Be present. Well, duh.
That zen-like reminder was painted on the wall of the restaurant, but not the first restaurant I went to today because that one was in service of my hired mouth and was for breakfast.
Breakfast was before we took a road trip to Norfolk listening to REM and the Bo Deans and cursing people who brake for no good reason and before our silver-tongued tour guide gave us a walking tour of Norfolk's waterfront.
It was during that walkabout that he led us to Java Surf Coffee Shop, passing a window display with a sign that read, "In a relationship, one person needs to be the emotional designated driver," sparking a discussion of whether that's true or not. Dissent was expressed; I abstained.
Eventually, we made it to the piece-de-resistance: the USS Wisconsin, a circa 1943 battleship rising up like a giant silver blowfish on steroids when we first encountered it head on.
Honestly, I was unprepared for how massive it was and if we'd had the time, I'd have been all about touring it. Another time, I hope.
Impressive in a different sort of way was a ridiculously long dark blue sailboat (by that, I mean far longer than my apartment times two) with masts too high to fit in the photograph I tried to take of it. That it was registered in the Cayman Islands gave us to believe there was drug-laundering money involved, but made it no less beautiful or tremendously sized.
After meandering through downtown, we landed on the sidewalk in front of a doormat-sized inlay that used fancy script to spell out "The Fontaine Room," giving testament to the restaurant's former life.
These days, it's a swinging hot spot called the Grilled Cheese Bistro which required a short wait for one of the community tables (which is the only kind they have, a trend I embrace), but paid off in spades with exceptional sandwiches (cooked in buckets of clarified butter), killer fries and a bartender who never let the hordes wipe the smile off her face or the good attitude from her words.
I think it was because she was being present. I know I was.
Now that I think about it, though, I may also have been swayed by them having Dominion Brewing root beer on tap, because what accompanies a Johnny Appleseed grilled cheese better?
By the time we rolled out of there, a long line had already begun snaking down the sidewalk in anticipation of tonight's Hanson show at the Norva, bringing up the question, who loves Hanson that much in 2017 anyway?
Clearly the show was sold out, but it mattered not because by late afternoon, we were heading back because we've got shows of our own in Richmond, you know.
And tonight's was a helluva bill: the Richmond Symphony with Tim Barry, Clair Morgan, Natalie Prass, Bio Ritmo and Matthew E. White.
Setting out on foot, we breezed past the crowded Grace Street restaurant patios to land at Maya, where our server was a familiar face and, coincidentally, a J-Ward neighbor. Given tonight's show, the place was mobbed and he was keeping everything handled with his usual aplomb and self-deprecation.
I don't often eat three meals out in one day unless I'm on vacation (I could stretch that a bit and say that with the road trip and playing tourist all day that it was vacation-like), but sometimes you just have to eat the fish tacos and be happy someone else is willing to cook for you.
Across the street, the Carpenter Center was filling up with a mix of longtime Symphony Pops subscribers and a whole lot of people who'd probably never been to the Symphony in their life, but were fans of one of the bands performing tonight.
It was a pretty fascinating show in that local musician Trey Pollard had written arrangements for their songs based on what would best suit their existing music. It ranged from Tim Barry being just a voice and guitar to Bio Ritmo's nine musicians (tonight with the bonus of singer Laura Ann Singh) and salsa rhythms, providing huge flexibility in where and how much the symphony came in.
Clair Morgan provided humor when his band took the stage without him and he finally came out, saying, "My wife's gonna kill me, but I can't find my guitar strap." Luckily, it was soon located and they could play, vibraphones and all, without any husbands being killed.
Ultimately, rock trumped symphony and light projections made the performance oh-so groovy while the crowd didn't hesitate to call out to friends and favorite performers onstage.
In the loo during intermission, I heard my name called and there was the woman I run into everywhere: the Northern Neck, a southside coffee shop, an obscure house show, now the symphony.
Heading back to my seat, I heard my name called and turned around to see my former neighbor. When I marveled that he'd recognized me from the back, he said it was my hair. I think I believe him.
Walking through the inner lobby, I ran into a gorgeous girlfriend and once in the outer lobby, a favorite sax player greeted me. My people were everywhere.
