Extravagance
Friday I experienced the superior powers of Beethoven and Berlioz at Orchestra Hall where the Minnesota Orchestra performed the Violin Concerto in D Major and Symphonie Fantastique. Big, sharp and bravura, the program was my first live experience with these familiar favorites. Soloist Augustin Hadelich showered the audience with both fast and tip-toeing violin bowing and picking in the Beethoven and, after several ovations, played a solo piece showing again his warmth and technical prowess.
The full orchestra (two harps, three tympani, 6 basses, etc.) blew up Berlioz’s dramatic score of love, loss, torture and tragedy. My Berlioz recording is a 40+ year old l.p. so I really enjoyed hearing the high definition of live performance, especially the english horn calls in the “woods” section, the trill of flutes and the rumbling tympani that filled the musical floor for the thunderous finale. You know Beethoven and Berlioz. This performance of this extravagant romance in music was indeed “classical.” You, yes, you, should get to the Minnesota Orchestra or the SPCO to hear such power.
Intimacy
Khyber Pass is an Afghan restaurant on Grand and Snelling whose owners turn over the room to practitioners of eclectic jazz and modern music most Thursday evenings. In my few visits to date, there was not a minute of easy listening - Le Voyage, Milo Fine and this past week, Wayne Horvitz and a crew of old and new bandmates. None of the thirty fans were twenty-five feet from the action.
Beer and wine are available for night owls lucky enough to be there. Great paintings and photos of Afghanistan adorn the walls without a hint of kitsch often seen in “ethnic” dining spots.
Horvitz is a former McKnight Foundation-supported player and composer, and collaborator with John Zorn, Bill Frizzell and others in NYC. He stopped in St. Paul to visit friends on his way between somewhere and his home in Seattle. He played two sets of what might be thought of as modern chamber music, spanning sounds of new, experimental jazz, movie scores by Bernard Herrmann and modern classical music - say touches of Takemitsu or Glass, with occasional playfulness [minus the (tasty) cheese] of The Bad Plus.
Horvitz is a former McKnight Foundation-supported player and composer, and collaborator with John Zorn, Bill Frizzell and others in NYC. He stopped in St. Paul to visit friends on his way between somewhere and his home in Seattle. He played two sets of what might be thought of as modern chamber music, spanning sounds of new, experimental jazz, movie scores by Bernard Herrmann and modern classical music - say touches of Takemitsu or Glass, with occasional playfulness [minus the (tasty) cheese] of The Bad Plus.
I’m ill-equipped to give technical descriptions for the playing or music itself but I know what I
like, and I like this CRISPR approach to music. I also like that I am getting to know the poet Richard Hugo, having picked up three Horvitz cds, including the beautifully played and packaged Some Places Are Forever Afternoon (11 Places for Richard Hugo) with tunes inspired by the sensibility of the 11 Hugo poems printed on the insert.
Horvitz opened on keyboards for several duets with his frequent partner, bassoon player Sara Schoenbeck. Using an electric keyboard for piano, and very, very sparingly, electronics stored on a lap top, he led players throughout the night with sophisticated, often angular playing that was seldom a solo but always present.
Schoenbeck. Schoenbeck!! NYC’s Schoenbeck played her bassoon with passion and physicality like nothing I have ever experienced with the big double reed instrument. She’s played with the best - Yusef Lateef, Nels Cline, Roscoe Mitchell…. Whether soloing, trading licks with Horvtiz or later when joined by cello, bass, drums and tenor sax, her bassoon swung across the floor and, impelled by Schoenbeck’s powerful shoulders, lungs and lips, dug deep and opened up baffles that once blocked my ears to the potential of this horn. In two pieces she soloed with the top of the horn detached; she sometimes used a tin foil mute to produce sounds soulfully profound. When playing a full bore solo, all bassoon, we could hear three tones syncopated by the rhythmic clacking of her keys. Her posture threw power into the music in the way a saxophonist who drops all boundaries is expected to.
like, and I like this CRISPR approach to music. I also like that I am getting to know the poet Richard Hugo, having picked up three Horvitz cds, including the beautifully played and packaged Some Places Are Forever Afternoon (11 Places for Richard Hugo) with tunes inspired by the sensibility of the 11 Hugo poems printed on the insert.
Horvitz opened on keyboards for several duets with his frequent partner, bassoon player Sara Schoenbeck. Using an electric keyboard for piano, and very, very sparingly, electronics stored on a lap top, he led players throughout the night with sophisticated, often angular playing that was seldom a solo but always present.
