A Gorgeously Drifting, Lynchian Album With a Tragic Backstory

New York instrumentalists Suss‘ Night Suite album, released earlier this year, was a gorgeously evocative, drifting travelogue akin to the recent Freedom Convoy, tracing a highway trip from New Mexico to the California desert. The equally picturesque sequel, Heat Haze – streaming at Bandcamp – continues the journey in a similarly southwestern yet less gothic vein. Tragically, one of the band members only appears on this road trip in a metaphorical sense. Keyboardist Gary Lieb died suddenly in March of last year shortly after wrapping up recording, just as so many musicians have in the wake of the lethal Covid injections. It’s not known what role, if any, that may have played in his untimely death.

In a cruel stroke of irony, Lieb’s floating synth plays a major role throughout the record, mingling with the guitars of Pat Irwin and Bob Holmes and the pedal steel of Jonathan Gregg. It’s often impossible to figure out who’s playing what, beginning with the slowly shifting, tectonic ambience of the title track, at least until Gregg’s steel and a few low, ominous reverb-guitar notes come into focus over the horizon.

Lieb’s keyboards pulse hypnotically behind spare, loopy acoustic and electric riffs in the second track, aptly titled Shimmer. Gregg’s steel takes centerstage over gentle acoustic strums and the occasional low clang in Grace: the group seem to be emerging into more populated territory by now.

Lieb layers calmly circling layers beneath reverb riffs that pan the speakers on track four, Train: this is the real midnight in the switching yard, with a sonic joke or two which are too good to spoil. The most immersively ambient track here is the final one, Pine. If this is all that’s left of the band’s recorded output, it’s a memorable departure.

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Lurid, Lyrical, Lynchian Sounds From Eclectic New Mexican Kristy Hinds

Songwriter Kristy Hinds has played everything from 80s-inspired rock, to bossa nova and other tropical, often trippy sounds. Mentored as a gradeschooler by Bo Diddley – a fellow rancher in her native New Mexico – she began as a singer and percussionist, moved to guitar and most recently, ukulele. Lately she’s taken a surreal, absolutely Lynchian plunge into dub reggae. Just as auspiciously, she scored John Funkhouser – a rare triple threat on jazz piano, organ and bass – to join her on her latest short album Play Me Out, streaming at her music page.

“This is when the road divides, this is when I’ll break your heart, this is where the violence starts…play me out,” she teases luridly in the ep’s title track. “Rich men in the white coats, and the shark teeth” don’t hold up too well here.

On the second song, Feeling Good, Hinds rises out of murky mystery to stark, spare reggae with a sleek, slinky organ solo. Funkhouser’s creepy bass drone underneath is luscious. For the last song, Hinds reinvents Fleetwood Mac’s Gold Dust Woman at just about doublespeed, as straight-up backbeat rock – and, it’s cool to be able to actually understand the song’s lyrics for once! Funkhouser winds it up with a crashing, crescendoing piano solo.

Hinds also has a ton of music up at her Soundcloud page, a mix of rock, jazz and latin styles. And she has a fearlessly populist sensibility: check out Images in a Box, her snarky anti-corporate media broadside. Her next gig is at 5 PM on July 18 at Corrales Bistro Brewery, 4908 Corrales Rd. in Corrales, New Mexico.

An Elegant Party in Central Park with the Handel and Haydn Society at the Naumburg Bandshell

Every year, a new generation of classical music fans discovers the annual series of free Naumburg Bandshell concerts in Central Park, which ran uninterrupted for 114 years until the disaster of 2020. Judging from the crowd last night, there’s no shortage of younger supporters to continue the tradition where all the seats fill up as much as an hour before the concert.

This time out was a deep dive into the baroque, with violinist Aisslinn Nosky leading period instrument ensemble the Handel and Haydn Society through an intricate and intuitive performance of what was essentially party music for the ruling classes of Europe right around the time the formerly Dutch colony across the pond was starting to get restless. If Woody Allen had been a figure from around the turn of the 18th century, this is probably what he would have been listening to (and maybe playing – clarinetists abounded in those days).

