One of San Francisco’s great pop bards, Chuck Prophet, slid into town through the thick of our late-January malaise to turn the new, slightly larger Natalie’s into a Chinese lantern, illuminated by his complicated, sweet, melancholy light.
Best known as a blistering guitarist and an undersung bandleader, Prophet left his crack band, The Mission Express, at home. Prophet arrived wearing a suit and his troubadour hat, winking at the classic beatnik uniform and cutting down any accusations of self-seriousness. He also made use of an amp and two mics, one for effects, which felt like a poke at the purity and faux-authenticity fetishized by a certain stripe of Americana fan.
But his primary weapon was that supple, sneaky voice, and one acoustic; toward the end of the night, Prophet said, “I played Oklahoma City a while ago for the first time. Woody Guthrie was from Oklahoma and his guitar killed fascists. This…” holding it up for inspection, “Is harmless.”
Prophet combines a soaked-in-history love of music with the same molten, encompassing love of people in all our fucked-up-ness. Every time he hits the stage, it’s a conversation. That same sensibility infuses his eye as a writer. The best of the new songs, a story about a couple in “an SRO on Polk Street,” living for the moment when they turn Metallica up so loud the neighbors complain and they sing “Love me like I want to be loved,” found a melancholy sweetness in these two people drawn with ample spaces and a fine pen.
That vein of clear-eyed sweetness traced from the characters from No Other Love classic “Storm Across the Sea” through the shambling chin-up narrator exhorting the world to “Wish Me Luck.” That vulnerability reminds us why “You could make a doubter out of Jesus,” works as an all-time killer pickup line and saves “Would You Love Me” off Soap and Water from a watery, syrupy death in lesser hands.
Prophet also conjures barbed irony – sometimes seemingly lost on part of the audience. The grim, acidic parallel “Nixonland” plays with big, major chords to milk applause like a gladiatorial match asking the audience “live or die.” But his sweet spot is a touch of mourning for a monoculture gone with a knowing smile that it was never as good as people like to remember: the soaring chorus of the new song “High as Johnny Thunders;” the final encore of perhaps his final song, “Willie Mays is Up at Bat” remembering the world of his youth where Bill Graham and Jim Jones rubbed elbows, maybe the best center fielder of the game was walking up to the plate, but still “Nobody knows who’ll make it home tonight.”
Prophet’s refined the lessons of his life and stands as a shining example that getting older doesn’t have to make you exhausted and small. Time changes everything but it doesn’t have to make any of us cruel or sick. That middle of the week, unvarnished, acoustic performance reminded us of the power of song and the power of empathy.
The piece of salt given me at The Public Theatre’s production of salt.
My Friday and Saturday of this New York trip fused unseasonable physical warmth with the warmth of watching communities intersect, share, and watch out for one another.
Hit six sets of the Winter Jazzfest Marathon Friday, trying to dip in on things that had been on my list and bands I had no experience with or expectations for. Three burned cataracts off my eyes, would not let me stay jaded or sit there with folded arms.
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
I walked into SOB’s – the site of some of the finest R&B performances I’ve ever seen anywhere – smack into the last third of a dazzling performance by The Era, a Chicago footwork crew. The Era blended virtuosic pushing the limits of the body forms with a sense of shared experience, and empathy for their fellow dancers and their community, spoken word, clips of a documentary, and vital social commentary. Solos highlight the artist as an individual but build the greater whole.
For the last few minutes, as The Era introduced each other and took bows, their fellow Chicagoans Hypnotic Brass Ensemble took the stage, with the drummer laying down a beat and the horns – seven of whom are songs of the great ecstatic jazz artist Phil Cohran – coalescing behind them. That sense of community and love set the stage for Hypnotic Brass Ensemble’s righteous, riotous explosion of joy. The finest funk wah-guitar I’ve heard live since Skip Pitts; thick bass lines and an almost unequaled rhythm section hookup set up blow-your-hair-back horns, gang vocals, and the dance party that’s unheard of at 7:30.
Rode that enthusiasm up 6th Ave to check in on one of my favorite bands I hadn’t seen in many years – since the week of my dear friend Mike Gamble’s wedding, I think – Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra. The 20th anniversary of this assemblage of downtown NYC jazzers was a tribute to refining and expanding an approach, to taking what matters to them from the past and never being afraid to fuck with it.
Steven Bernstein and Catherine Russell sharing a look during MTO’s 20th Anniversary set
A paean to the joy of approaching standards like “St. Louis Blues” and “Careless Love” simultaneously as though they just heard them last week and taught them to one another and with all the historical knowledge of every great version that’s come before them. Just as strongly, it was another tribute (you’ll see a theme here) to their community. As he introduced every member of the band – including Catherine Russell, a vocalist for whom “special guest” isn’t even close to adequate – Bernstein had a witty story about how they came into each other’s lives and his palpable love for every person on that stage glowed even brighter than the blistering, surprising solos: “Curtis Fowlkes on trombone! I replaced Curtis in the Lounge Lizards, when he left I got that one solo;” “Peter Apfelbaum and I have been playing music since I was 11 – well, we didn’t really start making music till 12, that first year we were bullshitting;” “They told me I’d love [Matt Munisteri, electric guitarist] who played trad banjo; I said I don’t want to meet some motherfucker who plays trad banjo!”
That same sense of communal bond and simultaneous gazes on the past and the future suffused drummer Makaya McCraven’s Chicago-rooted supergroup. McCraven’s been making noise as one of our most exciting drummers who trusts improvisation enough to run it through a cut-up filter and expose it to every other tool at his disposal. I love his heavy, organic records. But I expected nothing to blow me away as much as the live set.
Makaya McCraven’s band with Marquis Hill soloings
Chicago’s always been one of the principal jazz scenes and they’re having a moment – big records out in the last year from what felt like every member of this Octet, off the top of my head: Junius Paul, Joel Ross, Greg Ward, Brandee Younger, Marquis Hill. This set helped coalesce that coming-out party, extended pieces full of tension and joy, grins exchanged between players but attacking the musical material with an enviable intensity. I texted a friend and said, “This is the kind of awesome, multi-layered groove machine I was led to believe Tortoise would sound like,” but this band doesn’t sound like anything except themselves.
Joel Ross’ machine-gun vibraphone arpeggios took a hi-hat heavy McCraven intro and built a bridge into a volcanic Hill trumpet piece, then subsumed by the whole horn front line at once. The entire band gathered around Brandee Younger as her harp washed over all of us. Ward and the tenor player (I apologize, he was spectacular, I just can’t read my damn handwriting – someone post in the comments so I can correct?) bubbling up uncanny harmonies between their horns. Every few bars brought a wholly surprising and perfectly right turn after turn. Friends and peers who built this language together, like the Yehuda Amichai poem, that baked in the same sun and froze in the same cold, lighting a path straight to the future.
Saturday, both plays I saw were excellent but salt stuck with me and resonating in time with everything else of these two days. Written by Selina Thompson and performed brilliantly by Rochelle Rose with razor-sharp direction from Dawn Walton, salt traces a journey into Thompson’s family history as an adopted black woman grown up in Birmingham, England.
Crowd at Drom for Secret Planet
That journey back to Jamaica and to Ghana excavates old wounds and finds new wellsprings of joy. Ugly slights and horrific mistreatment but also putting her story in the world’s context at large. Better than any performance I think I’ve ever seen, salt understands the crushing repetition of oppression, the way the boring and the horrific take each other as eager dance partners. And, though most of 2019’s year-end list for me dealt with why do we live and what we owe each other, nothing I’ve ever seen has done it better than Thompson, Rose, and Walton do it here. I walked out into the sunlight a blithering idiot (okay, more of).
