It is probably not advisable to try to make a regular practice of slyly shooting other people’s kids in museums and public places, but I could not resist catching these two twin girls in front of the Diebenkorn.
Here I shot Terry Davis and Eric Cohen distracted by their stupid I mean smart handhelds, while almost tripping over the Noguchi.
Eric kindly hammed it up with the Terry Allen in the next room:
In a previous post I create an imaginary scene in which my friend and former client Lisa Fay Beatty (1964-November 25, 2011) is in heaven and describes briefly her weekend with Nina Simone, based on events that actually happened in the 1990s. In the scene for fairly esoteric reasons I have Lisa in a room, let’s say it’s a hotel room, with three other people: the jazz musician Paul Motian, the rock singer Mia Zapata and what I believe to be a real person, although I know of him through a novel by James Patterson, the Lakota Indian Charging Elk.
In the process of fact-checking the post — again, it’s fictitious, it’s actually based in some ways on a version of Jean Paul Sartres “No Exit” I saw at ACT — I read a beautiful and awe-inspiring tribute to Paul Motian written by the bandleader and composer Ethan Iverson, at his Do The Math blog. Ethan played with Motian, and befriended him in Paul’s later years and was quoted in the New York Times obituary of the great drummer, who died a few days before Lisa Fay Beatty. Ethan’s blog tribute is divided into two sections, the second labeled “Personal” meaning that it contained references to things Paul told him in private, or in emails, as contrasted with the larger preceding section that, although personal and proprietary could be written by other jazz scholars with access to the same performances and recordings (but not my me; Jesus!; it would take me another 100 years of study to know jazz half as well as Iverson; I think that — God forbid — if EI stopped writing performing and recording and did nothing but listen to and comment on his peers and heroes, he would still garner a Genius Grant someday, but I digress).
That Motian’s passing influenced the ensuing three or four “Plastic Alto” posts, my tribute is pretty esoteric. I knew that as Shakespeare would say, something is out of joint in the universe and I wanted to try to catch part of that vibe. When I heard that Lisa Fay had died — I heard it from Kimberley Chun’s mention in Thursday’s paper, which I read Friday around noon, that did him home in a personal way, and I wrote my little tribute. Indeed, for me Lisa and I did have a meeting and some dialogue about turning a story she told me into a performance piece, about her relationship to Nina Simone. Not that we would have agreed to set it in heaven, or invite Paul Motian in as a cameo.
Anyhow, because I believe that good jazz bloggers read Ethan Iverson and great bloggers steal from him, I followed his hint of checking out the Modern Jazz Quartet in a tv appearance in Japan — he was lauding the piano solo, natch — Ethan plays piano — and then leaped to what I think is the same television host and trumpet player — wearing shades, like Paul Motian wore — interviewing in a hotel room Miles Davis, in 1985, with a third person in the room, the lovely young female interpreter, and a fourth, I would guess, the cameraman. I noted a parallel construction to my “No Exit” thing. Also “Plastic Alto” likes that the dude is gifting Miles some plastic vegetables — I like it more than Davis seems to. Not sure it is worth sitting through all nine minutes worth — Miles plays briefly at the end. It’s the first time I recall watching Miles interviewed, at least on youtube. I also, if you permit me a personal aside, have a not-to-far-along initiative to learn Japanese; this may help some. Better for many readers would be to just watch the MJQ performance. If I get around to it, I will edit to add the name of the host.
“No Exit” is actually called in the original French “Huis Clos” which roughly translates to “in camera” the legal term for “private meeting” or “behind closed doors”.
edit to add: The Japanese host is Tamori, a very famous personality, and he also plays trumpet and flute; his show is called “It’s Okay To Laugh” and has run since 1982; he is 66. Here he sits in with MJQ doing “Night in Tunisia”. Ethan Iverson lauded the piano solo starting at 2′ 50″ by John Lewis:(so, if you are pressed for time, a grazer or a dilletante like me, watch the first two minutes of the Miles interview, until he blanches at the offer of the plastic “sample food” and then skip ahead to the MJQ, especially 2’50” until about 3’50 if you want to skip the last minute, to focus on the piano per se. Meanwhile, I think Tomori is actually pretty good; I’d like to see him in a cutting contest with Jason Olaine and Eric Hanson; I play more like a Duane Hanson; side one, dummy!)
