Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon

My first three summers in Chicago, something always came up on Labor Day weekend to keep me away from the Chicago Jazz Festival, despite my best intentions. I was bound and determined to catch at least one evening’s worth of performances this year–and, for once, it worked out as planned. We nearly froze to death: for the first time all summer, it was actually a cold evening, but as more than one person noted, this was well suited to the “cool jazz” we were enjoying.

We arrived Friday evening at Millennium Park as the Mike LeDonne Trio with special guest saxophonist Eric Alexander were winding down a groovy, organ-driven set. This was followed by flutist Nicole Mitchell and her Black Earth ensemble, a double orchestra: two cellos, two trumpets, two drummers, two flutes, etc. They opened with a short piece and then proceeded to the main event, the premiere of a new 40-plus minute composition titled “The Arc of O.” It’s a complex piece of music, with one foot in twentieth-century classical idioms and the other in avant-garde jazz. Episodic in structure, it ranged across time signatures, styles, and keys, though there were a few repeated gestures that seemed to link the pieces together: the swelling crescendos played by the whole orchestra, for example, or emotional passages of scatting by the two vocalists. Mitchell spent most of her time conducting, though she did perform a few exciting passages on her flute. They closed their set with another short piece which she introduced as “The Arc of the Wind.”

Next up were the headliners, veteran Chicago pianist Ramsey Lewis celebrating his 75th birthday with a very sharp set by his trio (Larry Gray on bass, Leon Joyce on drums, both excellent). They opened with a creative workout on the old spiritual “Wade in the Water,” which Lewis has been playing for years. But much of the program was devoted to recent Lewis compositions, including “To Know Her….” from his recent collaboration with the Joffrey Balley. They also performed several keenly intelligent new pieces that had never been played live before–several of which don’t even have titles yet. The set featured terrific, confident interplay among the veteran musicians. For his encore Lewis turned in a very playful version of his 1966 hit, “The In Crowd,” including allusions to Chopin, the “Sex in the City” theme song, and who knows what else. At the end, the crowd serenaded Lewis with a round of “Happy Birthday to You.”

My teeth were chattering from the cold by the end of the evening. But I am delighted to have finally attended the Chicago Jazz Festival, and I look forward to many return visits in the future. Next year, I’ll try to remember to bring a jacket.

Here’s Howard Reich’s review of the evening from the Chicago Tribune. And here’s fan video of the Lewis encore:

Well, our upcoming fall concert-going season is pretty well set, and I’m looking forward to some exciting live music. Here are the events we’re planning to attend. How about you?

September 4-5: Chicago Jazz Festival (one of the nation’s premiere jazz events, and it’s all free!)

September 19: Aimee Mann (Old Town School of Folk Music)

September 25: Hyde Park Jazz Festival (Almost as good as the Chicago Jazz Festival, and it’s all free, too)

September 30: Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Symphony Center; Riccardo Muti conducts Mozart and Haydn)

October 1: Eels (Metro)

October 26: Sakamoto Ryuichi (Vic Theatre)

November 13: Stew and The Negro Problem, featuring Heidi Rodewald (Museum of Contemporary Art)

December 2: Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Symphony Center; Pierre Boulez conducts Schoenberg and Janáček)

We spent yesterday afternoon at the Field Museum of Natural History, taking in the “Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age” exhibit. The centerpiece artifact is Lyuba, the one-month-old mammoth discovered frozen below the permafrost in northern Russia in 2007. She is remarkably well preserved for a creature some 40,000 years old: she is even cute in a baby animal sort of way. But as I gawked I couldn’t stop myself from wondering what separated this scientific exhibit from, say, the curios that drew crowds in 1840s and 50s New York to P.T. Barnum’s Museum. Well, it’s something to do with the kids on a summer afternoon, and it’s air conditioned.

(Image source)

If I were in England this weekend, I’d be trying to worm my way into the Glastonbury Festival. Among many others, one Raymond Douglas Davies will be taking the stage for a set on Sunday. A preview article notes the role the Kinks had in establishing this annual music festival back in 1970:

In 1970, founder and dairy farmer Michael Eavis decided to hold a music event and booked the Kinks for 500 pounds but, when they failed to show, got Marc Bolan instead.

Typical. Ray is a little better about these things nowadays, so presumably he will actually play his scheduled set.

Tonight, the plan is to catch the fabulous jazz chanteuse Dee Alexander in a free concert out on the Midway Plaisance. Summertime, and the living’s easy….

