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Music
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: Last Call at the Downbeat
GENRE: Theater/music
GROUP: Jazz Bridge
ATTENDED: Fri., April 5, 8 p.m.,, Society Hill Playhouse
CLOSES: April 13
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: In November, 1942, 25-year-old trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie is in Philadelphia leading his own quartet at the Downbeat Club… he’s anxious to play you a little and tell you a lot about Philadelphia jazz — back in the day.
WE THINK: The voice of Dizzy Gillespie is divided between two performers in Suzanne Cloud’s new play: the energetic actor Erin Fleming portrays the legendary trumpeter as a gregarious 25-year-old sharing his life story, while Duane Eubanks blows some pre-bop trumpet, fronting a quartet standing in for the one that Gillespie led seventy years earlier at Philly’s Downbeat Club.
As the director and co-founder of Jazz Bridge, Suzanne Cloud has long been a staunch advocate for Philly jazz as well as an educator and a performer in her own right. All of those aspects come together in her first play, which is equal parts biographical sketch, history lesson and musical demonstration.
Drawn from Gillespie’s memoir, To Be Or Not To Bop, the show captures the soon-to-be innovator at a key moment. He’s at a low point, just fired from the bands of Cab Calloway and Lucky Millinder, but on the verge of changing the direction of jazz forever with the “new way,” bebop.
A monologue with extensive musical interludes, Last Call at the Downbeat teeters between drama and lecture, at times overstuffed with names and dates. But despite some opening-night stumbles, Fleming is engaging enough to temper the show’s more didactic tendencies, and Eubanks’ band keeps the music center stage.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Evolution vs. …not.
We always get a ton of stuff that doesn't make it into the official agenda for one reason or another. Or sometimes it does! Anyway, this is some of the stuff that CP staffers are attempting to get to this weekend their own selves. You have no excuse for boredom.
FRIDAY 4/5
- The large-scale, walk-through art installation Song of the Silken Mermaid at 2424 Studios. Plastic-sheeting caves: not as creepy here as they are on Dexter! (Fishtown)
- On the verge of Fluid's closing, the final Sex Dwarf dance party will likely have end-of-the-world energy. (Queen Village)
- Allison Weiss plays an early show at the Barbary tonight. Starts at 5:30 p.m., but there are five acts on the bill, so. (No Libs)
- Some of us at CP have an illogical hatred of the new Dolphin (because we fear change!) but Juan MacLean is DJing there tonight. (Newbold)
- Local rock band Restorations plays the Church. (Rittenhouse)
- Tonight's the first night of the Empty Air project, in which you download an app and walk around Rittenhouse Square triggering different musical cues from the Mural and the Mint. (Rittenhouse)
- Nothing Is Rather Do looks like a typo but it's a show at Space 1026. (Chinatown)
- Two sister art events about copyright, the internet and piracy, TAKEN at Practice Gallery and REPEAT at Little Berlin. (Eraserhood, Kensington)
SATURDAY 4/6
- It's supposed to be at least vaguely spring-like for Pilam's Human BBQ. (University City)
- Yeah, it's really silly, but we have a soft spot for the really silly. Therefore: Giant Pillow Fight in Washington Square Park. (Society Hill)
- Ex-City Paper staffer and esteemed poet Daisy Fried will read from her new book at Arts Parlor in the afternoon. (South Broad)
- How about 24 straight hours of Indian music? Raga Samay is a rare occurance, people. (University City)
- If you were not aware that there is a Stoogeum dedicated to the Three Stooges out in the 'burbs, there is, and it is this morning the curator is giving a presentation on Larry Fine as part of Cinedelphia (which has a lot of other cool stuff going on for its opening weekend). (Ambler)
- Brother JT fronts the Original Sins at Johnny Brenda's. (No Libs)
- And of course we will go to basically anything involving Skeletor and karaoke, ever. (Chinatown)
View gallery
The last time I caught The World/Inferno Friendship Society live, either some prankster pulled the fire alarm midway through their set or the dancing quantity on the floor reached its legal threshold. I’d like to believe the latter. It’s only fitting that World/Inferno would step up from the First Unitarian Church to the Union Transfer’s much larger dance floor — their fans are fervent, rabid even, to the point where safety becomes a pretty big concern when booking this psycho klezmer gang.