I spoke to Mateo Romero, mostly about the recent Native-themed show in Hanover, New Hampshire at Dartmouth’s Hood Museum, which featured the unveiling of a series of paintings he did of Dartmouth Pow-Wow. Had the pleasure of mentioning to him the news (I got it from Wall Street Journal) of a Nutcracker in Albuquerque that featured Cochiti Dancers — the piece was about newfangled Nutcrackers.
The photo above from August, 2011, at La Fonda hotel bar shows Mateo Romero, Melissa Talachy, Terry Davis, Mark Weiss, Pat Pruitt, Marla Allison and The Man With No Name.
Happy birthday, Mateo Romero!
Or, “Save me, yeah!”
Hi. I’m Lisa. Some people know me as Lisa Fay. Or Lisa Fay Beatty. I have a band called El Fay. Or had a band. I was a rock guitarist and sound engineer. I was a founding member of the Mudwimin and also played with, toured with, and recorded with 7 Year Bitch. The Mudwimin were punk but also art. We were somewhere between The Riot Grrls and Katy Perry. Bambi was in Tragic Mulatto. Mia was in Frightwig. We were four ladies in our late twenties; we were smart, talented and good-looking, but we were all divorced so “our name was ‘mud'”. We were Mudwimin. We put out two records and would play Gilman Street and a lot of benefit events, things like that.
It shouldn’t surprise you that I loved Nina Simone. Most musicians have wide ears — eclectic tastes. Even the Mudwimin, besides our own material, had covers of like Frank Sinatra and Doris Day. A reviewer called my version of “Best if Yet To Come” ‘psychotic’. I was scary-good. No, we were scary-great. Fuck you, if you think we were merely scary- good. Can I say that here? Is this “all ages” or how does that work?
Anyhow, so when my old friend Mikey Thrasher of Mike Thrasher Productions in Portland called me about helping with his Nina Simone show, I said “hell-yeah”. I was Nina’s runner, I was in charge of the rider — of making her feel welcomed. I had no idea we would hit it off as well as we did. I was kinda in awe, at first. But when you think about, well duh. Her daughter’s name is Lisa. It was a complicated relationship. We were only together for 72 hours but it felt like we had some supernatural link. Like we were buds in another life. Or sisters. Sometimes it was like a mother-daughter thing. Other times we were fellow musicians, fellow travelers. Maybe we were in a band together in a past life. Do you believe in reincarnation? Do you believe in heaven? God, that’s ironic.
Paul Motian: We never met before, but your house-mates’ manager, I knew him well. He worked for my label in Munich. He was like a son. It was his first job. (note, and not to ruin the effect here but I have been advised to remind people here that this is an imagined conversation that takes place in heaven and does not necessarily reference anyone other than Paul Motian and does not reference any actual persons who knew him or hands friends in common with Lisa Fay Beatty; Paul Motian when he was alive did not actually, as far as I know, talk to Lisa about music or their mutual friends, or one particular person; but feel free to think of him if you knew or know him, just don’t mention to him that you read about him here. Thanks. MBW. No offense meant. This is art or letters or something like that. Namaste. And maybe this is only making it worse; I just saw “Casablanca” and “To Be Or Not To Be” and maybe my ancestors are noodging me).
Charging Elk: The people who read the book about my life also went to the events you promoted and teched for about Our People at the David Brower Center. We appreciated your work. Your spirit. (Note, and again, not to ruin the original flow or spirit of this, but I want to shout out to Wayne Horvitz who introduced me to the work of James Welch on “Heartsong of Charging Elk” and wrote a piece of music for it, although he didn’t directly call me on it or anything, I just noticed it on his website. I had been thinking it would be good to talk up this piece in Santa Fe, for Indian Market).
Mia Zapata: You helped catch that mother-fucker. And no he’s not here.
