Tag: scott woods

Best of 2023 – Spaces

Here are some things that moved me in jazz, classical, and other instrumental (mostly) forms this year.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/bbe455af-3b1f-4a30-a42c-9a967bc93869

Wild Up/Julius Eastman, “If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?” – The ensemble Wild Up continues their vital grappling with/resurfacing the once-thought-lost work of composer Julius Eastman with a third volume containing several of the pieces on the original three-disc anthology I had the hardest time grappling with. The acidic overtones and sharp stabs on this sardonic, jagged piece are perfectly executed here, under the baton of Christopher Rountree, and reflect a world I see in a way I didn’t when I first heard the piece, also laying bare the sense of hope inherent in getting off the mat every time.
Wadada Leo Smith and Orange Wave Electric, “Nzotake Shange” – One of America’s finest composers and trumpeters, Wadada Leo Smith (Anne said, after watching a quartet set at the Stone, it sounded like “Falling down stairs” and she wasn’t wrong but in a good way), assembled a dream team of electric downtown-associated players for his remarkable record Fire Illuminations: guitarists Nels Cline, Brandon Ross, and Lamar Smith; bassists Bill Laswell and Melvin Gibbs; electronic musician Hardedge; percussionist Mauro Refosco; and drummer Pheeroan akLaff. Each tune reflects on an individual or a specific moment in history, and this piece, named for the poet and playwright who broke me when I read for colored girls 15 years after it premiered, exemplifies everything I find so intoxicating about the album, the deep groove and the perfectly refined and directed shots of fire spraying over it.
Irreversible Entanglements, “root ⇔ branch” – Irreversible Entanglements not only blew my hair back twice this year but also put on an even more assured and powerful second album, Protect Your Light. This piece, partly in tribute to jaimie branch, has been a favorite since I first hit play, and it’s still a balm, horns slowly waltzing through Moor Mother’s poetry and the deep, circular groove of Luke Stewart’s bass before erupting into a hip-swaying march. “Let the horns open the day and get free.”
Johnathan Blake, “Lament for Lo” – Drummer Johnathan Blake released his best record as a leader with this year’s Passages, and it’s full of great players. Still, I kept coming back to this drum solo intro/tribute to fellow New York drummer Lawrence “Lo” Leathers, both as a tribute to conciseness in a playlist more given to sprawling statements and a reminder of how much texture and emotional content one instrument being played alone can be.
Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, “Last Waltz for Levon” – I’ve been waiting for several of the pieces on Darcy James Argue’s latest record, Dynamic Maximum Tension, to be collected on a recording for a very long time. This one, written in the wake of The Band drummer Levon Helm’s passing, I saw him do almost ten years ago in the basement theater of subculture, and he introduced it by paying tribute to Helm’s deep, instantly recognizable pocket. The Secret Society pays tribute to that slippery waltz that shadow-painting sense of time, in one of a record packed with gems – until writing this, the Duke Ellington tribute “Tensile Curves” was my choice for the playlist periodically, it was the Buckminster Fuller-inspired piece – and I can’t wait to see this band again at Big Ears finally.
Henry Threadgill, “The Other One: Movement III, Section 13” – Henry Threadgill followed one of the all-time great music memoirs, Easily Slip Into Another World, with a stunning chamber music record, The Other One, from which this is drawn. Not playing horn, just conducting, Threadgill’s affinity for tension and mystery in dynamics shines through loud and clear and his facility for strings takes on dimensions I wasn’t expecting.
Kali Malone, “Does Spring Hide Its Joy v2.1” – One of the standout performances I saw at Big Ears last year, composer and organist Kali Malone convenes a trio with cellist Lucy Raiton and guitarist Stephen O’Malley for a long record of beguiling riffs on melodic cells glowing with long tones.
Ingrid Laubrock and Cecilia Lopez, “LUNA MAROMERA” – Ingrid Laubrock put out several good records this year but I kept coming back to this duo record with Cecilia Lopez on electronics, Maromas, a continued investigation of the duo format from one of my favorite saxophonists, that also beguiled me when Anne and I saw the duo in Brooklyn in the Spring. There’s grit here, the ragged breathy tones and the long pulses that decay unevenly, that add to the inherent mystery.
Thandi Ntuli and Carlos Niño, “Lihlanzekile” – Producer/percussionist Carlos Niño has gotten a lot of deserved heat this year, I saw him anchor a brilliant trio with Surya Botofasina and Nate Mercereau at Winter Jazzfest in January, and my favorite record of his was this gorgeous duo album with South African pianist Thandi Ntuli. This closing track, translating to “It is clean”, was a piece I returned to over and over, an undulating landscape that changes every time I try to perceive it.
Andre 3000, “BuyPoloDisorder’s Daughter Wears a 3000® Button Down Embroidered” – The record that put Niño’s name into the wider American consciousness and which I liked a lot; though, as I discussed with Andrew Patton, it fits more neatly into the ambient genre or even downtempo electronica than the “flute jazz” box some people who didn’t know that was a genre tried to put it in. This track features the trio I mentioned above, creating alongside Andre Benjamin, and is one of the two tracks to feature flute instead of what I think is an EWI. It’s beautiful.
Allison Miller, “Fierce” – One of my favorite composer-drummers, Allison Miller, outdid herself this year with a small group record co-sponsored by a series of art spaces with Lake Placid Center for the Arts in the lead, Rivers in Our Veins. As always, she assembled a remarkable group of musicians with a deep history with her and each other: Jenny Scheinman on violin, Jason Palmer on trumpets, Ben Goldberg on clarinets, Carmen Staaf on keys, and Todd Sickafoose on bass. The intertwining – I think – Rhodes and acoustic piano comping under Scheinman’s solo that seems to burble out of Goldberg’s is a highlight of this track, and there’s not a dull track on the album. The interplay is really as good as it gets.
Damon Locks and Rob Mazurek, “Yes!” – Trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Rob Mazurek has worked with composer/bandleader/polymath Damon Locks in a variety of settings, most notably Mazurek’s shifting Exploding Star Orchestra, but distilling their two languages down to a duo on New Future City Radio paid off big, both on this record and seeing them live at Big Ears.
MEM_MODS, “Midtown Miscommunication” – One of my sleeper favorites in the good-for-all-parties category, a deep Memphis groove project from Paul Taylor (Amy Lavere, New Memphis Colorways), Steve Selvidge (Big Ass Truck, Hold Steady, Lucero), and Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi Allstars).
James Brandon Lewis and the Red Lily Quintet, “Were You There” – Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis reconvenes my favorite of his bands, the Red Lily Quintet – Kirk Knuffke on cornet, William Parker on bass, Chad Taylor on Drums, Chris Hoffman on cello – for a tribute to his Grandmother by way of paying tribute to the pioneering gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. Every song on For Mahalia, With Love, is a winner, with deep soulful grooves and stretching out without sacrificing any bit of these timeless melodies. The colors of the instruments coming in on this one remind me of Beethoven’s 9th in the best way.
Chris Potter, “You Gotta Move” – Saxophonist Chris Potter has a special affinity for the Village Vanguard. His newest record, Got the Keys to the Kingdom, is another stunning example. Potter and his powerful quartet – Craig Taborn on piano, Scott Colley on bass, and Marcus Gilmore on drums – tear into and pay homage to fascinating repertoire throughout the record, but I kept coming back to this glorious cubist-gutbucket take on Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “You Gotta Move.”
Mendoza Hoff Revels, “Echolocation” – Also blues-inflected but with open arms for everything since, the collaboration between guitarist Ava Mendoza and bassist Devin Hoff, featuring James Brandon Lewis in a more coiled, snarling mode than I’m used to, and Ches Smith’s powerful drumming, is the best avant-rock ensemble I’ve heard in recent memory. The liner notes referencing Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time and later Black Flag ring true, but this doesn’t sound like anyone else.
Tyshawn Sorey, “Seleritus” – Drummer and composer Tyshawn Sorey digs into the corners of the songbook with his killing trio of Matt Brewer on drums and Aaron Diehl on piano on Continuing. This deep dive into an Ahmad Jamal piece captures the space and silence of Jamal’s kind of shorthand in the common parlance but also captures the heaviness he always brought to the bandstand. A majestic tribute that plays everything these three have learned about the source and brought to their own work through the original.
Love in Exile, “Eyes of the Endless” – This supergroup of Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, and Shahzad Ismaily exceeded every expectation I had going in as a big fan of all three players and writers. This piece has Iyer on Rhodes instead of the normal acoustic piano, and both the heavy strike and the ring of that instrument give the astonishing melody from Aftab a different, shimmering texture, like a cape being flung off and tossed into a bay.
Kurt Rosenwinkel and Geri Allen, “A Flower is a Lovesome Thing” – The gods of reissuing blessed us with a remarkable document of a duo concert in Paris in 2012 before Allen’s untimely passing. Two voices that shaped the jazz players my age and younger as much as anybody else explode this tune, one of my favorite Billy Strayhorn pieces, thoughtfully, out of love. Every note of this holds the next, waiting to be born, but not in a way that ever feels rote or obvious.
Aaron Diehl and the Knights, “Gemini” – Speaking of acts of love, it’s hard to compete with this one. The great Mary Lou Williams wrote her Zodiac Suite – which many jazzers play at least parts of to this day – as a through-composed chamber suite but it’s – I don’t think – ever been recorded as such. Masterful pianist Aaron Diehl restored the score and teamed up with NYC guardians of the contemporary canon, The Knights, for a beautifully recorded, definitive reading.
Roy Hargrove, “The Love Suite: In Mahogany – Obviously Destined” – Another gift from the reissue gods: a pristine recording of the 1993 Alice Tully Hall performance of trumpeter-composer Roy Hargrove’s piece The Love Suite: In Mahogany. This movement highlights both Hargrove’s sizzling horn playing and Marc Cary’s piano (that solo a couple of minutes in undulates with silky dynamism, but everyone – Jesse Davis, Ron Blake, and Andre Heyward comprise the rest of the horn section, Rodney Whitaker and Gregory Hutchinson keep things moving and held down as the remainder of the rhythm section – kills it here.
Yasmin Williams featuring Aoife O’Donovan, “Dawning” – Columbus was finally blessed with Yasmin Williams as the Wexner Center this year after several cancellations. The entire performance floored me, but I was especially intrigued by this new piece she introduced, revealing Aoife O’Donovan’s involvement. The studio recording delivers on all the promise that collaboration holds. Williams lets every note ring on its own, rolls feel like last year’s snow finally slipping down cliff sides, in a slow drag tempo perfectly suits O’Dovonan’s wordless vocals.
Chad Fowler/Zoh Amba/Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/William Parker/Steve Hirsh, “Sentient Sentiment” – Chad Fowler, here on stritch and saxello, assembles a contemporary fire music supergroup and lets them loose in a frenzy of ecstatic, deeply thoughtful play on the five tracks of Alien Skin. The single show I was sorriest to miss in my town was Zoh Amba’s local debut featuring Chris Corsano, and I heard it was just as good as I’ve heard her in the past. Her lines exquisitely intertwine with Fowler’s and Perelman’s, particularly on this slow burn that blossoms into a line of explosions, as Parker, Shipp (both of whom appear elsewhere on this playlist), and Hirsh set up a baseline that shifts exactly as the music needs to.
Wolf Eyes, “Engaged Withdrawal” – I’ve been a fan of Wolf Eyes almost as long as I’ve been digging William Parker and Matthew Shipp, and their Dreams in Spattered Lines is another classic, with maturity as a blessing and not a crutch. This song creeps at a measured pace, Nate Young and John Olson leaving one another enough space and care, enough listening, to each make a proper impression on a record that has everything in its place and wastes no gesture, no moment.
David Lang/Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/Sō Percussion, “man made” – The CSO (not that one, the other one), under their director Louis Langrée, teamed up with leading NYC contemporary troupe Sō Percussion for the first recording of David Lang’s stunning piece “man made.” Lang’s program note about the orchestra acting as translators and decoders, for the less traditional instrumentation and movement of the percussion quartet rings true, and that process – showing the strings – makes it all more magical rather than less.
Matthew Shipp, “The Bulldozer Poetics” – Shipp continues his growth into a clearer more approachable, even when the work itself gets thornier and more complex, like the world, piano style on the phenomenal solo album The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp. From the crush of those first notes, this driving piece sets up an entire world.
Curtis J. Stewart, “vii. Adagio from Johannes Brahms Sonata No. 1 Op. 78 (We Are Going to Be OK)” – Violinist/composer/arranger Curtis Stewart’s remarkable solo record of Love is one of those gargantuan acts of love I keep talking about and being drawn to. An expansive weaving together of pieces he’s been playing for years and knows well by composers who still speak to him, like Brahms and Ellington, and originals, played in tribute to his late Mother in her Upper West Side apartment.
Kieran Hebden and William Tyler, “Darkness, Darkness” – This collaboration between Kieran Hebden, the electronic musician better known as Four Tet, and avant-Americana guitarist William Tyler, delighted me, particularly this take on the Youngbloods song “Darkness, Darkness.” It unfurls slowly, letting the listener glimpse it in pieces, coming into view like a slowly backing-up camera refocusing every few seconds and coalescing into a powerful groove.
Rob Moose featuring Phoebe Bridgers, “Wasted” – yMusic co-founder violinist Rob Moose teamed with a variety of singers on his dazzling Inflorescence EP. I kept coming back to this fragile, pulsing collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers. The strings are both stabbing and enveloping light here. “Standing in the parking lot, in the glow of a Rite-Aid sign, everyone I know is staying in tonight. I’ve been here before, just screaming at a cell phone. Seems like a couple of months went by, but it’s years ago.”
Gerald Cleaver, “Of the American Dream” – One of the finest jazz drummers, Gerald Cleaver, has been working up a second strain of electronica-based music that I think hit its most assured and together expression yet with 22/23.
JD Allen, “Mx. Fairweather” – JD Allen stepped into the ring with electronics on THIS without sacrificing any of that rich, rounded tone. His great trio – Alex Bonney on those electronics and effects, Gwilym Jones on drums – attack this ballad and the other gorgeous originals on the record with subtlety and laser focus.
Nubya Garcia, “Lean In” – This killer single from one of my favorite London sax players, Nubya Garcia, summons up some of the textures of the garage club music she grew up with for an infectious mix.
Sexmob, “Club Pythagorean” – Downtown New York institution Sexmob – Steven Bernstein, Briggan Krauss, Tony Scherr, Kenny Wollensen – brought longtime collaborator Scotty Hard (Prince Paul, Mike Ladd, Antibalas) into the fold as a full member on their electrifying The Hard Way. This track also features John Medeski on Mellotron for a powerful groove bursting with hooks.
Javier Nero, “Kemet (The Black Land)” – Trombonist-composer Javier Nero leads a large band – including guest Sean Jones on a crackling solo on this title track – paying tribute to the ancient African empire of Kemet. The wordless vocals and frenetic cymbal work from Kyle Swan set up gorgeous massed horns, and killer vibes work from Warren Wolf, and a sizzling solo from Nero.
Marquis Hill featuring Joel Ross, “Stretch (The Body)” – Trumpeter Marquis Hill approached the ways intention can give our lives meaning and thoughtless action/habits can decay us, in a way that made more musical sense than any other such attempt I can think of, with the riveting Rituals + Routines. This track features vibes player Joel Ross painting constellations around the tight quartet of Hill, Junius Paul, Micheal King, and Indie Buz.
Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, Robbie Aveniam, “Placelessness (Side B excerpt)” – Chris Abrahams (The Necks’ pianist) brought together this trio of avant-garde guitarist and electronics player Oren Ambarchi and drummer Robbie Aveniam for Placelessness, two extended tracks of throbbing minimalism. Those squiggles around the minute mark, creating an interference color between the circular piano figure and the stuttered drums, were my initial handhold into the world of this music, and they still excite me.
Greg Ward Presents Rogue Parade, “Noir Nouveau” – Chicago alto player Greg Ward brings together some of his town’s finest players under the Rogue Parade name – Matt Gold, Dave Miller, Matt Ulery, Quin Kirchner – for the delightful concept album Dion’s Quest. This cinematic piece builds slowly, like shadows creeping along a wall, and develops sharper edges and flashes of light.
Sara Serpa and Andre Matos, “Carlos” – The vocalist pushing the boundaries furthest in the jazz/improvisation world right now, Sara Serpa, found an exquisite foil in guitarist/bassist Andre Matos. They assembled a great band consisting of Dov Manski on keys, João Pereira on drums, Okkyung Lee on cello, and Sofia Jernberg on additional vocals for the astounding album Night Birds. This original builds up from cells, sharing some sound-world commonality with the last two tracks, and flies to another place entirely.
Lawrence English and Lea Bertucci, “A Fissure Exhales” – I’ve been a big fan of Lea Bertucci’s playing and soundscapes for years. This collaboration with field recordings and tape manipulation artist Lawrence English, a standout track for me from their record Chthonic summons a sense of glacial motion, like many of the instrumental records that drew me this year, brings an entire world into my view and keeps revealing new mysteries.
Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, “Shallow Water (Tribute Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr., Guardians of the Flame)” – The power of the statement in Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah leaving his – up to now – primary instrument, the trumpet, behind in favor of his self-created Chief Adjuah’s bow and vocals, paid off big in his remarkable Bark Out Thunder Roar Out Lighting, a mythopoetic tribute to all New Orleans has given us and everything it can still be. This tribute to the great Donald Harrison, Sr., features electrifying playing from Weedie Braimah on percussion, Luques Curtis on bass, and Marcus Gilmore on drums, among excellent guests.
Dan Wilson, “Bird Like” – Akron-based guitarist Dan Wilson grapples with his influences on the terrific Things Eternal, leading a great quartet of Glenn Zaleski on Rhodes, Brandon Rhodes on bass, and David Throckmorton on drums. The fluid lines and gleeful interplay make this Freddie Hubbard classic vibrantly, wrigglingly, alive.
Matana Roberts, “a caged dance” – Anything Matana Roberts does is worthwhile, and the fifth chapter in her Coin Coin series, delving into her family history and examining its context in American and specifically Black American history, In The Garden, might be the best installment yet. Produced with aplomb by Kyp Malone (TV on the Radio) and a large band of excellent musicians, including Mike Pride and Ryan Swift on drums, Stuart Bogie and Darius Jones on reeds, and Mazz Swift on violin, there’s not a weak track to be found. The stuttering, walking-the-line-between early 20th-century jazz and mid-century free jazz intro of this tune grabbed me immediately, and the rest of the track never let go.
Angel Bat Dawid, “INTROID – Joy ‘n’ Stuff’rin” – When I interviewed Angel Bat Dawid years ago, she was working on the multimedia Requiem for Jazz project. While I’m still chomping at the bit to see it realized, the record was maybe the most ambitious and moving jazz and jazz-adjacent piece I’ve heard all year. Massed vocal writing and those interweaving horns on this tune… it doesn’t get better. I’m still unpacking this Requiem and will be for a while.
Ambrose Akinmusire featuring Bill Frisell and Herlin Riley, “Owl Song 1” – Trumpeter-composer Ambrose Akinmusire assembled a trio of guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley for the gorgeous Owl Song. This lead-off track is a tribute to all three players’ dedication to tone, space, and adventuring spirits.
Missy Mazzoli/Third Coast Percussion, “Millenium Canticles Pt 5, Survival Psalm” – The “Millenium Canticles” suite by Missy Mazzoli, one of my favorite composers and who makes one more appearance on this playlist, is the opening salvo to Third Coast Percussion’s dynamic Between Breaths and this final movement feels like you’ve just made your way to shore. A tribute to finding ways and reasons to live.
Beverly Glenn-Copeland, “Harbour (Song for Elizabeth)” – Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s first record in 20 years is a rapturous collection of art songs only he could write. The melody and lyrics of this song, in particular, wrecks me every time. “Don’t you know that you’re the deep, where water, earth, and fire meet? Don’t you know that when you sleep, life’s laughing, weeping?”
Mark Lomax II featuring Scott Woods, “Ho’oponopono” – One of the performances I was sorriest to miss in the fall of 2022 was the premiere of Columbus’s greatest composer Mark Lomax’s newest collaboration with poet Scott Woods, Black Odes. I’m still sorry I wasn’t in town to see it, but the record is a spectacular document of an opening into a new era for two of our finest artists. “What else do I need but this hem? / What else do I need to decolonize this kiss to make it a worthy offering?”
Missy Mazzoli/Arctic Philharmonic, “These Worlds In Us” – I’ve been a big fan of Missy Mazzoli’s writing since I heard her chamber ensemble Victoire on a blog, and a year or two later saw them in Chicago’s Millennium Park. Her work has grown more expansive, covering a multiplicity of forms, and finally, there was a collection under her name with a variety of uncollected orchestra pieces, Dark With Excessive Bright. This one, new to me, was an immediate favorite and falls into my usual tone: a prayerful/hope-for-the-world piece I like to end these playlists on. Thank you all for reading/listening. I love you.

