Noah Delivers

A splendid evening of music in Crowell Concert Hall with the world premiere of Noah Baerman's "Know Thyself." Big crowd as well and they were treated (in the second half of the show) to an expansive work, a 60-minute plus song cycle that was melodic, passionate, at times funky, sweet, challenging, and ultimately cathartic. Blessed with a intuitive rhythm section, the fiery Vinnie Sperrazza on drums and the wonderfully melodic Henry Lugo on bass, Baerman shaped a musical journey that hinted (sometimes strongly) at his roots (pianist Phineas Newborn, his teacher James Williams, and even - to these ears - Chick Corea) but moved far beyond them. Wayne Escoffery showed his hard-edged tone on tenor saxophone with solos that often led to a firestorm of notes while his soprano sax had a sweeter edge (though he "wailed" on that horn as well.) Erika von Kleist has a sonorous tone on alto saxophone and her rounder tones on her flute solos were often mesmerizing. Vibraphonist Chris Dingman played strongly throughout the night, his solos displaying a "dancing" side that I had not heard in his work with saxophonist Steve Lehman. Guitarist Amanda Monaco, like Escoffery a long-time friend of Baerman's, also has a round tone on her instrument - she did not solo much tonight but her work on several of the transitions in "Know Thyself" was integral to the shape of the piece.

As for Mr. Baerman, I have seen and heard him play many times over the past 12 years but never better or stronger than on this night. There was a section near the end of the "Suite" where he played a stunning solo, fingers flying over the keyboard, chords spewing out of his left hand, playing hard against the roaring percussion of Sperrazza. He's always had a penchant for "soulful" piano lines but this solo was thunderous, highly rhythmical yet never out of control. (As a sidenote - he's also quite the erudite emcee, keeping the proceedings light in the opening set as he introduced and praised his fellow musicians and talked about the songs.)

After the well-deserved standing ovation, Noah returned to the stage alone and proceeded to play a multi-faceted version of Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight." 'Twas an adventurous and rapturous way to end a triumphant evening.

Events on Friday

Friday October 16:
The Middlesex United Way is the sponsor of "Day of Caring 2009: Project Homeless Connect", a day-long event to be held in Chapman Hall at Middlesex Community College, 100 Training Hill Road (8:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.) described thusly:

On October 16, 2009 Day of Caring will be Project Homeless Connect (PHC), an event that engages individuals who are homeless in one location and connects them with needed services. Individuals will be picked up and transported to Middlesex Community College and have access to services that can include: medical, mental health, dental, housing, food, clothing, legal, financial, and job placement.

The day will also include Mayor Sebastian Giuliano's announcement of the 2010 selection for the "One Book, One Middletown" project. That will take place at 1 p.m. To learn more about the event and about the United Way, go to www.middlesexunitedway.org/site/dayofcaring.php

The Buttonwood Tree welcomes 2 singer-songwriters for an evening of folk-rock music. Guitarist/drummer Katie Pearlman (pictured, photo by Jennifer Mercurio) teams up with Rupert Wates (returning to The Buttonwood for a second time.) Pearlman usually tours with a quartet but also has an acoustic set of her songs and Wates is really coming into his own with his finely crafted tunes and engaging delivery.
For more information, call 347-4957.

"Disfarmer (Everyday Uses for Sight #6: Disfarmer)" comes to the Wesleyan CFA Theater Friday and Saturday night at 8 p.m. The creation of Dan Hurlin (director, designer), Sally Oswald (text) and Dan Moses Schreier (score), the puppet theater work is inspired by the life of American portrait photographer Mike Disfarmer (1884-1959), who worked (somewhat) anonymously in Heber Springs, Arkansas (a selection of his portraits are currently on display in Zilkha Gallery.) The photographer was a loner, disdained company and community, yet his images of the little Arkansas town's population at the time of World War II are quite affecting. For ticket information, go to www.wesleyan.edu/cfa. To learn more about the photographer, go to www.disfarmer.org/ or www.disfarmer.com/ (2 distinctive sites but both quite informative.)

