If you listen too long you might start breathing heavy...

It's "study period" at John Harvard's University again, which can mean only one thing- the resident radio station WHRB will play orgies, unbelievably long stretches of a single artist or idea. I'm a little late to jump on it this year, but that's OK, it seems, because they're kicking off with eight days of Beethoven. If that's your cup of tea, you're in heaven. Me, not so much. But, I'll take the opportunity to try to finally really check out some of the late string quartets.

Of more interest to jazz nerds may be:

Tuesday 1/15- Klezmer Jazz Orgy
Wednesday 1/16- Django Reinhardt orgy
Friday 1/18- "Women in Jazz" orgy (will comment later)
Monday 1/21- Max Roach Orgy
Monday 1/28- "third stream" orgy
Wednesday 1/30- the bass clarinet in jazz orgy (this should be fun)

Other orgies of note:
Tuesday 1/15- "Adventures of Superman" orgy
Thursday 1/17- BB King orgy
Saturday 1/19- "27 club" orgy (rock stars who died at 27. What's the current over/under that Britney lands on that list. sigh...)
Wednesday 1/23- Debussey orgy
Friday 1/25- Gorecki orgy
Tuesday 1/29- Anthology of American Folk Music orgy

New spaces for breath

I'll beef this up tomorrow (I've been building my new web page, which ate all my blogging time. With any luck, it goes up tomorrow!), but a few yoga notes:

- Two of my good friends and favorite teachers have new studios of their own! David Vendetti, one of my first yoga teachers in Boston, has opened a beautiful space in Southie, of all places, called (what else) South Boston Yoga. I was over there this weekend for opening festivities, and it's a wonderful space- complete with a really cool Iyengar wall and every prop imaginable- full of beautiful people.

And one of my running buddies at Baptiste, Brandon Compagnone, is days from opening his studio in Northampton, MA, Shiva Shakti Power Yoga. Brandon was Baptiste's most popular teacher when he was teaching there, and his crazy, beautiful energy is infectious. (And his classes are really hard) If you're in the neighborhood out there check it.

- As for me, my yoga teaching schedule is set for the next while. I'm teaching primarily for the Beacon Hill Athletic Clubs, in Wellesley on Monday nights and on Comm Ave on Sunday mornings. If you aren't a member and would like to come, shoot me an e-mail. I'm at the point where any and all feedback on my teaching is most welcome.

UPDATE: Brandon called me yesterday, and he is opening on Monday January 21. (His exact words were actually "Donaher, you &#*@, I'm ^&@*#%n open!" I love that guy...)

Yes!

(Adapted from a Franciscan proverb):

For all that has been, thank you.
For all that is to come, YES.

Thanks to everyone as always for reading. Have a safe and beautiful 2008.

You see my face and the music starts

As others have duly noted, Facebook has added a feature for musicians' promotion, and I have jumped in with a new Facebook page of my very own. I agree with Darcy's assessment- the look is pretty generic, and the navigation and editing features are pretty clunky. (though on the plus side once I got past the "CID" part of the process, putting music up was easy and painless.) It seems ridiculous that a site that is so clever in friend mode- you can throw sheep, for heaven's sake- is so dull here.

That said, I make do, and would appreciate your fandom on the new page. As with everything else in my life, it's a work in progress, and will hold me over promotionally until I can put Patdonaher.com up. And just to make it worth your while, there are two never-released sound clips on the Facebook page. One is a promo version of the No Sale Value tune "Jackson", and a live duo with the amazing Bob Brookmeyer. For a limited time only, so check it.

Suddenly it looks much further away

For some reason, the year usually wraps up with me updating/fixing/changing my online presence; this year, it's adding a facebook page, (finally) putting my 1998 CD "On Any Given Day" on CDBaby and Itunes, and (hopefully) relaunching a new patdonaher.com, with a better layout and more yoga stuff. Details as I finish them.

In the meantime, I'll join the line of those looking back on the year that was. I don't have a broad enough view of what's going on in any of the worlds I inhabit to give a "best of" list of anything, but I do have favorite:

Gigs to see:

Matana Roberts/Tyshawn Sorey @ Stone, 2/17
John Hollenbeck Refuge Trio @ LilyPad, 3/9
Fred Hersch @ Regattabar, 5/15
Erik Friedlander @ LilyPad, 7/?? (I didn't write it up, but Jon Garelik mentions it in his year in review)
FONT Opening Concert @ SIM, 9/15
Steve Reich Music for 18 Musicians@ NEC, 11/28

Gig to play:
The Behearer Concert in February. I'll repost some of the highlights.