Tags Aaron Diehl, Allison Miller, Ambrose Akinmusire, Andre 3000, Andre Matos, Angel bat Dawid, Aoife O'Donovan, Arctic Philharmonic, Arooj Aftab, Ava Mendoza, best of, best of 2023, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Bill Frisell, Carlos Nino, Cecilia Lopez, Chad Fowler, Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, Chris Abrahams, Chris Potter, Christian Scott, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Curtis Stewart, Damon Locks, Dan Wilson, Darcy James Argue, Devin Hoff, Four Tet, Gerald Cleaver, Geri Allen, Greg Ward, Henry Threadgill, Herlin Riley, ingrid laubrock, Irreversible Entanglements, Ivo Perelman, james brandon lewis, Javier Nero, JD Allen, Joel Ross, Johnathan Blake, Julius Eastman, Kali Malone, Kieran Hebden, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Lawrence English, Lea Bertucci, Love in Exile, Mark Lomax II, marquis hill, Matana Roberts, Matthew Shipp, MEM_MODs, Mendoza Hoff Revels, Missy Mazzoli, music, Nubya Garcia, Oren Ambarchi, Phoebe Bridgers, Playlist, recorded music, Red Lily Quintet, Rob Mazurek, Rob Moose, Robbie Aveniam, Roy Hargrove, Sara Serpa, scott woods, Sexmob, Shazad Ismaily, So Percussion, Steve Hirsh, Thandi Ntuli, The Knights, Third Coast Percussion, Tyshawn Sorey, Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith, Wild Up, William Parker, William Tyler, Wolf Eyes, Yasmin Williams, Zoh Amba

Crawling back from a crazy couple of months of frenzied activity and trying to find a little more of a balance. Have a couple of plans to get next month’s out earlier; we’ll see how successful I am. The month off did remind me how much I enjoy doing these, not only compiling the songs but finding something to say about them, and made me recommit to doing it every month.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/d5351ad0-81d4-4716-89d1-74feacef26d6