The ensemble opened with Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in D Major, with a bit of a hush and what seemed like a striking emphasis on steely pedalpoint as much as the equally insistent exchanges of contrapuntal voicings. The crowd immediately responded after the first movement. Likewise, the lushly emphatic bowing in the second movement, which the group quickly turned into a lively dance with a Vivaldiesque series of flurries on the way out.

That boisterous energy set the stage for the rest of the night. The group followed with 18th century British composer Charles Avison’s Scarlatti-inspired Concerto Grosso No. 5 in D Minor, digging into the stately rhythm of the first movement with gusto and an inspired bluster when the score permitted. Nosky shifted from sharp-toothed articulation to an elegant legato sway in the second movement and the waltzing conclusion.

The piece de resistance was Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in A minor, RV 356, a romp where Nosky rose from a practically conspiratorial, sotto-voce understatement to an incisive precision matched by a welcome, raw attack echoed by the group’s low strings (and a couple of planes passing overhead to bolster the low end). Was the second movement just hazy ambience? Hardly. The group held those resonant notes for dear life, 1711-style, at least until bursting out on the wings of Nosky’s fugal attack.

Geminiani’s Concerto Grosso after Corelli, Op. 5, No. 5 in G Minor, from 1727, got a matter-of-fact, energetic sway and contrasting lushness (as well as a vividly plaintive interlude) before the sprightly country dance in the second movement.

After the intermission, the group flipped the script with Corelli and his Concerto Grosso in B-flat Major, Op. 6, No. 11, a gently emphatic pavane introducing tightly choreographed scurrying and a second movement where the pregnant pauses early on took the audience completely by surprise.

Harpsichordist Ian Watson was called on for his most prominent role of the night in Handel’s Concerto Grosso in F Major, Op. 6, No. 9. The strings maintained a bouncy tenacity through the composer’s endlessly permutating volleys and then surprisingly poignant exchanges before the lively, contrastingly stately waltzes afterward

The final piece on the bill was Geminiani’s Concerto Grosso in D Minor, La Follia, after Corelli, Op. 5, No.12, Nosky foreshadowing the low strings’ intense response (and drawing a spontaneous burst of applause from the crowd) with her rapidfire work in the opening movement. Through the tradeoffs between lulls and liveliness, it was the most sophisticated piece of the night, and the crowd roared their appreciation.

This year’s Naumburg Bandshell concert series continues on July 12 at 7:30 PM with chamber orchestra A Far Cry playing an innovative program of string arrangements of Bartok miniatures plus works by Dvorak, Beethoven, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh and Karl Doty. Take the 2 or 3 to 72nd St., walk east and get there early if you want a seat.

Max Richter Playfully Reinvents an Iconic Vivaldi Suite – Again

A decade after reinterpreting Vivaldi on his playfully innovative Recomposed album with the Britten Sinfonia and violinist Daniel Hope, keyboardist Max Richter has opted to revisit lucrative territory with his latest project The New Four Seasons. Violinist Elena Urioste and the Chineke Orchestra join the composer, who unobtrusively plays a vintage Moog synth as well as sprightly harpsichord on the new vinyl record, streaming at Spotify.

Is this art-rock? The avant garde? Modern classical? Ambient music? A little, or sometimes a lot of all of those labels come into play here. Spring is reconstituted in four parts, the other seasons in three. Frequently, Richter’s cuisinarted baroque barely resembles the original. All the same, it’s playful, sometimes affectingly pensive music and draws the listener into his allusive treasure hunt.

Birdsong-like strings chatter and flutter over a somber loop from the basses as Spring begins, shifting to a steady, often hypnotic pavane. Richter lets the composer’s hushed anticipatory riffs from Summer resonate; from there, he makes a striding march out of it and then brings it down to a suspenseful summer-evening pulse. The conclusion, with Urioste going lickety-split, is a visceral thrill.

The goofy quasi-flamenco syncopation of the intro to Autumn borders on the ridiculous, but Urioste’s quicksilver volleys quickly take charge. Richter’s shift to sheer luxuriance is a welcome contrast, as is the stately harpsichord movement and the kinetic conclusion. 

Winter is where Richter reaches furthest into the avant garde, notably with the microtonal introduction kicking off a memorably blustery, symphonic sweep. Urioste’s wary lyricism and then her precise run through the closing labyrinth take centerstage as the suite winds up. 

