Tag: extra

Categories
Arts Culture

The best reasons to have left the couch in 2024

Please Don’t Tell gave a bewitching performance at the Spirit Ball in March. Photo by Tristan Williams.

It’s all too easy to get disgruntled about some of the usual entertainment in a tight town like ours—that is, if you close your eyes and ears too tightly and just stay home all the time. Here are some of the events that made me glad I got my ass off of the couch.

Please Don’t Tell

March 9, The Southern Café & Music Hall

After years and years—first as a piano and cello duo, and since 2021 as a trio with violin—Please Don’t Tell finally committed its feminist tilt of Victorian parlor violence to record, and held this Spirit Ball to serve as an audio coming out party of sorts. Though the annunciated operatics of pianist and lead vocalist Christina Fleming were confined to an EP’s worth of tracks on vinyl and other platforms, they were given a much longer runway on which to soar at the Southern. The lengthy set’s highlights were elevated further by violinist/vocalist Anna Hennessy’s adroit musicianship, while cellist Nicole Rimel’s spooked-out presence stayed thematically on brand. PDT wrapped up the somberly festive evening by ghosting on to the stage hand-in-hand, gushing forth with an a capella number about leading a man to the woods to die. Good times!

Temple Grandin

May 21,The Paramount Theater

A talk with autism and animal behavior expert Dr. Temple Grandin is a lot to take in at one sitting. But to get a handle on how other brains operate by a living example and proponent of neurodiversity is perhaps the best way to recognize the value that different cognitive styles hold for education, employment, and society. As a visual thinker, Grandin explained that her cognition type represents one kind of thinking—in pictures—while patterns or words are the other overriding ways of understanding the world. Surprisingly, the Colorado State University College of Agricultural Sciences faculty member, who came into fame with her pioneering work redesigning slaughterhouses to lessen trauma and anxiety in livestock, drew a line between neurodivergence and inventors, from Michelangelo to Elon Musk. In doing so, she stressed the need for parents and schools to give autistic (and potentially autistic) children more hands-on ways to tinker and thrive through science projects, car repair, animal care, craft hobbies, playing and writing music, and building machines, among other ideas.

Ruby The Hatchet 

June 22, The Jefferson Theater

Baroness may have headlined the show, but Philadelphia-area doom-chugging Ruby The Hatchet brought an indomitable fire to the night. Jillian Taylor’s gritty vocals recalled the pantheon of classic hard rock’s most celebrated practitioners and paved the way for a churning and captivating demonstration of their uncompromisingly heavy and dramatic songwriting style. A charged-up track like “The Change” and the righteous fuzz of “Primitive Man” were rivaled only by the surprise cover of Quarterflash’s top-10 hit “Harden My Heart.” The overwhelmingly metal fan crowd, seemingly surprised at its own memory, sang along with the choruses. No doubt they were swayed by keyboardist Sean Hur’s busting out of a saxophone to nail the song’s signature horn line, born amidst the power ballad schmaltz of the early ’80s.

Pete Davidson

June 27, The Paramount Theater

Everyone’s favorite controversy-stirring vulgarian, Pete Davidson brought his Prehab Tour to town, furiously driven with all of the honest self-inflicted invectives that provide an unhealthy excuse to laugh along with, or directly at, him—and that’s what complicates the King of Staten Island star’s stand-up. You feel bad for the dude, but not that bad when all is said and done because, well, you’re laughing and he’s a celebrity. So here he was, claiming to have kicked ketamine and coke, but despite lessening the amount, still sticking with pot. And what happens? He goes on to cancel a chunk of his tour the following month in a too-accurate prediction or self-fulfilling prophecy, checking himself into a facility for mental health treatment. If anyone (or everyone?) saw that time-out coming, it didn’t make his stand-up any less funny, and therein lies the problem on the audience’s side and/or the source of the man’s talent: tragedy+cannabis+no values=comedy.

