Pots

Potter Robert Briscoe is having his fall studio sale at his home in the woods in Harris, with guest potter Jason Trebs. Bob is part of the annual St. Croix Valley Potters' Tour, which draws fans and collectors from across the US every Mother's Day weekend. The fall sale is smaller, more relaxed and social. The beer is cold and the food is excellent; weather permitting, Bob builds a roaring campfire and people gather around. Friends come and stay late. On Friday, someone brought a guitar; at least three people there could play, so the guitar got passed around and for while at dusk and into the night, we sang or listened or sang along while the fire blazed and sparked and Bob gave it the occasional kick to keep it in shape. After dark, people wandered the grounds looking at pots with flashlights.

The first piece of pottery I ever bought was one of Bob's bowls. That was 20 years ago, and I still like it.

Photos, top to bottom: Calla lily in a tall pot by Jason Trebs. Bob wearing his red "I Still Make Mudpies" shirt. Pots for sale.

Mamet

The Jungle Theater, 10/3/07: David Mamet had written several screenplays (The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Verdict, House of Games) by the time he wrote Speed-the-Plow in 1988; he has since written many more. His view of Hollywood is not rosy. A morality play, Speed-the-Plow explores why Hollywood makes so many horrible movies, using as a lens the complicated relationship between a studio executive named Bobby Gould and an ambitious agent, Charlie Fox.

Speed-the-Plow is the second-to-last play in the Jungle's 2007 season. Directed by Bain Boehlke, the theater's artistic director, with Tim McGee as Gould, Steve Sweere as Fox, and Heidi Bakke as Karen, the temporary secretary who nearly derails Fox's big plans, it's a two-hour play that seemed to last ten minutes. Rapid-fire dialog, unfinished sentences, savage language, macho posturing, and manic intensity moved things right along. Peppered with verbal buckshot, we left happy. Okay, maybe not happy, but very glad we'd seen the play, grim and ruthless as it is. Thank you for the tickets, Susan!

Mamet also wrote the screenplay to one of my all-time favorite movies, Ronin. He was called in to doctor the original screenplay by J.D. Zeik, and he used the pseudonym Richard Weisz.

The David Mamet Society

Dave King's Hat

I've liked drummer Dave King since I first heard him play with the Bad Plus sometime in 2000. BP pianist Ethan Iverson and bassist Reid Anderson no longer live in the Midwest, but Dave still does, and he plays around town in many different bands including (but not limited to) Happy Apple (with Michael Lewis and Eric Fratzke), Halloween, Alaska (James Diers, Matt Friesen, Jake Hanson), F-K-G (Scott Fultz, Dean Granros), the Starry-Eyed Lovelies (Lewis, Anthony Cox, Dean Granros), and most recently Buffalo Collision (Tim Berne, Iverson, Mat Maneri) when they came to the Dakota in mid-September. For those dates, violist Maneri couldn't come, so cellist Hank Roberts was the string section, which turned out more than fine; hearing Hank play was a revelation. In December 2003, we also heard King at the Artists' Quarter. The AQ had scheduled Siamese Fighting Fish (Granros, Cox, and King), but Granros had a family emergency and pianist Craig Taborn was in town and agreed to step in. They dubbed themselves Garcia and played two great nights. That's jazz.

About the hat: Dave King shaves his head. And he lives in Minnesota. When he was here with Berne, I asked permission to measure his head, which he graciously granted. Hand-knit from deep blue Italian cashmere, topped with a pompom (King specifically requested a pompom but left the rest up to me), the hat is finished and ready to send.

P.S. I didn't know this at the time, but Dave King's hat would lead to several more hats for jazz musicians and other cool people associated with the music we love. HH came up with "Hats for Cats" and it stuck.

P.P.S. I've decided to call Dave's hat "Hat Zero." Where it all started.

Kincaid's

While I'll never again set foot in the Bloomington Kincaid's, I like the one in St. Paul, especially late on a weeknight evening. The atmosphere is cozy, the service excellent, and the food is consistently good. We learned last night that you can order the Maple Chicken Salad (sliced pear, toasted pecans, pecan-crusted Maytag blue cheese, maple vinaigrette) without the chicken or the blue cheese--as a starter salad. It's not on the menu but our server suggested it. Delicious.

Eroica

The Schubert Club, Ordway Center, 10/2/07: The 125-year-old Schubert Club launched its annual International Artist Series with a performance by "the most sought-after trio in the world," the Eroica (not a word that's missing a t, eroica is Italian for heroic, and the name of Beethoven's Third Symphony). They played beautifully and looked fabulous, wearing the slinky gowns shown here and amazingly high heels. Pianist Erika Nickrenz is tall; her piano bench was perched on four little trapezoid-shaped columns for extra height (someone should tell jazz pianist Jon Weber about those). They played Jean-Baptiste Loeillet's Trio Sonata No. 2 in B minor; three tangos by Astor Piazzolla; Paul Schoenfield's "Cafe Music," commissioned by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and based on an idea Schoenfield had while sitting in for the pianist at Murray's Restaurant (home of the Original Silver Butterknife Steak); and Schubert's Trio No. 1 in B flat Major, Op. 99.

