Henceforth Records

The Rockettes Christmas Spectacular

Radio City Music Hall

Now, mind you, as a “new music person,” I wouldn’t have ordinarily attended this BUT I am so glad I did. Mary Rowell is the concert master of the orchestra and she kindly got me two tickets for the 11 am show (there are five shows a day). It was truly spectacular from before the curtain rose until the very last leg kick. The show has been running since 1933 and the hall used to be the largest in NY and the curtain the biggest as well. I won’t even try to describe the show so take a look at the photos. I will say it opened with two organs moving into view from the sides of the hall and playing, of course, Christmas songs. Henceforth, glorious sets including 3-D videos, dancing, costumes, songs, music. The only flaw was the ubiquitous ads especially from Chase Bank. However, the whole show was highly professional, beautifully produced and really fun. You should all go some year.

Amy X Neuburg @ Cornelia St. Cafe

Cornelia Street Cafe and painter of it

Amy X Neuburg – voice and electronics

Although Amy is from San Francisco, I had never heard her perform a whole set so it was great to hear the wide range of her repertoire. She often enhances her singing and vocalizing with looping and very cool electronic effects. What I particularly liked is how she incorporates the electronics into the performance rather, than as so often one sees,
heads buried in the equipment. One Schubert inspired piece she sang along with her past 24 year old self. Another song began with the looping sounds of her brushing her teeth on stage. The songs were both clever and lovely and a treat to hear. We met for lunch the next day and I asked about some of her gear: Drum Kat – midi drum pad. This has 12 physical pads but many more available with the click of a switch. She plays these pads with drumsticks which adds to the great visual as well as aural performance.

Le Train Bleu at Galapagos

John Luther Adams “songbirdsongs” (1974-1980)

Who knew you could feel immersed in nature at a Brooklyn club. John Luther Adams along with the five percussionists and six piccolo players of Le Train Bleu accomplished this with special thanks to Ransom Wilson, flutist (and piccoloist), who formed the ensemble in 2011. The musicians were on the front stage and spread around the three sides of the balcony; this arrangement encompassing the audience in sound. Many mention Adams’ affinity with minimalism but I don’t quite see/hear it that way. His music, this composition included, fills all the spaces (even Morningside Park with “Inuksuit”) with glory, not a word I used lightly. The piccolos, of course, created the bird songs and the percussion, including the marimba, glockenspiel, xylophone, gongs, tom toms, triangle, bass and kettle drums, added timbre and texture which resonated all around us. There were nine movements which flowed together, each accompanied by different visuals on the screen at the back of the stage and on two banners above the seating area. All were, of course, beautiful nature scenes, except one, the penultimate movement, the only disturbing movement, which began with a loud bass drum behind us, with kettle drums and clappers on stage, birds wildly chirping. The visuals portrayed a man chopping down trees: nature disrupted and destroyed. The final movement brought gentleness back to the fore with a violin in the center of the room and along with the other musicians created a shimmering winter scenario with bowed cymbals, kalimba, large and small chimes; nature’s seasons completed.

NYTimes review: http://nyti.ms/sWZWmo

Thanksgiving with Theo Bleckmann and Preston Bailey

Thanksgiving at Preston Bailey and Theo Bleckmann's

It was a lovely evening with their friends and family. Everything was delicious including the food. But even more than the decor and the dinner was the warmth and graciousness. Only thing missing was my California/Montana family.

Robert Ashley reading at St. Mark’s Bookshop

Kyle Gann

Have I said often enough that I love Robert Ashley? Well, let me reiterate – I do. He was introduced by Kyle Gann whose book, “Robert Ashley” will be available this Spring. Gann described Ashley as “magnificently calm and profoundly imaginative.” His writings are really “epic poems, meant to be read aloud.” That is what I have found to be true for me in reading his books. Ashley read from his new novel and soon to be opera, “Quicksand.” Even if I didn’t like what he said which I do, his voice is mesmerizing: the pacing, the lilt. He also read beautifully from “Atalanta: Acts of God.” A small audience of devoted followers were there on a rainy night.

