I occasionally use archival Sviatoslav Richter recordings as references to evaluate the interpretations of the classical pianists of today. In addition to admiring Richter’s no-nonsense approach, I’m morbidly intrigued by the ill-timed coughing and squeaking of chairs of sickly and uncomfortable Russians through the muffled audio of the Soviet-era documents. Dreamcatcher, the new solo album by keyboardist James McVinnie, comes from a universe Richter almost certainly couldn’t have imagined. In addition to the transgressive piano and organ works of living composers including Meredith Monk and Nico Muhly, Dreamcatcher is notable for excruciatingly intense sound fields that are damaging to both my playback mechanisms and my mind. When I wrote about my recent fixation on the sounds of organs last month, I had no idea I’d soon find it necessary to wrap my head around landscapes like this. It’s entirely possible I’ll come to reject these inside-the-instrument recordings, but until then, I can’t stop listening.
Flute Faction
Original image of Emmanual Pahud, Ellen Sommer and Grace Farney by There Stands the Glass.
I learn more at musicians’ master classes than I do from conventional performances of classical music. Emmanuel Pahud’s tutoring at Helzberg Hall on Saturday, January 18, was no exception. The preeminent classical flutist’s commentary about sheet music discrepancies, composers’ intentions and musical interactions provided new insights. The Swiss star’s critiques of four locally based flutists sounded surprisingly undiplomatic to members of the audience of several hundred who hadn’t taken in his clinics online. Acknowledging that his words were occasionally “harsh,” Pahud respected the intrepid flutists by treating them as peers. Unsurprisingly, occasional demonstrations of Pahud’s golden flute were breathtaking.
All My Children
My life partner jokes that I have dozens of children besides our biological offspring. I maintain paternal associations with dozens of people born decades after me. Three such youths are the members of Blackstarkids. My status as a day-one advocate of the Kansas City band led to our ongoing association.
Ty Faizon issued Mango Marai & The Saturn Star four weeks ago. The mixtape has three primary themes: drugs (I don’t approve), self-defensive justifications (Ty shouldn’t worry about what other people think) and music obsessiveness (my favorite element). It’s my kind of mess.
I love Ty’s flow, emo-esque sincerity and production. He and I esteem the sonic worlds created by Q-Tip, Kanye West and Pharrell Williams. The distinctive presence of TheBabeGabe is also welcome. Gabe’s new single "PSA" lives at the intersection of jazz, punk and hip-hop. It sounds like home.
Album Review: Bad Bunny- Debí Tirar Más Fotos
A winter storm deposited a foot of snow on the Kansas City area over the weekend. Trapped inside their homes with little better to do, neighbors monitored my progress as I shoveled on Monday, January 6. My driveway never seemed so long.
Between the debilitating cold and a thin layer of ice, success didn’t seem probable. What doubters couldn’t know is that I was powered by the album Bad Bunny released a few hours earlier.
Debí Tirar Más Fotos is a 62-minute survey of the past fifty years of Puerto Rican music. While it’s still loaded with the gaudy decadence associated with Bad Bunny, Debí Tirar Más Fotos is the most sophisticated album yet from my 2020 Artist of the Year. For every allusion to contemporary pop there’s a reference to vintage Fania Records.
I managed to clear a thirty-foot path from my garage to the street during the first two plays of Debí Tirar Más Fotos. An impressed neighbor sent a congratulatory text as I thawed out during the third of what’s certain to be dozens of rotations of Debí Tirar Más Fotos in 2025.
Concert Review: Kristina Reiko Cooper and the Kinnor Philharmonic at White Theatre
Original image by There Stands the Glass.
I often joke that disruptive people fiddling with paper at worship services and concerts sound as if they’re practicing origami. I suppressed a smile when I turned to see who was incessantly crinkling a program at White Theatre on New Year’s Day. A kid was actually engaged in an elaborate origami project.
Nevertheless, I glared at the noisemaker until his mother made him cut it out. I didn’t want anything impinging on my appreciation of cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper’s extraordinary playing on Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s dramatic “Fantasy for Cello & Orchestra” with the Kinnor Philharmonic. Having paid $19 for the concert, I intended to get my money’s worth.
The disruption by the crafty kid was merely a preview of the casual audience behavior. Many members of the audience of about 400 behaved as if the event was an outdoor picnic. A Tootie-worthy outburst compelled Cooper to momentarily pause during reading of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme.”
Yet Susan Goldenberg’s invocation of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning after intermission helped me take the tantrum in stride. By the time a rendition of "Hatikvah" concluded the concert, I’d resolved to be more patient with inevitable irritants in the new year.
Album Review: ØKSE- ØKSE
I took only occasional peeks at The Free Jazz Collective in 2024. That’s gonna change. I was simultaneously intrigued and alarmed when the site’s editors named the self-titled release by ØKSE its 2024 album of the year on New Year’s Day. I’d been unfamiliar with the Norwegian band. What a terrible oversight! ØKSE has much the same intent as Sunny Five’s Candid, the skronky missive that’s my favorite jazz album of 2024. The avant-garde all-stars in Sunny Five create a rarified form of punk-jazz. Rather than punk, ØKSE melds underground hip-hop with American improvised music. In addition to their impeccable artistic merit, both albums robustly disprove the fallacious notion that the entirety of the jazz realm has become tired, tame and trifling. Candid and ØKSE are as vital as any music released in 2024.