Our conference, “Engaging Commodities: Crossing Mass Culture and the Avant Garde in 1960s Japanese Film, Music and Art” got off to an exhilarating start yesterday. In the afternoon, we had our first panel, “Popular Music as Engaged, Popular Music as Commodity.” James Dorsey (Dartmouth) spoke on how the censorship of protest folk singer Okabayashi Nobuyasu actually generated new opportunities for creative agency on the part of musicians, audiences, and the music industry. Christine Yano (University of Hawaii) presented on the great enka diva Misora Hibari as a figure of “jet set culture,” in whose work a musical cosmopolitanism existed in tandem with an increasing sense of cultural nationalism. Michael Molasky (Hitotsubashi University) explored the changing meaning of “jazz” in Japan from the late 1950s through the 1960s, especially with an eye toward the rise of the “jazu kissa” (jazz coffeehouse) as a crucial institution in the rise of the “modern jazz” of such figures as Miles Davis and Art Blakey.

The evening program began with a talk session with musician Alan Merrill, who was active in Japan from 1968 to 1974. He told remarkable stories about his days with the Group Sounds band The Lead, as a solo performer under the management of the all-powerful Watanabe Pro agency, and as the founder of the pioneering glam rock band Vodka Collins. He wrapped up his presentation with a terrific acoustic set of some of his best-known compositions, playing “Sands of Time” and “Automatic Pilot” from his Vodka Collins days before closing with a high-energy rendition of “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” the song he wrote and recorded with his band The Arrows in 1975 and that later became a worldwide hit for Joan Jett and others.

Alan brought down the house–and we were just getting started. Following his set, we screened the terrific documentary, The Golden Cups: One More Time, about the legendary Yokohama Group Sounds band. This was followed by a lively question-and-answer session with three original members of the Golden Cups: Eddie Ban (lead guitar), Louise Louis Kabe (bass), and Mamoru Manu (drums). We had a large delegation of Cups’ fans in the audience, including people who had traveled from Japan, Florida, and elsewhere to be there, which all added to the sense that something very special was happening. The evening closed with a jam session between Eddie Ban and Alan Merrill, as they performed “Sweet Home Chicago,” “Namida” (Alan’s 1969 solo hit), and finally “Route 66.”

I’m extremely grateful to Alan Merrill, the Golden Cups, the people from Altamira Pictures and Altamira Music who made the arrangements to bring the Cups over from Japan, the fans and scholars: everyone who made this memorable day possible. Next up is day two, when we turn our focus to film and art….

Alan Merrill with Vodka Collins, “Sands of Time” (1972)

The Golden Cups’ astonishing 1968 recording of “Hey Joe”; pay special attention to Louise Louis Kabe’s blazing bass lines:

On May 21-22, the University of Chicago will host “Engaging Commodities: Crossing Mass Culture and the Avant Garde in 1960s Japanese Film, Music and Art,” a conference focusing on the remarkable world of 1960s Japanese culture. During that turbulent decade, Japanese filmmakers, musicians and artists operated in a highly fluid environment in which boundaries between mass-culture entertainment and avant-garde art came under constant pressure. This remarkable environment gave rise to hit songs and movies that incorporated abstract experimental techniques, as well as to avant-garde art pieces that freely integrated elements from commercial culture. The conference will include new scholarly papers on experimental film, popular genre film, jazz, folk music, rock-and-roll, animation and other cultural forms from the period.

The conference will also feature special appearances by musicians who were key figures in the 1960s Japan rock scene, including Alan Merrill, an American singer/songwriter who was a member of the Group Sounds band The Lead, then a solo performer signed by the influential Watanabe Pro management agency, and subsequently the leader of the pioneering glam rock outfit Vodka Collins. (After leaving Japan in 1973, Merrill founded The Arrows, a band that had several hits in the UK, including the original version of “I Love Rock and Roll,” a Merrill composition later recorded by Joan Jett and many others).

Three original members of the legendary Group Sounds band The Golden Cups will also appear at the event — lead guitarist Eddie Ban, bassist Louise Louis Kabe, and drummer/singer Mamoru Manu — and the conference will include a screening of The Golden Cups: One More Time, an acclaimed 2004 documentary about the band.

