Masterclass Review: Jake Heggie at Grant Recital Hall

(Original image of YounHee Choi, Laci Olberding and Jake Heggie by There Stands the Glass.)

Most masterclasses in classical music offer valuable insights into the form I’d been unable to glean from recordings and performances. I didn’t learn a single thing about music at Jake Heggie’s free masterclass at Grant Recital Hall on Wednesday, April 9. Yet the famed composer taught me and about thirty students a lot about life. Rather than focusing on conventional subjects such as vocal timbre, Heggie tutored four groupings of UMKC Conservatory students as if he were a life coach. While he’s a prodigious namedropper- he referenced his associations with Julie Andrews, Joyce DiDonato, Patti LuPone, Leontyne Price and Stephen Sondheim- Heggie diligently focused on drawing out the repressed personalities of the students. The counseling seemed to be precisely what the apprentices needed. I know I was a slightly better person at the conclusion of the two-hour session.

Album Review: Black Country, New Road- Forever Howlong

I can’t remember exactly when I began to loathe chamber-rock. I’m inclined to blame it on The Decemberists. The 2011 release of the Portland band’s chart-topping album The King Is Dead seems to coincide with my rejection of precious art-pop. 

Forever Howlong is precisely the sort of intricately-arranged, literary-minded and unapologetically pretentious nonsense I disdain. So why am I infatuated with Black Country, New Road’s new album? Two elements explain my hypocrisy.

Forever Howlong frequently references the art music I currently enjoy. I appreciate the nods to the likes of Alban Berg, Franz Schubert and Kurt Weill. And there’s plenty of the prog that remains my guilty pleasure. The wonkiest aspects of Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, King Crimson and Van der Graaf Generator echo throughout the album.

Secondly, I experience Forever Howlong’s songs as bits of soundtracks to my favorite British novels by Henry Fielding, Thomas Hardy, Iris Murdoch and Ian McEwan. Still, writing these words makes me queasy. I will likely have repudiated this out-of-character endorsement come December.

Book Review: Brad Mehldau's Formation: Building a Personal Canon, Part 1

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

My indifference to the personal lives of musicians shields me from the reprehensible behavior of otherwise brilliant artists. In the cloistered realm of jazz, I’m entirely content to remain oblivious to scandalous scuttlebutt. Even though Brad Mehldau is clearly among the most important musicians of our time, I never wondered about his religious and sexual orientations or his political and ethnic affiliations. 

I neither expected nor wanted private confessions in the distressingly explicit 2023 memoir Formation: Building a Personal Canon, Part 1. Yet since he was compelled to reveal all, it’s only right that I divulge that several of the incidents Mehldau describes are uncannily similar to traumatic experiences that scarred my formative years.

I’m a few years older than the pianist and my background is less affluent and refined. Even so, I grasped Mehldau’s generational reference points and I share similar degrees of contrition for past misdeeds. While I never succumbed to drug addiction, I too acted as a passive witness to the gradual annihilation of self-destructive friends.

What about music? It’s here too, in an entirely relatable form. Like me, Mehldau was raised on pop music before gradually surrendering to an infatuation with jazz. He attended concerts by the Ramones and the Grateful Dead. With much deliberation he planted his flag in the latter camp of the punk versus prog divide. He’s down with Pat Metheny and Rush.

Mehldau cites intellectual and literary luminaries like Harold Bloom, James Joyce and Thomas Mann as consequential guides in the development of his bildung. Here’s an absurd reduction of the culmination of Formation: Mehldau finally hits upon a conceptual means by which to create meaningful art beyond the usual corny homages to the music of the past.

March 2025 Recap: A Monthly Exercise in Critical Transparency

Screenshot of the trailer for the Royal Opera’s production of Charles Gounod’s Faust by There Stands the Glass.

The Top Ten Albums of March 2025
1. Vijay Iyer and Leo Wadada Smith- Defiant Life
Resistance.

2. Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson- Bone Bells
“What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells.”

3. Destroyer- Dan’s Boogie
Regrettably, I know just what he means.

4. Nels Cline- Consentrik Quartet
My review.

5. clipping.- Dead Channel Sky
Overcast.

6. Anouar Brahem- After the Last Sky
Light in darkness.

7. Jan Lisiecki- Preludes by Chopin, Bach, Rachmaninoff, Messiaen, Górecki
All killer, no filler.

8. Bob James and Dave Koz- Just Us
My review.

9. Slim Thug and Propain- Double Cup
Still tippin’.

10. Stik Figa and DJ Sean P- A Small Fortune
Buried treasure.

The Top Three Reissues, Repackagings and Reimaginings of March 2025
1. Art Pepper- Geneva 1980
Late-career fire.

2. Neil Young- Oceanside Countryside
Previously unreleased 1977 album.

3. Branford Marsalis Quartet- Belonging
A replication of Keith Jarrett’s 1974 album.

The Top Ten Songs of March 2025
1. Nathy Peluso- “Erotika”
Salsa. 

