SOUNDTRACK: Jazz Lives At Duke Ellington’s Resting Place (Field Recordings July 2, 2015).
Playing jazz at a cemetery during the day seems like an odd decision. But it’s all part of the one-day Make Music New York festival (MMNY) which celebrates music and community. It happens every June 21 with more than 1200 outdoor concerts across the five boroughs running from morning till night.
For the 2015 edition, the festival’s organizers invited musicians to six different burial grounds across the city to riff on the idea of “exquisite corpse,” a surrealist parlor game popularized by artists and poets in the 1920s. In the game, someone writes a phrase (or draws part of a figure or scene), folds that part of the page over, and then passes it to the next player, who then does the same. The game ends when everyone has had a turn. That game is a natural bridge to the art of improvisation, and to jazz.
Woodlawn Cemetery is a mecca for the jazz world — it’s the final resting ground of royalty like Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and many others, including Ornette Coleman now as well. So as a tribute to their musical forerunners, the group — singers Michael Mwenso and Vuyo Sotashe, trumpeters Alphonso Horne and Bruce Harris, saxophonist Tivon Pennicott, pianist Chris Pattishall, bassist Russell Hall, drummer Evan Sherman and tap dancer Michela Marino Lerman — took as their point of departure W.C. Handy’s 1914 tune “St. Louis Blues,” a tune essential to jazz’s DNA. But they made it their own via surprising and turns that saunter through many textures, colors and rhythms.
The song begins with vocals from “St. Louise Blues” from Vuyo Sotashe and accordion from Chris Pattishall. After a verse, Michael Mwenso (whose voice sounds very different) takes over. The accordion drops out and it’s just voice and bass.
They pass the baton along to the horns, two trumpets, one with a mute in, the other using the mute and a saxophone play a lively instrumental break. This is followed by the percussion. Evan Sherman and Michaela Marino have a percussive call and response. I could have watched that part for a lot longer.
When that’s over the whole group joins together to end the song.
[READ: September 10, 2018] “Audition”
The first line of this story reads, “The first time I smoked crack cocaine was the spring I worked construction for my father on his new subdivision in Moonlight Heights.”
A first implies a second (especially with crack).
The story is about a 19-year-old college dropout. He went to school to study theater but “unmatriculated” and has been working for his father’s construction firm. His father came from nothing and build up this firm which is presently creating a development. His father is not too happy about him wanting to be an actor and as such is paying him the same as everyone else (which isn’t much).
He still acts–in community theater, but usually to 15 people at a time.
No one knew that he was the owners son and he liked it that way–he was using this time to study the laborers to learns their mannerisms–he was acting in his job, too, New workers came through all the time (the pay was lousy after all).
The crack came from a coworker Duncan Dioguardi who was not acting. He was a laborer living in his mother’s basement and longing to party.
The narrator knew “party” meant get high. When Duncan’s car died and the narrator drove Duncan home (an hour out of his way), Duncan invited him to party. The narrator was intimidated, then intrigued so he did. And that was the first time he smoked crack.
He marveled how the lump of crack looked like some drywall that could easily be swept away. Duncan showed him how to smoke it. It tasted like nothing. It smelled like nothing. It was ant climatic except for his new-found fondness for Duncan whom he now considers a good friend.
That following spring he received a call from his old acting teacher to audition for a role It was a stage show. The character would be on stage for all three acts but would not speak a word. The narrator didn’t know if this was a step forward or backward. The audition went well and he was sure he would get the gig.
Duncan’s car broke down again and the narrator told him all about the potential role. But the narrator was more excited about the option of partying some more.
The story ends soon after this, which is a little disappointing as it is told from many years later and we never learn how he turned out. But i did like the details of the past like “wiring th ehouse for internet, whatever that was.”
For ease of searching, I include: Said Sayrafiezadeh
I Just Read About That... 