When will I get to see Nina? She’s here, right?
edit to add, January 12, 2012: my thanks to Bill Cuevas of KZSU for dedicating a song to Lisa last night; he played Mudwimin after Wild Flag (the Carrie Brownstein vehicle) and coincidentally Tragic Mullatto (Bambi’s band before Mudwimin). I also called Derk Richardson one night in the booth who back-dedicated a Nina Simone song to Lisa on KPFA. Feb. 4 is the event her friends are throwing here. There is also a video showing some of her friends building a marker and monument near the sight of the crash. I was thinking of putting some energy into the project Lisa and I had discussed working on, a Nina Simone tribute I am thinking of, and have a notebook labeled “Save Me, Yeah”.
The other weird thing is that when my mom, who is 81 and not who she was for the first 79 years, or the first 45 years or so that I knew her, took a look at the photo of Lisa I posted above and said she saw a gorilla’s face in the knit cap! See for mice elf!
I put some of this, plus Nina singing “Save Me” below in comments.
edit to add, February 20, 2012: Here is a link to Bottom of The Hill tribute to Lisa Fay Beatty.
In a pleasing departure from eavesdropping on would-be and wanna-be billionaires regaling each other about their latest rounds of venture funding, angel pitches and other circle-jerking, I watched a recent UC Santa Cruz honors grad named Chelsea Bell show her bikini samples to a sage advisor at the table next to me at Cafe Venetia (the former Cafe Del Doge) and could not stop myself from intervening to try to get the actual detes and digits. I was on break from pamphleteering for TLPW456 my campaign to save the historic and beloved Varsity Theatre in Palo Alto from its fait accomli as office space.
“What’s your line?” I had been waiting about forty years to say that, mindful of the old black and white tv show.
“My name is Chelsea Bell but I will be selling my custom bikinis at “stone fox bikinis dot com” ” she said.
“Hey,” I added, without being asked to, and not reminding anyone but myself of even an iota of Michael Franti, who is, like the gourmet cappucino, partly Italian. “I know of two bands named Stone Fox. The first was a girl-band circa 1993, friends of Linda Perry of “What’s Going On?/What’s Up?” and the second is a group of young new guys who like the Allman Brothers or something, a guitar rock band.”
For some strange reason I always pantomime a guitar when I describe rock music, maybe because a kid from my Hebrew school car pool named Ed Solomon went on to write “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” — this was before young Chelsea was born. Not just the car pool, the movie. The movie came out before she was born.
I also seized the moment — her colleague had stepped outside to take a phone call, presumably from a woolcap designer from Bemidji State, to brag about my old neighbor Erich Schulz, who is a F.I.T. graduate, a former Robert Comstock designer, and at one point was selling $10 million per year in high end leather jackets, with his older and wiser partner, under the name Ka Uomo, on Bryant in SF I recall. He also had a line of cotton called Frank Et Gertie (after his grandparents) that I wore as my costume as m.c. of my first Earthwise Productions concert, in 1994 at the Edge. I recall Erich Schultz profiled in 1991 New York Times as one of SF’s hottest designers although know he seems to have faded into shadows and fog.
Chelsea and I traded contact information — I gave her a TLPW456 flyer as well. For good measure.
Until my actual interview — a sitting would be pushing my luck — I offer this and recommend people check out “Coke Whore” from Stone Fox. Stone Fox played my first Earth Day Rock and Bike, at Cubberley (blink 192 played the second version) and I recall that a lady from a local band called The Guttersluts won the door prize of a Soft Ride bicycle. Who could forget that?
I will credit Palo Alto High grad Katie Ross with hipping me to Stone Foxes; I hear tell that Katie is now logistics manager for Charlie Hunter — I was the one who suggested she try Charlie’s manager Chris “Trouz” Cuevas for an internship and the rest, as they say, is her story.
Kim Prior of Stone Fox, the guitarist with the fag dangling ala Robert Johnson, is a Gunn grad. Janice Tanaka went on to fame with Seven Year Bitch and I think Pink. (I think pink when I think “Chelsea Bell” but she has actually filed a trademark for a rust-colored logo). I want to suggest for Chelsea’s brand the Stella Brooks chestnut “I’m a Little Piece of Leather”.
My friend the search-injun tells me that Bell is a cum laude graduate of Santa Cruz.