Where can you hear Vivaldi around New York this summer? Tonight, June 28 at 7:30 PM at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park, where Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society, led by violinist Aisslinn Nosky play works by Corelli, Vivaldi, Geminiani, Handel and Charles Avison. Get there early if you want a seat.

Gordon Grdina’s Powerful, Haunting Nomad Trio Move Into the East Village Tonight

The best jazz show in New York tonight, June 27 is at Drom at 7:30 PM where guitarist Gordon Grdina plays with his brilliant Nomad Trio, pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer Jim Black. If you don’t already have your $15 advance ticket, it’ll cost you $20 at the door, and it’s worth it.

Over the last few years, Grdina has been on a creative tear rivalled by few artists in any style of music. This trio is one of his most rewarding projects: the conversational rapport and singleminded focus of Grdina and Mitchell is all the more striking considering how thorny and sometimes outright haunting Grdina’s sound world can be. Monk and Charlie Rouse had the same kind of rapport in a similar context.

Grdina’s latest Nomad Trio album, Boiling Point is streaming at Bandcamp. It’s a jazz sonata, more or less, a theme and variations. Not all of this is relentless, but when it is, it’s riveting. They open with the title track. Grdina runs an allusively menacing, loopily syncopated riff, Mitchell working his way from eerie chromatics to match his bandmates in a brief, phantasmagorical march. Grdina builds squiggly, defiantly unresolved clusters as Mitchell expands into the shadow world and eventually the two meet at the top of this twisted double helix while Black keeps this mad procession on the rails. Oh yeah, there’s a false ending. Damn, this is good!

Track two is Parksville. Grdina scrambles solo, sans effects, to open it, then Mitchell’s close-harmonied pavane and Black’s loose-limbed swing enter the picture. Each unwinds his tether further from the circle – as is typical for Grdina, the choreography is very specific but draws on the strengths of the supporting cast to bring the picture into focus.

The first of the album’s two big epics – something these guys excel at – is Shibuya. Mournful tolling-bell atmosphere from Mitchell against Grdina’s hypnotic pedalpoint grows more insistent and brightens a little, The shift in the bassline from guitar to piano is a neat touch, as are Mitchell’s pointillistic accents. An icily starry calm descends, Mitchell a lone hurdy-gurdy man on a frozen lake. From there Grdina and Black reprise the album’s grimly marching trajectory.

Grdina switches to oud for the longest piece here, Cali-lacs, which takes shape as a mesmerizing, hazy mashup of mysterious, fluttery Arabic maqams and disquietingly glittery piano ripples. Halfway in. Black gingerly brings back the march, Mitchell bolstering the drive with stern lefthand.

The moment where Mitchell rises out of a red herring of a rather trad, solo Grdina guitar interlude to a fanged, Mompou-esque bell choir in Koen Dori is venomously priceless; Grdina turns up the distortion and brings back the album’s most lushly memorable thematic variation.

The trio close with All Caps, bringing this Mission Impossible full circle. One of the best jazz albums of 2022, by a guy who may have more than one of them in him this year. Stay tuned.

Klezmer Music For a Chinatown Street Fair and the Horror Show in Canada

One of New York’s most unusual and enjoyable street festivals is happening today in Chinatown. That neighborhood doesn’t have many, because pretty much every day is a street fair down there. This one is on Eldridge between Division and Canal, outside the Eldridge Street Synagogue. The music starts at noon with iconic klezmer trumpeter  Frank London‘s Klezmer Brass All Stars, followed by the  Klezmographers with violinist Eleonore Biezunski and tsimbl player Pete Rushefsky, and then flutist Chen Tao and his Melody of the Dragon  Chinese traditional ensemble playing lively, verdant pentatonic folk songs. This blog was in the house (or more accurately. under the eaves across the street) to catch their set here four years ago and it was a lot of fun.

The Klezmographers, who specialize in obscure Ukrainian klezmer repertoire, are also fun. The last time anyone from this blog was at one of Rushefsky’s shows, it was at a gig at the now-discontinued Friday night concert series at the American Folk Art Museum back in 2014. Memory is a little hazy on whether it was an actual Klezmographers gig, or Rushefsky with his flutist wife: that night turned out to be a pretty wild one.

