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Thursday, June 14, 2007 Hello my friend, we meet again. Yes, it's been the longest absence this blog has ever experienced. I apologize. We're now back in business, and I promise not to lapse so severely again. Here are some highlights from the last few weeks:
Labels: blogging, concerts, musicians, swing dancing, teaching ^ Top | 11:52 PM | | | 
Sunday, April 15, 2007 Theo's Java Club Thus began the tour: insanity in leaving Chicago in the middle of rush hour (my fault), an additional two hours of unrelated gridlock, a sturdy 1990 "truck" (closer to an SUV, really) named Bessie, two guitars (if we'd added mine it would have made three) and a keyboard, stories about raising children not yours, a Californian guitarist named Kim (also known as Monica's best friend), and three musicians left to their own devices for hours on the road with no radio. It was awesome. Sometimes I'm ambivalent about touring before I actually get into the car--there's so much to take care of before leaving town for a few days or weeks that I wonder if it'd be better to just stay home. But once I get to the first venue, I often realize that I'm exactly where I need to be. Friday was an excellent example of this. With everything that needed to be done, uncertainty about where we would spend the night (our housing plan had fallen through), and running behind schedule due to all the traffic, I was in an unusual mode of stress. But the people at Theo's Java Club were great, and I relaxed as soon as Monica started her set. That night I asked for a title and some characters to appear in an improvised song, and one of the suggestions was Redbeard the Pirate--so in the middle of the song we had an audience full of people saying, "Grrrr!" in a very pirate-like manner. I took a photo from the stage that I'll post on Flickr when I get back to Chicago. And after the show, Joe offered us a place to stay. Joe's an up-and-coming filmmaker who launched into two of my favorite subjects: aesthetics and theology. So it wasn't surprising that he and I talked until 6:00am, long after the rest had gone to bed. (Along those lines, Kim snores. Loudly. Though I hear she's not nearly as loud as she used to be.) Labels: musicians, performing, touring ^ Top | 3:39 PM | | |
Saturday, April 07, 2007 "You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream" (CS Lewis). Seeing trained musicians give up on music makes me a little sad. I was talking to a former graduate conducting student (undergrad in piano) tonight who's now a day trader. He barely plays anymore. Part of the problem is that once you've been working at such a high level of musicianship, working with a bad community orchestra or mediocre church choir is more frustrating than fulfilling. It can become an all-or-nothing scenario. Less extreme are some friends from the University of Michigan, which has one of the top music programs in the country--all of these guys still play, but they're no longer trying to make a career out of it (then again, when you're pursuing music as a career, often very little of your time actually involves playing and creating music). I know a vocal major who's now a stockbroker, a guy with a master's degree in conducting who's been working in computers and may go into law. How many of these choices are driven primarily by a change in interest and desire and how many are driven by frustration or a realization of practicalities, it's hard to say. It's so difficult to do well--and we'll define "well" here by being able to make a living, nothing particularly extravagant--in the music world, often regardless of talent, that many people end up giving up in some way. This summer I talked to a pianist who graduated from the Moscow Conservatory and also got a jazz degree in the US; after years of performing and trying to promote himself, he ended up so cynical about being a professional pianist that he now makes music he acknowledges as crap because it allows him to be his own boss. He doesn't play for fun anymore. He just plays some keyboard in his booth at art fairs in order to attract old ladies who like his soothing, synthesized versions of famous movie songs and will buy CDs. It's a decent living by his own rules, though he's lost his love for playing, his love for music. I'm sure we can all find examples in our own experiences of the people who were amazing artists, actors, writers, musicians in high school but seemed to drop their passion entirely once they left. When I was in my junior year, I saw this and went a little overboard in some ways, deciding that instead of letting years of musical training go to waste, I would concentrate in flute performance when I got to college. (I didn't end up as a music major, though I did spend a lot of late nights practicing in the music building.) Perhaps it's no real loss--people's interests and callings change, and those experiences remain part of who they are. But I can't help but feel like something precious goes missing in the transition. Labels: hopes and dreams, musicians ^ Top | 8:50 AM | | |