Be present often enough and they all find you. Okay, maybe not in the Fontaine Room, but definitely here in Richmond.
Does being asleep count as being present? Asking for a friend...
Showing posts with label richmond symphony. Show all posts
Showing posts with label richmond symphony. Show all posts
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Pies and Thighs
Call it just another laid-back Friday in the city, but don't call it casual.
A girl could be forgiven for wishing that casual Friday was just the slippery slope that finally leads to a four-day workweek, but the pragmatist in me has to accept that's it's become no more than an automatic default when describing the last day of the workweek.
The four VCU students bursting with Friday energy and spilling out of a house on Marshall Street when I walked by (yes, walked, despite the cold and wind because my day in the country meant I'd had no walk today) had no interest in anything except yelling f*ck in various phrases (it, you, that, -in' A) to demonstrate how ready they were - or not - for the weekend.
Studied casual, personified.
The Richmond Symphony, on the other hand, was definitely trying to be with Dominion Casual Fridays - a dreadful moniker for several reasons - a great chance to see the Symphony on the cheap and still have your whole Friday night ahead of you.
To acquaint an atypical symphony audience with Stravinsky's ballet score "Petrouchka," conductor Stephen Smith took the time to explain the story of the ballet, demonstrate which instruments represented each of the three characters in the ballet and share how drums would mean "end of scene."
The ballet's first scene was set during - wait for it - the Shrovetide Fair, which I now know means pancake-eating Fat Tuesday and the two days before.
Leave it to art to teach me about religion while listening to the dulcet tones of contra-bassoon and bassoon.
Walking down Grace Street afterward, I overheard a young woman telling her date how much she'd been able to imagine the ballet dancers after the conductor explained the story and instrumentation. Her date asked if she'd ever been to the ballet. "No, but now I want to go," she said aspirationally.
Well done there, Richmond Symphony.
Because it was First Friday, there was no reason not to return to Candela Gallery and see the rest of "Chop Shop," the digitally-manipulated photography show I hadn't had time to see all of last night. Seeing it again, my brain struggled just as hard to read the images with an eye for truth and once again gave up in frustration.
Headed to the door, I ran into a photographer friend and dove immediately down the rabbit hole of process-focused photography, deciding that it was our age that precluded us accepting the images without seeing them as untruths.
Fact is, "Chop Shop" is the kind of photography show that starts conversations as people react and compare impressions, whether accepting or rejecting what they're seeing.
I slid into Gallery 5 briefly to check out the print sale before moving over to Big Secret to see the poster reveal for April's Mozart Festival. The Shepard Fairey-like red, white and blue image of Mozart will make an excellent reminder of the dark days after we lost the noble President pictured in the original poster.
A fellow Jackson Ward neighbor and I talked about his adjustment to living with his girlfriend and composting, two challenging but worthwhile efforts for a man who'll turn 37 years old tomorrow. When I found out he's also part of Team Mozart, I put in my vote for Nate's Bagels as part of the event.
Big Secret's owner asked if I'd had Nate's black sesame bagel yet (claims it's a religious experience and says he's Jewish so he knows) - um, no - only to admit that it's a minuscule number that are made and held for certain very special individuals.
As for people like you and me, my friend, we'll never even lay eyes on a black sesame bagel.
Richmond Comedy Coalition was offering "Casual Friday with RVA Tonight" - another god-awful label - for the late show featuring the cast and crew of the fake news show with big guests (Senator Tim Kaine, Governor Terry McAuliffe) telling stories and improvising on them.
Before the show even began, a stellar slide show was projected with images from RVA Tonight sketches, panels and guest interviews. So it was that I recognized a photo of Mayor Levar Stoney in his red and white Christmas sweater showing off the Levar Stoney socks his "team" had given him (familiar since I'd been at the original show), Beau Cribbs with Nutsy the Squirrel, Tim Kaine cracking up at something.
Over a dozen cast and crew members took the stage, sitting down in chairs to reminisce about favorite guests (McAuliffe is apparently hilariously inappropriate), sketches they pitched that never made it on to the show, moments gone wrong onstage and anything else they cared to bring up.
Josh told of a sci-fi sketch he pitched repeatedly that was rejected repeatedly, so Beau suggested he try pitching it to the audience. Most looked bored while one guy laughed. One.
