Concert Review: Harmony Zhu at the Folly Theater

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

Sixteen-year-old Harmony Zhu displayed disarming poise and unlimited potential at the Folly Theater on Sunday, November 13.  The same couldn’t be said for dozens of members of the audience of more than 500 at the Harriman-Jewell Series' free Discovery Concert.

Cacophonous clatter occasionally overwhelmed the pianist’s recital.  Babies babbled.  Toddlers yammered.  Children rolled metal drink canisters on the floor, tossed programs and played with the springs in creaky theater seats.  Minors weren’t the only offenders.  A few older people hacked and wheezed as if they were in their death throes.  

Zhu rose above the tumult as she played four Frédéric Chopin compositions as well as selections by Claude Debussy, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Nikolai Kapustin.  Her affinity for Chopin’s deliciously morbid laments is unexpected in a bright young talent who has probably never misbehaved in a concert hall.

Concert Review: Crystal Gayle at Ameristar Casino

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

Crystal Gayle’s hair is one of the seven wonders of country music.  An audience of about 1,000 marveled at its splendor at Ameristar Casino on Saturday, November 12.  The vocalist joked that a precondition of becoming a member of the Grand Ole Opry was an obligation to sweep the stage with her ankle-length mane after shows.

Backed by a sextet of Nashville cats and her sister Peggy Sue Wells, Gayle’s 75-minute performance featured such a paltry portion of her countrypolitan hits from the 1970s and 1980s that the setlist made my brown eyes blue.  She favored showcasing her crack band, covering standards and indulging in cornpone humor.

The regrettable format allowed Peggy Sue to steal the show.  In addition to singing “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind),” the classic song she co-wrote with big sister Loretta Lynn, Peggy Sue told the evening’s bawdiest jokes.  Unlike the demure Crystal, the salty Peggy Sue loves the spotlight.

The passing of time has given me a new appreciation of Gayle. Forty years ago I derided her for being more closely aligned with Karen Carpenter than with her revered big sister. But I still prefer Gayle’s collaboration with Tom Waits to her hits. Yet the gentle sway of songs including “Ready for the Times to Get Better” melted my cold, cold heart at a Kansas City casino last night.

Album Review: Sarah Davachi- Two Sisters

The barbershop I patronize seems to have gone out of business.  For want of a better idea in the brainpan underneath my unkempt mop yesterday, I went to a nearby outlet of a tacky chain operation promising customers a masculine atmosphere and friendly women armed with razors and scissors.

The hands of the gal I drew were shaking.  Perhaps because of her impairment, she worked exceedingly slowly.  During pauses in our discussion about music- we’re both fond of Fleetwood Mac- and life’s challenges- we traded tips on keeping our cool- I eavesdropped on other conversations.

A man told another barber that he patronizes the shop every two weeks.  He was as bald as Charlie Brown.  A tottering geezer who walked in with a buzzcut repeatedly told his barber that she didn't know what she was doing.

A terrestrial radio station blared all the while.  Between advertisements for window replacement outfits, mortgage companies and weight loss schemes, we heard shopworn oldies by the likes of Duran Duran and current hits by pop stars including Harry Styles.

The sun had gone down by the time I got home. In an effort to recuperate from the sonic assault and quasi-creepy neck massage, I returned to Two Sisters. The Sarah Davachi work I characterized as “ecumenical drones” in naming it my favorite album of September connected me to a power even higher than Stevie Nicks.

Book Review: Rap Capital: An Atlanta Story, by Joe Coscarelli

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

My bookmark was placed between pages 246 and 247 of Rap Capital: An Atlanta Story when I received word of Takeoff’s murder this week.  Unlike the thousands of people who expressed shock at the death of the Migos rapper, I wasn’t surprised.  Joe Coscarelli’s ominous depiction of the constant threat of death faced by the Atlantans he examines in his essential 415-page study prepared me for the horrific news.

I read Rap Capital to learn more about the Quality Control empire.  I didn’t expect to become absorbed in the personal lives of rappers.  Coscarelli excels in portraying the life-and-death struggle of young Black men in Atlanta and demonstrates how the success of the city’s music is embedded in the unique societal constructs in Georgia.

Even though I’ve never been a fan of Lil Baby’s music, Coscarelli’s meticulous portrait made me care about the well being of the superstar and his family.  Coscarelli’s portrayal of less successful rappers including Lil Reek are no less compelling.

