Leap In The Dark

At the end of WW 2 the leader of the Communist resistance and the partisans in the Balkans, Marshall Tito, unified the various ethnic and nationalistic groups in the region to form the first ever pan-Balkan country - Yugoslavia. Fiercely independent - he told Stalin to screw off and opened relations with the West in the early fifties - he was also a charismatic and iron fisted ruler. Under Tito Yugoslavia was a relatively affluent country which kept the majority of people happy, and any dissent was squashed with the iron fist under the velvet glove.

What few people outside of the country, or maybe even inside the country, realized was that the iron fist also reined in the nationalistic feelings and ethnic hatreds that were rampant among the people of the region. Then again, who could predict that people would have held on to resentments dating back to the days that the Ottoman Empire controlled the region and still be nursing hatreds against families who had converted to Islam generations ago. Yet when Tito died the whole region burst into flames. His dream of a pan-Balkan nation free of the ethnic divisions that had hurt them so badly in the past died with him.

Fleeing the violence many people settled as refugees in neighbouring countries like Austria where they waited out the wars that devastated the region. Some returned to the newly minted states that had taken shape along ethnic and nationalistic lines in the hopes of picking up the pieces of their former lives. However there were those who had no wish to live divided up by ethnicity and nationality and remained in exile, holding true, in whatever way they can, to the idea of pan-Balkan unity.

Irina Karamarkovic from Kosovo, Nevenko Bucan from Croatia, Kiril Kuzmanov and Trajce Velkov from Macedonia, and Muamer Gazibegovic and Nino Skiljic from Bosnia came together as La Cherga, (named for a rag rug, symbolic of their different cultural backgrounds coming together to form a new whole) as a means of expressing their pan-Balkan consciousness. Musically that means each of them brings an element of their own background with them and weaves it into place with the others to form a new musical identity. Not only do they draw upon their own musical traditions, they have freely borrowed ideas from the West including dub techniques from Jamaica, and funky horns from the streets of America.

The results of this strange, but wondrous, fusion can be heard on the band's most recent release, Fake No More, on the Asphalt Tango label. Putting all social/political considerations aside the music is a delightfully bizarre mixture that takes a bit of getting used to. However, once you've acclimatized yourself to the new environment they've created you can't help but enjoy yourself. Right from the first song there's no holding back, as they don't even allow you to dip your toes before soaking you from head to foot in their sound.

"Cooking Dub" opens with an electronic beat that is quickly joined by your standard funk bass line. That's all very well and good, but when the accordion joins in to serve as a counterpoint to the initial beat it comes as a bit of shock. When finally the drums join in with the familiar reggae stutter step sound, you begin to feel the effects of culture shock. With the second song, "Fake No More" it really becomes a matter of sink or swim, as the song gets the full dub treatment complete with multiple reverberations on the vocals and deep bass echoes. When the trumpets and saxophone kick in with the syncopated horn sounds last heard on UB40 releases in the eighties I gave up trying to anticipate what was coming next and just sat back to enjoy the ride as much as I could.

Once I allowed that to happen it became a lot of fun. However once you start listening to the lyrics some of the fun dissipates as you realize that they are almost looking inwards and commenting on the song itself, "Be aware of what we play here/all these chords you've heard before/this groove always makes you stupid/let your hips just move so freely". What's that all about? They set up this really groovy dance rhythm only to tell you not to get too wrapped up in it because it will make you stupid? You could say that they are trying to make sure you listen to the lyrics on the rest of the disc, but I also think they are warning you about how so much of what is familiar out there is also what is used to distract you from what's important.

Just look at the second verse of the song, " all these women shaking titties/all these men just wanting quickies/ all these morons making money/shitting on stage, tryin' to be funny", and you realize they mean more then just the song in question. Remember these people have escaped from countries where business as usual in the past has meant "ethnic cleansing" and other delightful euphemisms. They're going to be all too familiar with the ways that governments and other organizations have of diverting attention away from reality.

Musically the members of the band prove themselves equally adept at handling the music of Jamaica and other points West as they are the music they grew up playing. So in spite of how odd it might sound to hear an accordion being used to play a reggae tune or here it counting out a funk beat, it works. Somehow or other the same applies for when dubbing techniques are used with the music of the region. Although it might not sound like it should work, and you've probably never heard anything quite like dub gypsy brass band music before, for some reason it works out great.

La Cherga's new CD Fake No More is by its very existence a statement of hope for a region that has been plagued with ethnic and nationalistic violence for generations. Yet they are aware enough to reflect the reality of the area's situation politically and socially in the lyrical content of their music. While at first you might be put off by their sound, stick with it and not only will it grow on you, but it will make you feel just a little better about the world. If people who grew up surrounded by what they did can still have hope - maybe there really is some.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:46 AM | Permalink

It's only been in the last twenty years or so that the world music genre has obtained a significant level of popularity among the general public. What had first been a sort of novelty in the 1980's is now just another one of the genres of music that we take for granted. Weekly, it seems that one label or another is releasing music from one part of the world or another. From the Middle East to the Amazon basin, from music as basic as tribal rhythms to stuff as sophisticated as the intricacies of classical Hindustan compositions, it seems like we've got the whole world at our fingertips.

Although no one says it, the implication is that all of this is happening for the first time and that if it weren't for the intrepidness of certain individuals and labels we wouldn't be able to experience things like music from Nepal or Kenya. While it's true that these new labels are making more and more music from various parts of the world available to us, and in quantities that were perhaps unheard of before now, it would be wrong to think that music from these parts of the world had never made it to record or distributed before.

I'm not talking about music ethnologists who recorded for research purposes only and weren't making their recordings for popular consumption. Major record labels like EMI of England were making recordings of music from around the world as far back as 1903. One only needs to look at the latest collection of music from Honest Jon's Records, Sprigs Of Time: 78s From The EMI Archive, that's being released on October 14th/08 and you'll see recordings that date as far back as 1903 (The Imperial Palace Band of Japan playing a piece called "Seigaiha") and are as recent as Trinidad's The Mighty Sparrow singing "The Queen's Canary" in 1957.

There's something a little odd about a seemingly haphazard collection of music like this one. Thirty tracks have been culled from the archives of EMI's back catalogue of 78 records in Hayes Middlesex, restored at Abby Road Studios in London, and then dropped onto the CD in no particular order. At first there is something rather disconcerting about hearing voices and instruments that have nothing in common with each other. One moment you're listening to music from Iraq and the next the stages of Britain's music halls from between WW 1 and WW 2, but as the record progresses do you find yourself getting used to it, but it's never quite enjoyable.

One fascinating thing, for me anyway, about this collection was wondering about the provenance of some of the music. Why, for example, was a recording of Vengopal Chari of Madras laughing made in 1906? At first when I listened to it I thought whoever it was was crying, and then when I realized it was somebody laughing it became even more mystifying. First of all it seems such a strange thing to record and secondly there is something disturbingly manic about it. Whoever Vengopal is you wouldn't feel very comfortable being alone with him after listening to this recording - it would be the perfect laugh for the diabolical villain in some cheap horror movie.

While that piece is rather disconcerting, to say the least, the disc also contains examples of some of the more wonderful types of music that are out in the world just two tracks later. There's the wonderful guitar and trumpet duet of the flamenco song "Flor De Petenera" from Spain 1933, followed by the haunting voice of Fairuz of Beirut recorded in 1956 singing "Ya Honaina". Of course before you can get too carried away by the sublime moments offered by these two tracks, you go back in time to New York in 1926 to listen to Cliff Edwards performing " I Ain't Got Nobody" a sort of Dixieland jazz number played on banjo and song in the near falsetto that singers used to affect during the twenties.

I don't know if these moments are intentional or just the result of happenstance, but over and over again the recording brings you up cold with moments of the near ridiculous after items of some beauty. While I can't be sure of the motivations of the people responsible for compiling and arranging the material on the disc, it does appear like they don't want you to ever be in a particular mood for very long. Perhaps it's because they want you to appreciate the diversity of what was recorded and available on the old 78's they have taken the music from, but it seems just as likely to be sheer perversity on their part and a desire to keep us, the listener, on our toes.

However you want to look at it, and in the end it doesn't really matter, this collection of music is as esoteric and eccentric as the human race. Many of the tracks have the rawness of field recordings about them while others were made with the finest technology available at the time. Some of the songs are performed by people who are forgotten by history and there are those, like Mighty Sparrow, one of the first popular Calypso singers who brought the music of the Islands to the world, who have made significant contributions.

In the end this disc serves as a good reminder that long before there were labels specializing in world music, there were recordings being made of music from all over the world. Unfortunately I only received a promotional copy of Sprigs Of Time which came with almost no information about the songs or the performers involved. Hopefully when its released to the public in October it will be accompanied by information that will explain a little of each track's history, as it would be nice to have some frame of reference for them. Otherwise it remains an interesting, but confusing, melange of sounds and music that has been arranged with apparently little rhyme or reason. While it has moments of enjoyment and fascination, it does get a little tedious by the end just listening to song piled on top of song in such a jarring fashion.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:24 AM | Permalink

I don't know about you but nothing makes me doubt the quality of a film more than the phrase "a heart warming family drama". Far too many times that ends up meaning that the movie is going to be mawkishly sentimental and have all the emotional depth of a Hallmark greeting card. Rarely has a movie I've seen with a billing of heart-warming, had either much basis in reality, or any other redeeming qualities, that might compensate for a simplified view of the world that renders everything in pastel shades with all the passion of life squeezed out of it.

For some reason that type of movie, or television show, seems to thrive on the North American side of the Atlantic Ocean. Over in Britain they do their best to avoid what film makers on this side of the Ocean do out of habit and laziness. Laziness because instead of bothering to try and make something of quality they merely superimpose a new mask on an old form resulting in characters who are types instead of people, and situations that revolve around a major holiday or family crises. Of course by the end of the movie all the problems are resolved and everybody sits down to a (insert holiday of choice here) meal that can't be beat.

I can't offer any explanation as to why it's the case, maybe because the Brits don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but the majority of the family dramas filmed over there, at the very least, don't tend to insult the intelligence of their viewers. This was all driven home to me once again through watching the newly released DVD version of the British television movie Ballet Shoes released in North America by Koch Vision. Based on the novel of the same name by British author Noel Streathed set in the 1930's, it tells the tale of three orphaned girls adopted by an eccentric adventurer/palaeontologist named Matthew Brown (Richard Griffiths - Vernon Dursley in various Harry Potter movies) who disappears when they are still infants leaving them to be raised by his great-niece Sylvia (Emilia Fox)

As befits the wards of a man of his profession one of his last gifts to them before he disappears is to give them the last name of Fossil. After that quick introduction we jump forward in time to when the three, Pauline (Emma Watson - Hermione of Harry Potter fame), Petrova (Yasmin Paige), and Posy (Lucy Boynton) are all in their early teens. Unfortunately the professor's money hasn't lasted as well as they have and things, as the British are wont to say, a bit desperate. In an effort to help make ends meet Sylvia takes in borders, and it's through one of them that the three girls obtain places in the Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training, run by a refugee from the Russian revolution Madame Fidolia (Eileen Atikins).

This suits both Pauline and Posy just fine as the former has her eye on the stage and the latter wants only to be a ballet dancer, but for Petrova it's a complete disaster as she'd much rather be an auto mechanic or best of all learn to fly. One of things that makes the school so attractive is that it actively seeks employment for its students. No matter how hard the Sylvia tries to hide it from the girls they are perfectly aware of their tight financial straights which makes them all desperate to win roles in performances. Everyone is thrilled when Pauline lands the lead in a production of Alice In Wonderland until it goes to her head and she starts giving herself airs. In a harsh lesson in reality she finds out soon enough that no one is irreplaceable when she pushes it too far one night and is sacked.

Not only is she devastated personally, but she also has to accept the fact that because of her selfishness she has jeopardized her family as well. Through out the movie there are times when each of the girls, and their "aunt" as well, come face to face with reality in a way that's not pleasant for them. None of these lessons are particularly nice or heart-warming, nor do they automatically become better people because of them, but what they are is very real.

When Petrova forces herself to take acting roles because she knows they need the money desperately, instead of getting all warm and fuzzy inside because she has learnt about the nobility of sacrifice, she learns its true cost in terms of resentment, tears, and pain. When Pauline suggests that they should audition for another show together, she is shocked by Petrova's violent and tearful reaction, and her vow never to set foot upon the stage again. Her ambition has blinded her to her sisters unhappiness, and it shocks her that she could have been that callous.

Needless to say the acting in the film is exemplary, as everybody from the borders taken in by Sylvia to the children do a wonderful job in their parts. Nobody strikes a false note, or does anything that upsets the delicate balance the director, Sandra Goldbacher has created to prevent the movie from becoming manipulative or mawkish. The only time that the movie deviates from its firm grip on reality is the ending which wraps everything up in a package with a bow a little too conveniently, but I have to assume that's how the book ended as well so she probably couldn't do too much about it.

I must make special mention of Emma Watson, because in her first role outside of the comfortable confines of Hermione, she makes you completely forget that she was ever anybody else but Pauline. It helps somewhat that they've given her platinum blond hair, but she's taken great pains to make sure that she has created a different character. Being a sucker for the work of Shakespeare I have to admit that she won me over completely when she did a magnificent job with a speech from A Midsummer's Night Dream while auditioning for a role.

One of the special features included with the DVD is an interview with young Ms. Watson where she talks about the experience of working on something different for the first time and how it was her objective to leave Hermione behind. Obviously the people behind the movie are taking full advantage of her name to publicize it, as she is the only one in the cast interviewed and it lasts for twenty minutes, but as she proves herself to be an intelligent and perceptive young person and the movie deserves to be seen, it's not something I'd hold against them. Aside from the interview (actually as no one asks her questions it's more like a monologue on Ms. Watson's part) the special features also include some deleted scenes, an excerpt from the audiobook version of the novel, and as a bonus, a limited edition, 9" X 14" mini poster from the movie.

I doubt that there would be many young boys interested in Ballet Shoes, unless they are old enough to have developed a crush on Emma Watson. However, if you are looking for an intelligent coming of age movie to watch with your daughter, with superlative performances, and a refreshing absence of sentimental balocks, you won't be disappointed. While British television has been responsible for as much pollution as their American counterparts, this movie shows yet again that when they want to be they can produce shows that are miles ahead of anything we ever do over here.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:24 AM | Permalink

In the past few years technology has taken on a larger and larger role in popular music on both the performance and manufacturing sides of the business. When it comes to the strictly practical side - recording and distribution for instance - technology has been a boon for the independent musician as it has allowed him or her to manufacture and distribute their own music for no more than what it would cost to purchase a personal computer with a good sound card and a high speed Internet connection.

One only needs to look at the success of bands like Dispatch who never signed with any record label and yet were able to sell out three nights at Madison Square Gardens by simply making the tickets available to their MySpace Friends list to see how well that could work out. Bands no longer have to jump through hoops with record companies in order to get their music published and distributed. True they have to pay for it all out of their own pockets, and as their pockets aren't as deep as the big companies, they won't be able to afford to do all the big companies do marketing, distributing, and promoting their recording. But for some people that's a fair exchange in return for being able to retain creative control.

On the other hand the ever increasing role that electronics and digitally created effects have started to play in the music itself has led to something of a backlash resulting in some musicians and audience members looking to older and simpler forms as an alternative. Like the punks in the 1970's who rebelled against what the saw as the excesses of progressive rock and the blandness of the industry controlled charts, the musicians among them aren't interested in creating music for the sake of celebrity. They want to play music that inspires them to play and moves them.

Like some of their contemporaries, for Eden Brower and John Heneghan of Eden & John's East River String Band that has meant going backwards in time and searching out old blues and popular songs from the early part of the twentieth century to perform. While there's always the risk that when performers look to an earlier era for their material that they will become a type of museum piece or a curiosity, one only has to listen to their recently released CD, Some Cold Rainy Day, recorded on their own East River Records label and distributed by Forced Exposure, to realize that this duo won't be put in a display case under glass any time soon.

One of the hardest things for a musician to do these days is be able to hold an audience's attention when it's just you and your guitar up on stage or on record. Even a duo, like Eden and John, face a stiff challenge in both grabbing their audience's attention and then holding on to it once they begin performing. Even more difficult is doing what they have accomplished with their CD. I don't remember the last time that either a solo act or a duet has been able to hold my attention like these two.

Right from the opening track, Mississippi John Hurt's "Ain't No Tellin'", Eden's voice reaches out and pulls you into the songs. You don't just sit and listen, as there is something about how she sings that drags you into the song so you experience what she's singing about. There's been plenty of people who have covered old blues and pop standards from these time periods, but very few of them have been able to bring them alive like John and Eden do.

I've gone years without being able to take the ukulele seriously as an instrument, and now for the second time in as many weeks here's another person playing one with such flair and finesse that it makes you forget people like Tiny Tim. Eden plays a resonator ukulele, metal body with a cone built in to amplify the sound, that you think would make it sound tinier, but in actual fact gives the instrument more body. It makes a wonderful counterpoint to John's guitar playing as she fills in the spaces around his chords with her sound.

Some of the songs on the disc are ones I'm familiar with from other sources, "Nobody's Business If I Do" by Tommy Bradely & James Cole for instance, but some of them, both songs and writers I've never heard of before. John and Eden have culled these tracks from old 78 records that they have dug up at used records stores, garage, and junk sales across the United States, and some of the song titles and writer's names are half the fun of this disc. "On Our Turpentine Farm" by Pigmeat Pete & Catjuice Charlie or "I Had To Give Up Gin" by the Hokum Boys are two of my favourites. What makes it even more fun is how good the songs sound.

I think part of the reason the songs sound as good as they do is that both of Eden and John have been passionate about this music for a long time. They have pictures on their web site of them standing in front of shelves filled with old 78 records that they've collected over the years. They appear to spend a great deal of their time getting together with like minded musicians and playing this music just for the love of playing it. That love shines through in every song sung and every chord plucked and played. When you hear people that excited by what they are doing you can't help but get caught up in it.

