional circumstance. It allows a listener to connect the song’s sentiment with their own life experience, where they or one they care for has made similar efforts to reach someone in a bad place and pull them out.

Often when immersing myself in a new record there is a tune that goes unnoticed, only to put a hook in me later on, so that it becomes a permanent part of the repertoire of fragments sung when cleaning the house or walking down the street. Falmouth is that song on this CD. I think it has something to do with the syncopation in the clean picking pattern from guitarist Al Houghton, in combination with the sporadic vocal harmony lines, and the smart and infectious interludes from the horn section, arranged by bassist Mark Lerner.

Then again, the counterpoint underpinning Good Answer, which Lerner composed for cellist Dave Moody and violinist Rebecca Weiner Tompkins, is just as memorable, and it provides plenty of space for drummer Ken Meyer to fill up with tasty accents. Where that song is a flippant response to the bandwagon catch phrases of American pop culture, Frankenstein Cannot Be Stopped breathes new life into one of the most popular stories of gothic horror. The point of view is that of a member of the cinema audience, who is haunted by the tragic scene where the unintentional monster kills his youngest victim, and so he returns again and again to try to warn her from the dark.

The album closes with Sea in a Sieve, a buoyant appreciation of the joys found in setting sail in a small vessel just for the fun of it. And like the record as a whole, it is a transportive entertainment that is worthwhile and enjoyable, but ends sooner than one might wish, leaving a taste for more.

We Already Have Birds That Sing can be downloaded direct from the band’s website, for the indecently affordable price of $7, or you may order an actual CD for $10, which also includes the digital download.

It is also available on iTunes and other fine music outlets.

And that is one man’s word on…

Life in a Blender’s new album

Life in a Blender

Here is a video of Shards, shot in concert at Joe’s Pub, at the Public Theater in New York City, and features the fledgling horn arrangements. You can see and hear how the song evolved, by comparing it to the video farther down, which was shot at Rockwood Music Hall several months earlier, when Shards was being performed for the very first time.

You will have to get the album to hear the definitive version.

~:~

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Life in a Blender

Arts and Culture / Brooklyn / music

Distinguished Writers Gather for Punk Reunion

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D.B.S reunites for the first time in 24 years

Friday night, May 23, a group of veteran professional writers will gather in Brooklyn, where they will be rocking out at Freddy’s bar, on 5th Avenue in the South Slope. The occasion is the reunion gig of a most unusual band from 1980s New York, Dondi’s Bloody Sputum, a send up of all things Punk, in parody, in satire, but also in homage, and always with suitable irreverence.

Ten years after the Sex Pistols sucker punched the queen, and the Dead Boys had spit on, well just about everyone, the music world was still reeling from the smack down that Punk had provided. When who should appear but Dondi’s Bloody Sputum, the band that chose a nice little orphan for their namesake, and then beat the snot out of him. Their name refers to the newspaper comic strip about the kind of goody-two-shoes that would have suffered habitual schoolyard beatings in real life, even after surrendering his lunch money.

D.B.S. rocks reunion

The same year that Spinal Tap took the mickey out of hard rock, D.B.S. put a skewer through the heart of Punk. Here were not pimply toughs from a city ghetto, vomiting songs about throwing bricks in Brixton. The members of D.B.S met at university in sleepy Athens, Ohio, and after graduation, they reconvened in Queens. There, they wrote songs, mostly thrashing head-bangers about the tribulations facing middle-class white kids from comfortable homes, with titles like “I’m Thinking of Trying a Croissan’wich,” “Martin Sheen Sweats Well,” and “Dogs Like Cheese.”

They were not your everyday safety pin pierced Punk songs. Others include the eerie ode to food poisoning, Sushi is My Krytonite.

Be suspicious of rolled up fishes
Avoid places that don’t use dishes
Sushi is my Kryptonite
Sushi is my crypt tonight

And then there’s the rocker Rodeo Clown.