Later that night, one of my favorite APAP adjacent showcases, Secret Planet, took over one of my favorite clubs, Drom, for the best version of it I’ve ever seen. Cochemea – who I knew best from his sideman duties with Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings – kicked us into a frenzy with instrumental soul, his variety of reeds backed by a band almost entirely composed of percussionists. Seven or eight people building riffs into surging tidal waves and delighting in the sense of play with one another.
Cochemea
That thread got picked up and danced with by Sunny Jain’s (from Red Baraat) new band Wild Wild East, merging featuring Jain at a trap drum kit instead of his usual dhol, fusing spaghetti western tunes, Indian pop, and thick ‘70s psychedelia with a band of sax, guitar, sousaphone, and dueling man-woman vocals. A tribute to exploration and migration wrapped up in a wild party.
Sunny Jain’s Wild Wild East
Alba and the Mighty Lions turned up the psychedelic salsa elements for giant, catchy songs in a rhythmically intense, barbed, rocking package. I didn’t stick around for the whole set only because I realized not eating in 7 hours and running on dancing and whiskey would go badly but I’d watch them again and again.
Alba and the Mighty Lions
Another full day I’m walking into, to badly paraphrase the Andrew Hudgins poem, “As if I’ll only – fat chance – live it once.”
Ryan Truesdell conducting The Music of Bob Brookmeyer
Curation is an act of love, when you’re doing it right. Trombonist John Mosca, longtime comrade of Brookmeyer said, while introducing “Ding Dong Ding,” which he played with the Mel Lewis band during its triumphant late ‘70s run, said “There’s no better curator or champion for Bob’s [Brookmeyer] music than Ryan [Truesdell].”
Truesdell and his crack 18-piece band proved that again and again in their final set of a two-night run at Manhattan’s Jazz Standard on a blustery January night, a belated 80th birthday party for Brookmeyer, the great composer, arranger, and player who changed the shape of jazz, especially large group jazz, since the ‘60s. As much as jazz is the first American art form, the big band feels like a peculiarly American animal.
The music is a masterful evocation of what a big band could be at its heights, fresh and alive, and warm. Rippling shocks of chromatic heat revealed sublime beauty, more than once I felt I was peering into a blast furnace full of precious stones. But that visceral, massed sound always parted for the primacy of some of the sweetest melody you’ll ever hear – Scott Robinson’s river-of-life bass clarinet on “Django’s Castle; ” Drew Gress’ funky flamenco bass runs on “Verticals; ” John Mosca and Riley Muhlekar’s dance-battle brass on “The Fan Club; ” Gary Versace’s lilting piano, insistent on the intro and light as a lullaby at the end of “Ding Dong Ding.”
Truesdell wove a thread through pieces of Brookmeyer’s dating back to the Gerry Mulligan Concert Band until not long before he passed away. He gave us enough of that ranging sound world to feel like we got it. And, as a renowned arranger himself, he highlighted Bob’s ability to let people shine in his own compositions and to bring out the key facets in others. I’m a Cole Porter freak who grew up with a grandmother who idolized Sarah Vaughan. It’s no exaggeration to say I’ve heard 100 versions of “Love For Sale” – that might be conservative. The version of “Love For Sale” they closed with, with the exquisite Wendy Giles on vocals – I missed Brookmeyer’s late Standards record, to my chagrin – made me feel like I was hearing it with fresh ears. I won’t say I was crying but I wouldn’t deny it under oath.
Beyond the musical mix, Truesdell nailed the mix of personalities in the instrumental blend, their connections to each other, and Bob as a person. He let the players introduce songs with rambling, hilarious personal anecdotes, and cultivates an atmosphere that feels as though we’re lucky enough to be at a real birthday party, even including Brookmeyer’s widow. May we all be so lucky to have people who love us as much as the love in that Wednesday room.
Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society
Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society shone a bright light on another angle of the promise and beauty of the big band the next night at Jazz Gallery. I’m an unabashed stan for Argue’s work, discovering him through his blog and responding to Infernal Machines, seeing two premieres at BAM and hitting my year–endlistmanytimes. Appropriate for the week of APAP, he and his co-conspirators ran us through a whiplash-dazzling deep dive into the band’s rich catalog.
The band tore into this material with an uncommon passion and fire, fused to the wisdom of players who know the tunes in at a cellular level and the camaraderie that doesn’t come easy. Early gems like “Dymaxion,” brand new pieces including “Ebonite” commissioned by his hometown Vancouver Jazz Festival, “The Hidden Hand” from his epic Real Enemies, every pitch sailed over the fences.
Argue’s debt to Ellington paid off with tailored, perfect solos rising out of the landscapes he sculpted as though they couldn’t come from anywhere else. Highlights in that regard came in Carl Maraghi’s rippling bari work on “Dymaxion,” and Alexa Tarantino’s tough and supple soprano on “Ebonite.”
The highlight for me came with the most direct Ellington homage – Argue’s response to “Diminuendo in Blue,” “Tensile Curves.” This was my second journey through that piece, riddled with astonishing playing with particular attention to Ingrid Jensen and Matt Holman’s trumpets, Sam Sadigursky’s clarinet, and Sebastian Noelle’s guitar. It’s the rare tribute with heavy conceptual underpinning, where knowing the technical aspects deepen your appreciation without being required and the even rarer 40-minute composition that never flags or lets your attention drift.
Similar to the Brookmeyer (one of Argue’s teachers), the stage overflowed with love and respect for the players as people. My time following that band has turned me onto as many great players as those Ellington and Basie records I grew up with – Nadje Noordhuis, Jacob Garchik, Ryan Keberle, Sam Sadigursky, people whose other work I’ve sought and loved. These two shows got this trip off to the righteous start it needed, plugging back into the battery after some dark months.
In a year when I swung wildly between the longing to retreat at full steam into my shell and desperate, frenzied attempts at connection, it sometimes got harder to find solace in music. But whenever I’d get discouraged, live music was still there and reminding me why it’s been such a force in my life all these years. In the same way gratitude and attention helped pull me back – even if sometimes only for a little while – I found some of the greatest joy in old forms given surprising faces, artists I’d loved for years scaling a new Parnassus or two, further refinement and sharpness of voices.
140 shows in eight cities and narrowing it down to these 20 (with another 10 sets from various festivals) was as hard as ever. I found it interesting that old standby Dick’s Den got the most of my business, hitting an average of twice a month; Ace of Cups continues to ease into Bobby Miller’s booking as he lines up perfectly with the room and saw me 15 times this year; I finally got off my ass and made the amazing booking (for my taste mostly from Jen Powers but also from other dedicated souls) at Dirty Dungarees a priority with 8 stops. Rumba Cafe, The Johnstone Fund for New Music’s shows at Short North Stage, the Wexner Center, and Natalie’s all made their usual strong showings.
None of us know what’s in store but I’m excited again – for plans already booked (NYC for Winter Jazzfest, and other APAP-adjacent fun and again for my birthday, a reunited Bikini Kill in Detroit) and the continued synchronicity of my community. Some of what has me pumped: the most exciting cultural opening of the year, Scott Woods’ Streetlight Guild is already more than delivering on its promise; I’ve seen the new Natalie’s space in Grandview and it’s everything they do well on a larger scale; Filament perfected its mix of exciting touring acts and local conjurers to create the best intimate listening room in town; my first trips to the renovated Snowden-Gray Mansion revealed a brilliant room for exciting, traditional jazz; word on venues I haven’t made it to yet like BluNote Cafe and Savoy Club has me hungry to visit them.