You can also tell this just isn't a fad for these two. They'd be playing this music even if there wasn't the renewed interest we've been seeing over the last few years for more traditional forms of music. When Eden and John play a song like Little Hat Jones' "Bye Bye Baby Blues" the song sounds like it was written for them. They may not have the most polished of voices or be the slickest of players, but this music wasn't written by or performed by people who were either. I think if you're going to sing "Do Dirty Blues" by Bertha "Chippie" Hill you have to be a little rough around the edges.

If you go to Eden and John's web site you'll find links to all sorts of interesting information about the music they play and where they found it, and places you can see them, and others like them, playing. For those of you who like beautiful old guitars, even if only to look at them, they also provide a link to a site that sells restored guitars from the 1930's featuring some very rare items made by Stella. I mention this because I think it will help you understand how they are able to bring music that's nearly eighty years old, if not older, alive without sounding affected. They have taken the time to understand the music and dedicated themselves to it until, and you can tell this by listening to them, they live and breathe it.

Utah Philips might have been talking about Eden & John's East River String Band when he said "The past didn't go anywhere" because it hasn't. While living in the past may be a dangerous thing, too many of us are in so much of a hurry that we forget the past and about what we can learn from it. The music on Some Cold Rain Day is from the past, but it speaks to things that most people can relate to and about topics that all of us can understand. Eden and John have lifted these songs from the wax grooves of old 78's and breathed new life into them so another generation of music fans can appreciate them. Its a great record of great music performed by people who love what they do - it doesn't get much better than that.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:10 AM | Permalink

While it's often been said that music is a great tool for communication, I don't think that anyone has taken that adage as literally in recent years as the nomadic peoples of the Sahara desert known as the Tuareg. For the past thousand years or so they have travelled the desert herding their flocks from one patch of arable land to another. Using their extensive knowledge of the desert and the trails that lead through its shifting sands they also served as traders carrying spices and other goods between villages and outposts that dotted the Sahara. It's most likely from the Tuareg that we in West developed our romantic image of long lines of camels wending their way through seas of sand.

The Tuareg's way of life was first disrupted with the coming of the Europeans, in their case the French, who sought to bring them to heel. However, no matter what damage the French may have inflicted during their time as colonial masters, the manner of their departure made things even worse. French North Africa, including the parts of the Sahara desert which had been the Tuareg's traditional territory was divided up arbitrarily into various countries. In order to continue on with their traditional way of life and follow the routes they had travelled for centuries they now had to deal with five countries; Algeria, Libya, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso.

By the 1980's their traditional way of life was seriously threatened by the loss of pasture land due to drought and the encroachment of urban centres. More and more people were forced into refugee camps and cities where they were treated as second class citizens. In an attempt to reclaim some of their lost territory the Tuareg accepted an offer from Libya to train them as guerilla fighters. Yet it wasn't just weapons training they received in Libya, for along with sub-machine guns and other automatic weaponry many of the young men equipped themselves with electric guitars.

They wrote songs praising their traditional way of life and the beauty of the desert, but most of all they sang to encourage their people to fight to preserve both of them, even if it meant taking up arms to do so. The focal points of the rebellion were in Niger and Mali and cassettes of the music was smuggled into those areas. At one point the situation was so volatile that being caught by police or army in either of those countries with a tape from one of the Libyan based bands would result in arrest. Those first groups were said to have rode into battle with machine guns in their arms and electric guitars strapped to their backs, and it's from them that a second generation of Tuareg musicians have taken their inspiration.

In 2007 the Seattle Washington based label Sublime Frequencies released a limited edition LP by one of those second generation bands, Group Inerane, and on September 30th/08 they will be issuing Guitars From Agadez (Music Of Niger) a CD version. The group's leader, Bibi Ahmed, makes no bones about the fact that they are influenced by the men who came before them. In the liner notes accompanying the CD it says he openly admits that a great deal of the music he plays were written by Abdallah Oumbadougou, one of the originators of the electric Tuareg music and now a member of the French/Tuareg collective known as Desert Rebel. In the years since the rebellion Oubadougou has not only been active as a performer, he has taken on students to pass on his skills and knowledge, and Ahmed was one of his students.

Bibi may not be fighting with a gun (or he might be now as August of 2007 saw a renewal of hostilities in both Mali and Niger as the Tuareg have become frustrated with the reneging by both countries on the terms of the treaties signed in the 1990's and the loss of more territory in Niger to Uranium mining) but he is definitely continuing to wage the same war against the incursion of the modern world. He believes that his music will be able to help preserve his people's way of life.

Those of you unfamiliar with Sublime Frequency's style of recordings might be a little nonplussed by Guitars From Agadez because of the roughness of the sound quality. Very few, if any, of this label's recordings are done in a studio as they prefer to record people in situ. While it may seem odd to do the equivalent of field recordings in this day and age where portable studios are so readily available their intent is to try and capture and recreate as much of the experience of being in the locale as well as recording the music. They're in a small town in Niger, the third poorest country in the world, recording desert nomads giving a live concert - and there's nothing about this disc to make you thing otherwise.

Although the mix is fine there are times when the sound gets a bit fuzzy around the edges as it distorts because record levels are exceeded. The music is typical of the Tuareg in that it is heavy on droning electric guitar that creates a trance like effect on the listener. Although in this case it is minimized by the prominence of the drum kit in the mix. I mention this because it is the first time that I've ever noticed drums to the extent that I did on this recording when listening to music by a Tuareg band. While you are of course always aware of them, they've never been featured in the way they are here. It's not due to any errors in the mix either, as they're are times when only the drums are playing or they are providing the sole accompaniment to the female vocalists in the band.

While all of the Tuareg groups I've listened to have included at least one female singer to ensure that the traditional undulating sound of their voice is part of the music, the four who are members of Group Inerane are the most I've heard perform at once with any of them. While one woman's voice raised in song like that is enough to send chills down your spine, the first time I heard all four sing together I nearly jumped out of my skin. They say that the Scots used to have bagpipes lead their troops into battle in an attempt to unnerve their enemies, but bagpipes sound positively tame when compared to the sound of these voices.

I don't know if the tradition is the same for the Tuareg, but among some of the desert nations the women would sing in this manner to send men off to war, to welcome home warriors, or as an expression of grief. In this instance, given the context set forth by Bibi Ahmed, and the atmosphere generated by the music, I would say they are singing to rally the people to war. The songs are about the traditional ways, and are being sung to encourage the people to preserve them, so it seems to me a reasonable interpretation.

Guitars From Agadez by Group Inerane represents one of the first releases of second generation Tuareg warriors of the guitar; the men and women who are fighting to preserve the traditional ways of their people through song. While the sound quality might not be the best, the power and energy that the rawness of the recording creates more than compensates for any deficiencies . While studio albums by some of the more established groups, ones that include translations of their lyrics into English, might give you intellectual insights into the music, this recording works on a more visceral level.

Without having anything else to hold onto as a way of understanding what's going on, the emotions generated by the band's performance becomes of primary importance. You may not be able to understand what they are singing about, but you can't fail to comprehend how truly committed they are to their cause, and that like the previous generation they might just be prepared to die for it. This CD offers ironclad proof of music's power of communication as even without understanding the lyrics the message being delivered is loud and clear.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:36 AM | Permalink

Pop music is probably the best example of a living embodiment of the expression what have you done for me lately. While a hit single may be able to secure you a recording contract, the proviso is that you are going to produce at least one, if not more, money makers for those signing the cheques. That's not only the prevailing business attitude it also reflects how little weight is given to someone's previous musical experience. In spite of the fact that someone from a classical background will have developed a style and an approach to music that reflects her training, as will a person from a jazz background, nothing is usually done to take advantage of that and the person will be pretty much coerced into playing what's demanded to send a release up the charts.

Which is as good an explanation as you should require to understand why there is usually so much more creativity among independent performers than what you'll find among those assaulting the pop charts. One only needs look at the work performed and written by Jon Regen on his newest release, Let It Go, to see that difference in action. A graduate of the Mason Gross School of Arts at Rutgers University, Regen is one of only 2,000 piano players worldwide to hold the title of Steinway artist granted by the historic piano making company in recognition of keyboard virtuosity. Up until 2001 he was touring with bassist Kyle Eastwood only leaving his band to join up with Jimmy Scott for the next three years.

Even then he was showing promise as a solo performer and band leader as he released his first CD, Jon Regan Trio - Live At The Blue Note in 2000, and followed that up with his 2001 release Tel Aviv. While the first two albums stuck to instrumental jazz his third release, a seven song EP called Almost Home in 2004, marked his first foray into singing and song writing and Let It Go is his first full length effort. Right from the opening chords rippling from the keys of his piano on the title track, "Let It Go", which opens the disc, you know you're about to experience something quite a bit different from what you'd expect from a piano playing pop singer.

Even without knowing anything about Jon's music, he wrote and asked if I would be willing to review the disc, my expectations were heightened based on the people who have elected to appear as guest performers with him. Andy Summers, of Police fame, and Jimmy Vivano, who plays with Willie Nile among others, are guest guitar players while Martha Wainwright supplies harmonies on the fourth track, "I Come Undone". They join bassist and producer Brad Albetta (Martha's husband/bass player/producer and another Willie Nile player) and drummer Bill Dobrow who form the other two parts of Jon's trio for this recording.

There's a fine line between writing emotionally honest songs dealing with personal issues of love, loss and other introspective ideas and melodramatic self-indulgent naval gazing. Nine times out of ten when you read promotional material praising someone's ability to sing from the heart you end up listening swelling strings, cliched piano trills, and weepy vocals (male or female it doesn't matter) that are long on vibrato but short on substance. Thankfully Jon Regen doesn't seem capable of writing a cliche even if he wanted to.

From his piano playing to his lyrics he charts his own course. Even if some of the songs on the disc aren't to my personal taste, it's obvious that Jon has not once chosen a safe or easy route by opting to fall back on typical pop music patterns. Musically his songs reflect his jazz and composition background in the way he uses subtle shift in rhythms and melody to indicate to change the mood of a song or to emphasize a particular point. There aren't any crashing of bass keys or laborious climbing of scales pointing out moments of emotional tension like neon arrows to insult our intelligence. Instead of telling us how we should feel at any given moment, his music and lyrics tell their story in such a way that we can react as we choose to what we're listening to.

A key element in his music, as is the case for any singer songwriter, is his voice. While he occasionally falls into the trap of equating straining with emotion, overall his voice has an honest roughness to it that makes the stories he's relating all the more credible. For the most part he's willing to simply allow himself to be a conduit for the lyrics without attempting to colour them with affectations. It's almost as if he's been able to distance himself from the knowledge that he wrote the songs, preventing himself from forcing any expectations that he might have as their writer upon the listener.

"I Come Undone" is a great example of this as it deals with his feelings concerning the death of a friend. "I'm not so good at this - It's hit or miss a lot these days" he sings at one point during the song. Anybody who has ever lost somebody close to them can understand exactly what that means within the context of trying to get used to somebody's absence. "Don't you know - It isn't so - That time will heal a broken heart - I tried, they lied, I'm torn apart". Simple words sung without pretence or melodrama with minimal accompaniment so that the voice is what we are most aware of express more about the reality of a situation than any musical thunderstorm or undying protestations of sadness and love could ever hope to convey.

Through out Let It Go Jon Regen shows this same ability over and over again. Special guests like Andy Summers have their work integrated seamlessly so they become part of the whole that Jon is attempting to impart to his audience. This album is an example of what the majority of people miss out on because of the music industry's insistence on sticking to the same formula year in and year out. This is a well crafted and finely executed album of songs that blend elements of pop and jazz music. The real pity is that if more people heard music like this they wouldn't settle for what currently rides the top of the charts.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:14 AM | Permalink

There was a bad, and slightly disparaging, joke that circulated in the late 1970's early 1980's that asked how you could tell the difference between someone who was into punk and someone who was into new wave. The answer was that punks stuck safety pins in their flesh and new wavers wore pins of their favourite band's name pinned to their clothes. As an attempt at humour it was pretty lame, but it was typical of the attitude, a sort of inverse snobbery, expressed by those who thought that learning to actually play your instrument, and not being willing to impale yourself with rusty metal, diminished your alternative credentials.

While it's true that by the mid to late eighties the commercialization of new wave and punk resulted in abominations like Duran Duran and other things. Like every other independent or rebellious trend in popular music in the latter half of the twentieth century, it wasn't long before the industry succeeded in packaging a homogenized version of punk/new wave that they could sell on the commercial air space. However that shouldn't blind people to the fact that many of the early new wave bands created music that was just as exciting and provocative in their own way as the punks. Blaming them for things like George Michael is like blaming Little Richard for Neil Sedaka or Grand Master Flash for Vanilla Ice. Creativity and originality have always been, and always will be, anathema to the music industry, and they will always find a way to eradicate and replace it with their own pale imitations.

Like the other metropolitan areas where punk and new wave music first reared their heads the focal point in Toronto Ontario was an art collage. In Toronto's case it was students at the Ontario Collage of Arts (OAC) who formed the nucleus of many of the city's most innovative and exciting bands. While it seemed like almost everybody you knew in those days was getting caught up in the enthusiasm generated by punk and forming a band, (there were at least two in the high school I went to, one of which actually survived long enough to play gigs for a year at most of the local venues) very few achieved much more then gaining some local notoriety. One who was conspicuous by their success was the ingenuously named Martha And The Muffins

While, according to the band's web site, the name was only supposed to be a temporary measure for their first gig, it lasted for a number of years until being shortened to the M+M they currently go by. Their first year was typical of many bands of the era in that they went through a number of personnel changes before settling on the line up that appeared on their first release Metro Music which contained the international hit "Echo Beach". Ironically the album was recorded in England and initially the only way Canadian fans of the band were able to purchase it was as an import. Unfortunately it also marked the beginning of the end for that version of the band, and in the space of a year, 1980, they had released their second album Trance and Dance, opened for Roxy Music on their UK tour, and, by December, lost two members of the band.

The silver lining in this dark cloud came in the form of their new bass player Jocelyne Lanois who introduced the band to her brother Daniel who owned a recording studio in nearby Hamilton Ontario. Aside from Jocelyne, the core band members were now Martha Johnson, Mark Gane, Tim Gane (Mark's brother) and Andy Haas. Haas left the band in 1981 after they had released This Is The Ice Age and in 1982 Tim was replaced on drums by Nick Kent. So on what would turn out to be the final Martha and the Muffins release, Danseparc, only two of the original band remained.

However, with Daniel Lanois producing the band had finally found someone who encouraged them to give expression to their more experimental impulses, and in Danseparc they gave them full rein as can be seen in their use of a multitude of found sounds. Now, twenty-five years after it was first released, and preparatory to the first new M+M studio release since 1995, the band has reissued Danseparc on CD. As well as the nine tracks from the original recording the disc contains three bonus tracks; extended dance versions of "Danseparc" and "These Dangerous Machines", and a live version of "Sins Of Children" that was recorded in 1983 at the Ontario Place Forum. (Daniel Lanois had recorded the entire concert on a portable studio, but the masters had mysteriously vanished only for a copy to turn up just as mysteriously in their former manager's mother's house in 1998)

It's awfully dangerous business revisiting the music that you liked twenty-five years ago as there is no way of knowing how it stood up to the test of time or will compare to what your faint (and admittedly hazy ones on my part) memories tell you about it. So it was with some hesitation that I put Danseparc into my CD player. I needn't have been so worried because the only thing I wasn't prepared for was how good the disc is. Not was - is, as the only thing dated about this CD are the band's haircuts and fashion sense. In fact, if anything, Danseparc is fresher sounding today then it was twenty-five years ago.

First of all there are the lyrics, which belay the initial impression of cheerful pop music that the sound of their keyboards convey, by their subtle and intelligent subversiveness. There is something almost sly about the way they have built up layers of textured sound underneath the words so that initially you might not notice lines like "What people do for fun/I am using you. Am I amusing you?" in the song "What People Do For Fun". The song "Obedience" at first seems to be a series of unconnected phrases, which on closer examination turn into a listing of all the little things that we deal with each day that ensure we act the way we are supposed to: "Your time is up/Please join this line/Complete this form/Time is money/You don't conform/You don't compute/Check one box/This isn't funny".

People were just beginning to utilize found sounds in their music at that time, and Martha And The Muffins showed a fine and judicious touch when employing them on Danseparc. My personal favourite was the use of scraps of soap opera dialogue on "Walking Into Walls", as the segments act as a perfect complement to the song's lyrics as well as serving as an example of the behaviour the song is talking about. In other places it's impossible to know what exactly the found sound piece is, as it has been so skilfully blended into the mix. For them the object it to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts, not to show off the individual parts in an effort to impress anyone. It's a sign of their maturity as composers and musicians that their work had evolved to such an extent that even something as new as this was merely seen as an additional instrument to be incorporated into the mix.

Having grown used to keyboards and synthesizers as pretty accompaniment to light and fluffy pop tunes, I had forgotten it was possible for them to be used as aggressively as electric guitars. Danseparc not only destroys that misconception, it dismantles any thoughts you might have about new wave bands only making pretty, airy, music suitable for vacuous dance parties and little else. There's a raw edge to this recording that's the equal to or stronger than anything that their punk contemporaries might have created, or that others have created since.

As of now you can only purchase a copy of Danseparc through the band's web site and CD Baby but it will be made more readily available on September 26th/08. As an interesting sidelight, they are also offering for sale an old interview tape that was produced to promote the record's original release. Parctalk contains what Mark Gane refers to as a "carefully composed interview...featuring all the interesting (and presumably saleable) aspects of the album" with the interviewer's questions edited out. This was pressed as an LP and distributed with the questions printed out to radio stations so DJs could personally "interview" the band. While it sounds sort of sleazy, it does give you some interesting insights into the band's process.

