We spent some time following links to sound files for Friday’s line-up. We watched a video of Pat Martino and couldn’t even count the number of strings on the bass player’s instrument but we guessed there were seven so we nixed that show. Turns out he played with an organist and no bass player. We heard he was great. We chose to start with Arve Henriksen, a trumpet player from Norway, who was performing with a dj at the Lutheran Church. We thought there would be a bigger line for this event but it was pretty laid back. We chatted with friends while they mowed the lawn at the church. Hal told us there was a review of Arve and Nils Petter Molvaer (we saw Nils here the night before) in today’s New York Times.
Thank god churches are are hurting for patrons (except for the Evangelicals) these days because all these beautiful urban buildings are now available as performance spaces. The Cowboy Junkies recorded the Trinity Sessions in a Toronto Church letting the ambiance of the hall define their whole sound. Ani DiFranco bought an old church in Buffalo and converted it to a performance space and Doug Rice has recently converted an old Baptist church on Atlantic Avenue into MUCC. Arve Hendriksen let the room breathe and he made the most of it with his beautiful sparse but melodically rich trumpet playing. And looked completely relaxed sitting on the piano bench while the dj sampled the horn live and processed the horn parts adding them to the mix. I closed my eyes and heard an Arabic falsetto voice chanting and assumed the dj had added a vocal loop. When I looked up it was Arve singing into the mic. If only church going was this meditative and restorative. We stopped over at Abilene and then came back for the second set.
Monty Alexander Trio at Kilbourn Hall at the Rochester International Jazz Festival
We stuck our head in the tent a few years ago to check out Ryan Shaw and gave him another chance last night. We met Brian and Olga in line and Brian reached into his bag for his glasses to read the program. He put them on and they steamed up. The temperature in his bag was quite bit cooler that the air temperature because he had some sort of liquid refreshment in there. We do love the early Detroit r&b era that Ryan Shaw is mining but this muscular approach, not just his buff build but the five string bass and heavy hitting drummer, takes the sweetness out it. I couldn’t get past the ready cell phone on his belt.
We ran into Jeff and Mary Kaye on the street and followed them over to the Xerox Auditorium to check out Joe Baione on the vibes. He looked like Jeff Daniels and played in a loose limbed manner that was clearly at odds with the studied approach of his bandmates. I wanted to like the Milt Jackson tune they were doing but I couldn’t get past the disconnect.
We saw the Russians from Second approach on the street. They were wearing their “Artist” badges and enjoying themselves in our strange land. Peggi had them sign her program.
Gary Brandt and a number of fans were in line early for Nils Petter Molvaer at the Lutheran Church. These were people without Jazz passes who were ready to plunk down cash for this guy. We knew nothing about him other than the sound files that we had spot-checked before leaving the house. Nils plays trumpet through two mics, one with an arsenal of effects boxes and one with only reverb. Both the guitar player and Nils had an Apple laptop to augment and mix their sound with. Their spacious, austere sound worked perfectly in the church and it all would have been more relaxing if we didn’t have to watch the performers fussing with the equipment. But I know that is now part of the modern performers’ dialog. The drummer in Nils Petter Molvaer did not have his own laptop but he did have to lock into some loops. I thought their sound was more interesting without the programmed tracks and this guy sounded fantastic playing the drums with his bare hands like he did for the first part of the set. In a song called “Gong” he soloed with a cymbal in his hands while standing in front of a mic confirming that these guys would have sound better without all the non organic trappings.