Albums to listen to (in no special order):
Maria Schneider, Sky Blue
Radiohead, In Rainbows (though I can't wait for the real CD to come out for better sound quality)
Kneebody, Low Electrical Worker
Jai Uttal, Dial M for Mantra (don't ask, it's the most listenable yoga album I've heard, and when you're around yoga people all the time...)
Myra Melford, The Image of Your Body (not her best, but Brandon Ross kicks ass here)
Bjork, Volta
Michael Brecker, Pilgrimage (not because it's morbid, either- have you heard both Herbie and Meldhau tear it up here?)
The Bad Plus, Prog

Jury is still out: Josh Redman, Way Back East, Feist, The Reminder;
biggest letdown by far: Joni Mitchell, Shine; Herbie's River turned out to be some better than my initial reaction. Not great, but good.

Book to read:
Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise. Worth all the hype and then some.

The blog doesn't always reflect it, or maybe it does in its recent paucity of postings, but 2007 has been a great year. Thanks to all of you for reading, commenting , listening. Come back for a better '08!

Contact low

I am having some domain issues, which are affecting my e-mail. If you need to contact me, please leave a comment below or e-mail visionsong (AT) gmail (dot) com. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Ice and Hard Edges

This weekend I made a quick jaunt down to New York, to see a few friends, and catch some music, including Darcy's last hit of '07. Alas, mother nature intervened and cancelled all the buses, and I had to catch an early train to get back to Boston for a busy (and icy) Monday. I like these trips, beyond the excitement of New York, for a few hours uninterrupted to read and listen to music. That listening will bring some album reviews later this week, but first a few scattered thoughts.

I was at Stone last night for a performance by cornetist Graham Haynes and “sound designer” HardEdge (more on that later). I overheard the next piece of bad news- Downtown Music Gallery is moving from its Bowery location to a yet-to-be-determined new storefront. (Not coincidentally, you're starting to see empty storefronts. Something has to give eventually, and I hope, but doubt, that it's the rent prices) It is a victim of the continuing gentrification (I think that's too gentle a word at this point, how about baronizing) of the Bowery; their rent is being doubled. Manhattan continues to eat its young- even the East Village and the Lower East Side feel more and more like hipster caricatures rather than vibrant neighborhoods- signs on the subway advertise one bedrooms for “only $3K per month”. Meaning, realistically, you have to be making $70K minimum to live in what were tenements not too long ago. Huh? All of this has a predictable and chilling effect of the arts scene, which was one of the main attractions of the LES in the first place. The new gilded age.

This is the third or fourth time I've been to Stone this year, and while I appreciate many things about the place and the music it presents, I like the place less and less each time I go. Even great music isn't that fun to listen to there- the setting is so austere and cold, white walls and black ceilings, the musicians so nonchalant about the audience. I'm reading The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross, (fantastic, btw) and it reminds me of his description of Schoenberg's avant-garde scene in Berlin in the aughts. I think it's great that the artists and the music are priority one there, and agree with it, but does that inherently have to make it hard on the audience.

To be fair, I could've been at last night's gig on a high-end couch having grapes fed to me, and I'm not sure it would've increased my appreciation of last night's gig. (I should say I'm at the age where wearing sunglasses inside looks silly no matter who you are, so I wasn't predisposed for Mr. Edge from the get-go) HardEdge's sonic palate consisted of a lot of sounds that approximated radio noise, combined with very distorted and digitized voices- a very cold, very harsh aesthetic. Coming out of the beginnings of a snowstorm, it just reinforced the cold in my bones. Haynes contrasted effectively, with a deep rich tone on coronet enhanced by very wet reverb and delay effects. His material reminded me of very late Miles (i.e. late 80s) in its clear, clipped but warm approach. However, beyond this hot/cold bath, I wasn't finding much connection between the musicians for much of the set- occasionally HardEdge would fall into a bleepy groove, and Haynes would alternate between sitting in and floating on top of it lyrically. But mostly it hit my ears as a lot of noise, and not especially interesting noise at that. There was also a video artist, manipulating kaleidoscopic designs and wispy line patterns, sometimes over distorted images of the players. He was very in tune with what they were doing, and his interaction with them was fun to watch, thought they didn't reciprocate, or even really look at him. There was a second set, but a warm bed sounded better at the end of the first, especially with an ugly hail/snow starting to fall. .