I’ve got a friend
His name is Bim
He works down at the Square Gar-den
He only works about three weeks a year
Heardin’ them steers when the rodeo’s here
He’s got the dumbest fuckin’ job in town
He’s a rodeo clown

Many of the songs are indeed quite funny, but they are also clever in the way they captured the blistering essence of Punk music, often mixing the raw edge of the Stooges with the finesse of the Minute Men. This is not surprising, considering the artistic background of every member of D.B.S., all of whom went on to critical acclaim as a writer of weightier material.

Then and Now

 Silent “Phil” NoirPhil Noir rocks reunion gig

 Mark DropNoir Reunion

 Hugh BryssHugh Bryss rocks reunion

 Henry TenneyBryss reunion

 Patty MeltKitty Head rocks reunion

 Jane YoungHead reunion

 Steve ShapeSteve Shape rocks reunion

 Steve SpiegelShape reunion

Back in the day, Mark Drop and Steve Spiegel (aka guitarist Silent “Phil” Noir and drummer Steve Shape) were sharing a house in Astoria, earnestly trying to sell scripts to popular sitcoms like Moonlightening. Their big break came with the Arsenio Hall Show, which took them to L.A. in 1989. Both men live there today with their respective families, after long careers spent writing popular shows for television, as well as for Disney theme parks and cruise ships.

Under that same roof was found acting student Henry Tenney (singer Hugh Bryss), who went on to appear in plays and on TV. He also spent some years as head writer for VH-1’s Pop-up Video, and today he writes mainly for foodie television, featuring celebs like Bobby Flay and Mo Rocca.

The acting work of Jane Young (bassist Kitty Head) was seen on stage, TV and film, and she had several of her own plays produced in New York City. Young later received her post grad degree in creative writing at Sarah Lawrence, and has since shifted her focus to screenplays and short stories.

And Trey Kay (guitarist Big Mike) performed with NYC improv troupes before becoming a long-time contributor to Public Radio. A Spencer fellow, and Peabody award-winning journalist, Kay recently produced the documentary The Long Game: Texas’ Ongoing Battle for the Direction of the Classroom, and is now developing a new show, This is the Thing, with host Alec Baldwin.

Kay was unable to attend rehearsals for the reunion, due to his busy schedule. But it is rumored he will return to New York to witness the gig.

 D.B.S. punk rock reunion  debs reunion rehearsal

With only two rehearsals after 24 years apart, the edges may be even rougher for their first reunion gig than they were at their actual first gig in a Brooklyn loft 30 years ago.  None the less, those fortunate to have seen D.B.S. performing at rock spots like the Gas Station in the East Village, will be happily meeting up at Freddy’s backroom, this Friday, to relive those haymaking nights under halogen lights.

Those who have never heard D.B.S. will be in for a rare treat.

Matt Wickline rocks reunionThe band recorded no albums. However, some rehearsal studio bootlegs have surfaced from time to time, and they include cuts featuring the saxophone of Matt Wickline, an old friend of the band.

No stranger to satire and parody, Wickline won his first Emmys writing for David Letterman, before heading west to develop popular shows like In Living Color and Martin, as well as his own critically acclaimed cult hit The Clinic, co-written by Wickline, D.B.S. guitarist Mark Drop, and the late Sandy Frank. It also featured D.B.S. front man Henry Tenney as the troubled son of the stodgy doctor played by Adam West.

Inquiries as to whether Wickline might attend the D.B.S reunion received the following reply: “Piss off, you stupid git, before I clobber til you slobber.”

And you too can curl your lip into a sneer, don a torn t-shirt, and get your Punk on, with D.B.S. this Friday night at 9 PM.

Freddy’s is found at 627 5th Ave, Brooklyn, between 17th and 18th street, R train to Prospect Ave, walk one block up the slope.

— Len Berger, Berlin

The Cheese Beads circa 1991 D.B.S. punk rock reunion

Guest writer Len Berger (foreground) was lead guitarist for the Cheese Beads, a 1990s speed lounge act that included three former members of Dondi’s Bloody Sputum.