“Out of Context”

October 4–November 22, Second Street Gallery

A six-person group show exquisitely captured what curator and contributing artist Paul Brainard set out to do with “Out of Context”: Let the art do the talking for this complicated and engaging collection of works. That said, many titles were nothing less than intriguing, and, at times, hilarious. Amber Stanton’s striking protagonist females in various states of undress searched for answers across fantastic landscapes (“Soon, Oh Soon the Light”); Jean-Pierre Roy’s “Maybe we’re all just guessing, Margaret” offered a vivid alternative universe bug-out on the traditional Western historical portrait; Miriam Carothers’ five-canvas “SLO Excursion” series caught drunken neon robot rampages; Michael Ryan’s life-size mixed media “The Birthday Party” peered into family figures too close and just too weird; and Hyunjin Park’s eye for detail and intricate color use came to a dozen heads on “I AM Good Looking,” a horizontal panel depicting Brainard, making a rainbow of his expressions.

Categories
Arts Culture

Guitarist Bill Frisell relies on instinct, relationships to explore jazz

Guitarist Bill Frisell (center) is joined by bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston for two shows at The Southern Café and Music Hall on Saturday. Supplied photo.

By Dave Cantor

Bill Frisell is a cypher for American music, ping-ponging among genres for the past five decades. 

Like most jazz musicians, the guitarist keeps his ears wide open. But encountering vibraphonist Gary Burton playing what at one point was called “jazz rock” sent Frisell’s understanding of the genre down a new path.

“The whole psychedelic thing was happening, but then the music was on such a high level,” Frisell says of hearing Burton’s late-’60s and early-’70s groups during his youth. “I mean the guitarists that Gary had in his band were—I guess people don’t even know half of these guys. Even before Larry Coryell, he played with Hank Garland. … Then there’s Jerry Hahn, Sam Brown, John Scofield, Pat Metheny, Mick Goodrick. It’s incredible the guitar players that went through that band.”

As a kid, Frisell frequented a music shop and cultural center run by Harry Tuft—a figure in Denver maybe akin to Moses Asch. He’d hang around, check out instruments and records that were for sale, and take in heady conversations about performers he wasn’t necessarily familiar with.

By his teenage years, Frisell was deep into the clarinet and eventually headed off to college to further study the instrument. His folks also moved from Denver to New Jersey during the ’70s, and then later to North Carolina, where Frisell would “go off exploring” during visits. 

In the western portion of North Carolina and in southwest Virginia, Frisell again found music that rearranged his brain—folk strains developed in tight-knit communities, relatively untouched by the genre’s electric and pop-oriented derivations.

“It was really kind of mind-blowing for me,” the guitarist says. “I hadn’t heard that for real, you know, stuff that people had just grown up [with] there and played. That had a huge impact on me.”

Frisell’s own work has stretched to insinuate the spectrum of music he’s encountered over the decades, veering from jazz standards to familiar folk tunes. In some ways, it was drummer Paul Motian—best known for working in Bill Evans’ trio—who gave the guitarist a significant platform to explore in the ’80s.

“He really recognized me for what my voice was. He wanted a guitar player, but it wasn’t so much about the guitarist. He wanted me as a person,” Frisell says about the late drummer. “I felt so wide open to do whatever I felt. It wasn’t like I was filling a role of what he thought a guitarist should be. It was like, ‘Here, just take it as far as you can go.’”

Frisell’s developed long-standing relationships with a raft of other players—including drummer Rudy Royston; they first played together back in 1993, the guitarist says. During the ensuing decades, Royston’s contributed to a handful of the bandleader’s albums, as well as provided the backbeat for Frisell’s regular trio, which is making a stop at The Southern for a pair of Saturday shows.

In addition to Royston, the guitarist’s group will include Thomas Morgan at its Charlottesville date—a bassist who’s played with Frisell for more than a decade, contributing to a few duo albums on ECM alongside the bandleader. Both rhythm players were also a part of the guitarist’s Grammy-nominated Orchestras, a 2024 album that featured a wealth of European classical talent.