With the predominance of industry controlled new wave bands in the later part of the eighties, it became easy to forget that at one time new wave was worth listening to. Martha And The Muffin's Danseparc wedded the energy of punk with technology and subtle intelligence. Hearing it again has me eagerly anticipating whatever it is they have planned for the future. Anybody who was making music this good twenty-five years ago is bound to be heads and shoulders above ninety per cent of what's on the market today.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:17 AM | Permalink

Somewhere I heard a parent telling an adopted child that if anyone ever teased them about being adopted they should reply "Well my parents chose me and yours had to take you whether they wanted to or not". That not be quite how it goes but you get the drift, it was an attempt to make the child feel wanted. Of course the flip side to that is somewhere along the line someone didn't want that child and gave him or her up.

There are numerous reasons why a woman might give a child up for adoption and to be perfectly honest I think that anybody who has the slightest doubts about their desire to be a parent should be encouraged to put their child up for adoption. The last thing the world needs is another parent ambivalent enough about their child that they will neglect or abuse him or her. Yet I wonder how I would feel if I found out that the woman who originally gave birth to me hadn't wanted me? Would I be able to be as understanding as my opinions, or would I fell abandoned and betrayed because this person was supposed to have loved me?

What would you do if you had been put up for adoption and now as an adult find out that your birth mother wants to meet you? Would you wonder why, after all these years, she should all of a sudden desire to get to know you? She's had nothing to do with raising or taking care of you and has no claim to your affections and now all of sudden she wants to meet you. How would that make you feel and what emotions would that dredge up? Would you meet her?

April Epner is having a difficult time of things; her husband has just left her, her mother died, and her birth mother has sent her a letter asking if she can meet her. As an added complication she's thirty-nine years old and not only hears her biological clock ticking but feels like its battery is running down and fast. This is the reality we are asked to enter into within the first half hour of Then She Found Me, now available on DVD and Blu-ray through Image Entertainment. With an opening like that, there's usually only one or two directions a movie will take; it will either play it for laughs or heart warming and sentimental - if they're really daring they might even try to combine the two. However, Then She Found Me turns out not to be your usual movie and travels in a direction that is completely unexpected, and is all the better for it.

If April's (played by Helen Hunt who also co-wrote and directed) life isn't complicated enough she meets Frank (Colin Firth) whose wife has recently deserted him and two young children, and they tentatively begin a relationship. In spite of how hurt and betrayed they both feel things are looking good for them until April discovers that her husband Benjamin (Matthew Broderick) had, while saying good-bye, managed to accomplish what he couldn't during the rest of their marriage, impregnate her.

While it looks like April and Frank are going to be able to cope with this, he's even willing to allow Benjamin to be involved in raising the child, April having sex with Benjamin again breaks them apart. At the same time that April is negotiating this emotional minefield she's trying to assimilate the news that a daytime talk show host named Bernice Graves (Bette Midler) is her birth mother. While initially hesitant to believe Bernice is her mother, it doesn't help matters when she lies about who the father was, she gradually warms to her and begins to open up with her.

From the little I've let slip of the plot it would be easy to see this movie descending into melodramatic or heart warming territory. Thankfully Helen Hunt, as writer, director and producer, has avoided all the cliches and pitfalls that plague most movies about human relationships. In an interview included in the special features section of the DVD Helen Hunt says the movie is ultimately about betrayal and how to overcome that. Aside from Frank, each of the four main characters in the movie betrays someone along the way, while Frank and April both have to deal with being betrayed and figuring out how, and if, they can overcome it.

The script, based on Elinor Lipman's novel of the same name, doesn't offer any easy or pat answers to that question. In fact at one point April guarantees Frank that she will probably hurt him again and that most likely he will hurt her, but it's a risk she's willing to take if he is. Learning to trust isn't something that happens overnight, and for once a movie about relationships depicts that honestly. It's not just about believing the person who betrayed you either, it's about feeling safe enough to trust anybody.

One of the reasons I watched this movie was because of the presence of Colin Firth in the cast. He can read the phone book and make it interesting, and here he has something a little more substantial than that to work with. There is one scene in the movie where he finally lets out all the resentment and hurt he's been feeling from the time his wife left him. He is not only completely believable, he's downright scary because he doesn't just yell merely lets us see the pain his character is in.

The movie is filled with moments like that, where the actors and the situation combine to create moments of reality that are so emotionally charged the feelings are palpable. While it admittedly makes the movie difficult to watch at times, it feels uncomfortably like eavesdropping on occasion, it's the major reason why the movie is so believable. It's not just an emotionally heavy movie either, as there are moments of pure humour in it that will make you laugh out loud just as easily as others can bring tears to your eyes.

Then She Found Me is a remarkable film in that it gives an honest depiction of just how hard it is to overcome our experiences to take advantage of an opportunity for happiness. Happenstance, misfortune, and other people's behaviour can sometimes cause us pain, but the way we react to them, the way we cope with the aftermath, is entirely our own decision. This movie is one of the most accurate and compelling depictions I've seen of people struggling to overcome their own fears to take the leap of faith required to start over again.

While there aren't many special features included in the disc, for a change the making of featurette included is actually informative and interesting as it explained some of the process that Helen Hunt went through having to direct and perform in the movie. There are also short interviews with each of the four leads where they explain why and how they became involved with the movie and reflect on their involvement in it. The version I saw came with the option of 5.1 surround sound or regular Dolby digital stereo, and was in wide screen format.

If you watch Then She Found Me expecting to see your typical romantic comedy you will be sorely disappointed. However, what you will see is a movie that contains moments that are funny, sad, angry, confused, and as close to the reality of people struggling to find comfort with each other in a world that sometimes moves too fast for them to keep up as you've ever seen.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:49 AM | Permalink

In the late 1950's and early 1960's young English musicians were putting together bands to play music that most of them had no experience with outside of records they had picked up in the shops. There just weren't that many opportunities to see bluesmen from Mississippi and Chicago performing live in London and Lincolnshire in those days. Now a days they're all household names, but back then Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, John Lennon, and the rest were unknowns playing anywhere they could get gigs.

Aside from their love of blues and American music one other thing that most of those young men had in common was the patronage of the man Rod Stewart refers to as the "first white guy singing the blues (in England)", Long John Baldry. Baldry wasn't really much older then the others, but he had experience. He had toured with Ramblin' Jack Elliot and sung with Muddy Waters, and was working professionally when the Beatles were still only playing sets during intermissions at The Caravan in Liverpool. It was Baldry who gave most of today's old veterans their first gigs by hiring them to play in his band; Ginger Baker, Jeff Beck, Brian Jones, Elton John, Ron Wood, Charlie Watt, Keith Richards, and Rod Stewart all played with Baldry early in their careers. He was so important and respected by all of them that when The Beatles did their first international television special in 1964 they insisted that Baldry be included on the bill singing Muddy Water's tune "I've Got My Mojo Working".

Baldry never became famous, it doesn't appear he wanted fame that much, and according to Rod Stewart he was content to play bars and sing the blues where and when he felt like it. Not that he didn't have his share of troubles, as he battled with alcoholism for long a while, but unlike others he won that war and came out the other side. He was also an incredibly brave man, as long before it was popular, or even safe, he went public with his homosexuality, and was probably the first openly gay music personality of any repute. I remember hearing him being interviewed somewhere around that time, the mid-eighties, and he sounded like a man at peace with himself. He had left England in the early 1970's and moved to Canada where he began a third career as a folk and blues artist signed to the Stoney Plain label who he was with until his death in 2005. His last release was Remembering Leadbelly in 2001, a tribute to his first inspiration, Huddie Leadbetter.

Long John Baldry was distinguished by two features on stage; his towering presence - he was six feet seven inches tall (where did you think he got his name from?) and his deep, mellifluous voice that was made to sing the blues. Stony Plain has kept quite a few of his releases in stock, including some reissues of work from the late sixties and early seventies if you're interested in checking him out. Even better though is the opportunity being offered by MVD Video on September 26th when they will be releasing the DVD It Ain't Easy: Live At Iowa State University. Recorded in 1987 it features Baldry playing a small club on campus backed by a five piece band and supported by vocalist Kathi McDonald.

While this represents a rare opportunity to see Baldry perform it's not what I'd call an ideal situation. The sound quality is fine, as is the picture, in fact, given the age of the recording it's a lot better than anyone has any right to expect. The problem is that who ever did the original filming only recorded eight of the songs that the band performed that night, and two of them, "Respect" and "Natural Woman", are sung by Kathi McDonald without Baldry even being on stage. Don't be fooled by the running time of eighty-five minutes, as only fifty or so are of the actual concert, while a good chunk of the remainder seems to be taken up with promoting other releases on the Quantum Leap label. The backstage interview with Baldry is a truncated affair that starts in mid sentence with him talking about when he met the Beatles in Liverpool and his appearance on the 1964 television show and then ends just as abruptly.

However the six tracks we do get of Long John singing are vintage Baldry. One moment his voice is as smooth and thick as slow poured molasses, only to have him switch gears into a low growl that reverberates through your ear canal. The disc opens with an extended version of "Going Down Slow" which allows him to feature each member of his highly skilled band. Special mention has to be given to Joseph Ingraio on keyboards and Papa John King on lead guitar. Ingraio is not only a skilled blues piano player, he's versatile enough to play some really good boogie-woogie for Baldry's signature "Don't Lay No Boogie-Woogie On The King Of Rock 'N Roll". John King proves to be an inventive guitar player, not only doing a fine job with the slide when needed, but making full use of the fret board to play leads that aren't your usual run of the mill, "see how close I can get my fingers to the pickups" that so many people think are special.

While Baldry plays acoustic guitar on the opening track, from there on in he focuses solely on vocals. His version of "Everyday I Have The Blues" is great as he delivers it with a sly smile that belays any suggestion that having the blues is a negative experience. You can't help but enjoy yourself watching Long John perform as he's having so much fun that he just picks you up and carries you along with his enthusiasm. Of course there's also the site of him shimmying his six foot seven inch frame across the stage. He might be a tall man, but he's also very graceful, and moves around the stage with an elegance that's a treat to watch.

Unfortunately just as you're starting to get into his performance Kathi McDonald joins him on the stage and I found her to be a distraction at best, and a pain at worst. She of the school of vocalist who seems to think that if you spit your words out like a machine gun firing off rounds and shout at the same time that it will pass for emotional intensity. It wasn't so bad when she was backing up Baldry, as his voice went a long way to smoothing over the more jarring aspects of her performance. However, I couldn't sit through her renditions of "Respect" and "Natural Woman" when she soloed. Thankfully Baldry closes the show with great versions of the old classic "Iko Iko" and his previously mentioned signature tune, so the disc ends on an up note and you can easily forget her performance.

Long John Baldry was a marvellous singer and a great performer, but unfortunately It Ain't Easy: Live At Iowa State University barely scratches the surface of what he had to offer. Of course a little Long John Baldry goes a long way, and even this small sampling is enough to understand just how great a talent he really was. It may not be the longest or the best examples of his work, but any Long John Baldry is a damn site better than a lot anybody else has to offer.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:02 AM | Permalink

There were only two records that my parents owned when I was a child that I remember at all, The Weavers Live At Carnegie Hall and The Songs Of Joe Hill by The Almanac Singers. I wasn't what you'd call politically aware as a kid, so I can only imagine I liked the old union organizing songs that were on the second record for the same reasons that I liked the music the Weavers performed - they sounded great. The music was up tempo and the singing voices were enthusiastic and nice to listen to, which for a little kid is really all that matters. Hell I could have liked them for the simple reason that they were the only "singing records" my parents had aside from opera, and the relief of hearing something intelligible made them easy to like.

However, aside from whatever relief the albums might have given me from the dubious benefits of an early and unwanted education in classical opera, they were my introduction to Pete Seeger. The cover of the Weaver's album featured a picture of the four musicians grouped together around a microphone and while Ronnie Gilbert and Lee Hays were fairly distinct based on gender and age, distinguishing between Fred Hellermen and Pete was a little more tricky for me until I figured out that Pete was the one with the banjo and Fred was holding the guitar. Ever since, and no matter how many pictures I've seen of Pete playing a guitar or any other instrument, he has remained firmly fixed in my head as the tall guy playing banjo who sings with his head thrown back and his mouth wide open.

I'm sure any of you who have either seen Pete in concert or a picture of him performing can visualize exactly what I'm talking about. He stands up in front of the microphone, slightly stooped, as if its just a little bit too low, with one shoulder slightly higher than the other. When he talks its straight out into the audience, but when he begins to sing his head tips up as if he's trying to throw his voice out around the world for all to hear. Now I know it's probably a hang over from the days when he was playing places where there was no amplification and he was doing his best to send that voice up and out so that even those furthest away could hear whatever message he was trying to impart that day. Yet, whenever I see him a picture of him standing thin and alone against the sky poised to begin singing, I can't help but think that he's offering up his songs as a prayer for the world.

When you think about it, it's not that much of a stretch to think of his music in that way. After all his concerts are as much like revival meetings as anything else with him leading people in songs that are as often as not messages of hope and faith. While he's always peppered his set lists with songs from other parts of the world that give us a window into somebody else's reality, the majority of his music is about what can be done, should be done, and needs to be done to make the world a better place for all of us. All of this has been captured brilliantly in a new, to be released on September 30th 2008, recording from Appleseed Music called Pete Seeger At 89.

On thirty-two tracks of music and talk Pete and his friends show what it means to really care about what goes on around you and the importance of involving as many people as possible in whatever way possible in it. That could mean getting a person to sing a song that makes them feel better about themselves and whoever is sitting next to them at the moment, or singing a song that encourages them to get involved in their own community cleaning up a polluted tract of land. Honest, sincere, and unconditional caring is a rare commodity and it was so palatable that, in these days of increasingly cynical politicians and disillusioned people, listening to this CD brought me close to tears on a number of occasions.

It wasn't even a matter of what was being said, it was how it was being said that affected me. Whether it was song about PCB pollution in the Hudson River ("Throw Away That Shad Net (How Are We Going To Save Tomorrow?)") or about the end of WW2 as seen through the eyes of a young Japanese woman ("When I Was Most Beautiful") it didn't matter. What caught at me was the realization that every word was spoken or sung with genuine caring no matter what the topic. Who but Pete Seeger could write a song based on a twenty-seven word zero waste resolution passed by the city of Berkeley California and not only turn it into a call and response sing-a-long, but make lyrics like "Hooray for the city of Berkeley California" not sound corny?

Nobody, that's who. You know over the years there have been people who've derided Pete Seeger for not being radical enough while at the same time he was being pilloried as un-American for being a dangerous radical. What neither side have failed to understand is the true nature of Pete's radicalism. Its got nothing to with politics and everything to do with the heart. He encourages people to open their hearts and genuinely feel that they are part of something bigger then themselves. Even if it's only for the briefest of moments while they join in a chorus of "This Land Is Your Land" or a folk song from some place across the ocean in a language they don't understand, they become part of a community of people who are all doing the same thing at the same time.

That's what Pete Seeger's music has always been about, building bridges between people. Either by telling the world at large the story of what it's like to be a miner who "owes his soul to the company store" or getting a thousand strangers to sing together in a darkened concert hall, he brings people together. His songs remind us that there is a world outside of ourselves and that the person who lives on the other side of the world is as real as we are. With Pete Seeger as our guide we find out that it's not difficult or bad to care about the person beside you or the person on the other side of the world and that it actually makes you feel better about yourself.

At eighty-nine years old Pete's voice isn't as robust as it used to be, and he doesn't so much sing anymore as he recites some lyrics now, so he wisely he has chosen to have a bunch of friends help him out on this album. Yet by taking a back seat on some songs and allowing others to lead instead, he gives yet another example of how his music is able to bring together diverse groups of people to accomplish a common goal. Who else but Pete Seeger could get an Israeli songwriter and a Palestinian poet to re-write a Hebrew language folk song, "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena", so that it now includes Hebrew, Arabic, and English lyrics sung at once in harmony?

Long ago, in the days before there was a world music genre, Pete Seeger was singing songs from cultures around the world in languages he probably didn't even understand. In those days folk music was just that, the music of different folk from around the world. Pete still doesn't see any difference between playing a song written by a guy from Oklahoma or one written by someone from Chile or Moscow. It's that attitude that has permeated his music for generations and has inspired audiences around the world to broaden their horizons. Now if only the rest of the world could catch up to him we'd be getting somewhere.

Pete Seeger At 89 is a great album of music by a great hearted performer. In the forty odd years since I first heard him singing he's still the tall guy with the banjo. His voice might not be able to crack the sky anymore, but his heart and soul are as mighty as ever and that banjo still surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:20 AM | Permalink

Like many European cities between the world wars that wracked the world in the first part of the twentieth century, Bucharest had a thriving night club and restaurant scene where patrons would be entertained with the latest fashions in music. While Berlin in the thirties featured the ribald and decadent cabarets as described by Christopher Isherwood in his collection of short stories that formed the basis for the movie Cabaret, and Paris was the home to the avant-garde both in the visual arts and music, Bucharest's night spots were featuring performances of music whose origins lay outside the metropolitan areas, and maybe even outside of the country itself.

Where the tango originated is unclear, but along with other forms of music not native to Eastern Europe, it came to Bucharest courtesy of the Roma, or gypsy, population that settled there. One of my favourite stories surrounding the tango is that during the retreat of the Ottoman Empire from Spain both Jews and gypsies were forced to go into hiding in order to elude the Inquisition. In Catalonia it's known that they sought shelter together among the caves that dotted the mountains of the region. It's easy to imagine that the two people listened to each other's music and when the skirling wildness of the gypsy fiddle met the more sedate and doleful sounds of Klexmar the tango was conceived.

It's always amazed me how anybody could have ever thought of Communism as being liberal in any shape or form, as they were always so intent on curtailing what they called "decadent and immoral". One of the first casualties of this prudishness in Romania following W W 2 was official discouragement of the Bucharest Tangos. As a result not only were the facilities where the music was played closed down, but the musicians were forced to leave the country in order to seek work, and Bucharest began a slow decline which eventually resulted in the dimming of its lights.