Arts and Culture / NYC

Seamus Heaney Celebration

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Last night, at the Cornelia Street Café, there was a reading with music, celebrating the works of the late Seamus Heaney, who died last August, at age 74.

This is but one of many similar poetry readings organized by veteran New York actor Paul Hecht, which at times feature original music by Ellen Mandel, former composer in residence at the Jean Cocteau Rep during its glory years.

Among the most important poets of the twentieth century, Seamus Heaney was a professor at Harvard and Oxford, simultaneously, and included among his ample accomplishments is the most compelling modern translation of Beowulf, published in 2001 after decades of work. Yet, Heaney’s own poetry ignores the grandeur of epic saga in favor of the intimacy observed among everyday lives, conjured in a voice that recognizes the irony found in how the smallest moments prove to be the most transformative.

Many of the poems are set among the peat bogs and turf lodge farms of his childhood in 1940s Northern Ireland, while some relive the bomb-strewn Troubles of the 1970s. But like other great Irish writers, the poetry reaches beyond the expression of what it is to be Irish, to reveal universal facets about what it means to be human. And like his predecessors, Yates, Shaw, and Beckett, Heaney’s efforts were awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1995.

Paul Hecht reading Seamus Heaney Cornelia St. Cafe

Paul Hecht reading Seamus Heaney
(photos: L. Flanagan)

Living Language

Which poems and excerpts to include from such a career, in a scant 90 minutes, was no easy feat. But Hecht provided a judicious balance between the weighty and the whimsical, and he and his fellow readers, Elizabeth Mackay and Kim Sykes, made their interpretations seem effortless with ease, so that their own enjoyment of the language proved infectious. The timbre of the women’s voices added highlights and brightness to the evening, set off by the sonorous shadows in the voice of Hecht, rich with resonance, and wide and deep in range, with just enough gravel to mark the boundaries.

The proceedings opened and closed with passages from Heaney’s Nobel acceptance speech, filled with its own poetic imagery. But none quite so distilled and served up like the actual poems read aloud. These included Casualty with its wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time death suffered by the pub crawler who was “…blown to bits/Out drinking in a curfew/Others obeyed…”

And the awkward romance of Twice Shy.

Our Juvenilia
Had taught us both to wait,
Not to publish feeling
And regret it all too late –
Mushroom loves already
Had puffed and burst in hate.

There was The Skunk, a lighthearted piece from the poet’s brief period at Cal Berkley, and Death of a Naturalist, which tells of a young boy’s interest in nature being cut short when he finds out his beloved tadpoles grow up to be “gross-bellied frogs … Some sat poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.”

A whole section was dedicated to the Glanmore Sonnets, written after moving back to the country in the 1980s, this time south of Dublin, where

We have our burnished bay tree at the gate,
Classical, hung with the reek of silage
From the next farm, tart-leafed as inwit

Eleanor Taylor sings Seamus Heany w Ellen MandelAnd on four occasions a poem would be read by Hecht, Mackay, or Sykes, and then it would be sung beautifully by soprano Eleanor Taylor, accompanied on the piano by Ellen Mandel, who has made her own art form of setting great poems to music.

In fact, Mandel and a collection of singers will be performing her compositions this coming Saturday, May 17, at The Wild Project, 195 East 3rd St., to signify the release of her latest CD, There Was a World, featuring the words of Seamus Heaney, William Shakespeare, E.E. Cummings, and others.

Last night, one of the Heaney poems set to music was When All the Others Were Away at Mass. Written upon the death the poet’s mother, it is specific and deeply personal, while also universal in its scope.

When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other’s work would bring us to our senses.

So while the parish priest at her bedside
Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
And some were responding and some crying
I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives–
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

 

Upcoming readings in this series at the Cornelia Street Café include:

Bloomsday – Monday June 16 – James Joyce w/ Paul Hecht and others

Monday August 18 – Annual Ogden Nash Bash – w/ Paul Hecht and featuring Ellen Mandel

Monday September 29th – TS Elliot

 

Arts and Culture

Kent State – It CAN happen here

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May 4 seems so long ago. May 4 seems like it’s barely passed….

