Toots

Yesterday was one of the most joyous days my life when I got a chance to see harmonica jazz legend Jean “Toots” Thielemans perform live on stage at the North Sea Jazz festival in Rotterdam. Toots is one of those rare living legends whose music is ubiquitous having played with all the other legends from Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughan, Quincy Jones to Paul Simon. Oh, and he did the harmonica solo in the Sesamestreet tune.  Toots, 87 years old, frail and missing a beat here and there but content none the less, performed for an hour and a half promising to come back next year, and the year after that.

I love the NSJ, especially since it moved from the cramped Congresgebouw in the Hague to the spacious Ahoy’ Halls in Rotterdam, for its atmosphere, its size, divers program of living legends, crowd pleasers and young talent. You can browse and sample 16 podiums from stadium sized halls to small piano rooms. In one night I enjoyed the talents of Christian Scott, a 24 year old trumpeteer from New Orleans, Han Benninks extravagant percussion skills and sales pitch techniques, blues master Joe Bonamassa, grand dame Greetje Kauffeld, Toots and an ass-kicking John Zorn (this year’s artist in residence) with his Masada Sextet. And that made me miss out on Joshua Redman, Roy Hargrove, BB King, Hank Jones, George Benson and countless other small bands I don’t know of yet but know I want to. Every year I go for the full monty, three days, each with a different friend, compadre or family member, making sure I get to see three different programs.

Sarah does the Beatles (She’s So Heavy)

I am a great fan of both the talents of Sarah Vaughan and a long time cult follower of the Beatles.

So you can imagine my joy when I came across a copy of Miss Vaughan’s 1981 album Songs of the Beatles. The songs are in a cross-over style of a cool funky jazz and laidback disco and wouldn’t be out of place in a lounge bar. This effect is mostly created by the suave sound of Toots Tielemans.

But what attracts me most is the choice of songs on the album. Titles such as Get Back, You Never Give Me Your Money and especially I Want You (She’s So Heavy) are not the most likely to appear on a jazz vocal album.

Arthur Erickson (1924-2009)

Today I learned Arthur Erickson has died.

Mr Erickson was my favorite architect whenever I visited Vancouver. He brought 1970s concrete architecture to a completely new level. He sort of was a running gag when walking through town. Sometimes it looked every building of grey concrete was his. Either that or there are a lot of copy-cats around. Truth be told, in a city with a lot of 1980s speculants’ throw-away-architecture, Mr Erickson sturdy buildings had a lot of things going for, most notably the human scale. These days we tend to not like concrete but he called it the 20th century marble. Mr Erickson built concrete buildings without any ornamentation but still they had a lot toshow for. My all time favorites are the Law Courts in downtown Vancouver and the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. The last has the wonderful rotunda especially designed for Bill Reid’s The Raven sculpture (for those of you living on the east coast of Canada, Bill Reid is the guy from the 20 dollar bill). According to legend Mr Erickson designed the pavilion without knowing what Mr Reid was creating and vice versa. I never saw a space and its contents in such perfect harmony. That shows genious.

Arthur Erickson was 84 and died of the consequences of Alzheimer’s disease.

Hazards of Love

Since yesterday my life is enriched with a copy of The Hazards Of Love, the new album by uber-indie rock band The Decemberists. Enriched, because it’s such small works of sheer beauty that make it all worth wile. Started as a stage play, it turned into a mini rock opera, complete with guest vocals portraying different characters and telling a story of love, death and betrayal.

We already know of Mr. Meloy’s et al love for telling a good story from previous albums, but this album brings us to an entirely different level of ambition. (Notwithstanding the band’s prior experiment with concept albums on the little known 2003 EP The Tain.)

The album starts with a modest crescendo of a Hammond organ, to introduce us to the archaic, pastoral world of William and Margaret. The two lovers are granted a single night of love by the wicked Queen on the condition that they should die the following morning. Then there is the ruthless Rake, who previously saw no trouble in killing his own three children, but gets haunted by them when he rapes Margaret.