I am also recalling here that in Elmore Leonard’s “Be Careful” the fictitious band was called Stone Coyotes, similar concept.
Come to think of it — and this might be instructive or cautionary for someone like Chelsea Bell and The Bikini Fox line — I distinctly remember talking to Jorjee Douglas of Stone Fox about the sudden ascendence of Gwen Stefani and No Doubt — Stone Fox was big in San Francisco before No Doubt was big in LA and then worldwide. Jorjee told me that she got there first with that post-Madonna mixed-race kinda-slutty but still classy look. So use it while you have it ladies ( and gents), and get a good trademark lawyer.
edit to add: fact-checking this ex post facto had me running down a lead on something Jorjee Douglas contributes to called Citizen’s Band which is run by a Sarah Sophie Flicker who my instincts tell me is a Gunn or Paly grad and the daughter of longtime Palo Alto lawyer (for instance did pro bono for Palo Alto Jazz Alliance) Michael Flicker.
edit to add: This originally had the more provocative title that is the refrain of the Stone Fox song “Coke Whore”.
edit to add, three months later, 2.22.12: Chelsea Bell god bless her site has gone live:
Excuse me for talking about myself here, Wedge, but I want to say that the dumbest thing or most embarrassing thing I did was produce a Steve Lacy Quartet show (or his trio, plus Roswell Rudd) in a storage space in San Carlos, California. This was in 1999. I had been doing shows at Cubberley Community Center, in Palo Alto, which holds 300 but didn’t think Steve and Roswell would fill Cubberley so we decided to do the show at Andy Heller’s storage space, Heller being our sound contractor. Then we concocted a lie that this was a studio and we would be taping the show; Steve gently nixed the recording part of it. I wrote about this a wee bit recently in a discussion of Josh Roseman on my blog Plastic Alto, which is indebted to this blog. https://markweiss86.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/go-down-roseman/
I got to watch Steve and Roswell rehearse the day of show, before. It seemed like a long time for them. Also, Steve, JJ and John and I went to get a pop at the Carlos Club bar I think it was — they stayed at Days Inn. We got chased from the bar when the karaoke started, which I find ironic as hell. Steve and Irene a couple years later played a show at Cubberley; I took a loss but have this story. Will Bernard and Miya Masaoke duo debuted and opened. I suggested Carla Kihlstedt for the opener that next night Larry Kassin produced show at St. John’s in Berkeley. Irene was amazed at Kihlstedt’s singing while bowing, not a typical technique.
GREAT Koopee POT at DeYoung
With Steve he did not drive so promoter carried him to next show. I recall en route he recommended Danilo Perez for a show, I did eventually do. Also, fond memories of taking Steve not to KZSU but KFJC where Steve broke the law as part of his preparation for the interview. Genius v. G-men kind of thing. “Pepper” spray. Oregano. I dunno. Self-treatment. Dig?
(SHOUT OUT TO IN ALL CAPS NONETHELESS TO CRAIG MATSUMOTO AND MEMORY SELECT BLOG — THANKS FOR ADDING ME TO YOUR BLOGROLL LINKS SECTION — ALSO, AM CHANNELING THE MEMORY OF WATCHING SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE SKIT WITH CARRIE FISHER, BILL MURRAY AND MORE, “THE LOUD FAMILY”)
and edit to add speaking of “great pot” this seems like a good place to insert my photo of a adobe olla by the recently deceased died way too young Hopi ceramicist artist Jacob Koopee (1970-2011), in the Weiss Collection at the DeYoung. Actually, here’s a recent post from their blog, by Sarah Bailey Hogarty:
FRAME|WORK is a weekly blog series that highlights an artwork in the Museums’ permanent collections. This week we feature an extraordinary contemporary piece of Pueblo pottery born out of centuries-old traditions. Jacob Koopee’s seed jar is currently on display at the de Young.