Forty-four years ago, on May 4th 1970, Walter Cronkite interrupted thousands of family dinners to inform us that soldiers in the Ohio State National Guard had opened fire on anti-war protesters on the campus of Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others.

While hardly the first time time government forces had fired upon unarmed citizens in America, it was the first time such a thing had happened in the era of modern mass media. Along with Watergate, it forever changed the public’s perception of, and trust in, their government.

One of my favorite songwriters, Neil Young penned the protest anthem Ohio, and within days Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young had recorded it and released it across the country. It became a best-seller and the anthem for  anti-goverment sentiment.

This is a rather different song from one of my other favorite songwriters, Don Rauf of Life in a Blender, that presents one of his famously quirky fictional characters on a personal errand sometime after the tragic events of May 4, 1970. And it is entitled simply Kent.

Arts and Culture / At the Met

Laurence Juber and Martin Guitars at the Metropolitan Museum

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At the Met: From Guitarmania to Beatlemania

With Dick Boak and Laurence Juber

The Metropolitan Museum of Art gave a lecture about Martin Guitars, featuring Dick Boak, who has worn many hats at Martin and now is the company’s chief archivist, historian and head of the Martin museum. He was joined by two-time Grammy award winner Laurence Juber, who is among the finest guitarists of this or any era. Juber’s first book, Guitar with Wings, is set for release in May 2014, and features his personal photography from the years he spent as a member of Paul McCartney and Wings.

This presentation was in conjunction with the almost year-long exhibit of early American guitars at the Met, with the great majority of those guitars made by C.F. Martin Sr., who arrived from Saxony in the 1833 to set up business in New York City, before moving shortly thereafter to Nazareth, PA. That is where his great, great, great, grandson runs the family business today.

Jayson Kerr Dobney, Associate Curator in the Met’s Musical Instrument department was the primary organizer of the exhibit, and he opened today’s events with a short slideshow detailing Martin’s background, and explaining how Martin experimented his way to the designs that gave rise to the modern guitar as we know it. This part of the presentation focused on the recent scholarship that resulted in the book Inventing The American Guitar: The Pre-Civil War Innovations of C.F. Martin and His Contemporaries. It is a most impressive work, which will soon be reviewed here.

Boak’s portion of the hour+ event was called “Guitarmania to Beatlemania.” As he ran a slideshow, he provided often humorous commentary and firsthand anecdotes, while Laurence Juber provided musical excerpts on various guitars from the Martin museum, as well as adding many of his own interesting comments and historical references.

After brief history of string instruments, which led to the evolution of the long neck lutes, and eventually the guitar, Boak turned his attention to the history of the Martin Guitar Company.

There was one ukulele present, an instrument Martin made in great numbers during the Hawaiian music craze that swept the nation beginning in 1916. As for vintage guitars, there was a pre-Civil War 2-1/2-20, with translates to size 2-1/2 with a price of $20. In modern times, the “style” number refers to specific aesthetic appointments, with the higher numbers costing the most. Professional level Martins today start at just under $2,000, with many costing much more.

This guitar was strung with gut strings, like a classical guitar, but it had an early version of the now famous X-brace pattern of struts supporting the spruce soundboard, the Martin innovation that revolutionized guitar making and led directly to today’s steel string acoustic guitars.

Next came a 1929 Ditson 111, made by Martin for the Ditson department store, also starting in 1916. Enormous by the standards of the day, the largest Ditson models earned the nickname Dreadnought, after the British battleships. Martin’s D size went on to be the most popular guitar design of all time. In addition, there were modern replicas of two famous guitars, the 000-45 Jimmie Rodgers model, and the D-28 Hank Williams. Rodgers is considered the father of country music, and Williams the heir to that legacy. Juber also had his own Martin artist signature model on hand, the OMC-28B. While each guitar had a soundboard made of one sort of spruce or another, the Ditson 111 had a back and sides made out of mahogany, and the other guitars present were of Brazilian rosewood.