Arts for Art – Creative Sounds of Dissension

Richard and Roberta Berger

Clemente Soto Velez

7:30 pm
JD Parron, sax, bamboo flutes, kalimba and a gorgeous bamboo sax, and William Hooker, drums.

It was nice to see and hear JD again. He played some sax, kalimba and and some bamboo instruments. The big issue for me was that Hooker played really loud most of the time which tended to drown out JD. Something was amiss with this room as the music was way-too loud for the space. I was not alone with this impression.

8:45 pm
Darius Jones, sax; Adam Lane, bass; Jason Nazary, drums.

The same held true for this set acoustic-wise. The difference was Adam and Jason modulated the volume so we all weren’t quite so blasted out. However, I tried staying for all the second set but failed as my ears couldn’t take it anymore.

Bowery Poetry Club

Albey Balgochian

A busy day. Brunch with good friends Rick and Noni Carrick and their two darling kids and later with Brian Groder. The art-part of the day was going to the Bowery Poetry Club at 2 pm to see my friends Albey Balgochian, bassist. and Steve Dalachinsky, poet, perform. This was a Book Party for the release of the new book by Tsaurah Litzky. It was wonderful to hear Albey play his bass and recite a poem. Then Steve read his introduction to Litzky’s book so I didn’t get to hear him recite his poetry . . . another time.

Tsaurah, who is best known for her erotic works, was not erotic, or at least not very much so, on this day. I wish I understood poetry better. AA Milne is still my favorite.

“That Morning Thing”: An opera by Robert Ashley

Act One: Frogs

The Kitchen

This opera was created in 1968 and thank god it has been revised by Performa 11 and co-presented by The Kitchen. There is no way I can accurately describe this performance except to say, as with all of Ashley’s creations, it is touching and human. Act One, The Frogs, opens with the eight Women seated on both sides of the room with the four Men and the Speaker, John Hagan, along the back. The women dressed in white then stepped carefully to form duos while their sparkly, flashing glasses shined at us off and on. The men spoke numbers and phonemes while The Speaker read to us about frogs and language and its possible demise: “Language could become obsolete, could be replaced with new modes of communication . . . language is the only bond between humans.” He thinks of frogs and nuclear waste as analogous to canaries in the Coal Mine. We heard examples of the 92 sounds that frogs make. While the Speaker was wonderful and clear, I kept hearing Ashley’s voice in my mind; the music he makes while speaking is remarkable. Act Two consisted of the singer, Imani Uzuri, speaking/singing 1, 2, 3, 4 with lovely inflections and pacing while “Blue” Gene Tyranny performed on synthesizer. This was followed by The Dancer posing variously to a devastating prerecorded story of her wrenching sexual abuse told non-emotionally in what sounded like a telephone conversation. “I remember he put his gum in my mouth. I remember he put his tongue in my mouth. I remember he sucked my tongue. I remember he opened his pants. I remember he pulled my head down on it. I choked. . .” Tyranny and Imani continued, this time she only counted 1, 2, 3, now with more desperation, even anger. Who could blame her. Act Three, Fast Forward, The Director, in fact and as an actor, now took questions from the Women: “Where is Columbus Circle, Where is the Upper East Side, Where is California, Where is the Statue of Liberty”, each question interrupted by a loud buzzer. He answered each while moving around the lighted grid on stage, ending with “Why is it that it is so difficult to remember sometimes, but so easy to forget. Yet, when you really WANT to forget, it is so excruciatingly impossible.” This is the sort of question that Ashley consistently asks — questions that touch us all in the midst of the mundane. Ending the performance, 4 of the Women entered each of the two aisles and gently led us in pronouncing the phonemes of She Was A Visitor while the Speaker repeatedly spoke the words. I was sorry the evening ended. Ashley’s creations are ART, but not Artsy. They are conceptual, but not academic. Great beauty but no easy answers.

“Canyon” – Choreography by John Jasperse

Theo Bleckmann

BAM Next Wave Festival

The good parts were the music and the reasonable cost of the tickets. The not-so-good parts were everything else. I have no idea what was going on during this dance performance. There were 3 male and 3 female dancers. The costumes were drab, even ugly. The set was maybe okay but I found it distracting from the dance and don’t really know how it related to the choreography. The dancers probably were good but the choreography and story, if there was one, was non-existent or at least unfathomable to me. For instance, there was a white box, about 3’ x 3’ that rolled around the stage to what purpose neither I nor those around me could figure out.