All photos are taken by me unless otherwise stated. Everything below is in Columbus unless otherwise stated.
Mark Lomax II and Urban Art Ensemble, Lincoln Theatre
Mark Lomax II and Urban Art Ensemble: “The 400 Premiere,” Lincoln Theatre presented by the Wexner Center for the Arts (01/26/2019) – This spellbinding evening represented the culmination of Mark Lomax, Columbus’ finest living composer’s most ambitious project to date. As though 12 full-length, wide ranging albums tracing the African diaspora from the ma’afa into the future wasn’t enough, Lomax arranged a suite for the Urban Art Ensemble including almost a half hour of brand new material. Blistering performances and the finest integration of strings with jazz I’ve ever seen, this kept me floating for days, from a composer and drummer I’ve been watching for 20 years.
Punch Brothers with Gabriel Kahane, Southern Theatre (03/20/2019) – Two artists with a foot in western chamber music and a foot in vernacular forms gave us expansive, open-hearted takes on staying engaged and in touch with the world. Kahane’s solo set focused on the Book of Travelers material with digressions into the rest of his work including a setting of the “That’s Not Your Man” tweets about Ohio-born president Rutherford B Hayes and a wrenching “The Ambassador.” The Punch Brothers continued their mission of refinement and complication with righteous, mysterious pieces like “Three Dots and a Dash,” and wistful snapshots like “New York City” and “Julep.”
Timothy Holley and Karen Walwyn, Wexner Center for the Arts (04/07/2019) – One of many highlights of Mark Lomax’s Wex residency was this presentation of renowned cellist Holley and pianist Walwyn. That afternoon they took us on a journey through African-American composers that opened my eyes with stirring pieces by Florence Price, Trevor Weston and more.
Dale Watson, Woodlands Tavern
Dale Watson and his Texas Lonestars, Woodlands Tavern (04/19/2019) – The reigning king of the neo-honky tonk movement came up from Texas for a reminder that classic forms are as alive as you want them to be. Watson paints his stomps and waltzes in bright neon instead of sepia and one of the few times I’ve ever seen someone ask for requests from the audience and mean it as when he looked directly at me after I shouted for “I Hate These Songs” off the first of his Hightone records I bought 20 years ago, said, “Okay, we’ll do that one,” and launched into a perfect, aching version of that ode to music’s ability to embody all our pain.
Kath Bloom, Dirty Dungarees (04/30/2019) – Kath Bloom – who I grew up with the collaborative records with Loren Connors – gave a wrenching, perfect low-key set that resonated with everything I’ve always wanted a singer to be. A bone-deep love for the past fixing her eyes firmly on the now and a reminder that we can all keep getting better at things if we work hard enough and care enough.
IDLES with Fontaines DC, Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland (05/14/2019) – The most exciting rock and roll show I’ve seen in a while and the best summation of what rock and roll can do if we trust it, how it can still be a system to unlock new horizons instead of a system to box us in and keep us adolescent. IDLES are maybe the most exciting live band working today and their stew of hardcore rhythms, churning atmospheric guitars and hints of Birthday Party sardonic wit and Fontaines DC are coming up behind. A sold out crowd I was happy to be in, not tolerating, full of palpable love for the world, the kind of love where you want it to be better.
SIGNAL Ensemble with Brooklyn Youth Chorus: “Richter Reich Part,” The Shed, NYC (05/30/2019) – Two of my favorite composers given life in an immersive installation of one of my favorite visual artists, this was meant for me, and it delivered in spades.
Meah Pace, Rubenstein Ballroom at Lincoln Center
Meah Pace, Rubenstein Auditorium at Lincoln Center, NYC (05/30/2019) – Another case study in someone making old forms feel new and completely their own through intense commitment. Meah Pace turned out a version of “Gimme Shelter” that made me forget any I’d ever heard before and got a relatively staid crowd in this Lincoln Center auditorium dancing and cheering, and her own songs like “Promised Land” held their own. Probably my favorite surprise all year.
Tav Falco and the Panther Burns, Le Poisson Rouge, NYC (05/31/2019) – I’ve been a huge fan of Falco’s for years but I’d never gotten to see him live. This did not disappoint – his jagged, art-damaged takes on country blues and bubblegum even led him going back to standards like Dean Martin’s “Sway” and a poignant take on the Jaynetts’ “Sally Go Round the Roses.”
Joanne Brackeen, Mezzrow
Joanne Brackeen/Lonnie Plaxico Duo, Mezzrow, NYC (06/01/2019) – Another legend I’d known from records but never seen live, Mezzrow was the perfect room for Joanne Brackeen’s fluid, sparkling take on the piano. Lonnie Plaxico – whose electic, electric records for Blue Note in the late ’90s/early ’00s were huge for me – was the perfect duet partner, sticking to upright on classics like “Autumn Leaves” and “When You Wish Upon a Star.” A perfect New York summer evening.
Daddy Long Legs, Rumba Cafe (07/11/2019) – My first time checking in with Daddy Long Legs live since a fantastic show where they backed R&B oddball T. Valentine at the Lakeside Lounge (RIP) and they’ve grown into one of the best bands working. Two guitars and drums attacking the sound made famous by the ’60s Stones with the fire of conquering generals.
The Mavericks, Rose Music Center
Los Lobos and The Mavericks, Rose Music Center, Huber Heights (07/20/2019) – Rose is the perfect venue of its size and Ohio is richer for having it. This double bill made in heaven found the Mavericks (augmented by accordion, percussion and a full horn section) celebrating their 30th anniversary and Los Lobos 35 years from their breakthrough How Will the Wolf Survive album. Two muscular, swinging party bands, unabashedly Latinx, and the perfect thing for a summer night.
Davila 666, The Summit (07/24/2019) – Davila 666 returned after years of solo projects and reminded me why they’re one of the best bands I’ve ever seen. Songs I hadn’t heard in almost a decade, in a language I don’t speak, proved their hooks are still burned into my brain, daring me to sing along and dance like a madman. This was the perfect thing for Anne’s birthday to fall at midnight.
Amanda Shires, The Basement (08/15/2019) – Shires’ own records and bandleading get better and better every time I’m lucky enough to see her. In a Basement almost too crowded, she brought me to tears with a Songs:Ohia cover and made me swoon and shake with her originals. One of the greats.
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Rumba Cafe
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists with Control Top, Rumba Cafe (08/21/2019) – It had been too long since I saw Ted Leo, his Pharmacists’ current lineup was the best Clash-style rock I’ve ever seen, hints of The Jam and Nick Lowe, classic Thin Lizzy and The Kinks. A fireball of joy and pain and grooves. Philly’s Control Top blew me away with tight songs, thick bass lines, and sparking, grim guitars.
Central Ohio Discovery Ensemble with composers Jennifer Jolley, Linda Kernohan, Mark Lomax, Jennifer Bernard Merkowitz, Michael Rene Torres, Charlie Wilmoth; and poets Scott Woods, Barbara Fant, Jennifer Hambrick, Louise Robertson, Dionne Custer Edwards, and Jeremy Glazier: “The Big Score,” Columbus Performing Arts Center (09/08/2019) – This collaboration is exactly the kind of thing I want more from Columbus. I was talking with one of the performers and said Jack and Zoe Johnstone have filled an immeasurable gap in Columbus, the one genre we were largely missing was new chamber music. This mix of some of our most interesting composers with some of our finest poets was a homerun 85% of the time and was always swinging for the fences.