All of which makes it that much more remarkable that now, seventy years later the music from this period is experiencing a revival. As a child growing up in rural Romania Oana Catalina Chitu (pronounced Kitsu) heard her father singing these songs, and later would have the opportunity to listen to old 78 rpm records her family had preserved of the music. Her musical studies began at a young age, and over the years have included everything from contemporary jazz to opera. In the year 2000 she formed the Balkan band Romenca, which was the first step towards carving a career out of playing regional gypsy music. In 2007 she created a musical and theatrical performance called Bucharest Tango which was initially staged in Berlin. Now, Asphalt Tango Records of Germany will be releasing the CD Bucharest Tango, on September 26th 2008, a collection of tango songs from that period between the wars, mixed in with a few classic songs by a famous Romanian singer from the same era, Maria Tanase, who was known as Romania's Edith Piaf.

For those of you who have some familiarity with tango music, what you'll hear on this recording will take you somewhat by surprise. It's not what you've come to expect from hearing it in the past, and it's definitely not what you'd come to expect if you've only heard it via Hollywood or any of the new ballroom dance programs on television. The Bucharest Tango, while retaining the original familiar rhythm, has picked up an emotional context that has less to do with the sensuality we're accustomed to, and more to do with sadness and melancholy.

It's hard to describe the changes without being able to give examples, but imagine that the sound has been filled out and extended so that each phrase is comprised of more notes played at a slower tempo. Instead of a seduction played out under the warm, star filled night sky of Spain, the music brings to mind looking out the window of a room lit by fire light at a rain spattered cobble stoned street, with windblown gas lighting creating twisting and dancing shadows. There is a darkness and a melancholy that at first seems at odds to what you've come to expect from tango music, but as you adjust to the new atmosphere, you appreciate it for the way in which it reflects the lives of the people who are playing it.

The lyrics (sung in Romanian but translations into English are provided) aren't what you'd call upbeat either as they range from the opening track's ("Pe Bolta Cano Apare Luna" - "When The Moon Rises") assertion that a life without lies would be horrible because how could love exist without lies, to the cheery "Marie Si Marioara"- "Mary, Sweet Mary", where the narrator requests that Mary grab a stake and kill him as he's been lying sick for three days. Needless to say they're not too many people who are going to be planning a seduction around one of these numbers.

Singing lyrics like that would present a challenge to any singer in order to prevent them from becoming the worst sort of melodramatic drivel. Not being able to understand Romanian, the only way I have of judging Oana Catalina Chitu's performance is by the quality of her voice, and the manner in which she delivers the songs. In what I think is a wise decision she has opted for taking a subdued approach. Instead of pulling out all the stops and allowing her voice to soar all over the place she stays within the lower register most of the time and allows the emotion that's naturally inherent in the music to shine through.

She has a lovely rich and dark voice that allows one to luxuriate in the textures of what she's singing, without ever feeling that you're being swamped by an emotional overload. Like an opera or jazz singer she uses her voice not as a means of giving the lyrics intellectual meaning but as an instrument that adds another layer of emotional meaning to what her accompanying musicians are creating. I can honestly say that I've never heard sadness and melancholy sound as beautiful as I did while listening to Oana Catalina Chitu singing the thirteen tracks on Bucharest Tango.

For those of you familiar with Eastern European, or many styles of Gypsy music, the sound of the instruments that accompanies Ms. Chitu won't surprise you as they include what you'd expect from this type of ensemble; their version of the hammered dulcimer, the cymbalon, accordion, violin, guitar, bass, and percussion. Hearing these instruments playing tangos might take a little getting used to, but as is the case with the overall sound, once your ears have adjusted, it sounds fine.

Bucharest Tango featuring Oana Catalina Chitu is a collection of tangos like you've never heard tango played before. Rid yourself of any preconceptions as to what you think the music ought to sound like and it won't be long before Oana's wonderful voice and the powerful music of her band will have you completely captivated and under their spell. It's often been claimed that the tango has magic powers and this disc confirms that belief.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:41 AM | Permalink

Every once in a while some unknown will shoot up the popular music charts on the strength of the dreaded novelty song. Songs like "The Streak" would attract attention because of either their novel content or some sort of bizarre behaviour on the part of the band. Most of the performers behind these songs turned out to have no staying power, and once the novelty of what they did wore off they vanished from sight just as quickly as they appeared. The thing about a novelty is that once it's been done, it can't be repeated, because its no longer a novelty.

So it was with some trepidation that I approached Lipbone Redding And The LipBone Orchestra's most recent release, Party On The Fire Escape, on BePop Records after reading the promotional material that accompanied the CD when it showed up at my door. You see the name Lipbone comes from Redding's "ability" to imitate a trombone, and the first thing that brought to mind were the pathetic novelty acts of previous years.

Thankfully Lipbone Redding is far more than just his novel ability to make trombone sounds with his mouth and turns out not only to be a decent songwriter but an intelligent and skilled musician. Musically he's hard to pin down as Party On The Fire Escape sounds like he's tossed together a salad made up of Spanish Harlem, seventies soul, funk, a taste of New Orleans, and country music. Now it might sound like a bit of a train wreck when you say it that baldly, but he carries it all off without much difficulty.

Ever since I first heard West Side Story I've had a soft spot for Latin music from New York City. The trouble is that there are very few people outside of the Spanish community of that city who should be allowed to perform it as they invariably water it down into something that bears little or no resemblance to the original. So I was pleasantly surprised by the opening, and title track, of the disc, "Party On The Fire Escape", as its a great example of how that music should sound. Not only that, but the lyrics do a great job of drawing you into the song by making it easy to visualize exactly what's happening.

Lipbone is like a good storyteller as his songs have the ability to evoke an image in your head of what he's singing about. So when he's singing about the "Party On The Fire Escape" it calls to mind all those images you've ever seen of New York City apartment buildings wrapped in rod-iron stair ways and their inhabitants sitting outside in a desperate search for a breeze on a hot summer's night. It's a rare thing these days when a songwriter is able to do this as well as Lipbone does, and it gives his music an extra dimension that elevates it above a good deal of what you usually hear.

The other thing you'll notice about these guys is that they have a great sense of humour, and periodically remind us not to take things too seriously. Songs like "Single Again" or "The Lipbone Theme Song" are a little bit silly, but they never cross the line over into idiocy. They are sort of like the band dropping you a wink to remind you to have fun while listening to their music. For God's sake our lead singer fakes playing a trombone - we might play the occasional song that's serious but let's remember to have a good time. It's a good thing to be reminded about on occasion, that music is supposed to be about enjoying ourselves, far too many bands these days seem to have lost site of that objective.

Towards that end the songs on Party On The Fire Escape are pretty evenly balanced between the ones that are designed to get you up off your butt and moving to the music and those that you're going want to sit and listen to. Of the former one of my favourite's is what you might call a reverse sampling song. Lipbone combines lyrics from the old Grandmaster Flash rap tune "The Message" with those from "New York City R.F.D" by Larry Collins and Alice Jay to create "New York City", a piece about the culture shock of arriving in New York City from the country. I think it must be the first time that I've ever heard anyone "sample" a rap song instead of the other way round.

What's impressive about that song and a couple of others, "Ghetto Girl" for example, is Lipbone's ability to use other styles of music and not sound out of place or like he's appropriating somebody else's music. "Ghetto Girl" is based on the old soul songs of the sixties and seventies and in the wrong person's hands would have sounded just awful. But Lipbone is able to walk that fine line required to make a song genuinely soulful and not fall over the edge into sickeningly sweet.

The major reason for that is his ability as a singer. One moment he can be growling along like Dr. John and the next he can send his voice up into the high octaves without skipping a beat. Yet even when he ascends the scale to sing soulful tunes, he's able to hold onto the same spirit that permeated his rough edged voice. That ensures those songs have the grit of reality they need to make the emotions expressed in them genuine and you can listen to them without running the risk of losing your lunch.

As to the trombone thing, or the Lipbone as it's called, it does sound like a horn. The good thing is that he only uses it in songs where it would be appropriate to have a horn solo, and even then he doesn't over use it. In the long run I think he would be better off finding himself a real horn player, as this sort of trick will only diminish his music eventually. Lipbone Redding is not a novelty act and he would be better off letting his music be appreciated at face value. It is good enough to stand that scrutiny.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:55 AM | Permalink

I've been trying to remember the first time I heard Taj Mahal, and for the life of me I can't. On the other hand I can't remember a time when I didn't know the name Taj Mahal. He's one of those musicians who has been a constant presence, maybe not always in the forefront, or even someone I've listened to on a regular basis. Yet in a world where names come and go and musical fashions change with the hour, mere mention of his name has always be sufficient to gain my attention.

He always seems to pop up or be involved in music related things which I'm interested in; from his appearance in the movie Songcatcher as a banjo playing blues man to his support of Tim Duffy's Music Makers Relief Foundation. His interest in music is so broad that to try and confine him to one genre by calling him a blues musician almost seems a disservice, as he seems as comfortable with early Americana music as he does with reggae and Hawaiian music. He was first person to get me to take the ukulele seriously as an instrument after years of seeing it in the hands of people like Tiny Tim and adolescent movie stars of the forties and fifties, and he was definitely the first person to convince me that the banjo was indeed a blues instrument.

Of course all of that is peripheral to what's most important - his music. For forty years he's been writing and performing great music and in celebration of that anniversary he will be releasing Maestro, on Heads Up Records, September 30th 2008. Although the recording is not an overview of his career or a greatest hits package, it could be looked on as a retrospective of his time in music. The twelve tracks reflect not only the various musical styles that Taj has proven his excellence with over the years, they also display his virtuosity on his favourite lead instruments, slide guitar, banjo, and ukulele.

The word maestro, when used in connection to music, is usually associated with the conductor of an orchestra, and it implies a position of leadership and experience. It's direct translation though, master, implies more than just leadership, suggesting as it does a person with authority over others, or someone who is considered to be an authority on a particular subject or object. I think it would be safe to say with Taj Mahal that all of those definitions are appropriate.

Of course the word maestro also carries with it a certain level of recognition and appreciation for a person with years of experience under their belt like Taj Mahal, and becomes an honorific to express the respect and admiration that people feel for that individual. On Maestro Taj is joined by musicians from countries all over the world in order to help showcase his special abilities. The fact that quite possibly most of them weren't born when Taj first started working professionally only emphasizes the level of respect that is felt for what he has brought to the music industry.

Now most times when a performer of Taj Mahal's stature releases a disc which features guests on it, they might play a support role on occasional songs, either by singing back-up or laying down a lead track on one of the star's past hits. That's not the case with Maestro as Taj is not only using the disc to celebrate his career, but the music he loves. For example, not only does Ben Harper join Taj on the CD, the song they do together, "Dust Me Down" was written and produced by Harper, and would just as easily fit onto a recording celebrating Ben Harper as it does Taj Mahal. It's a great up tempo rocking blues number that shows off both men's ability to their finest.

Each of the songs that Taj has elected to do with one of his guests not only showcases his own diversity, but also plays to that person's strengths as a performer. As is the case with his number with Harper, on the piece he performs with Ziggy Marley, Taj's "Black Man, Brown Man", he joins his guest's band in the studio, making sure that Ziggy is seen in the best light possible. Given the political nature of the song, in some ways its also a nod to Ziggy's father Bob and his contributions to music, as it reflects Bob's concerns about black people's struggle for identity. Of course Taj puts his own distinctive touch to the reggae number by playing banjo and making it sound like the most natural thing in the world, although I'd be hard pressed to think of another example of banjo and reggae coming together in one song.

While the songs featuring the guest musicians are special, some of my favourite material from Maestro are songs that Taj Mahal performs with the band that's accompanied him on and off throughout the years, the Phantom Blues Band. From their opening cover of "Scratch My Back", his tribute to Otis Redding who made the song famous in the 1960's, Taj's own "Further On Down The Road", on which Jack Johnson joins them as guest vocalist, and "Slow Drag", to the last song on the disc, Willie Dixon's "Diddy Wah Diddy", these tracks put Taj right where he belongs - centre stage. Nothing against Jack Johnson, but these were Taj's songs and I don't think anything Jack could have done with his vocal tracks would have been enough to come close to matching the intensity of Mahal's performance.

Of course that's a hallmark of every song on this disc, the amount of energy that Taj Mahal is kicking out. It doesn't matter if he's covering Fats Domino's "Hello Josophine" accompanied by The New Orleans Social Club, singing a duet with his daughter Deva on the song they wrote together, "Never Let You Go", backed by Los Lobos, or moaning out his own "Strong Man Holler" in the best electric urban blues tradition, he's putting every ounce of himself into every note he sings. Sometimes on anniversary discs like this one, the artist will coast, and attempt to get by on their reputation alone, but that's not the case of here, as Taj appears to be playing with the same amount of enthusiasm for the material now as he did when he released his first album back in 1968.

If there was ever any doubt as to Taj Mahal's place among the premier performers of contemporary blues music Maestro lays them to rest. Perhaps some of you have forgotten just what an amazing singer and instrumentalist Taj is, after all it has been five years since his last domestically released studio album, but listening to him and the Phantoms jump all over the first few bars of "Scratch My Back" I can't see anybody having any trouble remembering him for a long time.

There aren't very many popular musicians who have the vision, the talent, and the commitment to music that would merit them being referred to as a Maestro, but Taj Mahal is one of them. His music combines the elemental passion of early blues players like Leadbelly with a willingness to be influenced by everything from the African roots of the music to the sound of Hawaii's ukulele. He's taken a leadership role in ensuring that those who played before him and the roots of the music aren't forgotten while never losing track of the future through his willingness to share the spotlight with the next generation. Ladies and gentlemen allow me to reintroduce to you, Maestro Taj Mahal, and recommend that on September 30th, you proceed directly to your nearest music outlet and purchase a copy of Maestro - you won't regret it.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:17 AM | Permalink

It's nothing new for the West to be predisposed to prejudice against the Islamic world. Our irrational hatred of Muslims dates back to the time of the Crusades when we took it upon ourselves to "liberate" the Holy Land from the rule of non-believers. The fact that the so called non-believers were native to the region and the "liberators" were invaders whose only reason for attacking those countries was religious intolerance has set the tone for Muslim and Christian relations for the past 1500 hundred years.

Of course the crusaders were indiscriminate when it came to the destruction of so called "infidels", and wiped out villages of defenceless Jews with the same enthusiasm they showed for attacking Muslim armies. It's interesting to note that during the intervals between Crusades when there was no fighting, those Christians who settled in the Middle East learned how to co-exist quite peacefully with their Muslim and Jewish neighbours. It was only those who lived outside of the region, those with no personal experience of Muslims, who fermented hatred against them.

When you look at the world today not much has changed since those times. It's still the people with the least direct contact with the Muslim world who spew forth the greatest amount of hatred towards them. In the last sixty to seventy years this behaviour has provoked the rise of what we call fundamentalists among the Muslim people; radicals who are dedicated to a dictatorial interpretation of the laws of Islam. The fact that the West calls these people fundamentalists only proves the depth of our ignorance when it comes to the Muslim faith. Only people ignorant of the religion's tenets would consider people dedicated to the practices espoused by the radicals as fundamental to Islam.

Like the Puritans of old, and the conservative Christians of today, the radical Muslim, who we are convinced is out to kill us all, represents a minority of the total Islamic population, and have through out the history of the faith. Anyone who needs convincing of that only needs to watch the forthcoming DVD release from Riverboat Records, part of the World Music Network, Sufi Soul: The Mystic Music Of Islam, and they will soon see how great a difference there is between the radicals and the majority of the population. While the movie examines the practices of one specific sect of Muslims, the Sufis, it shows how much greater an influence those people wield on the population at large than do the radicals and explores its manifestations in various countries.

For nearly fifty minutes we are taken on a guided journey by historian and writer William Dairymple of Sufi sites in Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, India, and Morocco as he shows us examples of how music and poetry have been incorporated into Sufi worship and philosophy. Along the way he also explains through interviews with various musicians the basic tenets of Sufism, and gradually builds a picture of a faith that is far different from the one the majority of us have come to believe in. He doesn't deny that the more uncompromising practices exist, but he opens our eyes to the fact that just like there are more then one kind of Christian, Jew, Hindi, and Buddhist, there is more then one kind of Muslim.

In Turkey, where Sufism has been outlawed since the 1920's and followers are forced to meet in secret, the former rituals of dance and music have been turned into "performances". Whirling Dervishes now perform for tourists instead of as a means of communicating with God as they used to, but that doesn't prevent the philosophies behind the dance from being remembered. Human beings see the world as divided between the physical and the spiritual. According to Sufi beliefs it's through dance and music we can be bring the two visions of the world together and bring ourselves closer to God.

In temples, meeting houses, and private homes Sufis in countries throughout the Muslim world gather to sing and create music in an effort to bring themselves closer to their God. In each country the approach is different as local musical traditions are incorporated into the practices. Some practices are raw, elemental gatherings where drummers play with an ever increasing frenzy that whips themselves and their audiences into a frenzy that breaks down physical and emotional barriers allowing them to enter into a trance like state they believe necessary to best experience God.

In the temple to one Sufi saint who died in 1752 music has been played every day since his death upon the instrument that he invented. Plucked like a guitar or other strung instrument it is also beaten like a drum in accompaniment to the songs written by the saint praising God. Like Catholics Sufis believe that God can be worshipped through veneration of their various saints, and celebrations held in the various temples honouring the saint on the day of their death, or the day they met God, can be extravagant festivals that take on the appearance of concerts with performers setting the words of the saint into song.

Translations of the lyrics might take people by surprise, because it was very common for the saints to describe the love of God in terms associated with human relationships. For them poems about the love between a man and woman were a metaphor for expressing and exploring love for God. So a poem celebrating the love a man feels for a woman would actually be celebrating the poets love for God. Perhaps the most famous of these poet saints was the thirteenth century mystic Rumi whose poems and philosophy has shaped much of modern Sufi thought, and enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the 1990's when he became the best selling poet in the United States.