It should maybe go without saying: There’s not a set list for the trio’s local performance.

“The number of songs that we know and the possibilities are so huge that we never really—especially with this trio—we don’t really plan at all,” Frisell says. “Anything I can throw at those guys, they’re gonna know what it is.”

While familiarity with repertoire can help performers shuttle ideas from their minds down to their fingers, attaining that kind of fluidity is a career-long journey. 

Frisell referred to the distance between intent and desired outcome as a “huge chasm.”

“I can never get what it is I’m actually trying to do to come out,” he says. “It’s always … reaching for something that you can’t quite get. So, you just get as close as you can, and that’s what keeps you going.”

Categories
Arts Culture

Live Arts stages compelling he-said, she-said plays

Live Arts kicks off its season with two thought-provoking shows, "What the Constitution Means to Me" and "An Iliad," in repertory through October 28. Details at livearts.org. Supplied photo.

We humans are social animals, which is one reason why theater endures as a way for people to share space and feel something together. In a time when our nation feels quite divided (ahem: understatement), any opportunity to learn from history and engage with challenging subjects in thought-provoking ways is a good opportunity. The current Live Arts shows have us covered on that front with back-to-back chances to dig in to the depth of the human experience from two distinct yet resonant perspectives.

As Live Arts’ 2024/2025 Voyages season picks up steam, What the Constitution Means to Me and An Iliad share the Founders Theater and alternate performances. The choice of presenting the plays in repertory makes sense, because they are very much in conversation. Both shows feature powerful performances enhanced by the black box theater’s intimate staging conditions. Audience members feel essential to the storytelling.

In What the Constitution Means to Me, we find ourselves in an American Legion hall represented by a minimalist patriotic set. Enter Heidi, a character based on playwright/original lead Heidi Schreck, who takes us to a scholarship speech contest about the U.S. Constitution that she competed in as a teen. Heidi, portrayed by Tovah Close the night I attended, invites the audience to play the cigar-smoking men who filled the American Legion halls of her youth. We were a predominantly female audience, and the first thing many did when invited to embody men was to take up more space, which resonates with the play’s central theme.  

Through Heidi’s personal stories, and those of her grandmothers and mother, we come to understand how preposterous it is for Heidi to be speechifying about the personal relevance of a document that first explicitly mentions women in the 19th amendment, passed in 1919, that granted women the right to vote. As a woman, I found the play to be validating and emotionally challenging. Heidi’s statistics about rape and domestic partner violence against women landed pointedly. Just as the weight of the traumas became overwhelming, there was an intermission. Let me tell you: We hit the bar hard.

Fortunately, the play’s second act offers a respite from heartstring plucking (mostly) by featuring a debate between Heidi and an actual debater (Aafreen Aamir). The topic is whether we should keep or abolish the U.S. Constitution. Honestly, it never occurred to me that we could abolish our Constitution and institute a new one—one that protects the rights of Native Americans, people of color, queer folks, women, and other minorities with the same vehemence as in protecting the rights of white men like our founding fathers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a proud American, which is probably why the idea of abolishing the Constitution never occurred to me. I’m also a disheartened American, an American who sees that some things need to change as our country continues to evolve, just as the founding fathers envisioned it would.

The following night, I saw An Iliad, which blends sections of Robert Fagles’ translation of Homer’s epic poem with moments of modern contextualization. Two nameless, timeless poets—an elder and a younger—arrive and investigate the sparse set. For several minutes, the audience watches as the elder, portrayed by David Minton (also the director), and the younger by Jesse Timmons, set the stage before beginning the tale. I love that live theater has the power to get me to care about watching a man adjust the placement of a milk crate—and I did care!

