Jay Wrote

Last week a friend, a jazz immersive, a fanatic said:  "I hate perfection.  It is so boring."  I too appreciate "wabi-sabi" the Japanese aesthetic that holds that beauty is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete - as demonstrated by Furuya Nobuko, an Ikebana specialist, when she pointed out the importance of a faded bloom in a stunning flower arrangement in the entry of our home in a Tokyo suburb.  My friend is deep into experimental improvised music that if not exactly abhorring standards, certainly thrives on avoiding them.   I like that music too; see my pieces on events at the Khyber Pass Thursday night series. There are of course standards and "Jazz Standards" and then there are Thelonious Monk Standards.  Monk was and is my first love in jazz. On July 2, at The Dakota, Sam Miltich, electric guitar, lead a quartet of veterans (with Jay Epstein, drums, Dave Karr, tenor, Gordy Johnson, bass) through two supremely fun Monk-dominated sets, with sev...

Appreciating Merciless Ghost. What do you say when the opening number kicks off with the quintet filling the room with sounds of crumpling, crackling and shaking white butcher paper before stuffing this extreme sheet music into the bells of the sax (George Cartwright) and cornet (Noah O.) , under the strings of the cello (Michelle Kinney) and bass (John Granowski) and on top of the snare (Davu Seru)? (According to Paul Metzger's podcast, http://khyberpasscafe.com/podcast, Kinney guested with the four regular "ghosts" this evening.) “Wow!” is my answer. The musicians, with their papers, created a music that went beyond mere rythmic noise and set a soundstage verging on magic. The piece built from there for 45 minutes, inexorable, syncopated, with mainly minor moods. Cartwright’s sax contributions seemed at times like they might have descended from some of Zappa’s MOI oeuvre. Ever-changing, forward-moving and intensely focused exploratory meandering, with the ...

Music Appreciations, February 2019 Illuminati Hotties! At the Turf Club last night. https://illuminatihotties.bandcamp.com . Very good show(wo)manship, voices, guitars. A similar sophisticated approach to fun and thoughtful rock that I heard in the band Bodega, 7 months ago at Turf. Nice use of dynamics, nice to have understandable lyrics and a hard rocking performance. 2 guitars, bass, drums. Sarah Tudzin and fellow guitarists appeared in shorts, a daring fashion choice in Minnesota this month. A bit more polished in approach than Courtney Barnett but not lacking in grit at all. (She takes the label “tenderpunk” - not bad…) You can hear the Barnett parallels here: https://illuminatihotties.bandcamp.com/track/youre-better-than-ever .  Expect a bigger venue next time in town. Sad that there were so few to hear Illuminati and sad that the loud clowns back by the bar didn’t take their sloshy laughter downstairs. Pretty good local opening R&R act, Prothloons (?) w...

In a binder of her research and speculation my mother puts to paper the answer she has come up with as to why her maternal grandmother, Susan, was so estranged from Susan's daughter, my grandmother, Ruth, that she refused to attend her  wedding.  And apparently became a "ghost" to the family throughout much of Mom's childhood, though she visited from time-to-time and died at the Walker's windy hilltop home in 1944. Before her 1916 marriage to a teacher (and future dairyman, farmers' cooperative leader, legislator, UVM board member, etc.) William Walker, Jr.,  Ruth was working as a teacher in the Northeast Kingdom and sending her wages, all but 50 cents a week (the cost of her room and board), back home.  (Women teachers probably earned less than $100 per month at this time.)  It was this loss of family income that lead to the split, according to Betty's best knowledge. A century's perspective gives context to great-grandmother Susan's parsimony....

Happy Apple  (Dave King, drums, Michael Lewis, sax, Eric Fratzke, electric bass) tried to excuse missed cues and miscues with the explanation that they were just getting started on new pieces for a recording.   They’ll have to come up with some other explanation for their sound as this listener had a near-perfect jazz experience at Emel Sherzad’s Khyber Pass in St. Paul this week.   The edge of King’s big cymbal was ten feet from my ears and I left my ear plugs at home.  I prepared to stuff them with wads of napkin as he often fiercely dominates his bigger ensembles like The Bad Plus and Halloween Alaska.  The wads were soon discarded. King launched the opening piece,  Black and Blue Magic , with quiet, swirling brushes that filled the room with a delicate and urgent soundstage and Fratzke soon joined with soft strumming.  Lewis, always pacing fore and aft, coaxed bare flutters from his reed, eventually building tempo and volume to a sound...

Lost and Found Connections, Paris and St. Paul, 2001 Day-to-day events and lives often seem isolated.  In February and March of 2001, Thomas Paine, my wife’s new job with Northwest Airlines, our families’ genes and histories, e-coli bacteria, 17 th century prostitutes, cuisine of the Seychelles Islands, a left carotid artery, socialized medicine, Louis XIV, a B-17 bomber’s lay-over in Labrador, madness, Chinese hamster ovaries, gunpowder, a gangster, wool berets and Captain Nemo's Nautilus, all came together during a trip like no other. Truth is stranger than fiction, more frightening than nightmares and so much more rewarding than a lottery.   Part 1  Two Hours in Paris We could each turn around in the space beside our bed, but not if holding suitcases.  Northwest Airlines' first class reclining seats had more wiggle room than Hotel Claude Bernard's second floor room on Rue des Ecoles on Paris’ Left Bank.   I shot some black and white photos of the st...