A Complete Unknown (2024)

Wow. Just wow. I first saw Bob Dylan in the early 70's when I was in high school--I was, in retrospect, lucky to have a boyfriend who was into really great music, and while Dylan had some unevenness as a performer, he is an incredibly gifted lyricist. Watching Timothee Chalomet inhabit his character for a couple of hours was amazing for me. I knew most of the story and the sequence of events--I am, afterall, a life long fan of Dylan. While I saw the Grateful Dead way way more live, I listened to Dylan's music more than any other music across my lifespan. My children know his music, at first because they had little choice, it surrounded them, and late for enjoyment. Ballads, songs that tell a story, are my favorites, and his are some of the best. So it is impossible for me to judge this a a cinematic work--I loved spending time listening to Chalomet's renditions of Dylan's songs, both musically and vocally, because it evoked all of those experiences over decades of my life, and he was pitch perfect at the details. I appreciate his dedication to his craft and how faithful to his subject he was able to be. This wasn't overwhelmingly successful on the awards circuit, but it was one of the most enjoyable movies of the year for me to watch.

Wicked (2024)

I am amongst one of the last people to be in the know that this is not only an extension of the Wizard of Oz story, but also a flipping of it. Part of the reason that the original stopped resonating with me at a very early age is because of how it basically pigeon holes the characters into very basic two-dimensional slots, and this appealingly takes that narrative and puts it on its head, all while delving into the why of what motivates the main characters. The Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch of the North, who are played by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande and each of whom gives a knockout performance, duke it out, but not in the way that you might have imagined they would and you will be charmed by it none-the-less. The all too timely themes of bullying, corrupt leaders and the demonization of difference, this is a movie that promises a froth of pink and green escapism but delivers considerably more in the way of depth and darkness.

Encanto (2021)

Disney can be counted on for feel good, family friendly animated movies that you do not have to scratch your head too long to figure out what the underlying take home messages might be, and this movie is no exception. Except for one thing, it centers on a Spanish speaking culture and ideas and beliefs that are outside of the mainstream western norms that Disney has been slowly but consistently breaking out of. This story is a Colombian magical realist tale of a family that received special powers after surviving a tragedy. Now, a few generations later, they live together in a magical house and each member develops their own talent, like the ability to control the weather, shapeshift into other people, and talk to animals. Their house responds to the family’s requests and responds to their moods. Each bedroom is magically tailored to the relative and their magical gift. All except for one, Mirabel--she is pointedly without magic, and even her grandmother--especially her abuela--holds against her. Well, you can see where this is going from all angles and a mile away, but it does so against a magnificently rendered animated landscape that is breath taking to behold.

Beethoven's Bonn, Germany

 The devotion of Beethoven's home town to his legacy is quite impressive.  Bonn is not known as a city of music for nothing. It is home to the birthplace of the famous German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. He first entered the world in the Bonngasse house in December 1770, where his family lived in one of the flats. During his 57-year life, Beethoven became one of the most important composers in musical history.
Besides the permanent exhibition, the Beethoven museum also regularly puts on temporary exhibitions, which likewise address topics relating to the famous composer in their historical context, and in the lab next door you can hear recordings of Beethoven's compositions on instruments that either he did use, or are congruent with the time he wrote in.  Very cool.

The collection of things that Beethoven used bordered on an obsession at his house.
You can follow in his footsteps and see through their own eyes the composer’s birthplace, which is now a museum. The historic atmosphere takes museum guests back to the 18th century and the museum offers deeper insights into the life and work of the great composer. The museum houses the largest Beethoven collection in the world, using impressive authentic documents to vividly depict Beethoven’s life and work.
Wandering through the museum’s twelve rooms, visitors can see 150 original exhibits offering an opportunity to reflect upon how Beethoven thought, felt, worked and acted. The authentic exhibits include manuscripts, photos, letters, furniture and other everyday objects from Beethoven's life, as well as musical instruments and memorabilia, including famous pieces, such as Beethoven's last grand piano, made by Viennese piano maker Conrad Graf, and valuable original manuscripts, such as that of Moonlight Sonata.

