I resorted to desperate counter-programming as I drove home from pre-pandemic Folk Alliance International Conference sessions. After being deluged with hours of banjo and conscientious protest songs, I felt compelled to queue up digital productions by the antisocial likes of Kevin Gates. Not this year. I’m all in on the six-hour and thirteen-minute reissue of Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind. I loved the album as a new release in 1997. It sounds even better now. The former folkie’s ravaged voice, gothic blues and frequently hilarious lyrics reflect my current worldview. My default soundtrack also led to a synchronized bout of serendipity. A 16-minute version of “Highlands” began as I left the garage of a midtown hotel after midnight last week. The song ended when I pulled into my driveway. I too “feel like a prisoner in a world of mystery.”
Album Review: Meg Baird- Furling
I’ve placed special notations on a list of artists performing at this week’s Folk Alliance International Conference in Kansas City. The music made by the likes of Sandy Denny, Roy Harper and June Tabor is my favorite form of folk. Everyone with an official showcase at the conference working in that vein received a gold star.
Reverent of tradition yet constitutionally peculiar, those musicians created something new yet timeless five decades ago. Naturally, I’m partial to the musicians who follow in their unconventional footsteps. While she’s two generations younger and from the Americas rather than Britain, Meg Baird builds on that legacy.
Her new album Furling is utterly enchanting. The plaintive psychedelia of "Ashes, Ashes" and the wistful grooviness of "Will You Follow Me Home?" are worthy of Fairport Convention and Pentangle. Baird won’t be in Kansas City, but I’ll be on the prowl for equally entrancing sounds this week.
January 2023 Recap: A Monthly Exercise in Critical Transparency
Screenshot of the trailer of Opera McGill’s production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel by There Stands the Glass.
Top Ten Albums of January
1. Sebastian Rochford- A Short Diary
Sad-sack Satie? Sold!
2. Elle King- Come Get Your Wife
Sounds like home.
3. The Art Ensemble of Chicago- The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris
Roscoe Mitchell and Moor Mother are my favorite dynamic duo.
4. Daniel Pioro- Saint Boy
5. Mette Henriette- Drifting
ECM-core.
6. Fred Hersch and esperanza spalding- Alive at the Village Vanguard
7. Obituary- Dying of Everything
Don’t I know it.
8. Kali Malone- Does Spring Hide Its Joy
9. Lil Yachty- Let’s Start Here.
Surprise, surprise, surprise!
10. Véronique Gens and Orchestre National De Lille- Poulenc: La voix humain
Allô!
Top Ten Songs of January
1. Måneskin- "Kool Kids"
Rock and roll hilarity.
2. Bizzy Banks- "Ok Ok Ok"
Notarized.
3. Gloss Up featuring Icewear Vezzo- "From Cross the Way"
“Bouncin’ like them checks!”
4. Ice Spice- “In Ha Mood”
She’s no one-hit wonder.
5. Yahritza y su Esencia- “Cambiaste”
Change is the only constant.
6. Public Image Ltd- "Hawaii"
A beautiful sunset.
7. Belle and Sebastian- “Juliet Naked”
My favorite Nick Hornby novel.
8. Jill Barber- "Homemaker"
Tammy lives.
9. SleazyWorld Go- “Robbers and Villains”
Grimy side.
10. Boygenius- "$20"
Three is a magic number.
Top Ten Performances of January
1. Pretty Yende- Folly Theater
2. Mike Dillon and Brian Haas- The Brick
3. Miguel Zenón Quartet- Folly Theater
4. Oran Etkin- Polsky Theatre
5. Kinnor Philharmonic- White Theatre
6. No Treble- InterUrban ArtHouse
7. OJT- Green Lady Lounge
8. Scott Looney, Kevin Cheli, Krista Kopper, Seth Davis and Evan Verploegh- Westport Coffee House
9. Venetophilia- Kansas City Public Library
10. Charles Williams, DeAndre Manning and Mike Warren- Eddie V’s
The previous monthly survey is here.
