Original image of Walt McClements and Mary Lattimore by There Stands the Glass.
LAAND, the organization responsible for Mary Lattimore’s concert at the Lied Center in Lawrence on Saturday, December 12, got it wrong when it promoted the event as “a blissed out evening.” Lattimore wields a harp, but her instrumental music has little to do with insipid New Age contrivances. The sonic landscapes she created for an audience of about 125 conveyed an imperiled sense of beauty, like laments for a utopia destined to succumb to hostile combatants.
Walt McClements joined her on a couple selections. The accordionist’s earlier solo outing sometimes sounded like an inebriated priest riffing on Johann Sebastian Bach on his church’s dusty pipe organ. The rewarding showcase of innovative ambient music began with a pleasing set by Jackson Graham. The vibraphonist resembled an anxious millennial version of Gary Burton.
Lattimore explained one composition was inspired by her concern that an astronaut’s extended space voyage would inevitably be followed by a comparatively tedious earth-bound existence. I felt a similar form of melancholy as I left the stellar exhibition of (un)easy listening. Spending two ethereally edgy hours with the music of Lattimore, McClements and Graham may make other sounds seem mundane.
Original image of Jackson Graham by There Stands the Glass.