Willie Nelson, “Excuse Me (I Think I’ve Got a Heartache)” – Willie Nelson’s record-length dives into the catalog of specific songwriters are among my favorite items in his wide-ranging oeuvre – I still play his songs of Cindy Walker more than any other record he’s put out in the 20+ years since – and I Don’t Know a Thing About Love, his look at the songs of the great Harlan Howard, is another winner. I grew up with the original Buck Owens version of this but I had fewer loving associations than most of the songs Nelson does here, this one didn’t live in my blood the same way as “Busted” or “Life Turned Her That Way” do, and it let me sink into this arrangement, trading in sly barstool wisdom for the punchy churn of Owens and his Buckaroos, like getting into a bubble bath, especially the interweaving of Mike Johnson’s steel and Jim “Moose” Brown’s keys.
Les Mamans du Congo & Rrobin, “Dia” – Mama Glad (Gladys Samba), Bantu singer/songwriter/rapper teams up again with beatmaker and label owner Rrobin for an infectious song that swirls like light as the the golden hour starts to fade. The call and response dancing over minimal keyboard bass and arrangements that are exactly the right kind of busy keep me coming back to this over and over.
Kali Uchis, “Happy Now” – Kali Uchis’ Red Moon in Venus is my favorite R&B record so far this year, a kaleidoscope of moods, featuring songwriting that alternately dazzles me with its intricate, beautiful structures, and slaps me in the face at the right time. This final track, co-written with and produced by Sounwave, DJ Khalil, and Mndsgn, was an early contender for favorite song and while that feeling shifts almost daily – the sign of a record I love – it’s still high in the running. “Cosmic conditions conspired against us. ‘Cause you and me, we got chemistry, but what’s with our timing? Guess it’s better we never rushed; our spark turned to flames.”
Ari Joshua, “Fresh” – Guitarist Ari Joshua convenes a fantastic Pacific Northwester soul-jazz/funk collective for this killing single, with Skerik (everybody from Mark Eitzel to Bobby Previte to Charlie Hunter to Wayne Horvitz) on tenor and 2/3 of the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, Lamarr on organ and Grant Schroff (Polyrhythmics). Not an ounce of fat here but all indications point to them taking it into outer space when they do it live.
Daddy Long Legs, “Silver Satin” – I loved Daddy Long Legs from those first couple of singles – and I was already pre-disposed since I’d been a big fan of drummer Josh Styles’ DJ sets so knew how good his taste in grooves was – and they cemented that love the first time I saw them open for and back cracked-perspective R&B great T. Valentine at the (RIP) Lakeside Lounge. The last time I saw them, at Rumba right before the pandemic, they had turned up the ’60s Stones/Northern Soul colors in their palette, and that technicolor finger-snapping gets more vibrant and greasy on their front-to-back great Street Sermons. “At the bottom of a bottle of Jack o’ Diamonds, I lost my head and woke up in Coney Island.”
Gina Birch, “I Play My Bass Loud” – The solo debut of Raincoats bassist Gina Birch was everything I wanted it to be, and this title track exemplifies everything I love about it. An oozing rhythm with a bass line I couldn’t shake if I wanted to and a vocal bulging with elastic declamations. “Turn up the volume. I raise my window high. I paint the sky red: it’s getting darker, it’s getting deeper. Red streaks across the sky. Are you ready for this?”
Gee Tee, “Cell Damage” – Goner Records (and their live arm, Gonerfest) has always had a particularly good line on great new rock music from Australiza and New Zealand, and this NZ band followed a stunning Gonerfest set last year with one of my favorite noisy garage-punk records in a long time, Goodnight, Neanderthal. This under-two-minutes blast is representative of a record I don’t skip anything on, with vocals drowning in heat mirage lines, washes of fuzzed-out guitar and riding a wave of acid trip synth, steering around the cymbals.
Tee Vee Repairman, “Drownin'” – Ishka Edmeades, Gee Tee member, steps out on his own with the soulful freakouts of stellar full-lenght What’s On TV?. Wearing his Devo influence on his sleeve, this struck me as a heartache-drenched sweet spot between Gentleman Jesse’s powerpop and Hunx and his Punx doo-wop stomps. “I’ve been waiting at the station, just don’t know what to do. I was drowning in you.”
Yaeji, “Done (Let’s Get It)” – Brooklyn-based Yaeji’s With a Hammer is the first example in years of the kind of warm dance music I was so drawn to – but rarely admitted, openly embracing the harder-edged drum and bass and jungle – in my early 20s. Influenced by classic house, riding on waves of squelching bass and drums full of a writhing-on-the-floor clack but with subtly R&B-flavored vocals in both English and Korean.
OkoNski, “Song For My Sister’s Son” – Steve Okonski, who started as a classically trained pianist then became known to the wider world through his affiliation with soul acts Durand Jones and the Indications and Aaron Frazer, stepped into his own with a gorgeous piano trio album (featuring Frazer on drums and Michael Isvara “Ish” Montgomery on bass) that feels to me like it occupies a similar warm, hazy sunrise sonic space as the Yaeji that immediately preceded it.
Ingrid Laubrock, “Delusions” – A little more abrasive than the tracks but with a similar internal landscape writ large intensity. One of my favorite saxophone players, Ingrid Laubrock assembles a stunning sextet on her new record The Last Quiet Place of partner Tom Rainey on drums, Michael Formanek on bass, Brandon Seabrook on guitar, Tomeka Reid on cello, and Mazz Swift on violin.
Liv.e, “RESET!” – Dallas’s Liv.e plays with moods in a similar way – to my ears – as the previous couple of tracks, digging into R&B history as much as it feels like she’s excavating her own past, her own history of victories and trauma. “Chop my head off, I wanna roll my eyes back. Don’t wanna see what time sent. Don’t wanna know what’s coming next.”
Chlöe, “Make it Look Easy” – Chlöe, best known as part of Chloe x Halle, delivered a remarkable, stripped-down record with In Pieces, and while it’s still revealing itself to me, this is an early front runner for my favorite song from the album. From the opening invocation “No matter how many times I break, I pull myself together. Every damn time,” I’m enraptured, and the slow-drag groove with samples around the fingersnaps that feel like dancing ghosts being beckoned, never disappoints me.
6LACK, “Inwood HIll Park” – I got turned onto 6LACK from old friend and co-worker Cassie Schutt and I was immediately a sucker for his laid back, almost deceptively not-giving-a-fuck conversation cadence and low rumble. Since I Have a Lover is another peak, another refinement, a polishing of exactly what he does so well, the space he’s carved out in contemporary hip-hop. “Can’t you see that I’ve been hostile for weeks? Don’t you know you change the patterns of my sleep?”
Superviolet, “Overrater” – I was a big fan of Columbus band Sidekicks, one of my favorite pop-punk bands finding new textures and voices in a genre I’d long since lost interest in. But it was a pleasant surprise to hear leader Steven Ciolek emerge with this project, sun-dappled bursting-at-the-seams folk rock produced by Saintseneca’s Zac Little. The similar sense of “Man, I’m just telling you a story ,” and the subtle but right arrangement felt like it created a commonality with the earlier two songs on the playlist. “Well, in a van in headphones is the last way I want to die; just because we’re losers doesn’t mean that we won’t try. So call up Felicia, call up Matt, tell them to craft the plan: surprise release the sixth album as the greatest rock and roll band.
boygenius, “Not Strong Enough” – I like the work of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker, a great deal individually but the boygenius collaboration took until this full length, The Record, to hit me as strongly. The guitar stabs and swirling harmonies in this record send me into space and back into myself at the same time, balancing the intimate and high drama with assured hands. “The way I am not strong enough to be your man – I lied, I am just lowering your expectations.”
Kendrick Scott, “A Voice Through the Door” – Drummer-composer Kendrick Scott strips down the approach of his last couple of records to a tight trio with saxophonist Walter Smith III and bassist Reuben Rogers for Corridors. This mesmerizing track opens with a solo smith improvisation before a wash of cymbals announces the rest of the trio. One of the great mood pieces being written today, played by musicians with a careful and rare empathy.
Meshell Ndegeocello featuring Brandee Younger and Julius Rodriguez, “Virgo” – I’d been a fan of singer-songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello since first hearing her work as a kid, but a breathtaking set at Manhattan’s Blue Note with a stacked cast of collaborators including Tortoise’s Jeff Parker and Rodriguez who also features on this track, brought that love back to the forefront of my brain. This first taste of The Omnichord Real Book has me hungry for more, with a cut-by-a-razor funk drum pattern and guitar riff dancing between the deep groove of moog bass and the exquisite tinsel-rain of Brandee Younger’s harp. “I’m ascending faster than the speed of light to sweet nothingness.”
Connections, “Bird Has Flown” – Columbus’s supergroup of rock-and-roll lifers Connections came out of a few years of uncertainty with their strongest album yet, Cool Change, and this is among my favorite tracks from it, with an anthemic shouting call-and-response vocal and soaring guitar and keyboard solos over the kind of choppy groove they do better than any Columbus rock band in years – maybe since leader Andy Hempel and guitarist Kevin Elliott’s last band, 84 Nash.
The New Pornographers, “Pontius Pilate’s Home Movies” – Canadian collective New Pornographers return with a rock-solid collection of their cracked songs and infectious melodies. AC Newman and Neko Case’s sly back and forth on this lovely admonition and the pulse of the band remind me exactly what I always loved about this band. “Now you’re clearing the room, like Pontius Pilate, when he showed all his home movies. All his friends yelling, ‘Pilate, too soon!'”
The Necks, “Imprinting” – Australian piano trio The Necks have never made a bad album. Every time they come together, they dig deeper into their shared language, into the space they’ve carved at the intersection of post-minimalism chamber music and contemporary improvisation, and this is another winner.
Missy Mazzoli, “Dark With Excessive Bright” – I’ve been a fan of Missy Mazzoli’s compositions since first hearing her ensemble Victoire, through a series of great new chamber records from people like Nadia Sirota, yMusic, Now Ensemble, where she almost always penned my favorite tracks, on through an excellent series of operas where she drags that form into the 21st century by the scruff of its neck. This new record of which this is the title track, is an ideal introduction to her work and this concerto for violin and string orchestra featuring soloist Peter Herresthal might be my favorite piece of hers yet.
Josephine Foster, “Haunted House” – A new Josephine Foster record is always a cause for celebration in my corner of the world and her new coiled, mysterious Domestic Sphere is everything I could have hoped, with this devastating seismic read on the heartbeat of a character and the world, as one of many chilling salvos. “I am a haunted house. There is no light in me. Your candle is gone out; my windows, they are empty. There is nothing on earth that isn’t poison to me.”
Dave Douglas and Elan Mehler, “We Saw You Off” – Trumpeter Dave Douglas’s ranging curiosity, lit by a love for the world, is a perpetual inspiration to me. This collaboration with pianist Elan Mehler sets haiku to new musical settings, sung by Dominique Eade. This setting of a Saigyō piece grabbed me early and hasn’t let go since. “We saw you off / And returning through the fields / I thought morning dew / Had wet my sleeves / But it was tears.”
Mark Lomax II featuring Scott Woods, “Ho’oponopono” – I’ve raved about Lomax often enough I don’t think it’s a secret I think he’s Columbus’s finest composer. His collaboration with poet Scott Woods, Black Odes, was the single event I was sorriest to miss last year (I was out of town and sure I saw something great) and this first taste of the recording reminds me exactly why. It’s a return to black love – the first subject I saw Woods tackle more than 20 years ago, he even used to have a poem called “Why Do You Always Talk About Black Love,” I think – but with all the skills of the last 20 years of life, on both of their parts, with delicate and surging arrangements and Lomax’s quintessential taste for harmony given a remarkable showcase. “And so I love you / And so I am sorry / And so I beg forgiveness”
Lucero, “Should’ve Learned By Now” – Lucero – who I think I originally heard within a year or two of first seeing Scott Woods read and hearing Lomax play with his group Blacklist – also find ways to apply all the life singer-songwriter Ben Nichols has had in decades leading the band as he and the band learn to relax a little more and open up the arrangements to find new colors to paint these feelings. This sinewy title track off their latest album finds them in fine form, the kind of raging, muscular melancholy they do as well as any band working and better than most – that piano line snaps my heart in two every time. “Well, half of what runs through my head is bullshit I sell to myself. And the other half ain’t well thought out; I really should’ve learned by now.”
Kelela, “Missed Call” – The textures are different but this standout track from DC-based Kelela’s terrific album Raven struck a similar chord in me of resiliency and self-admonition, with a neon-splashed groove. “I’m in a dream. I wake up until the moment that we make up.”
Gama Bomb, “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” – This metal (check that double-time drumming and the lacerating guitar solo) read on one of my favorite Pogues anthems to rising above and stumbling in the muck on a perpetual cycle, made me grin like an idiot. “Bury me at sea where no murdered ghost can haunt me if I rock upon the waves, and no corpse can lie upon me.”
Burna Boy featuring J Balvin, “Rollercoaster” – A more easy-going groove animates this collaboration between these superstars, Nigerian Burna Boy and Colombian Latin trap/reggaeton king J Balvin, and their voices blend together beautifully. If songs of the summer are still a thing, this is high on my list of contenders. “I no wanna wait till it’s all over – this life is a gift from Most High, Jah.”
Huntertones, “Biff” – Beloved Columbus expatriates now doing big things in New York and elsewhere, Huntertones use their nearly unquenchable thirst to take the world in and reflect it back with a heavy taste for a variety of rhythms but also a brilliantly strong taste for melody. This delirious pop-funk carnival ride makes exceptional use of the front line of Dan White on tenor, Jon Lampley on trumpet, and Chris Ott on trombone, while leaving space for their longtime rhythm section of guitarist Josh Hill, bassist Adam DeAscentis, and drummer John Hubbell to breathe. That repeated riff has been stuck in my head since I first heard it.
MEM_MODS, “Midtown Miscommunication” – This killing instrumental funk-rock project from Steve Selvidge (Hold Steady, Big Ass Truck), Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi All Stars, Black Crowes), and Paul Taylor (New Memphis Colorways, Amy LaVere) more than lived up to my high expectations, with the added seasoning of Marc Franklin’s horn arrangements, played by Franklin and Art Edmaison.
DJ Quik, “Class” – In what I realize is an unintentional theme of this month’s playlist, producer-rapper DJ Quik continues to dig into his language. His signature, the smoothed out, warm funk he’s been doing brilliantly for at least 30 years, still sounds like a summer night in the offing. “Sometimes rhyme, then I sing.”
Dydy Yeman, “S’envolvement” – I couldn’t find much about this Ivorian Afrobeats artists but this song captured me immediately. The intermingling textures of voices and the scratchy beat put me in a space I wanted to come back to again and again.
Tsa manyalo, “Petula patjana” – I got turned onto the South African genre of Tsa manyalo this year – maybe through ILX? Maybe a blog? I should keep better notes – and this version of this Solly Selema song is like capturing sunlight in a bottle.
Lucinda Chua, “You” – London-based cellist-singer Lucinda Chua blew my mind with her full-length debut YIAN. This is an excellent example of the way she builds an entire world for her listeners, the inside of a heart recast as a house of mirrors, and the way the sentences she builds in the lyrics resist resolution, hanging in a state of hazy suspension I found intoxicating. “I want you to know that all of your kindness is all of your kindness.”
James & The Giants, “Hall of Mirrors” – One of my favorite American songwriters of the last 20 years, James Toth (I treasure every time I’ve gotten to see his Wooden Wand project) brings a more lush take, in tandem with long-time collaborator Jarvis Taveniere, to this new James & the Giants project. The emphasized hooks and glowing arrangement amplifies the mystery in these songs at the same time they bolster their accessibility. Maybe my favorite song so far this year. “We won’t let the tide or starlight rule us. We’ll toast the dark for the way it cools us. ‘Cause the night is a hall of mirrors.”
Rudy Royston, “Morning” – I resisted the easy pairing of morning with night of this track and the one immediately before it, but the similar palette of colors in this perfect drummer-composer Rudy Royston track, glowing with a similar promise of light and life as the Toth right before, and with a marvelous band of John Ellis on bass clarinet, Hank Roberts on cello, Gary Versace on accordion, and Joe Martin on bass, kept calling to me. It’s a marvelous, catchy, piece and it just felt right here.
Caroline Rose, “Stockholm Syndrome” – This early highlight of Caroline Rose’s new The Art of Forgetting is an abject lesson in restraint, in paring down, and a reminder of how much menace and heartbreak can live in less than two minutes. “I know that you need air, but I can’t let you out.”
Muscadine Bloodline, “Life Itself” – This new-ish country duo lean into one of my favorite radio-ready singles to come out of the genre in quite a while. Burnished sunlight power and an easy, open-hearted appeal with a hook I can’t get enough of. “Can’t think of anyone else. Can’t get you out of my mind.”
Cecile McLorin Salvant, “Le temps est assassin” – With Mélusine, our finest jazz singer of her generation continues to resist resting on the supple power of her voice and on what she’s done before. She digs into the French and Haitian heritage of her parents with dazzling results, there isn’t a bad track on this record, even for someone like me whose understanding of French is schoolboy at best.
Nakhane, “You’ve Got Me (Living Again)” – A powerful, surging statement of purpose, a rising-up beautifully echoed by the melody, especially that keyboard line, and the lyrics, from this South African singer. “I’ve tried to change for you.”
Wadada Leo Smith and the Orange Wave Ensemble, “Nzotake Shange” – Keeping with my usual stylistic marker of ending with something meditative, something like a prayer, this tribute to the poet and playwright Nzotake Shange from one of my favorite composers and trumpet players Wadada Leo Smith, takes on a serpentine groove with a band of astonishing players – guitarists Nels Cline, Lamar Smith, and Brandon Ross, bassists Melvin Gibbss and Bill Laswell, drummer Pheeroan akLaff, percussionist Mauro Refosco, and electronics artist Hardedge – an opening salvo and highlight of Fire Illuminations.