Coscarelli links the success of the record label behind Migos, Lil Yachty, Lil Baby and City Girls to the ascent of music streaming services.  A hefty chunk of the music industry’s $8.7 billion in revenue in 2017 went into the pockets of the three men in Migos.  Coscarelli’s account of the rappers’ conspicuous consumption is shocking.  But why not spend the money if you know each day could be your last?  

The gleefully idiotic songs of Migos have been an integral component of the party soundtrack at the There Stands the Glass compound. We often reminisce about how Migos stole the show from Drake at a 2018 concert at the Sprint Center. The death of Takeoff and the grim truths revealed by Coscarelli in Rap Capital mean that the music of Migos will never provide the same sort of carefree fun again.

October 2022 Recap: A Monthly Exercise in Critical Transparency

Screenshot of the trailer of Opera North’s reworking of Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo” by There Stands the Glass.

Top Ten Albums of October

1. Natalia Lafourcade- De Todas las Flores

Rapturous beauty.

2. Bobby Watson- Back Home in Kansas City

My review.

3. Brian Harnetty- Words and Silences

My review.

4. Dave Douglas- Songs of Ascent: Book 1- Degrees

Advanced harmolodics.

5. Boston Modern Orchestra Project- Anthony Davis: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X

A new rendering of the neglected opera.

6. Anat Cohen- Quartetinho

Exquisite chamber jazz.

7. Evgueni Galperine- Theory of Becoming

A Ukrainian Morricone.

8. Armani Caesar- The Liz 2

The month’s best Griselda album.

9. Babyface- Girl’s Night Out

Sultry collaborations.

10. Caroline Shaw and I Giardini- The Wheel

I prefer this hushed recording to the widely praised The Blue Hour.

Top Ten Songs of October

1. Plains- "Hurricane"

Leveled.

2. Grupo Marca Registrada and Luis R. Conriquez- "Puro Campeón"

A true champion.

3. iLe- "Lo Que Yo Quería"

Celestial pop.

4. Ozuna featuring El Cherry Scom- "Perreo y Dembow"

Dizzying.

5. Quavo and Takeoff- "Two Infinity Links"

I’m 250 pages into Joe Coscarelli’s Rap Capital.

6. Jamila Woods- "Boundaries"

Blurred lines.

7. LF System- "Hungry (For Love)"

Famished on the dance floor.

8. SleazyWorld Go featuring G Herbo- “Glitches”

Shots fired.

9. Nardo Wick featuring Polo G- "G Nikes"

If the shoe fits…

10. Hardy- "Truck Bed"

Hick-hop goes pop-punk.

Top Ten Performances of October

1. Marin Alsop and Orchestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo at Helzberg Hall

My review.

2. Ohma and FKJ at the Midland Theater

My review.

3. Raven Chacon’s “American Ledger no. 1” at Agnes Arts

My review.

4. Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt at the Uptown Theater

My review.

5. Terence Blanchard with Turtle Island Quartet at Atkins Auditorium

My review.

6. Alter Destiny at Charlotte Street Foundation

My review.

7. Karen Hsiao Savage, Hyeyung Sol Yoon and Gregory Beaver at White Recital Hall

My review.

8. Stan Kessler, Rod Fleeman and Bob Bowman at a driveway concert

Three of Kansas City’s best on a glorious fall afternoon.

9. Esthesis Quartet at the Blue Room

My Instagram clip.

10. Alex Mallett and Jeff Harshbarger at Market at Meadowbrook

Folklore.

Last month’s survey is here.

I'm Down with O.P.P. (Other Peoples' Pulitzers)

Original image of Raven Chacon and Paul Rudy by There Stands the Glass.

For the second time in the last 24 days I’ve attended a performance of a work by a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in the presence of the composer.  On Wednesday, October 26, Raven Chacon, the winner of the 2022 Pulitzer, heard what he estimated was the tenth reading of his “American Ledger no. 1” at Agnes Arts.

I was torn between laughing in appreciative wonder and crying with profound grief in response to the unconventional composition addressing the gradual dispossession of the continent from Native Americans.  An enormous copy of the graphic sheet music allowed the audience of about 150 to follow along with a ten-piece ensemble conducted by Paul Rudy.

With a couple accomplished locally based jazz musicians in the group conducted by Paul Rudy, the composition occasionally contained elements of swing absence from an excellent rendering of “American Ledger no. 1” in Houston.  Here’s my brief but representative video clip from Agnes Arts.