The songs are less heavy on the ears then some found on The Crane Wife, and have a more folk rock origin, Mr. Meloy citing influences from British 1960’s folk song artis Anne Briggs. Not having an iPod or other type of portable music device, I laugh in the face of those who have to rip their music before they can enjoy it. Turn off your shuffle, kids, and listen.

Infantile pictograms

Using ones mobile phone is prohibited in French trains, safe for platforms and dining cars. How do you explain this to the weary passenger? By using this brilliantly clear albeit a bit infantile pictograms.

Pépé le Moko

Pépé is a gangster from Marseille hiding from the police in the ancient labyrinth casbah of Algiers. Accustomed to a lush life in Paris, he hates the dark alleys where it seems there is nothing else to do but drink and play cards. This vanity will be his downfall, when he is lured from the no-go area into the colonial port side town.

File under film noir. Avant la lettre. There is a criminal posed as a hero, there are corrupt cops, an abundance of outcasts, a beautiful femme fatal, great acting and bad camera work and plenty of guns. Also, there are some great views from pre-war Algiers, the Casbah as well as the colonial town with a supporting role for the Hotel Aletti.

Lucky for me I could get hold of a region 2 dvd, distributed by Studio Canal. (There is a more luxurious edition distributed by Criterion, but this is only available in region 1, which is like putting a sticker on a book saying “you are only allowed to enjoy this artwork on your own continent”.)

Amsterdam City Scape

I visited the open days at the conservatory today. They moved to a new building last year, which sits on a man made island overlooking the city center. I was there in the middle of a break from performances and public classes, so there was nothing much to do than to take pictures of the city-scape through the colored glass windows.

Planets ahoy’

Ever since my nephew learned how to pick up a book, his learning curve is off the charts. His latest fling is the rotation of planets in our solar system. Time to show him the Eise Eisinga planetarium in Franeker. This home made planetarium (literally, it hangs in the guy’ s living room) dating 1781 is so accurate that today the position of the then known planets is still in alignment with the astronomical reality.

On this great site you can check what the current position of the planets is, and what their’s will be in a couple of days. Call it a solar system’s webcam.

Gloria sings the blues

After her successful comeback in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, Gloria Swanson was approached to star in a to be created musical. Ms Swanson answered she would do no such thing, unless the musical in question was an adaptation of Sunset Boulevard. The writers – Dickson Hughes and Richard Stapley – took up the challenge and worked hard on getting a stage adaptation on paper. The studio, who owned the rights to Billy Wilder’s script, refused to cooporate. So all the writers were left with was a copy of the script Ms Swanson had kept after shooting the film.

The play was never staged and all that remains is a demo recording of the songs, starring Richard Leibell and Laurie Franks as Norma Desmond. But underground record label Stage Door comes with this glorious issue of the original demo recordings. As a bonus, it throws in a couple of songs by Ms Swanson herself.

It would have been ironic that one of the greatest stars of the silent era would end her career doing a musical. It’s even frigtingly uncanny that producing the musical resembles the plot of Sunset Boulevard. Just like Norma Desmond, Ms Swanson hires someone to write her a script.

Gamelan

My good friend Giles is a dedicated student at the Conservatorium in Amsterdam. Trained as a classical baritone, he loves his Bach and his Dvorák.

As a side course he’s learning to play the gamelan, a traditional Indonesian percussion instrument. Or rather, a collection of instruments of drums, gongs, xylophones, vibraphones and a set of what I can only describe as copper pots (pictured left) with an amazing, heavenly sound.

Tonight he and his group from the Conservatorium gave a beautiful concert at music center Rasa in Utrecht.

Now, Indonesia is a vast country so there is an equivalent diversity in the built and use of the gamelan. This particular one was Javanese, which has a more meditative sound, unlike the Balinese, which is more funky.

I liked the music for its basic melody with subtle variations, not unlike Steve Reich. The progress of the melody and the basic rhythms of the pieces, written by composers at the courts of Javanese princes and lasting 5 to 10 minutes, was mathematical and structured according to deceitfully simple algorithms.