Tags 6LACK, Ari Joshua, boygenius, Brandee Younger, Burna Boy, Caroline Rose, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Chloe, Connections, Daddy Long Legs, Dave Douglas, DJ Quik, Dydy Yeman, Elan Mehler, Gama Bomb, Gee Tee, Gina Birch, Huntertones, ingrid laubrock, J Balvin, James and the Giants, James Toth, Josephine Foster, Julius Rodriguez, Kali Uchis, Kelela, Kendrick Scott, Les Mamans du Congo, Liv.e, Lucero, Lucinda Chua, Luther Dickinson, Mark Lomax II, MEM_MODs, Meshell Ndegeocello, Missy Mazzoli, Muscadine Bloodline, music, Nakhane, OkoNski, Paul Taylor, Playlist, recorded music, Rrobin, Rudy Royston, scott woods, Steve Selvidge, Superviolet, Tee Vee Repairman, The Necks, The New Pornographers, Tsa manyalo, Wadada Leo Smith, Willie Nelson

"Hey, Fred!" books poetry theatre Writing Other Places

Writers’ Block Retrospective Extended Cut

Post author By rsanford614
Post date October 6, 2022
No Comments on Writers’ Block Retrospective Extended Cut

The thrust of the story and the definitive version of this is in Columbus Underground here, and I want to thank my editors in CU for commissioning it: https://columbusunderground.com/writers-block-poetry-walks-into-the-sunset-rs1/

I also want to thank everyone – yes, again – for being so generous with their time. I go into a little more detail and let some folks run on at a little more length in this extended cut, and I hope the die-hards enjoy it.

When I heard the Writers’ Block Poetry Night – with a rich history across seven venues going back 24 years – was calling it quits (at least as a weekly event) after the December 21 show, I knew it was something I had to write about.

As someone who grew up in Columbus and turned 18 around the time the night started, I watched the poetry scene blossom into something that would have been unrecognizable just a few years later. And while I wasn’t the most regular attendee, I was always grateful when I made my way through those doors; I always left inspired and usually left with another poet I was checking for. If anyone from out of town was here on a Wednesday looking for something “Columbus,” it was one of my very first suggestions.

I made it to an event recently, and it’s as irreverent, moving, and powerful as ever – glowing with community and affection for its regulars but encouraging to newcomers. I intended to stay for an hour and get a few photos, but I ended up pushing my other plans back, getting a second drink and staying for the last poet; I was having that good a time. Do not miss these last shows.

I was lucky enough to talk with the three current runners of the event, Kerouac’s owner, and two poets from different periods of the event. I want to thank each of them for being so generous with their time and memories. conversations were edited for clarity and length.

People interviewed:

Vernell Bristow: Poet and Co-Founder, Originating MC.
Scott Woods: Poet and Co-Founder, former President of Poetry Slam Inc.
Louise Robertson: Poet and Coordinator.
Sidney Jones, Jr.: Poet and Teacher.
Zach Hannah: Poet.
Mike Heslop: Owner of Kafe Kerouac

Pre-History

So, how did you originally meet? At [legendary downtown venue] Snaps and Taps?

Bristow: I had been to the poetry forum at Larry’s a couple times. And one day I saw a flyer in the Black Cultural Center, and I said, “Oh, maybe I’ll give it another try. It’s Black people.” I went to [the reading] and met brother Is Said [acclaimed Columbus poet and playwright]. He used to have a series: Poetry in the summer was his thing at Hot Times [Festival]. And poetry in the winter was always on campus in the Frank Hale Black Cultural Center. He introduced me to the series at the Marble Gang [restaurant].
I credit brother Is Said with starting me on my way with poetry in Columbus.

Woods: He was carrying the torch for Black poetry since the late ’60s, at least, early ’70s. And he was doing that pretty much by himself, I guess until Snaps came along. But he always crossed worlds. He was always at Larry’s. Always at Hot Times. He was known throughout the city. He was carrying the torch for us.

Bristow: Before Snaps & Taps, in the same location, was [James Chapmyn’s Living the Dream] theater company, and they had a weekly open mic poetry reading. When it was time for his theater company to go on their college tour, I started hosting it. [Is Said] saw me host. He was like, “Oh, you’re pretty good at that.” So, when Snaps opened and they were having a weekly open mic, they naturally asked Is Said if he would host that open mic. And he said, “Oh no, I’m too old for that commitment. You need somebody young for that. Sister Vernell can do it.”

And one day, this guy, Scott Woods, came walking in with some love poems tucked under his arm and the rest was history.

Early Years

When did the series begin?

Woods: This is always the point of contention. Here… It was ’98. It was the year that the movie Slam came out. Because one of the first gigs that came through Snaps & Taps was getting poached to do a reading at the Drexel Theater for the opening of Slam.

Bristow: When we were at Snaps & Taps, the room was packed every week, but never the same people. Repeat poets would come out. But the audience was never the same people. It was more like people would come out maybe once a month, once every six weeks. Just bunches of people on the same schedule, but on different weeks.

Woods: That’s because it wasn’t a good time. Snaps didn’t serve alcohol. It didn’t serve food. And when it was packed, it wasn’t the most comfortable place to be. And you were subjected to three hours of poetry on a Wednesday night. Those shows were long.

Jones: [Coming to OSU after graduating from LSU,] Snaps & Taps [was] the place to be. It was Love Jones but with way better poetry in a lot of ways.

Bristow: That’s funny.

Woods: Highly debatable, but that was definitely the vibe. And then somewhere along the way, we started caring about what the show was doing.

Jones: Almost anyone I consider a friend today, I met at Snaps & Taps or through Snaps & Taps. I met Scott there, I met Vernell, [I met] a lot of the early poets and a lot of my early associations [moving to town]: Kim Brazwell, Jason Brazwell, Ed Mabrey, people like that.

Slam

For many years, this open mic was heavily associated with Slam in a way I don’t remember having seen in Columbus beforehand. When did that start?

Woods: Not long after we got going. For the record, we were not the very first slam event in the city; OSU used to put on these things they called slams. But technically, we were the first actual poetry reading to put on a slam. We were slamming not too long after we got going; maybe a year. We did our first regional slam in 2000. The first time we sent a team to nationals was in 2001, Seattle.

And I remember I had gotten hip to it online, and I was like, this sounds wild. And at some point, I saw [the documentary] Slam Nation. I kind of got hip to it on the internet, which was tough because back then, all there was, was, like, forums. There was no YouTube, there was no social media. So, I joined an email listserv for slam, and it was dope because back then, like everybody at the national level was tied into the same source. We just kind of did them for kicks.

Bristow: It was just like bragging rights. Like, [Snaps and Taps owner Todd Tuney] he has like 20 bucks [as a prize].

Woods: And they were really rough affairs. Like again, like the poets didn’t really know what it was. We didn’t really know what it was. People were getting really invested in it, which made it appealing to us as a program.

Jones: There used to be a Midwest poetry slam league. Columbus had a team; Dayton had a team. Let’s see. Detroit, Chicago, Kalamazoo, places like that. It was cool.

Woods: Marc Smith, the founder of poetry slam of Chicago had become very uninvested in what was happening at the national level. I met [Marc] in 2000. And he had this idea: “Yo, the Midwest has this really special energy. Slam came out of the Midwest. I want to create a league. It’s basically like a bowling league. I want it to be fun again. I don’t care about all these points and all the stuff they’re doing at the national level. I don’t want to do any of that. But I want to keep it in the Midwest where we have a certain value.” And so, he started the Midwest Poetry Slam League, and basically venues in different cities would have a bowling team of poets.

Jones: This is how crazy we were, right? And this is how crazy I was as an early teacher: the Midwest slams would be during the middle of the week, right? And it would always be some time like… I don’t know. Let’s say 8:00 at night in Detroit. Everyone would get off work, leave school, meet at Snaps & Taps or carpool, drive the three hours or so to Detroit.

