Thursday, April 14, 2011

Review: Robert Parris at Saint Paul's Episcopal Church


















I attended an organ recital Monday. On purpose. I overcame my bias against Episcopal churches to hear Robert Parris perform at Saint Paul's.

Parris doesn't look like the kind of guy who spends much time around 808s, but he opened the concert with an original composition that seemed as if it was directly inspired by hip hop. The low end of his Sonata II was dope.

The brilliance of J.S. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E minor, S. 548 allowed me to conduct a spontaneous exercise in astral projection. The complete version of Julius Reubke's challenging Sonata on the 94th Psalm had many in the audience of 150 squirming impatiently in the unforgiving wooden pews. Not me.

I'm looking forward to future American Guild of Organists events.

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Here's the money line from Tim Finn's interesting survey of music retail: Kelly Corcoran of Love Garden suggests that "The new interest in vinyl is from people mostly interested in the same 500 records." You mean to tell me that the trend-chasing of hipsters hasn't increased the value of my complete collection of Cameo albums?

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A Facebook friend challenged people to list their favorite fifteen songs by the Kinks. Here's what I posted: Oklahoma U.S.A., Picture Book, All Day and All of the Night, Where Have All the Good Times Gone, You Really Got Me, Waterloo Sunset, Alcohol, Low Budget, Stop Your Sobbing, Tired of Waiting, The Village Green Preservation Society, Big Sky, Celluloid Heroes, A Rock'n'Roll Fantasy and This Is Where I Belong.

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Mashup of the year? (Via Meesha.)

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Jazz violinist BIlly Bang has died.

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Chicago blues man Lacy Gibson has died.

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It's astounding that a guy who played with Django Reinhardt is alive and continuing to make groundbreaking music. I watched NPR's live webcast of Martial Solal's gig last night. It was really good. The cumulative viewership never surpassed 300. That's not so good.

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The newly announced Wakarusa schedule poses several intriguing choices for attendees of the festival- My Morning Jacket or Galactic? Umphrey's McGee or Ha Ha Tonka? Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings or Lucero?

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Ces Cru's new video features footage from its January 15 gig opening for Tech N9ne at the Beaumont. (Via Tony's Kansas City.)

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Kansas City Click: The weekly KC Songwriter Forum takes place Thursday at the Brick.

Diverse plays the music of Michael Jackson at the Record Bar on Friday.

Terence Blanchard performs at the Gem Theater on Saturday.

Alaturka return to Jardine's on Sunday.

Pepper Rabbit top Monday's bill at the Riot Room.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

2 comments:

bigsteveno said...

Glad you posted your Kinks songs here, because FB is messing up and they didn't display there.

It seems like there's a lot of variation, but all true Kinks fans pick Big Sky.

Happy In Bag said...

I was afraid of that, Steve. Thanks for checking in.