Leap In The Dark

I've written rather extensively about things of a rather personal nature in the past in order to offer people an example of some of the processes available to those who have suffered from some sort of trauma. I'm no expert or psychologist, all I've been able to offer is a sample of the things I've experienced and the protocols that have been employed by my doctors to help me deal with how the past continued to impact on my present in order to give me a better future. Some of them had to do with finding more appropriate means of expressing my emotions, others dealing with behaviour that might have been appropriate for survival but that could now be discarded, and others helped me in assimilating the events of the past so they wouldn't live on in my mind and my emotions.

While it's been a long slow process to deal with the crap that had accumulated; there were times I had assumed I was done only to find more buried away which required excising; after being in therapy on and for fifteen years I can finally see that I'm getting to the point where I'm capable of coping on my own. The emotional scarring and wounding may never heal completely, but I have reached a point where I'm no longer controlled by events that occurred when I was a child. Ironically the length of time it's taken to get to this point is roughly equivalent to the length of time the abuse lasted in the first place.

Now in spite of what you might have seen and heard on various day time talk shows specializing in the dissecting of people's emotions for the enjoyment of their audiences, or that believe themselves capable of dispensing the wisdom to heal everybody of what ails them, there are no cut and dried happy endings to this type of thing. While time isn't going to be able to heal all wounds, it's only through time's passage that you're going to get relief from their pain. There's no magic formulae that will speed up the process of recovery, nor is there any one method that will solve all of your problems. Anyone who says that they have discovered a system that will "cure" you is deluded at best, or at worst a liar.

Sure there are all sorts of panaceas that can make you feel better about yourself for a moment or two, but there no better than any of the other things that people take to suppress their emotions so they don't feel any pain. There's no difference between what these hucksters are offering and the drugs and booze I used for years to mask my own pain. Reciting some silly mantra, calling upon a guardian angel, or reciting an affirmation about you being worthy of love won't stop flashbacks of the abuse from occurring or help you deal with any underlying behavioural problems caused by the abuse.

However there's something even more misguided and dangerous that occurs on some of these shows. How many times have you seen staged reunions and reconciliations between long estranged family members? Great weepy scenes where people fall into each other's arms forgiving each other for past misdeeds and vowing eternal love for each other. The implication being that if only you can forgive the person who caused you pain, if they would only apologize, everything would be better.

One of the hardest things for the child of abusive parents to deal with is the reality that the happy family society tells us is the norm, was so comprehensively denied them. Most of us spent years trying to figure out what was wrong with us that made our abuser break that promise, only later understanding that it was them, not us, who were the problem. After years of trying to figure out ways of making someone else happy so they would love us, or at least leave us alone; years of being told we were only getting what we deserved; or years of having the love between a parent and child perverted into something awful, the idea of family being a shelter and a haven from the world takes quite a beating.

It's probably difficult for you to imagine what seeing one of those scenes described above feels like to somebody who spent years forgiving their abuser in the hopes tomorrow would be better. Maybe, you would tell yourself, after they apologized for what seemed like the hundredth time, they really mean it this time. Maybe the tears they shed after forcing you to have sex with them are real and they really feel remorse for their actions? Even if as a child you weren't capable of comprehending what it was you were doing exactly, by trying to love them because they were your parent, you were practising a form of forgiveness.

Therefore, the idea that forgiving somebody years later for what they did to us as a child will make things better when they didn't respond to our gestures of forgiveness at the time can't help but seem unrealistic if not stupid. Sure it makes for great television and appeals to everybody's sentimental nature, but it fails to take into account that in order to forgive someone there needs to be some sort of reciprocity of feeling. How can you forgive someone who never showed any remorse for their actions or never took any steps to change their behaviour?

There have been things I've done in my life that I've had to apologize for and I know how hollow some of them were until I was able to change my behaviour sufficiently that my actions suited my words. While there is a school of thought that says unless we learn how to forgive those who have hurt us we will never fully recover from the damage inflicted upon us, it sounds far too much like the same behaviour we practised as children in the hopes of making things better. It still feels like we're not standing up for ourselves and giving the abuser power over us. People can say all they like that forgiveness doesn't mean you condone what somebody did, but quite frankly I'd rather just have the strength to tell them to fuck off out of my life and leave me alone.

As a child I didn't have the power to do that and was forced to do whatever necessary to survive. I no longer have to surrender anything of myself to my abuser and I no longer have to try and make them happy. Asking me, or anyone to forgive their abuser, no matter what shape that forgiveness comes in, would be like asking us to return to being a victim. That's not about to happen anytime soon.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 11:10 PM | Permalink

When you look at a piece of music written out on a scale have you ever wondered how those particular notes came to represent the sounds we hear when somebody plays the piece of music written in front of you? In part it's based on the way instruments are tuned so they play a particular sound when a string, or its equivalent depending on the instrument, is depressed and vibrated. The majority of our popular music has used what's known as the Twelve Tone Equal Temperament system of tuning in order to create specific scales and octaves that allow composers to arrange those sounds into the recognizable patterns we call music.

It stands to reason there are other sounds, or notes, that exist outside of it that could just as easily be used to make music. However when they are played in concert with Twelve Tone notes, they sound so wrong we call them out of tune. Yet, there are many music traditions through-out the world that make use of those sounds without a problem, we're one of the few cultures that limit ourselves to only using those twelve tones. According to the people behind Freenote Music microtonal music, music that uses those notes not employed under the Twelve Tone system, is just as viable and can be achieved through the use of what they call Just Intonation, tunings based on what they call the pure notes of the naturally occurring Harmonic Series.

Through the simple expedient of adding more frets to the neck of a guitar or a bass, playing a fretless instrument, using alternate fingering on a wind instrument, or by experimenting with open tunings, musicians can redefine the notes they play. When a string is plucked on the guitar more than one note is actually sounded because of the harmonics created by the vibrations - how many different possibilities exist within that one resonation for creating new notes that we currently don't use in our music? Well the folk at Freenote produce records by groups like Willie McBlind, who have just released their second album of blues music, Bad Thing, using Just Intonation tuning giving us a chance to hear some of the possibilities that this systems opens up..

Willie McBlind are Jon Catler on 64 tone Just Intonation and fretless guitars, and vocals, Babe Borden on vocals, Neville L'Green bass, and Lorne Watson drums and percussion. I was curious as to whether someone like me who doesn't have a musician's ear for music, I couldn't tell you what key a song was in by listening to it, would notice an appreciable difference in the music they were playing. In other words, does it really matter whether you play the blues using the old Twelve Tone system or embrace the new Just Intonation system? On the other hand, would it still be the blues if it wasn't played using Twelve Tone - would the sound be changed so much that it would no longer trigger the same reactions that you'd get listening to Muddy Watters and B B King?

As to the first question, the answer is yes there is a definite difference in the sound of this band from that of your normal electric blues band. While you won't really make out any difference in the rhythm section, as L'Green and Watson do the needful in holding the music together. It's in the guitars and vocals where it becomes obvious that something different is happening with the music as both instruments create unexpected sounds. It's noticeable right off the top of the disc as "13 O' Clock Blues", the opening track, opens with sustained guitar work by Catler. While he plays familiar enough sounding patterns, he appears to be filling the space with more and different sounds than what you'd normally hear.

Things become even more interesting when vocalist Borden joins him and you really begin to notice just how much they have expanded upon the range of a typical blues song. Under any circumstances Borden has a great voice for the blues, powerful, expressive, and a tremendous range. She also has the control required to find and sing the notes outside of the normal scale without sounding unnatural or strained. Not only does this give her voice an added dimension when it comes to how she sounds. those extra notes seem to give her access to greater emotional depth. Listen to her on the eighth track, their cover of Willie Dixon's "It Don't Make Sense (You Can't Make Peace)" and you'll hear what I mean.

The hardest part of listening to any of the songs is that are notes both Borden and Catler hit that sound discordant because we're just not used to hearing them. However the fact that they are in harmony with each other and what the band is playing soon offsets that initial discomfort. Which begins to answer the second question as to whether what they're singing is still the blues. While there is no denying that they don't sound like the blues you've been used to hearing, there's also no denying that what they're playing is the blues as they generate the same emotional reactions as any tunes I've heard play by any blues band.

What was refreshing was the absence of the cliches dotting the work of many electric blues players, especially those with a tendency to play fast and loud. With the additional notes at their disposal it only makes sense that they are able expand upon what both a guitar and a voice can do. Even better is that they don't waste it by doing silly things like having longer or faster guitar solos or showing off of any sort. They have taken a genre already rich in emotion and found a way to make it a deeper and more fulfilling experience for both the listener and I'm sure those playing as well. Having more notes at their disposal seems to have given them the equivalent of giving a painter new colours that allow him or her to give extra texture and depth to their creation.

I have to admit that when I first read about the idea of going beyond Twelve Tone for playing the blues I was intrigued, but also doubtful as to whether it would really make that much of a difference for the listener who isn't a trained musician. However, after only a couple of listens to Willie McBride's Bad Thing it's obvious that breaking free of the constraints of Twelve Tone scales is just as liberating for the blues as its proven for any other form of music. They've brought new depth of meaning and emotion to an already passionate genre making it blues as you've never heard it before, and all the better for it.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:19 PM | Permalink

The common perception most of us have of European history from the fall of the Roman Empire until the fifteenth century is one personified by the title the period is designated as; The Dark Ages. Its depicted in our histories as being marked by the spread of the Black Plague, ignorance, and superstition. It wasn't until the miracle of the Renaissance, which literally means re-birth, that Europeans began to drag themselves out of the mud and filth and started to create beautiful art and rediscover the teachings of the ancients. Reading most standard histories of the time you could get the impression this awakening was somehow spontaneous; one morning people just woke up and looked at the world differently.

The reality is that the knowledge was never really lost and not all of Europe had descended to the same depths of ignorance, only Christian Europe. Al Andalus was the area of Spain ruled by Muslims until 1492, and during those dark ages all the so-called lost knowledge and arts were alive and kicking. Everything from the concept of zero in mathematics, philosophical concepts of the self which would have seen you burnt at the stake in Christian Europe, to the arts and music, thrived in the city states of Cordoba and others through out the region. Muslims, Christians, and Sephardic Jews lived in relative harmony and there was a free exchange of ideas and learning between scholars of all three faiths. It was from here that the knowledge which fuelled the so called Renaissance trickled into Italy, France, and other countries.

How much of this beauty and knowledge was lost when the Spanish Inquisition purged the region of heretics and non-believers by forcing Muslims and Jews to either convert, flee, or burn, will never be known. However much of the great poetry and ideas on music were preserved and passed on. The music was probably the easiest to spread as wandering minstrels and troubadours would have carried tunes and lyrics across borders and passed their ideas on. It's this music, and the poetry that sometimes supplied the lyrics for it, that forms the basis for a collection of music being released on ECM Records under the guidance of Norwegian pianist Jon Balke on June 30th in North America.