Fare Thee Well

Several people made me Spotify lists when I was diagnosed with cancer a couple years ago and some of the songs contained there in hit just the right chord.  This is one such song, bringing back images of my youth, yet a song I learned later in life. 

If I had wings like Noah's dove
I'd fly up the river to the one I love
Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well
If I met your man, who was long and tall
I'd hit his body like a cannon ball
Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well
One of these days and it won't be long
Call my name and I'll be gone
Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well
I remember one night, a drizzling rain
Round my heart I felt an achin' pain
Fare thee well, oh honey, fare thee well
When I wore my apron low
Couldn't keep you from my do'
Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well
Now I wear my apron high
Scarcely ever see you passing by
Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well
Now my apron's up to my chin
You pass my door and you won't come in
Fare thee well, oh honey, fare thee well
If I had listened to what my mama said
I'd be at home in my mama's bed
Fare thee well, oh honey, fare thee well

Bod Dylan and the Nobel Prize for Literature

I am not going to defend or even comment on the Nobel Committees choice, for this or other awards.  What do I know? I pretty much do not get quite a lot of poetry, but I am not going to say that a poet is undeserving of the award.  I can say that in the past week or so that I have listened to quite a lot of his music and it speaks to me.  And apparently I am not alone.  But I also may not have as much company as I might have thought.
There have certainly been recipients that I don't admire as much as others, but this is the Swedish Academy's prize to give.  Their usual one line reason was this: "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".  I can't argue with that.  What a lot of people have argued is that this is not a good reason to get an award for literature, but I don't see it as my place to comment on that.  The award has its own prestige, which has been amassed over the decades that it has been given, and it speaks for itself.  It is simply not my choice.
What this does do is to change the way that I view the hours and hours that I spent as a youth listening to Dylan.  He has been prolific throughout his lifetime as a songwriter and even in my teens I had a dozen albums of his work.  The sixties and into the seventies were an era of ballad writing and I love that genre.  Dylan was the hands down master of it, and there are so many lines from his songs that I think when I am summing up situations in my head.  He is a genius in my book and he becomes more impressive to me the older I get.  He is a complicated man, but an unusually gifted artist.  So I toast my youthful self for seeing that so clearly.  I was so much older then, I am younger than that now.

The Music of Break Up

My youngest son had a final project for a class that involved picking a group of songs that had something in common with each other, and writing about each of them.  He chose songs about breaking up and then he and I struggled to come up with some good examples.  He had a few and I had almost nothing.  Other than a few Bob Dylan songs, even the songs that I knew that had that theme I failed to recognize.  So we put out a call to family members to aid us in our efforts and two were able to almost instantly come up with quite a few.  Which got me thinking.  I am not internalizing the lyrics of many songs that I listen to, and I really do not seek out songs that chronicle the end of a relationship.  I have always been a ballad lover, and while they often chronicle tragedy, it is not end of relationship material.  I seek out bigger fish.  Things that make headlines, not matters of the heart.  I also realized that not only do I dwell on the lyrics, there are times when songs that I love have lyrics that make almost no sense.  So much for my self assessment that I am a woman of the book.  Not true, at least when it comes to music.

Check Out Valerie June

Please listen to this wonderful clip of a woman who is a fabulous song writer, banjo player and performer.

I am not much for getting out, but thankfully I have offspring and friends who see to it that I occasionally manage a night of music.  I went to see Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings recently and they were pretty terrific--the band especially (an 8 piece band, with three horn players and a conga drummer, which must cost the earth to tour with, but it sure was great to hear)--but the real hit of the evening for me was being introduced to her opening act, Valerie June. She is an incredibly fun performer to watch, she has style and grace, her voice is unusual and interesting, and her songs are whimsical and mournful and memorable.  Not to mention that she has fabulous turquoise cowboy boots and the cutest little baby banjo.