Pueblo pottery is an important Native American art form that was first brought to the attention of the Euro-American art world at the turn of the 19th century. In the Arizona pueblo (or village) of Hano, a young Hopi woman named Nampeyo began making pottery inspired by ancient Sityatki pottery sherds that she discovered lying on the ground around her home. She sold her pottery to the hotels and restaurants lining the Santa Fe Railroad, the majority of which were owned by the Fred Harvey Company. Recognizing a marketable commodity in Nampeyo and her finely crafted pottery, the Fred Harvey Company encouraged and promoted the artist, featuring her in advertisements for Southwestern tourism and sponsoring pottery demonstrations for visiting tourists. In this way, Nampeyo of Hano put pueblo pottery on the map. Today she is widely recognized as the original matriarch of pueblo pottery and was the first Native American artist to be recognized by name.
Paul Weiss and AOA curator Christina Hellmich admire the Hopi pots
Jacob Koopee is Nampeyo’s great-great-great-grandson, and his pottery exemplifies the evolution of style and originality for which his family is famous. Taught by his aunt, renowned potter Dextra Quotskuyva, Koopee demonstrates through his work the height of innovation in pueblo pottery today. Although he continues to use the traditional methods of coil construction and stone polishing, Koopee employs inventive shapes and patterns to create contemporary works of art.
The overall “shattered” format of this seed jar’s surface design references Nampeyo of Hano’s resourceful use of ancient pottery sherds for inspiration. Koopee has visually represented the rejoining of a variety of sherds to create this pot’s intricate facade. Throughout the abstract design, Koopee has scattered cartouches revealing the geometric faces of kachinas. Kachinas make up a vast pantheon of spiritual beings in Hopi religion. Each kachina is associated with a specific aspect of Hopi life, such as agriculture, hunting, or warfare.
The combined elements of community and family are integral to understanding this unique art form. Traditional techniques and designs are paramount to the continuation and preservation of pueblo culture and native art practices. Ancestral patterns and methods handed down through generations identify artists as members of a particular family, reinforcing both heritage and aesthetics. Contemporary pueblo pottery illustrates the fluid fusion of past and present used to create striking new forms.
On your next visit, learn more about Jacob Koopee and his family’s long history in art. Pottery by Koopee, his aunt, Dextra Quotskuyva, and their ancestor, Nampeyo is on display in the Art of the Americas Gallery at the de Young.
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Further reading: Africa, Oceania, the Americas, and the Jolika Collection of New Guinea Art: Highlights from a Decade of Collecting
Barb Weiss talking with the clay, 2011
Mose Allison
Paul Bley
Manfred Eicher
Bill Evans (1929-1980)
Bill Frisell
Stan Getz (1927-1991)
Lorraine Gordon
Johnny Griffin (1928-2008)
Ethan Iverson
Keith Jarrett
Masabumi Kikuchi
Lee Konitz
Scott LaFaro, (1936-1961), a bassist who had an influential trio with Motian and Evans; (I don’t think I was familiar with him before reading about him in this context, that he played with Motian and then died quite young).
Joe Lovano
Warne Marsh (1927-1987)
Charles Mingus (1922-1979)
Thelonious Monk (1917-1982)
Paul Motian (1931-November 22, 2011)
Greg Osby
Charlie Parker (1920-1955)
Chris Potter
Bud Powell (1924-1966)
Tony Scott (1921 – 2007) influential jazz clarinetist; (NB, likewise, for what its worth, I don’t think I could have identified this artist previously).
Mark Turner
Stefan Winter
I believe this video is something between agit-prop (art created to provoke social change) and a public service announcement urging compassion for housekeepers in China. I have listened to it twice and find the tune rather catchy, or if not catchy then pleasing. I can’t catch any of the words.
I found this video initially on the site of Thomas Lee. I found Thomas Lee via Ethan Iverson’s recent post about Steve Jobs. Ethan briefly was dissenting from the eulogies to Steven Jobs by helpfully providing a link to a 2007 Wall Street Journal article about a factory in mainland China that produces a lot of Apple products; he compared it to the famous 1984 Apple ad from Chiat Day, the Orwellian one. I found myself (in awe, humbled) on Ethan’s site because he was quoted in Ben Ratliff’s obituary on Paul Motian. I know a little about jazz, jazz musicians and the scene but Ethan Iverson, of The Bad Plus, seems to know everything, like he is from another planet. Anyhow, I bounced from thoughts of Motian to hoping that the young lady and her guitar can do some good. (The version of Lee’s website has English subtitles and translation).