"I write niche, artisanal jokes," Josh said sarcastically, trying to explain his limited appeal. I found him laugh out loud-worthy when he played a hapless male poet with no clue about women, saying things such as, "How do I convey the vastness of my sorrow! With rhymes!"
Grace, who's responsible for costumes and wigs, recalled one sketch that called for a voice-over but they'd forgotten to write it, and the sketch made no sense without it. Another time, the entire cast had forgotten they needed a turkey costume until 20 minutes before show time and then had to scramble.
During a sketch where McAuliffe's aide tells him, "Okay, Governor, today we're going to go over good touch and bad touch," and promptly grabs the Governor by his lower thigh, Beau as McAuliffe whines, "Being governor is hard!"
But being an audience member was informative. Beau told the audience that a past show's research had proven that the Comedy Coalition building had originally been a horse hospital (naturally abbreviated to "horse-pital" for the sake of comedy), a bit of neighborhood lore I'd never heard.
The cast talked about "refillable bits," sketches that could be dragged back out and refreshed for a second or third round of laughs.
When Beau reminded Matt that he'd said that his family used to own Frederick Douglass, Matt was outraged. "I did not say that!" and here he paused for dramatic effect. "I said my family once owned Booker T. Washington!" And so the comedy goes.
When the guy who does the graphic work for RVA Tonight mentioned how he liked to slide in sly asides and insider jokes "to reward our regulars," Beau laughed out loud. "Both of them!"
They all remembered the frustration of performing in the Science Museum's IMAX Dome because the dome's design means that sound travels only from the stage to the seats and not vice versa. So it was that the improv team did an hour and a half show without ever hearing a single laugh.
Not because the audience wasn't laughing, just because the sound wasn't reaching their ears. Ouch.
After one of her first performances, Lauren recalled being complimented by a fellow cast member for how well she'd acted out a panic attack onstage, which of course had been real.
That led to a seriously hysterical hall-of-mirrors type sketch where a couple happens on a woman having an anxiety attack and think it's performance art. Someone else seems them arguing about it and presumes they're street theater. Another couple spots them from across the street and wonders if it's a notable guerrilla theater performance group. And on and on...
No one takes anything happening in the real world as reality. Say, that sounds an awful lot like looking at photographs of people and things that never actually existed but were documented as if they did.
Casual Friday is perhaps the ultimate niche, artisanal joke.
A girl could be forgiven for wishing that casual Friday was just the slippery slope that finally leads to a four-day workweek, but the pragmatist in me has to accept that's it's become no more than an automatic default when describing the last day of the workweek.
The four VCU students bursting with Friday energy and spilling out of a house on Marshall Street when I walked by (yes, walked, despite the cold and wind because my day in the country meant I'd had no walk today) had no interest in anything except yelling f*ck in various phrases (it, you, that, -in' A) to demonstrate how ready they were - or not - for the weekend.
Studied casual, personified.
The Richmond Symphony, on the other hand, was definitely trying to be with Dominion Casual Fridays - a dreadful moniker for several reasons - a great chance to see the Symphony on the cheap and still have your whole Friday night ahead of you.
To acquaint an atypical symphony audience with Stravinsky's ballet score "Petrouchka," conductor Stephen Smith took the time to explain the story of the ballet, demonstrate which instruments represented each of the three characters in the ballet and share how drums would mean "end of scene."
The ballet's first scene was set during - wait for it - the Shrovetide Fair, which I now know means pancake-eating Fat Tuesday and the two days before.
Leave it to art to teach me about religion while listening to the dulcet tones of contra-bassoon and bassoon.
Walking down Grace Street afterward, I overheard a young woman telling her date how much she'd been able to imagine the ballet dancers after the conductor explained the story and instrumentation. Her date asked if she'd ever been to the ballet. "No, but now I want to go," she said aspirationally.
Well done there, Richmond Symphony.
Because it was First Friday, there was no reason not to return to Candela Gallery and see the rest of "Chop Shop," the digitally-manipulated photography show I hadn't had time to see all of last night. Seeing it again, my brain struggled just as hard to read the images with an eye for truth and once again gave up in frustration.