J.J. Cale's Legacy

When J.J. Cale died last month, we lost an important figure in our musical heritage.  He was underappreciated in life--let's hope that in his after life we give him his due.

There are quite a few  music legends whose contributions to American music were not well appreciated in their life times.  Robert Johnson comes immediately to mind.  He was an American blues singer and musician whose landmark recordings from 1936–37 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generations of musicians.  Johnson came to an untimely death in 1938 at the young age of 27, so it would have been hard for his artistry to have been widely appreciated while he was alive, but he cycles in and out of popularity to this day.  Let's hope that happens here.

J.J. Cale hailed from Oklahoma, and he brought his native musical roots with him when he left.  He was one of the originators of the Tulsa Sound (which is where Cale grew up), a loose genre drawing on blues, country, rockabilly, and jazz influences.  He brought aspects of each of those genres to rock 'n roll and changed it for the better.  Any one who loves Eric Clapton's 'After Midnight', a classic Cale song, can see what he brought to the musical table.  Cale continued to play well into his later years, so we have a substantial body of his work to look back on and learn from. 

May your memory be a blessing.

Brushy One String

Andrew Chin, better known as "Brushy One-String," flaunted a surprisingly diverse mix of musical styles and moods for Jazz Fest this year.  I had never heard of him before but I was really impressed--he demonstrated how one guy with one guitar string can create a multitude of sounds to hold a crowd captive.

Brushy is famed for playing just one string on an acoustic guitar, coupled with rhythmic taps on the guitar body to create the effect of a full band. Plucking his string while wearing an outfit best described as island cowboy chic, Brushy formed an eccentric stage presence.

The innovative performer hails from a musical family -- he's the son of late Jamaican singer Freddie McKay -- and has entertained Jamaicans with his offbeat style for years, He became an international YouTube sensation after appearing in  "RiseUp."  The award-winning documentary focused on the underground music scene in Jamaica.

Brushy's one-string guitar-playing could make him seem a gimmicky musician without much staying power, but his music proves too creative and interesting, too genuine and soulful for that.
I would describe Brushy's music as bluesy reggae, but his songs encompass a much broader range of influences. This one-man band somehow draws a mix of reggae, blues, and, traditional African rhythms.

 

His voice is husky and raw, capable of moving from rhythmic reggae raps to raspy blues howls. He sounded nearly breathless at times, but the slight struggle for air only made him push harder, put even more emotion and force into each note.   It was a lot of fun to see him perform, and I would seek him out again.


Drink Small

The very first itme that I went to the New Orleans Jazz Festival in the early 1990's I saw many wonderful shows, but the very best of them all was when I saw Champion Jack Dupree.  At the time he was about 80 years old (the exact date and year of his birth were somewhat in dispute, but he was at least 80 at the time that I saw him, from all that I can figure out), and I had never heard of him before.  He had trouble with ambulation, but once he got in front of his piano he was unforgetable.  The energy and passion that he transmitted to his music was unforgettable, and that day I learned a very valuable lesson.  Hang out in the Blues Tent--you never know what treasure is going to be playing next.  Skip the big names and the big stages--focus on the people you've never heard of and you might just discover a treasure.

And over 20 years later, following that same sage advice, I returned to Jazz Fest and the Blues Tent, and saw Drink Small, yet another fantastic 80 year old blues musician that I had never heard of who was remarkable to watch and listen to.  Jazz Fest this year was a very wet affair, and on Thursday when Drink Small played it was a drenching downpour followed by impassable mud.  But safely tucked away in the Blues Tent, under cover and well protected, I listened to his performance and marveled.  I also hope that I can bring that qualtity to things that I do when I am his age (should I get there).  If you get the chance to see him play, don't pass it up.

New Orleans Jazz Fest 2013

I went to Jazz Fest in New Orleans this year for the first time in many many years.  My spouse said to me of the experience, "You know how sometimes you do things that you did when you were young, and when you do them as a much older person and you do them again that they just aren't as good as you remembered them?  This is not one of those experiences".