Never mind that Monty Alexander looked about twenty years younger in the promo photo. He stole the show last night and may be our favorite act at the Jazz Fest. We almost didn’t go but there was line for Tony Kofi at Christ Church so we tried Kilbourn. We sat next to an older woman who greeted us with a smile. I said, “You already saw Monty didn’t you?” She said, “How did you know?” Peggi said, “You have that Monty glow.” She had a Wegman’s bag next to her on the floor, one of the new green ones with the limes on them. She showed us a photo that she had Monty sign after the first show. It was her and Monty outside of Birdland in NYC a few years ago but she was a regular at the Roundtowner in the seventies when Monty came through town on a regular basis. We had heard Monty at Art Park about ten years ago and we were bothered by hs hyperactive quoting of so many songs that you forget what song he is playing. He did a bit of that last night and his sidemen seemed to shake their heads at the cornball tactic but it was all in the name of a thoroughly entertaining show. And entertaining alone would sell him short. He did a song of his called “Hope” with a bowed bass solo that almost made me cry it was so beautiful.
Monty’s drummer could be the best drummer in the world. I was blown away by this guy’s incredible control. He had the perfect touch with every beat. No exaggeration! Both the drummer and bass player had genuine smiles on their faces the entire set. Monty had a blast finding his groove and hit his master showman stride singing Day O and Nat King Cole’s “Lorraine” with a Nat imitation. He reached into into a black bag to pull out a melodica to play amazing versions of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” and “Running Away” and then an instrumental that we recognized from Augustus Pablo.
It’s raining today but impossible to complain. This has been a perfect Spring. The temperature has stayed cool unlike last year when we were vaulted into summer before we had time to take in the flowering. And there has been plenty of sunshine for the light starved. This marsh off Hoffman Road has its own ecosystem and is in a fairy tale phase right now.
We had a hard time picking which show to go for in day six of the Jazz Fest. We only had the first hour available so we started with Michael Occhipinti & The Sicilian Jazz Project at Max of Eastman Place. We sat with Sue Rogers and Scott Regan from WXXI and were wowed by the first song. The band entered from the back of the room chanting a call and response in Italian. It was led by the lead singer and had something to do with the band members judging by the broad smiles on their faces as they were each addressed. Maybe it was simply an introduction but it was effective. And then they launched into a fairly straight ahead jazz piece that was not at all like the exotic old world sound files we heard on their web page. The front line took turns with a solo while the others sat out. They had to sit out because it felt like there were too many guys in this band. They do get extra points for featuring an accordion player.
It was raining so Peggi and I ran over to the Little for our weekly Margaret Explosion gig. Maureen, Bill and Geri, Brian Peterson and Tom, and Sally and Roy were there with their jazz passes on. John Gilmore too. He told us Tessa Souter transformed Christ Church into her own world. He also made a point to say the sound sucked in the big tent where he had heard The Hot Club of Cowtown so I’m passing along some hearsay.
Jonas Kullhammar Quartet performing at the Luttheran Church at the Rochester International Jazz Festival
What a gas it was seeing Chico Hamilton play drums at 89 years of age. He was around when the hi-hat was invented. His band recaptured that 50’s west coast sound, both mellow and slinky. Chico’s “Original Ellington Suite” lp with Eric Dolphy is one of my favorite albums and it was a real treat to see him live.
Over at the Lutheran Church Jack Garner introduced Jonas Kullhammar by thanking the Church for bringing a different kind of spirituality to its chambers.He said, “Sometimes the most beautiful prayer is a sax solo.”. Right on!
Jonas Kullhammar was even better in church. The band took a trip to Niagara Falls and the House of Guitars between dates here and they had dinner at Dinosaur Bar BQ. They dig into tunes like Coltrane’s band did, the ballads too, and they go all out. The drummer did an amazing solo on his cymbals. This Swedish band puts their own stamp on this formerly American idiom and make it exciting. These guys are the best band at the fest and we haven’t even heard the rest.
The Andrey Razin & Second Approach Trio over at Montage was small but mighty. These three stock Russians came off like siblings putting on a performance for their family. Lucky us, we were invited and we sat right up front at a table with Hal, Tom Burke and Barbara Fox, Brian Peterson and Tom and Paul Brandwein. Second Approach mixed opera and jazz and cartoon music. Nothing was lost in translation. The vocalists does not sing in any language but music. They were not just wacky, they dove into uncharted WTF territory. They are performing again tonight at the Xerox Auditorium.
