b/w
I am making an anonymous (except to you, dear rare Plastic Alto reader) to St Peters of New York for their hosting of a Sonny Fortune memorial AND a Donny McCaslin Jazz Vespers.
Meanwhile I am producing a Molly Tuttle Show Monday and going to a Jenny Lewis show tonite at The Fox, but am a reform jew which means the High Holy Days start and stop when I say they do. Also, Steve Bernstein my rabbi is playing Monterey Jazz Festival today.
Jazz singer. Unique phrasing.
Baseball commissioner, with a limp.
(What actually brought be here is that I am researching a show I just booked into the Palo Alto Art Center Auditorium, Thursday December 12, 2019 to feature Larry Ochs, of whom I know a little, Dave Rempis, Darren Johnston, and two others — electronics wizards – -but in sussing that out I digressed to Fay Victor, who has played with Darren, and numerous others; I also sort of slipped down a Fay Victor rabbit-hole because her name reminded me of two siblings I knew, Fay and Victor Z—; there’s a tape of Fay leading a workshop of Billy Taylor’s “I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel To Be Free”; when I circled around and refreshed and typed in her name anew, I wandered to the cites of the former baseball commissioner. I’ll have to see if anyone beside Plastic Alto has linked these two peoples.
I thought I read that while in College – -I think it was Williams — Fay Vincent fell off the roof of his dorm — he played football – -and forever after had to use a cane.
It said that Fay dropped out of school when her mother died then started taking jazz classes, then lived overseas for a while then recently has started making serious waves as a vocalist.
So beyond doing a Ochs/Rempis/Johnston/EA/EA show, maybe I will bring Fay out to play, some day.
Which reminds me, that Lydia Oey and I had a great visit with Valerie Troutt in Oakland, a rehearsal and recording session of one of her choirs.
A lot bee going buzz here, lately.
More:
Fay Victor hits high notes. Fay Vincent, who was at the same World Series game as I when he was the commissioner and Giants-A’s was preempted by an earthquake – and my Dad was there, too — was called “high-handed” by a group of MLB owners for the way he treated the troubled pitcher Steve Howe.
In a surrealistic twist I am NOT producing an event at Mitchell Park but an impromptu glorified busk-plus, by a young millennial indie answer to Tuck and Patty called Shelley and Shelley’s guitar player partner*. And it probably has nothing to do with me, but my understanding is they are doing mostly songs by San Francisco guy my age with the same first name Mark Kozelek. (although briefly I was trying to bribe people into converging and playing music of the grateful dead Robert Hunter one man barely gathers what another man spiels).
* we had a weak connection by Cell as they were driving up but I thought she said her backing band is called Lush Ravine.
I actually went by the art center to rent the room for a concert featuring Larry Ochs in for others Thursday, December 12 details TBA should be a free show that’s how we roll.
I’m super busy so in a group show with maybe 20 artist I only had time to find Kara her peace and it was in the last place I looked after a brief nanosecond of doubt that I could not recognize her style I’ve seen her in at least 10 shows sometimes with her husband, And- we-get Your-wire, or a good friend not my business really nor yours dear reader.
Car is piece is an arm with astrological icons on it plus a little chart that hopefully will not confuse too many people about whether I am a dragon or a rabbit the latter.
The oaks thing will have at least two saxophones and at least two younger people with their high-tech gizmos and where are use and ping pong pang
See also Steve Adams I mean Henry Adams the Dynamo in the virgin.
Sam Whiting in the Chron has their first official story about the group of tech entrepreneurs who have pledged to convert for $20m the Guild theater into a nonprofit concert hall like the university in Berkeley coincidentally once the flag ship of landmark, run by former BGP partners.
Meanwhile Palo Alto did have a week and flimsy flaccid plan to turn the varsity 456 university into a similar type deal so flimsy that when Steve Baker’s son broke an ankle at a soccer game that was the breaking point; Danny Scher did see it. Gary Fazzino said it was a good idea. Jim Keane was city manager during Berkeley’s rebuilding of freight and salvage. But it’s really unclear whether she really tried to reach out to the likely people able to run a 500 capacity building here: golden voice live nation slims Yoshi another planet. Chop Keenan building owner said he had new interest in subsidizing such a project even if we gave him an extra 20 stories at the nearby Hamilton high building. Even if I made good on my pledge to bring Roy Orbison back from the dead which actually is happening now.
Anyhow I didn’t root against these guys but I’ll believe it when I see it.
