Jay Wrote

 I am in trouble and you can help. On Tuesday I had a great day helping democracy function by working  as an election judge over at Mt. Zion.  Sara, my daughter on the coast,  however is very, very unhappy with me because this increased my chances  of COVID exposure.  Now, I don't feel old or vulnerable but I am a  caretaker and if I get sick the consequences spiral.... So,  I would like someone to step up and take over my role as Election Judge  so I can stay home and stay safe(r.).  More info here: https://www.ramseycounty.us/residents/elections-voting/election-judges. Everyone was masked when they came in to vote and we had lots of masks if  someone had forgotten theirs.  Surfaces were cleaned frequently.   Plexiglass shields were all about.  Distancing was observed. I  have done this three times now and I can tell you that it is really a  wonderfully positive experience.  Over the course of the...

An Appreciation of Intensity -- Bergmark & Metzger at Khyber Pass. In late January 2020 for what I did not know would be my last pre COVID indoor music , I roused myself to hike  over to the Khyber Pass  There was no wind, the temperature steadied around the freezing mark. Snow clung to the neighborhood trees, homes, signs and muffled the sounds of the night.  I arrived five  minutes late - to my great, great regret.  Krissy Bergmark on tabla and Paul Metzger on banjo were playing with verve and an intensity of interplay that kept my senses fully engaged for the  evening.  I won’t feign knowing more than I do, but I’d label the music as raga or raga-inspired. Reference  point for some: The Beatles’ Within You Without You .   Metzger’s banjo is no ordinary round box, neck and strings.  One version of his creations has   23 strings including a zither-like spray of thirteen fanning out over the drum head , w...

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...

Half Low; Full King   - Appreciations. Alan Sparhawk and a full-throated audience opened for Halloween Alaska at St. Paul’s Turf Club this week.   Too bad most attendees used the opening hour to hollar at each other rather than listen to the Low leader’s intricate intense solo set.   Sparhawk gradually set deep computer beats, brought up an understated electric guitar and used heavily processed vocals to weave mysterious melodies into his songs.   Absolutely no chance to understand one line of the lyrics.   Thus space music: intricate, contemplative.   Imploring vocals had been mis-processed in an intergalactic satellite’s attempt to forward a message concerning another world’s analogue to deity.   We missed that message in the cacophony.   Or maybe just Jim Morrison come back to re-inhabit some Scots-Irish blues.   This was complicated, carefully wrought music.   Time for me to get the most recent Low recording.   ...

Appreciation of Paul Metzger at Khyber Pass. Thursday night, Grand Av.  2 doors east of Snelling, string man Paul Metzger took listeners to extended hikes through instrumental, compositional and cultural landscapes.  It was my first time hearing St. Paul’s Metzger.  The instruments - one a banjo, the other a guitar, had each been crafted to take a set of strings arranged harp-style running off each neck.  A bow.  A perfectly-sized powered speaker.   To  my mind Metzger’s first piece, while unnamed, was a tribute to our host, Emel, owner of the tiny restaurant and artist of wonderful abstract paintings on the walls.  The predominant feeling of the banjo-harp display was eastern - Afghan perhaps, but I am not sure.  Metzger plucked, strummed, hammered, bowed, scraped and pushed out notes by waving the banjo from and back to his chest, stirring bits of echo into the room.  The banjo body subbed nicely as a tabla.   Left ...

Life In A City    Last night I stopped at the Cambodian Chinese restaurant, Kim Huoy Chor, a block west of Snelling on University.  It was an Embers back some decades. I was on my own and brought in the Atlantic Monthly to read while working my way through the more than satisfactory buffet.  All you can eat plus a drink for under $10 including tax. Not the super-shiny mass production buffets that seem to be popping up in malls around the area. So shoot me, I like all you can eat, even if it gets soggy sometimes. There were about 5 other tables occupied.  Two ~ 45-50 year old guys ate and skipped back and forth in matching books and discussed Heideiger (sp.?), existentialism and other such things well beyond me.  At one point one of them mentions “Schlomo Levin (or some such name) – he was a German Jewish philosopher in the last century.” In the booth behind them, a young woman turned around and said:  “I was at Macalester with Schlomo Levi...