TMKF of course was a message written on Woody Guthrie’s guitar. Fascists were bad guys in the 1930s and 1940s who bundled business interests with government in such a way that wars ensued, people were hurt or killed but thankfully good prevailed and here we are. Only lunatics and deranged people use the term “fascist” in contemporary discourse, although I guess it’s okay to use the term in poetic or historical or quaint usage, as I do here.
The singer I believe is named Yu Duan.
In either one of my greatest or worst days as a jazz promoter I hired Ethan Iverson to do a relatively unannounced show solo at an art gallery in Palo Alto in between performances of Mark Morris Dance in Berkeley. I shuttled Ethan to and from the gig, from his hotel. The Palo Alto gig was a matinee and I got him back for his evening hit providing music for the dance troupe. Almost no one heard about the show but Ethan was a trooper. I recall him telling me apropos of whatever that “Red Harvest” by Dashiell Hammett was his favorite book. (It’s about strikebreakers in Montana, based on actual events — I guess there is some consistency between Iverson being sympathetic to pre-Labor Movement workers in the 1930s U.S. and being critical of how Steve Jobs became a billionaire, on the backs of thousands of underpaid Chinese workers, although I am obviously putting words in his mouth. Do the math!
A guy in a Packers shirt at Old Pro wanted to fight me because I suggested that Al Davis made a comparable impact on the world as Jobs.
I hope Ethan Iverson is with us for another forty years or so and then gets a nice obit in the Times, probably not by Ben Ratliff, although we can suggest to Ratliff that he file one for future use.
Patriot Julian Edelman, from nearby Redwood City, California, breaks open the NFL tilt with his electrifying punt return for a score.
This run by Julian Edelman, of the New England Patriots, a former Woodside High and CSM football hero, makes me wish I had done my recent smog check at Frank Edelman’s A-1 AutoTech in Mountain View and Redwood City.
Edelman is the brightest of eight former College of San Mateo Bulldog stars to have shone in the NFL.
I noticed that the wikipedia page already updated to include tonight’s heroics.
edit to add, three years later, and during pre-season football:
and in related matter: I have some photos of City College of San Francisco Junior College football workouts, at their stadium, from August, 2014, i.e. last week. I went in to the City for a client meeting, or potential client meeting — a former Ivy Athlete turned activist and artist — and stopped by the besieged school to see the famous Diego Rivera murals, at their theatre. That was closed, but I shot some footage and stills thru the window, to amusing effect and tantalizing. The school has a sign about national champions there, recent, post-WWII and during the O.J. Simpson year or years, I am pretty sure, plus a list of two former NFL/CCSF players, who paid for the billboard. Also, being not a sportswriter (perhaps not even in the Richard Ford sense, talk about something long in my que), I met: an Asian professor and activist, a British emigre visual artist, a Guarani / Honduran musician — drummer, likes Andy Palacio RIP; I am jonesing to go back to shoot the mural or see it, for real. Rivals the Orozco mural of our beloved Dartmouth.
I tagged this: Julian Edelman, O.J. Simpson, Andy Palacio, Diego Rivera, Nicholas Wade, Brian Moore. And Dartmouth
At this point, Edelman has 10 touchdowns and 179 receptions after 64 games. He is about my size, 5′ 10″ 198 lbs — as a Terman Tiger 8th grader flag football I was 5’8, 125 lbs receiver, although I lined up as tackle on running plays and was end on defense. Ok, I am lying, I am 6′ even (actually 5’11 3/4 barefoot) and 205 lbs give or take a couple stuffed bell peppers, Ruffles chips in Rancho dip, Macapunas ice cream from Rick’s Rather rich, an egg for $1.75 from Peet’s this a.m., a medium cappuccino usually with whole milk although today they defaulted to skim, a great lunch salad yesterday from Joanies on Cali, Caesar with chicken breast, a Coke — if I can swim 20 times between now and Election Day, November 4 I will feel at least alive. I rode my bike to campus, to Coupa, for another latte, in the a.m. This is more a foodie blog than a sports blog, Remar Sutton. Leave the gun, take the canoli.
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Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 