Schoenbeck. Schoenbeck!! NYC’s Schoenbeck played her bassoon with passion and physicality like nothing I have ever experienced with the big double reed instrument. She’s played with the best - Yusef Lateef, Nels Cline, Roscoe Mitchell…. Whether soloing, trading licks with Horvtiz or later when joined by cello, bass, drums and tenor sax, her bassoon swung across the floor and, impelled by Schoenbeck’s powerful shoulders, lungs and lips, dug deep and opened up baffles that once blocked my ears to the potential of this horn. In two pieces she soloed with the top of the horn detached; she sometimes used a tin foil mute to produce sounds soulfully profound. When playing a full bore solo, all bassoon, we could hear three tones syncopated by the rhythmic clacking of her keys. Her posture threw power into the music in the way a saxophonist who drops all boundaries is expected to.
Gotta agree with the N.Y. Times’ take - her work is "galvanizing" and "riveting, mixing textural experiments with a big, confident sound.” Inventive playing such as I have never before heard - in every piece.
Joining midway through the first set was the first of the “hometown heroes”, cello player Michelle Kinney. She, according to Horvitz, played with him two years ago. She works with another local talent, Steve Tibbetts, on his most recent release and has played with other national jazz figures. Her bowing and plucking produced music not at all like the typical sounds of the delicate and emotional chamber music often associated with this instrument. Not that her playing lacked delicacy when demanded and there was certainly deep emotion delivered throughout her performance. I could not help from calling out “top that!” when a cello solo ended one the pieces played by all six musicians in the second set.
Born in Midnight, Mississippi and a pillar of the NYC scene for years, local tenor sax player George Cartwright and Horvitz have played together from time to time for 40 years. Joining Horvitz’s group for the first time was Cartwright’s co-worker drummer, George Marich, who pounded, rattled and scraped and snared throughout the second set. The bass player, Josh Granoski, has had a few prior gigs with Horvitz and Cartwright and travels in experimental, thrash, jazz and classical circles. And of course the other Minnesotan, cellist Kinney has herself combined with the other “hometown heroes” in local experimental jazz performances.
The whole ensemble worked together with tight improvisations that I would expect from a
band with many hours of practice. If playing standards, say Round Midnight or All Blues, I can fathom how players, without rehearsal, can take and work from the familiar and jam those tunes. With this adventuresome music how do they do it? Horvitz told me: “all these people know how to play this stuff. It’s a practice, you know.” (emphasis on "a practice) - something I cannot argue against. But it takes specially talented players to weave solos and supporting fills behind band mates who you have had little experience with - when you are playing challenging work with changing rhythms, tones that go sideways and styles that run down the alley in the dark only to merge before concluding in silent tension that the audience finally resolves with applause.
Please don’t come to Khyber Pass’s jazz series on Thursday nights. You know, they’ll have a good thing going until it gets popular.
Joining midway through the first set was the first of the “hometown heroes”, cello player Michelle Kinney. She, according to Horvitz, played with him two years ago. She works with another local talent, Steve Tibbetts, on his most recent release and has played with other national jazz figures. Her bowing and plucking produced music not at all like the typical sounds of the delicate and emotional chamber music often associated with this instrument. Not that her playing lacked delicacy when demanded and there was certainly deep emotion delivered throughout her performance. I could not help from calling out “top that!” when a cello solo ended one the pieces played by all six musicians in the second set.
Born in Midnight, Mississippi and a pillar of the NYC scene for years, local tenor sax player George Cartwright and Horvitz have played together from time to time for 40 years. Joining Horvitz’s group for the first time was Cartwright’s co-worker drummer, George Marich, who pounded, rattled and scraped and snared throughout the second set. The bass player, Josh Granoski, has had a few prior gigs with Horvitz and Cartwright and travels in experimental, thrash, jazz and classical circles. And of course the other Minnesotan, cellist Kinney has herself combined with the other “hometown heroes” in local experimental jazz performances.
The whole ensemble worked together with tight improvisations that I would expect from a
band with many hours of practice. If playing standards, say Round Midnight or All Blues, I can fathom how players, without rehearsal, can take and work from the familiar and jam those tunes. With this adventuresome music how do they do it? Horvitz told me: “all these people know how to play this stuff. It’s a practice, you know.” (emphasis on "a practice) - something I cannot argue against. But it takes specially talented players to weave solos and supporting fills behind band mates who you have had little experience with - when you are playing challenging work with changing rhythms, tones that go sideways and styles that run down the alley in the dark only to merge before concluding in silent tension that the audience finally resolves with applause.
Please don’t come to Khyber Pass’s jazz series on Thursday nights. You know, they’ll have a good thing going until it gets popular.
Update: Unfortunately, Khyber Pass has closed, though Bar + Cart, its replacement is a fine cocktail bar with excellent food.
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