That about sums it up.  There are dozens of bands that play over the 7 days of the festival, and they range from Preservation Hall Jazz bands that are playing old time New Orleans music to big name rock and roll bands, from gospel choirs to indie music, from traditional jazz to Cajun music, but the things that I love the very most are the ones that I knew least about.  It is always great to hear Marcia Ball or Germaine Basil or the Black Keys, depending on who you are and what you love, but the very best times for me are the ones where I sit listening to someone I never heard of who is absolutely amazing.  Those are the things that will bring me back.

Bonnie Raitt at Red Rocks

I traveled to my favorite outdoor music venue, Red Rocks, in Morrison, Colorado recently to see Bonnie Raitt perform with various band members, many of whom have been with her two decades or more.   Wow, she was fantastic.  Mesmerizing, as one of my fellow concert goers noted.  She has a fantastic voice, a great band, and she played a nice mixture of songs from her present album (one of which I liked) to her past work (which I loved).

I hadn't seen her perform since 1978, even though I like her music very much. The coffee house that I worked at and eventually managed in college, called 'Big Mother' (who knew that I would later becomes an amply proportioned mother myself), had a modest sized record collection, and my favorite of them all was Bonnie Raitt's 'Green Light'. That was my introduction to her music, and she was impressive on it. She had a great voice then as well, and she was (and still is) one of the few women who front a band who plays guitar.

Nothing has changed.  Her stage presence is impressive, and she dedicated several songs throughout the evening to various members of the audience, which made her seem like a nice person as well.  At least she is generous.  The setting was equally spectacular.  We had a long and winding journey up to the venue--plenty of time to contemplate the gorgeous vistas along the way, while my engineer-to-be son described the geology of what we were taking in.  The amphitheater is quite a hike up a hill (from a parking area we felt very fortunate to be able to find our way back to), but it is well worth the effort.  Red rocks form the sides and front of the venue, and it was a gorgeous night with an almost full moon.  Such a treat to hear wonderful music in such a spectacular setting.  Everyone should go there at least once!

Jerry Garcia Turns 70

Of course, he doesn't actually turn anything because he dies while in yet another rehabilitation center trying to control his heroin addcition, but if Garcia would be 70, then I too am getting up there.  There are plenty of examples of 1960's rock 'n roll icons who are now well past the age of traditional retirement, but they continue to ply their trade.  That is largely a good thing--for me in particular it is great because I share musical tastes with my children.  The music of my youth is not irrelevant to them, and for them, knowing what I like can guide them in pointing me in the direction of new music.  

But as I have said before, for me the Grateful Dead were not just about the music.  It was the social aspect as well.  I loved sitting in the same spot, show after show--the Phil side of the stage, as near to the first row of the first balcony as was possible when the show was general admission.  There were the people I traveled with and the people I would see at the show, and then the people I only knew at shows, people I would never see again.  The music was essential, there is no way around that.  Once Jerry was dead, it was never quite the same.  But the crowd was at least as much of the allure as the band.  It was a little bit like theater--some of the show was when the lights were off, but some of it was when the lights were on, and I loved both parts.  The players were different, but there was a predictable audience who wore remarkable clothes and expressed creativity--some of it annoying, some of it inspiring, and some of it just entertaining--but it was like no other place that I have been. 

I saw the Dead literally hundreds of times over 20 plus years.  Some people go to sporting events.  Some are into opera.  For a very long time concerts in general and the Grateful Dead in particular were my nirvana, the place I loved best.  It is funny to think about it now.  What have  I replaced it with?  What fills that spot in my life?  Now I travel without there being a concert to go to--I do my people watching in cafes and museums and on the streets, rather than between sets in a smoke-filled arena.   But I miss being able to see those people, all in one place at one time.  The arena changed, the crowd stayed the same, and I loved that place.  It was like an early precursor to a flash mob.  I am so glad I spent as much time as I did with the Grateful Dead, and I remember it ever so fondly.  RIP Jerry.  