Siwan, the title of the disc, is the word for balance in Aljamiado, the Latin-Arabic hybrid language spoken in medieval Andalusia, is a collection of eleven tracks, nine of which feature the work of poets from that region married to music inspired by the era. The earliest song, "Thulathiyat" was written by the Suffi mystic Husayn Mansour Al Hallaj who lived between 857 -922 AD while Lope de Vega's "A la dina dana" demonstrates how the influences of the era lived on after the re-conquest as he lived from 1562 - 1635 and is considered one of the major voices of the golden age of Spanish literature for his plays and prose. The booklet accompanying the CD not only gives a history of each song and the poet who wrote it, but their lyrics in the language they are sung in, either Spanish or Arabic, and an English translation.

Jon Balke has an extensive background in both jazz and world music with credits including compositions for theatre, dance, and chamber orchestras. The three other main musicians, vocalist Amina Alaoui, trumpeter Jon Hassell, and violinist Kheir Eddine M'Kachiche each have experience and talent relevant to the work at hand. Alaoui and M'Kachiche are Moroccan and Algerian respectively and both have extensive backgrounds in the history and playing of the music of Al Andalus. Jon Hassell's musical experiences have seen him studying from Europe to India and he has created what he calls "fourth world" music - music without borders that combines classical,pop, secular, and sacred elements from all over the world. With these four serving as the nexus, and the rest of the musicians drawn from traditions and cultures ranging from traditional Persian to early European music like baroque and renaissance, everybody involved has had their musical experiences influenced by what was born on the Iberian peninsula.

As for the music itself, I'm struggling to find the words to describe it. If you're familiar with any of music from North Africa, Spain, Persia (modern Iran), or renaissance Europe, than you're bound to recognize elements in each song no matter what language they are sung in. In fact there are times while listening to various songs that you'll swear you've heard it before as patterns that you've heard in another context will tug at your memory. However, all of the compositions have been created for this recording. What Balke and his fellow musicians have done is compose music which reflects the depth and breadth of the influence Muslim Spain has on us to this day. It shows, no matter what anybody would have us believe, that Islam is one of the cornerstones of Western culture, as the philosophy and thought that went into the creation of the music from that region continues to strike chords of recognition with us today.

One of the great wonders of Siwan aside from the beauty of the music, is the singing of Amina Alaoui. While all the musicians are wonderful, it's around her voice that the nine tracks with lyrics live or die. The more I hear female vocalists from traditions other than North American pop or European opera, the more I realize why I've always felt there has been something lacking in our music. There's nothing forced or controlled about Alaoui's voice like what were used to. While I've always been able to admire the technical prowess of an opera voice, its lack of human warmth has always left me cold. Alaoui's voice is every bit as technically proficient as any I've heard sing opera, but she has the humanity they lack. Rich like velvet her voice also retains the rawness of human emotion that allows us to identify with her song even though we may not speak or understand the language she's singing in.

Carl Jung talked about the idea of race memory wherein we remember things that date back thousands of years through a type of collective unconscious. While some of that has been formed by specific associations like religion and language, some of it we share in common with all humans. In some ways the music on Siwan is like that as you recognize it without actually knowing any of the songs on the disc. However, what's important is the music on this disc is beautifully sung and wonderfully played. It doesn't matter what you know or don't know about history, or even if you give a damn about who influenced who. Listening to this disc is an experience that transcends any of those concerns, proving once again that regardless of what anyone thinks or does, great art exists in a world of its own.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:57 AM | Permalink

Usually when someone says something like, "I don't know much about art but I know what I like" it's an indication that their preferences are for black velvet or dogs playing poker. On the other hand when a person is faced with the barrage of sub-genres in music that seems to be the vogue these days, it's perfectly understandable for them to say, "I don't much about it, but I know the blues when I hear it". I've stopped counting how many supposedly different types of blues there are, as it seems like every region in North America, if not the world, now deems the blues played in their territory significantly unique to qualify for its own sub-category.

However, unlike painting where there is more than just a stylistic differences between a black velvet poster of Elvis and a Chagal, beneath the surface of every blues genre beats the same heart no matter how its played. How else could you explain so many different styles of music rightfully calling themselves blues if there wasn't some sort of common denominator tying music played on a solo acoustic guitar with that played by a five piece electric band with a horn section? I don't mean the chords played either. There are who knows how many, rock and roll bands, from the heaviest metal heads on down, that use the standard blues progression in their music, but you'd never call them blues bands,

No, there's an almost indescribable something blues bands and performers have that hits you solidly between the eyes letting you know they are without a doubt. a blues band. Such is the case with the latest Eddie C Campbell release on Delmark Records, Tear This World Up. Stylistically it veers all over the place, from R&B, funk, to standards like Gershwin's "Summertime", but each and every cut on the disc is undisputedly a blues song. Campbell has a long history of playing, starting off his career at a young age sitting in with Muddy Watters, and proceeding to play with a who's who of Chicago blues stars through out the fifties and sixties. However, he didn't release any recordings of his own, aside from a couple of singles with small labels, until 1977's King Of The Jungle.

Like so many other blues people before and since, Campbell sought out the bluer pastures of Europe for nearly a decade, spending most of the 1980's recording in England, Holland, and Germany, only returning to the States in 1992. Tear The World Up is his fourth release since then, and it shows just how versatile a player and singer he is. After years of playing with a variety of people, from James Brown to Howlin' Wolf, he's developed his own unique style that incorporates a little of everything he's picked up along the way. Binding it all together is his deeply felt awareness of the blues.

For like all the great players, Campbell has an intrinsic understanding of what it takes to play the blues. Listening to the fourteen tracks on this release is like taking a guided tour of the history of the blues. For he covers music from people who he's played with and known all his life like Magic Slim's "Easy Baby" and "Love Me With A Feeling" or Howlin' Wolf's "I'm Just Your Fool". However some of the best indications of his talents lie in his own compositions. Take "Big World" for example, where he stands the whole blues idiom on its head by making fun of a man complaining about his woman, but the music is as pure as any blues you'd want.

While he's not afraid of laughing at the himself, and how overwrought some blues musicians can get over their women done do them wrong songs, that doesn't mean he doesn't take his blues seriously. Listen to his "Summertime" if you think otherwise. What's wonderful about his version is that while he respects the sentiment of the original he doesn't wed himself to the slow, almost ponderous, pace that so many others seem to think it needs to be played at. Instead he takes it and makes it the uplifting song the lyrics suggest it can be. Yes birds are flying in this summertime, and the living is easy, but it's also a lot more fun than normal.

On most blues discs you're liable to hear only one style of blues being played, depending on what part of the world the musicians hail from. That's not the case with Campbell as he's equally comfortable playing in front of a full horn section as he is with just your standard four piece band. The other thing you quickly realize is he understands that the whole idea of blues music is to help you forget your troubles. While some guys, and gals, might do that by being as blue as they can be for you to help you forget your own problems, Campbell is just as likely to play a tune that will pull you to your feat and get you dancing your blues away.

There was this great photo of Campbell that came with the Delmark publicity materials that shows him from sometime in the 1970's looking like he could have just stepped off the stage from jamming with Sly Stone or Parliament. The spirit of the funk music and driving horns that propelled those two groups can be heard in his music even today. It gives his music a snap and pace that you'd not expect to find even on an electric blues recording. While there's a definite power to the usual twelve bar electric blues, too much of even the best things can start to drag after a while. So the various change of paces throughout Tear This World Up are not only a relief, but also keep you listening a lot closer than you might under normal circumstances as you wait to hear what's coming next.

Eddie C Campbell has been around the blues most of his life, and been close friends and played with the men and women we've come to associate with the sound of electric blues. However, instead of merely emulating these people Campbell has taken their sound as his starting place and pushes the blues in as many directions as he possibly can while still holding onto what makes them what they are. Not all the material on this disc may sound like what you're used to when it comes to electric blues, but don't worry, because what beats beneath the surface of each track is the heart of a true bluesman.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:13 PM | Permalink

There aren't many popular music performers who've had the strength of character to hold onto and express views or opinions that rouse the masses out of their usual state of somnolent ambivalence. While the occasional vocal minority may flail about in agitation over Janet Jackson's nipple or Madonna's plastic sex shows, there have only been a few occasions where an opinion expressed by a pop star has galvanized orchestrated outbreaks of the old lynch mob mentality. John Lennon's famous quote about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus among young people, The Dixie Chicks apologizing to a London England audience for George Bush being from Texas, and Sinead O'Connor ripping up a picture of Pope John Paul before singing Bob Marley's "War" on Saturday Night Live

So much for free speech. There's no quicker way to chill individual freedom of expression than to incite mob violence against an individual for daring to say or do something the least bit unpopular or controversial. While I'm not familiar enough with the Dixie Chicks to know how the outbreak effected their music, neither Lennon or O'Connor allowed "public opinion" to stifle their willingness to speak their minds. One only needs look at hard the FBI tried to prevent Lennon from being allowed to take up residency in the US to see how silent he became. It took a gun in the hands of a mad man to silence him. As for O'Connor her music remained as emotionally charged and painfully honest as it ever was, and she continues to be a strong voice advocating reform of the Catholic Church and condemning its complicity in child abuse.

I wonder how many of those protesting Sinead O'Connor ripping up the picture that night were the same people later protesting the behaviour of the Catholic Church in New England? Or how about all of you who find the theocracy of Iran appalling? Don't you think it a little hypocritical that you can support people demonstrating against an Islamic government, but not someone protesting against the policies of the Catholic church as personified by that Pope? Did you know that in Ireland divorces were illegal at the time O'Connor ripped up that picture because the Catholic church forbid it? Under that pope the rights of women were set back years, and he's the one who led the crusade against condom use and family planning in the the developing nations that aided and abetted overpopulation and the spread of disease which continue to ravage much of South East Asia and Africa.

All of which might seem to have little to do with the recent issuing of a special edition of the disc that first propelled Ms. O'Connor to renown. However with EMI Canada releasing I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (Limited Edition last April it's given us an opportunity to listen to not only the original album again but a second disc of remixes, previously unreleased material, and a couple of live recordings. Listening to her as she was in 1990, when this was first released and recorded, I have to wonder what had other people been hearing that they were so shocked when she ripped up that picture? Don't they hear the anger, the sadness, and the rejection of authority? Did they think they were just songs that didn't mean anything like so much other pop music?

