Gorgeous String Jazz Sounds at Manhattan’s Best Facsimile of a Real Jazz Joint These Days

What a beautiful early Friday evening in Central Park, under the trees north of the 81st Street entrance on the west side, a few blocks from where cellist Marika Hughes grew up. Playing to a sparse but attentive crowd with her brilliantly unorthodox New String Quartet, she joked about not spending much time here as a kid since she’d had her sights on greener pastures. Since then she’s explored and conquered innumerable styles of music, from classical to jazz to soul and funk and traditional Jewish sounds.

Seriously: what’s more gorgeous than a stark minor-key blues riff played on the cello? In a show that probably went for well over an hour (it’s been a work in progress figuring out the start times for the ongoing series here) Hughes fired off scores of them. Some were poignant, some had extra bite, and there were funny ones too. The highlights of this completely unamplified evening were a couple of bittersweetly swaying, pensive minor-key instrumentals, Hughes sending stardust spirals of harmonics into the ether, bowing down at the tailpiece for extra bite.

The set was a comfortable, conversational blend of sharp individual voices committed to creating a warmly welcoming, hopeful, deeply blues-infused ambience. It was weird watching Marvin Sewell – one of this era’s great guitarists – reduced to strumming rhythm on an acoustic. It was also kind of strange, but rewardingly so, watching violinist Charlie Burnham not only slithering through one rustic, otherworldly yet direct solo after another, but also singing into the breeze.

OK, there wasn’t much of a breeze: we got fragments of a haunting piney woods folk tune made popular by a regrettable grunge rock band, and also a triumphant, rhythmically shifting, gospel-infused minor-key soul tune, as well as more aphoristic ideas that would have been a perfect singalong had this show been in closer quarters. That may still be an eventuality in this city, legally at least, but it’s already a reality again in almost fifty percent of the country – and the opportunities for musicians on the road seem to be growing every day.

Beyond her understatedly poignant instrumentals, Hughes delivered a warmly lilting tribute to the late Bill Withers (who would likely be with us today if not for last year’s pandemic of malpractice). She and the band ended the show on a similar note with a gently soaring tribute to wake-and-bake stoner fun. Bassist Rashaan Carter set the flame that percolated the instrumental encore, which rose from suspenseful atmospherics to an undulating anthemic vamp.

The weekend series in this part of the park, produced by photographer Jimmy Katz’s Giant Step Arts remains subject to the vagaries of weather and the availability of musicians. Still, Katz has put on more brilliant programming this year than anybody outside of the speakeasy circuit. The concert today, May 23 at around 3 PM in Central Park on the lawn under the trees, about a block north and east of the 81st St. entrance on the west side, features drummer Nasheet Waits leading a high-voltage quartet with Mark Turner and Steve Nelson on tenor sax, and Carter on bass again.

New Music Duo andPlay and Cello Rocker Meaghan Burke Put on a Serious Party at the Edge of Chinatown

How do violin/viola duo andPlay manage to create such otherworldly, quietly phantasmagorical textures? Beyond their adventurous choice of repertoire, they use weird alternate tunings. Folk and rock guitarists have been doing that since forever, but unorthodox tunings are a relatively new phenomenon in the chamber music world. At the release party for their new album Playlist at the Metropolis Ensemble‘s second-floor digs at 1 Rivington St. last night, violist Hannah Levinson and violinist Maya Bennardo – with some help from their Rhythm Method buds Meaghan Burke and Leah Asher, on harmonica and melodica, respectively – evoked a ghost world that was as playful and bracing as it was envelopingly sepulchral. Anybody who might mistakenly believe that all 21st century serious concert music is stuffy or wilfully abstruse needs to check out the programming here.

The party was in full effect before the music started. A sold-out crowd pregamed with bourbon punch and grapefruit shots. As the performance began, Levinson sent a big bucket of fresh saltwater taffy around the audience, seated in the round. The charismatic Burke opened with a brief solo set of characteristically biting, entertainingly lyrical cello-rock songs. Calmly and methodically, she shifted between catchy, emphatic basslines, tersely slashing riffs, starry pizzicato and hypnotic, loopy minimalism. The highlights included Hysteria, a witheringly funny commentary on medieval (and much more recent) patriarchal attempts to control womens’ sexual lives, along with a wry, guardedly optimistic, brand-new number contemplating the hope tbat today’s kids will retain the ability to see with fresh eyes.