William Dalrymple is a wonderful guide as he is not only unabashedly enthusiastic about the subject matter, but wise enough to let the music and the performers speak for themselves. He is also honest enough to admit that he too was forced to overcome his prejudices about Islam when he was first introduced to Sufism while living in India. It was at a temple in Delhi that he first encountered the practice and he was amazed to find as many Hindus as Muslims attending ceremonies there. To him, and me by the way, this was more than enough proof that the Sufis weren't exaggerating when they say that all are welcome in their places of worship. For, if in India, where violence between Muslims and Hindus is a depressingly common occurrence, interfaith worship can happen, it can happen anywhere in the world.

While there is no denying that there are Muslims who teach and are taught to hate other religions and to work towards the establishment of an Islamic State the DVD Sufi Soul: The Mystic Music Of Islam reminds us that another, peaceful aspect of the religion exists. The Sufis believe that through music and song people can learn how to love God. It doesn't particularly matter to them how you express that love, or whether you want to call that expression of love Christianity, Hindu, Judaism, or Islam, what matters is that you love.

As a special feature for the DVD the film makers have included bonus material of extended performances by five of the performers featured in the film. This give you a chance to not only hear somebody talk about what the music is designed to do during worship, but an opportunity to experience it. Sufi Soul: The Mystic Music Of Islam goes on sale in the United States on September 30th/2008. Take the opportunity this disc offers to learn how much more there is to know about Islam than what we've been led to believe by centuries of prejudice and stereotypes.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:08 AM | Permalink

I guess I never was that good at knowing what was popular and what wasn't. In my defence all I can say is that my tastes were formed at a young age and I was doomed into a kind of elitist snobbery before I was even old enough to know better. It's really my older brother's fault you see, not mine. It was his record collection that I first started mining in search of musical gems, and I can't be blamed for his liking everything from Tom T. Hall to Jimi Hendrix can I?

It was in his collection that I first discovered Nashville Skyline, Music From Big Pink, The Basement Tapes, Pearl, and people with names like Jerry Jeff Walker, Kris Kristofferson, Arlo Guthrie, Earl Scruggs & Lester Flatt, and some guy named Hank Williams. So at the same time that most of my friends - this was 1974 -75 - were starting to get into disco and whatever else was being pushed on the popular radio of the time, I was developing a taste for music that nobody else I knew listened to. I didn't do it on purpose as I was completely at my brother's mercy when it came to music. I could either learn to like what he played in our basement, or go upstairs and hang out with my parents.

Of course there were times when I was able to explore his record collection on my own, and it was during one of those expeditions that I stumbled across a very singular record that was simply called Berlin. I suppose most people's first exposure to Lou Reed was either by hearing "Walk On The Wild Side" or "Sweet Jane" on the radio, but for me it was the beautiful horror of listening to Caroline's fall into junkie oblivion over the two sides of that record that introduced me to his genius. I'm sure part of the attraction was the fact that it talked openly about drug use and sex, subjects that in the early seventies were still mainly taboo and would naturally attract the attention of a twelve year old male on the cusp of puberty.

Of course it was more than my recently inflamed hormones getting a few cheap thrills, as the music was intense and the lyrics had a kind brooding poetry to them that drew you into the story with a kind of seductive charm. In many ways Berlin was a darker version of the Christopher Isherwood stories that formed the basis for the movie Cabaret, as the album explored the life and downfall of a free spirited woman living in Berlin in the days of The Wall.

Sally Bowles' story was played out in the cabarets of Berlin during the rise of the Nazi's in the 1930's, so Cabaret was infused with the knowledge that the hammer was about to fall on these people's freedom at any moment. Caroline on the other hand was trapped in an island - West Berlin was in the middle of East Germany after all - where the people were at mercy of others for everything. The memory of the post war airlift conducted by the allies to feed the people of West Berlin after WW 2 when Stalin ordered the borders of East Germany sealed in an attempt to snatch all of Berlin for Soviet Russia, was a constant reminder of their isolation. There would have been a kind of hot-house desperation among the people living there, leading them to push themselves to find newer and more exciting ways to keep themselves amused. It was exactly that atmosphere that Lou Reed recreated with his music and lyrics on the Berlin album.

Not exactly top forty material I guess, but I was still surprised to find out that the album was a commercial failure when it was released back in 1973 as not even Lou Reed fans, or former fans of The Velvet Underground, were interested in hearing about the dark side of life as depicted on Berlin. In fact it was so unpopular that Lou had never performed the album in public until 2006 when he collaborated with director and painter Julian Schnabel to stage it for five nights at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn New York. Lou was joined on stage by a seven piece orchestra, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and individual performers like Antony of Antony and the Johnsons. It's this staged production that's been captured on film and is now being released as Lou Reed's Berlin by Artificial Eye on DVD and Blu-ray October 27th/08 in the UK, and on September 30th in the US by the Miriam Collection.

For lack of a better term you would have to call this a concert movie, but it's a concert like no other concert you've seen. The musicians are performing against a backdrop that looks like the floral wallpaper of a hotel that was elegant in the 1920's but has long since gone to seed. Periodically through-out the performance film is projected onto the wallpaper/screen depicting scenes in Caroline's life that are being described in the songs. The films are by Lola Schnabel, and Caroline is played by Emmanuelle Seigner, and they depict, with the stark beauty that only black and white silent movies have, Caroline's decline from faded beauty to oblivion.

Of course the main focus is what's going on in front of the screen on the stage, and Lou doesn't disappoint. Far too often people have taken rock music and tried to turn it into something it's not by orchestrating it and utilizing choirs for effect and you end up with a pretentious mess because the music didn't have the substance in the first place to merit that type of consideration. That's not the case here, as the music of Berlin is ideally suited to being fleshed out by the additional voices and instruments. Even better is the way the various new elements have been incorporated into the original score.

The use of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus is a good example of this as not only do they provide background vocals when appropriate, their voices are also used to create atmosphere at various points throughout the production. At one point in particular instead of singing lyrics they begin a chant that adds an extra layer of sound/rhythm to the song being performed that helps build the intensity of the moment. It's done with such subtlety that you almost don't notice what they are doing until they stop and the absence of sound is so powerful that it takes your breath away.

I don't think that you can fully appreciate how potent a duet between Antony, of Antony and the Johnsons, and Lou Reed can be unless you are familiar with Antony's singing voice. He has the beautiful, high and clear, voice of a traditional Irish tenor who sounds like he's singing in order to prevent tears from overwhelming him. When that is combined and contrasted with Lou's almost conversational, nearly deadpan, ironic delivery the effect is devastating. While Lou's voice challenges you to find anything emotional in the material he's singing, Antony's voice is at the other end of the spectrum, supercharged with emotional energy. Listening to them sing together is like hearing a dispassionate news-reader and a relative of someone who has just died in a tragic accident, recounting the same incident.

Julian Schnabel has done a magnificent job of capturing the staging of Berlin on film. The camera always seems to be in the right place at the right time, capturing the one thing that we want to see most at that moment. Whether it's a close up of a young choir singer's face as she closes her eyes in concentration and moves her head to the beat of the music, capturing the bowing technique of the bass player, or pulling back for us to receive the full impact of the band and the movie playing out on the backdrop working together, all the shots are perfect. It's hard enough filming a concert movie, but not only has he done that wonderfully, he has also managed to capture the theatricality of the event so we are able to enjoy the full impact of the performance.

This might just be a case of being there is the next best thing to the DVD and not the other way around, as Schnabel captures elements with the camera that we wouldn't have been able to pick up in person. In particular look for the smile in Lou's eyes after he finishes his duet with Antony, it's a small thing, something that you'd have never seen in person. It's almost as if Lou is allowing himself a moment, now that the concert is almost over, to enjoy what has been accomplished on the night; a feeling that's only re-enforced when he and the band swing into "Sweet Jane" as the encore for the evening, and they are simply a rock band again cutting loose on an old favourite: The "performance" is over, now let's have some fun.

The version of the DVD I was sent to review didn't come with special features, but the full version will include a forty minute or so interview with Lou presumably about the staging of Berlin, and the packaging will also include lyrics for all the songs. Needless to say the sound is top quality, either 5.1 surround or Dolby Digital 2.0, and it comes in wide screen format. For a change those of us in North America will be getting this earlier then they are in the UK as it's released here on September 30th/08 while in England, Artificial Eye's DVD and Blu-ray versions won't be available until October 27th/08.

Berlin may not have been a commercial success when it was released in 1973, but it was a brilliant artistic accomplishment. The DVD, Lou Reed's Berlin is a reminder of just how brilliant it was. It is an opportunity to see and listen to a man who really was years ahead of everyone else, and is still leaving them bobbing in his wake.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:18 AM | Permalink

Most of the time when you review things you maintain a certain level of detachment that allows you to keep your critical faculties intact. You take a step back from whatever it is and ask did they do this well or did that work within the context of what they were working on? However, there are occasions when all of that flies out the window, when whatever it is strikes such a chord it resonates so strongly that you can't help but get caught up in the material and all of sudden all those intellectual reasons, the whys and wherefores, just don't matter.

Like the other occasions when this has happened to me the piece I'm reviewing is a DVD of a documentary movie. I suppose it says something about how well a documentary has been made if it is able to elicit an emotional response instead of an intellectual one. Based on previous experiences watching documentaries I know that the subject matter of the film doesn't seem to make much of a difference to the way I react but how it was made. Far too many documentaries these days seem to be about the film makers and not about the people whose story they are supposedly telling.

There are only so many films you can see that purport to be about starving orphans in Africa, but in reality are about the good works now being done by the people who made the film, without becoming a tad cynical. It's easy to start to wonder about the work's integrity when its so obviously being used to solicit donations. There's lot's of competition out there these days, so you need some slick packaging if you want people to cough up money for your cause. Nothing helps convince them to part with their hard earned cash better than a moving documentary about plucky privileged people enduring the hardships of the developing world in order to save the people living there from themselves.

Desert Rebel: Ishumars, The Forgotten Rockers Of The Desert, a documentary about how French and Tuareg musicians came together to form the group Desert Rebel, and the history of the Tuareg people over the last forty years, was able to do what so many other documentaries have failed to do in recent years and make me care, because of the matter of fact manner way in which the material was presented. Part of the movie was spent following the musicians as the travelled across the Sahara desert in a small convoy of Toyota four wheeled vehicles and into recording studios both in Africa and France, and the rest of the movie was spent in recounting the history of the region through interviews, voice overs, and film footage from news reports.

In some ways it was this very clinical approach, with very few attempts at appeals to sentimentality, that made the story so compelling. One moment you are watching a man on stage playing his guitar and singing, and two minutes later the same man is recounting, in very matter of fact tones, the time he spent hiding in the mountains without food for eight days during the uprisings. Neither Abdallah Oumbadougou, the man in question, nor the film makers do anything more with this information than present it as facts. This is what I was doing then for my people, this is what I'm doing now (music). There is something about the starkness of that sentiment, said without adornment or affectation, that bridges the gap between you the viewer and the man saying the words.

While the movie might on occasion appear to be slightly disjointed, it jumps back and forth between history, interviews, and the caravan of travelling musicians, it actually makes it much more effective that way. For each piece of voiced over history that is supplied by the narration, you are then also supplied with a first person account from the same period by either Abdallah, or other Tuareg men who had been involved with either one of the uprisings. By telling the story in this way the film makers allow you to digest each piece of information fully before moving on to the next stage of the history, and so gradually the full picture of what's happened prior to this movie being made is developed.

The Tuareg people are a nomadic tribe that has roamed the Sahara desert for as long as people have been around those parts. While they are nominally Muslim, they don't live in circumstances that allow them to build mosques, so their methods of worship differ from those of other Muslims. Their traditional territory is now split up between four African countries, and it's two of them, Niger and Mali, where most of the Tuareg's problems have been. Primarily the Tuareg have simply wanted to be left alone to live as they have always lived, travelling with their flocks from grazing land to grazing land as the seasons change, but droughts in recent years have forced many of them off the land into refugee camps and cities.

When Desert Rebel was filmed in 2005 cracks were starting to appear in the treaties that had been worked out with governments of Mali and Niger after the uprisings of the nineties, mainly due to the opening up of Uranium mines in Niger. Not only have there been reports of high radiation levels in near by communities because of the mines, but somehow or other none of the money being generated by the mines is finding its way into the local economy.

At the beginning of the movie we find out that when the director, Francois Bergeron, returned to Niger in 2007 he was arrested and jailed, as was one of the people interviewed in the movie, because they were suspected of being part of the most recent Tuareg uprising. In 2007, frustrated with the breakdown of the treaties and the way they are being treated by the regime in Niger, the Tuareg had re-armed and taken to the desert to begin waging a guerilla campaign against the government.

Bergeron was arrested in August of 2007 and released in the following October. While it's obvious his sympathies are with the Tuareg, it's ironic that a man who was wanting to make a movie recording a cultural exchange between two groups of musicians would end up imprisoned. Although since the Niger government was also busy shutting down a weekly newspaper that was printing a story sympathetic to the Tuareg cause, and confiscating all copies of the offending issue, maybe it's not overly surprising.

Somehow, in spite of this, and all the other politics that are involved, the music that motivated the French musicians to travel out into the Saharan desert in the first place manages to remain the primary focus of the movie. Impromptu concerts held in various outposts and camps in the Sahara show how easy it is for artists to find common ground. Songs that the Tuareg musicians have taught their French counter parts during the long hours driving are performed with little, or no, rehearsal. While the percentage of footage given over to actual performance is small compared to the rest of the movie, the journey the musicians take continues on past the trek in the desert to a recording studio in France and a music festival in Quebec, Canada.

During the uprisings of the nineties musicians like Abdallah Oumbadougou fought for their people with automatic weapons and guitars. Today he is still fighting for his people, but now it's on an international stage with the aid of musicians from another country, and his guitar. The DVD Desert Rebels: Ishumars The Forgotten Rockers Of The Desert is the story of how this cultural alliance came about, and a people's struggle to hold onto their way of life. Nobody will ask you for money, nobody is asking for pity, all they want is a chance to tell their story and be heard. That's not too much to ask for is it?

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:03 AM | Permalink

It will probably still come as a surprise to a lot of bluegrass fans to learn that the five stringed instrument the guy up on stage is plucking away on that they know as a banjo came over with the slaves from West Africa in the 1600's. So while all the rednecks were condemning rock and roll in the fifties as "coloured"music or worse, they were busy listening to and playing music that featured an instrument more coloured than what they were putting down. Of course irony is usually lost on folk like that, so I really doubt they would have appreciated how funny it is that the Irish/Scottish folk tunes they'd been heard played on banjo and other so called 'merican instruments, owed as much to their former slaves as the sounds of Satan.

Of course that's assuming they'd even believe you. Anybody with those types of attitudes aren't what you call open to new ideas, or interested in hearing anything that would run contrary to any of their deeply felt hatreds or that might force them to admit that they aren't the centre of the universe. Thankfully there are fewer and fewer of those types of people in the world and more and more like Jayme Stone. Jamye is a young Canadian musician with a passionate interest in the roots of music and the inspiration and energy to turn that into something special.

In the introductory notes to the CD Africa To Appalachia that he and Malian musician Mansa Sissoko created, due for release in the United States on September 9th, he recounts how his discovery of the banjo's origins led him on an odyssey through West Africa in search of the music that didn't come over with the slaves. In turn Mansa came across the Atlantic in the other direction, moving his family to Canada just in time for a Montreal Quebec winter, to begin a new life. Like a great many Malian musicians Mansa was steeped in the history of his people and their music as part of his apprenticeship, which meant that Jamye couldn't have found a more appropriate person to work with if he tried.

As the title of the disc, Africa To Appalachia, suggests the two, along with accompanying musicians from Africa and North America, have drawn upon the various traditions utilizing the banjo to create the music that appears on the CD. So you get the very odd sensation of listening to a song being sung in Malian sounding like a traditional reel from Quebec or a fiddle tune from the hill country of the Appalachians. Even stranger is how well it all works.

Although when you think about it there is no reason for it to be strange that the styles should come together so easily. After all this isn't the first time African and another culture's music have come to together, it's been happening here since the first slave ships showed and dumped their "cargo" on these shores. Everyone knows the story of how the blues and jazz grew out of the blending of traditional African melodies and rhythms, Christian hymns, and the work songs that the slaves sung in the fields. Yet very few people seem to remember the role that the banjo used to play in jazz music. Up to the the big band and swing era almost every jazz band and combo had a banjo in it. It's only been really since the 1950's that the banjo began to be associated solely with country, bluegrass, and folk music.

In fact, although Jayme and Mansa have done an excellent job incorporating a substantial number of folk traditions into the creation of this disc, they somehow have omitted any references to the banjo's role in jazz music. I realize that might have been outside the scope of their interest, and it does nothing to diminish their accomplishment, but it seems the banjo is always getting short shrift when it comes to jazz. A recording dedicated to the banjo and the connections between its roots in Africa and the music of North America would have been a little more complete with a specific nod in that direction.

On the other hand the music that they have included on this disc is quite a wonderful cross section of various styles, and they have done an excellent job of merging the African and North American music. In fact the songs sound so natural the way they have recorded them, that if you didn't know better you would think that the music accompanying the lyrics sung by Mansa were the original tunes created for them. From the trumpet that gives one track the breeziness of the familiar sounding "high life" pop music of Africa to the turning of an African hunting tune into an Appalachian fiddle fest, there's a deftness of touch by all involved that ensures there is always a perfect balance between the two or more types of music being melded.

Of course it doesn't hurt that all of the people involved are apparently incredibly gifted musicians. Jayme has a wonderfully light touch on the banjo, so that he can play with authority while at the same time never drowning out those around him. That's especially important considering that Mansa plays the twenty-one stringed harp like African instrument, the kora, whose sound is almost diametrically opposed to that of the banjo. While the one rings the other sings like the wind soughing through the high grasses of the African plains and a banjo player without the ability shown by Jayme would leave the other in tatters.

