Haiku: untitled (dream sequence 2)

Goodbye dreams, fakers,
glad to see the back of your
Mickey Mouse ear world.

maintenance memo 2

Temporarily unpublishing posts to get rid of the phantom hits. BBL. ~h

eta Nov. 20, "active" posts republished, but I'm still getting fake hits from phantom sites elsewhere. Boo.

If you're a real human reader, thank you for stopping by.

Love, hosaa
swatting vampires

Chris Botti at Strathmore

This will go under the category of Briefly Noted. I have nothing clever or original to say about jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, except he's a masterful musician in the best way that jazz creates music. His solo work is spectacular, but his duets are inspired.

At the Strathmore in Bethesda on Thursday, he singled out the members of his six-piece band when they were featured (drummer Billy Kilson held out for his killer solo till near the end of the set). Guest artists were violinist Caroline Campbell and vocalist Sy Smith, both of whom are impressive artists that Botti let shine on their own. But when he joined them, pure magic. Caroline and Chris are so physically well matched, it was like watching Torvill and Dean. And Sy's scatting matched Chris's notes effortlessly, like they could read each other's minds.

Caroline Campbell and Chris Botti in 2011. Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images North America, via Zimbio

Sy Smith and Chris Botti with New York Pops (2013). Uncredited photo via Broadway World

The cool thing about live performances is seeing how the artists work the audience--and the stage. When the house lights went down and the band entered, Botti was ready to begin, but the stage lights weren't! He calmly called for the lights, and quipped, "We're moody, but not that moody."

The first number, "En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor," had me grinning, and my joy never let go throughout the nearly two-hour set. The Aranjuez piece, of course, is a jazz take on Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, and different enough from the Jim Hall version to remind me again that jazz is probably the most creative of all the living arts. Creativity, improvisation, is what it's all about, as Botti and band demonstrated again in their take on Miles Davis's "Flamenco Sketches."

Other standout pieces were Sting's "La Belle Dame Sans Regrets" and "Cinema Paradiso" from the When I Fall in Love album and "The Very Thought of You" from Italia. Now that I'm scanning the tracks, I don't see that he did that much other than Aranjuez from his latest CD, Grammy-winning Impressions, which I bought at the concession stand before the show (on faith, just from sampling my beloved Aranjuez). No matter, I'm hooked. I see another Christmas CD (December) heading toward my Amazon shopping cart!

Chris Botti at Major League Baseball All Star Game 2012. Photo by Rick Swig via ChrisBotti.com

You see I was good and didn't take any Botti clack. *g*

Love, hosaa

jazzed up

Haiku: Morning

Morning

Memories and dreams

evaporate, making way

as new moments wake.

-----------------------

Annotation: This is slightly revised from the version I posted on Facebook yesterday, but it still doesn't quite satisfy. Due to an unexplained shift in my REM cycle, I've been dreaming closer to when I'm supposed to wake up, so the images are lasting longer. The music and news from the radio alarm mix themselves into a dream-soundtrack, and I remember my dream images of crashing planes and refugees.

The thing about dreams and memories is that they play on the same psychic field. Am I remembering that correctly, or did I dream it? As I've gotten older, I'm finding it harder to remember my dreams. I'm finding it harder to remember my memories. I'm sad when I forget the song I composed and sang in a dream, but I'm sadder when I forget experiences that really happened. 

The time between both dreams and experiences and their evaporation is getting shorter with the amount of time ahead for new ones to wake.

love, hosaa

remembering dreams, at least temporarily.

Garden art, Strathmore Mansion (Bethesda). Credit: C. G. Wagner

The Right Planets, and Stuff

Back from last night's "Off the Cuff" program at the Strathmore, wherein Baltimore Symphony Orchestra conductor Marin Alsop was joined by astrophysicist Mario Livio (her good buddy, she delighted to inform us!) to reflect on Gustav Holst's masterpiece, The Planets. The chat and slideshow went on about 20 minutes, followed by the BSO's thrilling execution of the work. The program repeats tonight at the Meyerhoff in Baltimore.