The dancers came and went, stood staring, swooped around but didn’t really relate to one another in a discernible manner. The music was terrific. It was composed by Hahn Rowe with he and three others (cello, bass clarinet, violin, computer/electronics) live on stage. All this plus and minus gave Theo and me much to talk about on the subway ride home and we had delicious dinner and conversation at Stonehome Wine Bar before the show. Overall a good night.

Lisa Moore Concert

Lisa Moore

Roulette
Lisa Moore Concert – piano, sampler and keyboard with guests So Percussion

I have heard Lisa perform before at the Bang on a Can Marathon so was pleased to be able to hear a more extensive concert with her. I was not disappointed. Her playing, what she choose to play and the ambience surrounding her were all great. All the composers, except Fredrick Rzewski, there and each gave a brief introduction to their composition. She performed two pieces by Annie Gosfield: “Lightening Slingers and Dead Ringers” and “Brooklyn October 5, 1941” about a World Series baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the NY Yankees. Baseballs instead of fingers were used on the keyboard and inside the piano to create the sounds. She is a favorite composer of mine. “Orizzonte” (Horizon – where the sky and sea meet) by Missy Mazzoli was written to merge improvisation and composition. The notes are all scored but the tempos are free. Rzewski’s “To His Coy Mistress” is a lovely gentle piece and a big surprise as his music, at least what I have heard, is usually not that. Lisa sang the lovely poem “To His Coy Mistress”, a metaphysical poem written by the British author and statesman Andrew Marvell (1621–1678). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_His_Coy_Mistress. David Lang’s “Wed” was also a lovely and quiet piece of music. He told us he that there are a series of pieces written in memory of people who have died. This movement was for friends who were married at a hospital bedside. It was sad and sweet. The final two pieces were by Martin Bresnick. The first was “Willie’s Way” about Willie Dixon. It was written for Paul Dresher in 1968. On Bresnick’s website he talks about his inspiration – in part he says: “In the spring of 1968 I was sitting, not completely in my right mind, at a table in a very large house in Palo Alto rented by a group of Stanford medical students. These future doctors were then my very own merry pranksters and I had often tagged along while they tried radical politics, communal living, vegetarian foods, medical school laboratory pharmaceuticals, even raising a lion cub. On this night, after a meal of randomly exotic foods and sundry medications, they retired leaving me alone in the immense dining room, while a recording I had never heard before (oh Ginger, Jack and Eric!) gradually invaded every neuron of my not so slowly blowing mind. As I stared intently at the remains of a dinner that in my peculiar state resembled a disorderly old Dutch Master’s still-life, a basic blues grew relentlessly from elemental simplicity into melodic improvisations worthy of a south Indian master, and the blues pulse multiplied into an infinity of polyrhythmic patterns, and the individual lines became a counterpoint that extended above and beyond the fifth species, and then, finally, when after a shattering climax of impassioned instrumental virtuosity Willie Dixon’s great tune returned, I knew I had heard something I would never forget -that spoon, that spoon,that – spoonful. The final piece of the night was “Caprichos Enfáticos: Los Desastres de la Guerra” (Emphatic Caprices: The Disasters of War) It is a concerto in 8 movements for piano/keyboard and percussion quartet commissioned by Meet the Composer for Lisa Moore, pianist, and So Percussion. The 8 movements are accompanied by interpolated DVD projections, created by Johanna Bresnick based on Francisco Goya’s book of etchings Los Destastres de la Guerra. The titles of the 8 movements are either by Goya himself, or suggested by his ideas. We heard 3 of the 8 movements: “Estragos de la Guerra” (The Ravages of War), “Estrana Devocion” (Strange Devotion),“Farandula de Populacho” (Farandole of the Rabble). A farándula, or farandole, was a chain dance popular in Provence, although it’s origins are much older. The dance is often in 6/8 time, with a moderate to fast tempo. The music and the Goya drawings shown on a screen behind the musicians were dramatic and powerful.