We were sort of lost on the second night because none of the night’s sound files excited us. We read the blurbs in booklets but we make decisions with our ears. And we know that sometimes a band will sound great live while their recordings are lifeless so we soldiered on. We ran into Rick and Monica coming out of Tim Posgate’s Banjo Hockey at the Xerox Auditorium. Monica warned us, “they aren’t improvising”. We gave it a shot. Indeed they were reading and then playing while we watched.
Nordic Connect at the Lutheran Church was melodic piano-based compositions and featured two sisters on horns playing arranged parts with the trumpet player’s husband on drums. For me they really hit the mark with a piece written by the trumpet player and dedicated to the planet. The piano player switched to the Fender Rhodes, the drummer played mallets and the tune sounded like something from Miles’ “In A Silent Way” lp. Not like one of those tunes but just pretty.
There is something maniacal about deadlines for a review of the night’s shows for the morning papers. But Jeff Spevak is better at this than anybody. He finds the color in every assignment and makes it all sound like fun. If only you could find his stuff online. The D&C continues to make their website the least hospitable stop on the web. Every time I go there they have added a new layer of nav bars. It is almost impossible to use. The articles disappear in ten days unless you want to pay for them. And we do subscribe if anybody cares. Did they really set up a blog for Jeff on the “HerRochester” site? We were happy to see him on a Mac this year.
Terrel Stafford Quartet at Montage was really good. They were all really great players, in fact. But we long not for the academic with the perfect tone but for the edge that reminds us we are alive. Like the moment when Terrel sat out during their version of “Taking A Chance On Love”. He leaned against the dark door to the right of the stage in this photo and the door flew open. Terrel almost fell into the light filled void.
Summers used to be slow. Now they are jam packed. It’s a conspiracy of some sort and it forces difficult decisions. We already missed the Wiener Dog Parade and the Soap Box Derby. Last night was another First Friday already.
We started with the Arena Group’s show at the AGR space. A section of their show was set aside for the Orphan Project Portraits and I had one in there. Someday the kid I painted will get his portrait. Probably won’t even look like that anymore. We went across the street to the BookSmart space for a show of digital photography prints. Is there any other kind? Richard Edic’s “Fallen Willow” triptych on gold leaf was stunning.
Next stop was the “Asymmetrical Press” show at the Genesee Center for the Arts. They printed the first Hi-Techs single for Dick Storms and the only full color version of the Refrigerator for the Montage Festival. Both pieces were in the show! Peggi and I shared a Genny product and talked to a brewery employee about the name change (back to “Genesee Brewery”). She told us the iconic “Jenny” was still alive. Baby Shivers Boutique, with Chuck Cuminale’s son on guitar, played in the middle of room. They had a cute little cello player but you could hardly hear her behind the Fender amps. The drummer only played two drums and contributed to their off beatness.
Brian Peterson suggested an opening at Potential Life so we drove over there with Olga and were just in time to catch a the tail end of a beautiful performance by two cello players flanking a guy with spiky hair and a laptop. I was quickly mesmerized. The next band combined goth with Gregorian chant, German vocals and strummed bass through an army of sound processing boxes. We never made it over to Hungerford Hall for Jon Gary’s band but I did wind up with a sound hangover. There is a lot of music in art spaces these days.
Hinkley, Margaret Explosin, Nod at the Bug Jar, Saturday May 30, 2009
Triple header at the Bug Jar on Saturday night with Hinkley, Margaret Explosion and Nod in that order. 10 PM start with a screening of “The History of the Electric Guitar” movie short, featuring NOD.
Amy Kawabata, a fourth year animation student at RIT, asked Margaret Explosion to put some music to her newest film. She’s planning on entering the project in the Ottawa Film Fest and possibly the Brooklyn Film Fest where Duane Sherwood’s video to one of our songs, 4AM, caused a sensation a few years ago.