Midnight Hour, Strongwater
Midnight Hour, Strongwater (10/03/2019) – This cinematic, sultry collaboration between Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad was perfect. A crack band highlighting Green on Red’s Jack Waterston on guitar and vocalists Loren Oden, Angela Munoz, and Saudia Mills, this moved from silky soul to rippling jazz to grinding funk.
Angel bat Dawid and Tha Brothahood, Wexner Center for the Arts (10/10/2019) – Angel bat Dawid embodies the soulful fire music tradition of Chicago and rides it into space. Her ringing clarinet and vocals have an incantatory power that levitated me right out of my seat and her crack band switched between reeds, percussion, electronics, Art Ensemble of Chicago-style but completely modern and singing these praises for today. The set that gives me the most hope for the future of jazz and the future of music at the Wex.
Fantastic Four, PJ’s Lager House
The Fantastic Four, PJ’s Lager House, Detroit (11/29/2019) – A quintessential Detroit night, the contemporary lineup of an underrated soul combo who recorded for labels like Motown and Westbound churning through Northern Soul classics like “The Whole World is a Stage,” “I Love You Madly” and “I’ve Got to Have You” in a tiny rock club with a cooking five piece band behind them. Passing tradition on in the right hands.
Reverend Horton Heat with Dave Alvin, New Bomb Turks, and Voodoo Glow Skulls, Majestic Theatre, Detroit (11/30/2019) – I don’t think I’d seen the Reverend Horton Heat in 15 years – whenever that tour with Supersuckers and Split Lip Rayfield (RIP) was – though they were the band I saw most often for many years. Our friends and hometown heroes New Bomb Turks plus the promise of Dave Alvin sitting in with the Rev got us to Detroit for our anniversary and this so far exceeded expectations I can barely describe it. Voodoo Glow Skulls had a crazy-fun opening set that made me nostalgic. Turks burned through a furious set that showed they haven’t lost a step in all these years. And the Reverend, augmented with a great piano player and a great, swinging drummer formerly of Brave Combo, had everyone in the palm of his hand. Watching he and Dave Alvin trade solos on classic Blasters tunes like “Marie, Marie” and “Long White Cadillac” reminded me why I loved live music in the first place and why I love it still.
Reverend Horton Heat and Dave Alvin, Majestic Theatre
Favorite Festival Sets:
Anbessa Orchestra, Cleveland Museum of Art
Heron Oblivion, Melted, Bluestone (02/24/2019) Rachel and Vilray, New York Guitar Festival presents Memphis Minnie: In Search of the Hoodoo Lady, Brookfield Place, NYC (05/31/2019) Anbessa Orchestra, Summer Solstice Fundraiser, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland (06/22/2019)
Sheer Mag, Burger Boogaloo
Amyl and the Sniffers, Burger Boogaloo, Oakland (07/05/2019) Sheer Mag, Burger Boogaloo, Oakland (07/05/2019) The Scientists, Burger Boogaloo, Oakland (07/06/2019)
Sweet Knives, Gonerfest
VIVO String Quartet, “Black Angels,” VIVO Music Festival (08/30/2019) Sweet Knives, Gonerfest, Memphis (09/26/2019)
Kelley Anderson, Gonerfest
The Oblivians with Quintron, Gonerfest, Memphis (09/27/2019) Kelley Anderson, Gonerfest, Memphis (09/27/2019)
“Hear a song from a band that saves you” -Ashley McBryde, “A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega”
I understand the intrinsic dangers of ranking subjective art but I grew up loving this kind of list and I occasionally enjoy reading back over them. I saw over 100 shows this year and another 20 could have easily made this. I still found most of my nourishment in little rooms – and a big one or two – hearing something loud blast my face or something so delicate it made me shut my damn mouth and lean in. Everything is in Columbus unless stated otherwise.
Shows:
Cory Henry and the Funk Apostles, Skully’s
Cory Henry and The Funk Apostles (Le Trianon, Paris, 05/02/2018) -Photo is from the Columbus show at Skully’s which was also damn good and where I got much closer to the action. I was already a fan, of Snarky Puppy and Henry’s gospel-tinted solo work and familiar with his ability to hold an intimate crowd rapt. But this still felt revelatory. Not only has Henry broken through to making some of the richest funk music around, colored by classic Stevie Wonder and Willie Mitchell productions without being a throwback,. As I wrote for JazzColumbus, “No one stopped moving for the entire 90 minutes they were on stage. Like every great bandleader, Henry believed in himself and his team enough to let every member shine. The unit stretched songs and vamps out into uncharted territory without falling into slack jam-band clichés. Every tune walked the line and exploited that sweet tension in coming together and falling apart, dark-hearted duende wrapped in a glowing love for the world.”
Mourning a [BLK]Star (The Summit, 07/27/18) – I ended a long week of celebration, centered on A’s 50th birthday, with a solo trip into the night climaxing with one of the most beautiful sets I’ve ever seen. Cleveland’s Afrofuturist soul band Mourning a [BLK]Star hit their stride this year with two spectacular records and the set I saw epitomized a band leaning into their power with intense focus. Layered, surprising harmonies, thick grooves, edge-of-a-switchblade horn charts, all in the service of truth that cracked my chest open.
Nicole Atkins, The Basement
3. Nicole Atkins with Ruby Boots (The Basement, 08/16/18) – I’ve been a fan of Nicole Atkins for years but as much as I loved her earlier work – “Girl, You Look Amazing” is still on every playlist I make where I expect dancing – Goodnight Rhonda Lee felt special. This tour made a forest fire out of that love. It was as close as I’ll ever get to seeing Patsy Cline in her prime – not in any sense of imitation but in the sense of someone finding that perfect crossroad between country and torch song. Any time you can stand that close to a flame this bright and this warm, take it.
4. Marah (Mercury Lounge, NYC, 01/13/18 and Hogan House, 04/20/18) – In the early 2000s, Marah reaffirmed my faith in rock and roll more often than any other band. I got to see the reunited version, with Serge Bielanko back in the fold, and they still did it. Better yet, I got to see them in both modes, acoustic and full-bore raging electric machine. The latter had the benefit of being at one of my favorite rock clubs in one of my favorite cities, à propos for the anniversary of If You Didn’t Laugh You’d Cry. One of the quintessential New York records of this century at one of the last-standing LES rock clubs from that era, it doesn’t get much better. I wanted to hug everyone. Then I got the songs-forward acoustic version at one of my favorite short-lived venues, Hogan House, those two voices and two guitars and complicated love (between the brothers and for the world) inches away from me. It doesn’t getmuchbetter.
5. Mickalene Thomas/Teri Lyne Carrington (Wexner Center, 10/04/18) – Mickalene Thomas’ canvases always dazzle, look for more on the breathtaking exhibit on the art list, but I was not expecting this foray into multimedia performance to blow me away. Thomas manipulated footage and abstract images behind a laptop to a score by the great Teri Lyne Carrington, also on drums. One of my favorite trumpet players working today, Ingrid Jensen, and an astonishing turntablist I couldn’t find the name of for all my googling rounded out this muscular, delicate quartet. Mesmerizing, throbbing repetition and ecstatic release, a reminder that the cut-up technique doesn’t have to be academic and that deep attention to history and desire should underpin all world-building as much as they did here.