2. PremRock featuring Cavalier and Elucid- “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
Bad guys.

3. Billy Woods and Kenny Segal- “Misery”
Muck and mire.

4. feeble little horse- “This Is Real”
Debaser.

5. Mackenzie Carpenter- “Gone Fishing”
Hook, line and sinker.

6. Maren Morris- “Carry Me Through”
Self help.

7. Black Country, New Road- “Happy Birthday”
Fourpenny opera.

8. Dierks Bentley featuring Stephen Wilson Jr.- "Cold Beer Can"
Pop a top.

9. Little Simz- "Free"
Priceless.

10. TheBabeGabe and The Human featuring Monogram- "1999"
They were dreaming when they wrote this.

The Top Ten Performances of March 2025
1. Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift at Knuckleheads
My review.

2. Branford Marsalis Quartet at the Folly Theater
My review.

3. Dead Heat, Stakes Is High, Failure Drill and Honey at Howdy
My Instagram clip.

4. Leonidas Kavakos and Danil Trifonov at the Folly Theater
My Instagram snapshot.

5. Leonkoro at the 1900 Building
My Instagram snapshot.

6. Bram and Lucy Wijnands and the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra at the Folly Theater
My review.

7. Thomas Dunford at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral
My Instagram snapshot.

8. The Lyric Opera of Kansas City’s “Becoming a Redwood: The Songs of Lori Laitman and Dana Gioia” at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
My Instagram snapshot.

9. Dawson Jones at Green Lady Lounge
My review.

10. The Lyric Opera’s “Cruzar la Cara de la Luna” with Mariachi los Camperos at Muriel Kauffman Theatre
My review.

The previous monthly recap is here.

Concert Review: Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift at the Garage at Knuckleheads

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

I recall hearing “I Wanna Destroy You” in 1980, but I didn’t manage to attend a performance by Robyn Hitchcock until last week. Hitchcock has held up remarkably well during the intervening forty-five years. 

The unconventional time of the 3 p.m. show at Knuckleheads on March 22, 2025, suited the graying audience of about 250. (I paid $33.51 for my ticket.) Hitchcock focused on old favorites like "Balloon Man" at the acoustic outing. He joked that the songs would remind haggard fans of an era in which they were young and attractive.

I was startled by Thompson’s impressive guitar work and his ongoing obsession with the Beatles. I hadn’t picked up on his debt to Bert Jansch or his fixation on the Fab Four that extended to his closing song "A Day in the Life".

Hitchcock admitted that the intermission was designed to compel fans to purchase “holy relics” from his wife Emma Swift at the merch table. Swift joined Hitchcock for a few songs after the break. Their caustic banter made me uncomfortable. Saying she was tired of dark compositions, Swift suggested they perform the Hitchcock song “that was almost a hit.”

The cult artist responded to the brutal barb by mocking her affection for Moo Deng. The onstage acrimony reminded me of a tense Richard and Linda Thompson concert in 1982, two years after Hitchcock hit my radar. I hope the relationship of this talented couple fares better.

Book Review: Alan McGee- How to Run an Indie Label

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

I’m always down for tales involving independent record label music distributors. I tore through Alan McGee’s over-the-top How to Run an Indie Label after happening upon the 2024 memoir on the new release shelf at a library.

The 2024 memoir by the co-founder of Creation Records is a bit of a mess. Seemingly transcribed rather than written, the 300 pages are engaging in spite of intermittent repetition and occasional typos. The title of the Scottish punk provocateur’s book is presumably meant to be ironic in spite of dizzying success he achieved with Oasis.

The music associated with Britpop is one of my biggest blindspots. What little of bands like Blur, Oasis and Suede I’ve heard never did much for me. Reading between the lines, McGee doesn’t really care for those sounds either. On a related note, neither of us can muster enthusiasm for the Foo Fighters. 

The account of the heyday of Creation Records is the least compelling portion of How to Run an Indie Label. Most readers will derive more pleasure from McGee’s insider gossip about the Libertines, My Bloody Valentine and the Jesus and Mary Chain.

I’m grateful to McGee for reminding me about excellent outsider bands like Television Personalities. Better yet, he turned me on to Kevin Rowland’s astounding 1999 covers album My Beauty. Rowland’s queasy version of the Hollies’ "I Can't Tell the Bottom From the Top" reflects my estimation of How to Run an Indie Label.

