Motown to Def Jam, a Quartet of Harlem Art Openings

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Kyle and I had a great time this past Tuesday at a group exhibition where she showed a new painting of hers, “Brick by Brick.” The reception was at Strivers Gardens Gallery in Harlem, one of four galleries that have held openings over the past two weeks, all part of African American Music Appreciation Month and the Harlem Art Crawl. These Motown to Def Jam exhibits have been curated by the impresario Sou L Eo. who beginning last spring asked more than forty visual artists to take inspiration from songs from major record labels (Motown, Stax, Chess, Def Jam, etc.) that over the past several decades have fueled African American music, from Motown to the Philly Sound to blues to hip hop. Sou L Eo asked each artist to choose a particular song, and allow it to inform a new work for these shows. I’ve been to two of the openings by now, and have found the work consistently bold and interesting throughout.

Kyle’s song was “Let’s Clean Up the Ghetto,” a 1977 release by the Philadelphia All-Stars with Lou Rawls on the Philadelphia International Records label. While viewing at the Strivers Gardens Gallery is generally by appointment, it will be open to the public from 1-4 PM on two upcoming Saturday afternoons, July 13, and July 20. There is also a gallery talk there on July 17 from 7-9 PM. Strivers Gardens Gallery is at 300 West 135th Street between St. Nicholas & Frederick Douglass, less than a block east of the 135th Street station stop for the ‘B’ and ‘C’ subway lines. Here are some photos from the reception starting with a shot of Kyle and “Brick by Brick,” in a photo taken by artist and writer Daniel Maidman, followed by a group shot with many of the participating artists and friends, and a shot of an informational postcard. If you’re interested in seeing more of Kyle’s work, you may visit her website at http://www.kylegallup.com/.Kyle w/Brick by BrickMotown to Def JamIMG_0729

 

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An Exuberant “Ride” into the West with Marc Berger & Band

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Marc BergerIf you enjoy acoustic and roots music drenched in the American West you ought to listen to Marc Berger’s recent album “Ride,” most of the songs from which he and his tight band played at the Living Room last night. I had happened on them by accident when they played the same venue in April, missing the start of their set, so this time I went to hear them deliberately.

I wrote about that earlier show, in this post, quoting first from Berger’s website: “Clouds that forever stampede the endless sky, shadows gliding over canyon walls–the West is a vast expanse of magic and mystery. American artists from John Ford to Frederick Remington to A.B. Guthrie have used film, canvas and the printed page to convey the essence of its unique landscape and mythology.” I added, “To those associations, I would add the 1962 Kirk Douglas film, ‘Lonely Are the Brave,‘ where he plays a latter day cowboy unable to conform to modern society. The movie was based on  Brave Cowboy, a novel by legendary iconoclast of the American West, Edward Abbey. Relatedly, Kirk Douglas also played the lead role in the 1952 adaptation of Guthrie’s novel, The Big Sky.

Last night, I met most of the members of Berger’s fine band: Deni Bonet, fiddle and accordion; Mike Ricciardi, drums; Jeff Eyrich, bass; and Rich DePaulo, lead guitar. They achieved a powerful yet restrained sound, a true ensemble. I also got the CD of “Ride” this time around. It’s pictured below, along with a shot of Bonet, Berger, and Eyrich. Please click here to see all pictures.

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A Special Treat–Weekday Baseball at Yankee Stadium

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IMG_0194 Had a great time yesterday watching the Yankees vs. the Indians play ball on a bright and gorgeous day at Yankee Stadium. Longtime friend and publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin got tickets and had invited me to join with him two other friends of his–Dick and Mike–with whom he’s in a rotisserie baseball league. The game ended up as a 6-4 win for the Yanks. As a Tribe fan, I would have been happier to see my old hometown team prevail but the Bombers were much the better team, with Yankee starting pitcher C.C. Sabathia, the former Indian, throwing a complete game.

As Mike put it at one juncture, “What’s the point of having your own business if you can’t take time off to go to a day game?” I agreed wholeheartedly, and really enjoyed the wide-ranging conversation the four of us carried on for all nine innings, ranging over photography, New York City, New Hampshire, the economy, the early days of the Internet, publishing, and of course, baseball. My camera happened to have enough battery power for one photo and I’m glad I got this good shot and could include it here. What a great way to spend a late spring afternoon!

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A Hot & Sunny Day in Manhattan, 1939

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On Facebook longtime friend Martha Moran has shared this timeless film of a Manhattan tour from 1939, remastered in bright, vibrant color by the excellent Romano-Archives. You can view the 3-minute film below, or via this link posted by Eric Larson at mashable.com, @_ericlarson on Twitter. For this post I’ve made two screenshots of favorite images from it. One shows a theater marquee in Harlem where they were evidently screening W.C. Fields’ “You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man,” my favorite movie comic. Oddly, it anticipates the compressed spellings mandated by today’s social media, as the narrow marquee reads, “U Can’t Cheat a Honest Man.” It reads like a tweet. The second screenshot is of the #5 bus, a route I still use regularly in Manhattan. I consider it my personal “scenic drive” as for part of its route it cruises along Riverside Drive, affording splendid views of the Hudson River. It must have been glorious in 1939, when it was a double-decker bus with an elegant curving stairway that conveyed passengers to the upper deck!I suggest that at the very end you notice all the big ships docked at piers on the west side of Manhattan. This reminds me of a line in one of my favorite S.J. Perelman humor sketches, where a woman tells the narrator she’s waiting to pay him a debt “until my ship comes in,” whereupon he retorts with, “I’ll be watching the shipping news,” a reference to the ubiquitous maritime tables that newspapers used to print every day. Thanks for this to Martha Moran.
Fields film# 5 bus