Peggi stopped out to see her mom last night and they were talking about her mom’s wedding which was very small, just the groom’s parents (Peggi’s paternal grandparents). Peggi’s mom expressed some displeasure that her father was attending to another woman and wasn’t able to make his daughter’s wedding. Then Peggi’s mom jumped the rails and said “Of course, you and Paul weren’t there either because you were to busy”. Peggi said, “Mom, I wasn’t even born”. And then they both had a good laugh.
Steve Lippincott, who lives in Portland and is working on a story about Personal Effects and the Rochester scene, knew that we knew the guys in MX-80 so he sent us some stuff he found on a bit torrent site. One cd was MX-80 Live in the back room at Record Archive when it was over on Mount Hope. The show was broadcast live on WRUR in 1980. It sounded amazing. Dick Storms interviews the band at the end.
The other MX-80 cd that Steve sent was from the night after at Scorgies. The Hi-Techs opened the show and MX tore up the place. It sounds great too and it also sounds pretty familiar. It was made from my cassette tape recording of the night. In fact between the “Theme From Sisters” and MX-80’s classic, “I Walk Among Them” you can hear Bill Jones talking to me as I manned the tape machine. He was having a problem with one of his presses. Bill printed the cover to the Hi-Techs first single on Dick Storm’s “Archive Records” label. You can also hear Martin Edic exclaim, “I’m going up front!”
I heard a few silent beats, if that is possible, while Jeff Spevak was doing his raging, barefoot version of “Masters of War” at the annual Dylan tribute last night. Jeff was playing a metal wedge with a Ball-Peen hammer and those silent beats might have involved fingers between heavy metal. I hope I’m wrong.
Hunnu hosted the event and a parade of local musicians reinterpreted the classics. Jack Schaefer, Mike Rae and Rick Petri were the furthest out and Kinloch Nelson was the furthest in. My favorite performer was the little girl who played tambourine on Jaffe’s version of “Things Have Changed”. She was very respectful of the tune, she had great natural time and she played some beautiful flourishes. A sensational arrangement could have been built on her part instead of too many people piling on. My favorite line of the night, in a night of poetry, was Frank DeBlase calling ‘for everyone in the band to solo at once after he finished delivering the goods on his tune.
We really wanted to see the Chesterfield Kings performing at the Lilac Festival last night but it didn’t work out. Stan the Man put some pictures on his FB page. We did manage to catch Dr. John but he seems to have lost his gris gris. I recently heard “Gris Gris Gumbo Ya Ya” from his 1968 debut while playing pool in Rick Simpson’s basement. It blew me away and I borrowed the vinyl to digitize it. I kinda thought he might be able to muster up some of that old gumbo but that didn’t happen.
Margaret Explosion with two bass players, Ken Frank and Brian Williams
Bob Martin emailed yesterday to say he had the flu and wouldn’t be able to play the Margaret Explosion Little gig. Jaffe, who was planning on playing piano with us, emailed next to say he had car problems and wouldn’t be able to make the gig either. We tried posting a FB message to Phil Marshall and calling Jack Schaefer but both of them were booked. Steve Piper was there celebrating his birthday and we asked him to join us but he didn’t have his guitar with him so we did the gig as a trio. We set up the recorder but somehow failed to record the first set. We are really helpless without Bob.
We managed to get the thing in record for the second set and Brian Williams from “Bobby Henrie & The Goners” joined us for a few songs on double bass. “Talk about mud flaps”.
With temperatures predicted to head into the eighties this weekend everybody is talking about the weather. Or at least everyone I saw today including the dental hygienist and my wife and Pete and Shelley. This will kick Spring into high gear and probably kill off the crocuses and the other early Spring flowers. Things move so fast this time of year that is mandatory that you get out there to watch. We walked up to Durand Eastman and checked out the magnolias. Shelley gathered some Pondarosa pine needles for the tiny little baskets she makes.
Pete LaBonne sat in with Margaret Explosion last night on the grand piano and Jaffe was there to watch. Tom Kohn from the Bop Shop was there and Scott Regan from WRUR. The band was on their best behavior and we made the bonus.
