I Just Read About That…

 SOUNDTRACK: GABRIEL GARZÓN MONTANO Tiny Desk Concert #623 (May 26, 2017)

I have no idea who Gabriel Garzón Montano is.  The blurb suggests that even if I don’t know, others certainly do.

I was, admittedly, thrown for a loop when Gabriel Garzón-Montano told me that he wanted to perform unaccompanied, just him and a piano. The meticulousness of his work is clear on his debut album, Jardin, a three-year creative process in which Gabriel plays most of the instruments, tracking them to two-inch tape, layering its overall sound. Jardin takes its title as an umbrella; fruits, bugs and other plants are the driving metaphors tying together this dense work, which blooms over successive listens. Garzón-Montano doesn’t necessarily wear his heart on his sleeve — he forces you to listen and peel the layers back.

Garzón-Montano’s career trajectory veers wide — living with Philip Glass for a year while his late mother played in the composer’s ensemble, sitting under the minimal maestro’s piano as he practiced; Lenny Kravitz making possible his first tour experience; while Drake exposed Gabriel’s sound to the masses.

That decision to go it alone at the Tiny Desk made sense, though, the moment he started to play; his talent is left elegantly exposed in this unadorned performance. He says his visit to the Tiny Desk “with just piano and vocal reminds me of what is lost when a song is fully produced and arranged — it was an exciting and vulnerable experience. I was nervous for this one.”

Here then, are three songs from Jardin, along with the song that introduced Gabriel to the world… laid bare.

When I listened to this the first time I thought he played 2 longish songs but indeed, there are 4 shortish songs.

I really love the piano sound he gets but the r&b style of pop singing is not my thing and so many “babys.”

I singled out a few things in the songs.  The line in “My Balloon” “I’ll get back on my balloon and meet my baby on the moon” I find endearing even if it is kinda dumb.  I enjoyed the way “Long Ears” came seamlessly from the first song.  It starts with a high note and falsetto vocals. It’s much more interesting than the first song.  And the second half of “Long Ears” is quite interesting, almost dissonant–although I could do without the you you you section.

I thought the first line of “6 8” was “fuck me real slowly,” which was disconcerting.  Especially since a later line was “I’m just like a baby drooling over you.”  But I believe it is “rock me real slowly.”  It segues cleanly into the final song, “Crawl.”  I think he stars in the same falsetto but then switches to a deeper voice.  I love the bouncy middle section that sounds like a musical.  Although once again there’s too much oo ooo ooo ooo.

All of those vocalizings sound especially flat during an under produced occasion such as this.

[READ: April 26, 2017] “You Are Happy?”

This story was fairly straightforward, but it opened up a cultural aspect that I had no idea about.

The main character is Laskshman, an Indian boy living in the United States.  As the story opens, we see Lakshman’s grandmother telling Lakshman’s father that he should break his wife’s arms and legs to prevent her from getting to the bottle.

Lakshman’s mother is an alcoholic, and, apparently, there is no greater disgrace for an Indian woman.  At parties–parties that were usually segregated–she often joined the men and drank and gave her opinions, to the disgust of all present.

She had begun drinking was Lakshman was 8 and they moved to America.   But by the time he was 9 she was drinking during dinner.  When he turned 11 she was drinking during the day.  His father had had enough.  He stated matter of factly that she was a drunkard.  Their marriage had been arranged and they never grew to love one another.  This certainly didn’t help.

His father often traveled to India, but when his wife drank more, he traveled to India even more frequently. When Lakshman was 14, his mother declared that she was going to stay in bed and drink.  She brought a huge amount of alcohol and some buckets and–with cheer in her voice–she settled in.   When Lakshman said that Daddy wouldn’t like that she replied, Let him die.

Lakshman called his father and his father initially said there was nothing he could do.  But he flew home and when he saw his wife he shouted at her “Die!  At last there is nothing else to do.”  But rather he called he county A.A. office.  She was brought in to detox for a month.

Then the story turns somewhat. We learn that on farms in India pretty young girls, fifteen sixteen seventeen will often have sex with men–willingly or otherworldly.  And there was one such girl whom his father had fallen with.  That explained how he had suddenly changed.

And then there is this staggering paragraph:

To have an alcoholic woman murdered, her husband must send her to her parents and tell them that she is a drunkard and not to be trusted and that he does not want her back. Until he does this, she is under his protection and she won’t be killed, because she belongs to his family and not to her father’s. But, once she is returned in this way, her family will kill her, because the shame of having a daughter or a sister who’s an alcoholic is staggering. It is even worse than having one who is promiscuous. With a promiscuous woman, you know to kill her right away; with an alcoholic, the shame lasts longer because you hesitate.

This portends, obviously.

And thus the question is, can this happen, and if it does, what effect would it have on everyone?

I was frankly shocked that this idea existed and that it could be stated so bluntly. And it turned a tragic story about alcoholism into something else entirely.