As the presentation went forward, Juber would play short examples, some planned, others were improvised. In fact he was cracking Boak up at times, as some name would be mentioned as the slides went by, say, Jimmie Rodgers, and suddenly there were strains of “He’s in the Jailhouse Now,” or “Mrs. Robinson” for Paul Simon, etc. But Juber also played some early guitar music on the 2-1/2-20 by an Italian Renaissance composer, which he sight-read from a music stand. And then he dropped the guitar into Open G tuning to show how various composers often wrote outside of standard tuning. These included some of the earliest guitar music composed and published in America, along with Franz Gruber’s “Silent Night.” And then he got into more of his own sort of music as the talk shifted to the modern era.

In the middle of it all Boak played a video he put together with footage from recently discovered film shot at the Martin factory in 1939, showing a small staff performing the traditional tasks involved in handmade guitars, still practiced on a much larger scale at the modern factory.

Laurence Juber did play three longer selections during the event. The first was most of Lonnie Johnson’s “6/88 Glide,” which was recorded in 1927 and stands as the earliest guitar solo on record. He pointed out how it has many features and techniques we still associate with rock or blues solos today.

Laurence Juber then and now

Laurence Juber and Martin guitars – Yesterday and Today

Once the timeline got up to the Beatles, the guitarist choose “I Saw Her Standing There” as his demonstration piece. It is remarkable to watch Mr. Juber in action, as he played the fast-paced bass part running through the entire piece, while also playing the vocal melody and often the vocal harmony parts as well, and the guitar solo when the time comes. The slideshow at that point displayed photos of all the various members of the Beatles playing Martin guitars, with even Ringo having a go at a Martin D-28 while John played drums.

And then the proceedings closed with Juber’s killer version of “Only a Paper Moon,” by Harold Arlen. An earlier rendition of which can be seen on YouTube, HERE.

The previous Wednesday, Laurence Juber gave concert at the Cutting Room, on 32nd Street, in Manhattan.

He was in fine form, and put on one heck of show! Using various guitar tunings, he covered a wide range of material, with originals and many of his most impressive arrangements. And for the encore, out came a cajón, one of those rhythm boxes you sit on and play with your hands. And to play it was none other than Steve Holley, who was the drummer in Wings during the same years that LJ was a member. Holley has been Ian Hunter’s drummer for the past quarter century or so.

They performed the “Rockestra Theme,” which earned each man their first Grammy, as well as Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” Juber pointed out that when they recorded “Rockestra” at Abby Road Studios, they had three drummers, Steve, John Bonham, and Kenny Jones, along with five guitarists, four bass players, etc. So this was the “acoustic version.” And it was indeed a treat to see him render the general feel of the mass orchestration on one small Martin guitar, with help from the rattle and thump of the cajón.

As Steve Holley put it, Juber “just keeps getting better and better.” And I would have to agree. I am sorry he didn’t get to play more at the Met today, as the crowd was clearly wowed by what they witnessed.

And he will be wowing audiences all over the place in the coming weeks, including California, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virgina. A full schedule is available at this website.

http://www.laurencejuber.com/concerts.html

And that is one man’s word on …

Laurence Juber & Martin Guitars at the Met

Learn more about Martin Guitars HERE

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Early American Guitars at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

CD Review – Laurence Juber, Under the Indigo Sky

Arts and Culture / Monday Map

The Irish in America

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The immigration from Ireland in the early 1800s placed many Irish in America, and across the globe. But the paths to assimilation and success were varied

Monday Map – St. Patrick’s Day

Irish in America PBS map

GO HERE for an animated version of this map from PBS, and similar maps of other American immigration waves.

Tis a difficult thing to recall how the Irish immigrants to the United States and other places were viewed with the typical contempt heaped upon other ethnic minorities in later eras. By my own lifetime, being Irish seemed no different than having ancestry from France, or Sweden, England or Germany. While the appalling bigotry aimed at African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics was still with us, I remained ignorant of the fact that it was not so long ago an Irishman suffered much the same kind of prejudice.