Album Review: Kali Malone- Does Spring Hide Its Joy
I’m diligently working my way through Confessions, Saint Augustine’s exhausting chronicle of his conversion to Christianity in the fourth century. Does Spring Hide Its Joy, Kali Malone’s new three-hour set of drones, provides ideal accompaniment. I encountered a relevant passage as a particularly harsh phase of sound developed. “As for the present,” Augustine wrote, “If it were always present and never moved on to become the past, it would not be time but eternity.” Malone and her collaborators Stephen O’Malley and Lucy Railton capture a state of immutable limbo with Does Spring Hide Its Joy.
Album Review: Daniel Pioro- Saint Boy
Hearing musicians and arts presenters apologize to audiences for staging challenging or unconventional music always makes me furious. The excellent Kansas City bassist Krista Kopper came uncomfortably close to begging forgiveness for the cutting-edge repertoire performed at InterUrban ArtHouse in Overland Park, Kansas, on Wednesday, January 18.
The program exhibited by her No Treble trio included premieres of experimental pieces by three Kansas City area composers. Even though the audience of about 40 was presumably receptive to new music, Kopper offered defensive explanations of the adventurous sounds. The strength of Viktor Suslin’s woozy “Grenzubertritt” and “Evening Redness in the West,” Seth Andrew Davis’ twist on Spaghetti Western scores, spoke for themselves.
Nothing on Saint Boy, the wondrous new album of chamber music by the British violinist Daniel Pioro, is as jarring as the gnarliest moments of the concert in Kansas. Even so, the album’s blend of old (Johann Sebastian Bach and Hildegard von Bingen) and new (Laurence Crane’s “2020 Music” and Pioro’s Glass-like title track) is unconventional in the hidebound realm of classical music. In this ahistorical moment, apologies aren’t necessary.
Concert Review: Bobby Watson at Yardley Hall
Original image by There Stands the Glass.
Introducing his interpretation of a John Coltrane composition at Yardley Hall on Sunday, January 15, Bobby Watson said “this is entitled ‘Dear Lord’- I really need Him tonight.” He wasn’t kidding. Watson visibly and audibly struggled throughout the 70-minute performance. He repeatedly suggested his alto saxophone was malfunctioning.
His tone was off and Watson was able to realize only a fraction of the notes he usually plays. Pianist Roger Wilder, bassist Jeff Harshbarger and drummer Mike Warren supported Watson with admirable sympathy, but the duress of the hometown hero was unmistakable. Acknowledging the calamity, he suggested “I do not make excuses… I play from my heart, that’s all I can do.”
It’s the last thing I expected when I purchased a $25 ticket. I’ve seen the hard bop icon generate fire at dozens of gigs since the 1980s. Watson mustered only a few sparks on Sunday. Yet the audience of more than 400 gave him a standing ovation at the conclusion of the desultory concert.
The cheers were presumably attributable to Watson’s grace under adversity as well as for his impeccable track record. Watson has been the face of jazz in Kansas City for more than three decades. His musical and societal contributions have earned him a lifetime of goodwill.
Setlist: Sweet Dreams, Mind Wind, Love Remains, No Greater Love, Wheel Within a Wheel, Condition Blue, Dear Lord, Bird-ish
Album Review: Fred Hersch and Esperanza Spalding- Alive at the Village Vanguard
Is any form of music demonstrably worse than jazz scatting? The overwhelming majority of perpetrators inflicting nonsense syllables on listeners are unknowing musical vandals. As has been the case throughout most of her unconventional career, esperanza spalding (stylization hers) is different.
On “Loro,” a track on her new album with pianist Fred Hersch, spalding mocks scat even as she demonstrates how the form can be expressed with rare finesse and elite musicality. Some observers are likely to hail Alive at the Village Vanguard as a welcome return to mainstream jazz for Spalding. Not me. I respected her recent explorations of funky art music, even as I was disappointed spalding never attained the heights achieved by the likes of Meshell Ndegeocello.