All events are free and open to the public, but RSVP is required for the Friday evening sessions featuring Merrill and The Golden Cups. The RSVP link and a full conference schedule are available on line at:

http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/japanatchicago/

The event is the eighth in the annual Japan@Chicago conference series and is sponsored by the Committee on Japanese Studies at the Center for East Asian Studies. Persons who may need assistance to participate should call 773-702-2715. For additional information, please contact Sarah Arehart, Outreach Coordinator for the Center for East Asian Studies (sarehart@uchicago.edu).

[Updated May 13: We have added the RSVP system for the Friday night sessions mentioned above because we anticipate a large demand for the limited number of seats available]

We enjoyed a quiet Easter. I managed to get to church — but cheated, in that my “worship service” consisted of the Art Hoyle Quintet performance at Hyde Park Union Church, sponsored by the always wonderful Jazz Sundays series organized by the Hyde Park Jazz Society.

Some interesting science and technology news that’s caught my eye lately:

The lunatic notion that genetic codes found in nature can be patented is finally facing skeptical court scrutiny, the New York Times reported last week. For the sake of culture and scholarship, we really need to curb the voracious appetite for infinitely expanding intellectual property claims, and this seems a modest step in the right direction.

Are the problems faced by scientists trying to gear up the Large Haldron Collider actually the work of a Terminator sent from the future in a desperate attempt to head off an unwelcome scientific development? The possibility has been suggested in a series of recent scientific papers, Time magazine reports.

Finally, a whole slew of new technological devices and digital scientific analytical techniques are being applied to baseball. The conclusion from statistical crunching of multi-angle digitized tracking of pitches over the course of an entire season? That good pitchers paint the corners, while bad ones hang it over the plate. Now they’re turning their attention to batters and defenders and will not doubt reach many revolutionary hypotheses, such as declaring that batters should try to hit the ball with the sweet spot of the bat and that fielders should try to catch the ball with both hands. Ah, the marvels of science.

In the meanwhile, play ball! The Twins kick off their season tonight in Anaheim.

The Yomiuri newspaper is reporting (Japanese-language only) that legendary singer Asakawa Maki was found dead Sunday in a Nagoya hotel. She was 67 years old. A legendary, charismatic figure, she was the late 1960s “Queen of Underground Music.” Asakawa began appearing in Terayama Shuji’s experimental theatrical productions in 1968 and quickly became an icon of New Left culture. She released her debut album in 1970, featuring a melancholic singing style that combined jazz, blues, and chanson. Her persona coupled a cool, mysterious sexiness with searing intelligence. Asakawa always dressed in black and was usually surrounded by a haze of cigarette smoke (or at least, that was the image). She continued to perform and record regularly over the decades and was in Nagoya this weekend for live appearances at a jazz club there.

R.I.P.

It’s been a hectic week since last I posted here, which in large measure is why it’s been a week since last I posted here.

The week began on a high note (and on some low notes and some sweet in-between notes): we took in Dee Alexander‘s terrific concert at the Chicago Cultural Center last Thursday night. She appeared with her all-string Evolution group (violin, cello, bass and special guest sitar) and was as usual resplendent. Her summoning up of the “ancestors” on “C U On the Other Side” was particularly memorable, as was a sing-like-talking number I hadn’t heard before, a biting revenge song that I’m guess is titled “It’s Over, Supernova.”

Over the weekend, I managed to score me a swine flu vaccine: I know a man who knows a man who…. I also started watching “Hissatsu Shigonin 2009,” the latest incarnation of the cheesy samurai tv drama I’ve loved since 1985. It features Fujita Makoto as the hen-pecked Nakamura-san, a low-ranking samurai who leads a secret band of superhero ninjas who defend justice in a corrupt world. Fujita’s getting on in years, though, so he is mostly reduced to cameo appearances this time around. The central role goes now to Higashiyama Noriyuki as Watanabe-san, another low-ranking samurai who gets no respect at home. Most excellent fun, and I’ve enjoyed introducing my 13-year-old to one of J-Drama’s guiltier pleasures.

I’ve also been watching the on-going sumo tournament in Fukouka, where the biggest scandal has been the banks of empty seats — even on the opening day.

The week will end on a high note: Ray Davies appears on the Letterman Show tonight. His West Coast concerts last weekend were greeted with ecstatic reviews. The show opens with an acoustic set, and then Ray is joined by full band. After intermission, a 29-piece choir comes on stage and they proceed to turn out stunning versions of some of Ray’s best compositions, including a suite of songs from the 1968 masterpiece, The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society.