Rushefsky put out a handful of records back in the zeros with his Ternkova Ensemble. The most recent album he appears on is Toronto group KlezFactor‘s new Songs From a Pandemic Winter, streaming at Bandcamp.

The first song is Mardi Gras Fever Dream, with Mike Anklewicz’s soaring tenor sax, Jarek Dabrowski’s chicken-scratch guitar, Paul Georgiou’s clip-clop hand drum and Ali Berkok’s roller-rink organ fueling a playfully surreal mashup of Balkan cumbia, New Orleans second-line jazz and Eastern European Jewish folk music.

Rushefsky’s somberly rippling tsimbl opens Lake Michigan Klezmer Fantasy, Anklewicz switching to clarinet alongside Kousha Nakhaei’s violin for this wistful theme: Canadians have had an awful lot to mourn lately. Third Wave Lockdown opens with a twisted sample of Fidel Jr. reading from his World Economic Forum handler Chrystia Freedland’s script. Then Graham Smith’s snappy bass kicks in, Anklewicz launches into a peppy clarinet tune, and Jarek Dabrowski channels David Gilmour at his most majestic. Just like the truckers, these guys aren’t going to let fascism get them down!

Nakhaei plays what sounds like a stark chinese erhu in the polyrhythmic Winter’s Groove, as the band shift from cumbia to a bit of what sounds like a bulgar dance, to dub reggae. Singer Melanie Gall brings somberness but also a soaring, hopeful vibe to a final waltz, Oyfn Veg Shteyt a Boym, a spare, vivid arrangement of a chilling parable of exile and improbable escape. In 2022, this song couldn’t be more relevant. May we all fare better than that withered tree in the Yiddish lyrics.

Rajrupa Chowdhury, Individualistic Virtuoso of the Sarod, Plays Ragas Tonight in Midtown

Tonight, June 25 at 7:30 PM there’s a rare chance to see a rising star in Indian music when sarod player Rajrupa Chowdhury makes an appearance at the Chhandayan Center for Indian Music at 4 West 43rd Street. She’s joined onstage by brilliant tabla player Samir Chatterjee; cover is $25.

Her album Evening Ragas came out in 2017 and is streaming at youtube. In general, she’s a very precise player who opts for subtlety, thoughtfulness and an often disarming directness in lieu of shredding. She plays raga shyham kalyan first, her lingering alap peppered with brief, restless phrasing and a persistent, lingering angst. As the music drifts into an anxious, anticipatory lull on the wings of Chowdhury’s gentle, questioning riffs, it’s nothing short of Romantic. From there she makes the lightning volleys of a lithely waltzing interlude seem easy. Her slow, graceful theme on the way out is a striking contrast beneath the flurries overhead.

Parimal Chakraborty joins her on tabla on raga rageshree: reduced to lowest terms, this 34-minute performance is a love song, sometimes coy, sometimes playful, with moments of exuberance and joy. Tantalizingly brief scampering runs, expectantly insistent melismas, bracingly shivery clusters and moments of subtle humor each figure in turn.

If you’d like to hear what she’s done since then, here’s a clip of her playing raga jaunpuri solo a couple of years ago. She uses the entirety of the fretboard, beginning with the lows and a suspenseful spaciousness: it’s stately and on the somber side. Moving from her meticulously steady attack, she veers away with sudden, breathtakingly impetuous intensity. And then does it again. Machete tremolo-picking, a devious glissando…and suddenly it’s over!

And in her take of raga bhairavi, from a year after she made the album, she builds a tender, mystical ambience, then follows a joyously, light-fingered, dancing trajectory. There’s plenty more of her up at youtube to inspire you for the show tonight. If you miss this one, the Chhandayan Center has resumed their regular series of mostly-bimonthly concerts which typically pair established artists with up-and-coming talent, often from the organization’s nationwide network of music academies.

NYC Surf Rock Favorites Bring Their Clang and Twang to the South Slope Tomorrow Night

When you think about it, surf rock has been retro for almost as long as swing jazz. And every year, a new generation of kids discovers the catchy, danceable, reverb-drenched sound which these days is made mostly by bands who live nowhere near the water.

