My goal for 2019 is to write at least a little something about every show I see, preferably by the next day, we’ll see how it goes.
So, in that spirit, this is the fourteenth of hopefully 52 threads for you to share…
[If you or someone you knows would like to get these reviews sent to you on an as-written basis, let me know]
2Apr19 Robert Ellis @ Rough Trade
My review of the excellent Robert Ellis show last night is here.
This was maybe my 10th time seeing Ellis in some incarnation or another and he just always impresses me. Someone I just love to love. Great songs, great vibe, great sense of self and sense of humor… and his band fucking kicks. His new album and this show were a little different than his usual thing, but the same things I love about him shone through nonetheless. This guy is a severely underrated songwriter and performer, but those who know, know. Hopefully he’ll be at Newport again this year which is where I discovered him many years ago.
3Apr19 Creative Music Studios Benefit @ Brooklyn Bowl
While sometimes the terms are used interchangeably, there is a certain distinction between improvisation and jamming with an infinity of gradations between the two. Last night’s “show” at the Brooklyn Bowl was a masterclass in pure improvisation of many flavors and types, sometimes challenging, sometimes inspiring, incredibly entertaining. It would be impossible for me to run down a real “review” of this show, two sets of far-ranging free-form, but I certainly had many impressions and thoughts about it. In some ways the show was just about what I would have expected, although the real surprise to me was that, unlike the CMS benefit last year, the large ensemble of musicians for the most part all played together instead of breaking into smaller groupings for shorter pieces. This meant that for almost the entire night there were somewhere between 10–15 musicians on stage. This created some noise. Lots of noise. It was glorious and it was chaos. Within this noise was some greatness, little micromelodies and microgrooves and microawesome. Imagine going snorkeling: you dip your face into the water and while you know you are still on this weird-and-wonderful planet Earth, you have entered another world, past the aquatic plane, just a visitor peaking in on this parallel universe… below you is total chaos, fish and other creatures zig-zagging this way and that way, some of them are in small groups or pairs interacting with each other, many are just doing their own thing, but as you look through your mask you are looking at a thing of beauty. Colors and movements and shapes, it’s an anarchy but it’s nature at its most freeform.
That was the music for much of the show last night. It actually started in a more quiet, lovely place, just the drummers and percussion (Joe Russo, Billy Martin, Cyro Baptista) finding each other, as if doing some sort of ritualistic cleansing of the space, they were eventually joined by Dave Harrington on guitar who did his atmospheric thing so well. It was quite amazing actually, this opening bit, almost forgotten by what would come, but a tranquil before the storm so to speak. It was also out there as much of the night was. That’s OK. It’s good to be challenged, a theme of the night, I thought. Eventually the rest of the musicians appeared on stage, sort of one at a time, adding a bit of their talent and sound to a growing morass, a blob of excellence. They just kept coming, one by one until there was that dozen or so on stage and off they went. I don’t want to say the music was “democratic” more like some sort of improvisational socialism, there was no singular voice, no one talent that stood above the rest, there was no leader, no big game plan (that was obvious at least), more importantly, there were no wrong notes or bad decisions, no questions no answers, just a very zenlike stream of consciousness from all these musicians. Oteil on bass and Jonathan Goldberger on another guitar, horns! Steven Bernstein and Stuart Bogie and Robert Walter on organ. These beautiful-on-their-own little tropical fish just went swimming this way and that around the coral reef of rhythm provided by those three drummers. That was the key to the whole thing, the fact that Russo and Martin and Baptista were on the right flank providing a constant home base, a rhythm, a groove. It brought a surprising level of danceability to it all. Eventually they stopped and then they brought out Marc Ribot. Ribot only played for about a third of the first set, but it was the focus and energy that the show needed, just enough oomph. I have seen Marc Ribot dozens of dozens of times, he is a top-fiver for me, in all sorts of different configurations. He does it all, from the most beautiful to the ugliest, nastiest music you can imagine. He can lead, he can follow. I can’t recall a time I’ve seen him when he didn’t stand out as the best musician on stage (to me, at least) and again this was true last night, as he did this amazing duet with Fay Victor on “John Brown” off his Protest Songs album and then led the band in an incredible jam. Yes, there were jams, too last night.