On Africa To Appalachia Canadian musician Jamye Stone & Malian Mansa Sissoko have followed the banjo back home to its original roots, and brought it back across the ocean again. This time though its not come over lashed in chains in the bottom of a slave ship to be met by a domineering master. Its come over in the songs of Africa to be met by music whose origins lie in that murky past and has created something new. It would be nice if the past and present could always come together this well and create something as delightful as the music on this disc.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:21 AM | Permalink

I first heard of Grayson Capps by accident when a distributor sent me a catch all of CDs to review. Buried in amongst them was this disc called Songbones, which turned out to be a collection of songs that Grayson had recorded along with a friend at somebody's studio one night after hours back in 2002. Some of these songs have shown up again on his releases since that time, If You Knew My Mind and Wail & Ride, but I had never heard any of his music before and I was blown away.

Grayson had just returned from a two or so week tour of Norway, and I had wondered about that so I figured I'd start us off with that, and we went from there. I'd just like to thank Grayson for taking a hour out of his time with his family to talk with me, and Kevin over at Hyena for setting this up.

You've just come back from a rather extensive tour of Norway - while I know quite a few musicians have followings over in Europe - Norway is a bit off the beaten path - how did you get hooked up there?

It was two or three yeas ago, some guy, and I can't exactly remember his name now, really liked my music over there and invited us over to play, and they really liked us so we've been going back ever since. We've already played two weeks over there this year, and probably will go back again. You know it works out pretty good for me money wise too, 'cause the way the economy is over there, they pay two to three times what they pay back home in the States. As long as I can get out of there without buying anything I come out ahead. Everything is about two or three times more expensive there as well.

It's really cool over there though - it's so beautiful the fjords and all, and the people are friendly - so we like playing there. It's weird though too 'cause they have a different way of looking at the world than I'm used to - I think it comes from them being pretty much self sufficient - they've got their own supply of Oil from the North Sea oil so they don't have to rely on anyone for anything it seems.

I've read the biography that you've published on your web site, and your early years sound like they could be the subject of one of your songs. What do you think you took from those years that continues to influence you today - creatively and otherwise?

They really made me who I am today - formed me I guess you could say. There were always all these people around, friends of my father, and friends of friends, who were full of ideas and creativity. It was like a community who would be always involved, and they'd all feed off of each other - sparking ideas and inspiring each other. You'd get late night sessions of people sitting around drinking, but reading poetry to each other and singing songs instead of just partying right. I'd like to emulate that sort of environment now, if I could - minus the chaos and the staying up all night drinking, I've got a family and the two just wouldn't mix - but the community of like minded people who can inspire each other ...

There's so much from those days that's till sort of boiling around inside of me, adventures in the past, that are waiting to come out if I could just find the time to write it all down. Finding the time to write is hard when you're on the road, it really gets in the way, and we must have spent over two hundred days touring last year. You're the first person in the bar and the last out every night and you're doing five shows a week in different towns... it really starts to wear on you. Where are you going to find time in there to let your mind relax enough to bring up the stuff from the past you want to write down?

My father was a big fan of writers like T.S. Elliot and others like that, poets who didn't forget about the journey that people took to get the place they are when you see them. So when I look at people now I wonder who are these people - especially the folk that most of us would rather not look at. The guy in the park sleeping on the park bench with the bottle in his pocket wasn't always there - what was his story - what brought him there? I really believe their problems are an extension of what is wrong with society, and so I try to look at them in those terms too - what is this and what's it mean?

You were a theatre major at Tulane University, but music seems to have had other plans for you - What happened?

Yeah I went to New Orleans as a theatre major but a university education really opened my eyes as it exposed me to so much more of the world than what I had seen to that point growing up in Lennox Alabama - there's far more to the world than you realize when you're from a small town and starting to see it through the eyes of other people like you do at a university is an eye opener. Of course so is New Orleans itself...(laughs) bars and brothels...

It was a teacher of mine in the theatre department who probably planted the idea of music, as he said something along the lines of rock and roll being the new theatre. A couple of friends of mine and me started to do open mich shows, and I guess we were quite a bit different from everyone else that did these things. Instead of just learning some songs, we would put together a whole show. Being theatre majors we would rehearse the shit out of anything before we got up on stage. You can do anything you want on stage and in a bar, so we had a great time.

But it wasn't until I moved into the house on South Front Street that I started to get serious about music and began focusing on song writing full time. That's when we did Stavin' Chain and I got my first real taste of the music business. But that was too much music and not enough show, and I need to find that balance between the two.

"A Love Song For Bobby Long" is not just a song, it's also the name of a movie that was based on a book your dad wrote about two of the people from the time of your childhood. You said you wrote the song in defence of Bobby Long - what did you mean by that?

Bobby was handsome like Al Pacino, and he was like that guy Anthony Quinn played in that movie...damn I can't get it to come, you know he's full of the zest for living and...(Me: Zorba? in Zorba The Greek) Yeah, that's it - he was like a real to life Zorba the Greek - he showed you the potential for what life could be by living it to it's fullest. Of course he also was a great example of how not to live your life too as he ended up burning all his bridges and pissing everybody in his life off.

You know a lot of people thought Bobby was a fool, but he played the fool, and that was an important lesson, cause by playing the fool you can rid yourself of ego. You've gotta get past your ego to be a good performer otherwise you're not going to be honest in what your doing. (laughs) I remember when I first told my dad about wanting to go to Tulane to study acting he said well let's see what you can do. Get down on the floor and lay there kicking your arms and legs screaming I'm a dying cockroach and see if you can make me believe it.

He wanted to make the point that you had to be willing to get beyond thinking of yourself at all if you were going to be a performer. You have to be able to look completely ridiculous, and not be afraid of it, that way you stop thinking about being yourself, get rid of your ego, and just be what you are performing - an archetype instead of a cliche.

So you know, although Bobby ended up alone and drunk in a V.A. hospital, and I guess in most people's eyes he was a failure, he was a good teacher and there was far more to him then what most saw.

You were living in New Orleans until Katrina, and have since moved to Tennessee. Others who I've talked to who have lived and worked in New Orleans at any time in their career talk about the indelible effect both the city and the hurricane had on them. What type of effect do you see the city having had upon you

I lived in New Orleans for twenty years before I moved out to Tennessee. I don't know how much I was influenced by the music of New Orleans to be honest, it's funny how so many people out here who aren't from here, act like there from New Orleans, and I was never really part of or embraced by that scene. If anything New Orleans influenced the way I see characters and my way of looking at life.

For the first time in my life I was a minority when I lived there, and I liked that. It created a tolerance for people that you don't find anywhere else, it's like you get used to seeing people naked. It has to be the least judgemental place I've ever been.

When you grow up in a small town and everybody knows you, they want you to stay like you are, and you can't grow because of that. New Orleans on the other hand embraces growth and that was incredibly liberating. It's like this great boiling broth where everybody is in the same soup but it keeps mixing and creating something different each time you taste it.

I remember after the hurricane and everybody saying it's going to be the death of New Orleans, well you know the day after the winds and everything died down some gay guys were out parading in their panties, (laughs) and I knew no matter what happened the spirit of that city couldn't be killed.

Ever since Katrina you've been living down in Tennessee. Has this changed your music?

To be honest I've not spent all that much time here in the past two years. Last year, like I said I was pretty much on the road all the time, 240 shows or something like that. I'm changing that now, so I'll just be playing on weekends and spending more time here. I'll have a couple of weeks in September and October where I'll be overseas - the UK and Holland but that will only be for a week or two week at a time.

Moving from New Orleans to Tennessee has made me write more about the country. When I write it's a journey of self discovery, a song will usually come about from me trying to figure out a problem I have - if it offers a way out - growth - then I'll keep it. Having children and living here in Tennessee have made a difference in that it's got me out of wallowing in my own stuff. I don't know, but before it feels like I was in a damaged state of mind, and coming here has renewed my focus on what's important. It's like I said earlier about finding a way to have the community of like minded people without the chaos - well it feels like that's what we have here.

We recorded the latest (Rott 'N' Roll) almost all live, and it was great because we could feed off each other's energy, and what's around us. This was the first album where it was just me and the band, Stumpknockers, and it was great. The first two were me and some studio musicians, so with me and the band it was a different thing as we all had our own stakes in it. There was the sense that we were doing something together that made it a lot more fun.

What, if anything do you wish to accomplish with your music. Is there anything you'd like your listeners to walk away with after listening to one of your records?

I wanna change the world (laughs) They say that poets say in words what people can't express and I look on that as something to work towards. You can express a lot in a song or a poem - all the dreams you want, all the magical possibilities in the world, yet what it comes down to for me is trying to achieve honesty - it's the hardest damn thing to do. There's parts of me at times that can say fuck it, but I've got to remember what it is that's important. You can feel it in waves, it's like little magical moments, and every so often you get it - your truth. If you tell your own truth, people might not get it in quite the same way, but they'll get it on their own terms. It's all about finding common ground where you can meet them.

The world today teaches people that they need shit; material stuff like clothes and cars and other sorts of shit. Truths remind people of what they know and have forgotten because of the distraction of struggling to get all the shit that they've been told is important.

I was really struck by how vivid your songs are - I find that I can imagine just what the place looks like if I close my eyes while listening. Is that a conscious effort on your part to do that - or does it just happen in the process of creating the song?

That goes back to my theatre school days and the stuff we used to do in class. Who, what, where, why, and when - all the questions you ask yourself to make a place real. So when I start to write something I do that and put myself in a place. If you're keeping all that mind you're just going to be able to convey it. I remember one of the exercises we used to in class was one person had to get up in front of the rest of us and imagine what room of the house they were in. They couldn't do anything but sit and think about that room and the rest of us had to figure it out simply by looking at them. It was amazing how many times we were able to figure that out from just looking at the other person.

It was around this time that I started hearing the sounds of family in the background, and we'd been talking for a good hour already so I figured we should wrap it up and I'd let him get back to his visit. We talked a little about the possibility of him coming to play in Canada, and then we said our good byes. Looking back at what I've written out it sorta seems inadequate, but maybe that's because words on a page just don't do justice to either the man or his music.

Even over the phone Grayson Capps is a three dimensional figure, filled with a vitality that just doesn't show up here. I hope this interview offers you a little peek inside his head, and if you've not listened to his music before piques your curiosity enough to go out and pick up his new CD Rott 'N' Roll that's being released on September 9th/08. For those of you who already know Grayson's work, well maybe you've just got to know him a little better than you did before. Thanks again to Grayson Capps, and his family, for sparing me time from his vacation to chat and I hope you can make it up to this part of the world sometime.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:41 AM | Permalink

Why is it that in every musical genre there have to be people who appoint themselves as the protectors of its integrity. I hate to admit that the majority of the time these people are critics who seem to feel that they know what the music is better than the people who play it. Unfortunately that means they usually end up doing their best to squelch anything innovative or different as it messes with their vision of what the music should be.

Even worse though are the ones who set themselves up as some sort of moral arbitrator which gives them the right to decide whether a musician's labour should be taken seriously or dismissed as inconsequential. If someone dare to have fun, or do anything that might look the slightest bit like they weren't taking the music seriously they would be quick to denounce the hapless soul with accusations of reducing the music to a side show. We critics live to be taken seriously, so if there's the slightest chance that something might bring us down from the little points on high where we sit in judgement, we lash out with all the outrage and sanctimoniousness of the insecure.

So it's not really that surprising to read that quite a few jazz music critics, so called purists, treated Rahsaan Roland Kirk with the same amount of respect that they would a circus side show freak when he first started playing. According to the liner notes included in the DVD Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Live in '63 & '67, part of the Jazz Icons 3 being released on September 30th by Reelin' In The Years and Naxos, their disdain was based on the fact that not only was Kirk able to play more then one of his instruments at a time, but he would also appear in concert festooned with them all around his neck. If that wasn't bad enough, he had the gall to make use of instruments that either he had had modified to suit his needs or were strange things like nose flutes and whistles.

Now I must admit the first time you catch site of Rahsaan Roland Kirk in the Live In '63 & '67 DVD it's a little disconcerting. For not only does he wear the saxophone he's playing around his neck, but he also has two other saxophone type instruments, and other, smaller and not instantly recognizable, instruments wrapped around his neck that turn out to be a nose flute and a whistle with a miniature saxophone bell attached. As you watch the DVD and the excerpts from the three concerts included on it, Belgium and Holland in 1963 and Norway in 1967, you realize that's only the start, as he routinely adds more instruments. Another modified saxophone, this one with a French Horn bell, is looped around his neck, a flute appears in the bell of his alto saxophone, and castanets appear as if by magic in one of his hands.

There are two reasons for Kirk to be wearing so many instruments at once and they are interconnected. First of all he is blind and because he switches between them so frequently, and or plays more than one at a time, he can't afford to spend time groping around on stage trying to find the one he needs at any particular moment. While some critics might have dismissed his playing multiple instruments as some sort of gimmick, and dismissed it as not being music or jazz, one only has to listen to Kirk's playing to realize how much blinder they were than him.

John Kruth's extensive liner notes that accompany the disc, describe how a record producer once walked into a studio's sound booth and upon hearing Kirk's playing complimented the engineer on the great horn section in the studio that day. Needless to say he was astounded to find out it was only one man playing. While I've seen other horn players play two saxophones before - usually a tenor and an alto - I've never heard anyone play two different melody lines at the same time. He's actually harmonizing with himself on two separate horns If that sounds insanely difficult, it's only because it is.

Now I don't have what you'd call a great ear when it comes to discerning things like key or other intricacies of music, but even I could hear that he was playing two different things on the two separate horns. There were moments when I was watching this DVD when I couldn't believe what my eyes and ears were telling me. If the recordings hadn't been so obviously made in 1963 and 1967, I would have sworn that they had been done using computer generated graphics in order for what Kirk was doing to be possible.

Of course Rahsaan wasn't limited to playing saxophones, or reed instruments, he was also a remarkable flutist. Listening to him play his flute on the two versions of "Three For The Festival" that are included on this disc, one from the concert in Holland in 1963 the other four years later in Norway, you not only hear how talented a player he was, but you hear how he continually evolved his playing style. While its still obviously the same tune, the version he plays in Norway is far more sophisticated then the earlier performance. The texture of the song's sound seems to have become thicker in the intervening years, as if Kirk has built an additional layer of sound into it somehow.

Probably the most surprising thing about Rahsaan Roland Kirk's playing is how sensitive it can be. Not only can he play at speed, and create the wild skirling music that we'd expect from someone playing multiple instruments, he exhibits a deftness of touch that allows him to be just as adroit with the gentler pieces. Yet even then, if you were to close your eyes while listening, you'd be hard pressed believing it's only one man playing.

The Jazz Icons series is onto its third set of DVDs now, and it continues to provide a wonderful opportunity for people to get to know some of the greats of the Jazz world. Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Live In '64 & '68 makes a convincing argument for Kirk's inclusion in that stellar company. For sheer excitement, and jaw-dropping astonishment, there are few players alive today who can match what he accomplished during his years performing and recording. While there might still be a few purists who will dismiss him and his playing, the rest of us can just get on with enjoying his gifts and listening to some great music.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:15 AM | Permalink

Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to review the new DVD by Willie Nile. Live From The Streets Of New York. It had been years since I'd really listened to any of Willie's music, and the DVD brought back in a rush all the reasons that I'd listened to him years ago. Honest, passionate, and intelligent rock and roll without any of the pretensions that seem to have to crept into people's music these days.

The other week I sent him off some questions through e-mail about him and his career and what you're about to read are his answers reprinted verbatim. I hope reading this interview will inspire you to check out Willie again if like me you lost track of him for a while, or if you've never listened to him, that you take the time to do so now. You won't be disappointed.

You mentioned in the DVD Live From The Streets Of New York that you were originally from Buffalo NY. Can you tell me a little about those early years and what influenced you to pursue a life in music

I grew up in a large Irish Catholic family where with older brothers buying rock and roll records and playing music all the time in the house as well as having a lot of classical music played so there was a wide variety of things to be heard by our small ears. We had dozens and dozens of international visitors, exchange students, Buddhist monks, Indian poets and governors, you name it. They came to our house, some for dinner, some for a few days, some for the summer and some for a year. It gave us all a pretty cosmopolitan world view. They all had different languages, customs, clothes, attitudes, etc., yet you could see how people could live together and get beyond the differences. It was interesting to see from such a young age. On top of that my father was a great storyteller. Somewhere along the line I started writing poetry and when I learned to play the guitar I started putting the words into songs.

What was it about New York City that made you decide that it was the place you needed to be in order to do what you wanted to do?

It was where the beat poets were from. I was into Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg and the Beat sensibility. New York was also where the record companies were and it was closer than LA or Nashville. I had a bunch of songs I'd written and wanted to make a record. I used to hitchhike down from Buffalo in the summertime and sleep in the park when I was in high school and I found it to be a magical place. I felt free in the city.

You arrived in New York City in the 1970's - it must have been quite intimidating to show up on your own and try to find your way as a musician - did you have any contacts or had you made any arrangements before hand? How did it end up coming together for you?

It was pretty simple for me. I wanted to record my songs and the record companies were in NY. It also felt like Paris in the 1850's and London in Dicken's time. There was a timeless quality to it that I liked. It was definitely intimidating at first but I got over it after a while.

New York by 1977 was a hot bed for new music, with Patti Smith, The Ramones, The Talking Heads, Blondie, Mink DeVille, as well as guys like Lou Reed who'd already been around for quite a while - where did you fit in amongst all that?

It was an amazing time. I'd been living in the Village since 1972 and there were a lot of old ghosts from the 60's in the air. There was a pretentiousness in certain quarters that I found ridiculous. One day I was looking in the paper for new places to play I saw an add for CBGB OMFUG. It was on the Bowery and not far from where I lived so I took my guitar and wandered in. At that time it was a Hell's Angels hangout along with a lot of Bowery characters. There was a flop house above it. I asked who to talk to about playing there and was told. "Speak to Hilly." I waited for a half hour and Hilly never came out. While waiting and looking at the jukebox I saw one record on there by a "Hilly Kristal." So I proceeded to pump about five dollars of quarters and played the song over and over until Hilly finally came out of his cave quite annoyed to see who was playing his song so many times. I think he got a kick out of some wise-ass doing something like that so he let me play there. This was when the bar had a jazz pianist as the entertainment and just before Television started playing there. I played in front of a bunch of Hell's Angel's and Bowery Boys. It was great fun. I got to remind him of that story on the last night at CBGB's. I'm glad I got to see him before he died.