Bibliomania: My Year in Books
Original image by There Stands the Glass.
Used books apparently aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. I took advantage of the pricing anomaly in 2024 by purchasing hundreds of undervalued books at thrift shops and library sales in 2024. Diligent bargain hunting put me well on my way to assembling one of the finest general-interest libraries in my zip code. Yet I own only half the 111 books I read in 2024. Because purchases made during my scavenger hunts are on a best-title-available status, I’m still dependent on library loans. My intellectual improvement regimen is rigorous regardless of the source. I balanced weighty non-fiction studies with literary classics by Baldwin, Balzac, Conrad, Dickens, Fitzgerald, Ibsen, Machiavelli, Maugham, Raleigh and Wharton. Even so, I’m not too proud to admit my affection for lightweight fare such as popular histories written by Erik Larson and Candice Millard. A sampling of my year in books follows.
Favorite book: Sophocles- The Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus (fifth century B.C.)
Most entertaining book: Giovanni Boccaccio- The Decameron (1353)
Most impactful book: George Antonius- The Arab Awakening (1946)
Most relevant book: Walter Isaacson- Elon Musk (2023)
Nicest surprise: Thomas More- Utopia (1516)
Biggest disappointment: Ann Patchett- Tom Lake (2023)
Best spiritual book: C.S. Lewis- The Screwtape Letters (1942)
Best music book: Robyn Hitchcock- 1967 (2024)
Best short story collection: Flannery O'Connor- A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955)
Best poetry collection: Rainer Maria Rilke- Poems from the Book of Hours (1941)
Best audiobook: Elizabeth Strout- Olive Kitteridge (2008)
Most disturbing book: Gabriel García Márquez- One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)
Longest book: Henry Fielding- The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (1749, 1,000 pages)
Most ambitious project: beginning Will Durant’s 11-volume The Story of Civilization series
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: There Stands the Glass’ Artist of the Year
Original image of the view from Mozart’s second home in Salzburg by There Stands the Glass.
I’m a walking advertisement for music tourism. I’ve wheeled trips to North American cities including Chicago, Knoxville, New York, Portland and Toronto around a variety of concerts and festivals in recent years. I expanded my range in 2024.
As a natural progression of my snowballing obsession with classical music, I traveled to Austria to visit the two cities most associated with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Treks to the genius’ childhood homes in Salzburg left me breathless. Attending worship services in Mozart-affiliated churches in Salzburg and Vienna provided even more meaningful experiences.
More significantly, I felt at home in Vienna, a subdued city filled with cafés, bookshops and classical music. Even though I don’t speak the language, wear fashionable clothes or smoke cigarettes, I’m aligned with the Viennese. I’m sympathetic to their bookish stoicism, cultural elitism and judgemental temperament.
I discovered my aesthetic home thanks to Mozart. That’s just one of the many reasons Mozart is my artist of the year. Honorable mentions: Zach Bryan, Anna Butterss and Nick Shoulders. Previous recipients of There Stands the Glass’ Artist of the Year designation are Hilary Hahn (2023), Joyce DiDonato (2022), Pat Metheny (2021) and Bad Bunny (2020).
Album Review: Lucibela- Moda Antiga
During a set break at a Marvin Gruenbaum gig, members of my extended family named their ideal dinner party music. I usually turn to the gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli. Others cited Édith Piaf and David Grisman. As usual, my daughter won the discussion by mentioning Lucibela. She and I sat in the front-row at a poorly attended 2022 concert by the Cape Verdean vocalist in Portland. Inspired by the reminder of that wonderful evening, I discovered Lucibela released her third album last month. The gorgeous Moda Antiga will play the next time I host guests.
Album Review: Elephant9 with Terje Rypdal- Catching Fire
Traveling salesmen and airplane pilots bought houses in a shiny subdivision fifteen minutes south of Kansas City’s new airport in the 1970s. Their spouses tended to be school teachers and travel agents. Abetted by basements offset from the remainder of split-level homes, their children ran wild in 1976.
Boys sorted themselves by sports agility and musical taste. Bespectacled and shrimpy, I tried to determine if I most loved hard rock (Aerosmith!), pop (Elton John!) or soul (Stevie Wonder!). The majority of my peers were devotees of prog rock.
“Carry On Wayward Son” and “Crystal Ball,” current hits by the Midwestern bands Kansas and Styx, were ubiquitous. Albums by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis and Yes were accentuated by lava lamps and sound-triggered novelty lights in approximately every fifth or so residence in the neighborhood.
The coolest boys moved beyond prog rock. They formed jazz fusion bands inspired by the likes of Billy Cobham, Jan Hammer, Jaco Pastorius and Terje Rypdal. The best of their jam sessions sounded a lot like Catching Fire.
Released in October, Catching Fire is a 2017 live collaboration between the storied Norwegian guitarist Rypdal and his countrymen in Elephant9. The ridiculously overblown attack is a refreshing blast from the past. I almost wish the Ramones and the Sugar Hill Gang hadn’t come along to render the excessive pomp obsolete.