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There Stands the Glass
Kansas City's original music blog.
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Sunday, August 23, 2020
Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance and Psalm
I’m not annoyed that Nubya Garcia’s debut album Source is being hailed as the 2020 equivalent of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. Jazz needs stylish young artists to give the popular press and jazz neophytes something to rally behind. Besides, Source is pretty good.
After enjoying Garcia’s fashionable dispatch from London, I hope a few adventurous listeners turn to the like-minded new release by Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids. Inspired by his mentor Cecil Taylor, Ackamoor founded the Afrocentric spiritual jazz collective almost 50 years ago. Now 69, Ackamoor and his longtime collaborators retain their vitality on Shaman!. The joyous grooves and inclusive sensibility are the best kind of communal folk music.
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I decry the blatant abandonment of social distancing on Kansas City’s jazz scene at Plastic Sax.
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Opera update: I’m currently 80 minutes into my 153rd opera in the past 153 days. A French staging of Benjamin Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”- #151 in my streak- receives my unqualified endorsement. The creepy bits are skin-crawling and the comedic scenes are outrageous.
(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)
Monday, August 17, 2020
Album Review: Bill Frisell- Valentine
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I kvetch about politicians’ gaffes at Plastic Sax.
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Robert Wilson’s version of John Cage’s “Lecture on Nothing” at National Sawdust’s virtual festival last week was my first encounter with the absurdist treatise. I was particularly amused by the unexpected references to Kansas. The state is “like nothing on earth!”
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I read Keri Hulme’s The Bone People several months ago. Inspired by the novel’s frequent references to recordings by Julian Bream, I began exploring to the guitarist's vast catalog in earnest. I quickly fell under his spell. Bream died last week.
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I took in 22 performances of the August 16 edition of the Bang on a Can Marathon. My five favorite sets: Sarah Cahill (performing Annea Lockwood); Kaki King (original compositions); Rebekah Heller (performing Marcos Balter); Craig Taborn (original improvisation); Oliver Lake (original compositions).
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Opera update: The BBC’s version of “Porgy and Bess” was the 145th dose of my daily injection of opera. I’ll share two takes. I realize mine isn’t among the most important voices in the ongoing debate about “Porgy and Bess,” but I’m now able to authoritatively attest that the principle characters are as fully realized as any figures in opera. They’re more respectfully rendered than the individuals portrayed in similarly agrarian Italian operas like “L’Elisir d’Amore,” “Ruggero Leoncavallo” and “Cavalleria Rusticana.” Secondly, “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” is the equal of any Puccini aria.
(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)
Wednesday, August 12, 2020
Fun House
The correlation between the fictional end of the world and today’s pandemic is all-too obvious. As in the movie, the prospect of another massive music festival seems remote. But it's not just the coronavirus. The idea of 200,000 people congregating to hear bands with guitars play rock and roll is ludicrous. That’s probably never going to happen again in North America.
The Stooges’ outmoded style is made even more obsolete by the honking of Steve Mackay’s saxophone. The unconventional instrumentation makes Iggy Pop’s berserk interjections even funnier. The backstory of the essential- albeit superannuated- release on Third Man Records is fascinating.
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I review Brian Scarborough’s fine new album Sunflower Song at Plastic Sax.
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Opera update: I’m up to 143 operas in 142 days. Danielle de Niese’s breakout performance in Glyndebourne’s 2005 production of Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” provided four of the most entertaining hours of my quarantine. The free stream is available for three more days. And all self-respecting Kansas Citians- as well as history-minded feminists- should want to see the Metropolitan Museum of Art's imaginative staging of Virgil Thomson’s “The Mother of Us All."
(Horrifying original image of Detroit Rock City by There Stands the Glass.)
Monday, August 10, 2020
Song Review: Caroline Shaw and David Lang- "When I Am Alone"
(Original image of fisherman in Akko by There Stands the Glass.)
Saturday, August 08, 2020
Album Review: Luke Bryan- Born Here Live Here Die Here
Yet I consider Born Here Live Here Die Here a proxy for the flagrant disregard of pandemic safety guidelines I’ve witnessed outside my home for five months. I haven’t been to a social gathering, bar or restaurant- let alone a concert or an airport- since mid-March. Meanwhile, a daily block party rages in my neighborhood. A steady parade of walkers, joggers, skateboarders and cyclists winds its way through the gathering. Needless to say, no one’s wearing a mask. The anti-social distancing soundtrack is dominated by contemporary country.
None of this is Bryan’s fault. Anticipating how fun its songs would sound performed live, I might have raised a toast to Born Here Live Here Die Here a year ago. Yet in this climate, innocuous party songs like “One Margarita” fill me with impotent rage.
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I survey the month’s Charlie Parker centennial celebration events in Kansas City for KCUR.
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Opera update: My marathon currently stands at 139 operas in the last 138 days. Teatro La Fenice’s bold production of "Il Sogna di Scipione" was one recent highlight. Mozart really is the best, isn’t he? And Howard Moody’s manipulative but effective "Push" deserves to be performed at churches, synagogues and high schools throughout the world.
(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)
Tuesday, August 04, 2020
Dust in the Wind
R. was my best friend for three or four years ending in 1977. He loved prog-rock and jazz-fusion. R’s unusually kind and accommodating father escorted us to my first large-scale rock concert in 1976. Fleetwood Mac, R.E.O. Speedwagon, Heart, Head East and Henry Gross were on the bill of Summer Jam at Royals Stadium, but R. was all about Kansas’ set. We’d later see concerts by the likes of Genesis and Emerson, Lake & Palmer together. Encountering another kid in my new neighborhood with a similarly severe music obsession altered the trajectory of my life.
Although I always preferred Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Earth, Wind & Fire and the country music I was raised on, R. expanded my horizons. An aspiring drummer, Bill Bruford, Billy Cobham, Phil Collins, Jack DeJohnette, Carl Palmer and Tony Williams were among his favorite musicians. Watching R. attempt to play along with tracks like “Nuclear Burn” and “Tank” introduced me to jazz and classical music.
My bond with R. inevitably decayed after my family moved again. Our infrequent communication in the intervening years focused on girlfriends, wives and work rather than music. R.’s death leaves me with only one surviving close male friend from my childhood and teen years. As with my other pals, R. succumbed to substance abuse. Dust in the wind, indeed.
(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)