Nation Beat Free Concert Tonite Rain or Shine

From Wesleyan Center for the Arts



CFA’s Summer Series Kicks Off With a Free Outdoor Dance Party

Nation Beat is a six member New York based band that combines rural music from northeastern Brazil and the American South. Their explosive live shows have attracted music fans from a wide demographic, including bluegrass and country music fans, Brazilian music lovers and outdoor festival-goers. They perform a free outdoor concert in the courtyard of Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts—located at 283 Washington Terr. in Middletown—on Thursday, July 2 at 7pm. Concert attendees are invited to come early and picnic as well as stay late and watch Middletown’s fireworks from the hill. For more information on this concert, visit www.wesleyan.edu/cfa or call 860-685-3355.

Nation Beat are rhythm gatherers, harvesting the fruit of 500 years of cultural crossbreeding, which is why the sounds of the northeast of Brazil and the southern United States blend together so seamlessly. At the heart of Nation Beat’s Legends of the Preacher lies a totally original 21st century fusion between thunderous Brazilian maracatu drumming and New Orleans second line rhythms, Appalachian-inspired bluegrass music, funk, rock, and country-blues. Conjuring the spirit of powerful and liberated carnival queens, rising Brazilian star Liliana Araujo fronts the ensemble with her soaring powerhouse vocals. A recent finalist on Brazil’s “American Idol” spin-off program FAMA, Araujo evokes the righteous soul singers of America’s golden age of soul.

In case of rain the concert will be held in Crowell Concert Hall.

Eye on the Air, Friday July 3

WESU, 88.1 FM and live on the web at wesufm.org, Friday from 1-2 pm.

Guests

Adam Kubota, from Wesleyan's Center for the Arts (CFA), who will talk about the summer program of dance, music, lectures and comedy sponsored by the CFA. FREE ticket giveaway to listeners!

Arthur Meyers, Director of the Russell Library, who will speak about the effect of potential cuts on library services.

My Dar Williams Story, and I'm Sticking To It

I didn't know Dar Williams 20 years ago when she was a graduating senior from Wesleyan, but I did meet her a year or two later.

I've done a folk music show on WWUH for nearly 25 years. In 1992 I had the bright idea of doing a concert series, to be recorded live, on a new medium at the time - the CD. We would use the CD as a fundraising premium, and give some folk acts lots of exposure. The first event, Folk Next Door, went amazingly well. So the next May when we were looking for talent, my friend, singer-songwriter Nerissa Nields told me about a young woman who she met in a songwriting group in Northampton.

"Her name is Dar Williams," I recall Nerissa telling me. "And she's amazing."

Coincidentally, I was driving to RI for a video shoot a few days later, and listening to a Worcester folk music radio show and I heard Dar perform live. Indeed, she was amazing. She had something a lot of songwriters didn't, the ability to capture in a verse and chorus, complex emotions, deep issues, and a humanity that put flesh on the bones of her songs.

Together Nerissa and I arranged for Dar to be booked as an opening act for a series my friend, and fellow folk show host, Bill Domler, was producing in his print shop in the West End of Hartford. The Nields already had a enthusiastic following, so the tiny print shop was crowded when Dar appeared. In the span of a few songs, she had the crowd captivated.

So when a group of us met to consider talent for Folk Next Door 2 (Honey Hide the Banjo, It's the Folk Next Door Again!) I enthusiastically added Dar's cassette album, All My Heroes Are Dead, to the pile to be considered. I can't be sure, but I think I had the cassette queued up to a song called Calamity John, one I liked in particular, but somehow the song that got played was Flinty Kind of Woman, a hilarious song about New England-style feminist revenge. The audition group didn't get it. They thought it was a too-earnest protest song (in fact it's a parody of a too-earnest protest song). They thought Dar's guitar playing wasn't up to snuff. They (we) were a group of on-the-verge of envious, middle age, white, radio and music guys. The group rejected Dar despite my objections.

Thank god for executive privelege. I put Dar on the "accepted" list, and she was the first act on for the evening portion of that year's concert. She played an amazing version of The Great Unknown, and then she absolutely floored the audience with The Babysitter's Here.

We used The Babysitter's Here on the CD (Dar's first CD recording), and slowly at first, then in a great rush, the world caught onto her genius.

I have a few other vivid Dar memories - hearing an early, unfinished version of a song called When I Was A Boy, which she was performing in a songwriters group in Hartford, calling her and telling her, to some great disappointment, that a musician we both admired, Jane Siberry, had just released an album called, When I Was A Boy, and coincidentally meeting her just after she left the stage following her first performance at the Newport Folk Festival, where she grabbed my hand (her's was still trembling with post-performance adrenaline jitters - once again she had peformed magic on an audience), and led me to meet her mom and dad (I've been introduced to more than one parent of a young singer-songwriter, I think because they want another adult to tell them that their talented son or daughter is following a legitimate path).