Sometimes I'm beginning to think it's just me. I had breakfast with my friend who recently hung out with a colleague from my NEC days, one I haven't seen or played with at all in four years. She recounted his description of me, and said she didn't really recognize the person he was talking about. I did, and sometimes winced at his accurate descriptors, but it's not the same person who's playing and teaching and writing now. This is inevitable, I suppose; we all change, like it or not, and I'm much happier now than I was then. But I couldn't help but think- would that me have been more into last night, into Stone in general? More complimentary, or harsher about records I review, concerts I see? Does it matter, and how? I wonder...

RIP Frank Morgan

Alto saxophonist Frank Morgan, often thought of as one of the closest stylistic links to Bird, passed away this week. (via Rifftides)

When I was first starting to play the saxohpone in 1988 or so, Frank Morgan was in the midst of a comeback after a long string of trips to prison and rehab. For much of his career, he was an enormous devotee of Charlie Parker, imitating his sound, his licks, and eventually his habit. Unlike Bird, he shook heroin and stayed clean for the last thirty years of his life. I found Morgan due to the pub he was getting at the time, and used to listen to his Lovesome Thing album a lot. In college I distanced myself from a lot of music, including Morgan, but I've heard him some on the radio recently, and been really taken by his unusual dark sound. He'll always be identified with Bird, but that definition no longer seemed to own him.

Doug's obit is warm and spot on. We're blessed my his presence while he was here.

take a look at my shiny phonograph...

To less hoopla than I'm used to, the Grammy nominations were announced last week. For those who care, the jazz nominations can be found here. It's hard not to imagine Herbie and Terrence Blanchard winning their categories- Herbie because he won't win the big album of the year, Terrence for sentimental reasons. (Though what I've heard of his "Levees" album is good. The playing is really solid, and the writing is good if a little drippy) I have to think that Brecker will win the instrumental album for "Pilgrimage", again for sentimental reasons. Though it may well be the best album nominated; after several listens I like it more; possibly Brecker's best solo date. Meldhau plays his ass off and then some.

Other Grammy notes

I know how the final voting goes, but can anyone tell me how the nominating process works? Many years I look at the finalists and just say "huh?" And I know with the album of the year this year including Amy Weinhouse, Herbie Hancock and the Foo Fighters, I'm not alone here.

It's interesting, and I suppose reassuring to purists, to note most "smooth jazz" now shows up in the "Instrumental Pop" category- Chris Botti, Spyro Gyra and Kurt Whalum are all there, with Herbie and a creature called Eldar, who collaborated with Ropeadope regular DJ Logic, in the "contemporary jazz" nomenclature. Biggest omission in the jazz category: Prog by TBP.

I'm rooting for Maria Schneider to win the big band category for "Sky Blue", but with Blanchard in there with her, and since they didn't give it to her for "Concert in the Garden", a superior record IMHO, how will she get it here? (NOTE: I was wrong here, as Darcy notes below. I was under the mistaken impression that the album won an award for Donnie McCaslin's solo, but not the larger category. Oops)

I'll give "River" another go- my first impressions have been lukewarm, but am I the only one that thinks Herbie hasn't made a great record in more than 20 years? They're never bad- he's too good a musician- but they're never at the level he's capable of producing, especially if you catch him on a good night live. Yet no one calls him on it, he keeps getting award nominations and lots of pub... can someone call a spade a spade? (I'll come back to this some other time, he's not alone...)

If Amy Weinhouse wins any of the awards she's up for, she should fall down at the feet of The Dap Kings, her backup band on the album and a solid outfit in their own right. I like her fine, but they make her sound.