For all that greatness, the second set was really where it was at, though… like I said a true masterclass in improvisation. Everyone and everything and then eventually Karl Berger leading everyone in a thrilling freejazz improv session. Wow! Something you had to experience first hand. And there were just the right amount of people on hand to experience it. Just like there were no bad notes, no bad musical decisions, there was no wrong way to enjoy this music. The variety of the crowd reaction was part of the night for me: people dancing their asses off, people sitting back taking it all in, people having a transcendent reaction, people talking over it, ignoring it, and actively hating it, saying so out loud in so many words. That was all part of the show, the musicians but also the way the audience got tweaked by their music, some leaving early, some moving in closer. If I had any doubt about the show going in it was whether Brooklyn Bowl was the right place for these musicians to do their thing. The Bowl is many things, appropriate for so many kinds of shows, but it is not a real home for experimental music, in my opinion. Its vibe is just not conducive to this kind of show. At least that’s what I thought going in, and… I think I was totally right about that. It was totally inappropriate for the show last night. But, in a strange twist of irony, its inappropriateness, the energy in the room, the VIP section, the expectations one has when you enter the Brooklyn Bowl, all of this horribly mismatched venue vibe actually made it work. The tension between the musicians, the room, the crowd, the push and pull, it didn’t work and so it all worked. Does that make any sense? Like some avant garde experiment — let’s make weird experimental music in a bowling alley while all these freaky friends drink draft beer and talk about their day and wonder what the fuck is going on on stage — it was strangely perfect.
I loved the show, the music, the anything-goes ethos,. the old timers getting up there and doing it right. Perhaps my favorite thing of all, though, was seeing guys like Russo and Harrington and even Oteil and Robert Walter get mixed into this crowd. There are all these somewhat parallel musical communities in the NYC scene, but the lines between them are more or less illusory. Why aren’t guys like Joe and Dave playing at the Stone, why aren’t they part of the Zorn family? Last night I felt these musicians I’ve seen for so long, for so, so long, being a part of something bigger, where they’ve belonged to be for so long. Similar to seeing Metzger rip up the Who after Nels Cilne a couple weeks ago, this was another step in the same direction.
I could go on, but… great night. Kudos for all who were involved in putting it together.
5Apr19
Brooklyn Folk Festival night 1 @ St. Ann’s Church
I had never been to the Brooklyn Folk Festival before but was determined to have a go of it in 2019 and, unsurprisingly, am not very disappointed in myself for not making it to this earlier. Looking forward to a full weekend.
The festival is currently held in St. Ann’s Church in Downtown Brooklyn-ish, pretty easily accessible, but perfect in that once you walk inside you do not feel like you are in Brooklyn or anywhere, really. You are in a rather large, ornate Catholic church, but you also could be anywhere at all. That’s an important moment for this festival, that moment when you walk in off the street and you’re no longer somewhere, you can now be anywhere.
It’s important because unlike, say, Newport Folk Festival which is marvelously liberal with its interpretation of “folk,” the BFF (sweet abbrev!) is really kind of hardcore in its scope… the folk music I saw last night was unmistakably folk. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t wide-ranging, quite the contrary, it was very far flung, very. The folk of BFF is very much of a time and place, each band transporting the audience to a very specific place and specific time in history. So, walking through those doors, leaving Brooklyn behind and entering not so much a blank space, it’s actually a quite ornate space, but a clean canvas, so to speak, is important.
I saw 5 acts last night, starting with Tenores de Aterúe, a vocal quartet who sing traditional music from Sardinia and Corsica. One great thing about festivals like this is that you see a lot of music you would never see otherwise and that was definitely the case with the opening group who created haunting harmonies perfectly suited to a large church. Cool. Next up was the main “draw” for me for Friday night, Jake Xerxes Fussell. I have been a huge fan of his since first hearing him a few years back and have seen him maybe 4 times before, each time in a very different space, from opening for Wilco at the Beacon to Union Pool to sitting on a stool in the front bar of Sunny’s trying to sing over a bunch of people having a drink. Regardless of where I’ve seen him perform, his singing and playing is transfixing. Talk about transporting to another time/place, listening to Fussell is to travel in time. He plays these kind of found folk songs, somehow digging up songs that you’ve never heard before, which is surprising because they’re so good. “Here’s one I learned from {so-and-so},” “here’s one I learned off a WPA field recording.” But to hear him sing these songs, he’s got this amazing, “old fashioned” folk voice, a beautiful, slightly-ragged baritone with a sweet southern drawl, is to hear the songs as they probably sounded once 80, 90, or 100 years ago. It’s all so very easy… and his electric guitar playing isn’t too polished and isn’t too rough, just a just-right middle. It’s tough not to smile when listening to him play and last night’s 35 minute set was just perfect. He played all his “hits” insofar as he played my favorites off his past couple albums including the first single off his upcoming album. He’s so great, loved it. Love this guy.