Hersch matches spalding’s incandescence on the spare voice-and-piano album recorded in 2018. The Thelonious Monk tributes “Dream of Monk” and “Evidence” capture the erratic spirit of the jazz giant. The heart-rending ballads “Some Other Time” and “A Wish” are countered by the duo’s cerebral frolicking on “Little Suede Shoes” and “Girl Talk” on the early album-of-the-year candidate Shoo-be-doo-bee, be-bop blam!
Concert Review: Pretty Yende at the Folly Theater
Original image of Kamal Khan and Pretty Yende by There Stands the Glass.
I was overcome with gratitude at the Folly Theater on Saturday, September 7. As soprano Pretty Yende and pianist Kamal Khan performed Gaetano Donizetti’s exquisite “L’amor funesto”, I knew that I might never again experience a moment so sublime. The discounted tickets I purchased for the Harriman-Jewell Series’ 1,000th concert provided a priceless experience. Having become a fan of the South African star during my pandemic-inspired opera binge, Yende’s spectacular gown, incredible dramatizations and lustrous voice were almost too much to take in from a distance of just 15 feet. Stunned by the artistic perfection before us, my date gasped “what is going on!” We’re still stunned two days later.
Infinite Dread
Original image of George Bernard Shaw’s The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by There Stands the Glass.
I persuaded one of my houseguests to watch Bayreuth Festspielhaus’ 2022 production of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen with me over the holidays. Doing so required signing up for a free trial of Deutsche Grammophon’s Stage Plus streaming service.
The decision was wildly unpopular with those who might have preferred to view sports and holiday movies on the single television monitor in my compound. After all, Wagner’s cycle is a notorious test of endurance.
Powering through the outrageous updates of Das Rheingold (154 minutes), Die Walküre (234 minutes), Siegfried (244 minutes) and Götterdämmerung (274 minutes) took more than 15 hours. I loved it, but I’ll admit to growing restless during the twilight of the gods.
Contemporary elements such as using humans to represent the titular ring thrilled me. Yet a scene featuring the famed soprano Lise Davidsen in Das Rheingold is so jarring that I literally ran screaming from the room. I’m still shook. Here’s The New York Times’ review of the production.
Stage Plus’ video and audio quality is superb. And the lifelike fidelity of the Dolby Atmos version of Peter Gregson’s Quartets Three & Four gave me goosebumps. I’d rather pay for Stage Plus than Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Disney+ and Hulu. So why did I cancel the service before I was billed $149 for a full year? There’s a glitch.
While I could access everything Stage Plus offers on my laptop and phone, only about a third of the video options were accessible on AirPlay. Here’s Stage Plus’ response to my concern about the matter: “we are already aware of the problem and our developers are currently fixing it.” Yet the issue remained unresolved six days after my objection.
Wide Open Spaces
Original image captured at the Gorge Amphitheatre on August 13, 2022, by RSB.
*Overwhelmed by holiday commotion, I forgot to use the embedded photo in a previous post. Behold my favorite music-related image of 2022. My daughter captured the celebratory moment at a (Dixie) Chicks concert at the magnificent Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington last August.
*I played tracks by Mister Water Wet, Flora, LeVelle, Matt Villinger’s All Night Trio, Rosalía, Kae Tempest, Moor Mother and Anna Butterss and discussed Kansas City’s music scene on a recent episode of the Eight One Sixty radio program.
*Here’s my annual screed about the detrimental effect of the “Kansas City nice” aesthetic. At the risk of beating a dead gelding, I’ll again advise my well-intentioned friends that not only does unmerited praise of mediocre locally based artists undermine their personal credibility, the prevailing practice risks confining Kansas City to the cultural status of a one-horse town.
*Much to the chagrin of many musicians and their fans, I don’t engage in provincial aggrandizement at the Kansas City jazz blog Plastic Sax. I call it as I see it in the site’s reviews and editorials.