Staff Picks Audience: Music & Movies

Stay On It by Julius Eastman [Online Resource]

Composer Julius Eastman’s (1940 – 1990) music explores his identities as a gay man and Black American. Stay On It was composed in 1973 and combines minimalism with pop music. This new performance, which features musicains and dancers collaborating remotely, is dedicated to essential workers of color in the United States.

I found out about this performance through one of the many organizations involved in its production: The Dream Unfinished. The Dream Unfinished is an activist orchestra based out of New York which uses classical music as a platform to engage audiences in dialogues surrounding social and racial justice.

Earth Day 2020 (the Pandemic version) by Scott Slapin, violist [Online Resource]

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In this 10-minute video, violist Scott Slapin presents 400 years of music history in his basement (“The Pandemic Auditorium”) where the water pipes and exposed wiring make an acoustically and visually innovative backdrop to his formal concert attire. Excerpts of Bach, Paganini, Hindemith and Slapin’s own composition are interspersed with engaging commentary while a counterpoint of hilarious subtitles scrolls by. If you appreciate first-class musicianship combined with dry wit, plus you have a short attention span, this is the video for you!

Decline and Fall [Online Resource]

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This hilarious BBC adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s 1928 novel stars Jack Whitehall, David Suchet, and Eva Longoria. It’s on Acorn TV, which might still have a 30-day free trial–if not, it always has 7 days free, so you can watch the 3 episodes of this witty miniseries. It follows the misadventures of Paul Pennyfeather, an Oxford theology student who falls into one awkward (to put it mildly) situation after another by some fateful twisted logic and his naive trust in a series of dubious characters he meets. It’s wonderfully escapist and makes fun of everything it touches.

Bach’s Chaconne on nyckelharpa by performed by Torbjörn Näsbom [Online Resource]

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In these times of isolation and anxiety, here’s something gorgeous and sublime to help you reconnect with joy and remind everybody why the arts matter. Torbjörn Näsbom connects two of my favorite musical obsessions: the nyckelharpa and J.S. Bach. The nyckelharpa is a traditional Swedish instrument that has been played, in one form or another as it evolved, for more than 600 years. It’s used mostly for Swedish folk music, which I could do a dozen staff picks on, but many musicians are playing other repertoire on it. Listen and enjoy 13 minutes of 16-string deliciousness.

There’s more Bach and traditional Swedish nyckelharpa tunes on Torbjörn’s YouTube channel. It’s a delight from beginning to end (and I hope it never ends).

For information in English about the nyckelharpa and its musical traditions, visit The American Nyckelharpa Association.

Airbow by Maria Kalaniemi & Sven Ahlbäck [Music CD]

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What is Finnish button accordion music, anyway? If you like Sharon Shannon, you’ll love Maria Kalaniemi.

She’s virtuosic, soulful and versatile. On this album she teams up with Swedish fiddler and scholar of folk music Sven Ahlbäck for a selection of traditional Scandinavian tunes and original compositions. They are both technically brilliant and have a wonderful synergy together. Johan Hedin joins them on nyckelharpa (Swedish keyed fiddle) and Swedish singer Susanne Rosenberg is featured on a few tunes. The music is spare, gorgeous, with a haunting energy that’s both ancient and contemporary. This is great listening for fans of Nordic or Celtic folk, fiddle tunes, or the undeservedly-maligned accordion.

The Last Days of Disco by Whit Stillman [DVD]

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Whit Stillman’s third feature, The Last Days of Disco, is set in New York City the early 1980’s. Here we find a group of young professionals who are all, whether they are aware or not, in a period of transition. This moment of change also mirrors the current stage of the popular music (please see the title!).

Alice (Chloë Sevigny) and Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale), somewhat recent graduates of Hampshire College, are working in the lower echelons of the publishing industry. Despite having not much in common (and they can readily admit that they may not be ideal candidates for friendship), the duo decides to share a railroad style apartment with another young woman.

The tight living quarters teamed with Charlotte’s persistent insensitivity create a great deal of tension and bickering. Furthermore, there’s also tussling over potential/previous love interests. An escape from this turmoil is the local hot spot; it’s a fashionable discotheque possibly modeled in Stillman’s memory from his days hanging out at the famed Studio 54. Chris Eigeman, a Stillman mainstay, is cast as Des McGrath. McGrath is a sardonic manager at the said Manhattan club and he ultimately realizes that the owner has some sort of a shady operation going on.