Next up was La Cumbiamba who took us to Colombia with their version of “folk” music. This band was 4 guys playing drums (Tambores) and a couple guys playing these very awesome long flutes (gaitas) and another guy singing. They kind of explained how the music is a mix of sounds native to their region in Colombia, rhythms from the African diaspora, Caribbean and Middle Eastern sounds via N. Africa. It’s nice when you get a little lesson like that, because I could definitely hear it all after the explanation. It was weird, but I had this very strong sense of a thematic “echo” with the Innov Gnawa set I caught last week as this music was a bunch of percussionists, an isolated instrument(s) playing melody and then a lead vocalist who sang in a call-and-response mode with the rest of the band. The format was almost identical to Gnawa, but the sound was very different, instead of this very spiritual religiosity to the music, it was a pure rhythmic dance thing. The music was great, I loved the otherworldly sound of the flutes, but the best thing was watching a crowd go from mostly sitting at the beginning, with 2 or 3 people dancing off to the side to a full dance party happening in front of the stage. Watching a crowd reach that sort of critical mass, someone sitting quietly and then, hopping up and joining the mass, absolutely getting down like no one was watching, watching that happen one person after the other after the other until there was a large group dancing in front, well that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? (even though I opted out of dancing :) ).
The dance party continued in the “Parish Room” which is another large chapel-like space next to the sanctuary main room. This space serves as the entrance and there are tables for buying merch and stuff and beers, etc, but there is also a stage at the end with a space better suited for dancing. Last night was a sort of “New Orleans” dance party and I enjoyed the hell out of The Big Dixie Swingers from NOLA. This was some old timey jazz/swing music, one more take-you-to-a-specific-place-and-time set, they all were, but with everyone dancing in front of this band, a hoot-and-a-half, for sure. The band was violin and banjo, clarinet, trumpet, lap steel, guitar, bass… and they just had great command of that sound, really took you there. Lot of fun.
Finally, I made my way back to the Main Room for Jontavious Willis, who played solo doing a very traditional old school blues thing. You know how sometimes you see someone and you just know they were meant to play music. Not just music but a specific type of music, like they are channeling something. Jake Fussell is this way and, holy crap!, so is this guy with the amazing name. Just absolutely perfect blues voice, vibe, energy. Not like a shreddy blues guitar guy — although plenty good on his acoustic guitar — just a guy who sings the blues like he was born to do it. Not a pretty good facsimile of one, but real fucking deal. I was super impressed… and then he says he’s a senior in college, 22 years old, and, um, wow! He had a great storyteller energy, using his guitar and harmonica as sounds in his stories. He also has a wonderful sense of humor, just highly entertaining all around. He did one song where he stuck his harmonica in his mouth and then sang around it and played in between verses which created a funny, but kind of cool sound. He did a great version of “Outskirts of Town” where he did this story in the middle about his “old lady’ locking him out of the house, using his guitar to play the speaking roles in the story. Then his final song he got up and walked down the aisle, singing a capella and playing harmonica and final verse was about how he was going to play a harmonica solo and the pack up his stuff and see you at the merch table. Yeah, there was some silly schtick to it, but he was good enough to make it work. I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t someone that we’ll be hearing more about, I think his album came out yesterday. I’m not even a huge blues guy, but I really enjoyed it…
Anyway, take home was that every act was great, each one took you to a another place, a very specific and wonderful place… not just place, but specific time. Really great scene/vibe there, too. No assholes go to folk festivals.