Headed to the door, I ran into a photographer friend and dove immediately down the rabbit hole of process-focused photography, deciding that it was our age that precluded us accepting the images without seeing them as untruths.
Fact is, "Chop Shop" is the kind of photography show that starts conversations as people react and compare impressions, whether accepting or rejecting what they're seeing.
I slid into Gallery 5 briefly to check out the print sale before moving over to Big Secret to see the poster reveal for April's Mozart Festival. The Shepard Fairey-like red, white and blue image of Mozart will make an excellent reminder of the dark days after we lost the noble President pictured in the original poster.
A fellow Jackson Ward neighbor and I talked about his adjustment to living with his girlfriend and composting, two challenging but worthwhile efforts for a man who'll turn 37 years old tomorrow. When I found out he's also part of Team Mozart, I put in my vote for Nate's Bagels as part of the event.
Big Secret's owner asked if I'd had Nate's black sesame bagel yet (claims it's a religious experience and says he's Jewish so he knows) - um, no - only to admit that it's a minuscule number that are made and held for certain very special individuals.
As for people like you and me, my friend, we'll never even lay eyes on a black sesame bagel.
Richmond Comedy Coalition was offering "Casual Friday with RVA Tonight" - another god-awful label - for the late show featuring the cast and crew of the fake news show with big guests (Senator Tim Kaine, Governor Terry McAuliffe) telling stories and improvising on them.
Before the show even began, a stellar slide show was projected with images from RVA Tonight sketches, panels and guest interviews. So it was that I recognized a photo of Mayor Levar Stoney in his red and white Christmas sweater showing off the Levar Stoney socks his "team" had given him (familiar since I'd been at the original show), Beau Cribbs with Nutsy the Squirrel, Tim Kaine cracking up at something.
Over a dozen cast and crew members took the stage, sitting down in chairs to reminisce about favorite guests (McAuliffe is apparently hilariously inappropriate), sketches they pitched that never made it on to the show, moments gone wrong onstage and anything else they cared to bring up.
Josh told of a sci-fi sketch he pitched repeatedly that was rejected repeatedly, so Beau suggested he try pitching it to the audience. Most looked bored while one guy laughed. One.
"I write niche, artisanal jokes," Josh said sarcastically, trying to explain his limited appeal. I found him laugh out loud-worthy when he played a hapless male poet with no clue about women, saying things such as, "How do I convey the vastness of my sorrow! With rhymes!"
Grace, who's responsible for costumes and wigs, recalled one sketch that called for a voice-over but they'd forgotten to write it, and the sketch made no sense without it. Another time, the entire cast had forgotten they needed a turkey costume until 20 minutes before show time and then had to scramble.
During a sketch where McAuliffe's aide tells him, "Okay, Governor, today we're going to go over good touch and bad touch," and promptly grabs the Governor by his lower thigh, Beau as McAuliffe whines, "Being governor is hard!"
But being an audience member was informative. Beau told the audience that a past show's research had proven that the Comedy Coalition building had originally been a horse hospital (naturally abbreviated to "horse-pital" for the sake of comedy), a bit of neighborhood lore I'd never heard.
The cast talked about "refillable bits," sketches that could be dragged back out and refreshed for a second or third round of laughs.
When Beau reminded Matt that he'd said that his family used to own Frederick Douglass, Matt was outraged. "I did not say that!" and here he paused for dramatic effect. "I said my family once owned Booker T. Washington!" And so the comedy goes.
When the guy who does the graphic work for RVA Tonight mentioned how he liked to slide in sly asides and insider jokes "to reward our regulars," Beau laughed out loud. "Both of them!"
They all remembered the frustration of performing in the Science Museum's IMAX Dome because the dome's design means that sound travels only from the stage to the seats and not vice versa. So it was that the improv team did an hour and a half show without ever hearing a single laugh.
Not because the audience wasn't laughing, just because the sound wasn't reaching their ears. Ouch.
After one of her first performances, Lauren recalled being complimented by a fellow cast member for how well she'd acted out a panic attack onstage, which of course had been real.
That led to a seriously hysterical hall-of-mirrors type sketch where a couple happens on a woman having an anxiety attack and think it's performance art. Someone else seems them arguing about it and presumes they're street theater. Another couple spots them from across the street and wonders if it's a notable guerrilla theater performance group. And on and on...