And, no, I won't be live-blogging the Grammys this year. Once such punishment enough...

soon we'll pull the lever, and all hell will break loose

Recently, in a rare and feeble act of legislative initiative, Massachusetts shifted its presidential primary to "Super-Duper Tuesday", in the hopes that we would have a little more say in the nominating process. In a small attempt at civic duty (standing in line at City Hall to update my voter registration comes next week, I swear...), I caught big pieces of the last two candidate debates, the Republican Youtube... thing and the Democrats' far more useful NPR debate.

This isn't a political blog, so I'll be relatively brief in this matter- I was impressed in general with the Democratic debate. Maybe because it was on radio, it was thoughtful, interesting, and remarkably devoid of grandstanding. I came away feeling like there were several people I could vote for there. (Dodd, Biden, Obama, and Kucinich. I like Richardson, but if he ran the country like he's run his campaign, we're doomed. And I don't trust Clinton or Edwards at all, and Gravel is, well, not all there)

As for the Gory Old Party, this post at Salon speaks far better than I could. Are the Republicans that small, and that scared, that that lot of twits is the best we can do? That Mike Huckabee, a small-minded, small time revivalist preacher, comes across as the only human being in the lot? I am reminded of the idea put forward by Marianne Williamson, that we can live from fear, or we can live from love. Neither is perfect, but where would you rather go? I'd rather live from love, and pray every day that our country can choose a route where that becomes possible.

I leave you for now (blogging is resuming, at last) with a famous quote from Ms. Williamson herself:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Listening to music for 18 musicians

At what point is the music, any music, secondary to the communal experience of hearing it? I found myself asking that as I left New England Conservatory's performance of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, with Reich on hand coaching and cheerleading. I'm still asking a few days later, listening to the Nonesuch recording of the piece. (misidentified on my Itunes, interestingly, as the ECM version.) As many of you reading this probably know, Reich's masterpiece consists of eleven chords spun in, through and around 18 musicians in a steady 3-pulse for about 65 minutes, give or take depending on the performers. (You can see an excerpt of the critically acclaimed recent GVSU version of the piece here) And while it is tremendously repetitive in one sense, the brilliance of the piece is that slight shifts in voicings, orchestration and rhythms then seem like dramatic events. As Darcy noted blogging the piece at Bang on a Can, there is a subtle drama that is enhanced by the seeming monotony, where little movements, both in the music and by the players, take on more significance. (I did hear one jaded conservatory sophomore afterwards complaining that nothing happened; there's always a few...)

It's easy, and apt, to talk about minimalist music, especially earlier minimalism, using words like "trancelike" and "hypnotic". However, I don't think it's especially useful in this case. Like so much great music before it, especially music in the Western classical tradition, it creates a world and invites you to live there for awhile. Isn't this what the great symphonic music of the 19th century does. Unlike at a Beethoven concert, there was someone in the back corner of the balcony doing a sort of wormlike variation of the robot dance for the first twenty minutes of the piece. No one seemed to mind...

I have a yoga teacher who, when he occasionally reads some quote in class, always invites the class to "let the words wash over you", rather than encouraging them to listen. When I was able to experience the piece this way, engaged in the music but not intellectualizing it at all, it was glorious, especially in a hall as acoustically marvelous as Jordan Hall, with a nearly full house of people, most as excited for the performance as I was, heightened the experience. Occasionally my left brain would kick in to figure out exactly what the last shift was, but it had the same effect on my listening as when the reel of a film falls off- I felt literally shoved out of the space I'd been in.

Back to the dancer for a moment- what he was doing seemed, oddly enough, to fit. When played well, and here it was, this piece grooves, especially in the middle when the piano takes on its most melodic, or to my ears gamelan-like activity (for lack of a better term. Clearly I haven't read any of the musicology on this piece since college). There are a couple of youtube clips of people choreographing to this piece, and for some modern dance vocabularies it's an obvious fit. There has been much made during his career on Reich's influence on electronica and western movements into "world music", and it's absolutely obvious if you sit and listen to one of his pieces live.

It'll make a pretty paperweight

Tomorrow night the 20th annual Boston Music Awards convenes tomorrow evening to, well, what exactly do they do? Globe critic Joan Anderman knocks the awards and the scene they represent around this morning, and I'm inclined to agree with most of her assessment. Her best line:

"(it is a) near-impossibility of building a world-class industry event in a town that calls itself the Hub but operates as an outpost."