Anbessa Orchestra @ Barbes
That was a pretty filling evening, but WTF, why not a little more. Quick jaunt over the Barbes for the last 30 minutes of Anbessa Orchestra and, fuck yeah, was it worth it. I mean, is it ever not worth it going to Barbes? Pound for pound, the best, most guaranteed-to-be-awesome venue in NYC, hands down. If you’re not going here on the regular, you’re missing out on perhaps the crown jewel of the NYC livemusic universe. Just go, you won’t be disappointed.
True to form, the Anbessa Orchestra were awesome. Bunch of white dudes playing Ethiopian funk, Tribal, horn-driven, groovy-as-heck. The room was packed as it usually is on a weekend night, but somehow there’s always room in there. It’s a magic portal to an alternate universe, that back room at Barbes. The band was baritone, alto/flute, trumpet and the good old guitar/bass/drums/keys… big bands with big sounds playing to big crowds is some fun times @ Barbes and this was no different. Talk about time and place, these guys could have been playing some dank club in Addis Ababa in ’76 and who would’ve known the difference. The guitar player took a rather ridiculous solo before one song that hopped from the Middle East to Africa to Latin America and finally to Brooklyn which seemed to tie up all the threads of the evening into one funktastic bow. Highly recommend these guys, one of the better bands I’ve seen in the back room there. They ended in almost perfect sync with my car to the train station and already looking forward to the next time…
6Apr19
Didn’t have a moment to write anything about Saturday’s livemusic’n and wanted to make sure it got its due.
I’ve long had this desire to do like a full day of showgoing in NYC, hopping from one show to the next from noon til midnight or beyond and while it wasn’t necessarily my intention going in, and maybe it’s a bit cheating to work in a daylong music festival in there, but I ended up seeing music for about 10 hours straight Saturday, from 2 til midnight, 5 different shows and about 12 different bands total. If I didn’t have to wake up at 6 the next morning to drive my son to basketball in Jersey or I had a ride home, I might have gone on to Nublu after all this, but not to be… here’s what I did catch:
Brooklyn Folk Festival Daytime @ St Ann & the Holy Trinity Church
Back to the Folk Festival to start my Saturday. Between Friday night and Saturday afternoon much had changed in the music and vibe at the church. First of all, it was a bit more chaotic there, with lots of small children enjoying the festival in their own way. There had been some sort of craft where kids made their own banjo or some sort of stringed thing and at random points in the afternoon you’d hear this sound coming from who-knows-where which added a nice dissonance to the day. I am a big fan of watching little kids wreak havoc in this environment, their reactions are so very natural and uninhibited… if a kid hops out of her seat, runs up to the stage and just starts dancing, you know damn well that she just felt compelled to do so, didn’t think about it for a second, just did it, and I think that’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. Despite that description, it wasn’t intrusive at all, a totally natural thing, little kids enjoying this music.
The other change was that while Friday night was this sort of transportive thing, a take-you-to-a-time-and-place bunch of sets stretching over a wide swath of not only this country but the world and dipping back into some ancient energy, Saturday’s daytime sets were a bit more focussed. It was still a bit of a voyage, but all of the bands seemed to be playing a very American, very mountain kind of folk. The mountains varied from the Appalachians to the Ozarks to a Catskill/NYC folk, but needless to say there was a lot of banjo going down Saturday.
I won’t go blow-by-blow, but I caught Nate Polly doing some old school Kentucky folk (I loved the story his partner told about learning songs from his grandmother and particularly about when African Americans came to her area in Kentucky to work on the railroad bringing a new sound and teaching her these songs and just, wow, that’s still part of our oral tradition… he said that was the first time she saw a guitar!), The Mammals (awesome), The Ozark Highballers. My highlight was Little Nora Brown. This woman gets up there and is setting up and I’m thinking “does she just look like she’s 16 or is she really 16?” Turns out she’s 13!? I am not a huge fan of wunderkind musicians, I don’t get excited about 13 year old guitar shredders with unnatural talents for their age, hard pass almost every time. That’s not what Nora Brown was like. She played banjo and sang, a range of banjos, some looking quite ancient. She wasn’t like some banjo master, the next Bela Fleck, nothing like that. What she did was just channel a very old folk music, like Jontavious Willis and Jake Xerxes Fussel the previous evening, she was quite obviously born to live, breathe, play and sing this music. Not some holy-shit! amazing voice, but an old soul that just was perfectly matched to the music. My favorite thing about her set was that not once (after the initial shock) did I think “that’s a 13 year old girl playing this music,” she just acted like she’s been performing and studying and loving this music for decades and had the stage presence to match. Her banter was almost exactly like Fussell’s (“I learned this song from…”, “here’s an old dance number…”). My second highlight was Barry Clyde who was in the Parish Room. He played a resonator guitar that more or less sounded like a banjo and was sitting in chair wearing a pair of overalls like we were in the dustbowl or something and sounded just about like that. The whole day was like someone had rustled up a time machine and a banjo detector (Banjo Detector #fakejambands) and flown around through time and plucked out all these musicians to bring back to Brooklyn to play. Really great stuff. Love this festival.