6. David Byrne (Rose Music Center, Huber Heights, 08/11/18) – The last time I saw David Byrne was the weekend after 9/11; easily one of the most potent, emotional shows I’ve ever seen. Everyone I talked to about this tour said “American Utopia is something special,” so I took a chance on letting something compete with those memories and I was so glad I did. Byrne is a lesson in continuing to follow every curiosity and pulling every thread as hard as you can. As A said, “That’s the 66 I want to be.” His use of downtown choreographer extraordinaire Annie B-Parsons dovetailed with the first time I’ve ever seen wireless amplification used to what I think should have always been its purpose: a rock show put onto a plane without being tethered to stacks of amps (or, thanks to its drumline qualities, a trap kit). This freedom was parlayed into an intense respect for sound and content instead of settling into a parlor trick. The most dazzling spectacle I’ve ever seen in a rock show but simultaneously mammoth and human-sized and crushing, as evidenced by my tears in the upper rows on the final encore, Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout.”
Adam O’Farrill’s Stranger Days, Wexner Center
7. Adam O’Farrill’s Stranger Days (Wexner Center, 02/24/18) –This year had the final half of Chuck Helm’s last season at the Wexner Center and the first half of Lane Czaplinski’s. This show was a perfect example of the former. When Helm first saw, and brought, O’Farrill to Columbus as part of Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Bird Calls project, he took care to single out the young trumpeter and now brought O’Farrill’s cracking project as a leader. When I spoke with him about the impetus for the project, O’Farrill spoke for a while about the inspiration he gains from film and the intense, cohesive, nuanced pieces they brought spoke to that influence. Atmospheres that gripped me by the color and threw me around with every piston in the muscular engine firing.
8. Various Artists, New Black Eastside Songbook (Short North Stage, 03/14/18) – Poet/curator/organizer Scott Woods conceptualized and provided titles for a six-song suite collaboration with exemplars of black art in town for something righteous, moving, and true. His expansive genre tastes and clear eye for the world, as it is and as it should be, guided this project. Woods pulled together our best musicians and gave the freshest, most accurate perspective on the town I’ve grown up in. Ogun Meji Duo, featuring our finest composer in Mark Lomax II and my favorite saxophone player Eddie Bayard, absorbed and tossed back Columbus’ rich jazz history (destroyed like so much else with the very deliberate placement of the interstate) on “Welcome to Bronzeville.” Paisha’s barbed satire on “Things to Do in Black Columbus” and Jordan Sandridge’s cri de coeur “Rahsaan Rollin’ in the Dirt” and the acid commentary of Krate Digga’s electronic suite “Blight Privilege” all grabbed me by the collar. Counterfeit Madison’s “Olde Towne Beast” was the best, most focused song I’ve ever heard from her: rich and textured and throbbing. I had tears in my eyes as everyone convened for the finale “Bulldozing the Ave.” The best – bar none – example of what Columbus is capable of was on that stage (and the encore performance at Natalie’s).
9. Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams (Woodlands Tavern, 02/28/18) –This duo, sansrhythm section, with resumes encompassing Broadway and Bob Dylan, Levon Helm’s Midnight Rambles and Little Feat, served as a reminder of the beauty and breadth of roots music. Wrenching originals like “The Other Side of Pain” and “Save Me From Myself” held their own with stone classics like the Louvin Brothers’ “You’re Running Wild,” Carl Perkins’ “Turn Around” and gospel traditionals “Samson and Delilah,” and “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning.” Campbell’s flexibility and empathy as a co-writer shone in songs he’d written with both Julie Miller and William Bell, and their voices sounded like they were born to make music together.
10. Thumbscrew (Village Vanguard, NYC, 07/22/18) –This collective trio of Mary Halvorson on guitar, Michael Formanek on bass, and Tomas Fujiwara on drums, put out two phenomenal records this year, Theirs and Ours, along with serving as the backbone for Halvorson’s art-song project Code Girl. Thelastnightof their week atthe mother church of jazz wasa reminder ofhow far you cantake forms andhowmuch beauty you can plow withan ensemble who know and trust eachother. Rare telepathy that glimmered like juggling flaming knives in ever-more complicated patterns but also brought it down to the simple joy of ballads.
Miriam and Nobody’s Baby, Alphaville
Reigning Sound, Alphaville
11. Reigning Sound with Miriam and Nobody’s Baby (Alphaville, NYC, 07/21/18) – Greg Cartwright may be the best songwriter of the 20th century (see his high placement on the best sets from festivals list) and his Reigning Sound project, 20 years on, is the best showcase for his variety of moods, riffs, and mots juste. The current line-up with the Jay-Vons backing him doesn’t play very often these days so this Brooklyn show was a treat. Betraying no rust, they proved they can kick up a dance party and reduce you to tears, sometimes in the same song. Opening was my first chance to experience Miriam Linna’s (The Cramps, The A-Bones) new project Nobody’s Baby and it was exactly the kind of sassy, joyous homage to the music she grew up loving you would hope, featuring a crack band including Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan and Daddy Long Legs’ Murat Atkurk.
Curtis Harding, A&R Bar
12. Curtis Harding (A&R Bar, 04/04/18) –No one’s making better revved-up soul-inflected rock music with a sexy groove than Curtis Harding. Promoting his stunning Face Your Fear record, he set the staid confines of the A&R Bar on fire with songs you couldn’t help dancing to, whipping the crowd into a frenzy. One of those shows that send me back out in the night happy to be alive and a little in love with everyone sharing that experience with me.
13. Kronos Quartet – A Thousand Tongues (Wexner Center, 01/25/18) – This live performance of longtime Wex visitors/commissioners Kronos Quartet accompanying Sam Green’s (an artist with his own extensive and fruitful relationship to the Wex) documentary about them was a summation of all the magic they’ve brought so many like me over the years. A victory lap and a reminder how much gas there still is in the tank.
Deaf Wish, Spacebar
14. Deaf Wish (Spacebar, 09/04/18) – Twisted catharsis with a side of fist-pumping doesn’t sound much better than Australian noise-rockers Deaf Wish. Over the years (since first seeing them at Gonerfest in 2011) they‘ve streamlined their sound sacrificing none of the beautiful weirdness at its core. This was one of the best rock bands working, at the height of their powers, giving me that rush I got from Sonic Youth when I was a teenager without ever sounding like an imitation.
15. Marisa Anderson with Sarah Louise (Ace of Cups, 06/28/18) – There’s no better practitioner of solo guitar than Portland’s Marisa Anderson. She plays the electric guitar as though it’s a conduit to the hidden truths of the universe. A stylist who’s synthesized every great voice on her instrument and come out with her own sharp and beautifully nasty twang. The second appearance of “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning” on this year’s list, which could be the universe trying to tell me something. Sarah Louise’s beguiling opening set reminded me of ’70s British folk and drew me in with its curiosities and complications.
Mwenso and the Shakes, Rumba Cafe
16. Mwenso and the Shakes (Rumba Cafe, 09/08/18) – New York’s Michael Mwenso brought his virtuosic, gleefully unpredictable band (part cabaret revue, part ’70s funk extravaganza, part postmodernism at its zenith) to town in one of the purest expressions of fun I got in a club all year. They kept the wildness of their jam session roots while translating that vibe into a show that made sense to an audience. Charisma to spare and earworms that burrowed into my head for days.
17. Ashley McBryde (Bluestone, 11/08/18) – There isn’t a finer practitioner of Mellencamp-style roots-rock and Patty Griffin country today than Nashville’s Ashley McBryde. Leading her crack six-piece band through a set heavy on her new record Girl Going Nowhere, but with room for already-classics from her debut like “Bible and a .44” and “Luckiest SOB,” she led a class on opening your arms to an audience without pandering. She opened with “Livin’ Next to Leroy” and its crushing opening lines, “Three doors down, there’s tinfoil on the table,” and led us on a journey of lyrics as finely observed and chiseled as a Michelangelo sculpture but with every bit as much concern for the bounce and flow of the music.