In the early 1800s the Irish in America were viewed by many as uncivilized and an inferior people, delegated to ghettos and expected to be suitable only for the most menial jobs. Basically they were the target of the typical treatment from those small-minded people desperate to exalt their own superior position by inventing artificial reasons to view anyone different as inferior.

And like free blacks, and later waves of immigrants from other locations, many Irishmen raised their lot through hard work and determination, to amass wealth and property and take their place among the heads of industry and government. Many others earned their way into mainstream citizenship the same way immigrants have done since the time of Caesar’s legions, by serving in the armed forces during times of crisis.

Irish brigades fought with distinction during the American Civil War, on both sides of the conflict, with many re-upping to fight and often die defending settlers during the years of western expansion that followed. The stereotype of the affable, strong as a bull “Mick Sergeant” lovingly portrayed by Hollywood actors like American Ward Bond and Englishman Victor McLaglen, showed men of rough beginnings who attained rank and respect through the crucible of war, to eventually don white parade gloves at the regimental ball, often with offspring destined to rise to the level of an officer and a gentleman.

Of course, when it comes to such waves of immigration, it is most often the lower, least education classes who are forced to seek passage to a new life in a new world, and work their way upwards. Those of land and letters had no need of such desperate measures, and the English speaking world has been greatly enriched by the collective works of the Irish writers. Some remained in Ireland, while others made their way to the great cities of the world as respected poets and playwrights, essayists and novelists. Johnathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Becket, and Elizabeth Bowen shall remain high in the pantheon of the greats, with many others that could be mentioned alongside them.

My mother’s maiden name is Murphy, but really they were Scots who settled in County Antrim for a time before making their way to the Southern United States.  But I retain a strong affinity for all things Irish, most particularly the playwrights and the music. In fact I shall be seeing Irish music tonight, on St. Patrick’s Day, at Freddy’s Back Room in Brooklyn, as I do most every year as a member of the Highland Shatners, who perform a mix of Celtic folk music, Paisley Pop, and even tunes from the original Star Trek.

So stop by for a Guinness if you are in the area.

And couple of Irish the day David Bowie died.

Arts and Culture / Review

Concert Review New York Youth Symphony McCrindle Concert

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The annual McCrindle Concert took place at Carnegie Hall yesterday, conducted by NYYS Music Director Joshua Gersen,
with guest artists Pleasure is the Law,

as part of the New York Youth Symphony’s 51st  Season, and featuring the world premiere of Against the Shrieking City Air, by Loren Loiacono.

Just in her 24th year, Loiacono received her degrees from Yale U. before embarking on her current pursuit of a Doctorate in Composition at Cornell. A native of New York City suburbia, the inspiration for this new work came from her experiencing the marked difference in environment as one travels farther from the audible airs of city life, to the almost alien stillness of the country.

While the strings and reeds were used by Loiacono to establish a kinetic flow, various strains of harmony would be interrupted by brass and percussion, in sudden left turns, or cutting across town, as it were. Ultimately a whirlwind rose frenetic and unceasing, yet one without darkness or danger. There was no malice in the maelstrom, just the exhilarating risk of being overwhelmed, if not drowned. And at the crest of it all, it falls away, with but one minor surge before the exhalation, as tensions fade quickly into a subdued calm, quiet enough to hear the country crickets, had she chose to add some. It was a very impressive piece, no less so for one just starting their career as a composer.

New York Youth Symphony at Carnegie Hall 1The title is lifted from the 1921 three-stanza poem City Trees, by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The poetess remarks on how the city trees “would make a sound as thin and sweet as trees in country lanes” if it weren’t drowned out by all that going on around them. And Loiacono provided a stimulating and enjoyable exploration of this idea through orchestral music. I just wish we didn’t have to leave her calm countryside as soon as we did.

photo: F. Krupit

Avian Cacophony

The second offering featured a most impressive Carnegie Hall debut by the guest artists, Pleasure is the Law. Taking their name from a Debussy quote relating to inspiration trumping traditional rules of music, the quartet features the traditional Baroque alignment of flute, oboe, cello, and the piano standing in for the harpsichord, but dedicated to exploring the contemporary repertoire. They joined the orchestra for the rarely performed Quadruple concerto (Concert à quarte) by Olivier Messiaen.