Hope Debates & North Forty @ Skinny Dennis
Still, after a few hours of all that, I got a bit antsy and took a car to Williamsburg to check out what was going down at my favorite BK honky tonk. Weekend daytime Williamsburg is really something else, it’s like some sort of hipster Hoboken or something, and especially on a beautiful Saturday afternoon like this weekend’s, it’s a sight to behold. I ducked into Skinny Dennis which was about half full, very comfortable. Great spot for people watching, a cold beer, some shelled peanuts and some music. The daytime set was Hope Debates & North Forty and they were alright. Playing Debates’ original songs, kind of country rock. The big surprise was that Tony fucking Scherr was playing lead guitar in this band. It’s worth it going to random local shows just to see what all these musicians do day-to-day/night-to-night, like these guys have to work hard, gig after gig, to make it work and they do. And also, they love it, so obviously do. He took some nice solos, the band was fine, I wouldn’t run out of a room if they were playing somewhere, but not going out of my way to see them either. In the context of the day, the room, the time, it was a great time.
Cris Jacobs @ Rockwood 2
From there I took the subway(s) to the Lower East Side and for $10 walked into Rockwood 2 where Cris Jacobs had just started playing. The great thing about this day was that it really was literally non-stop music, save for the travel time between shows and the ten minutes I took to get a piece of pizza between Hope Debates sets, I was seeing music for that 10 hours.
So, walked in and Jacobs and his band were already into it. I’ve really enjoyed a couple of his albums, but never seen live and I can say right now, that won’t be the last time I see them, because, what a great frickin’ show. Jacobs plays a sort of roots rock, very soulful, with some southern rock and some blues and some jammier elements. It’s a simple formula and plenty of bands out there in bars like Rockwood 2 playing stuff like this. In the end, it comes down to the songs and the band and Jacobs has some killer songs. Like everyone he played was awesome. Lots of ’em were off an album which is coming out this week and that’s something I’m definitely looking forward to. And that band? Totally great. it’s Jacobs on guitar, a second guitarist/slide guitar, drums and bass and they all sing harmonies. So tight. Both guitars took solos, so there was plenty of great rock-out action. Jacobs also plays this 3-stringed cigar box guitar which sounds gimmicky, but is actually quite great and provides a nice change of pace. I was super impressed with the whole show.
Equally impressive was the energy in the room. It was a 7pm start with an opener, so Jacobs probably started around 7:45 or so and the room was maybe half full if I’m being generous. As much as I’d love every band to sell out every show they play, I’d much rather a situation like Saturday night at Rockwood 2 where the room was half full, but every single person, every one of them was reallllly into the music, dancing, cheering, responding, loving it. There were some superfans in there (one just started talking to me between songs, giving me the whole Cris Jacobs origin story and commenting on the new materials, etc.) and that brought a great, friendly, funloving vibe to the room. Plenty of room to dance, lots of fun, a great early show. Highly recommend checking out Cris Jacobs.
