Concert review: Alisa Weilerstein and Gabriel Kahane at the Southern

When: Saturday, Feb. 19, 2011 • Where: Southern Theater • Who: Alisa Weilerstein, cello; Gabriel Kahane, piano, guitar, voice

Gabriel Kahane by Jen Snow

For years I never went to the Southern Theater in Minneapolis, and now I can’t stay away. Their programming—a mix of music, dance, and theater—is fresh and intriguing. I’m especially drawn to the music, where I’m being schooled in contemporary classical, indie pop, folk, electronica, and what happens, for instance, when hip-hop artists take on jazz seriously and thoughtfully. I might not always love it, but I often do, and even when I don’t, I come away feeling I’ve learned and/or heard something new.

Saturday’s concert by Gabriel Kahane and Alisa Weilerstein lured me in because Kahane, a young composer/performer, had written music for a poem called “Little Sleep’s Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight” by the great American poet Galway Kinnell. A big, craggy man with a resonant voice, Kinnell had come to Carleton College in Northfield when I was a student there and read that poem aloud. Framed by the actions of a father comforting his baby daughter (“You cry, waking from a nightmare…. Back you go, into your crib”), it’s a meditation on parenthood, mortality, love, yearning, life, death, memory, family, grief, and joy. I remember being moved to tears at Kinnell’s reading.

Kahane’s “Little Sleep’s Head” ended the program. A lot happened before. Cellist Weilerstein, also very young, came out first alone and played Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major. I think she was halfway through the Sarabande before I sat back in my chair, and I might have been holding my breath. Weilerstein played the old familiar piece as if it had been written yesterday, with passion, power, absolute confidence, and a pure, hot stream of emotion. In the resonant acoustic of the Southern, you could hear her bow on the strings, and the singing of the wood. It was exhilarating.

Jazz/pop/hip-hop concert review: “Lush Life” at the Southern

The end of the show: a "Moon River" sing-along.

When: Sunday, Nov. 14, 2010 • Where: Southern Theater • Who (deep breath): Devon Gray (dVRG), piano; Josh Peterson, guitar; Sean McPherson (Twinkie Jiggles), bass; Peter Leggett, drums; Chris Thomson, saxophone/clarinet; Steve Roehm, vibraphone; Adam Levy and DJ Jake Rudh, hosts and vocals; Janey Winterbauer, Mayda, Toki Wright, Bethany Larson, Omaur Bliss, Ashley Still, Carnage the Executioner and Desdamona (Ill Chemistry), vocals

It could have been ironic. It might have been a mess. Instead, it was courageous and entertaining, fresh and sincere.

On Sunday night, some of the Twin Cities’ top pop and hip-hop artists gathered at the Southern Theater to explore the American jazz canon. Specifically, the Great American Songbook, what co-host Adam Levy calls our “free lunch” and our “vast cultural inheritance, shaping not only our notions of American music and the popular song but our very ideas of romance, love and morality."

The sold-out show felt like a gathering of friends, a jam session in someone’s living room, complete with a sing-along at the end. Not every performance was successful, but some were revelatory and all came from the same place of wanting to know more about the music and treat it right.

Talking with Honeydog Adam Levy about jazz, hip-hop and Sunday's "Lush Life" gig

Originally published at MinnPost.com, Thursday, Nov. 11, 2010

Adam Levy

Jazz and hip-hop get along famously, even if some jazz purists don’t approve. Hip-hop artists have long mined the jazz catalog for samples, and many jazz artists who grew up with hip-hop flavor their music with beats, sound bites and scratching. Both genres include elements of improvisation; spontaneous composition and conversation in jazz, freestyling, DJing and emceeing in hip-hop.

 

This Sunday at the Southern Theater, some of the Twin Cities’ most popular and accomplished hip-hop artists — Mayda, Ill Chemistry (Desdamona and Carnage the Executioner), Toki Wright, Omaur Bliss and others — will offer their takes on classic jazz songs in a program called “Lush Life: Interpretations of the American jazz canon.”

The instrumentalists of Heiruspecs are the house band; keyboardist DeVon Gray (dVRG) is the music director. Adam Levy (The Honeydogs, Liminal Phase, Hookers & Blow) and DJ Jake Rudh (Transmission) will host.

“Lush Life” is the first show in a three-part new music series called “Southern Songbook.” The series continues on Feb. 14 with “Desire and Death: New love songs on yearning and loss” and April 14 with “The Rites of String: The intersection of song, songwriter and strings.”

MinnPost spoke with Adam Levy by phone earlier this week.

Movie reviews: "Ride Rise Roar," "Shadow Play: The Making of Anton Corbijn," "Charlie Haden: Rambling Boy"

Each fall, the Sound Unseen festival brings movies about music to Minneapolis. I would go to every film in the series if I could. This year, their 11th, I would have liked to see The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector, The Carter (a documentary about Lil' Wayne), and Do It Again, about a Kinks fan's efforts to bring the band back together again.