Saturday, March 31, 2007 Alvin Ailey, or Hearing Your Recorded Voice in a 4000-Seat Auditorium Last Thursday I was privileged to see one of my favorite dance companies at the beginning of their Chicago residency--Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is one of the best modern companies in the US and easily the world. They have a tendency to eschew sets for elegant lighting that puts the focus on their dancers, rather than on any technical aspects of production, and their pieces tend to be both artistic and accessible. The night opened with "Grace" by Ronald K. Brown. I saw Brown's company, Evidence, years ago and thought the company was mediocre--but the choreography here was simply beautiful, and combined with Ailey dancers the result was, in a word, explosive. The piece started with the spotlight on a solo female dancer in white and moved to contrasts between red- and white-clad dancers. Lord, oh Lord above / God of heaven, Lord of love / Please look down and see my people through. Arrangements of Ellington's "Come Sunday" wove themselves through the work, and days later I still have the melody in my head. It's rare too when a piece of art moves me near to tears as I watch a concert; that night the dancers weren't just performing--they were expressing a deep part of themselves and their own struggles. Carmen de Lavallade's "Sweet Bitter Love" focused entirely on another solo dancer--in this case Renee Robinson, who was celebrating the amazing feat of dancing with Ailey for 25 years--in a slim, formal gown, obviously longing for her lover. While it was an elegant piece, the movement here was nothing particularly special. Uri Sands's "Existence Without Form" was where things got interesting for me on a personal level--I was admittedly rather distracted throughout the piece, focusing instead on the music and my own performance (a little silly perhaps, since it's far too late to change anything). Composer Christian Matjias recorded my vocal improvisations over his piano work last spring, and it was at once exciting and disconcerting to hear the vocalise filling the auditorium. Christian's music is gorgeous (and while I'm sure it would often fit the Oshkosh pastor's criteria for "good" music, it definitely does make the body "want to dance"). And I liked how my work turned out as well--he juxtaposed a take where I improvised with my lower range in a continuous stream with one where I sang in my upper range and darted in and out of the piano's notes; I was singing duets with myself in a bit of a call-and-response. There's little need to comment on "Revelations," a beautiful work which has been the company's signature piece for years. When I saw Ailey last perform in the 2000/2001 season, I was privileged to see the piece combined with a live gospel choir, but only the final section missed that energy. I left the theatre thinking that I miss collaborating with artists from different disciplines, something I did more often in college--it's nice to take a break from the singer-songwriter, folk-pop sound once in a while. Labels: concerts, dance, musicians, performing ^ Top | 11:22 PM | | |
Thursday, March 29, 2007 So-Called "Godly" Music Slacktivist links to a slightly disturbing YouTube video: Satan's Tool: The truth about contemporary Christian Music. In this sermon, courtesy of Alan Ives, Music Minister of Wyldewood Baptist Church in Oshkosh, Wis., we learn:
People like Ives seem completely ignorant of the history of church music and, sadly, the Bible. Many hymns that now seem sedate borrowed melodies from the secular music of their day. The tune for "O Sacred Head Now Wounded" was originally a medieval love song. (Apparently the legend that Luther and the Wesleys used drinking songs as a source for melodies is false.) Throughout his sermon, Ives repeatedly claims that music is bad if it "makes the body want to dance." But dancing is often seen in the Bible, and it's frequently reported as a good thing. Dvora Lapson writes: "[King David in I Sam. 6:14] not only danced, sahaq, in the ordinary sense of the word, but rotated karar, with all his might (verse 14); jumped, pazaz (verse 16); whirled around, hul; and skipped, raqad. The dance was an expression of spiritual ecstasy." I hate to say this, but Ives is very obviously, well, white. I suspect you'd be hard-pressed to find an African-American or Latino pastor claiming that only "marches" in 4/4 are acceptable to God--gospel music frequently plays with rhythm, and so much Latin music is a rhythmic challenge. I'd also be willing to bet that if Ives listened to the Jewish music of Biblical times he'd declare it ungodly--their tonal modes were based on quarter-tones (essentially this means that they'd be sliding in-between notes on our scale), which surely wouldn't fit his conservative musical style. Sacred music did not begin and end with the classical European composers. Obviously I should book my next gig at his church. I'll be in Oshkosh next month. Labels: Christians, musical styles, musicians ^ Top | 1:03 AM | | |
Sunday, January 21, 2007 Gretchen Witt It's a tired phrase, but it truly is a small world. I'm often surprised by how interconnected people are. Last night I was privileged to catch one of singer-songwriter Gretchen Witt's performances in Chicago; she's from Brooklyn and just happens to be good friends with Jennifer Haase, another great musician I shared a show with back in September. Lest you think that these connections are due primarily to the (small) size of the folk singer-songwriter scene, I was actually reminded to go to the concert by Jesse, who was merely forwarding an email from one of his friends who said that Gretchen had been her best friend years ago. Did you follow that? ^ Top | 12:33 PM | | |
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