Slam would last like… I don’t know. Maybe an hour and a half, two hours. And you’ll slam off against at least Detroit, and maybe another team might be there. And it’s all about like bragging rights. And so, you would have that. And then you would drive back home. So, you get back home at God knows what hour, then I’m up for work the next day. Maybe I got papers graded. Maybe I didn’t. Luckily, I was conscientious about always having lesson plans.

There was a friendly rivalry between Columbus and Dayton. Sometimes Columbus and Cleveland, you had that going back and forth. There was also the Rustbelt Poetry Slam, that was a regional slam, that was an invitational that Columbus has hosted a couple times, Dayton hosted.

Woods: We had rules, but they were very short and not intense. But you had to do group pieces and stuff like that. It was a beautiful thing. Short-lived, because ultimately there was no money to be made in it. And so, it’s very hard to give people gas money. And our team was like 10 folks deep.

Bristow: I think we even had a couple of Dayton people that ended up on our team, Columbus Thunderpants, in the second year [when their team folded].

Robertson: Rustbelt is a single tournament, and the Midwest Poetry Slam League was like, “Go here and then go here.”

Woods: Rustbelt was a two-day competition that would change cities. It was created by [Dayton Poetry Slam founder] Bill Abbott, and then it started bouncing. It was in Dayton for a few years. Then Columbus at least four times [some run by Ed Mabrey]. those were good times, good shows, good showcases of the region: when it comes to performance poetry, the Midwest’s got chops. Especially back then.

Jones: When [school slams were] first announced in the district, my department chair is like, “Hey…” Because they knew I was involved in slam in the past and I had done open mics. Like, “Hey, we’re going to send a team. You want to do this?” And I resisted. I was like, “No. I don’t know if I want to do it.” Because as much as I love poetry itself, I do have a love-hate relationship with slam.

You love the competition, you love poetry events, but the thing about slam is the best poem sometimes, and maybe a lot of times, does not win, right? That’s the nature of the game; there are a lot of other factors that go into what an audience wants. I’m not going to be so bold as to say the audience is wrong. They like what they like. But if you are a listener and a poetry nerd of sorts, you’re like, “There’s no way this poem is as well-crafted as this thing that won.” Sometimes the audience and the judges want more entertainment than they want craft.

And my thought was, “I don’t know if I want to do this to kids.” I don’t know if I want to subject them to this because I know it gives and it takes. And it can lift you up, and you can have some heartbroken times, right? But they talked me into it, and we had a group, And I remember telling them our first meetings, “Look, guys, I’m going to tell you right now: we’re not going to win. We’re not going to win this. So, my job is, at the very least, I want people to know that you can write good poetry. I want you to be good poets. I want you to present good poetry.”

In a lot of ways, I tried to model myself after the way that I was coached by Scott, right? And the things I had learned and seen from my experiences with especially Snaps & Taps, especially the slam team coming out of that venue, just pushing the craft and challenging them. Challenging [the students] like, “Hey, don’t use cliches. Give me something other than an angsty teenage poem about a breakup. And if you give me a breakup poem, make it original. Show me the breakup in a way I’ve never seen it before. This isn’t good enough. Try it again.” I tried to push craft more than anything. And then we worked on delivery. I think we spent probably 80% of our time working on the poems, beating the poems up, 20% of our time working on delivery.

And maybe that’s me, because I never memorized anything, right? But I push that with the kids. I’m like, “If you want to memorize, I will help you with that. You don’t have to [but] if you decide you want to memorize, then I’m going to make sure you do it and I’m going to push you that way.”

And the kids, by and large, they responded. They loved it. They became critical listeners themselves, of poetry. our first team, I think we tied for eighth, out of like 16. I think every school in the district had a slam team that first slam. Then we just kept getting better and better each year; kids got more into it, it got more competitive at the school level to make the team.

National Poetry Slams

Writers’ Block was the first Columbus reading to send representation to the National Poetry Slam (nationals) and sent teams every year from 2001 through 2013.

Jones: I was somehow lucky to be on that first slam team. I don’t know how, because it was a team of heavy hitters. I squeaked by. I don’t know.

Columbus hosted the Women of the World Poetry Slam [another event run by PSI] twice.

Bristow: It was amazing to experience what I had experienced in other cities that had hosted national events. But I got to experience them right here, in my city. Poetry Everywhere. People who weren’t a part of it, but were like, “What is happening?” Seeing the frenzy of everyone wondering what would happen.

Robertson: [At one show, there] was a huge breakdown. [A slam] judge left the room to go to the bathroom, think. And Vernell flawlessly – seamlessly – kept the energy up; kept it even, because if you get too high or get too low, the poets are grumbling they’re not going to get points.

Woods: That [tourism piece] is important, too. The WOW events were not local events; they were not regional events. They were national events. Poets from all over the country, poets who’d been on television, poets who had been in movies, poets who had won prizes, name poets.

Robertson: A few of them international, Canadian, Caribbean.

Woods: [They] came to our city and walked away with this amazing impression of the city. That was like not easy to do, right? Because Columbus is Columbus. But we had to think really hard about putting [this on]. Because we only have a couple of local poets participating in that competition. Everybody else is from somewhere else. We’re talking like 60, 65, 70 poets, All from different places. All the side events, right? We were showcasing our city. Right? We were the reading that did that. We are the people who did that.

Poets, The Audience, and Community

Robertson: [In 2004, when the show was in] Barrister Hall, I had not been writing: job, kids, all that. I had started writing again, and they had a virgin night. I wrote a note to them saying, “I haven’t written in 10 years. Does that mean I’m a virgin?” Then Scott gave the most Scott answer ever. “We’ll see.”

Bristow: That is so Scott.

Robertson: I show up, and I just thought it was great. Then a couple weeks later, I came again and I haven’t looked back. [Staffing came] about a year later; they needed press releases written. Of course, me, kids, jobs, everything, I’m like, “I could write a press release in the middle of the night.” And since I’m a web developer and email developer, I would do web stuff [because] you could do that in the middle of the night too. [When] we had a fundraiser, I set up the digital money [collection] and the microsites with the poets [pictures, bios]. Then I just insinuated myself. Because you really do need three people. You could do [run a show] with two. You can even do it with one; on those very rare weeks where it’s only one, you draft somebody to do the door, greet people when they come in, and you can do it, but it’s like hanging on with your fingernails.

Jones: There’s polite applause. You get that. But you earned the respect for your work too. But you always have to earn your spot too. That’s another thing about Snaps & Taps. even at Writers’ Block, [has] this idea of earning respect through your work. You earn your applause.

Hannah: I came at a time where I probably needed it more than anything else in my life. I needed community because I was a wild one. I had lots of wrangling with language over the years but never had really applied it to any one form or format or medium. Never really put anything into the ether. [About 10 years ago,] I Googled open mics in the city, and Writers’ Block came up. I never had community outside of, like, childhood church. I’d never even been a part of anything [that was] borderline community. Partying doesn’t count.

Robertson: We had a writer by the name of Rick Forman come through and drop these little two-line truth bomb poems that rhyme. Scott, every week would introduce him with a fantastical long, sometimes marathon, 12-minute introduction. And he could always weave into that fantastical castle of words, a lot about poetry. And both Vernell and I had moments when we could introduce Rick, and we had our different shticks and things, but we would also weave structure words. So in an ongoing way, Rick provided a way, not only to be fun and something people expected. It was funny. But we could talk about art overtly and have a great time with this really sweet guy who came every week.

Bristow: When I first got involved, I wanted to celebrate poets. That’s why I loved Scott’s introduction of Rick. We celebrated Rick every single week [and] the essence of poetry. I wanted people to try to find community. Knowing Rick confirmed to me that we did what I wanted to do: create a community. I started running into Rick, outside of Writers’ Block. Rick was like in his seventies, and he had relocated back to Columbus. I would run into Rick’s younger sister. She never came to Writers’ Block, but I would run into her at the Jewish Community Center. One day, she stopped me and thanked me for giving Rick a home when he moved to Columbus.

I think probably my most memorable moment is near the end of Rick’s life. He had been in the hospital I went to go see him. Here he is with cancer, and he is so concerned about how Scott is doing, how Louise is doing, how Marshall [another poet] was doing, how I’m doing. One time, I went to go see him after a long day, and I was so tired. He was like, “Take a nap. I am.” I took a nap in his room. He took a nap in his bed.

But one night, one day when he was in that Wexner [Medical] Center, he was so concerned about poetry that he wrote a poem right there for me to share at open mic. We were his people. I think for me, he symbolizes what I hope Writers’ Block would accomplish, one of the things that it would accomplish, that it would give poets a home and a place to feel comfortable about sharing.

Hannah: Rick had me finish his feature. He brought me onstage to finish his feature for him. I didn’t know it, but it was about Herman the Worm. He didn’t know I had a speech impediment. But I went up there, and Rick probably slapped me in the mouth harder with the last poem he made me read for his feature. I’m reading it for the first time onstage to other people, and one of the last things of his feature is, “You don’t have to hurt for your art.” It was like, I’m reading that, and I’m like, “That’s it.” The crowd was clapping, and I’m like, “Oh, Rick just bodied me.” It was the community that pushed me in the right direction.

Robertson: We talk a lot about fostering good poetry, but we also make sure that [when] somebody comes, they don’t have to worry about the thing they might feel self-conscious about. That’s not the business here. Sometimes readings give a certain vibe, or a certain kind of person does a reading. [Here,] you see a lot of different ages, different groups, different backgrounds.

Hannah: One of my good friends, one of the guys I started poetry with here, Dug of Happy Tooth & Dug, I watched him. It was when we were new. This might have been his fifth or sixth time onstage. He said a word that no longer is used as much – an ableist word – in a poem, and Izetta [Thomas] yelled out from the back and said, “You can do better.” And Dug is like, “What?” She explained to him why and how he can do better. Dug learned from that and Dug came back. Now, Dug is one of the more forward-thinking people I know.

Hannah: I didn’t mention Izetta [yet]. That’s a shame. Jesus Christ, Izetta is one of the best,

Robertson: It’s a community; you end up caring about everybody, no matter who they are. We’ve lost a couple other poets, and it’s just heartbreaking.

Bristow: Gina Blaurock. Oh God. [Gina Blaurock passed in 2015] Bill Hurley.

Hannah: Bill Hurley’s reading of “The Raven” every year, it wasn’t “The Raven,” but it was The Raven.

Hannah: Gina Blaurock was one of the reasons why I felt like I started to gain community here. [She and] Vernell Bristow would go out to pizza with me after Writers’ Block for some five, six, seven months. I don’t know if I would have ventured outside of the stage here if it were not for those two. I had many features change my life on that stage, but the community I definitely got, through the crew: Scott and Vernell and Louise and at that point Gina, were just inseparable, [and] Ed Plunkett [Columbus poet who wrote a beautiful tribute to Blaurock here.]

Woods: [A] definite one is when Marc Smith, founder of Slam, came to our show.[Him] being at the show, seeing the open mic, we did a slam that night. He got up, did his poem. But he said to me that he loved our show because it had the energy and the vibe of what he originally created. “This is what slam used to be like; this is what the old-school stuff felt like.” He was just very proud of the show. I was like, “We’re doing it. This is it. This is the mountaintop. That’s it.”

Hannah: I know it had been going on for a few years beforehand, the murderer’s row of hecklers that used to be at the back. If it doesn’t get mentioned in the story as a part of the culture here, something’s wrong. You could hear the criticism of some of the less careful with their language onstage. You could be listening to both. You could hear the poets say some pretty unacceptable things and hear them in the back going, “What the fuck?” There was always that mid-level to where you could hear it.

That was one of the wilder things about this place as opposed to other shows and other mediums, and other art forms that I’ve seen over the years. Because at a comedy show, a heckler gets singled out. At a music show, if you interrupt the music, if you stop the music, you are enemy number one. Burlesque, drag, so on and so forth. But to have the poets be like, “Fuck him,” from the back as a guy’s reading a poem, that was where it was at. The judgment happened live.

Scott said this is not a safe space to make speeches over the years. I mean, because so many young, heart in a good place, generally white kids would really think like, “Hey …” They all have this knee-jerk reaction that you should not be allowed to say certain things on the stage. Scott proved them all wrong and why over the years because if you had something messed up that the court of general opinion did not agree with, you would find out.