I could spend ages elaborating on this assessment, because it's dead-on. There is a myopia that characterizes many elements of life in Boston, and while it can lend a quaint charm to our sports fans or how crowded the North End is on weekends, it can kill a music scene in no time flat.

There are vibrant scenes here, but they tend to be very self-contained- a great set of singer-songwriters that congregate around Club Passim and the Toad/Lizard Lounge pairing, a cool almost-seedy punk/bar band scene at O'Brien's and Middle East (We miss TT the Bear's badly), a little Afro-beat scene that has flourished at Matt Murphy's, a jazz scene based primarily around the schools- a blessing and a curse too big to get into here- and a small but strong hip-hop scene that survives where it can. But note that none of the venues that I mention (save the schools) are in Boston proper- the combination of high rent, Puritanical zoning and the early close of the Boston transit system make having a hopping live music club really tough. Is there a solution(s)? I'd love to know 'em. Maybe I'd gig more...

Back to the awards themselves- no one I've talked to seems to quite know how the whole thing works. Ric Stone, 1/4 of the Quartet of Happiness, nominated for "best jazz act", told me they're grateful for the (little bit of) attention it's brought, but has no idea how they were nominated. They're in with long-timers and badasses Dominique Eade, Club D'Elf, Jacques Chanier, a long-suffering and unappreciated local, the Blueprint Project, a cool project of Jared Sims and Eric Hofbauer, newcomer Leah Randazzo (who, I'd note, I've never, never heard of, and who lives on the other side of the state), and Hiromi, the John Mayer of this category. (She went to Berklee, hasn't lived here in years, and has no discernable connection to Boston beyond Berklee and some national pub) As Miles might say, "judge that, how the &$^# am I supposed to judge THAT?" Well, since voting was an online popularity contest, it doesn't really say much about the quality of the winner, only of their bots.

We also seem to have an innate ability to cannibalize what scene there is here... see this old post as an example. And this kind of nonsense happens all the time here. (sigh)

Steve Reich @ New England Conservatory tonight!

As part of the continuing celebration of Steve Reich's 70th birthday, New England Conservatory will present four concerts over two days, tonight and tomorrow at 5pm and 8pm. The highlight is tonight at 8pm, when the Callithumpian Consort will play the legendary Music for 18 Musicians. The word is that Reich himself will be there coaching the music. I have a gig, but am hoping to get there in time for the Music for 18. (played by twenty, of course)

side airbags

This spring, the long dormant Johnny Carcrash duo with Hwaen Chuqi (nee Jeff Tomlinson) will reunite for a few gigs. Details forthcoming. To celebrate that, and my 250th friend on Myspace, (If you can really count a production company and a yoga e-mail list as friends) I've posted one cut from our Knitting Factory concert in 2001 on the myspace page. And if you're not a friend yet, don't be shy.

Blogging will resume in earnest... soon.

Maria Schneider @ Berklee Performance Center, 11/17/04

There's very little I can say about Maria Schneider at this point that hasn't been said better by someone else. She is, almost without a doubt, the most important "jazz composer" in the past twenty years. The new album, Sky Blue, has catupoulted her critical assessment into a whole new category- BBC Music called her one of the important composers in her generation. Not jazz composer, just composer. A whole generation of players, writers and big band leaders are, or have been, in the business because they heard Evanessence, her first album.

In this day and age, it's always fascinating to hear an "art" big band live. Big band music is one of the few places in jazz or improvised music where a live show can feel like a "greatest hits" rock show- the band plays the charts as they are written (that's kind of the point), even if they're old, and it's possible to go in knowing every note of every chart, and consciously or subconsciously comparing what's happening to what you're used to hearing on your stereo. And, like most of my writing peers, I know most of Maria's records really well.

That said, a live show of this music is also illuminating. The modern big band album (the modern orchestral record, and pop records too) is a completely artificial product, in that you can mix, master and tweak it to make a flute sound louder than a trumpet section. (Or make Fergie in tune...) While the sound engineer in a live setting can do wonders, and did- Maria listed him as the 19th member of the band- you get a truer sense of what a chart really sounds like, what the composer imagines and implements in real time. (The chance to play these charts, or sit inside a rehearsing band, affords a different but equally valuable experience. While you don't get the whole picture of a piece, you can hear relationships and a physical sense of things that no mixing board can capture. If you care about Maria's or really any big band music, I would beg, bribe or cajole my way into one of these experiences, even if only with a local college band. The amount I've learned sitting in the sax section playing Basie, or Bob, or Maria is invaluable.)