What I saw: Ride Rise Roar, a David Byrne concert film directed by David Hillman Curtis; Shadow Play: The Making of Anton Corbijn, directed by Josh Whiteman; and Charlie Haden: Rambling Boy, a documentary film by Reto Caduff about the great jazz bassist.

Ride Rise Roar

This year, the Southern Theater was a sponsor of the festival, and also a site where screenings were held. Music programming director Kate Nordstrum planned something extra for people who came to see Ride Rise Roar. She flew Steven Reker in from Florida for a live performance before the film. Reker is a dancer in the film, and a musician; he sang a few of his own compositions for us, playing guitar, laptop, and a tiny keyboard, and ended with a winsome take on the Carpenters' "Yesterday Once More." Reker is charming and engaging; seated, playing his music, he moved his legs and feet as if he'd rather be dancing. When he forgot to turn on the reverb, he exclaimed "What a mess!" After the movie, he stuck around for a Q-and-A during which he told stories about traveling with Byrne and performing some 200 live shows per year during the tour. He says he's done with dance now, and it's all about music; he has a date at The Kitchen in NYC. His presence added a personal touch to the experience of watching the film, in which he figures prominently as one of the three dancers.

Ride Rise Roar is a riveting concert film, musically and visually. Everyone wears white. Dance—modern dance, choreographed by Anne-B Parson and Noemie LaFrance—transforms the experience from just another concert (albeit a concert by David Byrne) to something more dynamic and artsy. (Having just seen Reker live and knowing he was in the house made it especially enjoyable to watch him on screen.) At one point, the band's keyboard player talks about how the presence of the dancers affected him. He found himself playing along with their movements, imagining he was scoring a film. The music includes many of the songs we all came to hear—"Once in a Lifetime," "Burning Down the House," "Life During Wartime," "Heaven"—and new collaborations by Byrne and Brian Eno. (Not, alas, "Psycho Killer" or "Take Me to the River.") Byrne dances. Even the backup singers dance—reluctantly at first (when they signed on, they didn't expect this) but then they get into it. At one point, everyone wears gauzy white tutus and it's glorious.

Watch the trailer.

Shadow Play: The Making of Anton Corbijn

Corbijn is the Dutch photographer who defined the look of rock bands including U2, Depeche Mode, and Nirvana (although Kurt Cobain claimed that everything Corbijn did for Nirvana was his idea). We've all seen Corbijn's iconic shots of Bob Dylan and Springsteen, watched his music videos (he's made over 80), and studied many of his 100 or so album/CD covers (example: U2's The Joshua Tree). He directed the film Control (2007), about the band Joy Division, which won awards at Cannes, and also the feature film The American (2010) starring George Clooney, which has gotten mixed reviews (and a 64% rating to date on the Tomatometer).

Shadow Play is an interesting film, but we learn very little about Corbijn as a person, except for the fact that he grew up in Holland and his father was a minister. Perhaps the most revealing part of the film comes near the end, when he dresses up as many of the rock stars he has photographed over the decades and films himself. But it's fascinating to see how Corbijn's eye and camera—and his unlimited access to musicians—transformed them from awkward, badly-dressed boys to brooding, charismatic superstars, most often in black-and-white. Worth seeing if you're into photography and rock-and-roll.

The film screened at the Red Stag Supper Club, another festival sponsor. That seemed like a good idea but turned out not so much. The Red Stag is a popular spot and it was full of regular customers, talking and eating and drinking and hanging out. Dishes clattered in the background, glasses clinked, pots and pants clanged, plus there was something wrong with the projector; the film kept stopping and sticking, as if it were being streamed on a bad wireless connection. Still, those who had paid to see the film were mellow. The stopping/sticking was annoying but no one yelled or left. Afterward, a Sound Unseen representative apologized profusely and promised to send us free tickets to another theater in town (the Trylon Microcinema).

Watch the trailer.

Charlie Haden: Rambling Boy

I previewed this film for MinnPost after seeing it on my Mac. It was a thousand times better on the big screen at the Trylon Microcinema. I still think it's too reverent (especially the ending, where the strings swell up), but maybe bassist Haden is as wonderful a human being as everyone in the film says he is?  My mind is boggled by the scope of his accomplishments: singing harmonies with his mother as a baby, performing on his family's country-and-western radio show, joining up with Ornette Coleman (and revolutionizing jazz), playing with Keith Jarrett, John Coltrane, Hank Jones, Pat Metheny, et cetera ad infinitum, forming his own big band, the Liberation Music Orchestra, with Carla Bley, leading Quartet West, teaming with musicians around the world.