Marin Alsop. Credit: Grant Leighton, via WGBH

Mario Livio. Courtesy of MarioLivio.com

This was my first experience with the "Off the Cuff" program, which is designed to educate audiences a bit before immersing them into the music. It speaks to the interdisciplinarians among us, the liberal-arts majors who like to know everything about everything. Marin took us on a tour of the musical and mythical stories that Holst told through his seven planetary movements; Mario tutored us on the physical matters of planetary fact, including that one of the planets (Neptune, "the Mystic") was discovered purely through mathematics.

The performance was followed by a question and answer period, but we didn't stay for that. I did have a great question all prepared, but it turned out that the performance itself answered my question:

Why was the grandest, most awesomely stirring movement, "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity," stuck in the fourth position and not used as the ending of the suite? The very natural impulse of anyone experiencing this music (especially performed live in person by real human musicians) is to burst into loud, prolonged joyful cheers. Instead, Holst ends the suite with faint murmurings from the farthest rock from our Sun, "Neptune, the Mystic." The suite thus quietly fades out in the echoes of a celestial chorus (in this instance, the Women of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society).

Mario Livio contributed high-def images of our dramatis planetae, projected on a screen above the orchestra during the program. These included a caption shown toward the end of the "Neptune" movement reminding us that our own messenger to the cosmos, Voyager 1, has left our solar neighborhood. It carries our humanity with it into the unknown. Its next "stop," the nearest star system, is 10,000 years away.

Now the music makes sense: We are left with our innate wonder, awe, and imagination. Holst is a genius.

Prescient, too, Mario reminded the audience. Pluto was discovered some four years before Holst died, and he was asked if he would like to add a Pluto movement to the suite. He refused, and Pluto was later demoted anyway.

Another interesting point that Marin made about Holst's work was how evocative it was to later movie music makers like John Williams. She had her orchestra pull comparative samples from the opening of "Mars, the Bringer of War" and from the soundtrack of the original Star Wars. 

And of course, anyone who knows me knows my favorite movie in life is The Right Stuff, which captured my imagination aurally through the Academy Award winning soundtrack composed by Bill Conti. So here's my story:

About thirty years ago, my favorite movie in life became The Right Stuff, largely because of the glorious and inspiring music in the soundtrack. (Of course, Sam Shepard as Chuck Yeager was sexy as hell, so that didn't hurt, either.)

Sam Shepard, Barbara Hershey in The Right Stuff. Courtesy of PhilipKaufman.com

After the movie ran an abbreviated course in theaters, largely considered a failure (whether the movie killed John Glenn's presidential hopes or Glenn's politics killed audience interest in the movie can be debated by others), I went on a mission to find the soundtrack. It won an Oscar, demmit! It should be out there for me to buy!! No dice. I heard or read somewhere that Bill Conti was not satisfied with the score. Color me mystified.

Then one night, while falling asleep with the radio still tuned to my favorite classical music station, I sat bolt upright in bed when the theme from The Right Stuff started playing! OMG, Conti's soundtrack on classical music radio!

The rousing finish of the movement came and, yes, I probably did jump up and burst into a loud, prolonged, joyful cheer. That's what Bringers of Jollity do to you. The announcer then informed me that I'd been listening to a selection from Holst's The Planets.

Now, I always smile when, in the opening credits of Casablanca, Max Steiner's composer credential is accompanied by a quick theme from "La Marseillaise" in the soundtrack. We know Max Steiner is a movie musical genius, but he did not compose the French national anthem. Nor did Bill Conti compose any of the Holst themes--Jupiter, Venus, Mars--that were so seamlessly integrated into his Right Stuff score (rumor has it that this was not Conti's decision, but the producers'--probably explaining his dissatisfaction). 

Several years later, I did come across a symphonic rendition of themes from The Right Stuff paired with music from Conti's work for the TV miniseries North and South. I do recommend this 1990 disc. But I now learn that, just this year, a limited edition CD was released without the N/S tether, but with an exceptionally odd and disconcerting addition--a dance mix of the "Right Stuff" theme (see track 12). A single? Seriously? They were releasing this to radio? Pardon my WTF moment here.

Now back to Holst. You may notice that I didn't include a link to a recording of The Planets. This is where I pitch the live human musical experience as the only way it all makes sense. If you want to listen to it on your own, find some nice pictures of real live planets to look at. Enjoy, with awe and wonder, what your fellow humans create with their awe and wonder.

Courtesy of NASA.