No one takes anything happening in the real world as reality. Say, that sounds an awful lot like looking at photographs of people and things that never actually existed but were documented as if they did.
Casual Friday is perhaps the ultimate niche, artisanal joke.
Saturday, January 14, 2017
Post-Midnight City
As M83 would say, hurry up, we're dreaming.
Vorfreude aside, when an outing begins with the presumption that trouble will find you and ends on hold - not once but twice, mind you - someone's bound to describe it as a wonderful evening.
Even if it takes almost eight hours to reach that conclusion.
At Pasture for drinks and curry cauliflower, a wall map of the state's geology results in the devoted urban dweller being teased about being a devotee of Virginia's coastal plain and light-heartedly chided for not venturing to the western part of the state more often.
I say give me a reason and I'll get in the car.
With my back to a young woman at the bar, I overhear her bemoaning how she feels like a cougar ogling young male actors in movies. I can't let that go, so I whirl around and tell her to imagine how I feel at the movies admiring younger men.
"Yeah, but you've earned the right to do whatever you want!" she tells me, a perfect stranger. I lean in and assure her I already do anything I want without compunction.
"Ooh, can we hang out? Can I have your phone number? What's your name?" she eagerly asks, sounding for all the world like a fangirl of a middle aged woman. I'll take it, but only because there don't seem to be fanboys of the same.
The crowd at CentreStage for the Richmond Symphony's casual Friday concert is a decidedly different one than what you'd see at a Masterworks concert: more diverse in age and race and many, many decibels louder as people take their seats and chatter.
In what has to be the bossiest thing I've yet to hear out of my ultra-polite companion's mouth, he commands me, "Move!" when yet another couple arrives at the end of row O, where we're seated. It's not that we mind getting up to allow late arrivals in, it's just easier for them not to have to climb over us.
This is not an agile crowd.
I silently nickname him Bossy Boots, moving over and rearranging. A tiny piece of paper flutters out of the side pocket of my purse - a fortune from a cookie eaten my first night in San Francisco last month.
Investigate new possibilities with friends. Now is the time!
Now BB really had something to chuckle about while I look around, noting other differences from a usual symphony performance, like the lights not being lowered for the performance and that there's a host making his way through the orchestra section with a mic, warming up the crowd.
What was especially cool, though, was that Jacques Houtmann, who'd conducted the R-Symphony from 1971-86 (so right up until I arrived in Richmond) had been tapped to lead tonight's performance of Franck's "Symphony in D Minor," which we were told in his charmingly French-accented English was particularly significant for its use of English horns (a first) and that it was written in only three movements.
Easier to digest for casual audiences, one presumes.
The program described the piece as a "cathedral of sound," which is sort of what I strive for in my living room with my turntable cranked to loud, but this was a different sort of cathedral. And while it wasn't an uplifting piece, I'm not about to complain about any aspect of starting my night surrounded by classical musicians playing.
Back on the pavement, we needed sustenance for more than the soul.
It was my first time in Maya, diagonally across from CentreStage, where I was immediately won over when I saw "tequileria" painted on the glass, found flights of tequila on the menu and heard a soundtrack playing loud enough to make things lively despite being isolated by a wall on the bar side.
I only had a bite, but his corn tamal with shrimp and scallops was stellar - sweet from corn and smoky from poblano - while my tilapia tacos suffered only for the pedestrian tortillas that cradled the fish, mango salsa, jicama, cabbage and jalapeno crema contents.
Libation-wise, my Espolon blanco won out hands down for how well it complemented both our dishes in a way that his COTU beer simply couldn't begin to match, for obvious reasons. Agave, tomatillo, poblano, hello?
Once sated, it was time to move on to my cathedral of sound for records, wine and a wide-ranging conversation that stayed fluid enough to take tangential tracks when a song lyric, a painting on my wall or a recounting of a conversation with mutual friends provoked something (the latter usually causing major laughter on his part).
I wish that I believed in fate
I wish I didn't sleep so late
Next thing you know, I'm listening to his defense of why he doesn't believe in fate, a point raised by the National's "Mr. November," a song about new blue-bloods and great white hopes. Perhaps he's both; I didn't inquire. I, on the other hand, made no defense for liking to sleep late.