You know, poets aren’t quiet types. People sometimes pay money to hear us speak, you know what I mean? that definitely happened years ahead of the conversation [about] safe spaces. Way before Roxane Gay [and] articles are being shared on the internet, Scott is saying, “This is not a safe space.” I’ve run events over the years and if there’s any influence that Scott had on me was the idea that this is not a safe space, “Say whatever you want, but we’re going to hold you accountable.”

Hearing young cis men poets use the word rape pretty [flagrantly] but to hear afterward over the years in different contexts and settings, different faces or whatnot, to hear them being told afterwards, “Okay, the poem is cool, but that actually hurt me.” To hear how they took it because some have learned. Some have moved forward, and some of them have realized the power they wield with their language. Then others just, again, wouldn’t last because they weren’t welcome here. Sign up. Go up onstage. We’re just not going to listen.

[Once] a kid asked Scott, after Scott had given people some just history of things or whatnot because somebody had asked. A kid said, “If you’re so famous, why are you still a librarian?”

Scott laid into the kid verbally and then laid out a challenge. He said, “You want to write some poems and have a little showdown?” The kid very, very reticently – he was not excited about it – said, “Okay.” Honestly, my memory doesn’t serve me if it was that night or the next week. But they went outside, and I’ve been in a lot of poetry ciphers and people reading around. A lot of sex noises coming out of people listening. I have never heard like, “Ooh. Damn,” so much as when Scott obliterated that kid.

He murdered him. It was violent. The very last line of that poem says that the kid is dead from the neck up. People lost their shit. They were spilling out into the road. So poetry got taken to the streets like rap battle style, sans mic.

Woods: We gave Hanif [Abdurraqib] his first feature.

Robertson: Gave a lot of people their first feature.

Woods: Yeah. But you know, only one that has a [MacArthur] genius grant.

Woods: One of the purposes of the Writers’ Block Poetry Night, very specifically, is that I’ve always wanted to be a place where people could go in Columbus, and you don’t know what’s going to happen. I wanted it to be a place where you can still be surprised by art.

Venues

Between the early gestation period at Snaps and Taps and the stability of Kafe Kerouac, Writers’ Block went through five other venues, to mixed reception, growing pains, and sometimes scant audiences.

Woods: [We went through downtown coffeehouse] Skambo, Casablanca, which was an African owned bar…

Bristow: Down by the Courthouse. We showed up one day with their bartender, and we found out together that it had permanently closed the week before.

Woods: That was extremely short-lived. After that, we were in Barrister Hall [storied Columbus jazz and cigar bar, now closed] for a while [where Louise joined]. And then [we moved to] Columbus Music Hall [which was] like, “Y’all got to…” The show was almost dead at that point in the water.

Bristow: They had scheduled something else. We were on their website noticing that they had something else scheduled for our time [without telling us].

Woods:. In all fairness, nobody was coming to the show at that point.

Bristow: we had like eight people, 10 people [in a 100-capacity room].

Woods: I immediately hit up Mike at Kerouac because he’d been hitting me up at that point for at least a couple years. Kafe Kerouac is like the fourth Beatle here, right? There’s something to that space that lets you get away.

Heslop: I saw Writers’ Block back when they were in Barrister Hall. When I started Cafe Kerouac in 2004, I always wanted to get Writers’ Block involved in having a show there. It took a couple of years to lure them over. I think Writers’ Block poetry was a big part of helping us create our identity and expand our customer base to a lot more people around the city because they were able to draw in poets that may not have heard of us otherwise.

Woods: I’ve always loved trying to figure out what we can’t do in Kafe Kerouac. I haven’t come across anything. Kafe Kerouac is very punk to me. Right? It’s very “old campus.” Once those doors close, we make no promises. We won’t physically hurt you. That’s all.

Robertson: It makes you feel like you don’t have to be worried about breaking something. You can do your thing, and you can throw the paint, and you will not be a bull in a China shop. You will not be hurting anything. We really have to give a round of applause, and we do every week, for Mike Heslop. [He] is the most gracious [partner]. I’ve been around since Barrister Hall, and the relationship with the venue owner is sometimes rocky, sometimes filled with restrictions, because they’ve got a business to run. But Mike has been, do what you want. You are good for business. We have just found some degree of home.

Heslop: I opened Kerouac to have that old vibe where it was disappearing. There used to be other venues like Larry’s Bar that used to host poetry and things like that. I grew up at OSU campus, I went to Ohio State, and all those independent little quirky spaces have disappeared over time and been replaced by Targets and Starbucks and those type of things. I see Kerouac as “Let’s push the limits a little bit; let’s have fun with it,” in the sense of art and simplicity of it, but I don’t take it too seriously. It’s supposed to be a casual artist hangout, and I think Writer’s Block did and does a great job in making everyone feel welcome.

Woods: For a long time, as an MC, I was always trying to make this show more entertaining and engaging. I was always adding these games and little tricks to the show. And then eventually, it was just like, why does this feel like work? I was doing those things since I thought it would add audience. And the audience would fluctuate wildly.

Ultimately, I just had to sit down and break everything down to its last compound and say, why do people go to poetry shows. Why that’s presumably to see poetry. Instead of trying to create this experience, I was like, “Yo, we got to strip this thing back down to the poetry, and then we can sprinkle some stuff on top.” And that would be the show.

That’s essentially what we have now. We make it look easy, but that took years to learn. And a lot of people come to our show, and they see us engaging with the audience and the banter. But they think that we are like doing a process, right? it’s not. We’re just greasing the wheels for the people who are actually here.

Robertson: The modifications we make intentionally all foster better poetry in very subtle ways. We’ve gotten down to a system, and the introduction of the [one poem] rule was one. I don’t know if the rule came – it didn’t come first. But we made people only read one poem [instead of the standard poetry reading two-poems-or-five-minutes]. Two magical things are: if you have to pick one, you go for the good one. Like, not to say that there’s not good ones.

Bristow: And that one poem [rule], it kept that show moving really fast: get them up, get them down. You can get more poets, you know? Because when we were doing two poems, it would be a three-hour show, and sometimes we would have to tell poets, “Come next week, we’ll put you up early.” It would just be exhausting. I think one of the things [that led to that] was when we created a monthly show called First Draft [you could only bring new poems to].

Robertson: It changed the culture of the show. See that guy with that poem you heard 22 times, and you’re like, “It was a good poem the first time.” But it fostered the culture of writing. And now, sometimes I feel like we’ve gone too far. Because people are afraid to repeat, and you’re like, “No, no, no: good poem. I want to hear it again.”

Woods: Which is why we killed First Draft.

Woods: We seem unassuming. If you’ve been around the block a little bit, when you walk in there, you don’t get the vibe like, “Oh, this is like the nationally lauded Writers’ Block Poetry Night. You’re just like, “This looks like just a regular poetry reading situation.” People who don’t really know what we’re about, they learn really quick that there’s something under the surface happening there. We’ll go pound for pound on the poems, on the awards, on whatever you want, publications? Like, how many books you got? Blam! Blam! We will run it all night.

Bristow: All night, all night. Every now and then, someone like that will come in, and they have no idea who we are. They will come in wanting to educate us about poetry slam. One of the most ridiculous moments is this young person gets on the mic and says, “I’m going to read a poem by another poet. You guys have probably never heard of him. His name is Buddy Wakefield.” It was just all out laughing. He’s like, “What? What?”

Woods: It’s like, you mean the Buddy Wakefield who slept on my couch? Is that the one you’re talking about?

Hannah: I tattooed myself [on that stage] during MeatGrinder. I’ve been in a gimp suit during a poem, being beaten and shocked and flogged. I wielded a chainsaw to my baby nephew.

Legacy in Columbus and the Poetry Scene

Bristow: Because people met at our nights, got married after meeting at our nights, spawned children after meeting at our night, sometimes got divorced after coming to our night.

Woods: So many things, probably an incalculable number of things, have sprung out of a little silly Wednesday night show, right? Holler, because of what we do on Wednesday nights. Writers’ Block made all of that possible. The things that we brought, the things that we made possible in this city… You probably won’t even get those stories until we’re done. People will feel the impact of not being there, and they’ll recall it.

Woods: Half of the readings that have ever existed in the last 20 years are because of that show. Certainly, I would say 90% of good poets in this town have had to come to [our] show. I think most poets set out to change the world. The Writers’ Block Poetry Night didn’t set out to change the world, but it did change the city.

Robertson: One of our regulars, Su Flatt, had a project with Columbus State. She was creating an online resource of people reading Shakespearean, all the sonnets. She recruited from Writers’ Block and elsewhere and people were assigned or chose sonnets. Right in this room, they did a big day of recording. You had Scott, you had me, Vernell like all these different styles of writers and readers. That came out of Writers’ Block. She had that go-to resource of dozens of poets who could just come in and give their all to it. It was great.

Woods: It’s important to note that Streetlight Guild wouldn’t exist without the Writers’ Block Poetry Night. It’s a direct line because Glen Kizer, the guy who made this investment possible, was a regular attendee at the Wednesday night shows. He’s not there trying to be a better poet or anything. He just wants to connect with people. Be a part of a community. Every once in a while, he might read a little poem or something, but mostly he would just watch the shows. It was a place for him to kind of connect with people and laugh and be himself. He would get up and read these poems that were very personal, and he would occasionally cry. There was a place where you could do that.

Jones: There is no way I would have been a slam coach [in the Columbus City Schools] without first doing it through my experiences with Snaps & Taps and Scott. I think a lot of that is a stepchild of Snaps & Taps and Writers’ Block. And he would never admit this, but [the students] are like the Grandchildren of Scott Woods to a degree, just in the way they’ve been coached. A lot of them have found their way to Writers’ Block, right? They’re like, “Hey, I’m going to Writers’ Block. And Scott said hi,” or whatever, because Scott would ask them where they went to school. They would mention me. Then he would give him hell.

Robertson: Columbus got a reputation for being a fantastic place not only to put on an event, but how many times people have used the cliché: is there something in the water? Because of the number of just phenomenal writers that are here. Writers’ Block is a big part of the ecosystem that welcomes poets, meets them where they are, doesn’t force them anywhere, and yet somehow lets them flourish.

Hannah: Writers’ Block is my glue. This was the lab. This is where I tested all the crap that I do. I’m on a circuit of punk houses and such in the Midwest. I’ve built a pretty sincere network across these punk houses in the Midwest or whatnot of people who know that I will actually listen and engage with them if they need it. When I do these punk shows, I will start off being loud and catch their attention. Then make them feel things, which they’re not accustomed to. Bucking expectations is definitely something I learned there on [the Writers’ Block] stage.

Saying Goodbye and What’s Next

Woods: It was my idea. I had flirted with the idea of ending it in the past, but it was only an idea. And usually, I was coming from a place where I was really burned out. Usually, Louise would talk me off that ledge. But this time around, it just felt right. Columbus has changed a lot over the years and especially the arts scene. Once we got settled in Kerouac, you could pull a pin on a grenade in that room, and we would still do the show. You know what I’m saying? The audience would still show up, poets would still show up, and one of us would MC. Even when there was no power in Kerouac, we did the show. That show was basically indestructible in that way.

Jones: I don’t begrudge him for this, but it is going to leave a vacuum. It’s definitely going to be missed. And it’s something that I would like to think that someone or someones would follow this example, at least pick up the baton, and go forth like, “Hey, let’s build on this legacy.” [So it doesn’t] just live on in people’s memories but lives on in someone taking this blueprint of what a good poetry night could be and maybe going in a different direction but still having some of those same elements. That’s my hope. And there are a lot of young and new poets who are doing similar types of things as Writer’s Block.

Woods: I’ve spent a lot of years doing stuff for everybody else. And I’m just in this season of my life where I really want to do certain things as an artist, as someone who creates things for myself. I have a lot of titles, but I am a writer. As a writer, it doesn’t take much to knock you out of your lane. An email knocks you out of the zone, a phone call knocks you out of the zone, social media knocks you out of the zone, taking the trash out knocks you out of your zone.