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“Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology” Morphing into a Magazine

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rustbelt112912Readers of this blog may recall the contribution I made last year to the book Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology, “Remembering Mr. Stress, Live at the Euclid Tavern,” a personal essay about a bluesman I followed avidly all the years I lived in my hometown. Now, less than a year after the book’s release, the enterprise has gone so well that the editors of the collection are planning to create an an online magazine, Belt, that will expand the concept of the book in to a continuing forum for writing about Cleveland, and more broadly, the Industrial Midwest. Co-editor Anne Trubek has announced a Kickstarter campaign to which I will make a contribution, and I encourage you to consider doing the same. With three weeks to go before their deadline they’ve already gained pledges that take them to more than half of their $5,000 goal. Like me, you’re probably receiving a lot of requests like this these days–this is definitely one worth offering your support. Here’s a link to the Kickstarter page with a video about Belt. 2 Mr Stress album cover

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Josh Ritter in NYC, a Buoyant Showman at Terminal 5

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Josh RitterMy wife and son and I bought tickets for Josh Ritter’s May 18 gig at Terminal 5 back in the winter, shortly after the show was first announced. When the night finally arrived this past Saturday, we were excited we’d be hearing him live for the first time. It was also our first time hearing a show at this venue, and we were surprised and pleased by how smoothly Terminal 5 operated. Though we arrived earlier than 7 PM when the doors were scheduled to open, we were admitted immediately, sent up to a rooftop patio and soon allowed downstairs in the big performance space. Our early arrival meant we were very close to the stage when the opening act, the Felice Brothers, took to the stage. Though hailing from towns in NY’s Hudson Valley, I heard tinges of Tex-Mex rock from this likable 5-piece, along with echoes of Doug Sahm and his Texas Tornadoes, driven especially by the keyboard and accordion work of boisterous brother James Felice. They were a great warm-up band and I was glad I later I had a chance to buy their CD, “Tonight at the Arizona.”

After an interval to reset the stage, Josh Ritter stepped up to his mic right at 9:00 PM. He addressed the audience:  “It is so good to be here, this is my home now. Thank you for being here. We’re going to have an amazing night. If at any point in the show I look nervous, it’s  because I am.” With that he started finger-picking a Gibson acoustic guitar for his first song, “Idaho.” As he segued from his first song to his second, members of the Royal City Band began joining him on stage, with Sam Kassirer taking a seat at the keyboards, while Zachariah Hickman*, sporting an extravagant  handlebar moustache, picked up a Fender bass, followed by Austin Nevins on lead guitar and Liam Hurley on drums. The first song with the full band was “Southern Pacifica”–with its opening verse “Southern Pacific/Red, white and blue/Where are we running to,” and the  memorable chorus, “Remember me to Roxianna/You know she’s still lovely/Tell her I was on the move/Last time you saw me/That you only saw the back of my head.”

A bit more than halfway through the show, Josh spoke to the audience about his new album, “Beast on the Tracks,” a kind of breakup album written following his recent divorce. He alluded to the personal anguish that led to the composition of the new songs, and the resilience that allowed him to record them and, now sing them live for people, night after night, and do so joyously and not in sorrow.  As the band then moved in to playing the songs from “Beast,” Ritter became even more buoyant than earlier, even while some of his lyrics became darker. I was reminded of other breakup albums, almost a genre of its own: Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks,” released in 1975, and widely regarded as expressing his pain at the end of his marriage to the same Sara who he sings of in “Sara” from “Desire.” More recently, Canadian artist Kathleen Edwards released “Voyageur”–Rolling Stone reported she wrote the album after enduring a breakup of her own. 

For nearly two hours Josh Ritter and his fine band ranged widely across his rich repertoire, playing nearly 20 songs on the ride. Ritter is an exciting and ebullient performer, continually interesting to watch on stage. He lowers himself to his knees while continuing to strum his instrument; cups his hands to his mouth and howls like a wolf; turns his back to the audience to direct his band like a vested conductor; strides in close to Nevins as the sideman plays arcing lead riffs with clear tone; tosses away guitar picks like pistachio shells; and connects with everyone in the crowd like he’s playing and singing just for them. It was a thrill to hear and see him play live. His performance was a triumph of his winning personality. Below are pictures from this superb show, many taken by my wife, artist Kyle Gallup.

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Striving for a Rural Oasis Amid the Urban Jungle in Brooklyn’s Green-wood Cemetery

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P1010945I’ll be eager to take in a new exhibit at the City Museum of New York, marking the 175th anniversary of Brooklyn’s Green-wood Cemetery, which its 19th century planners designed to be a pastoral enclave amid the cacophony of the ever-growing metropolis. According to the City Museum’s website, the exhibit “features original artifacts, sculptures, drawings, and Hudson River School paintings; historic documents; and photographs.” Even its antiquated spelling, with the hypen mid-name, rather like the New-York Historical Society, has a 19th century air about it.

Last October, I visited Green-wood for the first time–for the unveiling of the “Angel of Music,” a new memorial statue at the grave of pianist and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk–and discovered that its 478 acres of rolling hills, big hardwood trees, and sparkling views of Manhattan and NY Harbor, make it a pastoral, soothing place for mourners to say goodbye to their loved ones. As the New York Times‘ Joseph Berger reports after a recent visit to Green-wood, the cemetery is still a pastoral balm to the daily cares of all city-dwellers. Here are some of the pictures I took on that day last fall, on a gorgeous Saturday that turned out to be just three weeks before Superstorm Sandy wrecked hundreds of trees and gravestones in the memorial park, damage they are still working to clean up in one of NYC’s most historic treasures.

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A Gorgeous NYC Day

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