The talk of getting Bob Weir involved reminds me of the most recent movie I really enjoyed their death of Stalin which reminds me there is a remake of the book version of darkness at noon And of course I have started to research doing a Robert Hunter project here My neighbor Nick rides bikes with Bo Crane the author of a recent pamphlet through the Palo Alto Storico socialization on when Jerry met Bobby. I suggest he should’ve done the book to add some Robert Hunter stuff but he said he’s moved on
And in A completely unrelated matter or as they say now for something completely different I will be able to attend the Gunn Montavista football game to see the sensation half back eitan Smolyar 16 ypg because the sensation fake Korean performing artist Sun Kil Moon has pulled a funny bone.
Robert Hunter, 78
Earthwise Productions of Palo Alto at the Mitchell Park Community Center is hosting a special music memorial to the life of Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, who died Monday in San Rafael at age 78.
MORE DETAILS TO BE ANNOUNCED.
The free* event will feature singers and strummes of all varieties, from students to recording artists, all showcasing the music of Hunter, the writer of such American classics as “Uncle John’s Band”, “Truckin'” “Friend of The Devil” and more.
Palo Alto was the birthplace of the Grateful Dead in that it was where Jerry Garcia met Bob Weir, behind a music shop, pluckin’ a banjo, on Bryant Street, and also it was where Robert Hunter met Jerry Garcia, according to Neil Genzlinger’s obituary in The New York Times.
Earthwise Productions, which has six shows onsale featuring artists like Molly Tuttle, Tim and Greg of The Mother Hips and Tom Harrell, was founded by lapsed journalist/ad man Mark Weiss, in 1994. Weiss also ghost-wrote the Mayoral Proclamation wherein The City of Palo Alto formally acknowledged that Jerry was a local music teacher before becoming the international figurehead and fount of “the counterculture”.
Musicians will be limited to four songs total, all by Robert Hunter. Participants should register at EventBrite.
MORE DETAILS TBA LIKELY FEB 2020
Info: (650) 305-0701
*nominal charge of 78 cents plus processing
Robert Hunter, 78
HANDS OF HUNTER: Still regarded as one of my memories of being scared by a movie
Robert Hunter VS Robert Mitchum
Robert Hunter was a lyricist for The Grateful Dead, who, ironically*, died today.
Robert Mitchum was an actor who played in a frightening movie, “The Night of The Hunter” and used to whistle this one song, to the dismay of the children he was, literally, stalking.
*There’s not much ironic about Hunter’s passing. Even artists who live mythic lives are at the end of the day, or 30,000 days, mortal. Their art could be immortal. It survives them. I am using the term “ironic” ironically, as if I did not know what it means (and ironically, maybe I do not know what tim means).
I made a rather macabre stage announcement at the Earthwise John Santos show in that John works with his hands and the movie I am showing, with six musicians performing simultaneously a live original score, is about a concert pianist in Germany who loses the function of his hands after a train crash.
But I just noticed that my earlier post today was also about hands – I used a close crop of a Robert Maplethorpe photo that changed its meaning signficantly and sort of tied it in to this post.
The Hands of Orlac movie screening October 25 at The Mitch features a band comprising:
Allison Lovejoy, piano/key/accordion;
Alina Polonskaya, violin/viola;
David Boyce, saxophones/bass clarinet and electronics (and the only one here who I have worked with previously, when Broun Fellinis played Cubberley twice);
Lisa Mezzacappa, acoustic bass;
Eric Moffat, sound EFX /Fender Jaguar/ soundscapes; and he’s the leader of the gang;
Dave Mihaly, percussion/Foley.
I heard about this project fom The Balboa Theatre mailing list (a venue in SF founded by Gary Meyer who in a previous life founded Landmark Theaters and booked The Varsity). I enjoyed the show but deliberately left before the conclusion, hoping to catch the ending at my own show. Although the odds are that I will be working and not watching the film.
I’m also reminded of my former professor Al Lavalley, who is an expert on German expressionistic film.
The star of this work is Conrad Veidt, who I mainly think of as Major Strasser in “Casablanca”.
| Douglas Tatelman on Zasu Pitts at the New Varsity,… | |
 | pbridge130 on Life as strange as fiction in… |
 | Rob Murphy on Anita Wheeler Raiderette Fan C… |
 | Timothy Girard on RedVette Band, 1981 |
 | petriverse on Don Cherry at Dartmouth |
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 