Album Review: Nels Cline- Consentrik Quartet

Start here. That’s what I’m now able to tell people who ask for an entry point into the avant-jazz that constitutes a large part of my music consumption. Suggesting Nels Cline’s new album Consentrik Quartet is an ideal gateway for beginners isn’t intended as an insult. A sturdy bridge between uncompromising indie-rock and skronky free jazz, Consentrik Quartet will almost certainly stand as one of the most consequential albums of 2025. It doesn’t hurt that it possesses the caché of the Blue Note Records imprint. Furthermore, Cline is already known as Wilco’s freaky guitarist. When I heard saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Tom Rainey perform in 2014 I never imagined they’d play with the relatively conventional finesse they display on "Down Close". Bassist Chris Lightcap connects the two realms on tracks like "The 23". The second step for neophytes is more imposing. Released the same day at Consentrik Quartet, the Erik Satie-influenced dissonance Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson showcase on the brilliant Bone Bells is going to be a tougher sell.

Dear Diary

Original image of the Branford Marsalis Quartet at the Folly Theater by There Stands the Glass.

Monitoring social media missives from colleagues attending last week’s SXSW conference and Luck Reunion celebration in Texas made me blue. Rather than continuing to sulk, I crafted a plan for a full day of music in the Kansas City area on Saturday, March 15. A betrayal by the Kansas City Symphony tripped me up from the outset. 

I intended to begin my spree with oboist Kristina Fulton’s 11 a.m. master class at Helzberg Hall. The event was listed on the Symphony’s site the previous day, but every door of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts was locked when I circumnavigated the building on Saturday morning.

With my carefully calibrated schedule immediately out of whack, I began improvising. I hit Dawson Jones’ matinee at Green Lady Lounge two hours earlier than intended. While I loved it, I was unwilling to stick around for Rod Fleeman’s subsequent first set as originally planned. Annoyed, I ate lunch at home while watching televised college basketball. 

I’d intended to walk to a youth concert at a church presented by The Friends of Chamber Music and from there to Made in France’s gig at a nearby café, but it suddenly occurred to me that I might purchase a discounted ticket to the Big 12 Conference men’s basketball championship game at the T-Mobile Center rather than sticking to that plan.

After pulling the trigger on an all-in $21 ticket, I returned to downtown to see Houston take on Arizona. My assigned seat placed me amid Arizona boosters. Those are not my people. I felt at home after sneaking across the arena to embed myself three rows behind Houston’s pep band.

Unfortunately, I was compelled to leave the close contest with five minutes left on the game clock. (The good guys won.) Several months ago I bought a front-and-center ticket to a concert by the Branford Marsalis Quartet for $43. I didn’t dare miss a minute. Cold rain soaked my feet as I hustled from the T-Mobile Center to the Folly Theater.

The jazz notables met but did not exceed my high expectations. DJ Diesel’s free outdoor show at the KC Live complex was supposed to wrap up my big day out. Imagine my disappointment upon discovering heavy snow as I exited the Folly Theater! Just as my hopes were dashed ten hours earlier, my day ended with an unexpected letdown.

Phonograph Blues

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

After setting aside favorite albums by the likes of Elton John and Dionne Warwick, a nonagenarian generously bequeathed the remainder of what he calls his collection of “phonograph records” to me a few days ago. The allotment provided me with insights into his generation. For instance, I’d always wondered about the origin of the gazillions of Jonah Jones albums clogging record star dollar bins. And I’m impressed that he and his peers bought lots of serious and  crossover classical releases. The best of the batch, however, is a result of regionalism. Based on autograph inscriptions, it’s clear that attendance of performances led to purchases of albums by area mainstays like Marilyn Maye, Jay McShann and Lee Stoneking. I’m honored to make a place for these phonographs in my home.

“Opera” Review: The Lyric Opera of Kansas City’s Cruzar la Cara de la Luna with Mariachi los Camperos at Muriel Kauffman Theatre

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

The first perfect day of 2025 in the Kansas City area presented an ideal opportunity to collect the leaves that had accumulated over the winter and to trim foliage ahead of the spring bloom. I decided to go to the opera on Sunday, March 9, only when I unexpectedly ran out of lawn bags.

After filling the last of my remaining supply of ten bags at 1 p.m. I shrugged, took a shower, got dressed, drove to the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, bought the least expensive ticket ($40) amid the audience of more than 1,000 and was in my seat ten minutes ahead of the 2 p.m. start time for Lyric Opera of Kansas City’s production of “Cruzar la Cara de la Luna.”

The work debuted by Houston Opera in 2011 is billed as “the world’s first mariachi opera.” The designation is ridiculous. “Cruzar la Cara de la Luna” isn’t an opera- it’s a musical through-and-through. The good: a compelling story, a dazzling butterfly effect, the incredible playing of the 13-piece Mariachi Los Camperos and "Di mi nombre", the musical’s best song. The bad: wooden dialogue and spotty acting.

Impulsively attending “Cruzar la Cara de la Luna” was just a continuation of a live music binge. I’ve attended ten performances in the last twelve days. And there are several things I hope to catch this week. My disappointment in “Cruzar la Cara de la Luna” indicates that maybe it’s time to give it rest. Besides, I’m not even halfway through with the leaves.