Dressed in coyly embroidered, matching bespoke denim jumpsuits, andPlay wasted no time introducing the album’s persistently uneasy, close harmonies  with a piece that’s not on it, Adam Roberts‘ new Diptych. Contrasting nebulous ambience with tricky polyrhythmic counterpoint, the duo rode its dynamic shfits confidently through exchanges of incisive pizzicato with muted austerity, to a particularly tasty, acerbic, tantalizingly brief coda.

Clara Ionatta’s partita Limun, Levinson explained, was inspired by the Italian concept of lemon as a panacea. Playful sparring between the duo subtly morphed into slowly drifting tectonic sheets, finally reaching a warmer, more consonant sense of closure that was knocked off its axis by a sudden, cold ending.

The laptop loops of composer David Bird‘s live remix of his epic Apochrypha threatened to completely subsume the strings, but that quasar pulse happily receded to the background. It’s the album’s most distinctly microtonal track, Bennardo and Levinson quietly reveling in both its sharp, short, flickeringly agitated riffs and misty stillness.

The next concert at the space at 1 Rivington is on Oct 11 at 7:30 PM with composer Molly Herron and the Argus Quartet celebrating the release of their new album “with music and poetry that explore history and transformation.” Cover is $20/$10 stud.

Album of the Day 10/27/11

As we usually do every day – but didn’t do over the previous very, very lost weekend – our 1000 best albums of all time countdown continues all the way to #1. Thursday’s album was #461:

Rasputina – Oh Perilous World

The original cello rockers, Rasputina have been putting out great albums for almost 20 years, frontwoman Melora Creager backed by an increasingly shifting cast of characters. This is her finest hour, from 2007: she’s always been a great lyricist as well as a composer, but she really took it to the next level with these torrentially metaphorical songs that deliver a very subtle but absolutely brutal critique of the Bush regime’s reign of terror and the paranoia they spread in the wake of 9/11. All this takes place against a backdrop of global warming (1816 the Year Without a Summer), basic human rights taking a beating (Choose Me for a Champion), and anthrax scares engineered from inside the government (Incident in a Medical Clinic). Only in Draconian Crackdown does she let down her guard and blast the traitors of 9/11 for their cowardice. Otherwise, the journey from Child Soldier Rebellion to Bring Back the Egg Unbroken to Old Yellowcake (weapons of mass destruction – get it?) is a treacherous and grotesquely graphic one, and Creager leaves no stone unturned. A courageous and mighty blow for democracy whose time may not have come yet. Here’s a random torrent.

Dream Zoo Lives Up to Its Name

Dream Zoo’s new album – streaming in its entirety at bandcamp – is crazy fun. Surreal, trippy and eclectic to an extreme, frontwoman/cellist Valerie Kuehne’s stream-of-consciousness narratives leap genres in a split second. The band also includes Lucio Menegon on guitar, Jeff Young on violin and Sean Ali on bass and percussion. Much of this is similar to the work of Amy X Neuburg. For example, consider the album’s most interesting track, The Spell. In almost nine minutes, there’s a nicely apprehensive, atmospheric intro; trippy, theatrical vocals over pizzicato cello and what sounds like sandpaper on the strings; a pensive, minimalist solo cello passage that builds with layers of overtones to a quiet cacaphony, then winds down, then back up again, a chorus of voices growing more and more anguished: “Forget about geometry!” is their mantra. What does it mean? Does it mean anything? Who knows.

Kuehne matches her vocals to the lyrics: it’s an acting job, and she pulls it off, especially on The Flight Crew Was Rude, the surrealistically entertaining Paris-Berlin flight narrative that opens the album. Like a lot of the compositions here, it’s mini-suite of sorts, bracing pizzicato cello switching over to jarring astringencies and then to warmly consonant atmospherics which eventually go completely nuts. The bizarre, disjointed Architecture eventually coalesces as a stately, somewhat menacing, insistent art-rock theme (with a chase scene involving a chicken in a kitchen). Likewise, Plane Crash No. 2 alludes to and then finally comes together as artsy folk-rock, with a playfully swoopy guitar outro. Kicking off with baroque echoes, The Chase could be a spoof of classical music for strings. The most “outside” piece here is The Train, a strange pastiche that suddenly becomes claustrophobic and then morphs into variations on a Rasputina-esque cello rock vamp.