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: J.S. Bach, St. Matthew Passion, opening night performance
GENRE: Classical music
GROUP: Philadelphia Orchestra with Westminster Symphonic Choir, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
ATTENDED: Thursday, March 28, Kimmel Center
CLOSES: Saturday, March 30
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: "Rare local performance of a baroque masterpiece."
WE THINK: Bach’s St. Matthew Passion is the Sistine Chapel of music; it is so overflowing with beauty and meaning, all three hours of it, that it can almost be overwhelming. This Philadelphia Orchestra performance, their first in thirty years, was presented in such a way as to organize the drama, while not mitigating the gorgeous sheen of the music. It was made to flow in a theatrically cogent way, mainly via the use of minor blocking by the solo vocalists. The singers were not asked to “act,” per se, but to move about the raised stage, which was placed in the center of the orchestra, following the course of the passion play.
The instrumental ensemble itself was divided into two chamber groups that sometimes played separately, and elsewhere as one, and was abetted by a therobo and a gamba in the continuo, as well as two chamber organs. Yannick Nézet-Séguin found a delicate yet fulsome texture in this unusual grouping, and chose beautifully measured tempos, allowing the music to breath naturally. The singing was superb, with special praise going to the wonderfully nuanced tenor of Andrew Staples, in the central role of the Evangelist.
A short documentary on the Philly punk/DIY scene, house shows in particular, made by Temple film students Evan Lescallete and Luke Proctor. (Earlier I attributed the film to Kristine Trever-Weatherston. She's their film professor. Sorry about that.)
There's so much music stuff in the paper this week, it's crazy. Here's some links.
K. Ross Hoffman names his 10 favorite SXSW discoveries.
Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame president Greg Harris nominates four bands from his Record Exchange days.
MJ Fine reconsiders Lisa Loeb.
Album Reviews: BOY (who plays World Café Live on Wednesday), Flume, Lady and Killing Them Softly
Plus so many freakin' music picks:
- Esben and the Witch — tonight @ Kung Fu Necktie
- Sky Ferreira — Saturday @ Johnny Brenda's
- Joe Hardcore — Saturday @ Broad Street Ministry
- Helen Money — Saturday @ Kung Fu Necktie
- Thao & the Get Down Stay Down — Saturday @ Underground Arts
- Temple Symphony Orchestra — Sunday @ Kimmel Arts
- Phosphorescent — Monday @ Johnny Brenda's
- Benoit Pioulard — Monday @ First Unitarian Church
- Richard Thompson — Tuesday @ Academy of Music
- Mount Moriah — Tuesday @ Johnny Brenda's
- Schwervon — Wednesday @ Kung Fu Necktie
FEATURING: Angel Haze, Mac DeMarco, The Little Ones, Death Grips, Eric Burdon, Kitty, King Tuff, Kelly Hogan, George Clinton (I think) and more.
On Saturday night I was in a church pew and a mosh pit, within the span of about two hours. I suppose that might not be so unusual if you’re used to attending Sunday hardcore matinees. But this was a hip-hop mosh pit. At various other points of the night, I was also at a sweaty, debaucherous Brazilian dance party, a big outdoor rock show, a big shiny auditorium pop show, an orchestral concert, a dingy basement dance club, on a gorgeous landscaped bike path at sunset and in a clothing store, eating pizza. Such is the quick-change mish-mash and experiential overload of South by Southwest, which wrapped up for me in typically chaotic, multivalent fashion.
Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell at the W Hotel, 11 a.m.
The day started early, with this live taping for KGSR which we sort of unintentionally snuck into. They were quite late getting started, despite it being live radio, which is probably why they only played two songs. Somehow, two was enough, though, and it was also a treat getting to hear them talk a bit in between, telling stories about their long friendship (they’ve been collaborating in one way or another since the early ’70s). Not sure if this was age or just a week full of shows, but Emmylou’s voice, miraculous as it definitely still is, was getting awfully whispery in the upper registers.
Ivan & Alyosha at Peckerheads, 12:30 p.m.
Biked across town precisely too late to catch an evidently very prompt 20-minute set by West Philly’s own Waxahatchee, then doubled back to see a few songs by this very nice, spirited New York folk-pop band, who seem like they ought to do very well. E thought they seemed like good Christian boys.
Little Daylight at Cedar Door, 12:30 p.m.
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