The Iliad is a familiar tale to many, with ancient heroes Achilles and Hector leading armies during the Trojan War. The added context breathes life into this show. The Younger Poet likens (spoilers) ill-fated Patroclus’ bloodlust in battle to our modern experience of road rage. He begins by expressing a degree of anger relatable to anyone who’s been cut off in traffic. However, Timmons then takes his performance to an extreme that fills the room with discomfort, graphically describing physical violence, inappropriate as a reaction for a roadway mishap. The Elder Poet touches the younger, to snap him out of his fiery passion, and the younger apologizes, saying something like, “That’s not me. It’s not me.” Reckless uncontrollable rage does not define the man, or at least The Younger Poet doesn’t want it to. One of the play’s most affecting aspects is the tension created by the tenderness between the two characters juxtaposed against the horrors of the Trojan War and all the wars after, including those that are raging even now.  

Categories
Arts Culture

Contemporary musician Dan Tepfer converses with the past, present, and future

Contemporary musician Dan Tepfer follows unexpected paths through jazz and classical work. He performs on September 8 and 9 at The Paramount Theater during the 25th Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival. Supplied photo.

By Ella Powell

Pianist/composer Dan Tepfer says his earliest memories on the keys are of improvising as a toddler. “It seemed like a very natural thing for me to do, to just make up music,” he says. “My classical piano teachers would say, ‘don’t do that,’ but I knew it was okay because granddad did.” 

During the early days, when Tepfer was creating his own alternate versions of “Jingle Bells,” his jazz pianist grandfather served as a musical inspiration. Now, Tepfer collaborates with icons of the form like Lee Konitz, and composes for musicians such as the highly accomplished French-American vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvantl.

An artistic force, Tepfer goes beyond jazz, creating compositions for symphony orchestras and performing with them on occasion. “One of my favorite performances was recently, at the end of June,” he says. “I did two concerts in the U.K. where I performed the Ravel Piano Concerto in G with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. As a jazz pianist, that was a big growing experience for me.”

When Tepfer makes his first of two appearances at The Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival on September 8 at The Paramount Theater, he will take the stage with his multimedia improvisational composition Natural Machines, released in 2019 as a video album. 

In Natural Machines, Tepfer’s acoustic Disklavier piano plays all on its own in a phantasmic experience. The magical sounds and visuals accompanying the album are a direct response to the pianist’s computer programming and his live freestyle on the keys. In the song “Tremolo,” for example, Tepfer’s chosen algorithm allows otherwise impossible musical techniques to be accomplished in real time.

He describes music as “the intersection of the algorithmic and the spiritual,” which speaks to his obsession with achieving harmony between concrete rules and whimsical expression. His discography of 12 studio albums is deeply explorative and honest, and connects to the senses. After 29 years of playing, the pianist continues to defy conventions and bend genres in solo projects like his 2011 performance and improvisation of Bach’s masterpiece, Goldberg Variations/Variations that won him international acclaim. 

On September 9, also at the Paramount, Tepfer performs Inventions/Reinventions, another improvisation on Bach. He goes into it without any premeditated melodies, just a creative process to develop ideas. “It kind of feels like I’m both a child who just has crazy ideas and can run around freely, and the parent who’s supervising the child and who is going to keep the child from falling off the cliff,” says Tepfer. The piece converses with Bach in a way that brings the prodigy back to life as Tepfer fills in the nine “missing” keys not included in Bach’s 15 original inventions. 

Always looking to connect with audiences, he hopes a project that revitalizes a 300-year-old composition will build an affinity for his style of music. With each improvisation, he shares a meaningful story just as Bach intended to do through his own compositions. “Bach’s music is a magnet for me that never seems to lose its allure, which isn’t uncommon for jazz musicians,” says Tepfer. “There’s a lot of kinship between the musical approach we take in jazz and how Bach was thinking about music.”

Categories
Arts Culture

Playing their part

Garcia Peoples will play Charlottesville as a five-piece band that includes guitarist Tom Malach (foreground).The ensemble has relied on a flexibility that informs not just its open-ended compositions, but also the availability of its members. Photo: Mayuko Fujino.