One group that does live near the water, or close to it, anyway, is the Supertones. Dating back to the mid-90s, they’re one of the longest-running bands in New York. A lot of surf artists, from legends like Dick Dale to Los Straitjackets and the Coffin Daggers, bring their sensational chops and supersonic tremolo-picking to wow the crowd. The Supertones do the opposite: Bandleader and Telecaster player Tim Sullivan writes lingering, spacious themes that border on the minimalist, with a sound that looks back to the early 60s and the golden age of the Ventures and Shadows.

Everything they play sounds familiar, yet hard to place, maybe because Sullivan is awfully good at taking classic surf hits and tweaking them just enough to call them his own. The group’s late-90s residency at the old Luna Lounge on Ludlow Street is legendary. There’s been some turnover in the group over the years (the original rhythm section left and eventually became Mr. Action & the Boss Guitars), but the Supertones didn’t drown in the lockdown and have emerged with a gig at 9 PM tomorrow night, June 25 at Freddy’s. A couple of cover bands, Band of Others and then Link Wray cover crew the WrayCyclers play after; it’s a pass-the-bucket situation.

There are as many tracks on the Supertones’ Reverbnation page as Heinz has flavors. At about two minutes a clip, that’s two hours of jangle and twang. Skip the first track, Paradise Point Pt. 1 which is a red herring with that fakeout organ intro. Instead, roll with The Last Ride, a twangy Bakersfield-style tune with rolling surf drums. There’s close harmonies off a low string in Avanti, a gently twangy blend of loping desert rock and low-key Ventures in El Rollo, and Ali Baba, a very, very close cousin to Misirlou with a few goofy moments thrown in to distance it from the original.

I Surf in Black is a prime example of how the group typically do a slow, vaguely melancholy ballad. They pick up the pace in Dora Lives. a tightly galloping number, while Morbious is a reminder that cheap Casio organ tunes were not the band’s strong suit. Likewise, it’s a mystery why there’s such a sloppy version of Moon Shot here. That sets you up for three different takes of All For a Few Perfect Waves. After that, there’s still over an hour of music to keep you fresh and icy for whatever you’re doing after you get offline. If you get as far as the deliciously bittersweet Bushwacked, you will be richly rewarded.

The last time anyone from this blog was in the house at a Supertones show, it was at Otto’s – where else, right? – to kick off what turned out to be an amazing 2018 Labor Day weekend. That Friday night, the group did more slinking than pummeling through a set much like the Reverbnation page. Truth in advertising – and don’t hate on them because they use an old platform. It’s only fitting for a band that plays old music.

A Welcome Return For a Tuneful, Popular Vibraphonist

Over the past decade or so, Behn Gillece has established himself as one of the most consistently interesting vibraphonists in postbop jazz. He’s Posi-Tone Records‘ go-to guy on the mallets, both as a leader and sideman. He has a great ear for an anthem, writes intricate but translucent and imaginatively arranged tunes and has a remarkably dynamic attack on his instrument. He’s leading an intimate trio with Bob DeVos on guitar and Steve LaSpina on bass tonight, June 23 at Mezzrow, with sets at 7:30 and 9 PM; cover is $25 at the door.

Gillece’s latest album is Still Doing Our Thing – streaming at Bandcamp – which came out during the black pit of the spring 2021 lockdown and never got the exposure it deserved. As usual, the lineup draws on the Posi-Tone A-list: Art Hirahara on piano and electric piano, Boris Kozlov on bass and Rudy Royston on drums. Both musicwise and titlewise, the material reflects an unbridled exuberance, cabin fever unleashed on instruments, but also a wariness that the nightmare of the past twenty-seven months isn’t over yet.

The album’s opening number, Extraction is a cleverly edgy, pointillistic swing shuffle: on one hand, it’s funny to hear Gillece rippling and dancing across the pads on a real vibraphone as Art Hirahara plays chill chords in the background on an ersatz one, in this case a Fender Rhodes. All the same, it’s enlightening to hear the not-so-subtle difference.

Gillece holds the center with his dazzling, circular phrasing as the band stomp out the syncopation in the second tune, Rattles, Hirahara shifting to acoustic piano, Royston taking a characteristically careening climb to a clever false ending.