As for the scene that developed shortly afterwards, it was incredible. I used to go see Patti Smith and Television all the time, The Ramones, you name it. It was inspiring and original and it rocked. It was a welcome relief from the tedium of the music that was being played around that time. It was original music played from the heart by a bunch of outcasts and Dead End kids. I used to call friends up on the phone at midnight from the back of CBGB's and hold the phone up and say: "Listen to this... you gotta come hear this, come to New York." It felt like The Cavern Club in Liverpool back in the day when The Beatles started happening. They were great days.

You opened for the Who during their 1979 tour of the United States - how did that association come about?

I'd heard through my record label that Pete Townshend was a big fan of my first album. I didn't believe it and thought it was just record company hype but when we played LA on that first tour, The Who's management came to the show and after seeing me play invited me to open for The Who on their cross-country tour in the US. Naturally I said yes. I was a huge fan. It was magical to see them play night after night. I had never played with a band live before that tour so to be playing in front of 20 - 25 thousand raving Who fans night after night was pretty interesting. I had a great time.

I was interested to hear you describe yourself as a troubadour at one point on the DVD, just because that's not a word you hear people describe themselves as very often any more. What do you mean by it in terms of your music and your approach to it?

Someone who travels from town to town singing songs and telling stories would be considered a troubadour in days past. I guess that's close to what I do. I write what moves me, in one way or another. It helps me get a hold on some of the madness that goes on in this world.

One of my favourite songs on the Live From Streets Of New York DVD was "The Day I Saw Bo Diddly In Washington Square". I know you co-wrote that with Frankie Lee, but it, "Back Home", and "Streets Of New York" all struck me as being distinctly Irish influenced. How much if any do you think that heritage influences your writing style?

I love Irish music and my family roots are Irish for the most part so it's not surprising that some Irish influence would get in some of these songs. Irish music has passion, spirit and soul and if there's any of that in my music as well then that's okay by me.

There are a couple of songs on the DVD, "Cell Phones Are Ringing (in the pockets of the dead)" and "Hard Times In America", that are obviously political, but you're more than just a political songwriter. Where do you find your inspiration for material?

I just write down what comes to me from everyday life. Sometimes it's a love song, or a bar band rocker, or a minstrel fairy tale, or a poke at some phony who needs a good sock in the jaw, or a lowdown dirty rock and roll song that can ignite the masses to revolt and take over the planet and make it a better place for people to live in.

With Cell Phones, I live not too far from the World Trade Center and was in town on 9/11. I watched the towers burn and felt the shock and horror, as did everyone. I was on one of the first flights out of town a few days later on my way to Spain for a tour and was struck by the concern and compassion the Spanish showed night after night with their questions. They really cared about what happened and how people were doing. So, in March of 2004, when the Madrid train bombing happened I immediately checked to see if my Spanish friends were okay. The next day in one of the NY papers one of the headlines read: "Cell Phones Ringing In The Pockets Of The Dead". Apparently there were some 190 body bags lined up along the tracks and cell phones were going off in the bags. People were looking for their loved ones. It went right through me. It gave me chills and made me angry. That people could do this to one another in this so called 'modern world' really pissed me off. I wanted to fight back in some way. I think we, as a race of people, are capable of much more than this. It's bullshit, all these religious zealots running around praising their 'god' and then killing some innocent people. All sides are guilty of this recklessness. We've got to find a way to get more compassion in this world. So I just started typing away on my computer and wrote the song straight out. It was my way of fighting back. When I sing it live it's surprising to hear so many people singing along with the outro chant "Cell Phones Ringing In The Pockets Of The Dead" in defiance of all this madness. It's heartening, I must say.

When you write a song, do you have a specific intent in mind before you start, or do you just let the muse take you and then run with it?

Usually I just let the song happen to me. I just go by my instincts on whether to pursue an idea or a phrase or a line of music. If it feels like it could be something I'll just follow that and try not to get in it's way.

What's all this that I read about the 2006 CD Streets of New York being a comeback CD? Had you not put something out for a long time before that?

I think it was 6 years since the last one was out (Beautiful Wreck of the World). I guess I just take too long between albums. I don't see any of it as a 'comeback'. I just take my time and do it when it feels right. I'm just now finishing up a new album for a release in early 09. Can't wait to get it out there.

Earlier I asked you about what it was about New York City that attracted you in the first place, and it's obvious that the city means a lot to you now. Are you able to articulate what it is about New York that makes it so special for you?

There's an electricity to this town that is intriguing to me. It's a cosmopolitan city where the rich and poor and everyone in between wander and roam about amidst canyons of concrete and steel. I've heard that Manhattan is built on a certain kind of granite that is a strong conductor of electricity. When you leave the island you can feel a certain quietness come over you.
There's always interesting music and art and food and crazy people and people who think they're normal but aren't, you name it, it's here. It's the concrete circus where everybody gets a chance to do the do.

What's next for Willie Nile - are there more CDs in the works, any tours on the horizon etc?

There's a number of shows booked till the end of the year. The web site lists them (Willie Nile.com). We're also putting together some tours for next year after the new album comes out. After we finish this new album I intend to make another one right away. The songs are still coming and it's never been more fun so I plan to take advantage of the time and record as many things as I can. Here's to making music and magic and maybe stumbling across a little inspiration here and there...

Well I can't think of a better note to end this interview on than that, so thank you Willie, and I'm glad to see we won't have to wait as long between drinks this time.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:51 AM | Permalink

What exactly is a documentary film anyway? Not that you can tell by what passes for documentary films most of the time now a days, but they are supposed to be impartial filmed records of events. The camera is supposedly a fly on the wall merely observing the action without having or expressing an opinion, allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions. These days it seems that people have started to pervert the form to suit their own purposes. Instead of merely presenting the facts, they start with a premise and then proceed to show the audience a film that will prove it.

It doesn't matter how well intentioned they are, the fact remains that films like Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth or any of Michael Moore's recent presentations are not documentaries. Instead they are film versions of opinion/editorial articles in a newspaper. They are no more documentary movies than any of the so called reality television shows that saturate the air waves these days.

One only needs to see a movie like Michael Glawogger's Workingman's Death, distributed on DVD by Alive Mind Media, to see the difference. Not once in the movie does the director, or anyone else for that matter, attempt to tell the audience what they should think. In fact at no point during the film are we ever directly aware of the film maker's presence save for the fact that somebody must be behind the camera.

While the title might imply that the film is about health and safety issues on the job, or something along similar lines, the truth is somewhat more obscure. Over the course of two hours the director and his crew take us on a trip around the world to five locations to observe men and women at work. While all the jobs and the environments are different they do share some common characteristics. Everybody involved does manual labour that has a sizeable element of risk and their jobs are not ones that we encounter everyday.

The movie opens in the coal fields of the Ukraine which in the days of the Soviet Union provided the majority of the coal for the nation. Now the mines have been closed, and the former miners laid off, as the majority of the veins are tapped out. Yet as the camera pans across the desolate slag piles and the abandoned pit heads, we see a few small figures moving around. It turns out some of those miners who were laid off are working some of the old veins illegally. The camera follows one group of five men as they worm their way on their bellies into the side of a hill where they carefully chip away at overhanging rock to bring down the coal embedded above them.

"Even a cave in of 10 cm would be the end of us" says one of the miners, "nobody would ever find us under here." In the old days these mines would produce tons of coal, and old Soviet propaganda footage shows pictures of happy singing miners exhorting each other to exceed pit records for the month. Now the five men are happy to pull out a few sacks of coal because, as they put it, it's a matter of survival. In the old days it may have been about meeting the quota for the good of the state, now it's about putting food on the table. The men seem cheerful enough as we watch them use a a hand winch to drag their bags of coal up out of the valley of the mines, but what kind of desperation would drive people to crawl inside a hill on their bellies where the slightest error in judgement would see it's entire weight collapse on them?

Although the men in Indonesia who collect the sulphur from the maw of a volcano are above ground they face danger just as intense as those of their compatriots in the Ukraine. We meet them as they are preparing for the annual ritual of sacrificing a goat to prevent accidents. The workers believe that giving a goat's head to the volcano will prevent them from suffering accidents on the job. We follow them as they begin the climb up the lush mountain side covered with rain forest and watch as the green gradually gives way to rock and steam begins to billow around them.

Stuffing rags in their mouths to cut off the fumes the men descend into the craters where pipes driven into the sides send a steady stream of boiling liquid onto the ground. Here the sulphur formations are chipped away and stashed in wicker baskets that the men will load until full before carrying them back down the mountain. With two baskets strapped to a pole slung over their shoulder, weighing between 150 and two hundred pounds, they trot down the mountains. Not only do they have to worry about slipping on the path and perhaps going over a precipice, they also have to avoid tripping over tourists who have come to see the view and take pictures of the colourful locals who gather the sulphur.

Some of the men exploit this opportunity and take chips of the sulphur and mount them on bases they make from hardening the boiling liquid spilling from the pipes to sell to the tourists. There's a wonderfully incongruous moment when the men are trotting down the mountain fully laden, and coming up the mountain are a group of school children in uniforms singing a song about climbing the mountain. The work day ends for the men with the weighing of their baskets, and the dumping of their contents into a waiting truck.

There are three more stops along the way on this journey through work sites of the world; an open air slaughter house in Nigeria Africa (don't watch this if you have a weak stomach - I had to skip through it), the graveyard for ocean liners in Pakistan where workers tear apart monstrous rusted hulks with cutting torches and bare hands, and finally steelworkers in China. At each stop on the journey we witness men and women doing jobs that are almost beyond our comprehension because of the conditions they work in and the dangers they face on a daily basis.

In North America workers in manual labour have laws and unions to keep them safe, and ensure that they aren't exploited by their employees. Although, in recent years unions have been made the scapegoats for everything from contract killings to closing factories because of the onerous demands they place on businesses on behalf of their employees. Perhaps it's no coincidence that the same businesses that close their plants in North America and Europe relocate them to some of the countries seen in Workingman's Death. What could be closer to paradise after all for them than no environmental controls and no labour safety laws?

At the beginning of the movie a quote from William Faulkner is splashed across the screen which says something along the lines that nobody can make love, drink, or do any number of enjoyable things for eight hours a day. In fact the only thing that we can do for such an extended period is work. No wonder humans are so mean to each other and others. When you see the conditions these people are working in it's hard not to agree with that sentiment. It's impossible to watch this movie and not wonder about what it does to a person's spirit to have to work under such inhospitable conditions.

Workingman's Death has no voice over telling us what to feel or think as the camera bears mute witness. Of course there is really no need as the images speak louder than any voice condemning what we are watching could hope to, yet unlike so many of the so-called documentaries of today which want to lead us to a predetermined conclusion, it allows us to think for ourselves. The fact that for the most part the people we see aren't complaining, that the majority of their talk is about life away from the job, or about the best way to accomplish a task, flies in the face of our wanting to be shocked and appalled by what we see.

This is a glimpse into a reality that few of us know anything about, the truly dreadful things that people are willing to accept as the cost of survival. If this movie doesn't make you wonder at what kind of world would demand this sort of payment from people in return for giving them the barest essential required for survival, I don't think anything ever will.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:34 AM | Permalink

Suffering from acute chronic pain is like being eaten alive from the inside out by an unseen parasite or disease. While on the surface the body looks fine, underneath the physical, mental, and emotional core is gradually being hollowed out. Resources normally committed to taking care of life as most people know it are turned inward in an effort to keep the pain at bay. Humans don't have an inexhaustible store of energy and gradually the will and ability to resist the pain erodes and it will continue to increase incrementally unless the cause is rooted out and eliminated.

When you suffer from chronic pain you begin to despise the body that causes you so much suffering and you long to escape from it in any way possible. Drugs are the usual means for most people to leave their bodies when the pain becomes too much to handle. Morphine, Demerol, and the rest of the narcotics become close allies and dear friends and are often the only ones who truly understand the need to escape. Some people have the ability to find an external focus that they can utilize as a means of escaping the pain. It becomes a point outside of their body where their awareness can reside temporarily giving them respite from the creature eating away at them.

As a writer and a chronic pain sufferer I know from experience that the times I'm most pain free are those moments when I'm able to lose myself in whatever story or article that I'm writing. Even the drugs I take can't match the relief offered by being able to truly escape my body into the world that's being created on the page. While you can almost say the pain is feeding the creativity because of the manner in which it motivates the escape, there does come a point where the pain is too great for that escape. The frustration of having to surrender those moments of freedom to the reality of the body's prison is nothing compared to the fear that you might never manage the escape again.

Mexican artist Frida Kahlo spent almost her entire life suffering from chronic pain. From the time she contracted Polio as a child to the end of her life her body was wracked with physical pain as a result of the disease and a horrific traffic accident she was involved in as a teenager. During her life time she underwent thirty plus operations as doctors struggled to literally keep her body from falling apart. Gangrene would gradually take the toes of one foot and then her leg as if the pain decided to actually eat her alive.

In Drakulic Slavenka's latest book, Frida's Bed, published by Penguin Canada, she imagines Frida in her last days lying in bed recounting her life. As Frida's story is laid out for us, we learn how pain and her illnesses defined everything in her life from her work to her interpersonal relationships. It's not a pretty picture that Drakulic draws for us, but there is a beauty in it that goes beyond mere aesthetics; the beauty of strength of will, courage, and self-awareness.

As we travel with Frida we realize two things dominated her adult life, and that they were inextricably intertwined; her relationship with her husband, fellow Mexican artist Diego Rivera, and her painting. Not only were both the deepest loves of her life, they were also both defined in her mind by her condition. Not only was painting a means for her to escape the confines of a body that wracked her with pain and would at times keep her bedridden, but it allowed her to express the pain (physical, emotional, and mental) that continually beset her. She painted scenes depicting her body in various stages of decomposition, images that showed both the external smooth surface she presented to the public and the devastated reality that lay beneath the placid exterior, and others which depicted her continual struggle to live.

While her pain and injuries might have inspired her art, they also destroyed her self-confidence as a woman, as an object of desire. Diego Rivera was a womanizer who had already been married twice before he and Frida came together, and each of his previous marriages had ended because of his infidelity. Frida knew she couldn't compete with the physical attractions of the other women in Diego's life, the models for his work and the socialites who threw themselves at his feet, so she created for herself an exotic character based on the things that Diego liked. It was for him that she began wearing the traditional peasant clothing and pre-Colombian jewellery that she is now so famous for, in the hopes that by doing so she would make herself different enough from all the others that he wouldn't stray.

It wasn't until he had an affair with her younger sister that she fully realized what she had sacrificed for him and that no matter what she did it wouldn't matter anyway. She had sacrificed her art and painting in order to please him and be his inspiration. Although she tried to convince herself otherwise, she was devastated by his continual infidelities. She was forced to redefine their relationship in her head based on what she could offer him as a woman. Which is why in her latter work you see Diego depicted as a small child being comforted by the figure of Frida the mother. This compromise allowed her to fool herself into believing that she still played a significant role in his life.

What's amazing about Frida's Bed is how amazingly accurate Slovenka Drakulic is in depicting a life spent in pain and it's consequences. From there she has done an equally incredible job of grafting the life and thoughts of Frida Kahlo onto that depiction. With a narrative that moves from first person to third person and back again some might find difficulties in following the flow of the book, but once you get into it, it becomes easy to discern the difference between the observer and the observations.

The journey Drakulic takes us on is not an easy one to travel as it goes into the heart of an anguished soul. Yet at the same time it is a remarkably uplifting experience as we are able to experience the power of the creative spirit and where it can carry a person. Simultaneously we are taken inside the mind of Frida Kahlo and given a perspective on her life that I don't think anyone else has ever offered. Now some might disagree with the interpretation offered by the author because it flies in the face of the strong and independent female artist image that has sprung up around Frida in recent years. Yet taken in the context of someone suffering from chronic pain I find it hard to dispute her analysis.

Of course any attempt to interpret someone's thought patterns is pure conjecture, but from personal experience I can only concur with the conclusions Ms. Drakulic has drawn about Frida's state of mind. When you feel like your own body has betrayed you, which is how you fell the majority of the time when you suffer form chronic pain, your sense of self is depreciated in ways that it is difficult to comprehend. The depiction of Frida offered by Frida's Bed is every bit as valid, if probably not more so, than any of the others offered up these days.

For those people who genuinely appreciate the art of Frida Kalho Frida's Bed offers insights into her work and life that will give you an even deeper understanding of what drove her to create in the first place. It's not often we are given such a clear and accurate look into the mind of one of the world's great artists, but this book does just that.

Frida's Bed can be purchased either directly from Penguin Canada or an on line retailer like Amazon.ca

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:30 AM | Permalink

Fame and renown sometimes seem to be handed out on a whim as one person will achieve international acclaim for doing something while the person right beside him or her doing the exact same thing with equal skill will be left out of the limelight. In some cases it's because one person's force of personality, or charisma, is such that it attracts attention to them like ants to honey, but in others there seems no real rhyme or reason.

In the world of jazz music there are certain players who have become as close to household names as is possible for someone playing in that genre and their names are known beyond the world of jazz aficionados. Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, John Coletrane, and Ella Fitzgerald are names that even the most casual music fan will recognize as somebody special. Yet there are others, through no deficiency of talent, whose names are less familiar to the public at large. For some reason they've never captured the imagination of those outside intimate jazz circles, or whose recognition only came late in their careers or even after their deaths.