18. Zonal and Moor Mother (Corsica Studios, London, 04/26/18) – Techno Animal cohorts Justin Broadrick (Godflesh) and Kevin Martin (The Bug) have reformed under the name Zonal. When a show of theirs was a possibility on my first ever trip to the UK it was a no-brainer and their murky, abrasive, bass-drenched techno is more potent than ever. The x-factor on the middle of the set was Philly poet-rapper Moor Mother who, from her first line “There are no stars in the sky,” teased a rainbow of colors in the viscosity of the music and made whole lives visible in the fire she breathed.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy at Stuart’s
19. Bonnie “Prince” Billy (Stuart’s Opera House, Nelsonville, 10/08/18) – Will Oldham is an inspiration in a lot of ways for me. A polymath, unmistakably devoted to the craft of his songs, who never takes himself that seriously. His unfailing curiosity toward putting his songs into various contexts both keeps him interested and shines light on possibly unexplored textures in the original. This small tour featured chamber-music arrangements with violin and cello, a three-piece horn section, a backing singer/duet partner from the opening band, and the prince playing very little guitar. “I See a Darkness” had a muscle-y gospel punch and “The Way” was recast as a powerful statement of intent, a line in the sand.
20. Amir El-Saffar and the Two Rivers Ensemble (Lincoln Theatre, 10/10/18) – One of my favorite trumpet players returned with his expansive, roiling Two Rivers Ensemble and with a special guest: El-Saffar’s teacher (and one of the great maqam singers in the world) Hamid Al-Saadi. This was perhaps the finest religious music I’ve ever heard, obliterating any description and leaving me staggered.
Festival Sets:
I’ve got that persistent festival fatigue like everybody else. Art should be part of your life, to the extent you can make it one, not a destination vacation or a cattle call. That said, I hit several and saw sets that were as good as anything, that made me want to go for 12 hours, gorging myself, and those should be acknowledged.
Algiers, The Standard
Algiers (Big Ears Festival)
Nicole Mitchell – Art and Anthem for Gwendolyn Brooks (With Jason Moran) (Winter Jazzfest)
David Hidalgo and Marc Ribot (Big Ears Festival)
Greg Cartwright with Coco Hamel and Gentleman Jesse, Memphis Made Brewing
4. Greg Cartwright (Gonerfest) 5. Susan Alcorn (Big Ears Festival) 6. Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die (Winter Jazzfest) 7. Pierre Kwenders (Cleveland Museum of Art, Summer Solstice 8. Jenny Scheinman’s Mischief and Mayhem (Big Ears Festival) 9. Jason Moran and Milford Graves (Big Ears Festival)10. Marc Ribot’s Songs of Resistance (Winter Jazzfest) 11. Roscoe Mitchell – “TRIOS” (Big Ears Festival) 12. Sarah Manning (Winter Jazzfest) 13. Harlan T. Bobo (Gonerfest) 14. Evan Parker’s Rocket Science (Big Ears Festival 15. Bloody Show (Gonerfest)16. Tyshawn Sorey Trio (Big Ears Festival) 17. Oblivians featuring Stephanie McDee (Gonerfest) 18. Craig Taborn Quartet (Big Ears Festival) 19. Diamanda Galas (Big Ears Festival) 20. Ethers (Gonerfest)
Every holiday is really about the passing of time but I’m a particular sucker for days that explicitly honor time. Case in point: the Summer Solstice. As the local Community Festival drifts away from me as a demographic (there’s no bitterness there: events should change or they wither and die) there’s been a rising of other options that sing with summer’s sticky sweetness.
Megan Palmer and Band at Dick’s Den
Megan Palmer (June 21, 2018, Dick’s Den)
One of my favorite singer-songwriters, bandleaders, and artistic expats, it’s always a joy when Megan Palmer comes back to Columbus. The nights at Dick’s Den are extra special because it’s where she first bowled me and so much of this town over. The gloriously loose – on stage and in the crowd – late set we caught at that home reaffirmed that power.
Palmer still puts together a righteous, crack band whenever she’s in town, including usual suspects guitarist Brett Burleson, longtime vocal foil Jen Miller, and drummer of all trades Jimmy Castoe. That selection of players highlights the beautiful, quicksilver quality to slip between genres and times, tying everything together with her voice. Over the years, Palmer’s sharpened her lyric writing into one of the finest examples of open-hearted empathy without that understanding ever turning to weakness or a mealy-mouthed exercise in “both sides.” At the same time, her melodies grew looser and harder to define, amplifying their shimmering quicksilver qualities and leaving more space for other players.
Burleson’s fills attacked the same “problem” as Luther Perkins but approached them in a surprising, refreshing way. At one point, on one of my favorite of her older songs, “Please Don’t Come Back,” it clicked that the arrangement took Bob Wills as a starting block then opened to embrace everything Wills influenced in the idiosyncratic wing of the 20th century’s popular music including Willie Nelson and even a little Ornette Coleman. This music was washing my face in the fountain of life (or as Tom T. Hall said, the morning dew).
This Moment in Black History at Happy Dog (photo by Anne Courtney)
Cold Sweats and This Moment in Black History (Happy Dog, Cleveland, June 22, 2018)
Every few years, Cleveland gives the world one of the greatest rock and roll bands we’ve ever seen. Currently holding the crown – though I’m not discounting there could be a bunch of kids I haven’t see yet – is Bim Thomas’ crowning achievement Obnox. One of my all-time favorites also features Bim, on drums, This Moment in Black History. I hadn’t seen them in probably six or seven years and in the periodic reunion we saw at the Happy Dog to kick off our flying Cleveland weekend.
Hooky, vibrant, righteous, full of intertwining hooks and sticky grooves. The kind of late night dance floor riot most of us search for from dancefloor to bar room and back. Opening, Cold Sweats from NYC did a modern take on post-hardcore with lacerating guitar and a swinging bounce that got the crowd dancing.
Pierre Kwenders and Band at the Cleveland Museum of Art
Summer Solstice 2018(Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, June 23, 2018)
Anyone who wants to throw a museum fundraiser should look to the Cleveland Museum of Art. A and I went about five years ago and had a blast, including spontaneously running into American treasure Baby Dee. The next year it sold out at the member presale and has ever since.
This year I finally bit the bullet and got a membership and I’m pleased to report every change they’ve made since made it better. Manageable lines, reasonable (for a benefit) drink prices, and splitting the bands between (mostly) live acts on the terrace and (mostly) electronic in the atrium for a better dance floor, we were here for four hours and I loved every minute of it. There’s a special magic in ducking in from a sweaty dance floor and realizing you’re the only two people in a room full of Van Gogh and Cezanne. Or you’re in a politely humming crowd grappling with Danny Lyon’s photographs of the human and aesthetic cost of gentrification or Kerry James Marshall’s massive, encompassing woodcuts.
Moroccan electronic artist HAT (Hatim Belyamani) wove music out of film footage shot by his collective, remix ←→ culture, remixed to highlight the individual cultures they were taken from and into something spine shifting and hip-swaying. HAT made it impossible to ignore the cultural building blocks that gave birth to these pulsing club tracks and worked it into something easily graspable and that resisted being nailed down. His work echoed the Brutalismo-Cleveland exhibit upstairs by Spanish artist Marlon de Azambuja which also used locally sourced materials to comment on brutalism and society.