The Grateful Dead at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

I have been a Dead head since I was 15 years old, when I saw my first show at the Hollywood Bowl,. I saw literally hundreds of shows from that point in 1974 through Jerry Garcia's death in 1995. The Dead fulfilled many roles in my youth. They were a way to see the country. I saw them on the West Coast, the East Coast and many places in the middle. They were the basis of my social life--I traveled with dozens of different people over the years to see them. When I met my spouse, he was wearing a Gratefull Dead shirt and I was on my way to see them in Lewiston, Maine. We had an extra ticket and space in the car, but he declined the invitation to join us--something about having to unload his belongings and return the U-Haul truck he was standing in at the time. Never-the-less, he got swept up in my love of the band, and pretty quickly joined me on the road for tours. It was a culture I belonged to fully. So when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame had h Grateful Dead exhibit, my parents felt I needed to see it. I have to say, I was very disappointed. The exhibit does have a lot of memorabilia (see the list below) but somehow it failed to capture what was exciting about the Grateful Dead--I wish they had had a movie running showing different concerts. They do have Elvis movies playing in the exhibit devoted to him, and that would have been a better rendition of what the band was like. But in many ways, the audience was as much of the experience as the band or the music. Art and design have always been closely associated with Grateful Dead, and this exhibit does include a collection of original artwork that is immediately recognizable from the band’s album covers and posters--not enough of it, but some. It features numerous instruments used by the Grateful Dead over the years, including keyboards, drums, percussion, guitars and elements from the legendary Wall of Sound PA system. Additional items include: · Five Jerry Garcia guitars, including his Travis Bean TB5 · Mickey Hart’s custom-painted drum kit · Two Bob Weir guitars, including his first Ibanez “cowboy” custom guitar · Several original lyric manuscripts, including “Truckin’,” “Box of Rain” and “Sugaree” · Several original Grateful Dead-related artworks, including images from Workingman’s Dead, Without a Net and Fillmore Auditorium poster art · Bill Graham’s “Father Time” robe · Four McIntosh MC2300 power amplifiers used on tour by Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia

The Rocky Horror Show

I really like the concept of community theater. People producing good quality theatrical productions to entertain their neighbors at affordable prices. I support that--not as much as my eldest son, who has been the fly man as well as running the rails for the City Circle Acting Company for over a year. It is great to watch, but behind the scenes, these guys, who love the stage. They also are teaching high school students about a life in the theater--the company actively encourages young people to be involved with them.
The latest production, which ran last weekend, was The Rocky Horror Show--no more perfect Hallowe'en musical was ever invented--at least not for an all-adult audience. And you really wouldn't want to take somebody who hasn't gone through puberty to this show. It is raunchy (which was pointed out to me by my 21 year old son--shocked, he was. And he is no babe in the woods). First, it involves major costuming--wigs, high heels (both both genders), and boas. Outrageous costuming, in fact, and Hallowe'en is definitely the season for dressing up as someone you are not. It also features a transsexual, and there is no better season than Hallowe'en to see a lot of cross dressing. The audience dresses up almost as much as the cast, so it is very festive. The concession stand sold prop bags--things to use at particular times during the play, and throughout, people were talking back to the cast in the fashion that has come to be expected of this very camp play (and the movie version as well). It has been a long time since I have participated in the Rocky Horror fun, but it all comes back to you. Happy Hallowe'en!

World Pipe Band Championships

My nephew, Eli is a bagpiper. I have always thought that was so cool. I do not think my love of bagpipe music has anything to do with the Scottish blood from my father's side nor the Irish from my mother's side--both are sufficiently overpowered by the Norman and Anglo-Saxon majority, but maybe it does. There is something that resonates with me from an instrument that has essentially only an octave of range. The bagpipe is an ancient instrument, going back to 1000 BC (that we know of), and maybe it is like klezmer music--anything that old strikes at a primal level for us.