In recent years the name of Cannonball Adderley has started to gain in ascendancy as people begin to realize the amazing scope and range of his talent and the body of work he produced in his years as a performer and composer. Part of the problem for him was being a saxophone player in an already crowded field, coming along as he did in the years just following the death of Charlie Parker. However, according to John Szwed's liner notes for the Cannonball Adderley: Live In '63 DVD, part of his problem was that he did too many things too well. His supposition is that Adderley never garnered the appreciation he deserved because his abilities exceeded his audience's ability to absorb more than a small portion of his talent.

He could, and did, play everything from blues a la Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, avant-garde like Coletrane, funk fusion like Miles Davis, to recording a jazz version of Fiddler On The Roof. In fact it's only now that his last recordings from 1975, Black Messiah and Accent On Africa are capturing the imaginations of DJs and dance crowds. Whether or not Live In '63, part of the Jazz Icons Series 3 set co-produced by Reeling In The Years and Naxos, being released September 30th/08, will bring Cannonball any more name recognition then he already has, it certainly shows off some of that famous versatility and virtuosity.

The eleven tracks from the two performances recorded in Europe in 1963 on Swiss and German television respectively, show off not only Cannonball's skill, but his entire sextet's as well. With Cannonball's brother Nat on cornet, Joe Zawinul on piano, Sam Jones and Louis Hayes on bass and drums respectively, and the amazing multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef playing tenor saxophone, flute, and oboe, watching them makes you wonder how they could have slipped under so many people's radar. They can handle anything thrown at them from hard be-bop to slow ballad type numbers, without skipping a beat or dropping the level of their intensity.

I have to confess that although I've know of Cannonball for years, it was only from the later stages of his career - specifically the Country Preacher - Live At The Breadbasket album he recorded with Jesse Jackson. None of those recordings had prepared me for what was in store on this disc, for the two concerts are examples of what I would call the pinnacle of jazz musicianship for that era. The liner notes give extensive details about each of the songs, but to be honest that sort of technical analysis of jazz is lost on me. I'm just not familiar enough with the terminology or jargon for it to be of much use. I rely on my emotional responses to what I'm hearing to guide me, and it was those that led me to the conclusion I reached above.

While for others it might be another track, for me the track in particular that hooked me was the second one on the disc, "Angel Eyes". While the opening track, "Jessica's Day", reprised in a different version in the second concert near the end of the disc, was good jazz, there was nothing about it to set it apart from any other well played jazz song. There was something about "Angel Eyes" that contained a spark of genius that took it into another realm. Maybe it was because it wasn't played with the usual vigour one associates with jazz of the early sixties, for it is a ballad, that made it stand out, or maybe it was just the sweetness of the playing.

Of course it didn't hurt that for this track Yusef Lateef was playing flute. I have to confess that I'm a sucker for jazz flutists, and Yusef's playing is as good as any other that I've heard from Eric Dolphy to Michelle Black. Not only can he make it soar with the best of them, he has a mellowness of touch that astounded me. It's very easy for a flute to become shrill, but the tone Mr. Lateef was able to produce was reminiscent of a bass flute. Perhaps it's his experience playing a variety of woodwind instruments that stood him in such good stead, but I've never heard the quality of breath control that he displayed from another flutist before.

I think it says a lot about the nature of Cannonball Adderley that he was willing to surrender the lead to another player so early on in the set. That implied, to me, that what was in the best interests of the music took precedence over everything else, even if it meant his time in the spotlight was reduced. Certainly he had his share of moments in the spotlight during the course of the disc, but it always seemed that was the case only because it was what was expected of him as the alto saxophone player in the ensemble, not because he was Cannonball Adderley.

Cannonball Adderley: Live In '63 is a wonderful opportunity for those of you familiar with the better known names in jazz to begin to broaden your horizons to include this multitalented musician. Be amazed at his virtuosity and wonder at the breadth of his understanding of music. Yet, perhaps, most of all, wonder why you may not have heard him play before, because he's just too good to have been missed for so long.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:50 AM | Permalink

When the slaves came to North America from Africa they brought with them not only their own musical traditions but their way of using the music. In the villages where they came from there had always been a person who kept a record of the people's history in song and music. The griots, as they were known, could be called on to recount either a specific person's family history, or to tell the stories of the people that taught them how to live. Over here the people were scattered with families being split up and sold to separate owners, and villages scattered from the Caribbean to Canada, and the old histories became obsolete.

The music changed so that it reflected the lives they were currently living. It spoke of the pain and hopes of people enslaved; the pain of the labour and the hope of freedom. As their masters imposed their religion on them they used the text of Christian gospels to express some of their feelings, but held onto the music they had brought with the. With freedom the music split between the secular and the religious and the griots of those days could be found in the bars and honkey-tonks singing the blues and banging out the old rhythms on the keyboards of pianos.

In the introduction to the liner notes of the DVD Nina Simone Live In '65 & '68, part of the Jazz Icons: Series 3 collection co-produced by Reelin' In The Years Productions and Naxos being released on September 30th/08, Nina Simone's daughter says that her mother considered herself a griot for she would take her listeners on a journey. The journey that Nina Simone took her audiences on was a continuation of the one started by the singers and songwriters from the beginning of the twentieth century who sang about the emotional and spiritual condition of African Americans in churches and bars.

This is especially true of the period in her life during which the two concerts on this DVD were taken. Between 1963 and 1970 Nina Simone recorded and sang songs that reflected the conditions of African Americans in the United States as they fought for equal rights. In his extensive liner notes for the CD Professor of Music Rob Bowman quotes Nina as saying that it was the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers and the bombing of the 16th Street church in Birmingham Alabama that resulted in the deaths of four little girls in 1963 that brought home to her the emotional reality of " what it was to be black in America".

Her first impulse was to build a zip gun and go out and kill someone but her husband pointed out to her that she didn't know very much about killing but knew a lot about music so perhaps that might be the route to go. Within the hour she had written her first civil rights song "Mississippi Goddam", one of the songs she performed at her 1965 concert in Holland that is opens this DVD. The two concerts, the 1965 in Holland and the 1968 Granada television special from England, are emotional tour de forces by a woman known for her ability to communicate emotions through song and music. So be prepared to be on the receiving end of the type of potency that's not often seen or heard in contemporary music as she holds nothing back.

In the 1965 concert she starts off with "Brown Baby" and moves into "Four Women", songs that talk about the social circumstances of black people in America. The second song is especially pointed as it deals with the class structure attached to what shade of black a person was and how it affected their status within their own community. In the late fifties and the early sixties it was still a matter of the paler a person's skin colour and the straighter their hair, i.e. the whiter they looked, the higher their status. Until the concept of Black Pride became predominant in the latter part of the sixties, being able to "pass" as white was considered the apex of social standing. "Four Women" expresses Simone's anger at a world where people are made to feel so ashamed of who they are, that they judge themselves based on another's prejudice.

The Holland concert finishes with "Mississippi Goddamn", and in it you can hear all of the singer's anger and sadness at the events that inspired the song in the first place. It seems only appropriate that those putting this DVD together have opened the second concert of the disc with her song "Go To Hell", a statement of anger if I've ever heard one. She follows that with a medley of two songs from the musical Hair, "Ain't Got No" and "I Got Life". While she turns the first into a testimony of the deprivations of poverty that most of black America suffered from during the sixties, the second becomes an affirmation of those things that could and will make life worth living.

The real emotional killer on this disc though is the final song "Why? (The King Of Love Is Dead)". The song was written by her bass player Gene Taylor in honour of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. shortly after his assassination in April of 1968. His death was the death knell for the civil rights movement as there wasn't any leader of the same stature able to carry on his work. Nobody else had the charisma to hold together the alliance of people that King had built, and there's something about the way Nina Simone sings this song that tells you she knows those days are over. The lyrics might be in praise of Dr. King's life, but the way she sings them they're also an elegy for his dream.

Nina Simone: Live in '65 & '68 is an amazing testimony of the power of song to communicate emotions, and the power of Nina Simone to communicate through song. For those of you who thought they had seen impassioned singers before, this disc will leave all of them in its wake. While it's irresponsible to label anyone as a spokesperson for any group of people, Nina Simone's singing captures a good deal of what it must have been like to black in America during those tumultuous times. Like the griot she was, she told the story of her people in song, and this DVD is a record of her storytelling.

Obviously the sound quality is spotty in places, especially in the first concert, as the original masters are so old, but it's remarkable really how good they are, as both picture and sound are probably better than we have any right to expect. Although there are no special features included on the disc, the extensive liner notes that come with the enclosed booklet, are an amazing overview of Nina Simone's life and career, providing information that you'd be hard pressed to find on any other similar music collection. For lovers of Nina Simone, and those just new to her work, Nina Simone: Live In '65 & '68 will be a pleasure and a revelation.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:19 AM | Permalink

There are two types of cowboys in this world. There are the ones who populate Hollywood's movie screens who wear six shooters strapped to their waists in order to gun down those ner-do-wells stupid enough to challenge them to duels on the main street of town. On the other hand there are the men who hardly ever shot a pistol in their lives, and spent their days out on the pasture lands shepherding herds of cattle from point a to point b.

It's the former of course that captures everybody's imaginations. It's far more romantic to see oneself as a lone gun man facing down incredible odds then riding a horse in the freezing rain in the middle of the night trying to track down a cow that's gone missing. It's far more likely that a cowboy met his end because of an accident like being thrown from a horse and cracking his skull or falling under the hooves of a herd of cattle than from staring down the business end of any weapon.

Of course there were bank robbers and train robbers, but most of them probably never saw the inside of anybody's bunk house anymore than a bank robber today would work on a ranch so you can't really call them cowboys either. People who take to robbing banks for a living aren't going to find the hard work and lousy pay associated with herding cattle and other ranch associated chores that appealing. On the other hand cattle theft, or rustling, was probably one of the few crimes committed where a knowledge of cattle and the wilderness was needed in order to succeed

In his first novel, A Tale Out Of Luck, published by Center Street an imprint of Hachette Book Group USA and being released Wednesday September 3rd, Willie Nelson, with the help of Mike Blakely, has combined the reality of life on a cattle ranch with a dash of the cowboy myth to create a story that's every bit as enjoyable as the songs he sings. Real cowboys (the guys who work as ranch hands), rustlers, Texas lawmen, tavern girls and even a band or two of Indians meet up together on its pages with the expected, and some unexpected, results.

Set in Texas in the years following the American civil war the action takes place in a small town called Luck and it's surrounding environs, specifically the Broken Arrow Ranch owned by former Texas Ranger Captain Hank Tomlinson. When the post war reconstruction government of Texas disbanded the Texas Rangers for political reasons - they wanted to rid the South of anything that had been around before the war - Hank decided to turn his hand to ranching. In those days most of Texas was still considered "open range", and the government was only just beginning to parcel up the land and sell it to those willing and able to work it.

In Hank's case that means establishing corrals for his horses and fencing in swathes of the range as pasture for his herds. His almost adult son Jay Blue works on the ranch just like any of the hired hands, and is proud to consider himself one of them. In some ways he's almost too proud, of himself and his abilities, and that ends up causing him all sorts of trouble. Trouble which also happens to find his closest friend, Skeeter, Hank's adopted son, and eventually, damn near engulfs the whole ranch and the town of Luck.

It all starts with the disappearance of Hank's prized Kentucky thoroughbred mare who was whisked away out of her pen one night as if by magic. It had been Jay Blue's turn to stand watch that night, but he'd convinced Skeeter to cover his shift so he could go into town and romance Jane who works in Flora's Saloon. It was only when both boys woke in the morning to the sound of Hank going off like a Howitzer that they knew they were in trouble. Deciding it was safer to take on what ever the wild world had to offer instead of an irate ex Texas Ranger, the boys set off in hunt of the missing mare.

While there's dangers a plenty out on the range as it is, when a ghost from Hank's past shows up bodies start being found. Feathered with arrows and scalped, all the signs read like a party of renegade Comanche are operating in the area. However, Hank recognizes the arrows that feather one of the first bodies that's found and realizes that not only is somebody trying to throw the blame onto an innocent group of Comanche hunting in the vicinity, but are out for his blood and the blood of any close to his heart - especially his son.

Willie and Mike have written a neat and tidy book that combines all the best elements of a mystery story with the genuine wildness of life in the wide open spaces. Out there sometimes the weather and the environment are your toughest enemies, and this book does a wonderful job of bringing the real wild of the "wild" west to life. From beautiful box canyons full of winding trails and deep chasms where the mist from hidden waterfalls paint rainbows in the air, to the arid desert where a man's blood can dry out from the heat of the sun, the authors paint a very realistic picture of the stark beauty of the desert.

You'd think a trail would be easy to follow in the desert, what with so much sand to leave tracks in, but the wind can shift the sand so quickly that the trail from a hundred head of cattle could vanish within half an hour. But a good tracker doesn't look at the ground when following a trail, he looks for clues rubbed into the bark of a tree or in the twigs of a tree gone missing. In A Tale Out Of Luck the authors lay just this kind of trail for us to follow so we can pick our way through the story. Like all the characters we start off blind to what's happened but gradually we begin to see the big picture and can only hope our heroes and their friends can weather the approaching storm.

A Tale Out Of Luck is well written, with characters that have the ring of truth to them and their actions, offering a nice alternative from the cliches of old that used to encumber Westerns. We meet unexpected good-guys and even more surprising bad guys as our two guides, Willie Nelson and Mike Blakely, lead us along paths that no other western I've read has taken. So sit back and put your feet up by the fire for a spell and enjoy an entertainingly spun tale.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:44 AM | Permalink

February 14th 1983; Toronto Ontario Canada was in the midst of a cold snap usual for the time of the year, but inside the venerable concert hall, Massey Hall, it was red hot. The force-major that was the celtic/sou/rock of Dexy's Midnight Runners had hit the stage running and didn't stop for two hours. In some ways it remains to this day one of the most powerful, and passionate shows of live music that I've seen.

After that tour and I think maybe another album Dexy's seemed to fade away, or at least we didn't hear about them as much over here on this side of the Atlantic. We also never heard that much about a project that some former Midnight Runners put together with members of other British pop groups called The Bureau that surfaced briefly in the early eighties. Ironically their album was released over here and in Australia, but never in Britain and the band wound down after a couple of tours.

Fast forward to 2002 and a desire to recreate some of that bedlam resulted in the re-release of the original Bureau album, The Bureau, in 2005 and some touring by the newly reformed band. Now, while some people might have been content to rest on the laurels of nostalgia, these guys haven't been. With almost the entire band back together, only the drummer was unable to work himself free of current commitments, they made the decision to risk doing a brand new recording of original tunes. I say risk because all of them had settled into gigs on one side of the Atlantic or the other and reviving a project that the record companies had left to wither on the vine the first time around offered no guarantees of return on their time and money.

For those of you, like me, who occasionally wonder if there will ever be bands again that can recapture some of the intensity and passion that made punk worth listening to, allow me to introduce you to 2008's version of The Bureau and their new CD, ...and another thing. Although its not slated for an official release until October 6th/08, you can order the disc through the band's web-site. The price of $20.00 American includes the shipping and handling to get it from England to your mail-box so it's as good as deal as you'll get from any on-line retailer, especially considering the distance its having to travel.

What are you going to receive for your twenty hard earned dollars? Only twelve of the best funk/soul/rock and roll tracks you'll have heard since the heyday of Sly and The Family Stone. I guess you could be forgiven if you think I'm exaggerating, and the only way to know will be to check them out for yourself now won't it. However, I don't think I've had a disc of new music rock me back on my heels in amazement like this one did since I know when.

First off, all the tracks are originals written for this disc save one, "Keaton's Walk" which had been languishing on tape in that mysterious place where recordings abide when they are lost and forgotten and the band had laid down in 1984. Secondly, as individuals these guys are all brilliant musicians, and together they not only illuminate each other, but create some sort of amazing ball of fire that casts a glow over anybody listening. Third, and most importantly, they don't take themselves seriously. That's not to say they don't take the business of creating great music seriously, but they know what they're doing isn't going to save lives or change the world, so there isn't any pomposity about what they do. They're here to make and play pop music and that's what they'll do for heaven's sake, with every fibre of their beings and piece of their hearts.

They also have a great sense of humour as you find out with the first song "Run Rabbit Run".Archie Brown, lead vocals, moans out a song about how hard it is to teach his pet bunny how to run. He discovers that shooting it in the butt with both barrels of a twelve gauge shot gun might not make it run, but it sure will get it flying and results in some great rabbit stew. While card carrying members of PETA without funny bones might not see the humour in this cut, it let's you know that you're in for a disc that's definitely not your typical pop recording.

From there on in the songs just keep getting better and better with the band exploring different variations of the funk and soul groove depending on the nature of the song. There's nothing even close to approximating a ballad, or even anything soppy and sentimental like you find on far too many so called soul records today. Unlike most other people The Bureau doesn't confuse the word soul with sentimental, or even worse orchestrated, middle of the road, adult listening warbling about how true my heart is or other such shit.

They understand that it means that the music you make has soul, that it sounds like it's been recorded by people, and you perform and sing it as if your life depended on getting the groove just right. This isn't the smooth as silk vocals or over produced music that seeps out of the radio these days, it's rough, raw, and pulsing with energy. Even better is the fact that they change things up constantly so that from one song to another the music is different. Everything from driving hard funk to old British music hall style songs shows up, and each are played with same amount of sparkle and élan. Not only do they do they play the music well but they play it with style, and that makes it all the more entertaining and exciting.

I've never been very keen for what's called white soul as it's usually insipid crap. The Bureau, like some other bands and musicians from the British Isles, prove to be the exception to that rule. Instead of trying to imitate the way people like James Brown or Sly Stone used to play funk and soul, they take the music and infuse it with the same energy that used to drive punk. By doing this they have created a sound unique to themselves, that not only makes for great listening, but is bound to get your feet moving and your hips swaying. If you take only one risk on an unknown quality this year when it comes to music make it The Bureau's new album ...and another thing - you won't be disappointed. Remember for now you can only pick up a copy via their web-site, so scoot on over there and put your order in now - you won't regret it.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:31 AM | Permalink