Moon City Masters @ Rockwood Music Hall
At this point I had a little time to kill before my next show but wasn’t sure if I should just head back to Williamsburg or seek out something else or what. But proving that sometimes you don’t need a plan… as I was standing outside Rockwood 2 I kind of sidled toward Rockwood #1, just to see what was going on in there, I mean, it’s probably pretty good. I look at the sign on the door and see that the band is called “Moon City Masters,” which was intriguing, but I could hear a bit of the music through the door and I was intrigued enough to step inside. Three cheers for free music in this city so you can just walk in and discover something new without even trying. What I found in there were two guys on stage, and WTF, they’re twins!!, one on guitar and one on bass with a drummer on the floor in the corner, which is how it rolls in the tiny Rockwood Music Hall space, drummers get relegated to not-on-the-stage/no-room-for-you-at-the-inn status. The music was actually pretty great. A sort of disco rock that was equal parts funky as hell and a-rockin’. I will admit the fact that they’re twins is part of the fun… I liked imagining these guys, like the brother that plays guitar loves Zeppelin and the one that plays bass loves the Bee Gees and they found some sort of middle ground (also, I just checked out their Facebook page to make sure I remembered the band name right and the guitar-guy is wearing an Eat A Peach t-shirt in the profile photo, so…)… and also, because they’re twin brothers, they sound really good singing and playing together and have an incredibly goofy-but-cool stage presence/banter. They did a Sam Cooke cover and one other cover I can’t remember, but otherwise all originals in their short set. Would absolutely check these guys out again! Nice work, livemusicgods!
Budos Band/Menahan Street Band @ MHOW
Finally, I headed over the Williamsburg for my final stop of the night, getting there just a minute or two before the Menahan Street Band started playing. I have to admit, I’m pretty good at this. I thought both bands kind of killed it, really enjoyed getting funky with ’em. Danced my butt off in a packed room, took a car to the train to Long Island, walked from the station back home, slept a couple hours, woke up way too early and wrote this review of the Budos/MSB show that I hope you’ll read and enjoy and drove to NJ with my son.
Quite a day. Cheers!
7Apr19
No rest for the weary…
Todd Sickafoose’s Tiny Resistors @ Barbes
What a spectacular set of music from Todd Sickafoose and a moderately large ensemble at Barbes in the early 7pm slot. If you are not familiar with Todd, he is an incredible bassist who plays with Ani Difranco but also floats in the Scheinman/Miller circles, equally comfortable playing jazz, rock, pop, whatever. He’s one of a zillion criminally underrated musicians, and a personal fave I try to see whenever I can.
Many years ago, he came out with his Tiny Resistors album which is a bit of a masterpiece. I mean, the listing of musicians on the record is remarkable, with Andrew Bird playing violin, Skerik, Ani Difranco, Adam Levy, Allison Miller… he’s got good friends. From time to time he’ll play this music with a band called “Tiny Resistors,” which is what went down last night at Barbes. After seeing it, I’m not sure I’d seen it like that, where they basically played the whole record straight through and, in doing so, performed more like a chamber orchestra, playing a neo classical piece, than a “jazz” band that they might appear to be on paper. The ensemble packed into Barbes included Todd on bass, a drummer, guitar, Carmen Staaf on piano, Kirk Knuffke on cornet, a clarinet, violin and an accordion. The music was non-stop, working their way through the compositions of the record with spots for some improvisation, either soloing or some group extended moments. The whole thing was sublime, totally transcending genre altogether… elements of jazz and classical and rock and pop and americana were there, but this was a self-contained masterpiece sounding exactly like its own thing. It was orchestral both in its scope and in how it unfolded, no one musician standing out, but more fitting in to a larger collective. What an amazing thing to stand in the back room at Barbes and witness such stunning, world-class music made in such an intimate, warm environment. This is not something these guys are playing regularly and it is very composition heavy, with movements and twisted changes, overlapping themes and playful dalliances… but they really nailed it all with smiles on their faces. You really got a sense for Sickafoose as a composer, his ear, his vision. Pretty remarkable stuff. I guess I’m making it all sound very erudite and stiff, but it actually was a very loose sound, incredibly accessible and easy with enough groove to dance to should you want. I was definitely moving. I would highly recommend checking out this record if you can (Andrew Bird is the violin player on it!) and you can chastise me if you don’t love it, because I can’t imagine you wouldn’t. I’m not doing this show justice, I thought it was sublime.
Also, Anais Mitchell was there! I’m a huge fan of seeing musicians I love checking out other musicians I love, you should know this about me if you don’t already, but I’m an even bigger fan when it’s a total surprise and man, I was very surprised to see Mitchell enjoying the hell out of this early Sunday show in Barbes. I did recall that Jenny Scheinman plays on her Hadestown and so it’s possible that some of the other musicians in the band last night are also involved and it’s also possible that she just likes really great music and had a free evening. Regardless, I did all I could to resist I’m-a-big-fan’ing Anais Mitchell yesterday in Park Slope, which I am quite proud of, to be honest.