Today is the world bagpipe championship competition on Glasgow Green--of the two major cities in Scotland, Edinburgh is the classier one and Glasgow is the industrial one. I prefer the former, but as a result, I know Glasgow less well, so a chance to return and explore a bit is an upside, but we are really there to see Eli and other world-class bagpipers compete.

Looking for Eric (2009)

There are two Erics in “Looking for Eric.” One is Eric Bishop (Steve Evets), a middle-aged Manchester, England, postal worker whose existence has been a chronicle of hardship and disappointment, much of it self-inflicted. We first see him driving the wrong way around a traffic circle. The ensuing accident is almost redundant, since he was already pretty much a wreck already. That is what we discover as the film unfolds.
First off, Eric lives in a crumbling house with two teenage stepsons (Gerard Kearns and Stefan Gumbs) who both appear to be en route from ordinary adolescent sullenness to outright criminality. Their mother, his second wife, has been released from prison several months earlier, and has yet to return to the nest. And seems unlikely to do so. So he feels responsible for them, and stuck in a very bad situation. He also has an infant granddaughter and a grown-up daughter (Lucy-Jo Hudson), whose mother was his first wife, Lily (Stephanie Bishop). He abandoned her many years before, much to his seemingly eternal regret. Yet he feels powerless to look her in the eye, much less talk to her about what happened.
Once upon a time, he was young and handsome, a gifted dancer full of potential, wearing blue suede shoes back when that was cool. Now he is angry, stressed out and miserable, in spite of his friends’ efforts to cheer him up with jokes and Meatball's hilarious self-help exercises. His eldest step son is escalating into a life that will surely end him in jail, and as he struggles with what to do about it, screaming and smoking pot, his larger than life sports hero, Eric Cantona, comes to life. As a muse, a hallucination--but also as a therapist. The second Eric is full of sports metaphors and pep talks, but underneath it all Eric Bishop is able to find solutions to the problems that face him. Cantona gets Bishop exercising, shaving, asking his former wife out for tea, cleaning up his house, and he gives him the idea to get his son out of the bind he is in and a shot at a second chance. This is a worthwhile and thought provoking movie.

John Pizzarelli

This show was one of the more unusual musical events that I have been to. First it was very intimate. The Grand Opera in Dubuque is a gorgeously remodeled venue that has seating for 622. So intimate in that way, but also because the performer acted much like someone who was a dinner guest who pulls out his guitar afterwards and proceeds to play a few songs. So he plays a couple of songs, backed up by a competent trio that includes his brother, Martin Pizzarelli, on bass, and a very good pianist and drummer--three people who probably wouldn't have been in your living room, and if you exclude Rock Band, we don't actually have a drum set. Then he takes some time to talk about the songs he just played, who wrote them, maybe some of the context around the song, who sang it, and maybe how they came to find the song.

So this was part concert--with an emphasis on the music of Duke Ellington, Rogers and his two frequent collaborators--Hall or Hammerstein, many of them easily recognized, and part history lesson. There were several twists that I got, and probably an equal number that I didn't. In addition to all the back story, Pizzarelli "updates" the words of some songs, and in others where he feels the lyrics don't make very much sense, he changes them, adds a pre-story so that you can see where the song came from, or tells more so you can see where it went. It is very clever, very funny, and very pleasant. I am definitely checking out his radio show, Radio Deluxe. He is a find.

Finally, a word about the theater itself. It was one of the nicest theaters I have been in. It was built in 1890 in the Richardsonian architecture style. This is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after architect Henry Hobson Richardson, whose masterpiece is Trinity Church, Boston (1872–77), designated a National Historic Landmark. Richardson first used elements of the style in his Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane in Buffalo, New York, designed in 1870. This very free revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish and Italian Romanesque characteristics. In other words, kind of a mish mash, but in this case it works. The facade is impressive, and the inside is very pretty, but it is also quite intimate, in both feel and size. A really lovely place to see music.