When viewing The Last Days of Disco, one can’t help appreciating the dedication in creating such memorable characters and the overall writing in general. The film is filled with quick and witty dialog… most of which you cannot imagine being spoken by actual people. In one instance, Eigeman’s character begs the question, “do yuppies even exist? No one says, ‘I am a yuppie,’ it’s always the other guy who’s a yuppie. I think for a group to exist, somebody has to admit to be part of it.”

The struggle of social identity and finding one’s general placement in society underlie this brilliant comedic drama.

P.S. After a viewing, one may discover that disco does not suck!

Last Picture Show by Peter Bogdanovich [DVD]

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In keeping with the “New Hollywood” theme, I thought we’d take a look at another Roger Corman student and another film in the Criterion Collection’s America Lost & Found series. Following his directorial debut Targets (a brilliant “Frankensteining” of Corman stock footage of Boris Karloff and a completely new script about a local assassin), Peter Bogdanovich adapted Last Picture Show with the book’s author Larry McMurthy.

The film is set in a transitional period, both for the landscape and members of the graduating high school class, in a rural north Texas town in the early 1950’s. Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shephard and Randy Quaid play the local teenagers who are thinking about their futures outside of their small home town. Relationships, the military, money and taking care of family members all play important roles on these characters’ decisions. Two adult figures, Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson, both won Oscars for their performances in supporting roles.

Robert Surtees’s soft black and white cinematography over the dusty roads and old shop signs hang a general feeling of loneliness over Last Picture Show. Bogdanvoich’s subtle humor, rich character drama and calculated pace, earn him comparison to the French master François Truffaut. He would also continue to look to the past, mostly filming in black and white, in years to come with films like Paper Moon, What’s Up Doc? and Nickelodeon.

In The Last Picture Show, we can feel that change will come in this part of Texas and that Red River shall inevitably have its final curtain.

Zombie by Fela Kuti [Music CD]

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Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic [DVD]

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Marina Zenovich’s film is an excellent portrait of comedian and actor Richard Pryor. We see all the brilliance, unflinching confidence, missteps, self-destruction, triumphs and pain. Omit the Logic hits the ground running with Pryor’s earliest televised stand-up appearances with a routine resembling what Bill Cobsy was up to in the early 1960’s. However, after a disastrous set in Las Vegas, Pryor disappears and later resurfaces in San Francisco as a completely unique, uncensored entertainer.

The film highlights much of Pryor’s autobiographical material. After a fair share of belly laughing at these classic, personal routines about his childhood, relationships with women and drug use, the documentary leads us to Pryor’s difficult past. Contemporaries, colleagues and followers such as Bob Newhart, Paul Mooney, Dave Chappelle, Mel Brooks, Robin Williams and Whoopie Goldberg contribute anecdotes to Pryor’s perplexing story. It’s both noble and heartbreaking how Richard Pryor persisted to find humor in the darkest of places.

Into the Lime by The New Mendicants [Music CD]

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The New Mendicants are Joe Pernice, Norman Blake and Mike Belitksy. Pernice and Belitsky, Pernice Brothers alumn and current Toronto residents, met Blake (Teenage Fanclub) at a London gig back in 2000. About a decade later, Norman sent Joe a message: “Back in Canada at the end of next week. Want to be friends?”

Into the Lime‘s initial collaborative spark came care of submitting music for a film adaptation of Nick Hornby’s book A Long Way Down. Despite the novel’s dark subject matter, the album is a sweet sounding, almost like a modern day Everly Brothers record. Clever songwriting and close, two-part harmony are present throughout. Pernice takes many of the leads. He’s an American (once residing in Northampton, MA!) who tries to sound like a Brit. Blake’s pure, high harmonies are coming from a Scotsman maybe hoping one day to be a Byrd. The album is the perfect blending of voices and styles. The friendship and enthusiasm for this side project is clearly audible on the recording.

Bored To Death [DVD]

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Three Solo Pieces by Lubomyr Melnyk [Music CD]

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Ukrainian-Canadian composer Lubomyr Melnyk is positive that he’s the fastest pianist in the business. A boast from his website reads: “in exactly 60 minutes, Melnyk sustained an average speed of over 13 notes per second in each hand, yielding a remarkable total of 93,650 INDIVIDUAL notes.”
Despite Melnyk’s dexterity and technique, listening to Three Solo Pieces feels nothing like a frantic, fast paced album. Rather, this “Continuous Music” recording, which is filled with seamless melody and overtones, is a rich, mysterious and ethereal experience. Relying on a constant sustain pedal, this modern classical album is both cacophonous and soothing. Quite the feat and quite the recording.