If none of this music had ever been recorded, this show would've knocked the audience's socks off. All of Maria's strengths- her amazing orchestration, her ability to completely integrate the soloist into a composition, and of her soloists to complement what she writes, her phenomenal (and possibly underrated) knack for counterpoint- shone here. (Obviously, it's not absolutely acoustically "pure"- Maria lists her sound engineer as the 19th member of her band, and he was spectacular.)

The concert spanned all six of her albums, including two numbers from the new "Sky Blue". The highlight of the show was "Cerulian Skies", a piece she wrote for Peter Sellers' recent Mozart festival. On the album I have to admit that the piece confused me- it builds beautifully on a tremendously simple theme from the opening through Donnie Macaslin's burning solo, then stops for an extended piano/accordian duo, which on the recording kills the momentum of the piece. But live, it seemed to flow better, building slowly again to the climactic alto solo by Charlie Pillow.

A standing ovation brought an encore, an arrangement of "My Ideal" that dates back more than twenty years to her Eastman days. It's a lovely, really really good college band arrangement, complete with shifts from ballad feel to double time to 3/4 and back, and a 5 flute(!) soli in for good measure. It was a fascinating close after an evening of phenomenally forward looking music, to be reminded of exactly how much ground Maria has covered, and really unearthed, in a fairly short span of time.

NOTE: Maria continues a weeklong run at the Jazz Standard in NYC tomorrow night. If you can, go- this venue seems to treat her really well, she has a larger version of her band, and it'll kill.

Red states don't swing?

(via War Room) The Norman Mailer Institute and Zogby's recent poll about politics and entertainment, summarized here, is an interesting read. Most notable for this space:

"Conservatives are the least likely group to listen to jazz (34% vs. 44% of moderates vs. 53% of liberals) and reggae (8% vs. 20% vs. 26%)." Why do I get the sense that "hip-hop" was not a choice on the poll- I can't imagine it scoring better than jazz. Makes me feel like I should give JB Spins more love than I do- his is a lonely post. (Seriously, he's a very good writer, and while I disagree with him a lot, musically and politically, he's worth reading.)

And... "Classical music: although moderates are less enamored with it, classical music barely nudged ahead of rock as the most popular music genre overall." While I think this may well be a case of people tailoring their tastes to a pollster, Alex Ross would still be thrilled.

So, if you really want a change next election, start inviting your conservative friends to jazz clubs and reggae dancehalls?

Searching for a Heart of Gold

Some stuff in real-time, some good (planning for '08 gigs), some less so (family health crisis) will cut into blogging for the next little bit. But before I go, I wanted to tie up a couple of things.

More gigs to see:

Jennifer Kimball, my favorite singer-songwriter, is playing for free(!) at the (correction) Lizard Lounge in Cambridge every Wednesday night this month. no cover! Go see her, please. You won't regret it.

The Boston Symphony, under James Levine is doing an amazing program of the Berg Violin Concerto and Mahler's 9th Symphony. The Berg is probably my favorite classical piece, and has the best saxophone part in the orchestral rep. (no coincidence there, surely) And the power of Mahler was discussed at length earlier this summer on this blog.

Blogroll updates:
In this game a minute is the (relatively) new blog of Evan O'Reilly, guitarist, teacher and raconteur. Evan was an early contributor to No Sale Value, and is a good musician and interesting, contrarian thinker.

I also added the blog of Byron Katie to the "Shining Lights". Katie is a strange, remarkable story of enlightenment, for lack of a better word. I've found her method personally to be nothing less than life-changing, corny as that, or she, may sound.

Finally, thanks to Reid, Ethan and Dave (AKA The Bad Plus) for another hugely entertaining evening on music on Saturday. I thought the set started a little slow, then took off with the ABBA cover. I went with a friend who had never seen the band before, and they were knocked out. (particularly by the set's ending, which I won't spoil for those of you who get to see them soon)

Oh, it's election day in the states. Go vote. Thank you.