Yemen Blues at Cleveland Museum of Art
Yemen Blues was one of the finest dance bands I’ve ever seen. Led by Ravid Kahalani, the six piece band wove funk and salsa together with traditional North and West African melodies in a refreshing, wild party. Hello Psychaleppo came at traditional music, the ecstatic Syrian music Samer Saem Eldahr grew up with, with a similar mix of reverence for the original and delight in reinvention that kept the dancing audience in the palm of his hand. Pierre Kwenders blew my hair back, he’s one of the greatest soul singers I’ve ever seen. He and his quartet cooled it down a little and turned up the level of sexy as they closed the night with a blend of Congolese rumba and the current wave of stiletto sharp, introspective R&B
“It’s hard to fight torpor.” That line popped up in Paul Schrader’s much-anticipated return to non-franchise filmmaking First Reformed and, to mangle Bob Dylan, both “rang true and glowed like burning coals” while I watched the film with my pal Rob. The movie wasn’t an official “thing I dug,” more “thing I’m glad I saw for the interesting nougat when it got out of its own way.”
But what spoke to me was the questions it posed about the point at which we’re no longer worth forgiveness; the way shitty means of coping build up and rust over for us like dumping Pepto Bismol in a glass of scotch (one of my favorite gross-out images from the film); and how difficult it is to break out of a rut before we’re ground just that smooth.
Lighter load this week because much of it was catching up with old friends, in town for the Origins Game Fair and elsewhere. The bookend photos come from these long nights of laughter.
Brett Burleson/Josh Hindmarsh/Doug Richeson (Dick’s Den, June 13, 2018)
The tradition of turning a Wednesday over to one artist for a residency at Dick’s Den is one of my favorite things in this town. In a no-pressure setting, someone can worry over new material, reform old collaborative groups, work with people they don’t usually, bring friends up on stage, or do all of these. That tradition is a prism refracting the light of everything I love about Columbus and especially everything I love about the nexus that is Dick’s Den when you get an artist with the kind of ranging tastes in material, style, and players as Brett Burleson.
From left: Burleson, Hindmarsh, Richeson
Brett Burleson and Josh Hindmarsh have a tradition of playing gypsy jazz songs – and other tunes in that style best known for Django Reinhardt. Wednesday, they rounded the trio out with Grammy-winning bassist Doug Richeson. Jazzcolumbus impresario and great friend Andrew Patton and I stopped in expecting one round and half an hour of pleasant entertainment. I staggered home at 1:30am after two full sets. Picking my jaw off the floor.
Richeson’s expansive warmth provided the perfect backdrop for those two guitars and the handful of guests. It was immediately easy to see why vocalists kept the bassist in demand, including Tony Bennett. In that same spirit, the word that kept springing to mind for everyone on stage was conversational.
Burleson almost reminded me of Keith Richards here, his unshakable rhythm shifted from a straight up-and-down in line with the period they recalled through something more organic and modern, teasing textures from Hindmarsh’s leads and occasionally unfurling solos that were shocking in their grace and concision.
From left: Burleson, Hindmarsh, Kahn, Richeson
In the full, proper Dick’s spirit, unannounced guests enlivened the proceedings. Michael Kahn, on his way from another gig, brought his soulful soprano. He painted with glowing color, in step with the other three musicians but drawing them out into the less-chartered water. Local DJ, promoter, and singer-songwriter (as Whipped Dream) Laelia Delaney Davis sat in on vocals for the Gershwins’ “S’wonderful” that balanced lushness and restraint like a cool breeze on a sticky evening.
The trio-plus ran a gamut of classics in the style. Their take on Reinhardt’s own “Minor Swing” that felt like a beautifully restored piece of clockwork. Their “Take the A Train” vibrated the room with a propulsive bounce. Their Monk was a sensual, spiraling puzzle. The originals held their own against these time-forged tunes because nothing was played with a preciousness; again and again, we were reminded this was neither museum nor mausoleum.
Coming Up: Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore (Valleydale Ballroom, June 22, 2018; tickets here)
Courtesy of davealvin.net
When two riders of the river of American music, Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, teamed up a couple years ago it was one of the most no-brainer collaborations most of us could possibly imagine. These two share an encyclopedic knowledge of everything roots music, marrow-deep empathy for people, and a love of sharing stories.
Their first collaborative record features a couple excellent new originals – including the title track, like a couple of winking outlaws filling out a declarations form at the border – and more of the stunning interpretations they’ve both become more known for over the last few years, giving classics an intensely personal spin. Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee – Plane Wreck at Los Gatos,” features one of the most aching melodies of the 20th century played for maximum impact. Lloyd Price’s R&B classic “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” and the Memphis Jug Band’s “KC Moan” get lusty juke-joint treatments that take Gilmore’s high lonesome voice into new terrain with some of Alvin’s best guitar on record.
Both of these artists have a storied, special relationship with Alec Wightman’s Zeppelin productions. Alvin’s appearances at the Valleydale, especially, are always something special. If you’re in town, don’t miss this.
Trying this as a memory exercise as much as anything else. Two-three things I’ve really enjoyed in the past week (or so) and one thing I’m looking forward to, irrespective of what I’m assigned to write about. Plan is to post one of these every weekend when I usually have at least one day off.
Memphis Rent Party by Robert Gordon (link to purchase). Robert Gordon had a front row seat for some of the most exciting movements in Memphis music for this last 30 years. He’s shared the fruits of his keen eye, searching curiosity, and big-picture sense of the intersecting threads of history with us in books (his It Came From Memphis is a Rosetta Stone for cracking the code of American music and his books about Stax and Muddy Waters are essential), liner notes, documentaries, music videos (including Cat Power’s “Lived in Bars” filmed in one my favorite bars in Memphis, The Lamplighter).
This collection of short pieces about artists from Tav Falco to James Carr to Otha Turner to Jeff Buckley with the grace and gravity of someone who lived alongside them and cared enough to go deep. The additional context in the notes and restored material is worth the price of admission alone. In whole, Memphis Rent Party struck me as a loving admonition to dig into and do more of the things that give me solace and light me on fire. As he says:
“Memphis is not about perfection but about the differences, the flaws. It’s the kinks that mark beauty and define us, not the lack of them. How remarkable to create something unlike what anyone else can, that even the artist can’t repeat. That recorded moment – like Dickinson said – why preserve it if you can recreate it every day? Preserve instead the best ever take, the most unique version, the unrepeatable presentation.”
And later: “In a government housing tower or over on the finer side of town, someone is composing a song or recording a sound or performing a show that that might change how we think, how we hear the world and understand our place in it. What happens in Peoria, Pittsburgh, and Petaluma may not become emblematic of a generation, but the expression of something different can still challenge the mind and thrill the heart. That still, small voice, it won’t be immediately familiar, and it takes a moment to come in clear, but listen for it, note how near – it’s just down the road or right across the river.”
The Sadies, Rumba Cafe
The Sadies (Rumba Cafe, June 9, 2018)
Dallas and Travis Good returned to Columbus with their crack rhythm section of Sean Dean on bass and Mike Belitsky on drums and took us all, in turns, to the purifying fire of the honky tonk and the sweaty erotic energy of a tent revival. Years ago, seeing them, a good friend said, “They’re great but they need an Elvis Costello,” referring to their The Band/The Roots propensity for backing other artists (Neko Case, Jon Langford, Jon Spencer) often creating some of that person’s best work but overshadowing their own.