Love, hosaa
awed, wondering

eta (Nov. 10): I couldn't resist - I purchased the digital album of Conti's The Right Stuff. It has more tracks than the version with North and South. I'm listening now. It's interesting how little there is on Conti's version of the score that is recognizable to someone who has seen the movie well over 25 times (probably closer to 50). This is like a "director's cut" of a movie--it's the artist's original conception.

Even the "Tango" cut on this was replaced in the movie. I didn't remember where it was used until I watched the movie again. It's in the last scene at the clinic where the astronaut prospects are undergoing medical tests. Tough Navy aviator Alan Shepard has just had some balloon inserted in his bladder and needs to get to the john before it is released and makes a mess. Very funny scene, because he's at the mercy of nursing aide Gonzales, whom Shepard had offended with his Jose Jimenez imitations.

Anyway, I think it would be fun to montage the scenes from the movie with Conti's music. (What, another non-Clay, non-futurist video project??? Can I have more hours, Madame Clock?) ~h

etaa - The "single" is still bizarre. I guess Conti thought they needed something to sell the album to MTV in 1983. Without liner notes, though, it's hard to tell.

Haiku: "Shower America"

 

Egyptian cotton

transported through Chinese hands:

my worldly washcloth.

C. G. Wagner, 2013

Women to Watch: Ringgold, Niffenegger, Hall, DeBuys

Another full arts day yesterday, courtesy of National Museum of Women in the Arts's current exhibitions (closing November 10) and the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Measure for Measure (closing today - sorry).

At NMWA, the juxtaposition of Faith Ringgold's stark, political work against the tumultuous dreams uncovered by Audrey Niffenegger (best known as the author of The Time Traveler's Wife) was startling and fresh.

detail: Faith Ringgold, American People Series #1: Between Friends, 1963; Collection Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York - See more at: NMWA

The Time Traveler's Wife, original cover art by Audrey Niffenegger, via Tower Books

We see two different female points of view - one outer directed but filtered through an individual's journey into the world. A quote by Ringgold on her early portraits was shaking: She said that, in art school, no one could teach her how to paint black skin, so she had to invent a process of mixing black into colors, creating a rich, graphic style.

In Niffenegger's self-portraits, there are unsettling images and ideas of a woman being defined and controlled by a man, a lover who chops her hair off because it displeases him. It is little wonder that her dreamscapes become intertwined with what look like death wishes, skeletons lurking within and among the female forms.

Audrey Niffenegger, Observation (detail), 2010; Collection of Larry and Laura Gerber, Highland Park, Illinois - See more at: NMWA

Niffenegger's lighter dreamscapes are epitomized in the delightful fantasy book, Raven Girl, which was not available as promised in the museum shop.

Raven Girl, original cover art by Audrey Niffenegger, via Amazon.com

And so on over to STC for Measure for Measure, for a Meetup event with a few of the same folks I got to share Henry V with over at Folger last season.

Just as Ringgold and Niffenegger demonstrate two approaches to art--external, loud, in your face versus internal, solemnly despairing, reflective--we find in Measure two different approaches to being a successful actress on stage in the work.

This Measure gives us, in the lead, Gretchen Hall as Isabella, the strong, wise, moral heroine, and Katie deBuys, melting unrecognizably into a minor part (Juliet, the beloved of Isabella's brother).

Gretchen Hall, via About the Artists

Katie deBuys, via About the Artists

You may notice right away that this Isabella is not the one portrayed in the poster art, nor included in the rehearsal photos on Facebook. Gretchen lists "standby" for this production as her most recent credit. But this 5'10" stunning redhead (a lookalike for a young Rebecca de Mornay), made her mark for me in the recent ReDiscovery Series reading of Rutherford and Son. Her character was the strong, moral woman standing up against dominating, immoral man. Both Gretchen and her characters are memorable in every way.

Katie is different. The fact that our Meetup gang did NOT recognize her in what is a tertiary role is a testament to her craft. Just as astonished as we all were that the same actress could be both the mesmerizing and playful Katherine of France and the young boy, just a soldier under Henry, here again, she astonishes, turning herself inside out to be who she needs to be.

"Meeting" these four women artists at once validates all our points of view, our approaches to life. Some of us speak out, shout, get noticed, seen, heard. Some of us reflect and project, melt meaningfully into our worlds, work with the tools we are given--our spirits, minds, and souls.

Love, hosaa

just juxtaposing