Gigs to see tonight!

I missed one good one in my listings yesterday, and I apologize- tonight at 8 The Brookline Tai Chi music series presents Jeremy Udden and the Tin Bag duo of Kris Tiner and Mike Bagetta. Blog junkies will know the latter from their illustrious blogs, Soul and the System and Blogetta.

Jeremy is one of my favorite living saxophonists (really), and since he moved to New York he hasn't been playing up here nearly as much, so this is a treat. Barring technical calamities (and I'm fixing toilets today, so they're very likely) I will either be at the Caetano Veloso concert or the Tai Chi.

Gigs to see in Boston in November

Or, gorge your gourd. It's a pretty good month.

Best bets: Caetano Veloso @ The Orpheum, tomorrow (11/2)
11/17 Maria Schneider Orchestra @ Berklee Performance Center (workshops during the week)

the rest:

11/1 (tonight) Dan Rosenthal Quartet @ Lily Pad
11/2-3 The Bad Plus @ The Regattabar
11/8 Aardvard Jazz Orchestra @ Scullers (anniversary concert)
11/15 music of Don Byron @ Jordan Hall, NEC (workshops during the week)
11/16 Bruno Raeburg Quartet @ Lily Pad
11/18 Andrew Rathburn w/Garzone @ Ryles
11/28-9 Music of Steve Reich @ NEC
11/30 Skycap Festival featuring Fully Celebrated Orchestra @ Lily Pad
11/30 Jackie Terrason solo @ The Regattabar

Did I mention the Red Sox won yet? Again!

Okay, now that we have that taken care of, I can pretend to think like a human again. (By happy coincidence, I wandered into a bar on Bowery after my Saturday evening engagement- see below- that was (gasp) a Red Sox bar. So I had friends right off the bat, who all cheered and groaned at the right times. While this post-season was nowhere near as nail-biting as 2004, it certainly had its moments.

Anyhoow, highlights, lowlights and otherlights of this weekend's jaunt to NYC:

The very good- spending time with my blog hero Darcy, hearing a fair bit of the indie-rock that has been so talked about in the blogosphere recently. The recent Arcade Fire disc jumped up my to-buy list as a result. I never run out of friends to see in New York, or leave having a bad time with them.
- lots of time to listen to records in transit, and read. Between train and bus rides I finished Ben Ratliff's new book on Coltrane. I recommend it, and will try to talk more about it soon. (review here, first chapter here)
- New York restaraunts. Dinner at Jellado, brunch at Gasgogne, fantastic coffee at a place in Carrol Gardens whose name I promptly forgot- something about leaves. One could get used to this.

The good- Michael Cain, who is mentioned here occasionally, wrote music for a play at the Public called The View from 151st Street, so I went to see it, naturally. It was a good play, with some exceptional acting and powerful, if uneven writing. The music, which this evening featured Liberty Ellman on guitar, was an interesting mix of live and recorded tracks and sounds, overall very effective. (There was a short, recorded solo piano piece in the middle of the first act that was amazing, reminded me of what took me about Michael's music in the first place) I often thought on the more hip-hop based material that the bass player could've played a fair bit less, but I find myself saying that a lot lately.

The less good- I got in early enough on Friday to trek down to The Stone on Friday night
to see Steve Bernstein and the Millennial Territory Orchestra. I'm not the world's biggest Bernstein or Sex Mob fan, but I've always left his shows entertained. Not tonight. The charts, such as they were, sounded like sloppier, less funky cutouts from Bill Frisell's Unspeakable albums. The one good chart was for a singer (didn't catch the name) who didn't have much of a voice or use the mike well. Some good players- Peter Apflebaum, Ben Allison, Ben Perowsky, Art Baron- were pretty much wasted.

I understand better than many the challenge that is putting a large ensemble show together in any context- there's never enough planning, or rehearsal, or promotion. But here I was embarrassed for the musicians, annoyed at paying even the modest $10 I did, and left before the set ended.

Don't mean to end on a down note, especially when there's so much to look forward to in Boston this week- and not just the Red Sox rolling rally. Caetano Veloso is here Friday, The Bad Plus Friday and Saturday. Full listings tomorrow.