In addition to her work as a musician and composer, Kuehne is also an impresario: she books the Super Coda concert series at Bushwick’s Cafe Orwell, an edgy, eclectic, improvisationally-oriented mix of indie classical, jazz, world music and styles that defy categorization.

Album of the Day 7/13/11

Every day, our 1000 best albums of all time countdown continues all the way to #1. Wednesday’s album was #566:

Rasputina – A Radical Recital

Since the 90s, cellist/songwriter Melora Creager has created an eerily surreal, twistedly lyrical, frequently hilarious, visionary body of work that ranks with any other songwriter or composer’s output during that time. Literally everything she’s ever made is worth owning. This particular edition of Rasputina, from 2005, features three cellos and drums (the drum guy sings a silly English folk song, When I Was a Young Girl, for comic relief from the relentless, dark intensity) plus Creager on vocals doing essentially a greatest hits-live set. It’s a strong if incomplete representation, with the searing chromatics of Saline the Salt Lake Queen; the ferociously sarcastic Howard Hughes; the ethereally sad Sign of the Zodiac and Watch TV; a blistering cover of the old swing tune If Your Kisses Can’t Hold the Man You Love; the amusing Mama Was an Opium Smoker; the entertainingly vicious anti-Rudy Guiliani broadside The Mayor; the pensive suicide anthem A Quitter, plus tongue-in-cheek chamber rock versions of Led Zep’s Rock & Roll and Barracuda by Heart. The cd is still available at the band’s site; here’s a random torrent.

Album of the Day 4/6/11

Every day, our 1000 best albums of all time countdown continues all the way to #1. Wednesday’s album is #664:

Serena Jost – Closer Than Far

If we survive this year, you’ll see a lot more like this one on this list: not a single substandard song among the eleven tracks here, and for us, that’s what defines a great album. Alternately lush and austere, often mysterious yet richly tuneful, the former Rasputina multi-instrumentalist’s 2008 solo debut is a deliciously eclectic mix of chamber pop, early 70s-style art-rock, and Americana with unexpected, playful detours into funk and even surf music. It opens with a plaintive, gorgeous version of Iris DeMent’s Our Town, followed by the somewhat stark Halfway There and then the ridiculously catchy, cleverly lyrical pop gem Vertical World. Julian Maile’s twangy Ventures guitar lights up the mini-suite I Wait, followed by the shapeshifting Almost Nothing and Reasons and Lies. Jump (not the Van Halen song) contrasts a brooding melody with a tongue-in-cheek disco beat. The most classically-influenced number here is In Time; the album closes with the poignant yet hopeful Stowaway. A search of the sharelockers didn’t turn up anything, but the whole thing is streaming at myspace, and it’s still up at cdbaby.

Deoro’s Eclectic Cello Rock Strikes Gold at the Rockwood

New York is full of good cello rock bands. Serena Jost is about to put out a new album; Blues in Space are playing the Highline the first week in January; Erin and Her Cello are about to do her “holiday spectacular” at the Rockwood this Friday. Last night, cellist Dave Eggar’s band Deoro played the Rockwood and proved equally good at an absurd number of styles. The first ten minutes of the show capsulized a lot but not all of the surprises that would come afterward. Backed only by nimble five-string electric bass and smartly terse drums, Eggar fired off a snazzy display of overtones, a Middle Eastern flourish and then a verse of Silent Night that he peeled away from, Jimi Hendrix style, into a cello metal boogie. A swaying dance alternated with stark, still, moody passages, the bassist sneaking in and introducing a tango beat. A hypnotically circling avant garde-tinged motif segued into a dramatic art-rock dance, in 6/8, and then their drummer finally sang an apprehensive reggae number about impending ecological disaster. Earlier this year, the band recorded their album New Kingston Morning at the legendary Tuff Gong Studios in Jamaica, Eggar taking obvious pride in announcing that it had been nominated for a Grammy.