Click photo above for a movie of Ab Baars Trio with Kern Vandermark at the Bop Shop Attrium in Rochester NY
The Ab Baars Trio with Ken Vandermark was a treat for the ears last night. They are about twenty dates into a US tour. They played New York last night and are clearly on a roll. There was physical space around their instruments, I swear. You could hear each instrument clearly and the dialog was fascinating. I turned the movie function of my camera on about halfway into this Ken Vandermark piece called “Losing Ground”. The band is taking the train to Buffalo for a gig tonight and then they play Ken’s hometown, Chicago, for a few nights and that’s it.
Jem Vinxi painting currently on view at the Little Theater Cafe
Remember when modern art looked and was contemporary? It doesn’t matter, it still looks good and JEM Vinxi who is currently showing at the Little Theater Cafe almost makes it look fresh. Not quite landscapes or representational but structural and decorative. They’re old fashioned modern art paintings and I like them.
Margaret Explosion got stuck in a few ruts last night and it wasn’t the paintings fault. Somehow we managed to shoot ourselves in the foot. There is still a fine line between modern art and junk or spontaneous composition and jamming.
Janis Joplin with Big Brother & the Holding Company at the Syracuse War Memorial in 1968. Photo by Kevin Patrick
Janis Joplin at the Syracuse War Memorial in 1968. Photo by Kevin Patrick
Janis Joplin with Big Brother & The Holding Company at the Syracuse War Memorial in1968. Photo by Kevin Patrick. Click photo for another shot.
That quote is from the opening scene of “Love Janis” at the Downstairs Cabaret. All the lines in the play are from Janis Joplin’s own words, her letters and interviews, and it takes two actresses to deliver them, sometimes at the same time. This works well because just as you’re not buying one, the other takes over. The band members tour as Big Brother now so the show rocked. First play I’ve been to where they pass out ear plugs.
Coincidentally Kevin Patrick primed the pump for us with his recent entry with these sensational photos of Janis.
We put together a few cdrs of old Personal Effects records for Steve Lipincott and he sent us a short stack of things to listen to. It was a really tough call as to what to pop in first. We went with Miles Davis Nonet Boston ’72. Amazing three dimensional sound with Mtume Forman playing percussion in one channel, Badal Roy in the other and Pete Cosey’s wah wah guitar out there.
I’m looking at Miles Davis Quintet, Stockholm, playing “Bitches Brew” material or Captain Beefheart “Spotlight Kid Sessions” next.
Steve Lippincott who runs the EarCandy Archive in Portland is doing a profile of Rochester bands in the eighties so I spent some time this weekend putting together cd versions of a few of Personal Effect’s old albums for him. We did a compilation in November for the Scorgies reunion but that was just a smattering of songs from the various vinyl releases.
Bob Martin carved out the perfect bass boast eq curve for the songs from “90 Days in the Planetarium” lp and I wanted to use it on the whole cd but I couldn’t fine the settings in CuBase. I called Bob and he had me set up an AIM account so he could take control of my computer from his house. While we were on the phone I watched as he searched my computer for the old files and set me up through iChat.
Joe Sorriero emailed us and asked if we wanted to do gig with Nod at the Bug Jar. It sounded like fun so I replied without much thought and then mentioned the gig to Peggi. She read the email and pointed out that Joe was asking “Personal Effects” to play. I didn’t catch that. I thought he was asking “Margaret Explosion” to play with them since we had recently played together together at Abilene. I guess we could handle it.
I digitized all our cds and and I rely on the mp3 tags for liner notes but this song that Peggi and I have fallen in love with was only marked “nod4”. So I dug out all the cds and spot checked the songs trying to identify this thing. I finally determined it is from their most recent cd entitled, “Tree Stuff & Lightning”. I think Chris Schepp gave me a copy of it before it was released so never got the right tags. Peggi wants the lyrics to this so I thought I would post it here and see what happens.