At one point in the film, Bley notes, "I don't think it's about music at all. Music is just the way he talks to people. There's a lot of bass players who can play faster and louder and longer and all of that, but everyone accepts that the feeling he gets out of one note is worth more than a hundred of another bass player's notes."

Charlie Haden: Rambling Boy is the story of Haden's life from his childhood to the present day. If you don't know him, it's a good introduction to the man and his music; if you do, it will deepen your appreciation of his contributions. He does appear to be a warm and gracious person. That was my experience when I interviewed him a few years ago. He was my first big national interview and I was scared to death. He immediately put me at ease, and he called me "Man." He calls everyone "Man."

If you see the film, watch for the part where Haden and a woman carrying his bass (his luthier) walk into Haden's home. Someone passes through the room just long enough for the camera to catch him. It's Ethan Iverson.

This was my first visit to the Trylon and I loved it. You enter through a big, open space with paintings of flying saucers on the walls and make your way to a small, dark room with 50 seats--cushy, rocker-back cinema seats. It's intimate and comfy, and the sound is amazing. KBEM is now screening its REEL Jazz film series there.

Wordless Music Series: Andrew Broder, Owen Weaver, Cepia

When: Friday, Sept. 5, 2008 • Where: Southern Theater • Who: Andrew Broder, guitar, pedals, four-track cassette recorder; Owen Weaver, marimba, multipercussion; Huntley Miller (Cepia), laptop, hardware

The Southern Theater is one of my favorite venues for music and dance. With its exposed brick walls, hints of past windows and doorways, an archway that could have come from some ancient building, and a black metal grid that floats overhead, housing wires and sprinklers and holding lights and speakers, it is simply a great space. The recent ousting of its 30+ year artistic director (who was placed on "indefinite leave") has caused a ruckus in the arts community but so far the shows are going on.



Born in NYC and still mostly based there (the Southern was the first venue outside of NYC to present an installment of the series), Wordless Music is (says its mission statement) "devoted to the idea that the sound worlds of classical and contemporary instrumental music—in genres such as indie rock and electronica—share more in common than conventional thinking might suggest." Series founder Ronen Givony is here to tell us more and introduce tonight's performers. "It seems deeply unnatural to separate and compartmentalize music into little boxes," he says, then explains that a Wordless Music event is "like an iPod set to shuffle, which makes no judgments or distinctions." I like that if I don't think too deeply about it. Someone makes a judgment about what to put on that iPod in the first place.



I've seen local wunderkind Andrew Broder before, at the Cedar with George Cartwright and Gloryland PonyCat. He's on first, alone with his guitar, some pedals, and a thicket of wires. He lays down a dense loop, then another on top of that, and another, like a rug merchant stacking Persian carpets. The sound echoes and bounces off the Southern's bare walls. The music grows in thickness, complexity and level, rising in pitch until it suddenly reminds me of the voice of the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I can't help it, it does, and I mean no offense. Then it's wind, then a train, then it shifts down and begins again. Trancey, but with an edge of anxiety. Now it's like floating in clouds that suddenly turn black and roiling. Now it's the buzzing of a million pissed-off bees. Huge crescendo, abrupt silence. I like it a lot.



Owen Weaver, who recorded Isolation with the Pan-Metropolitan Trio but wasn't present at the CD release (he had already relocated to Austin, Texas to go to school) plays three wonderful pieces: "Opening" by Philip Glass (which sounds very Bach-ish to me) on the marimba; "Rebonds b" by Iannis Xenakis on big drums, congas, snares, and blocks; and "In a Landscape" by John Cage, which I thought was a complete improvisation until I read the program. Dreamy marimba, with thundering percussion sandwiched in between. Very nice.



Cepia (Huntley Miller) closes the program (there's no intermission; one plays, walks off, and the next walks on; they don't play together). I'm psyched to see him after reading in the Strib that he studied with Anthony Cox. But I don't get his music. Not that I expect musicians to tap dance and twirl scarves, but watching someone sit at a laptop (even a Mac laptop) is not especially interesting. Even if you can see him, which you can't because the stage is so dark. Videos by Randy Kramer are projected on a screen at the back of the stage, but I don't find them especially compelling. The music seems like the same phrase repeated over and over. I doze off. HH tells me I'm not alone.



But I'm more than satisfied with two out of three, so thumbs up to Wordless Music and the Southern.

We drive home with the windows open and the radio tuned to KBEM and Kevin Barnes's "Bluesville" show. He plays a tune by Catfish Keith with lyrics that make me laugh:

Baby, I'm a fine artiste
And baby I deserve to be kissed.

Later I learn they're from a song by R. Crumb and the Cheap Suit Serenaders called "Fine Artiste Blues." Not wordless, but music. It's going on my iPod.

Photos were taken with permission, in case anyone is wondering. The one of the Southern's interior was borrowed from the Wordless Music site, and I'm guessing they got it from the Southern.