In other words, Ray’s been having a good week. Hope you have, too. Let me leave you with video of Ray from San Francisco last week.

The Wall Street Journal recently discovered that Tokyo is just about the best place on earth to be a jazz fan. John Kirch surveys the delights available there–the coffeeshops, the live houses, the bars– and concludes,

If jazz is America’s gift to the world, Japan is the place that knows how to unwrap it. While serious musicians and devotees fret that traditional, noncommercialized improvisation is becoming as esoteric a taste as it is in the land of its birth, jazz in all its forms still pulses through Tokyo. Sixty years after this vibrant U.S. export began to take hold, it’s piped into hotel lobbies as a marker of elegance and sophistication, blasted from dingy basement dives in unlikely neighborhoods, spun by club DJs and obsessional bar owners and hawked in innumerable specialty record shops. In Tokyo you can hear jazz of stunning, nearly offhand virtuosity played in clubs that range from among the world’s smallest to among its most expensive.

All true. Tokyo may be the best jazz city on earth, but Chicago isn’t far behind. Howard Mandel in his “Jazz Beyond Jazz” blog has anointed us America’s best jazz town.

Jazz is the lifeblood of Chicago in a way it ain’t in NYC, at least not right now. Jazz-soul-blues is Chicago’s street music. Chicago’s citizens — not just its visitors — seem to consider jazz this music their personal due. It’s what you hear at O’Hare going in and out of town.

He’s right, I think. If you want proof, just check out the amazing Hyde Park Jazz festival that will take place this coming weekend.

If a tie-breaker is needed, let me offer up this recent article from the Telegraph newspaper (UK), reaffirming the Chicago Symphony’s status as America’s best orchestra.

And did I mention the blues?

Shiina Ringo, Sanmon Gossip 「三文ゴッシップ」 (EMI, 2009). Shiina tries to merge her early noise-pop sound with her most recent jazz bent, with mixed results. She channels the Jackson 5’s “ABC” on “Rôdôsha,” and her inner Edith Piaf comes out on “Bonsai hada.” My favorite track is the rocker “Yokyô,” but there aren’t any really classic Ringo tunes here: nothing cuts straight through to your inner chaos the way her best work does. It’s still several cuts above the usual J-Pop standard, but it leaves me hoping for a return to form on her next work, either solo or with her band Tokyo Jihen.

Dee Alexander, Wild is the Wind (Blujazz, 2008). Alexander is a local Chicago jazz singer—but not for long. This CD doesn’t quite capture the marvel that is one of her live performances, but it still managed to garner a five-star review from Downbeat magazine and is now attracting lots of attention in Europe. It’s not just that she possesses remarkably true pitch: her music burns with intelligence and passion, and she explores a whole range of vocal sounds.

Black Blondie, Do You Remember Who You Wanted to Be (Black Blondie, 2009). Self-produced debut CD by a mostly female group from Minneapolis. They cross hiphop with R&B, avant-garde pop, and jazz, and end up sounding nothing like anyone else. The lead track “Hunger” is very strong (you can stream it at their MySpace page), as is the reggae-styled “Dressed to Kill a Mockingbird”; the rest of the material is uneven, but always distinctive. A group worth watching in the coming years.

Inoue Takayuki, It’s Never Too Late (Sony, 2007). Solo work by former Spiders lead guitarist, originally released back in 1981. Recorded in England, it features local session musicians, including Mick Taylor as guest on several tracks. It’s pretty standard late 1970s guitar-boogie rock, with a few instrumentals thrown in (Inoue composed the hit instrumental theme song for the 1970s television show “Taiyô ni hoero”).

Ray Davies with The Crouch End Festival Chorus, The Kinks Choral Collection (Universal, 2009). Re-recordings of a dozen Kinks’ classics given full choral treatment. It works on some of the songs quite well—“Shangri-La,” for example, as well as the suite of songs collected here as “Village Green Medley,” all taken from the classic 1968 Village Green Preservation Society album. On some of the others, I find myself wishing for a more imaginative use of the vocal resources, as well as a few more oddball song selections. How ‘bout something from Muswell Hillbillies, for example? Then again, I could listen to “You Really Got Me” played on dueling tubas and still enjoy it, and in fact it provides one of the more thoughtful uses of the choir here (though I can’t help wondering what it would have sounded like if they handed off the guitar solo to the singers and allowed them to go wild with it). The U.S. version will be released in September.