By Dave Cantor

Early in Garcia Peoples’ run, there was a four-year break between albums. It’s an almost unthinkable span of time in the digital age, but it was spent devising material for a clutch of future albums that includes five studio efforts and several live recordings.

It’s an avalanche of music, one that revels in song-focused pieces, as well as extended improvisational flourishes, positioning the New York band at a surprising crossroad, one where a punky DIY ethos runs into a jammy musical premise.

The group’s latest album, Dodging Dues (No Quarter Records), was recorded and released just ahead of the pandemic’s descent, disallowing the ensemble from plying its trade on concert stages. And after all that time away from performance, Garcia Peoples had to refamiliarize itself with the music and establish new meaning for it within the context of the world we’re now inhabiting.

“You think you know something,” guitarist Tom Malach says over the phone from his home in Queens after a gig in Philadelphia. “Even just playing today, new ideas happen with the songs after not playing them for a bit. We’re the kind of band to still be reworking songs from our first album when we’re playing live.”

Those live settings have provided a chance for a batch of hobbyists, armed with recording gear, to capture the troupe in the wild. On archive.org, more than 30 live sets by the group sit alongside thousands of Grateful Dead recordings and audio rescued from decaying 78 RPM slabs and cylinder recordings.

“The fact that someone would want to come out to the show and document it for others, that’s an awesome thing for us,” Malach says. “We put in a good amount of work to make sure different things are happening every night and each performance is unique.”

The ensemble’s undergone some personnel shifts, with members moving to Chicago and back to New York a few times, and then spreading out across the region. They’ve performed as everything from a trio to a sextet; on Friday at The Southern, they’ll appear as a quintet.

Dodging Dues reflects a copacetic contingent of players, and perhaps includes a summation of the band, sonically and philosophically. On “Tough Freaks,” where “maggots turn to flies” and gardens are properly tended, the band’s looking for “an escape from everyday drudgery, dodging the dues that life wants you to pay at any given moment,” Malach writes via email. The tune comes at an ambling gait, weaving guitar lines with colorful keys and a momentous chorus, where common folly is critiqued and a desire to embrace dreams emerges in full blossom.

A few tracks in, spacey, electrified folk underscores the breezy progression of “Cassandra,” where it seems as if the figure from Greek mythology is being asked for help. And album-closer “Fill Your Cup” has a spiritual connection to Antipodean punks The Saints—both in its riffy guitar and growling vocals.

Despite forays into aggressive sounds, an earlier tour saw Garcia Peoples opening for Grateful Shred, a Dead cover band. “That tour was awesome,” says the guitarist. “They’re really good dudes and they’re fantastic musicians, and they interpret the music really well. …I was having a blast. Number one, you get to go out and do your thing, and then you get to relax after being the opener and listen to some good jams.” 

It was a turn that belied the group’s earliest days, which found them playing basement shows in and around New Jersey, where Malach grew up.

“We’re closer to that than the jam world,” he says, while acknowledging the impact of the Dead’s blueprint—how they went about the business of being a band, and how members approached and thought about music.

That Malach’s father Bob, who appears on Garcia Peoples’ expansive 2019 One Step Behind, was a professional musician likely informed his conception of music and writing for an ensemble.

Beginning in the mid-’70s, reedist Bob performed with folks like Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes, The Stylistics, The O’Jays, and Stanley Clarke. The younger Malach says his childhood home wasn’t a place where musicians came to hang out, but his father forged close relationships with a wide swath of the folks he played with. Malach called late jazz drummer Alphonse Mouzon, “Uncle Alphonse.”

“I think I found a healthy medium,” Malach says about watching the travails of a professional musician, then turning toward performance himself. “My dad was always like, ‘Don’t do the music thing. Play music and learn music, because it’s good and fun, and good for the world. But it’s tough to be a musician.’”

That heady lesson imparted by Malach’s father might not actually have set in, though: After getting off the phone, the guitarist and his cohort were set to woodshed new ideas in preparation for more time on the road and in the studio.