Vengeful Eyes Wide Open

Screenshot of OperaVision’s trailer of Grand Théâtre de Genève’s production of Elektra by There Stands the Glass.

I regularly recall the spectacular production of Kanye West’s 2013-14 tour promoting his intentionally grating album Yeezus. The lascivious presentations of entertainers such as Doja Cat aside, it remains the most visually audacious show I’ve witnessed. I might feel differently had I been in Switzerland last month. The futuristic staging of Richard Strauss’ gory opera Elektra at Grand Théâtre de Genève is amazing. Opera critics hated it. (Representative bad reviews are here and here.) What do they know? I hope West steps away from social media for a couple hours to glean a more productive form of visual, auditory and thematic stimulation from the ingenious version of Elektra.

Album Review: Son House- Forever On My Mind

Listening to scratchy recordings of country bluesmen allowed me to bask in the ambience of a vastly different time and place when I was young. Forever On My Mind, a stellar batch of previously unreleased Son House recordings from 1964, obligated me to finally recognize that the messages conferred by extraordinary artists like House are universal. Now that I’ve survived more than half a century I’m finally able to receive meanings beyond ostensible subjects such as hell hounds, boll weevils and razor balls. I may not inhabit the same morgues, churches or street corners as House, but the worldview he shares on Forever On My Mind mirrors my awareness of the advancing specter of death and the corresponding sense of loss.

Album Review: Brad Mehldau- Jacob’s Ladder

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends.  My pals marveled at the preposterous size of Carl Palmer’s drum rig when we saw Emerson, Lake & Palmer perform at Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium in 1977.  With the punk and reggae insurgencies on my radar, I wasn’t quite as gobsmacked as my peers.  Even so, I willingly submitted to the bombastic spectacle.

As I’ve periodically recalled at this site, progressive rock bands like Rush and jazz fusion ensembles including Return to Forever were the music of choice among boys in my neighborhood in the mid-’70s.  The free-thinking musician Brad Mehldau apparently heard a lot of the same stuff during his formative years.  He gives my guilty pleasures a breathtaking makeover on his latest release.

Like all proper prog-rock recordings, Jacob's Ladder is a concept album with a somewhat muddled theme. I suspect the biblical allegory will become clearer with repeated listening, but for now I’m entranced by Mehldau’s ability to tickle my repressed auditory pleasure centers without making me feel like a cheap date. Jacob’s Ladder is guaranteed to blow your head apart.

Concert Review: Sparks at the Crystal Ballroom

Original image by There Stands the Glass. The ticket’s comp label is misleading. I paid a pretty penny for it.

My earliest experiences with Sparks consisted of a series of disappointments.  The band’s albums were staples of record store cutout bins in the 1970s.  Intrigued by loopy cover art as a kid, I sporadically picked up much of their catalog at prices ranging from 25 to 99 cents.  I was let down every time.  Sparks’ lyrical and musical aesthetic was beyond my limited comprehension.

Knowing it was likely the only chance I’d have to witness a performance by the storied cult band, I splurged on a ticket to Sparks’ sold-out concert at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland on Sunday, March 13.  After a handful of Blurty Bobs amid the audience of 1,500 were shamed into silence by hardcore fans in the first ten minutes of the 80-minute show, I grasped what had previously eluded me.

Accustomed to radio-ready pop, I didn’t understand Sparks’ allusions to the droll work of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill when I was an uncultivated youth.  Seeing the Mael brothers and their excellent accompanists render their repertoire of Weimar Republic-style cabaret songs as an aged bookworm brought Sparks into focus.  My favorite new band is old.  And I’m beside myself at the prospect of finally catching up.

Concert Review: Ted Poor and Cuong Vu at Jack London Revue

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

Jack DeJohnette’s Zebra startled jazz fans when the unorthodox album was released in 1989. Joined by the iconoclastic trumpeter Lester Bowie, the accomplished drummer experimented with electronic rhythms. An inventive performance by drummer Ted Poor and trumpeter Cuong Vu at Portland’s Jack London Revue on Saturday, March 12, reinforced the validity of the 33-year-old collaboration between DeJohnette and Bowie. About 60 people paid $12 to hear Poor and Vu supplement their primary instruments with keyboards and electronic effects. Still suspect in improvised music in 1989, the alliance of acoustic and synthetic sounds seems entirely natural now. Poor, an unrelenting groove machine, and Vu, one the planet’s most formidable trumpeters, validated their reputations as innovators of a different stripe.

Concert Review: Godspeed You! Black Emperor at Roseland Theater

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

Could it be the beginning of the end?  I briefly lost my bearings during Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s performance at Roseland Theater on Wednesday, March 9.  Suddenly panicking after standing five feet from the center of the stage during the first hour of the octet’s rendering of its apocalyptic anthems, I was compelled to stagger through the tightly-packed audience of more than 1,000 to take refuge at the back of the room.  I avoided falling two or three times by clumsily grabbing the shoulders of cultish fans of the post-rock band.  

My hysteria may have been both physical and emotional. (The delirium certainly wasn’t chemically induced- among other factors, I’m abstaining during Lent.)  Taking full advantage of Portland’s spectacular park system in addition to walking across town to the venue might have worn me out.  The extreme volume- the concert was the loudest post-Covid event I’ve attended- heightened my fatigue.  

The harrowing visuals and extreme sonic attack were similarly overwhelming. Terrifyingly punishing, GY!BE delivers unadulterated doom. The calamitous sensibility forged by the collective nearly twenty years ago has proven lamentably prescient. The unrelenting representation of end times smothered my life force. After being invigorated by the sublime thirty-minute guitar drone performed by the opening act Humming Amps Trio, GY!BE obliterated my joyful innocence. Fifteen hours later, I fear the damage inflicted is permanent.