Singer Dina Fanai joined them, adding her unselfconsciously soulful, nuanced alto to a haunting Middle Eastern song that began with a suspenseful drone, Eggar building slinky snakecharmer atmosphere behind Fanai’s impassioned intensity. It was the high point of the night. And then it morphed into another artsy, Jean-Luc Ponty-esque dance. The rest of the set included a country gospel number that they’d recorded with Dr. Ralph Stanley; a fiery rap-metal number with some tongue-in-cheek guitar voicings on the cello and a savage lyric about the Iraq war; the gently bucolic title track to the new album, and Follow Me to the Sun, another album cut, sung by the drummer, eventually morphing into a bouncy disco vamp. Is there any style of music this band can’t do? Apparently not. The impressively full house, especially for what is now an unseasonably cold night, wanted more.

And the show was even educational. As it turns out, Silent Night has a second verse (they sang it, joined by a powerful bass singer from the Metropolitan Opera). Like Meet the Mets, nobody ever hears it – and also like Meet the Mets, it doesn’t really need it. Simon and Garfunkel’s version put that song out of reach for good a long time ago.

Top Ten Songs of the Week 9/20/10

This is sort of our weekly, Kasey Kasem-inspired luddite DIY version of a podcast. Every week, we try to mix it up, offer a little something for everyone: sad songs, funny songs, upbeat songs, quieter stuff, you name it. We’ve designed this as something you can do on your lunch break if you work at a computer (and you have headphones – your boss won’t approve of a lot of this stuff). If you don’t like one of these songs, you can always go on to the next one: every link here (except for #1 this week) will take you to each individual song. As always, the #1 song here will appear on our Best Songs of 2010 list at the end of the year.

1. Klezwoods – Cuperlika

Centerpiece of the Balkan/klezmer/Middle Eastern band’s titanicallly good new cd Oy Yeah. Put it up on the web somewhere guys, you’ll sell a lot more records!

2. Serena Jost – Stay

Characteristically stark and compelling solo cello art-rock song from her forthcoming cd.

3. Band of Outsiders – Graveyard

Absolutely off the hook post-Velvets guitar madness, live at the Parkside this year. They’re at Bowery Electric on 9/23 at 10 opening for Richard Lloyd.

4. Ninth House – Down Beneath

Frontman Mark Sinnis was making this video in a cemetery in upstate New York when he noticed that the seemingly random grave he’d chosen to lie on belonged to one Mary Ann Larson, who died on Sinnis’ birthday in 1853. Coincidence? The band play the cd release show for their new one on 9/24 at at UC 87 Lounge, 87 Ludlow St. at 11.

5. Amy Bezunartea – Doubles

Hang with this – it’s worth your 3 minutes. Not your average girl with acoustic guitar, described by her label (Jennifer O’Connor’s project Kiam) as “kind of Joni meets Magnetic Fields” but better. Free download.

6. Zikrayat – Ish-Showq Mihayyarni

Classic obscure 50s Egyptian film music from the movie ‘Aziza’ starring Naima Akif, live at Galapagos last year. The song starts about 1:20 into the clip. They’re at Moustache (Lex and 102nd) at 8 PM on 9/24.

7. The Poludaktulos Orchestra – Rajkos

Brass band intensity – the missing link between Greece and Serbia, with Klezwoods’ amazing guitarist.

8. Gertrude Michael – Sweet Marijuana

Via night of the purple moon – precode movie music from 1934.

9. Amanda Thorpe – River Song

The dodgy sound reflects the crappy venue this was recorded at, but Thorpe’s voice transcends it – a classic that sounds as good as it did a couple of years ago.

10. Los Incas Modernos – Terremoto

An early Peruvian surf band – you can get lost in this stuff on youtube.

Top Ten Songs of the Week 9/13/10

This is sort of our weekly, Kasey Kasem-inspired luddite DIY version of a podcast. Every week, we try to mix it up, offer a little something for everyone: sad songs, funny songs, upbeat songs, quieter stuff, you name it. We’ve designed this as something you can do on your lunch break if you work at a computer (and you have headphones – your boss won’t approve of a lot of this stuff). If you don’t like one of these songs, you can always go on to the next one: every link here will take you to each individual song. As always, the #1 song here will appear on our Best Songs of 2010 list at the end of the year.

1. Botanica – Who You Are

The lure of comfort and complacency punctured with vivid, characteristically savage skill by this era’s greatest art-rock band, the title track from their shockingly diverse latest album. Click the link and then on the music player in the upper righthand corner of the page.