It had been a few years and I’m ecstatic to report that if that was ever a problem of theirs, it’s a problem no longer. Beyond those uncanny sibling harmonies, the personalities of Dallas and Travis, switching off on lead vocals and lead guitar were charming and riveting.
They took roots music and reminded me that it’s a wriggling, profane, beautiful, still glistening and alive thing. They graced originals like “Riverview Fog” with a Byrds/REM jangle and chime and “God Bless the Infidels” with a snarling fiddle and allusions to the Louvin Brothers’ classic Satan is Real.
They conjured up the dark underbelly of the history of song with a raging “Pretty Polly” and channeled honky-tonk heartbreak on “Cut Corners” with lines like “Here’s to the lucky ones, let’s drink to better days: you and yours everywhere, this one’s on me (for a change). Don’t cry for me, remember that no one and nothing is free.”
As many of my friends were down at Twangfest, this was a restorative, a sweet connection to those memories and the taste of a little knife’s-edge of that celebration.
Neko Case, Hell-On
Neko Case has been one of my favorite voices since I first heard Furnace Room Lullaby. Some of my all-time favorite shows have been her work, in whole or in part – opening for Nick Cave at the Chicago Theater, a Little Brothers show with out of town friends that ended in a snowball fight and a raging after party at the St James, a night at the Beachland Ballroom with The Sadies opening for and backing her.
Every record she’s made is worth checking for though I confess she lost me a little around Middle Cyclone. Her new one, Hell-On, a few listens in stands proudly with her strongest work. It’s the perfect record for the glow of a solo summer afternoon. Thick and sticky, all Edward Hopper green and long shadows, a little frayed at the edges but shot through with hope.
Coming Up:
Bava Choco’s Clowns Release Show (June 15, 2018 at Ace of Cups)
Patrick Monroe’s been one of Columbus music’s most vocal boosters for years and in his last couple bands, Intercontinental Champs and his new one, Bava Choco, his own songs have come into their own.
Bava Choco adds sticky stoner riffs and ’70s grind to the pop hooks for an intoxicating mix. For this release show for their second EP, they assembled a killer night of music front to back. Lizard McGee of Earwig opens with a rare solo show. Moodshifter, the new project of Aaron Pauley on guitar, Andy Hindman on bass, and Larz Raymond on drums play next. I caught Moodshifter a few weeks ago and the material is still gelling but there are already sparkling riffs and some really fresh songs that hint at what’s to come. The Damn Thing merges the songwriting of Marcy Mays, from Scrawl, and Dave Holm, of Ugly Stick and Bigfoot, with the crunching riffs of Pat Murphy (of Bob City and, with Marcy, Night Family). One of the best, most fully formed bands to emerge if the last few years – every time they play it’s not to be missed.
I’m far from the first person to say it but Big Ears Festival is special. After a year off – but je ne regretteSick Weekend – I returned to this booming, bustling college town to reconnect with deeper listening and jump off the merry-go-round for a minute.
Started slow on Thursday but I needed that easing in. Wandered the downtown, filling my lungs and feeling the vibrations of this place. A couple great meals – Chivo Taqueria and Myrtle’s Chicken and Beer – and reacquainting myself with Old City Java.
Stopped at Public House for an apertif to the sensory feast: Postmodern Spirits release party for their (damn good) first single malt Tennessee Whiskey at a party at Public House. I overheard one of my favorite refrains: a stylish regular who works at another bar (I gathered) said about Big Ears: “I dig the crowd, I get it. It brings people from everywhere. I just want them to know culture happens here too.” I’ve said it; I’ve heard it at Gonerfest and Anime Weekend Atlanta. It’s people like her who make that happen: loving your town so much it’s infectious.
Went straight from there to my first set of the festival: ICE (the International Contemporary Ensemble) playing Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s majestic, luminous “In The Light of The Air.”
In the round, most of the audience seated on the floor, the ensemble lit Thorvaldsdottir’s piece from within, shaping and shifting. Motifs rise and repeat, changing their DNA while remaining recognizable. Percussion plays an omnipresent, mercurial role here: clattering and clicking like ash in the air around the bubbling lava of piano; slashing transition color from a bowed marimba; growling propulsion not only moving the piece forward but in every direction.
Glacial accumulation of detail and material dances with the light installation, effectively underlining as when the bulbs surge bright with deep bass throbs. As delicate and dramatic as life. The music is so engaged with the world it absorbed and played with the setting sun, the howl of passing trains, and omnipresent redevelopment.
The pedal steel guitar is one of the most evocative, purely American sounds I’ve run across. No one fuses that unmistakable sound to as pure and personal a language as Susan Alcorn. Alcorn’s vocabulary isn’t the result of eschewing history – she knows her Speedy West, her Leon McAuliffe, her Don Helms, and her Aubrey Ghent. That sound comes from a burning desire to see what else she can say with that vocabulary and unerring taste across the spectrum of music.
The first time I came across Susan Alcorn was her 2006 album And I Await The Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar. In the sleek dance club environs of The Standard, Alcorn dazzled a rapt crowd with that title track and a story about its genesis: trying to arrange Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (a World War Ii elegy for wind orchestra) for steel. In those limitations, she found something that vibrates with history but is no one else’s.
Throughout her rapturous set, Alcorn made that guitar snarl and cry, turned it into a barrelhouse piano, a seductive dancer, nature painting, and a chorus of bells. She nodded to Giacinto Scelsi and tango. A profoundly American artist with the simultaneous thirst for the new and love of everything that got us here, Susan Alcorn exemplified Big Ears.
The icing on this delicious Thursday was two guitarists I’ve loved for as long as I’ve loved music. The minute you hear Marc Ribot’s Chuck-Berry-wrapped-in-barbed-wire guitar you never forget it. You hear it everywhere. David Hidalgo’s guitar, accordion, deceptively easy mastery of what seems like every other instrument, plus his spicy honey voice, make every record he guests on that much better – before we even get into his work as the cornerstone of one of the premier American rock bands, Los Lobos, co-writing most of their best songs. So as word trickled out these two titans were playing together it shot to the top of my list to check out. Thursday night at the Tennessee Theater was my chance.
The two men in chairs turned that cavernous stage and massive theater into a living room or a back porch. With the easy charm of old friends who don’t have a goddam thing to prove except to themselves, they lit up the history of American music. Lefty Frizzell’s “I Never Go Around Mirrors” was gifted a gorgeous high-lonesome voice and finger picking from Hidalgo punctuated with hot knives from Ribot. “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” got a dry vocal wringing all the hurt out of irony from Ribot as the two painted an expansive, devastated landscape with their guitars, deconstructing and rebuilding. Wilson Pickett and Paquita Del La Barrio and Los Cuatreros were the framework for hard-won and deeply personal voices forged from experience and love. Looks at permeable borders and the way we let each other down.
My favorite moment came with their revitalized take on “A Matter of Time,” the Los Lobos classic from their breakthrough Will The Wolf Survive record written by Hidalgo with Louie Perez. Stripped of horns and thirty plus years since it’s first appearance, the story and Hidalgo’s Sam Cooke-recalling vocal shine just as brightly as ever. The way we want to be better and keep reaching even when we know that “better world” might never be ib in our reach. They dedicated a note-perfect Ventures tune to Nokie Edwards with Hidalgo saying, “When we were kids, that Ventures stuff turned us all on. It was the shit.” Chuckling, he caught himself, “I guess it still is.”
10. Marc Ribot’s Songs of Resistance (Winter Jazzfest)
16. Tyshawn Sorey Trio (Big Ears Festival)
Screen of Distance 