Brooklyn Folk Fest evening session @ St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church.
I honestly wasn’t sure that anything could top that set, but I had already bought a 3-day pass to the Folk Fest, was in Brooklyn and the two artists I most wanted to see at the festival were on tap for the final session Sunday night, so, I guess I could check it out, sure.
Good thing, because at least two more awe-inspiring sets were left in my evening…
When we arrived, Anna Roberts-Gevalt was on the main stage. She’s in Anna and Elizabeth, but I somehow didn’t realize that it was the same person who sat in with Nora Brown on Saturday or was the one doing the perfect flatfoot dancing during another set… which is to say she was kind of all over the festival (@sashaseesshows informed me that she was playing in another group as well Sunday afternoon). Caught the last 4 or 5 songs of her set and really enjoyed, especially the one where she washed her hands in a bowl of water on stage and the bowl was mic’d and her splashing and scrubbing was part of the music. Don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that before. Then went to see the first half of the set from Tin + Bone which is a group fronted by the very same Little Nora Brown, but also features Andy Statman(!?!) on mandolin. Brown is also a natural bandleader, my word, she’s impressive! And Statman is a treasure, check out his new album if you haven’t already.
The penultimate set of the weekend was Joan Shelley who plays, exclusively these days it seems, in duet with Nathan Salzburg on guitar, even though he doesn’t get billing. If you haven’t heard or don’t listen to Shelley regularly, you really should rectify that. To see a weekend filled with great musicians, great folk musicians, natural talents and beautiful voices channeling the past and representing the future… to bare witness to all of that and then see Joan Shelley play at the end, it’s like watching a couple months of NBA playoffs with the best talent in the universe and then see a Michael Jordan make all the would-be-gods look like mortals. Shelley is really folk perfection. Her voice, her songs, her aura… I could listen to her sing her songs all day, all night, every day. And Salzburg is a guitar genius taboot, so together, they’re a Batman and Robin of singer/songwriter/folk/awesomeness. Being Sunday night the crowd was light and we were able to sit on the floor in front of the stage and I don’t know that there’s a better thing than sitting on the floor of a massive church 5 feet from Joan Shelley singing. I rarely think “that was too short!” after a set, I’ll take quality over quantity anyday, but 30 minutes of that perfect was just not enough. I want to make clothes out her music and wear them around all day. Pure comfort.
OK, two reality-shifting sets of superlative music is probably enough for one Sunday, but there was still one more to go. This was from Yacouba Sissoko. I had seen Sissoko once before in a somewhat random opening slot years ago and was more or less blown away by the beauty of his playing. Still, somehow I haven’t managed to see him again since in the ensuing years, even though he plays regularly in rooms like Barbes and LunAtico. I was reminded in stark terms last night that it was a huge mistake to wait so long to see him again. An astounding set of music as he performed solo on his kora (20+-string West African harp) and sang. The sound of his kora is the sound of magic. Like real magic. Like if I were to be able to cast a spell, a real life wizard, the sound it would make would be the sound coming out of this instrument. It ripples through the air like few sounds I’ve ever experienced. He explained that the instrument, the harp, was something he made himself, that his family has been making and playing them for hundreds of years, hundreds, 13th Century he said (whaaaa!!!?!??!), and it’s just a very primitive thing made from special wood and cow hide and fishing wire. I mean it doesn’t get any more basic than that, but that’s probably what Jack’s mom thought when he brought home the magic beans… because those were no ordinary beans and in Sissoko’s hands this is no ordinary instrument. Absolutely gorgeous, impossibly beautiful music. And each song, even though you don’t understand the lyrics, each song he explains what it’s about and it’s about something equally beautiful… basic messages: be kind to each other, live each day like it’s the last, etc. etc., but somehow these maybe-bland niceties become magical mantras in his hands and through his voice. I mean, wow! Go see this guy next time he plays nearby. Blown away.
Three absolutely transcendent musical experiences, totally different, totally mindblowing, awe-inspiring, soul-fulfilling. I don’t go to church often, but when I do, it’s to go to my own little heaven. What a fabulous weekend of music.