“World Still Wants You” by Nod from “Tree Stuff & Lightning”.
Ossia, the Eastman School of Music’s student run, new music ensemble had their last event of the season on Friday night at Kilbourn Hall. You can’t beat this free admission ticket to wide open, experimental soundscapes. The pieces by five different composers on last night’s bill were as varied as you can imagine and hold out boundless promise for new music performed by classically trained musicians.
The second half of the program was devoted to the third, second and first place winners of Ossia’s International Composition Prize. I liked the third place, “die nacht war kalt” by Daniel Tacke the best. The piece with soprano voice, clarinet, cello and piano reached new heights of sparse and used the air in the arrangement to sculpt an environment where our heartbeats slowed and our minds opened wide.
One of the earlier pieces on the program by Luigi Nono called for a piano player to accompany a prerecorded piano track which was played on a laptop through speakers set up behind the piano. I found it tedious but it demonstrated the wide gulf between live sound in a good hall, and the acoustics Kilbourn are as good as it gets, and a state of the art recording.
Dave Liebman Trio at the Bop Shop in Rochester, NY
Dave Liebman played sax on Miles Davis’s “On the Corner”, “Big Fun”, “Dark Magus”, and “Get Up With It”, my favorite Miles stuff. The guy is amazing. He’s been here twice at the Jazz Fest. We saw both shows at Montage last year and we bought his DVD. Last night he played at the Bop Shop in what was billed as a “classic organ trio setting”. Paul Smoker, Bill Dobbins and all the local jazz celebrities were out.
Phil Haynes, who we have heard a few times with Paul Smoker, played drums and Steve Adams played a Hammond B3. They played all standards and opened with “The Night Has A Thousand Eyes”. Dave was playing a wooden flute, The organ player held on extremely long fuzzy note and the drums sounded beautiful. Phil Haynes plays with his bare hands, he scratches the top surface of his cymbals with the butt end of his sticks and looks like he is conducting the music with his facial expressions and whole body. He plays “Ayotte” drums with wooden rims and they are the best sounding drums I have ever heard. They sounded especially nice in this bass player less setting.
Dave played one song that Doris Day had popularized and when someone snickered as he introduced it Dave said, “Don’t undercut Doris. She was right there with Sly back in the day.” we weren’t sure if we heard him right so after the show Peggi and I asked him after the show if said’ “Sly”. He said, Oh yeah. She was right there, hanging with Sly, doing LSD, the whole trip.
“Science Fiction” by Ornette Coleman is one of my favorite album and I was thinking about this record last week when Bob Martin posted his top 25 lps on his Facebook page. We named our cat Ornette after seeing Coleman in NYC in 1998. I read in Jeff Spevak’s D&C blog that local trumpet star Paul Smoker and some of his Nazareth College students would perform interpretations of Ornette’s avant-garde classic album, Science Fiction on Sunday afternoon.
I got the lp out this morning so I could look at the liner notes and then I played a few of the tracks from our iTunes library. In Robert (Bob at the time) Palmer’s liner notes he says “Ornette’s music grabs you inside before you understand it intellectually.” That’s certainly how it got me and I still don’t understand it intellectually. He also says “To play this music, you have to step out of the mold your teachers taught you.” But this teacher is Paul Smoker!
So I made arrangements for Peggi to drop me off at the Atrium on the way out to her mom’s place. I sat down next to Greg Bell from “Jazz Rochester” as Paul Smoker introduced the lineup. There was only one Ornette piece in there, “Happy House”, and Paul told the crowd that they would be doing all Ornette later in the month at Nazareth. I had heard that there was a lot of inaccuracies and untruths in the blogospere but didn’t believe it until now. The band sounded great but I gave up some prime painting time to be here and Ornette is one of the few people I would do that for.
There was a discussion panel after the set and Paul Smoker said they would talk about, “Why we do what we do. Why do we keep beating our heads against the wall despite cultural indifference?” I had to leave to meet Peggi out front.