Earlier this month I marveled at sitting near 2011 Pulitzer recipient Zhou Long as his “Spirit of Chimes” was performed at a lightly attended concert in Kansas City.  There weren’t many more people at a 2018 performance of Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer-winning “Anthracite Fields” at the Folly Theater.  And yes, Wolfe was in the house.

I’ve attended performances by four additional Pulitzer recipients: Ornette Coleman (2007 award), Kendrick Lamar (2018), Wynton Marsalis (1997) and Caroline Shaw (2013).  Designations give the often esoteric winners prestige they might otherwise not receive, but no one needed validation from Pulitzer voters to recognize they were in the presence of greatness at Agnes Arts on Wednesday.

Book Review: Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer: The Guitarist Who Changed the Sound of American Music, by Philip Watson

Original image by There Stands the Glass

Pitchfork’s list of The 150 Best Albums of the 1990s inspired outraged tirades last month.  Recently reading Philip Watson’s new book Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer: The Guitarist Who Changed the Sound of American Music reminded me that by including guest appearances and collaborations, an enthusiast could compile a solid “The 50 Best Bill Frisell Albums of the 1990s” list.

The music of the staggeringly prolific Frisell became a staple of my rotation during that decade.  The guitarist who is a genre unto himself hasn’t slowed much in the intervening years.  I continue to listen to a lot of Frisell, and I’m fortunate to have attended many of his performances.  Having devoured Beautiful Dreamer, I’ll continue overdosing on Frisell for the foreseeable future.

The primary value of Beautiful Dreamer for this reader is its detailed accounting of works that had escaped my memory.  Even though I own physical copies of the ensemble’s albums including I Have the Room Above Her, I’d forgotten about Frisell’s trio with Paul Motion and Joe Lovano.  Furthermore, I hadn’t known that John Zorn played a significant role in Frisell’s evolution.

Watson wrote Beautiful Dreamer with the participation of Frisell.  He’s susceptible to accusations of being a fawning flatterer, but Watson is not wrong in his assertion that Frisell is the modern-day equivalent of titanic figures of American music like Duke Ellington, Jimi Hendrix and Thelonious Monk.

I’ve never been particularly interested in the private lives of artists.  I’m not disappointed, consequently, that Watson treads lightly on the subject of Frisell’s spectrum-ish disposition.  Besides, the portion of the biography’s 548 pages dedicated to listening sessions with admirers ranging from Mary Halvorson to Justin Vernon are more insightful than theoretical armchair psychology.

Even after reading Beautiful Dreamer, I’m not mad at Pitchfork for overlooking Frisell. I like the publication’s rankings although my list would include only a couple dozen of the same titles. I’d begin by sifting through Frisell’s discography were I to take on the task today. Thanks partly to Watson’s invaluable biography, the list-making would be delectably difficult.

Album Review: Brian Harnetty- Words and Silences

In recent months the ways in which my approach to life changed during the pandemic have begun to come into focus.  Trying to make sense of the days remaining to me as I attempt to develop a better understanding of God outweighs other obligations that once seemed so important.

Encountering The Seven Story Mountain in 2021 played a role in changing my priorities.  Thomas Merton’s autobiographical account of his dramatic spiritual transformation inspired me.

Naturally, I was drawn to Words and Silences, an unusual new project overseen by Ohio composer Brian Harnetty.  While living on the grounds of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky in 1967, Merton recorded his musings on topics including God, philosophy, music and current events.  Here’s a visual representation of the opening track “Sound of an Unperplexed Wren.”

Harnetty sets snippets of Merton’s spoken meditations to wistful chamber music.  I initially thought Harnetty’s accompaniment was too genteel.  I’ve since come to believe the fragile sounds perfectly reflect the ineluctable sadness of mortality voiced by Merton.

Not all of Words and Silences is heavy. Merton documents a “New Year's Eve party of one” as he spins records by jazz artists including Mary Lou Williams. His humanity- as well as Harnetty’s sympathetic enhancements- gives me courage. At one point Merton wonders “who am I who sit here? It’s very difficult to say.” Amen, brother.

Concert Review: Ohma and FKJ at the Midland Theater

Original image of Ohma by There Stands the Glass.

Eight musicians made a mockery of genre classifications at the Midland theater in Kansas City on Sunday, October 16.  A six-piece ensemble led by FKJ and the duo of Ohma created blissed-out sounds that transcended category for an audience of 2,000 young stoners, graying ravers and cultured globetrotters.

Ohma, the Los Angeles based duo of Mia Garcia and Hailey Niswanger, opened the show with a 30-minute sampling of material from their stunning new album Between All Things.  The tasteful application of backing tracks and a boost from extreme volume elevated Garcia’s guitar and Niswanger’s woodwinds.