I needed to get out of several commitments so I could get down to what I’m doing. Because I’ve got four books sitting on the table looking at me like, “When are you going to finish us?” I’m like, “Well, I think I’m going to finish one of you this year. Or maybe next year.” We’ll see what happens.

Hannah: The way Scott runs this show would prime the audience to be accepting of many different ranges of entertainment. At other open mics where the poetry largely runs the show itself, and a host just brings people up, the audience, I could see getting tired or having low expectations; they don’t pay attention. I think Scott and Louise and Vernell were the magic. They kept this space what it was, the irreverent open mic because of the essence of all the irreverent poets that kind of gathered here over the years didn’t hurt. But that irreverence is why the stage kept being fun.

Bristow: In previous times when Scott would bring it up, I would be like, “Yeah, I don’t want to hear that. No.” And then it was brought up at the beginning of the pandemic when we couldn’t gather and all that stuff. And I was emphatically: no.

For all the reasons that we talked about. While Writers’ Block was wonderful, I did not want it to go out like that. I did not want it to be a casualty to COVID like so many other things in the city. Louise was like, “Let’s do Zoom.” And I was like, “yeah, girl,” because I thought at that time, we owed it to this thing that we created

Then we came back this April of 2022, and it was great. Every show has been great. And a couple weeks ago after a great show, the next day Scott [brings it up]. And I was like, “wow, we had such a great time last night.” But I thought about it for a second. And I thought about for me personally, what that would mean.

My life has changed a lot in the past couple of years. I’m working full-time. I’m also earning a doctorate degree, and I don’t know what wonderful things will await me when I claim that degree in a couple years. For the first time when he said that, I wasn’t like, “No.” I was like, “Why do you want to end it?” And we had a conversation, the three of us. At least for me, every goal that we had for Writer’s Block, we had already achieved it. . I liked the idea of going out on top. I wouldn’t want to see it die on the vine. I wouldn’t want to see it trickle off with five, six people in the audience. Nothing lasts forever, let’s move on to the next thing while we’re still young enough to make it happen.

Woods: Wednesday night is awesome. It’s obviously working, but I’m like, “what are we waiting for? We’re not going to hand the show off [to someone else]. What are we waiting for? Are we waiting for one of us to die? We’re all 50 or older. I’ve been doing this show for half of my life. Louise was almost a completely different person when she started into the show. Let’s go out on top. Whatever it is that we have to offer, we have nothing left to prove.

And I will tell you that I still like doing poetry shows. If one of us gets an itch to do it, then we’ll go posse up, and we’ll do it. Every once in a while, Writers’ Block will poke its head up, we’ll do something that nobody else can do. We’ll do some wild, crazy show and then we’ll go home. We won’t have to move the chairs. We’ll just leave.

Let Columbus figure it out. It’s okay. We’ve been doing it for longer than a generation. I think it’s okay for another generation to figure it out.

For more information about Writers’ Block poetry, visit their Facebook.

Tags Columbus Underground, Kafe Kerouac, Louise Robertson, Mike Heslop, OSU Campus, poetry, scott woods, Sidney Jones Jr, Vernell Bristow, Writers' Block Poetry, Zach Hannah

Best Of live music

2021 Best Of – Live Music

Post author By rsanford614
Post date December 21, 2021
No Comments on 2021 Best Of – Live Music

Seeing music in (usually small) rooms with like-minded people has – for my adult life and a few years before – been the art form I’ve thrown myself into with the most gusto, where I’ve met the largest groups of my dearest friends, and the most constant source of picking me up and putting me back together when I’ve been down.

So, the return to that energy, that joy, that magic – even in modified forms, with fewer artists back on the road – was a balm and a beachhead against so much despair this year. It’s unsurprising of the 75ish nights I found myself in a room soaking up some sounds, Dick’s Den saw me the most often at 13 times as of last night.

Dick’s is also where I found myself, against a wall, talking to old friend and drummer Pauly Abbott, about that surge of energy from people I was used to seeing at shows then didn’t see at all when things switched to live streaming. I am eternally grateful for the close friends I’d see on one of our lawns or a coffeeshop patio, but my extroverted nature craved those next concentric circles of people. Friends I have real love for and who add vital color to my life even if our friendships are more situational in nature. Thank you all, whether you read this or not.

That’s also not to overlook the streams that kept giving me a little taste of music happening, music unwilling to be stopped. It was a little bittersweet when the regular streaming series of John Paul Keith and Jesse Malin came to an end, I’m glad ongoing series from Goner Records in Memphis and SFJAZZ in San Francisco persist, and I hope we’ll find a way to keep making these available for people who can’t get to a show as easily.

I don’t know what happens next, but I’m profoundly, jubilantly grateful for everything listed below, and far more shows than this best-of-the-best 20. Everything is in chronological order. In Columbus unless otherwise specified. All photographs taken (with varying degrees of ineptitude) by me.

Jerry Wolf, The Top Steakhouse, 04/24/2021 (and other nights) – The first indoor dining Anne and I treated ourselves to was classic steakhouse and cocktail bar The Top. One of the signature pleasures of this gently-updated since the ‘50s room is the curved piano bar in the corner, where we always try to either start or end up with one of their perfect martinis or manhattans; three of those nights we were lucky enough to have Columbus jazz and cabaret legend Jerry Wolf rain down pure, icepick-in-the-heart beauty. An encyclopedic array of songs – I’d ask for “Try to Remember” for Anne or her mom and he’d expand it into a bouquet of songs from The Fantasticks; I’d mention Cole Porter and for the next ten minutes, he’d build intricate harmonic bridges from “Just One of Those Things” through “Don’t Fence Me In” onward to “Night and Day.” And he’d take requests from folks with less interest in standards than I have – one night we heard a surprisingly spry, sparkling “Hotel California” waft over the tables – but just getting to appreciate one of the masters of this art, of this love, of the middle 20^th century American song, is something I treasured every minute of and anyone in Columbus should avail themselves of at least once.
Reigning Sound, Harbor Town Amphitheater, 06/05/2021, and Railgarten (Gonerfest), both Memphis, 09/24/2021 – We already had plans for a beach house recharge trip with dear friends the following week of June but the confluence of surprisingly cheap flights and the opportunity to make the last band we saw out of town – in Cleveland the same weekend the first cases of COVID were identified in Ohio – the first band we saw out of town, in their hometown of Memphis, for just one additional vacation day was too tempting to pass up. Still cautiously placed in an outdoor amphitheater we’d never visited on our trips to town, Anne and I were treated to a dazzling set from an expanded Reigning Sound – the classic four-piece lineup of Greg Cartwright on guitar and vocals, Jeremy Scott on bass and harmonies, Greg Roberson on drums and percussion, Alex Greene on organ and guitar, augmented by Graham Winchester on drums and percussion, John Whittemore on various guitars and pedal steel, cellist Elen Wroten, violinist Krista Wroten, and Cartwright’s Parting Gifts partner Coco Hames on additional vocals – hitting most of their joyous, sun-drenched 2021 release A Little More Time With Reigning Sound – and more classics than I had the right to expect, in interesting arrangements. When we saw them again three months later – with that same lineup, but with Marcella Simien in place of Hames – there was the added magic of Gonerfest sprinkled over everything, gorgeous weather, and a dancing crowd, but I still remember the sigh of relief on that rainy June afternoon.
The Veldt, Pour House, Raleigh, 06/12/2021 – We bookended that trip with an overnight in Raleigh. The best part of that stop was seeing old friend and mentor Rich Dansky on his home turf for the first time in years, but I also found time to be stunned by a set from reunited shoegaze-soul band The Veldt at the terrific venue/record store combo Pour House. A sticky afternoon and songs I didn’t know that hit everything I want in a band. Pure, rejuvenating magic.

Brett Burleson Quartet, Dick’s Den, 07/02/2021 – Brett’s not only a friend but a pillar of the jazz scene here in town I love so much. This was one of the first trips back to Dick’s, along with a Rhinestone Quartet show a couple weeks earlier Brett also played in, where everything felt right. A whirlwind of love: hugging old friends, watching no-bullshit jazz played so directly and passionately it moved crowds to press against the stage and throw each other around the dance floor. Around midnight, the throbbing rhythm section of Will Strickler on bass and Antoine Fatout on drums locked into Monk’s “Rhythm-a-ning” and Brett’s guitar and Eddie Bayard’s tenor took us into the eye of a delirious hurricane. Every one of the other six or seven times I’ve seen these gentlemen on a stage has given me a few of those moments, and this reminder sank right into my bones.
Sylvia Cuenca Quintet, Smalls, NYC, 07/16/2021 – Much as I missed that feeling of jazz in a room with people who appreciate the magic of those moments being captured, the beauty of how fleeting it is, I have a special affection for it in New York City, the cradle of most of the jazz I’ve grown up loving. So, it’s no surprise not only would Anne and I make New York one of our first stops after being vaccinated, but jazz would be a key component of that return. This trip to Smalls, always a firecracker of a time, featured a riveting hard bop set from drummer Sylvia Cuenca leading a quintet of rhythm section partners Dave Kikoski on piano and Essiet Essiet on bass behind a smoldering frontline of Craig Handy and Freddie Hendrix.
Kim Richey, Natalie’s Grandview, 07/30/2021 – Natalie’s usually features heavily in this list and 2021 is no exception – with one of the roughest hands dealt a venue (not that it’s ever a competition), Natalie and Charlie Jackson had just opened their larger Grandview location and they were working out the kinks when everything shut down. Kim Richey was one of the many acts I hadn’t seen since Little Brothers closed, and this set commemorating the belated 20^th anniversary of the record that turned me onto her and the first tour of hers I saw, Glimmer, summed up everything I keep going to singer-songwriter shows for. Accompanied by a lead guitarist – I wrote the name as “Sam” but didn’t catch the last name – she hit most of that record, along with stories about some of her co-writers like frequent Natalie’s visitor Chuck Prophet and some other stone-cold favorites of mine. Watching her lean into “Chase Wild Horses,” curling those lines like a beckoning, “I’m all done running from the way I was before. Things I’ve done that I ain’t proud of, I can’t even stand the sound of; I still hear them knocking at my door,” pinballed through my body as I walked down King Avenue into the night.

Huntertones, Natalie’s Grandview, 08/07/2021 – Columbus’s current most prominent local-kids-made-good story, jazz-jam band the Huntertones have been impressing me since they were college students here under the name the Dan White Sextet, and it’s a pleasure to not only see them setting New York and the wider jam scene on fire but also watch their music get more expansive and more in tune with who they are and who they want to be. This homecoming show – I caught the afternoon of their three gigs – was a delightful callback and a reminder of the joy of everyone being together, underlined by an impassioned speech from reeds player White between songs about the energy exchange between band and audience. The touching love everyone on stage had for everyone else lit that room up like a paper lantern, burning through my hangover and making my heart pump a little harder to tunes like “Burns” with its sun-dappled pop-funk textures mingling with second line crunch; a classic quiet storm number turning into a storm of robot bees with angular improvisation; and a gnarled, righteously boozy Chris Ott trombone solo with White and Jon Lampley throwing harmonies off it that sounded like a war cry for the party just around the corner.
The Three Speeds, Vanderelli Room/Paisha, Secret Studio; 08/14/2021 – Coming out of the last lockdown, a little shell-shocked, I was heartened to see venues springing up and working together. One of my favorite examples of that synchronicity was Franklinton art gallery pillar, Vanderelli Room, creating an outdoor stage for a fun, raucous concert series, and then coordinating it with neighbors, and more recent Franklinton residents, Secret Studio, so the two complimented each other instead of competing. That led to one of my favorite days of the summer. First, Columbus rock lifers The Three Speeds, fronted by guitarist/singer Matt Wyatt, with his brother Chris on second guitar and harmonies, and one of my favorite rock rhythm sections (as people and as players) Gene Brodeur and Eddie Blau, churned through a set of raw, catchy-nasty classic punk rock. Over at Secret Studio, Paisha Thomas, performing and recording as Paisha, had one of those sets where everything just clicked for me. She’s long been one of my favorite voices in Columbus, but I didn’t vibe with the songs as much as the voice and the charisma, this time everything fired at the same level. A tight sympathetic band of local legends – Stan Smith on guitar, Steve Perakis on bass, Danny Aguiar on drums – helped, but it was entirely Paisha’s show. When I see a singer do one of my all-time, 20^th century favorite songs, Percy Mayfield’s “Please Send Me Someone to Love,” so well it at once becomes the benchmark I set that song against, and I’m still raving about their own songs later that night, it’s a special, special show.
Tony Monaco Quartet, Woodlands Tavern, 08/14/2021 and other dates – Tony Monaco’s one of the great ambassadors of the grooving Columbus B-3 tradition (with Bobby Floyd being the other). Through playing with nationally-renowned greats like Joey DeFrancesco, regular touring of Japan, and building bridges to younger bands and audiences through years of residencies at non-jazz venues. He was one of the first acts I saw after getting vaccinated, in a trio with drummer Tony McClung and saxophone maestro Eddie Bayard, and I saw him as recently as this past weekend, always delivering, reading the crowd and tweaking his approach to the audience without pandering and changing the core of who he is. The packed Saturday night dancefloor in one of our best sounding clubs, as pal John Turck (also a keyboardist and bandleader) said, “I knew he’d be funky, you couldn’t not here.” With longstanding foils Derek DiCenzo on guitar, Randy Mather on tenor, and Louis Tsamous on drums. Digging into the repertoire of B-3 classics like Jimmy Smith and mingling them with floor-shakers like an extended, shimmering read on Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke” and a griding, artfully chopped take on the Booker T and the MGs classic “Green Onions.” I barely stopped moving for two sets.

