PopWars

I picked up a copy of the Alice Coltrane book, “Monument Eternal,” at the show devoted to her at LA’s Hammer Museum. I read some of it while we out there and then some over the summer on our porch. It is a short book but I rarely plow straight through anything. Her son, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, says Alice was “one of the first people to move outside the mainstream, one of the first female, Black, American jazz musicians to record her own music in her own studio and release it on her own terms.” Alice was from Detroit so I’m loving all the references to clubs in the city. She spent time playing with fellow Motor City musicians Donald Byrd and then Terry Gibbs. Here is a passage from page 127.

“She was particularly at home in minor keys, especially improvising on tunes with slow harmonic motion – much of the music she recorded during her career as a bandleader, such as “Ptah the El Daoud” or “Journey in Satchidanda” were tunes of this nature. On Gibbs “Jewish Melodies in Jazztime,” we can see that her improvisations were already headed in this direction. We can also begin to understand why John Coltrane may have been attracted to her playing. Gibbs recounted how Alice actually “stole the date” from him: She was starting to play runs she got from listening to John and all the musicians flipped out every time she played. She was making those Eastern-style runs on minor songs and they sounded very authentic. I was the Jew, and she was wiping me out. (2003)”

I’m guessing the owners of this sign are finally letting go of that missing Covid year. “Party Accordingly” is good advice any time. On Wednesday we’re celebrating the full moon at the Little Theatre Café. Melissa has gig in Syracuse with her primary band, Wren Cove, so we’ll play without her cello. Peggi and I fell into “It Ain’t Necessarily So” last night so we might try that one with the group. Jack will be there with his bass clarinet and guitar. That is always a treat.

Last month’s first set felt all off to Peggi and me but the second set was magic. Here is song number 11 of the 14 song we did that night.

While filing away some records I came across a sleeve with a stamp on it from a record store on Genesee Street. When Duane lived up here we used to haunt the reggae shops on the west side, his old neighborhood. Their primary business was selling weed under the counter but they advertised themselves as record shops and they had Jamaican imports and a sound system to back up the claim, big dirty, bottom heavy sound systems. They displayed their wares like the photo above except this one was taken in Duane’s office/media/spare bedroom in 1999 after he had moved to Brooklyn. It took me a bit to find the photo as it was tucked away in a folder called “DC210Photos, my first megapixel camera, a Kodak DC 210.

We were talking to Dick Storms at Brian Williams’ bash and I asked, how come you don’t have a Jazz 45 section over there. He was taken aback and acted surprised, saying, are you sure? He said he knew they had boxes of them in a closet in the back room. So many that he began fantasizing about filling the juke box in the back room with jazz 45s. I have spent quite a few hours in that closet now I have only come up with Duke Ellington’s “Indian Summer” and a wacky version of Gato Barbieri’s “Last Tango in Paris” by the Ventures. Rochester’s Gerry Niewood plays sax on that one. Not complaining. I realize how old world my quest has become.

We first heard Wren Cove when we shared a gig at Joy Gallery on West Main. They played first and we asked Melissa to sit in with us for our slot. That was three years ago and we’ve heard them many times since. If they don’t have a gig the same night as us Melissa has become a regular in our band.

For a duo Wren Cove provides an incredibly wide pallette of dreamy soundscapes. Andrew’s almost incessant strumming (I am partial to that quality in my own playing) is the foundation of the duo and Melissa’s cello is the “lead singer” as Andrew himself says.

Writing for City, Patrick Hoskin drops astute references to Arthur Russell and Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” in his review of the duo’s new cd, “Movement.” Wren Cove built many of the tracks on their new record around the ancient drum machines shown in the photo above. We have one of them, a Rythmn Ace. It still works even though we’ve jammed it a few times pushing two buttons at once for “Mambo/Slow Rock” or “Samba/Beguine.”. Wren Cove pushes stretches this idea further by manipulating the sound of the drum machine and then having real drummers play on top. This widens the picture frame and can sound like parts stumbling in different directions which only makes it a more compelling listen.

Songs like “Raga in Dm,”Wills,” “Everything We Carry” and especially “Nocturne” with Andrew’s gorgeous piano just sweep us away.

There are a few myths surrounding Visual Studies Workshop. I remember their first space on Elton Street, but just barely. I clearly remember many shows in their sprawling University Avenue space. Our neighbor, Rick Hock, was director there for a while. It may have been during his tenure when we first saw Robert Franks shoes in a display case. We heard Frank donated the shoes he wore while shooting photos for “The Americans” and then we heard he had left them behind when he was chased out of the apartment he was staying in. Whatever the story I wasn’t prepared for their dandyness. They look like bowling shows.

Founded in 1969 by photographer, educator and curator Nathan Lyons, VSW was one of the earliest not-for-profit, artist-run spaces in the country. Through an affiliation with SUNY Brockport they offered MA and MFA accreditation until 2022. Today they have set up shop at 36 King Street in the Susan B. Anthony neighborhood with over a million photography and film-related objects, exhibition spaces and an auditorium.

Tara Merenda Nelson, chief curator at VSW, told us Frank spent some time in Rochester in the early seventies, just after working with the Rolling Stones. He used Super 8 movie stills from his Route 66 (The Americans) trip for the cover of the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St. Tara told us Frank refused to teach but instead dove right into projects with the students. The 16mm film “About Us” was made over a three month period in 1971-72. Each student shot a section of the film while re-interpreting the idea of the self portrait. Frank appears throughout as the group encounters security guards at Kodak Park, a gas station owner on Dewey Avenue, and some of the students parents. Just seeing Robert Frank frolicing at Cobbs Hill is a thrill. The film perfectly capturess what Frank calls “the chaos of the present.”

CLICK HERE to watch “About Us.”