When you listen to songs like "Feel So Different", "I Am Stretched On Your Grave", or "The Emperor's New Clothes" do you not feel how different they are from what normally passes for popular music? Her record company at the time, Ensign, certainly did. According to the introduction to the album by John Reynolds, who played drums on the album and selected the songs for the second disc in this release, they refused to release it because it was too much like reading somebody's diary. Instead of trying to convince them or coming to some sort of compromise she simply replied "Drop me". Reynolds points out the obvious when he says she wrote from her heart and about her own life, giving her music what he calls a tough to listen to factor, and she refused to moved from that path by anybody.

However, the album went to number one and sold multi-platinum in so many countries so it must have struck a chord with more than just a select few. Of course the music is compelling and O'Connor's voice is one of the wonder's of pop music with her ability to soar into the stratosphere and then pull back to a whisper without losing any of her emotional intensity. Yet, perhaps it was the majesty of her voice that allowed people to pretend in those early days of her career that she wasn't anything more than another popular singer. They could sit back and listen to her voice in wonder and not have to listen to what she was saying.

Maybe I've the advantage of hindsight listening to the material on this disc, but I still can't see how anybody could miss out on the fact that this wasn't the work of another pretty voiced pop singer. Didn't they hear the brittle edges to the beauty? The one's that are so sharp they could slice you open? Don't they hear the ghosts echoing in the spaces between the lyrics that haunt all her material? When I listened to this disc the first time years ago, and again this time, I knew nothing about O'Connor's personal life. It wasn't until after that I went to her site that I learnt about her parent's troubled marriage, the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and her being sent to reform school at fifteen, yet it's all in her songs if you're willing to listen.

That becomes even clearer on some of the tracks that John Reynolds has pulled together for the second disc of this special edition. Listen to her previously unreleased version of John Lennon's "Mind Games", and I defy you to do so without being moved to the point of tears. It's not only her passion for the message of the song that makes it so powerful, it's the fact that you can hear how much it means to her personally. It sounds like its something she yearns for, for herself as well as the world at large.

It's a symptom of our society not to listen to those things we don't want to hear or what makes us uncomfortable, until finally people like O'Connor feel forced to try and shake us from our complacency with acts guaranteed to make us pay attention. The music on I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, both in its original release and this new Limited Edition, is some of the most poignant you're liable to hear. Maybe now, almost twenty years after its first release, people will be willing to listen to it. I hope so because Sinead O'Connor was, and remains. one of the few voices out there worth listening to.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:56 AM | Permalink

I remember how surprised I was when I first listened to the Miles Davis version of the Gershwin Opera Porgy and Bess. I don't know what I had been expecting, but I don't think it had been such a straight orchestral performance of the music. The Miles I had known at the time was the Miles of the late sixties and seventies - the music that had been the inspiration for groups like Weather Report. So this was a Miles Davis I had never heard before. However it's the type of music that brought him his initial renown, so when the opportunity arose to travel back to that time again via the newly released Legacy Recordings of Sketches Of Spain I jumped at it.

The Legacy edition of Sketches Of Spain is a two disc affair, with disc one containing the sides that were originally released back in 1960 plus "Song Of Our Country" that was recorded during those sessions but not released until 1980. Disc two contains out takes from the recording sessions plus the only live performance ever given of "Concierto de Aranjuez" (Adagio) by Miles and orchestra, and "Teo" a piece from the album Someday My Prince Will Come which Davis wrote in honour of Sketches' producer Teo Macero. Included on disc one is a PDF file which includes photos from the recording sessions, production notes taken during the sessions by Macero, and newspaper articles written about the album. While all the music has been released at one time or another previously, this represents the first time it has been gathered together in one collection.

For those wishing to read a thorough dissecting of the music on both discs, and an in depth analysis of the recording sessions, the extensive liner notes written by Gunther Schuller, composer, performer, and educator, are sure to please. A former French horn player, Schuller played on both Birth Of The Cool and the aforementioned Porgy and Bess, and he's also a jazz historian. While I'm not usually a fan of the deconstruction of a recording session after the fact type of notes, Schuller's are an exception. They offer both a professional and personal perspective that make them far more comprehensive than what you'd usually find in a package of this type.

As the title suggests the music on Sketches Of Spain was highly influenced by Spanish compositions. In fact "Concierto de Aanjuez" (Adagio) was written by the Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo and the second track, "Will O' The Wisp", is an excerpt from Manuel de Falla's ballet El Amor Brujo (Love By Sorcery). As the first and second tracks of the recording respectively they set the mood for the rest of album and obviously influenced composer and arranger Gil Evans' own compositions which made up the last three (four if you include "Song Of The Country") tracks on the album.

Now that was the other big surprise for me concerning this album, Davis hadn't written any of the music for it. After years of hearing of this album I had been under the impression that it was a Miles Davis record in the sense that he had written the music as well as performed on it. In reality this is as much Gil Evans' recording as it is Davis', for anything he didn't write he arranged. True he created the arrangements with Davis in mind, transposing the guitar leads of Rodrigo's composition for Davis' trumpet, but it was his creative spark responsible for this album's existence. Yet even on this anniversary edition of the recording Evans is only given secondary billing on the cover as arranger and conductor - with no mention of his role as composer.

Of course there's good reason for Davis to receive top billing on this album as it is his horn playing that people are shelling out the money to hear. On Sketches he plays both trumpet and flugel horn and in either case his playing is some of the sweetest trumpet sounds you'll hear. Trumpets, as befits their status as brass instruments, normally have a brassy sound that I find particularly grating at times. Davis has the ability to smooth out his sound so that instead of the almost piercing quality that so many players seem apt to produce, all sharp edges and somewhat harsh, his playing is smooth, round and easier on the ears, while at the same time able to convey a great deal of emotion.

It's a style of playing that's ideally suited to the music being played on this disc with its overtones of sadness and the overall muted tone of the music. Even at those times when his playing increases in volume or emotional intensity it does so with a subtlety and grace that allows the listener ample time to adjust to, and appreciate, the new levels. Davis seems to have a relationship with the music that goes beyond that of someone merely playing notes. It's as if each note has its own existence independent of the rest, and he cradles that life in his hands for just the right amount of time to allow it to fulfil its purpose in a piece of music.

This isn't the wild experimental music of a John Coletrane, the be-bop of Charlie Parker, or even the fusion music that Davis came to be identified with later in life. The type of orchestral jazz music that predominates on Sketches Of Spain degenerated in later years into the bland offerings of Las Vegas. However, as we see here, when in the hands of artistic geniuses like Davis and Evans this style of music rivals both the finest creations of classical composers and contemporary jazz. It's no coincidence that of the three albums these two men did together two of them included pieces originally created for full orchestras., Porgy and Bess and this one Sketches Of Spain.

If you only ever have heard the music of Miles Davis from the later stages of his career, than this recording will come as somewhat of a surprise to you. However, you can also hear all those aspects of his playing that made him such a pleasure to listen to at any stage of his life. The bringing together of all the various bits and pieces associated with the recording sessions that produced Sketches Of Spain in one collection is long overdue, and is indeed part of Miles Davis' legacy. This is a must have for anyone who considers themselves either a jazz or Miles Davis fan.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:57 AM | Permalink

Some musicians are content with playing the same type of music over and over again. Once they discover a sound that works for them or something that sells they stick with it. While they might mix it up slightly every so often so they don't get board, they'll usually stay within the perimeters they have defined for themselves. Once in a while though you'll get a musician who is never content with just doing one thing and has other projects operating on the side while keeping their main one going. While a lot of people who front their own band also play with others, not many play in other people's bands and lead two completely different bands as well.

Jazz flautist Nicole Mitchell is probably best known for her work with her jazz band Black Earth Ensemble. However they're the only band she's been leading over the last few years. Now, for the first time, she and the Black Earth Strings can be heard on CD. Renegades, their first disc, was released in May on Delmark Records and it shows why Mitchell is considered one of today's foremost jazz musicians.

With all sixteen tracks on the disc being composed and arranged by Mitchell we get a good idea of not only her creativity but her versatility as both a performer and a composer. On Renegades you'll hear everything from the discordance of free-form avant-garde to the echoes of 19th century spirituals as Mitchell explores the meaning of the CD's title. In some ways their music is a bit of a renegade itself, for when was the last time you heard of a jazz quintet made up of flute, violin, cello, bass, and drums/percussion? Mitchell is something of a renegades on her own anyway, for how many women do you know leading jazz ensembles today who play something other than piano or merely sing?

Right from the opening track, "Crossroads", you know you're in for something different from what you're used to, as the song opens with the faint echoes of a bell like instrument over which the violin and cello start chopping out a staccato beat. They are joined by a drum being played in counter point and the sound builds with Mitchell's flute swirling in on top. Just when we are beginning to become comfortable with the swirling of the flute, it falls away, as do the rest of the instruments until we're left with only the drum speaking its insistent rhythm. However, it's not the drum that ends up ending the song - as the music builds once more to a crescendo of flute and strings to end with a bang and not a fade to black.

I'm sure the majority of us think of the flute as a lovely melodic instrument and associate stringed instruments like the violin and cello with symphonic elegance. Well you're going to be in for a big surprise from these renegades as they take these instruments to places you've not heard them taken before. Renee Baker on violin and viola, Tomeka Reid cello, Josh Abrams bass, and Shirazette Tinnin on drums and percussion take their lead from Mitchell's flute in pushing the envelop of what their instruments are capable of. They never quite go over the edge into discordance, but on occasion they skirt so closely that you can hear they are only a step away from falling from music into noise.

However it's that ability to keep away from the edge, not falling over the precipice into complete disharmony, that makes them so exciting to listen to. The title track of the disc, "Renegades" is a perfect example of this as almost every bar skirts with leaving behind what we would call music and descending into chaos. Yet no matter how disjointed it may sound in places, a sense of melody and tune can always be discerned. Its an incredible explosion of sound and fury expressing their willingness to break free of all boundaries and take chances that very few others who have played their instruments have ever taken.

In contrast to the wildness of "Renegades", are songs like the ninth track on the disc, "Wade", inspired by the old spiritual, "Wade In The Water". In the liner notes Mitchell talks of how that old song was instructions for run away slaves to make sure they waded deep in water so they could escape the hounds sent out to track them down. There's a story in the music of this song; the story of people trying to make their way to freedom. Listening we can hear their exhaustion and stress; you can almost see them creeping slowly through the night as they keep their eyes and ears open for any signs of their hunters. Somehow the five instruments in Black Earth Strings manage to bring to life the whole experience of what it was like to be on the run; the fear of recapture and the hope for freedom

Aside from the quality of their musicianship, what also amazed me about the performances on this disc was the diversity of sound that these five musicians were able to create. I wasn't really quite sure what to expect from a quintet made up of these instruments, but I didn't think they would have been able to create the variety of sounds and atmospheres that are on this disc. I've always thought of violins, cellos, and flutes as being rather singular sounding; not capable of creating a great deal of diversity. So I was constantly being surprised at what I heard from song to song in terms of the sounds and textures generated by their playing.