Album Review: Seth Andrew Davis- Highways Jammed with Broken Heroes

A combination of errant airline logistics, inclement weather and a tight budget forced me to spend several hours on the floor of Denver International Airport last week.  I collapsed at a makeshift camp between walls and benches outside of an airport employee lounge from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.

A disruptive array of sounds rather than the dirty floor and frigid temperature prevented sleep.  The constant clicking of debris stuck in a nearby escalator, the drone of HVAC systems, the faint buzz of innumerable video monitors, the inescapable soundtrack of “soothing” pop music and mandatory security announcements kept me awake.  

The experimental Kansas City musician Seth Andrew Davis likely would have shared my aberrant fascination with the noise.  Much of his new release Highways Jammed with Broken Heroes is uncannily evocative of the ambient sound of Denver’s airport at four in the morning.

Billed as “a series of pieces for prepared guitar and live electronics,” the digital and cassette release is inspired by innovative artists like Glenn Branca who Davis suggests are “changing the timbral capabilities of acoustic and electronic instruments.”  The sincere affection Davis displays for Bruce Springsteen in his choice of album and song titles is deceptive.

Antecedents for the confrontational Highways Jammed with Broken Heroes in (semi)popular culture include Pat Metheny’s Zero Tolerance for Silence and Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. Davis’s artistic audacity is admirable. Even so, anyone who’s never slept rough might think twice before allowing Davis to guard their "dreams and visions".

Giant Steps

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

Between my unkempt hair, tatty attire and weather-beaten face, I’m occasionally mistaken for an indigent person.  Charitable do-gooders regularly offer me assistance as I wander the downtowns of America.  I fit right in when I visited the Central branch of Multnomah County Library yesterday.  

Two unhoused men were engaged in a violent clash over a shopping cart on the steps of the magnificent building in downtown Portland.  Rather than joining the mob of amused derelicts shouting encouragement to the combatants, I asked the three police officers stationed at the door directions to Carl Henniger’s photography exhibit.

I traversed a gauntlet of catatonic zombies, raving lunatics and menacing miscreants to reach the We Had Jazz gallery on the library's third floor.  The gorgeous black-and-white photos of jazz musicians taken in the 1950s affirm that Portland- then as well as now- is supportive of touring jazz musicians.

Subjects range from the first-generation jazz giant Louis Armstrong to a young John Coltrane.  A shot of Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie studying a chess board in 1953 is my favorite image.  Almost all of the iconic musicians dressed to the nines.  I was by turns inspired and humiliated when I reentered the chaos outside.

Earache My Eye

Since bonding over our mutual admiration of the music made by Kanye West and the members of the Odd Future collective several years ago, Aaron Rhodes and I have shared intimate components of our personal lives with each other. And from time to time, we fuss and fight like father and son. We conduct ourselves with admirable civility in the latest episode of our In My Headache podcast. The 33-year difference in our ages leads to largely respectful disagreements about albums by the Mexican pop star Sofía Reyes, the indie-folk band Big Thief and the reggae ruffian U-Roy.

February 2022 Recap: A Monthly Exercise in Critical Transparency

Screenshot of Abbey Lincoln in the trailer of Nothing But a Man by There Stands the Glass.

Top Ten Albums (Released in February)

1. Joyce DiDonato- Eden

Serpent repellent.

2. The Kahil El'Zabar Quartet- A Time for Healing

My review.

3. Binker and Moses- Feeding the Machine

England swings.

4. Sofía Reyes- Mal de Amores

A Mexican mélange of Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande.

5. Big K.R.I.T.- Digital Roses Don't Die

The graying of the Dirty South.

6. Del McCoury- Almost Proud

My related essay.

7. Gidon Kremer- Weinberg: Sonatas for Violin Solo

Eastern European angst.

8. The Adam Larson Trio- With Love, From Chicago

My album and concert reviews.

9. Rokia Koné- Bamanan

Metropolitan Malian music.

10. Bad Boy Chiller Crew- Disrespectful

Cretin hop.

Top Ten Songs (Released in February)

1. Jana Rush featuring DJ Paypal- ​​“Lonely”

Ornette Coleman gets the Chicago footwork treatment.

2. Claire Rousay and More Eaze- “floor Pt. 2”

Android dreams of electric sheep.

3. Rosalía- “Saoko”

Transformation.

4. Cécile McLorin Salvant- "Until"

Time stands still.

5. Pusha T- “Diet Coke”

“That’s a joke, right?”

6. $not and A$AP Rocky- “Doja”

Wildcatting.

7. Maren Morris- “Background Music”

Nashville existentialism.

8. Robert Glasper featuring Yebba- "Over"

My favorite Black Radio III track.

9. Willie Nelson- “I’ll Love You Till the Day I Die”

Backatcha, Willie.

10. Lívia Nestrovski and Henrique Eisenmann- "Sete Estrelas"

My concert review.

Top Ten Movies, Television Broadcasts and Streaming Programming (viewed for the first time in February, in lieu of a full resumption of live music)

1. Jeen-yuhs (2022)

My notes.

2. Donda Experience Performance (2022)

“Do I look happy to you?”

3. Nothing but a Man (1964)

Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln star in an excruciating study.

4. Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Hypnotic.

5. Cathie Wood interview on CNBC

A robust defense of poor performance.

6. Houston at Wichita State

Bruising double-overtime men’s basketball thriller.

7. Puccini's Madama Butterfly

Timeless heartbreak at Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia.

8. Rosita (1923)

Mary Pickford as a Spanish street singer.

10. Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show (2022)

Forgot about Dre.

Last month’s survey is here.