I loved the sensuous, smoky tangos and the witty Schoenfield. The Schubert happened after intermission, and by then we were at Kincaid's sipping martinis and ordering steaks. I'm sure the Schubert was exquisite but we were hungry and, as I looked at the program and pondered what to do (stay? leave?), what sealed it for me was realizing that the Eroica would bring their own stamp and flavor to the piece, but there would be no improvisation and I could listen to a recording later (the Beaux Arts Trio on iTunes, for example). Jazz may have spoiled me for written-down, played-by-the-note music. Listening to the Loeillet, my mind strayed and I wondered, "Why does the second i in violin change to an o in violoncello?"

Photo from the Eroica Trio Web site, Gallery section.

Olu Dara

The Dakota, 9/30 and 10/1/07: Front porch music, back room music, roots music, music from Natchez downriver and New York out east, Olu Dara telling stories that open into songs, singing songs that pause for stories, the cornet's wail, feet tapping, Alonzo Garner on bass and Kwate Quartey on guitar playing a heartbeat of notes and chords, songs about love ("When the dark clouds come/Bluebirds fly in the nighttime/When you lose a love/A new love comes at the right time") and Uncle Levi's longing for white suspenders ("A promise is a debt") and a woman with lips like Louisiana plums ("Your lips, your lips are juicy") and a drummer named Massamba from the Congo. We're at the mercy of three wise men, one wearing a Bentley visor cap. When it's over, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Janis Lane-Ewart interviews Olu Dara on her weekly KFAI radio program, "Collective Eye"

Olu Dara performs in the Current studio

Jazz 101: What Is Jazz?

Trumpet player and composer Kelly Rossum coordinates the jazz program at the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis. He's currently teaching a 12-week class called "Jazz 101: What Is Jazz?" Those of us taking the class were asked to come up with definitions of jazz. This is his:

Jazz is a global art form which, through improvisation, combines traditional and popular music of multiple cultures within a modern social context.

Here are Kelly's tips for listening to jazz, especially if you're new to it:

• Listen for the mood
• Unfocus your ears
• Listen to the sounds
• Listen to specific instruments
• Isolate on one instrument and follow it
  

I came to jazz in the 1980s through the fusion door--David Sanborn, Jeff Lorber, Jean-Luc Ponty, Stanley Clarke, the Yellowjackets. One day I heard a tune by Thelonious Monk on the radio. Soon after, I met Suzan Jenkins on a school field trip with our children. What a lucky break for me. Suzan and Willard Jenkins are encyclopedias of jazz. They took a laid-back approach to my jazz education...basically "Try this, you'll like it, then try this."

Now I get to learn from Kelly, along with others who share a passion for the music. And I get to hear a lot of live jazz because I live in a town with a lot of venues, thanks in large part to Leigh Kamman, who hosted jazz radio shows for more than six decades. Before Leigh, someone noted in one of the many articles written about him prior to his retirement from Minnesota Public Radio last month, this was mostly a polka town.

I like Kelly's definition because it clearly describes the nature of jazz: Global. Art form. (In the days of the Depression and swing bands, jazz was popular music, but today it's art music.) Improvisation. Combination. Multiple cultures. Jazz is big, broad, and full of surprises.

When Louis Armstrong was asked to define jazz, he replied, "Man, if you gotta ask, you'll never know." Bix Beiderbecke once said, "One thing I like about jazz, kid, is that I don't know what's going to happen next. Do you?"

Secrets of the Day

Sign up for the Rake's Secrets of the Day email newsletter and get bite-sized, diverse and enticing suggestions for places to go and things to do in the Twin Cities. Today's features singer/songwriter/storyteller/cornet player Olu Dara, dad of hip-hop artist Nas. Here's what the Rake has to say about his show at the Dakota:

On the more seasoned side of the musical spectrum, Olu Dara serves up "an eclectic mix of blues, jazz, and storytelling, with tinges of funk, African popular music, and reggae." While he has been making music for more than three decades, during which time he has won numerous awards -- including a 1999 Audelco Lifetime Achievement Award for his theater work -- and while he has been oft compared to the legendary Louis Armstrong, you might not even know his name. For many years, Dara took a back seat to big names like Art Blakey, David Murray, and Henry Threadgill. Just under a decade ago, he finally stepped forward with his record debut, proving himself as a worthy leader, as well. You won't want to miss this trumpet virtuoso.