I've heard any number of modern and classical string quartets and ensembles. From the modern sounds of the Kronos Quartet playing Jimi Hendrix to traditional groups playing a typical repertoire of Beethoven and Bach. However I can honestly say I've never heard anything quite like Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Strings before. A fusion of classical, jazz, contemporary composition, avant-garde jazz, and traditional rhythms bound together by a spirit of adventure and a willingness to take chances make them one of the more exciting and interesting combos of musicians that you're liable to hear in any genre. If you're willing to be taken places by music you've never gone before than these people are more than willing to be your guides. It's an experience unlike any you've ever had before and well worth having.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:12 PM | Permalink

It's now been fifty-six years since Robert Koester founded Delmark Records in St. Louis back in 1953. For any independent record label to have lasted that long is pretty amazing, for it to be one that's dedicated itself primarily to the music of one city is damn near a miracle. Yet since he moved down river from St. Louis to Chicago the majority of records produced by Koester's label have featured musicians playing in and around that city. What makes this story even twice as remarkable is that no matter what the winds of fashion have dictated or the whims of the marketplace have suggested, the label has never once deviated from producing the jazz and blues Bob started selling our of his college dormitory room.

Although Koester has supplemented his own recordings by buying up other companies old masters and issuing the occasional re-release, the majority of titles issued on the Delmark label have been recorded in either their own facilities or live from the stage of one of Chicago's clubs. So it was only fitting when they gathered to celebrate Delmark's fifty-fifth anniversary of recording blues records that they would do so in the club owned and operated by one of Chicago's biggest name in blues, Buddy Guy's Legends. In May of 2009 It Aint Over: Delmark Celebrates 55 Years Of Blues, as either a CD or DVD, was released to commemorate that party held on March 7th 2008. Not only did the party include performances by some of Delmark's finest, Chicago's mayor, Richard Daley, issued a proclamation marking that day as Delmark Records Day in Chicago, and the label was given a Grammy Hall of Fame Award for their 1965 recording of Junior Wells' Hoodoo Man Blues.

While all the accolades are great, what everybody was there for that night was to celebrate the music that Delmark has released over the years. While the DVD contains a few extra tracks by some of the performers, the line-up on it and the CD are the same, representing a cross section of the talent you'll have heard and continue to hear from Delmark. If you're new to the label, and unfamiliar with the Chicago blues scene, you might not recognize many of the names performing. However anyone whose been following Delmark for even the shortest of times will find lots of familiar faces; Zora Young, Jimmy Johnson, Little Arthur Duncan, Lurrie Bell, Eddie Shaw, Aaron Moore, and, of course, Tail Dragger.

The great thing about Chicago blues, and more specifically Delmark blues, is the community of musicians it has created. While some of the performers at Buddy Guy's that night had their own bands, the majority of them used what for many of us has come to be recognized as the Delmark house band. The rhythm section of Kenny Smith on drums and Bob Stroger on bass held down the fort for the majority of the high flyers on this night, and on most songs they were joined by Roosevelt Purifoy on keyboards. While there was a little more variety in the guitar players, one name appears on the credits for this night far more often than anybody else, Lurrie Bell.

If there were anyone who might be considered a star on the Delmark label it would probably be Lurrie, although he might be the last to admit it. Whether he's the front man, handling the vocals and lead guitar as he does with "Don't You Lie To Me" and "Reconsider Baby", or supplying his guitar work for another's performance, his work is some of the best you'll ever see. I've seen and heard him play now ever since I heard my first Delmark recording, and I've yet to hear him play any of the standard, cliched, blues guitar leads. I've never figured out why so many guitar players don't seem to realize their instrument has a neck that extends quite some distance away from the body of their guitar and they can play notes up at that other end. Lurrie Bell not only knows this, he also gives a clinic in how to play a lead that compliments a song without stealing it away from whomever is doing the singing

While Lurrie represents a polished form of urban blues the same can't be said for either Tail Dragger or Little Arthur Duncan. Tail Dragger howls and growls his songs as he strolls through the audience. Flamboyant and extravagant as he may be, there's still no one who quite matches him for putting his heart and soul into his performances. You know when he flops down into his chair between songs he needs his rest. However, he jumps right back up as soon as the opening chords for the next song start, ready to put his all out there again. Little Arthur is another of those old time singers whose voice seems to be connected directly with his heart and soul when he sings. Perched on his chair downstage, either blowing his harp or singing his heart out, his material drives right through you and pins you back in your seat.

It's not only men on the Delmark label, and both Zora Young, who opens the show, and Shirley Johnson remind you that for every man whose felt the blues because of a woman, there's a woman who has been made to feel blue because of some man. When you listen to either of these wonderful voiced women sing, you'll wonder at the injustice of a world that will make stars out of squeaky voiced child or some so called pop diva, while ignoring them. They both can reach down deep to power a song, but they never go over the top or succumb to the bouts of hysteria that seems to pass for emotion among too many female singers in popular music today.

In the optional commentary supplied by Bob Koester for the DVD he talks about how its always been a performer's voice that's attracted him over the years. It doesn't matter if they're saxophone players like Eddie Shaw, or guitarists like Jimmy Johnson, each and everyone of the performers on this recording has a voice that reaches out and pulls you into the song they're singing. You couldn't ignore them if you wanted to. Like all the previous Delmark recordings that I've heard, both the DVD and the CD have impeccable sound. Again and again Delmark has proven they are more than a match for the big labels when it comes to ensuring the highest quality of sound and video in everything they produce. The only difference is that with a Delmark production the performers you hear are so good that you don't pay any attention to whether the sound is surround or mono - they'll blow you away no matter what.

If you've never been to Chicago and inside a blues bar, experience the next best thing, pick up any DVD or live CD from the Delmark label. If you want a great sampling of what they have on offer, It Ain't Over!: Delmark Celebrates 55 Years Of Blues either on CD or DVD will fill that bill. The only problem either of them is the disc hasn't been made that can hold all the great music that comes out of this great Chicago label.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:31 AM | Permalink

The first time I came across what's come to be known as "remixing" was back in the late 1970's and early 1980's. The Clash's album Black Market Clash featured what were called "Dubbed" versions of a couple songs. Dubbing, like today's remixes, involved taking the tracks originally laid down for a song in the studio and restructuring them to create different versions of the same song. In those primitive times that mainly seemed to involve manipulating the vocal tracks and laying down extra bass and rhythm tracks to accentuate the already heavy beats of reggae music.

To be honest most dubbed, remixed, and extended remixes of songs have left me cold in the past as there hasn't seemed to have been any real artistry involved in the process. Nobody has written any new music or created any new lyrics, they've simply taken something that somebody else wrote and played around with it. At least that's been the impression I've had until I heard Johnny Cash Remixed. Originally released in the United States at the beginning of 2009, it's now being released as a special CD/DVD combo on the Ear Music label in England on June 15th/09. As the title suggests the collection features remixes of some of Cash's best known tunes.

Now there are those who are going to consider it sacrilege to play around with Johnny Cash's music, and the producer of this little venture, Cash's son John Carter Cash, understands this. The DVD included in this package is a documentary about the making of the CD and on it Cash jr. says that his father was all about doing things his own way and pushing the envelope when it came to music, so this project was an attempt to honour that spirit. Judging by some of the interviews with the people who did some of the remixes on the disc, they all had a difficult time in overcoming their respect for the material in order to tamper with it all. They not only realized how important the original music was to a lot of people, but they themselves had nothing but respect for Johnny Cash.

As I mentioned earlier re-mixes are normally made by working with the individual tracks from the original recording. However in this case all the material that was being remixed had been recorded without the benefit of multiple tracks like you would have in a modern studio. When Cash cut these songs for Sun Records in the 1950's everything was recorded "live" in the studio with the whole band being recorded simultaneously. So the challenge for the guys doing the remixes was they couldn't break the songs down into their parts, but were forced to come up with ways of working with the entire song.

My original fear that the disc would end up being a collection of base heavy, dance hall songs that had little or nothing to do with the original music was thankfully unfounded as each of the teams involved with doing a re-mix found a way to hang onto the essence of the original song. That doesn't mean that they sound like the original material, for although there's a few like the version of "Big River" done by the duo Count De Money which have kept the song pretty much intact and merely added some touches, there are others where the song is virtually unrecognizable as the original. While that may shock purists, I would ask that you think about what you prefer when you hear a band cover someone else's material. Would you rather hear them do a faithful, note by note reproduction of the original song, or would you rather hear them re-interpret it?

So instead of re-interpreting the songs in the traditional way by recording them anew with new musicians, what these people have done is use technology. Some of them have laid down new vocal tracks, added in other instruments, or augmented the rhythm with beat boxes and drum machines, but they've all stretched and pulled the original material like toffee to change the sound and texture of the material. What I found especially interesting was the number of ways in which they found to carry out this process, and how they were able to make each of them work as well as they did.

I'm sure one of the last people most would expect to hear doing a Cash song would be hip hop performer Snoop Dog, but not only did he contribute a version of "Walk The Line", he was also co-executive producer for the project. He set up his version of the song as a duet between himself and Cash, so that he'd rattle off lines that he built based around the song, and then cut to the original version with Johnny singing a verse. There are some wonderful shots of Snoop Dog on the DVD out at Cash's cabin looking both completely incongruous wearing his LA Lakers singlet, but somehow also looking right at home at the same time.

Which pretty much sums up the whole recording; somehow each of the individuals or groups working on the songs have managed to find a way to make something that really shouldn't have worked, work. It's hard to remember now that Cash has become such an icon that he was once something of an outsider and his material wasn't considered acceptable by a fair bit of the country music establishment. People like Snoop Dog and Pete Rock, who does a great version of "Folsom Prison Blues", struggled, and still do struggle, to be accepted by the mainstream, and have no problem identifying with Cash. Musically they may be miles apart from what Cash was doing at Sun Records in the 1950's, but on another level all of these guys have more in common with Johnny than most of today's so called country stars.