Peers in California’s improvised music scene including Sam Gendel, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Carlos Niño share Ohma’s ability to draw on multiple styles without diluting the music’s potency.  The stage backdrop resembling the visual art of Hilma mf Klint and Georgia O’Keefe offered a clue into Ohma’s intent.

The duo strives to honor the “divine feminine and power within feminine creation.”  Ohma compositions such as “Seeing Beyond What Is Here” could be experienced as profound musical representations of O’Keefe’s poetry.  Where Ohma’s cosmic improvisations contain no commercial concessions, the music of FKJ is flavored with pop and R&B.

FKJ, aka French Kiwi Juice, is the stage name of Vincent Fenton, a self-described “Paris based self-taught kid.”  An extensive palette made Fenton’s 100-minute outing more interesting than the efforts of most electro-funk artists.  The solo piano EP he released last year is typical of his propensity to defy expectations.

The multi-instrumentalist was joined by a bassist, drummer and a string trio in a dynamic recital of R&B, yacht-rock, pop, house, ambient and space age bachelor pad music.  The hybrid sounds were united by a theme of gentle positivity enhanced by verdant plant-oriented visuals. 

One dolt wasn’t receptive to the musical mergers.  An impertinent kid accosted me after Ohma’s set.  Having seemingly made a connection between my enthusiasm for the duo and my comparatively advanced age, he amused himself by mocking “jazz”- his word, not mine.  The innovative one-two punch of Ohma and FKJ indicated the joke’s on him.

Concert Review: Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt at the Uptown Theater

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt swapped stories and told jokes for 140 minutes at the Uptown Theater on Wednesday, October 13.  Every so often, they remembered to play one of the most iconic American songs of the past 50 years.  The majority of the audience of more than 700 wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Longtime fans can compare and contrast decades of performances by both men in a variety of settings.  This admirer witnessed Hiatt perform in Ry Cooder’s band at the Uptown Theater in 1981.  He’s since played the same venue with a number of rock bands.  Most memorably, Hiatt and Lovett performed in an acoustic song circle with Guy Clark and Joe Ely at the Uptown Theater about 25 years ago.

Lovett mixes it up even more than Hiatt.  He’s assumed a variety of folk, country, blues and jazz themes in the approximately dozen times since I first heard him perform in the late 1980s.  Just three months ago he performed at Starlight Theatre with a band featuring the heavyweight pop and rock rhythm section of bassist Leland Sklar and drummer Russ Kunkel.

Both men were as good as ever on Wednesday.  Not only do their compositions thrive in stark acoustic settings, Lovett and Hiatt are exceptional conversationalists.  Mercy, are they ever funny!  The evening began with Hiatt teasing his pal about a bespoke shirt/jacket, a garment Hiatt characterized as a “jirt” or “shacket.”

Lovett exacted a genial form of revenge by lightly mocking Hiatt’s elaborate and entirely sincere story about his family’s encounter with ghosts.  The pair’s freewheeling discussion also touched on songcraft, child rearing and Christianity.  Although he’s more reticent than Lovett, Hiatt’s remembrance of stealing cars as a teenage delinquent in Indiana was the best tale told.  

While they sometimes seemed like an afterthought, the songs performed by each man were well chosen.  “12th of June,” the potent title track of Lovett’s strong 2022 album, was the most rewarding selection of the evening.  The solemn meditation on fatherhood and family lineage was balanced by the new children-inspired romps “Pants Is Overrated” and “Pig Meat Man.”

He name-checked Houston Astros slugger Yordan Álvarez as the man “that won the game” in a thoughtful version of Chuck Berry’s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man.”  Complimentary vocal and guitar assistance from Hiatt kept a few fan favorites including “If I Had a Boat” fresh.

Hiatt’s familiar weatherbeaten voice is like an abandoned barn impervious to collapse, but Lovett’s vocal tone seems to have undergone an astonishing transformation.  A newfound vocal strength caused Lovett to sound like the star soloist of a laconic cowboy gospel choir as he traded verses on Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love.”   

Hiatt also offered interpretations of his signature songs “Have a Little Faith in Me,” “Slow Turning” and “Drive South.”  A spellbinding rendition of “Icy Blue Heart” was followed by a hilarious but insightful analysis of the motivations of the song’s characters.  It’s precisely the sort of unexpected detour that made Wednesday’s concert an unforgettable exhibition of two master craftsmen at the peak of their powers.