Dar, of course, has gone on to great and deserved acclaim, but as you may know, she has a soft spot in her heart for her alma mater, and for Middletown. She's performed benefits for the Green Street Arts Center, and tonight, at Wesleying for her reunion year, she'll be performing a show at the Memorial Chapel (10 PM) to benefit the Johanna Justin-Hinich Scholarship Fund. Tickets are available to the public at the CFA Box Office.

Metaphorical Rice

(Kayla Rodriguez, Wesleyan 2011, helps unload rice at the Zilkha Gallery)

Friday marks the opening of Stan's Cafe: Of All the People In the World, USA at Wesleyan's Zilkha Gallery, Olin Library, and in other locations around Middletown.

This installation uses kernels of rice as metaphorical representations of individual humans. The rice is weighed and measured, matched with an unusual and informative statistic, and displayed for all to consider.




The installation is part of the ongoing Feet To the Fire: Exploring Global Climate Change From Science to Art, an 18-month project, and has been customized, using statistics formulated by Wesleyan scientists, to humanize the issues of climate change. Stan's Cafe is a primarily performance-based arts group which formed in Birmingham, England in 1991, and this installation has been performed in Los Angeles, Melbourne, Madrid and New York City.



(Wesleyan student and football player Larry Belotta, with a rice handoff.)


A lot of rice is needed to allow the installation effectively make its point, and Monday volunteers moved 4,000 pounds of rice into position in 25 and 50 pound bags at the Zilkha Gallery and Olin Library. The rice will be used for the installation, and then re-bagged. Wesleyan is donating the rice used in the installation to local non-profits, food pantries and soup kitchens. So far 6000 pounds has been claimed by organizations like St. Vincent dePaul's, the Shoreline Soup Kitchen, Food Not Bombs at Wesleyan and in Hartford and the American Red Cross.


Non-profits who would like to claim one of the remaining 160 twenty-five pound bags can contact Wesleyan's Frank Kuan (fkuan@wesleyan.edu) or by phone at 860-685-2245.

Wesleyan's Center for Fine Arts (CFA) is also still considering local "performers" to act as docents for the installation around town. An application, which details availabilities, can be found at the installation website.

Middletown nights

Wednesday evening was a magical one for all of us in the courtyard of the Center for the Arts at Wesleyan. The sky was clear, the temperature Mediterranean, the setting idyllic, and the music was glorious. The courtyard was filled with the range of people that call Middletown home for a concert or more. In the front, high school kids attending the Center for Creative Youth summer camp at Wesleyan laughed and danced to the music. Also towards the front were the people drawn to the Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng Band, enjoying the sounds of Ghana drumming fused with the jazz of this American century. At the back of the crowd couples shared wine and cheese, caught up with neighbors they knew and got introduced to neighbors they didn't. But the highlight of this outdoor concert for me was the children running and playing hide and seek at the edges and occasionally within the crowd. While the parents enjoyed the music and shared the latest news, the children cavorted in their games to the sounds of great music. Opera in Central Park of Manhattan is grand, the Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng Band in the courtyard of the CFA is local. Both are wonderful, but tonight it seemed nothing could possibly be better than the local glory of outdoor music in Middletown.



(Schilke photo)

CFA Days and Nights

On those Spring nights when drunk undergrads are lurching loudly down my street, I lie awake and think that the advantages of living across the street from Wesleyan University far outweigh these slight irritations.

This week is proof.

The Wesleyan Center for the Arts is offering some great performances in its Days and Nights series. On Tuesday and Wesdnesday of this coming week (July 1 & 2) there are two amazing free events.

On Tuesday afternoon, renowned musical entertainer, and genius tap star Harold "Stumpy" Cromer will speak and perform at a noon event at Crowell Concert Hall. Cromer has appeared with some of the greats of musical theater including Burt Lahr, Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday and Count Basie. There's an interesting interview with Cromer here.

On Wednesday evening in the CFA Courtyard, Kwaku Kwaakye (Martin) Obeng, a master drummer and dancer from Ghana will perform with his band in a free concert. These outdoor concerts draw crowds, and the kids in residence for the summer Creative Arts programs usually come out to lead the dancing.