When you listen to Johnny Cash Remixed you're not going to hear covers of his songs. What you're going to hear are some classic tunes taken apart and put back together again in ways that may not be instantaneously recognizable but that have the same intent as the originals. I'm sure there are going to be those who won't be able to get there heads around the idea of anyone messing with Johnny's music. However if you approach this with an open mind, and your ears wide open, you can't help but appreciate the work of all those involved. In fact, you might just gain an even deeper appreciation for the original tunes hearing them performed in ways you've never heard before.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 12:00 PM | Permalink

Documentary movies about individuals can be tricky things as you either have to rely on your subject for the information you require to make it interesting, or third parties who may or may not have their own particular agenda. Most individuals are going to want to present themselves in the best light possible, so even when they talk about their flaws they'll come across as being heroic for talking about how screwed up they are. However, there are those few individuals who have no agenda and merely content to tell their story as honestly as possible. When you see them on camera you can't help but liking them and wanting to hear more of what they have to say,

When director Lech Kowalski was making his film about the late New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders, Born To Lose, one of those he interviewed was the late Dee Dee Ramone, former basest with the seminal New York punk band the Ramones. Shot back in 1992 the footage was compiled into a sixty-three minute film in 2003, the year following Dee Dee's death of an apparent heroin overdose, called Hey Is Dee Dee Home. Now, six years latter, MVD Video has released the DVD/CD package, History On My Arms, which contains not only the documentary Hey Is Dee Dee Home, but a short feature showing Kowalski and Dee Dee preparing for the shoot called History On My Arms, and a third piece Vom In Paris. As originally the Dee Dee footage was shot to discuss Johnny Thunders, Dee Dee spends part of his time on camera talking about his experiences trying to form a "super - punk" band with Johnny and Stiv Bators in Paris. Vom Ritchie was going to be the drummer in that supper group and in his piece he gives his version of the same events.

The title of the DVD/CD package, and the short film about Dee Dee, History On My Arms comes from reference Dee Dee makes to his tattoos and "tracks" (the marks left by collapsed veins caused by intravenous drug use) being his history on his arms. He traces the history of his tattoos for us at one point, telling us when and how he had them done, and at the same time giving us a taste of what his life was like at those points in time. You began to get an even clearer idea of how things were for him though when he starts talking about doing drugs and he says, words to the effect of "What else was there for us to do but get stoned"?

A typical day in the life of Dee Dee Ramone from the time period in question - which is never really made clear by the way, but I have to assume was late 1970's early 1980's - revolved around acquiring the means to score drugs, scoring drugs, and either doing gigs or going to gigs. Either way there would be more drugs and booze involved. The usual cast of characters who Dee Dee was hanging out with in those days were Richard Hell and a couple of others, with Johnny Thunders sort of deigning to hang out with them now and again. This was one of the first indications that Dee Dee wasn't all that thrilled with Thunders when he talks about those times. He felt that Thunders didn't treat him as an equal, for in spite of the fact that the Ramones were at the time doing really well Thunders still played the Rock and Roll Star, wanting Dee Dee to score him drugs and acting like he was doing them a favour by hanging out with them.

While the overall impression we get of Dee Dee is of an almost child like naivety when it comes to certain aspects of the world, there's also an element of immaturity as he sounds like a petulant child when he talks about various aspects of his relationships with other people. While the impression we get of him in the short History On My Arms is that of someone who we want to like as he's genuinely having fun with the film crew as they're setting up for the shoot, what peaks through in Hey Is Dee Dee Home changes that some what. Especially after he gives his version of what happened in Paris between him, Stiv Bators, Johnny Thunders, and the others involved in that project.

While the accusations of theft against various people can be understood, as he'd already described how he used to steal from his roommates when he was hard up for cash and needed a fix, so you can see how he could easily believe other people capable of doing the same thing if he thought they were using heroin. However when he started rambling on about how the apartment that Stiv and his girlfriend had in Paris where he was staying was possessed by the devil, and there was something evil about it, you began to wonder about his reliability as an impartial witness to events. (On the Wikipedia entry for the Ramones there's a brief mention of Dee Dee suffering from bi-polar illness which would explain some of his more outrageous claims about Paris.)

As a point of comparison in Vom In Paris Vom Ritchie, who has obvious and genuine affection for Dee Dee, is embarrassed by some of the accusations that Dee Dee had levelled against Spiv and his girlfriend Carol. According to Vom, Stiv had paid for Dee Dee and his girlfriend to come to Paris, had bought Dee Dee a bass to play for the sessions as he had shown up without any instruments, and was supplying them with room and board in his apartment. The real problem, according to Vom, was an old animosity between Dee Dee and Thunders based on Thunders taking credit for the song "Chinese Rocks" (slang for heroin) which Dee Dee wrote..

What the three movies capture, which very few documentaries about an individual very rarely do, is the essence of Dee Dee Ramone. This was just an ordinary guy from Queens who ended up in the spotlight as a rock and roll star. He had no idea what to do with himself when he wasn't making music and turned to drugs to pass the time and fill the hours. On the one hand we see a guy who is honest enough to not make any excuses for his drug use and self destructive behaviour or to make out like it was some great romantic adventure. Yet, he also has the emotional maturity of a child who desperately wants to be liked, who lashes out when things don't go his way.

Perhaps Kowalski was able to create such an honest portrait of Dee Dee Ramone because he wasn't supposed to be the subject of the film. When he talked on camera there was none of the self-consciousness usually so evident when people talk about themselves, and perhaps that's because everything was being told in reference to someone else - in this case Johnny Thunders. Although it's quite possible that Dee Dee would have been as candid even if he was the subject of the film, because at that point in his life he seemed willing to talk as honestly as was possible for him about any subject that the director wished. In the end, there's something quite sad about Dee Dee, and you wish for his sake that things could have turned out better for him than they did.

While the bonus CD is basically nothing more than extended versions of the the soundtrack of the two short films, it along with the three short movies that make up History On My Arms all contribute to forming this very complete portrait of Dee Dee Ramone. He may not be the tragic figure so many want him to be, but the man we meet in these films would only have laughed at that notion anyway. This is a very real, warts and all portrayal of one of punk's pioneers, that reminds us that there were human beings behind the noise and confusion trying to find their way through just like the rest of us.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:04 PM | Permalink

I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised to learn that there were Jewish communities in India. After all its close enough to the Middle East that it would have been easy for people to end up there accidentally or on purpose during one of the many times of forced exile. According to legend over 2,000 years ago a shipwreck landed a group of Jews fleeing Greek persecution off the coast of India. Although they lost many of their books during the ship wreck they preserved an oral tradition of major prayers like the declaration of faith, Shema Yisroel, and the prayer to Eliyahu Hannibi or the prophet Elijah.

As strict adherents to the laws dictated by God to Moses, Jews are prohibited from worshipping idols or graven images of anything or anyone. However in her introduction to her most recent novel, Shalom India Housing Society published by The Feminist Press, Esther David informs us that the Bene Israel Jews (Children of Israel) of India had taken the prophet Elijah to their hearts. Perhaps, she speculates, that on finding themselves living in a country surrounded by images of a multitude of gods, elders created the cult of Elijah in order to help preserve Judaism.

Elijah not only will herald the coming of the Messiah, but each year he visits every Jewish household during the Passover feast to drink from the glass of wine left as his offering. At one point during the Seder, as the ritual Passover meal is known, the door to the house will be opened to let Elijah know that it's all right for him to enter and have his drink. In Bene Israel houses, unlike those of other Jews, there's usually a picture of the prophet on a wall of the house. It's common practice for these families to offer prayers to Elijah, asking him to intervene in their lives to help them with everything from their love lives to making sure their children do well in school. Sometimes he answers and other times he doesn't, and sometimes his answers don't come in quite the way hoped for.

In the twenty-first century the descendants of those shipwrecked have seen their numbers depleted by immigrations to Israel, but they continue to attend synagogue, fall in love, and live their lives watched over by the spirit of Elijah. Following the religious riots of 2002 the Bene Israel in Ahmedabad created a distinct community for themselves by constructing the Shalom India Housing Society apartment complex. While not specifically targeted by either Muslim or Hindu, the Jews felt at risk from mob violence when it was observed how a group of radical Hindu's stripped a Muslim boy and then killed him when they found he was circumcised. It was hoped that by living in an area designated as Jewish they would be safe from being mistaken for Muslims.

David guides us through the Jewish community in Ahmedabad by introducing us to the various inhabitants of the Shalom India Housing Society. It's only fitting, because of the importance that the Bene Israel people place on him, that we first see their households through the eyes of the prophet Elijah. It's the first night of Passover and Elijah is making the rounds of all the Jewish households in the world in order to drink the glass of wine left for him. As his spirit enters each of the various apartments in the building he comments on the quality of the offering left for him (he's not above jogging the occasional elbow here and there if it looks like somebody is being less than generous). While his pleasure at such offerings of Chivas Regal, neat gin, and a good red wine are quite genuine, he's also disturbed by the disquiet he senses in more than a few apartments.

The first few chapters focus on the preparations being made for the costume competition being held at the synagogue for the younger people. As is the case in so many families conflicts differences between the more traditional older generation and the modern younger generation are causing no end of problems. Leon wants to dress as his favourite Bollywood starlet, complete with skirt, a blouse of his mother's, and a padded bra. However his father takes one look at him, adjusting his breasts and shaking a hip, and he's reaching for his cane to beat his child. Leon's mother had hoped that her son's fascination with women's clothes and make-up as a boy was just a child's playing, but when he continued to experiment with her clothes and cosmetics as a teenager, even the most doting of mothers can't help but realize it's more than just a phase.

Rivka and Yehuda aren't the only ones to be troubled by their child, as parents through-out the complex look on aghast as their children push against convention. While it's one thing for Yael to disobey her mom and aunt by wearing a backless shirt that also shows off her waist and a dancing girl's skirt, it's another thing altogether when Juliet wanted to marry Rahul. As there weren't enough Jews for all the apartments in the Shalom India Housing Society, it had been decided that Block B would be made available to sympathetic non-Jews like Rahul's family the Abhirams. The Abraham and Abhiram families were close, and their children had played together since they were toddlers, but it was still a shock to everyone when Juliet was caught in bed with Rahul.

Of course it's not only young people who have troubles in the Shalom India Housing Society. Mother-in-laws quarrel with their son's wives, husbands worry about what their wives are getting up to when their away, and a lonely widow debates about whether she could possibly date a non-Jew. While there's something genuinely exotic reading about Jews wearing Saris and talking about Bollywoood movies, the people in this book aren't made out to be anything extraordinary. This is their life and they have been leading it for two thousand some years. David has done such a wonderful job in bringing these people to life that while we may not be able to identity with the idea of an arranged marriage, or the need to marry within one's own community, we can still relate to the feelings of the characters we meet.