Messiaen often composed with color in mind, and this effort to score music based on bird calls was done in blue, represented by the key of A Major, and signifying joy and ecstasy. Dying in 1992 before its completion, his widow took up finishing the work, which debuted two years later.

With Nadine Asin on Flute, Elaine Douvas on Oboe, Darrett Adkins on Cello, and Steven Beck on Piano, Pleasure is the Law represented specific songbirds, and briefly Messiaen himself. With a nod to Mozart in the first section, the piece evolved to something full of abrupt changes in rhythm and tempo. Like a boisterous canopy flocked with chattering birds, it was a very different slice of nature than the serenity imagined by the concert’s opening selection.

Remarkable to watch, this very young orchestra, with some members clearly no more than 12 or 13, stayed right there with the mature professionals across an edgy, challenging piece of music. It also provided them an opportunity to play additional instruments, like the marimba among the percussion, and even the tinkling chimes of a celesta. The amount of dedication and rehearsal necessary must be enormous, for those participating in what are essentially after school commitments. And the performance from every member of the orchestra was excellent.

Alpine Winds

The second half of the program consisted of something I have always wanted to see performed live, Brahms’ Symphony No. 4, in E minor (Op. 98)

Sweeping and romantic at the start, with wisps of reeds floating on a breeze of sighing violins, it grows tall with trumpets before returning to repeated interplay between the strings and woodwinds, melancholic and bordering on the tragic. The second movement is ushered in by the horns, and then a plodding plucking of strings like a horse cart climbing its way further into the mountains sets the mood for the pensive woodwinds. The horns return with unhurried pomp, like plump clouds, or perhaps the Alps themselves frowning down on the clarinet and flute fluttering below. All so very Austrian, even after the strings awake to saw their way down to the ballrooms and courtyards of Vienna. But then, Brahms wrote it while sojourning in an alpine village.

The regal third movement with its uplifting signature theme from the brass and the leaping fiddles proved every bit as thrilling as I had hoped. And the final movement of bass and timpani-driven passion was set off very well by the sensual interludes between the principal flute, clarinet, and oboe, at times overlapping as they sustain and tumble downward, with almost Beethoven sonata-like moments, and a chorus of trombones offered a grounded presence, when not punctuating the rousing crescendos leading up towards the final rush to the ending precipice. Most satisfying.

Musical Director Gersen deserves considerable acknowledgement for finding eclectic music that will challenge and expand the experience of these young musicians, and for leading the orchestra to achieve such a successful performance. They are all to be congratulated. But I should mention by name Joseph Morag on violin, Shaquille Southwell, clarinet, Rachel Susser, flute, Liam Boisset, oboe, and Aron Szanto on cello. And special mention goes to Ayden Michael Khan, the percussionist deftly handling the timpani and chimes. But from my box, I also thoroughly enjoyed watching the young man on the contrabassoon, an unsung hero if there ever was one.

NYYS performances are highly recommended as a stirring and affordable cultural experience for all ages.

And that is one man’s word on…

New York Youth Symphony at Carnegie Hall, March 2, 2014

More information on the NYYS can be found at their website http://www.nyys.org/ including ticket information for their upcoming Jazz Orchestra concert at Lincoln Center on March 10, featuring guest hornman Terell Stafford, and the chamber music concert at Symphony Space, April 23.

New York Youth Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall 2

Arts and Culture

Paco de Lucía Dead at 66

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Our civilization lost a shining light, as guitarist Paco de Lucía has died of a heart attack at the age of 66

Trail Blazer and Traditionalist

With fluid fingering, a flare for the dramatic, and compositions that flit and flutter like birds over a pastoral valley, or soar like eagles atop the winds of the world, de Lucía was among the most highly regarded guitarists of the twentieth century.

My tribute, with videos over at One Man’s Guitar

https://onemanz.com/guitar/paco-de-lucia/