John Paul Keith, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, 08/27/2021 – One of my favorite songwriters I completely owe Anne for turning me onto. We’ve bemoaned for years Memphis staple John Paul Keith hadn’t played Ohio since we’ve been fans, so as soon as they announced he’d be playing the outdoor pavilion of the Rock Hall in one of our favorite cities, touring to promote his best album yet, Rhythm of the City, it felt like a no-brainer. Those songs with a tight four-piece band of bass, drums, and keys, sparkled in the summer night air.
Big Sandy and the Fly-Rite Boys, Natalie’s Grandview, 09/08/2021 – One of my favorite voices of all time, seeing Big Sandy after a few years away (though his appearances on Stellar Shows’ livestreams, often introducing video clips, were a pandemic delight) was special. My day job friend and mentor, Cindy Jackson, was retiring and doing a Columbus victory lap; CJ’s an even bigger roots rock fiend than I am, so this show lining up with her appearance felt like serendipity. Anne and I took her out to this show, and she loved it as expected – that voice in duet with Ashley Kingman’s guitar (with thanks to longtime pal Jeff Passifume for the amps in the backline) and the bouncing, supple rhythm section of Kevin Stewart’s singing bass and sweet harmonies and Frankie Hernandez’s classic big beat, undiminished by some time away. Everything brought a heaping dose of fire and gratitude like watching a prize fighter bound off the mat again and again, through a series of swinging classics, leaving some space for the dark ballads he doesn’t get enough credit for, with a centerpiece of two Freddie Fender covers that had me crying. Throughout this list, always an exercise in memory and gratitude for me, I’m reminded again that the magic is being in a room with people, sharing all of this with people you love.
Algiers with Zen Mother, Rumba Café, 09/17/2021 – Another delayed show I was on the second it was rescheduled. The last time I saw Algiers, with a substitute bass player, at Big Ears, is still one of the best rock shows I’ve ever seen and this trip to Rumba lived up to those nostalgic expectations. Songs like “There Is No Year” and “Walk Like a Panther” shifted and roared, textures sliced through the air, leaving a lingering impression before being subsumed in waves of pummeling sound. The magpie nature of all good rock and roll, focused like a laser beam. Attention also should be paid to Zen Mother, the power trio that merged the powerful crunch of doom metal with the delicate intimacy of the Cure; I walked in knowing nothing about the opener and walked out singing their praises to everyone.

John Luther Adams’ “Inuksuit”, VIVO Music Festival, Schiller Park, 09/18/2021 – Over the last few years, a couple organizations have done crucial work to fill in one of the few genre gaps I groused about in Columbus for a while: new music/contemporary classical. One is the Johnstone Fund, who show up right after, and the other is the VIVO festival. I was only able to hit one VIVO offering this year, but it summed up so much of what I love about Columbus. Adams’ “Inuksuit” composition, played throughout Schiller Park, around the stage where Actors’ Theatre stages their plays, the pond, wandering through areas close and far, with good friends I’d barely seen since the lockdown started, on a sunny day, and soaking in these harmonies and revealed textures I missed my first trip through this expansive composition at IJAMS as part of Big Ears.
Mark Lomax Trio with Scott Woods, Short North Stage, 09/21/2021 – One of my favorite composers, Mark Lomax II, had touring cut short on his magnum opus The 400 (which I’ve raved about repeatedly here) but never one to be dormant for long, he reintroduced one of my favorite series, The Johnstone Fund For New Music at Short North Stage, with a brand new composition played by his longstanding trio of Dean Hulett on bass and Eddie Bayard on tenor and words from longtime collaborator Scott Woods. “In Search of a City” was exactly the kind of no-easy-answers reckoning we need, especially in a city that too-often prizes growth at the expense of people.

Drive By Truckers, Newport, 10/14/2021 – For over 20 years, DBT have exemplified that sense of communal, going-to-church catharsis I’ve always been drawn to in a rock show. When Anne and I first met and were comparing shows we’ve both been at, they were one of the first names to arise. While my attention drifted for a few years, they won me back in full effect with their records since American Band. This 27-song, sweat-drenched classic rock and soul revue hit every era of their career, and reaffirmed the joy of being back with other people, of shouting along even when the songs are confronting an ugly truth. Patterson Hood, arms outstretched, introducing “Let There Be Rock” as “This is a song about how rock and roll saved my life, and every word of it is true,” always feels like a call to prayer and I really, really needed it this time.
Arooj Aftab and the Vulture Prince Ensemble, Wexner Center, 10/16/2021 – I raved about Arooj Aftab’s new record Vulture Prince here a couple times, and in a preview of this show I wrote for Pencilstorm, and it’s still a piece of surprising, intoxicating beauty and mystery that’s still revealing secrets months after my first hearing. I confess I was a little disappointed when I saw the band in question was just Aftab and the great Gyan Riley on guitar, but within a few minutes any qualms or worries I’d think something was missing. This was an hour of hypnotic rapture I’m already hungry to see again (at Big Ears unless something goes wrong).

Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express, Natalie’s Grandview

Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express, Natalie’s Grandview, 10/21/2021 – My and Anne’s last trip to Natalie’s Grandview before lockdown was a solo Chuck Prophet show where he debuted a handful of songs from his then-forthcoming The Land That Time Forgot and teased a full-band return in the Spring. That show got delayed a few times, but he finally made good in October to a crowd that was more than ready for it. That sense of gratitude I mention a few times over the course of this list is always present in Prophet’s work, especially live, and it was overflowing this time. The band stretching some of the songs into extended guitar and keys showcases with barely a hint of wanking; at other times, stripping it down to the simplest of melodies that would break your heart and turns of phrase that could remind you how beautiful and fucked up life is. A masterclass in how much there still is in the form of a five-piece band turned up and tuned in.
Hayes Carll, Skully’s, 11/11/2021 – One of my favorite songwriters since seeing at Twangfest 13 or 14 years ago but Anne and I hadn’t caught Carll since 2011 in Cleveland (I kind of got off the bus with Lovers and Leavers but I’ve come back around). All of that charm and empathy, and diamond-hard and pretty hooks, were in abundance at this Skully’s show where everything good about the venue (the sightlines, the sound) was in fine fetter and everything not so good (the bar service, the tendency to sell the entire capacity of the building instead of just the room with the stage) was ameliorated or kept at bay. Carll’s new songs, including “Nice Things” and “You Get It All” stood up well against classics like “KMAG YOYO” and “Drunken Poet’s Dream.” That conversational sway and disarming smile left me grinning like an idiot and talking about it with Anne and others hours, even days later.
Marc Ribot, Wexner Center, 11/14/2021 – My favorite guitar player, and the subject of not only one of my favorite interviews but one people kept coming up and talking to me about, did not disappoint in a magical solo show at the Wexner’s Mershon Auditorium. Digging deep into standards – “Someone to Watch Over Me”, “Stella by Starlight” – and originals like “Maple Leaf Rage,” stitched together into one continuum of song.
The Randys, Dick’s Den, 12/11/2021 and other dates – If you can’t find some joy in the Randys, I question your capacity to find it anywhere. With a handful of originals sprinkled in, their perfectly chosen mix of classic pop, honky-tonk, and R&B covers, sung beautifully and played with the gleeful abandon of spinning tops and the dazzling precision of vintage clockwork by original four members Brian Jones, Jon Beard, Canaan Faulkner, and David Vaubel, gained a little chaos-theory looseness when they added Derek Dicenzo without sacrificing an ounce of the beauty that keeps us all coming. One of the first shows Anne and I caught was two sets of them playing outdoors to benefit my neighborhood nonprofit the Clintonville Resource Center, one of the last shows I saw before writing this was their annual Christmas show, and they’ve never let me down, never played a gig I fail to see at least one old friend I was overjoyed to dance with.

Tags Algiers, Antoine Fatout, Arooj Aftab, Ashley Kingman, best of, Big Sandy, Brett Burleson, Brian Jones, Canaan Faulkner, Chris Ott, Chris Wyatt, Chuck Prophet, Craig Handy, Dan White, Danny Aguiar, Dave Kikoski, David Vaubel, Dean Hulett, Derek Dicenzo, Dick's Den, drive-by truckers, Eddie Bayard, Eddie Blau, Essiet Essiet, Frankie Hernandez, Freddie Hendrix, Gene Brodeur, Gonerfest, Gyan Riley, Hayes Carll, Huntertones, Jerry Wolf, John Luther Adams, John Paul Keith, Johnstone Fund, Jon Beard, Jon Lampley, Kevin Stewart, Kim Richey, live music, Louis Tsamous, Marc Ribot, Mark Lomax II, Matt Wyatt, music, Natalie's Grandview, Newport Music Hall, paisha, patterson hood, Randy Mather, reigning sound, Rumba Cafe, Schiller Park, scott woods, Secret Studio, short north stage, Skully's, small's, Stan Smith, Steve Perakis, Sylvia Cuenca, The Pour House, The Randys, The Three Speeds, The Top Steakhouse, The Veldt, Tony Monaco, Vanderelli Room, VIVO Music Festival, wexner center, Will Strickler, Woodlands Tavern, Zen Mother

Best Of live music

Best of 2019: Live Music

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 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/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.

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 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 (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.

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)

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)

VIVO String Quartet, “Black Angels,” VIVO Music Festival (08/30/2019)
Sweet Knives, Gonerfest, Memphis (09/26/2019)

The Oblivians with Quintron, Gonerfest, Memphis (09/27/2019)
Kelley Anderson, Gonerfest, Memphis (09/27/2019)

Best Of live music

Best of 2018 – Live Music

Post author By rsanford614
Post date December 7, 2018
No Comments on Best of 2018 – Live Music

“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.

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 get much better.

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.”

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, sans rhythm 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. The last night of their week at the mother church of jazz was a reminder of how far you can take forms and how much beauty you can plow with an ensemble who know and trust each other. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 (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)

Tags ace of cups, Adam O'Farrill, Algiers, amir el-saffar, ashley mcbryde, best of 2018, Big Ears Festival, bloody show, bluestone, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, corsica studios, cory henry, counterfeit madison, Craig Taborn, curtis harding, David Hidalgo, deaf wish, Eddie Bayard, Ethers, Evan Parker, Gonerfest, hogan house, ingrid jensen, jaimie branch, jason moran, Jenny Scheinman, jordan sandridge, krate digga, kronos quartet, le trianon, lincoln theatre, live music, marah, Marc Ribot, marisa anderson, Mark Lomax II, mercury lounge, mickalene thomas, milford graves, miriam linna, moor mother, Pierre Kwenders, reigning sound, rose music center, Rumba Cafe, sarah manning, scott woods, spacebar, Stephanie McDee, stuart's opera house, summer solstice, Susan Alcorn, teri lyne carrington, the basement, the summit, thumbscrew, village vanguard, wexner center, Winter Jazzfest, zonal