Shalom India Housing Society brings a community alive through the lives of its people. David has opened the doors of the apartments in this Bene Israel complex, and like the prophet Elijah we are able to slip in unseen and sit at their tables and observe their lives. While we may not get the opportunity to imbibe quite as much as the prophet does, (and boy is he hung over the day after the first Seder) we are treated to a healthy feast for the senses as we become everybody's confidant and party to all of their secrets. By the end of the book you'll know all about this group of Indian Jews and their unique circumstances which sees them having both maintained their traditions and embraced the culture of the country they've settled in. A delight to read, and an education as well, Esther David's new book is like being dropped down into the midst of an extended family's reunion. You might not know everybody when you first get there, but it's only a matter of time before you feel right at home.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 11:13 AM | Permalink

I've always had something of a problem political art. Far too often people expect you to lose your objectivity and only look at the message, not at how the message is delivered. It's like all of a sudden we're supposed to forget about the quality of the art because the message is so important. Maybe I'm just an elitist snob, but it pisses me off when people expect you to say how wonderful something they did was because it was about this or that, not because it was a beautifully written story or exquisitely drawn illustration.

I'm in agreement with saying art should hold a mirror up to society and there's nothing wrong with deliberately setting out to create a piece of art that makes a political statement. However, it's equally important for whomever is doing the creation that he or she are able to set aside the issue that originally inspired them and be able to focus on how best to communicate it for an audience. No matter what you do, though, creating political art is such a difficult balancing act, as you try to meet the needs of both the art and the issue you're dealing with, that not many can pull off.

However, if you're interested in seeing an example of one artist who does an exemplary job of accomplishing it check out the recent release from Perceval Press, US Future States Atlas by visual artist Dan Mills. Subtitled "An Atlas Of Global Imperialism" the book gathers together a series of satirical maps Mills created delineating countries the United States could invade in the future and annex as additional states in the union.

For each country, or "state", Mills has taken an actual image of it from an atlas and then begun its transformation into being part of United States Global (USG).(Note: USA + USG = United States Empire (USE)) First, if these new states are more than one country, made up of bits and pieces of a few adjacent countries, or as in the case of "New Venice" (formally Venezuela) divided up into separate states, their new boundaries have to be defined on the atlas. The new regions are painted in either one or a few exceptionally garish colours that make them stand out from those in their immediate vacinity.While in some instances it makes them appear to be a mockery of the way in which relief maps designating altitude and geographical formations are drawn, the distinctiveness of the colours also puts me in mind of the way in which maps used to designate countries that were once part of the British Empire with bright pink. Even in post colonial days you could look at a world map and spot Commonwealth countries, former colonies who still wanted to be part of the same club, dotted all over the world.

In fact if you turn to the back of the book you'll see that Mills has created two new maps of the world, one of which depicts the countries of USE picked out in a sickly purple, washed out blue, and shades of green. The other is crammed full of initials as it designates all the territories through abbreviations. Looking at the new map of the world where the fourty-seven new states appear like random blotches against a pale background it's hard to find any rhyme or reason for why these particular spots were chosen to become parts of the new empire.

Not to worry, for on each of the individual maps of the new states Mills has outlined the reasons why this particular country was chosen to become part of USE, and the benefits to be derived by USA, or US50, from their inclusion. These include everything from the geo-political, a country is situated such that an American presence can easily exert influence on a region of the world, to the natural resources made available through their inclusion. Of course one country can't just annex another without so much as a by your leave, I mean wasn't the first Gulf War fought because Iraq annexed Kuwait?

That's all right Mills has covered those bases as well. For on each map he's itemized the reasons for US50 to take over the country. Take the new state of Panama Canal as an example. First of all the country of Panama wouldn't have existed without US aid in the first place as they were part of Columbia until 1903 and only seceded with American aid. Immediately upon declaring sovereignty they gave the US control over a swathe of land through the middle of the country until 1999 in order to build the canal and run it. Therefore a good chunk of the country was ruled by America for the majority of its existence anyway. Aside from that it will fulfil the need for military bases in the region to assist in future plans for the region and provide a beach head in Central America.

With his US Future States Atlas Mills has created a wickedly biting satire of America foreign policy dating back to the days of the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny. In the later parts of the twentieth century and early twenty-first we've seen the US invade countries all over the world with impunity for what has turned out to be the most spurious of rationale. Somalia, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq have all been treated to visits by American armies since the 1980s, while other countries have had to deal with forces armed and funded by various US governments. His creations are not only visually arresting with their garish colours, but they also provide insightful and intelligent commentary on American foreign policy and how truly ridiculous some of the rationale given for those previous actions has been.

Perceval Press has done its usual masterful job of presenting artwork in a book form. The works are laid out in such a way that we are able to see both their scope and the detail of each piece. Blow ups of the actual states themselves allow us to appreciate the lurid details of the colours Mills has chosen to illuminate them with, while the scale reproductions of each map are clear enough that we can make out details like the accompanying text. US Future States Atlas accomplishes the delicate act of balancing of art and politics with grace and style. While that's in large part due to Dan Mills' sensibilities, Perceval Press has to be given some credit as well as they have created an effective and accessible means for people to view the artist's work.

US Future States Atlas can be purchased directly from Perceval Press.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:41 AM | Permalink

There's a literary tradition of creating a series of stories that are tied together by their location. By creating a series of vignettes featuring the lives of a variety of individuals who live in a community the author attempts to leave readers with an overall impression of what life is like in the locale. Probably the most famous of these types of collections were Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg Ohio and James Joyce's Dubliners. Although from different worlds, and stylistically miles apart, both men brought their chosen cities to life in ways that left indelible impressions upon the reader.

In Between The Assassinations, published by Simon And Schuster Canada, Aravind Adiga tries his hand at the same thing with the city of Kittur on the south west coast of India. The assassinations of the title refer to the 1984 death of Indira Gandhi and the killing of her son Rajiv seven years later in 1991. While neither event has any direct bearing on the course of action in this book, they were of course important events in the history of India. Sandwiched between the two, the "life as normal" scenes depicted by Adiga, are a history of a sort that you don't normally read in text books.

Adiga has laid the book out as if it were a tourist guide to the region. He starts off by telling you that in order to properly "do" Kittur you need seven days, and the book is divided up into those seven days. While some areas of the city might take a full day to explore, others only take part of a day, so you'll find some chapters will take a whole day and others only a morning or an afternoon. Needless to say the guidebook descriptions for each chapter are rather tongue in cheek as the landmarks include a pornographic movie theatre, a cathedral that's never been completed, a historic monument that's fallen into disrepair, and violent slum. Kittur seems best known for being half way between a couple of other places and having a very high population of lower caste Hoyka people. In fact of the total population of Kittur only 89 people self identify as being without religion or caste.

Therefore it shouldn't be of much surprise that caste, class, and religion play a role in the majority of the stories. Everything that occurs in the city does under their shadow and they're a constant presence lurking in the backs of people's minds. For in Kittur your place is very closely defined and even thinking about crossing the line could result in disaster. It's all right for a servant to make himself indispensable, but to try and be treated as an equal and see what happens.

Like any good tour guide Between The Assassinations divides your seven day sojourn in Kittur up by location. However your guides change by day and location, and the perspective they offer on the sites they are responsible for showing off isn't one that you'd normally find offered by the standard tour companies. How many companies would use an unskilled labourer like George D'Souza to show you around the famous unfinished cathedral? Nor would many be likely to hire the student who exploded a bomb in his science class to show you around the well known Jesuit school St. Alfonso's Boys' High School and Junior College. No they'd be more likely to hire the assistant headmaster Mr. D'Mello instead, a firm disciplinarian who after more than thirty years of teaching can anticipate what mischief young men can get up to before they even know themselves. Although they may not have had him lead a group of adolescent boys on a tour of the infamous "Angels' Talkies" pornographic cinema.

I'm also certain most tour companies wouldn't have on their agendas the sights our guides show us in and around the locales they represent. How many tourists are going to want visit the back allies where the poor sleep? I don't think they'd appreciate it either if their guides ran a sideline selling fake cures for venereal diseases or included visits to clinics euphemistically named "Happy Life" as part of the tour of the historic fort The Sultan's Battery. However it's these guides and their lives that give our tour of Kittur the authenticity that most lack.

While the majority of the characters we meet in Between The Assassinations are those who feel the weight of caste and class the heaviest on their shoulders Adiga doesn't become just give us one group's perspective as so many others seem to have developed a habit of doing. For it's a factory owner who gives us a tour of The Bunder, the area of town where criminal activity is concentrated. It's not that he's involved in anything illegal, but among the drug runners and smugglers he finds a sympathetic audience to unburden himself to about the number of bribes he has to pay in order to stay open.

However, no matter whose eyes we see the city through the picture is not a pretty one. Corruption is rampant and poverty is a child's normal inheritance. Even the poorest having to pay off someone for the privilege of sleeping in a back alley. Adiga's characters aren't always the nicest of people, but they're what their world made them and the connection between who they are and the conditions that shaped them is drawn accurately without being sensationalized. Although it's is beginning to feel like every book released in North America set in India is mainly concerned with recounting social ills that tarnish the economic miracle image that is trumpeted in the press, Adiga's study of life in Kittur only does so indirectly. For instead of themes like religious violence or corruption being the focus, they are simply part and parcel of the lives his characters live.

Like Joyce and Anderson before him Adiga has concentrated his energies on the people of Kittur. By giving us glimpses into their lives; opening their hearts and minds to us so that we the city through their eyes, we are given a multi-dimensional view of life there. In the same way turning the tube of a kaleidoscope changes the image that one sees through its viewfinder, each chapter offers a different perspective. As a result, this is a remarkably well developed picture of life in a specific city and a number of the people who live in it. Although we may mark history with designated dates like the assassinations of major figures in society, individual's stories are continually being played out, and taken together they form the story of the place where they live.

Between The Assassinations is being released in North America on June 9th/2009 by Simon and Schuster and can either be purchased directly from them or an on line retailer like Amazon.ca

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:48 PM | Permalink

It's not a sight you're liable to see that often anymore, at least not in big cities in the northern United States and Canada. A congregation of people gathered by a river, stream, or other body of water deep enough to submerge a person in. Ritual, mass public baptisms in a natural setting, like the banks of a river, are as foreign to most of us these days as the rites carried out by distant cultures in far off lands. Aside from practical matters like finding a body of water clean enough near a major population centre that you'd want to be immersed in it, the whole deal seems like a relic from the past.

Now I'm not saying that full immersion baptism isn't still practised today, there are too many Christian denominations and sects that see it as an integral part of their practice. However, I can't see the practice being as wide spread now as it was in the earlier parts of the twentieth century and before simply because people in general don't have the time for such elaborate rituals when it comes to their religion. Now I'm no expert on the matter, but I'd say as the practice was always limited to the Protestant denominations, specifically the various Baptist churches, that the actual number of people who participated in these rituals was always a minority. As times, and people's attitudes towards religion, have changed, I'd think that minority has gradually been reduced.