2. Serena Jost – A Bird Will Sing

Intriguing solo version of the title track to the art-rock siren’s forthcoming album. In case you’d rather hear the finished version sooner than later you can always contribute to her kickstarter campaign.

3. Brass Menazeri – Da Zna Zora

Wild live version of a Serbian folksong by the blazing Bay Area brass band.

4. Gamelan Dharma Swara – Tour Medley 2010

New York’s own community gamelan orchestra went on competition tour to Bali this past summer: this is a series of hypnotic, beguiling excerpts from those performances, including Tabuh Pisan Bangun Anyar, the rarely played Kebyar Legong, Sikut Sanga and Sudamala. Scroll down to the “listen” link on the left side of the page. They’re playing the Fat Cat on 10/24 at 8.

5. Matthew McCright – Dance Prelude #3

Scroll down to hear the Minnesota pianist have a great time with a ragtime song that sounds like vintage Scott Joplin – but it’s a brand new piece by Daniel Nass. He’ll be playing this possibly at Merkin Hall on 9/25 at 8.

6. The Black Angels – The Sniper/Bad Vibrations

Deliciously rever-drenched, dark garage stuff from their new album Phosphene Dream, recorded live at a secret show at the Orensanz Center last week.

7. Carl Wayne – Midnight Blue

A rare b-side from 1983 – the late frontman of the Move finds the inner pop gem in a song bastardized in its only previous appearance on ELO’s Discovery album.

8. The Mike Baggetta Quartet – Olive Tree

The noir-tinged jazz guitarist and his combo in warm lyrical mode.

9. Radio I Ching – untitled

This is free jazz legend/impresario Dee Pop’s latest crazy project – this is a dark and twistedly cool dub reggae tune.

10. Christian Marclay compositions streaming live at the Whitney

In case you’ve gotten over to the Whitney Museum recently (we haven’t), they’re doing a Christian Marclay retrospective there year and streaming it live. The next one is at 1 PM on the 15th and features accordionist Guy Klucevsek.

Top Ten Songs of the Week 9/6/10

This is sort of our weekly, Kasey Kasem-inspired luddite DIY version of a podcast. Every week, we try to mix it up, offer a little something for everyone: sad songs, funny songs, upbeat songs, quieter stuff, you name it. We’ve designed this as something you can do on your lunch break if you work at a computer (and you have headphones – your boss won’t approve of a lot of this stuff). If you don’t like one of these songs, you can always go on to the next one: every link here will take you to each individual song. As always, the #1 song here will appear on our Best Songs of 2010 list at the end of the year.

1.Tom Warnick & the World’s Fair – No Longer Gage

From his new album The Great Escape, this is the lurid, creepy tale of 1800s Vermont railroadman Phineas Gage, who took a blasting rod through the skull and lived – but was never the same. The song relates what happened.

2. Serena Jost – Great Conclusions

Characteristically smart, majestic art-rock from the New York cellist/chanteuse. She has a kickstarter campaign going on in case you feel like assuaging your bourgeois guilt and contributing to the fund for her next album.

3. Clinic – I’m Aware

Free download – 60s psychedelic chamber pop from their shockingly mellow forthcoming album Bubblegum

4. Bobtown – Shadow of the Mountain

Click on the video with the vinyl record for a fun oldtimey treat.

5. LJ Murphy – Nowhere Now

Casually intense live version of a standout track from his classic 2006 album Mad Within Reason. He’s at Theatre 86 St. Mark’s at 7 on Friday the 10th.

6. The Snow – Handle Your Weapon

A soul song for a would-be suicide from this magnificent art-rock crew’s latest album I Die Every Night.

7. The Dixons – Thanks a Lot

Real oldschool Bakersfield country music from 1964 – except that this is Brooklyn 2010. Unbelievable. They’re at Union Pool on 9/8 at 10.

8. Garfunkel & Oates – Worst Song Medley

Even if you try to hide from top 40 radio you’ll recognize some of these from the supermarket. And they are awful. And the two girls singing them are hilarious.

9. The Giving Tree Band – Circles

Cool bluegrass/roots kiss-off song – a lot like M Shanghai String Band.

10. Bad Cop – I’m in Lust with You

Completely sick unhinged noise guitar madness. Not for fans of melody. They’re at Don Pedro’s on 9/25 and look like they’d be a lot of fun.