The album’s title track has a warm mid-70s Stevie Wonder feel spun through a rapidfire cyclotron of notes from both Gillece and Hirahara. Gillece gives Blue Sojurn a lingering, balmy intro, then turns it over to Hirahara’s expansive, lyrical neoromantic phrasing before conspiratorially edging his way back in.

Royston flutters on the rims in his tune Glad to Be Back, fueling a subtle upward drive from an easygoing vamp to increasingly incisive changes beneath Gillece’s steady ripples. Outnumbered, by Kozlov has an eerie, dystopic, late-period Bob Beldenesque vibe, with his tense electric accents anchoring maroinettish chromatics from Gillece and then Hiraraha’s Rhodes.

The pianist returns to acoustic mode for his methodically unfolding tune Event Horizon, building an anticipatory sway with Nicole Glover’s misty tenor sax in the background. Are we on the brink of something dangerous? It would seem so.

The last three songs on the album are by the prolific Gillece. Back to Abnormal is a striding, allusively swing tune, Royston getting a chance to cut loose and set off an unexpectedly menacing coda. The band waltz emphatically through Going On Well and its anthemic, latin-tinged changes. The final cut is an expansive, vampy, summery soul tune, Don’t Despair. It’s a heartwarming way to end this.

Singles for 6/23: Prophecies and Bombshells

Been a week since the last collection of singles and short clips here. If you know this blog, you know the drill: click on artist or author names for their webpages, click on titles for video or audio. This week is a real blockbuster: about half an hour worth of listening or viewing, including some major news and a quick five-minute read from Substack.

Let’s start with something really creepy. Clips from old tv cartoons aren’t something you usually find here, but, these are unusual times. If you were watching the Simpsons back in 2010, you might have seen the House Cat Flu episode which has been making the rounds lately. You want predictive programming?

Speaking of which, here are four even more prophetic minutes from the X-Files in 2016, via the irreplaceable Mark Crispin Miller‘s News From Underground.

Here’s the first bombshell: “Dr. Clare Craig Exposes How Pfizer Twisted Their Clinical Trial Data for Young Children,” via Steve Kirsch. “That this study even was allowed to happen is a travesty.” Share this short video with anyone you know who might be considering giving their kids the deadly injection.

Some validation for Team Humanity: a second bombshell from a censored, downloadable Researchgate survey of over three hundred thousand people who did not take the lethal Covid shot. A grand total of less than two percent believed they caught Covid (although those cases were not confirmed). That means that more than 98% did not. You do the math. If you’re wondering about hospitalization, that rate was one fiftieth of one percent, with zero (0) mortality.. Thanks to Dr. Colleen Huber, author of The Defeat of Covid for passing this along

Last but hardly least in news, here’s Dr. Naomi Wolf on the War Room with a clip of Moderna capo and Xi Jinping best-bud Stephane Bancel talking about how he can’t give away his product anywhere in the world. Start the video at about 3:00. Also discussed: how 44 French rats studied for 42 days in the Pfizer trials were the sole basis for the Pfizer claim that their shots were safe; how 28% of 270 mothers and four fetuses in the trials had serious adverse events; and an explosion of stillbirths in children of mothers who took the shot in Canada, Scotland and Israel.

OK – if this was radio, after the news there would be music, so here we go. Gonna keep it short and sweet.

Here’s Tuba Joe Exley doing the Interboro Boogie, a slinky mashup of New Orleans and Spanish Harlem, with a great Stefan Zeniuk claymation video – dig that old 1980s NYC subway map!

Sydney, Australia band Display Homes’ single CCTV is catchy, skronky late 70s XTC meets Siouxsie.. Tragically, guitarist Darrell Holmes died suddenly this month before the album it’s on could be released. A longtime reader in Australia has supplied some information regarding what’s happening down there – more on that here soon. 

Japanese no wave quartet Otoboke Beaver‘s single Yakitori makes a good segue. It’s a primitive tune with a complex message. See, the group have been getting hate in their native Japan for ostensibly being complicit in western cultural imperialism. So the band – who sing in both Japanese and English – started writing sarcastic songs about Japanese food. The metaphor here involves dumping a takeout container in somebody’s mailbox.

Let’s wind up the playlist with Kelsey Waldon‘s hypnotic honkytonk song Sweet Little Girl, “drinking til her head spins.”