All of which make Take Me To The Water, a CD of baptismal music and sermons from the first half of the twentieth century released by the Dust To Digital label, as important as it is intriguing. As their name implies Dust to Digital specializes in rescuing pieces of Americana from the dust of history and restoring them as much as possible. In this case they have gathered together old recordings of sermons and music associated with full immersion baptismal celebrations on a CD and reproduced a collection of seventy-five photographs of+ baptisms from the same time period.

While listening to the music and the various sermons on their own gives you some indication of what these ceremonies meant to those who participated in them, listening to them while looking at pictures of people gathered for, and participating in, baptisms gives you an even deeper appreciation of just how significant these events used to be. While the posed images with everyone standing solemnly facing the camera are an indication of how important these occasions were to people, it's the images of the actual baptisms that communicate the joy experienced by those taking part.

Let your eye wander away from the focal point of those shots, the minister and the person being baptized, and look at the faces of those observing. Their eyes are glued to the action in mid-stream as if it were the centre of the universe. In some of the photos you can even spot those caught up in the throes of ecstasy as they have thrown themselves into the passion of witnessing a loved ones affirmation of faith. Perhaps this is one of the reasons these ceremonies are uncomfortable for us, as we aren't used to open displays of passion when it comes to our religious practices. Compare that scene to the average Christening held in a church in front of the font where the priest or minister sprinkles a few drops of water on an infants forehead. Aside from the involvement of water, the two ceremonies have almost nothing in common.

While the pictures tell one part of the story the twenty-five songs and sermons on the CD give us an even better idea of the passions generated by participating in an outdoor baptism ceremony. It begins right from the opening track with Rev, J. M, Gates, recorded in 1926, leading his congregation in singing "Baptize Me" and introducing it with a sermon about how anyone who is born again needs to be baptized. Aside from the fact that the good reverend is a powerful speaker, it's the sound of those listening to him shouting out their agreement that drives home the intensity of the feelings that are generated during one of those events.

While a great many of the tunes and groups performing them are liable to be unknown to anybody but an avid collector of Americana, there are still some recognizable names among the performers and song titles gathered together on this collection. What collection of early twentieth century gospel music would be complete without a contribution from the Carter Family? This is no exception as they perform "On My Way To Canaan's Land". While they don't match some of the African American choirs in terms of passion, there can be no doubt at the depth of their sincerity when they sing about being "Baptized in Jesus' name"

Both the musical recordings and the pictures in the book show the effects of age as the former are full of hisses and pops, while the latter are stained or even ripped in places. Not only does their condition do nothing to reduce their impact upon us, it gives them an air of authenticity that makes them all the more powerful. Original source material of this nature allows us to experience events without anyone's opinion or viewpoint obstructing our view. It's the difference between reading a history of an event written long after it took place, and reading an eyewitness account of the same incident. What you lose by having a slightly narrower focus is more than compensated for by the vividness of detail generated by its immediacy.

The Dust to Digital label has done a magnificent job of putting together packages that bring very specific periods of the past to life. Take Me To The Water lives up to the high standards they have established with their previous releases. It offers the opportunity to experience, as much as possible without actually being there, the old time public baptisms that were once an integral part of the fabric of life for a great many North Americans. This package gives us all an opportunity to appreciate just what a wonderful thing faith can be, and the joy and pleasure it can bring. That's a lesson we could all stand to learn, as we have somehow managed to twist faith into being weapon these days instead of the celebration it once was. Who says we can't learn anything from the past?

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:04 AM | Permalink

I've always been fascinated with words and their origins, wondering where they came from and how they came to mean what they do today. I had studied enough Latin in high school, and know enough French, to know where quite a few words of English came from. However, even a quick glance at other words will tell you that there's no way they could have roots going back to either French or Latin. So it didn't come as much of a surprise to learn that English not only has its origins in about a half dozen older languages, but every time its contacted another language, its sucked up new words like a vacuum.

Now I had always joked about English being a mongrel language but I wasn't prepared for just how many different cultures had contributed to building the words I work with on almost a daily basis. Watching The Adventure Of English, the four DVD disc set of the British television show just released by Athena, a division of Acorn Media, was therefore an eye opening experience. Hosted by British author Melvyn Bragg, the series traces the history of the English language from its roots in the mists of time to the language of mass communication and commerce its become today. It may not sound like the most thrilling of topics, but in the hands of Bragg the journey is nearly as exciting as any adventure story.

The early history of the English language revolves around a series of invasions of the British Isles that took place over a five hundred year period. English as we know it today has its earliest European roots in the North Sea. It was Germanic tribes from the Friesian Islands invading in 500 AD that brought the beginnings of English to Britain. They conquered the native Celts and established kingdoms in the east, west, south, and north of England with only a small enclave of Celts surviving in what is now known as Wales. However those kingdoms weren't to last long as the Danes under their king soon followed and drove the Saxons out of the north and east and established their own holdings there.

Bragg shows us how each of these two initial waves of invaders left there mark upon present day English through offering examples of their tongues presence in today's speech. In the north and east of England for instance names that ends in son, Robinson, Harrison, and Williamson, can be traced back to the Norse tradition of naming people "son of". He also shows how place names have retained traces of the former dominant language. However it was only after peace and trade between the two sets of invaders were established that "Anglo-Saxon" began to thrive (the Anglo comes from the name of one of the Kingdoms, East Angles which is now known as East Anglia).

With the introduction of Latin and the Roman script, they were even making headway on establishing "English" (what we know as Old English and barely recognizable as being the same language we speak today) in the written form, when the Normans invaded in 1066. That was nearly the death knell of English as French became the official language of the land. It did die out as a written language because of the Norman invasion, but while English absorbed some words we now take for granted (justice, court, and castle) it lived on as the spoken language of the majority of the population. Ironically enough it wasn't until the new "French" empire invaded and conquered Normandy, cutting off all links between the rulers of England and their former homeland, that English mades its comeback.

Of course it doesn't take too long for English to go on the offensive once they've got their own house in order. After taking care of the whole matter of the Catholic church and establishing the Church of England under Henry VIII thus ensuring masses are held in English not in Latin, their eyes turned further afield. The Puritans took English with them to North America where they established where they incorporated mispronounced Native American words into their vocabulary in taking the first steps in establishing "American English". Then came the first forays into India and the Caribbean.

While initially British merchants in India were forced to learn the language of the rulers as they were dealing with a civilization both older and more sophisticated than their own, eventually the roles were reversed. Taking on the "White Man's Burden" of elevating the poor misguided coloured people of the world, the East Indian Trading company passed laws prohibiting the teaching of any language but English to those Indians receiving an education. While this was an incredibly patronizing attitude, it did result in the development of "Indian English", which in turn helped support Indian nationalism by supplying those struggling for "Home Rule" the vocabulary with which to articulate their demands.

Bragg doesn't mince any words in his descriptions of how English was spread through out the world. While his conversational approach to delivering the material may sound like he's making light of the way events took place in India and other locales, he doesn't shy away from telling the truth when it comes to showing English being spread by the sword. From Australia to America settlers and traders were backed up with gun ships and muskets to ensure that business was carried on in the Queen's English. When the sun began to set on the British Empire after the World Wars of the twentieth century, the American Empire took up the task of imposing the language on the rest of the world through a mixture of economic and martial might. When you think about it, not much has changed since the Germanic tribes left the Friesian Islands.

In The Adventure Of English Melvyn Bragg does an excellent job of not only unravelling the roots of the language we all take for granted, but he does it such a manner that he makes it enjoyable to watch. Often programs like these are either so dry as to be indigestible, facile to the point of being useless as sources of information, or delivered in such a manner that the dirtier aspects of history are whitewashed out. Remarkably none of that happens here. Not only are details of the history of the English language revealed that most likely you would have never discovered on your own, Bragg's approach is that of a story teller not a lecturer. In fact he's so good a story teller you hardly notice your learning anything, and you eagerly await the next adventure. If you have any curiosity about how and where the words you speak came from, The Adventure Of English not only supplies the answers, it does so in a way that brings both the language and its history to life. One thing is for sure, after watching this program you'll never look at a word, any word, in quite the same way again.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:54 AM | Permalink

I was never much of a Grateful Dead fan and never really understood people's obsession with the band. Oh sure, I liked some of their songs and admired their skill as musicians but there are a lot of bands I can say the same thing about and there have been plenty of others who I've liked a whole lot more. In fact I knew so little about the band, that although I recognized the name I didn't even know what instruments Mickey Hart had played for them until I first heard the Global Drum Project, the all world percussion group he founded.

All of which meant that I knew nothing of the history of The Rhythm Devils and how they evolved as a separate entity within the Grateful Dead. Hart and Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann earned the nickname The Rhythm Devils during their years with the band. During the band's live concerts, portions of the show would be given over to the duo, and any friends who were on hand to assist them, for a percussion set. Which is how they came to the attention of Francis Ford Coppola in the 1970's and were commissioned to compose music for his film Apocalypse Now. The Apocalypse Now Sessions was their first and only release as the Rhythm Devils while The Dead were still active.

In 2006 the Rhythm Devils got back together with some friends to do a series of concerts. Joining Hart and Kreutzmann were Mike Gordon on bass, Steve Kimock on guitars, Sikiru Adepoju on talking drum, and Jen Durkin handling the vocals. Former Dead lyricist Robert Hunter wrote them a handful of new songs, and the group set out on a short tour. Now, three years later, StarCity Recording Company has released a two DVD set, Rhythm Devils: Concert Experience, commemorating that tour. Packaged in a hard covered book featuring illustrations and the lyrics to the songs performed, one DVD is the concert while the second is a behind the scenes documentary with backstage and rehearsal footage.

As I said earlier I've become familiar with Mickey Hart's work with the Global Drum Project and was hoping to hear and see something of similar quality and style on this DVD. However, while there is no denying the overall skill and talent of the instrumentalists, the music was not of the quality that I have come to expect from Hart's other projects. While there were undeniably moments of musical magic during the concert, overall there wasn't much to get excited about. There was far too much of what sounded like directionless jamming where the same patterns are repeated over and over again during a song and nothing is ever developed to the extent it could be.

While they would always start out promisingly enough it often seemed like the band was content to find a groove, get comfortable, do their solos, and then repeat few times over again. Every so often the vocalist would sing a couple of verses of whatever song they were doing, and the pattern would then be repeated. Each time they went into a new instrumental break you'd hope for something new, but after a while even the solos began to sound the same and the music became even more pointless.

Perhaps it might have been better if the vocalist was able to provide some variety, but Durkin seems limited in what she is capable of doing. While she has the potential to have an interesting voice, for there a great husky quality to it, at the time of these recordings she was monotone and uninteresting. At times she wasn't even singing in the same key as the band and it just sounded unprofessional. Perhaps it's because she had to wait so long between verses during a song it made it hard for her to retain her focus. However if that's the case than perhaps she was the wrong choice for this band, but that's something you need to discover during rehearsals, not on stage.

One of the selling points of this DVD package was supposed to be the post production video added to the concert footage. This included using old cartoon footage, excerpts from what looked like early television commercials, a collection of shots of various nebulas, and other colourful pictures from space and earth. Unfortunately instead of augmenting the experience of listening to the music it was mainly a distraction. They were either used in such a cliched manner that they bordered on silly, or they would have so little to do with the song they accompanied that you wondered why they were even being shown.

Even the hardcover book that made up the package for the two discs in the set was slightly ill-conceived as it didn't contain proper sleeves for the DVDs and it would be very easy for them to fall out and be damaged. There was also very little practical information about the band or the people involved aside from telling you who was playing which instruments. It would have been nice if they could have supplied a little bit more than just the lyrics to the songs and the set list. Unless you're willing to go hunting around on the Internet, you're not going to learn anything about the band's history or about the individual band members themselves. It's almost like the producers of the package have assumed anyone buying it are going to know that information somehow.

The sound and video quality of the concert disc are good, but I was rather surprised that they only offered it in Dolby stereo and not surround sound. If it's possible to re-master CDs from the 1980's in surround sound, it should be for video recorded in 2006 as well. However, that was only a minor disappointment compared to the music itself. Maybe if you're a big fan of the old Grateful Dead you'll enjoy Rhythm Devils: Concert Experience but having seen what Mickey Hart is capable of doing these days, this was quite a let down.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 10:01 AM | Permalink

If there is an industry more conservative and less likely to take chances than popular music I'd be surprised. Now obviously I'm not talking about the independents who operate on the fringes of the business, but the big players for whom this is a multi-million dollar industry. They're about as liable to take a risk as Bush and Chenney are to be invited as guest speakers at an Amnesty International convention. It's why when you turn on your radio or listen to the top forty, you're only going to hear one or two songs played over and over again.

Oh there might be some variations - like the lyrics will change and the face behind the voice will be different - but pretty much everything is just a variation on a few themes. Don't be fooling yourself that the music industry has anything to do with artistic creation, it's all about making money, which means taking no chances and not messing with a formulae that works. Both of which are the antithesis of artistic creation, as taking risks and doing things differently are how an artist breaks new ground. When was the last time you heard an established popular musician or band do something radically different or even change their sound in a minor way?

While it's true there are some who may tinker with their sound, a quick survey of their careers will show it always stays within certain parameters. Only a very few have the courage and the ability to almost completely re-invent themselves and move their music in a completely new direction. Which is exactly what Iggy Pop, has done with his new release on EMI, Preliminaires. For instead of a release filled with his signature smash and destroy rock and roll that earned him the name "grandfather of punk", Preliminaires sounds like it sprung from the cafes and bistros of the Left Bank in Paris.

Which isn't surprising when you consider the fact that it was inspired by French novelist Michel Houellebecoq's 2005 novel The Possibility Of An Island. Iggy had been approached to write some songs for a documentary about the author's life and his attempt to direct the film of his book. However, what he ended up creating was a score for the novel itself, for, as he says in a press release announcing the disc, "I found the emotions from my reading transforming themselves into music".

You know you're in for something different from what you'd expect from Iggy right from the start as the disc opens with him singing the French standard "Les Feuilles Mortes (Automn Leaves) made famous by Edith Piaf and Yves Montand. While there's something initially disconcerting about hearing Iggy Pop singing in French, once you recover from the shock what's really amazing is how right it sounds. How much his voice suits this style of singing. For unlike what we call ballads in North America where the singer is expected to croon the lyrics in dulcet tones that display little or no real emotion, songs like "Les Feuilles Mortes" were written for voices with character; voices that might be a little rough around the edges but capable of expressing emotion.

However Iggy doesn't just stick to ballads over the course of Preliminaires, as there's the New Orleans jazz sounds of "King Of The Dogs" and even a throwback to a more familiar Iggy with "Nice To Be Dead". However that's the anomaly on this disc and its immediately followed by a cover of "Insensatez" ("How Insensitive") by Calos Jobim - an old bossa nova standard. It's a testimony to Iggy's capabilities as a singer, and the sincerity of his voice, that a tune that originally must have been more than a little saccharine, sounds so genuine when he does it. It's hard not to think of bad lounge singers when you hear a song like this, but no one will ever be able to accuse Iggy Pop of sounding like he's working a piano bar.

Iggy Pop has always had a very distinctive and powerful voice, developed over years of having to make himself heard above the guitars and drums of the hard rock he and the Stooges used to record and perform. Yet there was also always the suggestion of an expressive voice, which would occasionally show itself when the band played slower numbers. On Preliminaires though he's finally able to show off the full extent of his vocal prowess. What impressed me the most was the amount of character in his voice and just how expressive it is.

Whether it's the tongue in cheek humour of "King Of The Dogs", the longing of "I Want To Go To The Beach", or the sense of desolation he's able to convey on "Spanish Coast", you can't help but feel whatever it is he's trying to convey. On the latter, for instance, not only is the desolation of the scenery made clear, but so is the desolation of the song's protagonist merely by how he modulates the tone of his voice. He uses his ability to sing on the lower end of the scale to good advantage here, but it's not just a matter of singing low and sounding gloomy, as he's genuinely able to express the emptiness that lies at the heart of the song.

It's not often that pop musicians with long and established careers will take the chance of recording an album radically different from almost anything they've done before. While there are songs on Preliminaires that one can identify with Iggy Pop's early career, the majority of the material on this disc is completely unlike anything you've ever heard him do before. However, even better, is the fact that it's some of the best music I've heard from him in ages. It's far more sophisticated than anything I've heard him do before either musically, emotionally, or intellectually. Yet, at the same time he retains the energy and power that he's always been famous for. Only now he's narrowed his focus so that it's all channelled into the emotional content of the music which makes the material all the more captivating. Preliminaires is the work of a mature artist who's not afraid to take chances, and as a result this is one of the most rewarding albums put out in North America this year to date.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:50 PM | Permalink

Most of us at one point in our lives have been confronted with one of the plays of William Shakespeare. For the majority our first and last experience has been struggling through the text in high school and never hearing or seeing the words taken from the page and brought to life on stage. If we were very lucky we may have had a teacher who was able to impart upon us a sense of the beauty and the wonder of the text. However, for the majority of us it was an experience we only strove to survive before moving on to something a little more comprehensible, hoping the final exam wouldn't devote more than a question or two to the play.

Of course it's the language that defeats most people. The strange vocabulary, the different cadences, and of course the fact that it all appears to be poetry of some kind or another. Reading it aloud, let along acting it out, is more of a challenge than most of us are willing to consider attempting. Yet if ever you have the good fortune to see one of Shakespeare's plays performed by those who know what they are doing it all of a sudden makes sense. What was close to incomprehensible on the page is miraculously understandable on stage. How, you may wonder, did it undergo such a remarkable transformation? What magic formulae did the actors and director follow to turn gibberish into English?

Well according to Playing Shakespeare, a nine part television series that first aired in 1984, and now available as a four DVD box set from Athena a division of Acorn Media, there is no set answer as to how best perform Shakespeare. In a series of master class workshops John Barton, Associate Director of the Royal Shakespearean Company (RSC) of England and members of the company at the time, including Ben Kingsley, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, David Suchet, Peggy Ashcroft, and others, explore everything from the difficulties of marrying modern acting styles to plays written for Elizabethan actors, the mysteries of the iambic pentameter, to how to best perform soliloquies. With Barton introducing each segment, and then leading his actors through examples of the topic under discussion, we are given remarkable insight into not only the works of Shakespeare, but the work involved in an actor preparing for a performance.

For each segment Barton calls upon his actors to attempt various ways of doing the same scene in order to illustrate the point he's trying to make. For example, in the segment on soliloquies one of the points under discussion is whether it's better for the actor to directly address the audience or to conduct the speech as an interior monologue. Which way, Barton wants to know, will hold an audience's attention more? He has the actors first try the speech in the latter way, and then he stops them and has them address the audience directly. The difference is immediately noticeable, for when the actor speaks his or her speech directly to us we hang on to their words and are pulled into the story far more deeply than when he or she directed the speech inwards.

If there is one element that Barton constantly comes back to throughout the whole series, it's the importance of maintaining the audiences' interest in the proceedings. Now well that might sound so obvious to be laughable, however, with something like Shakespeare, where it so easy for an actor or an audience to get caught up in the language and get lost, it's not as easily accomplished as you might think. Here again Barton has his actors experiment with performing the pieces in two ways. First to latch onto the over all emotion of a scene or speech and simply play that while ignoring any individual nuances that might be found in the text. Then they reverse the process and break the scene or speech down into its component parts so we hear more than just the one emotion, but all the little bits and pieces of thoughts that have gone into creating that emotion.

It turned out that neither extreme was completely satisfying. For although the latter was more interesting to listen too, and would pull the audience more into the story, it lacked the passion and excitement of the former. In there is the key that Barton thinks leads to creating a Shakespearean production for a modern audience - balance. A contemporary actor must balance the needs of a script that was written to be played in the open air in a highly stylized manner with the modern day audience's need for realism on stage. He or she must be able to transmit the heightened emotions called for by the language while at the same time ensuring the meanings of individual lines aren't swept away in a sea of passion.

Anybody who has the slightest interest in Shakespeare and acting will find this series to be a riveting experience. It's not often you have the opportunity to watch actors actually rehearse and experiment as they prepare for a role, and in Playing Shakespeare you are able to watch some of the finest actors of our generation do just that. There is nothing staged about any of this either, as Barton will stop them, and ask them to try something again, but this time do it this way. What I found truly amazing, was the apparent ease with which each of them were able to take his direction and do something completely different from what they had done previously.

However, by far the best thing this series does is make Shakespeare more accessible. Far too many people put him up on a pedestal and worship his work to the extent that they lose touch with the fact that it was written as popular entertainment in its day. They're full of sex, violence, coarse humour, and high passion, all of which should be as equally entertaining to today's audience as for the one it was written. Barton and his actors bring Shakespeare back to a human level, but without sacrificing any of the magic and beauty of the language and the poetry inherit to the work the way many modern "realistic" productions do.

It doesn't matter if you've hated Shakespeare since high school, or loved his plays all your life, watching Playing Shakespeare will open your eyes and allow you to look on the material as if it were brand new. The program may be twenty-five years old, but the ideas it expresses and puts into action are just as fresh and exciting today as they were then. This is brilliant television and great theatre.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:08 AM | Permalink