I regaled him with stories from my recent past, including an evening with another friend who'd marveled at not having to "entertain" me after making me dinner because I was more than happy doing nothing more than conversing for pleasure and diversion.
We talked about people we know who are in it for the long game, despite the challenges. He explained the sonic reasons I need to ride my bike over the T Pot bridge. I let slip that I'm only 5'5", which is how he discovered I'm short.
Meanwhile, we listened to records: Lydia Loveless, Roxy Music, The National x 2, Arcade Fire, the XX.
The stars and the charts and the cards make sense
Only when we want them to
When I lie awake, staring into space
I see a different view
A tad long, but otherwise, I'd say that's practically fortune cookie material.
Vorfreude aside, when an outing begins with the presumption that trouble will find you and ends on hold - not once but twice, mind you - someone's bound to describe it as a wonderful evening.
Even if it takes almost eight hours to reach that conclusion.
At Pasture for drinks and curry cauliflower, a wall map of the state's geology results in the devoted urban dweller being teased about being a devotee of Virginia's coastal plain and light-heartedly chided for not venturing to the western part of the state more often.
I say give me a reason and I'll get in the car.
With my back to a young woman at the bar, I overhear her bemoaning how she feels like a cougar ogling young male actors in movies. I can't let that go, so I whirl around and tell her to imagine how I feel at the movies admiring younger men.
"Yeah, but you've earned the right to do whatever you want!" she tells me, a perfect stranger. I lean in and assure her I already do anything I want without compunction.
"Ooh, can we hang out? Can I have your phone number? What's your name?" she eagerly asks, sounding for all the world like a fangirl of a middle aged woman. I'll take it, but only because there don't seem to be fanboys of the same.
The crowd at CentreStage for the Richmond Symphony's casual Friday concert is a decidedly different one than what you'd see at a Masterworks concert: more diverse in age and race and many, many decibels louder as people take their seats and chatter.
In what has to be the bossiest thing I've yet to hear out of my ultra-polite companion's mouth, he commands me, "Move!" when yet another couple arrives at the end of row O, where we're seated. It's not that we mind getting up to allow late arrivals in, it's just easier for them not to have to climb over us.
This is not an agile crowd.
I silently nickname him Bossy Boots, moving over and rearranging. A tiny piece of paper flutters out of the side pocket of my purse - a fortune from a cookie eaten my first night in San Francisco last month.
Investigate new possibilities with friends. Now is the time!
Now BB really had something to chuckle about while I look around, noting other differences from a usual symphony performance, like the lights not being lowered for the performance and that there's a host making his way through the orchestra section with a mic, warming up the crowd.
What was especially cool, though, was that Jacques Houtmann, who'd conducted the R-Symphony from 1971-86 (so right up until I arrived in Richmond) had been tapped to lead tonight's performance of Franck's "Symphony in D Minor," which we were told in his charmingly French-accented English was particularly significant for its use of English horns (a first) and that it was written in only three movements.
Easier to digest for casual audiences, one presumes.
The program described the piece as a "cathedral of sound," which is sort of what I strive for in my living room with my turntable cranked to loud, but this was a different sort of cathedral. And while it wasn't an uplifting piece, I'm not about to complain about any aspect of starting my night surrounded by classical musicians playing.
Back on the pavement, we needed sustenance for more than the soul.
It was my first time in Maya, diagonally across from CentreStage, where I was immediately won over when I saw "tequileria" painted on the glass, found flights of tequila on the menu and heard a soundtrack playing loud enough to make things lively despite being isolated by a wall on the bar side.
I only had a bite, but his corn tamal with shrimp and scallops was stellar - sweet from corn and smoky from poblano - while my tilapia tacos suffered only for the pedestrian tortillas that cradled the fish, mango salsa, jicama, cabbage and jalapeno crema contents.
Libation-wise, my Espolon blanco won out hands down for how well it complemented both our dishes in a way that his COTU beer simply couldn't begin to match, for obvious reasons. Agave, tomatillo, poblano, hello?
Once sated, it was time to move on to my cathedral of sound for records, wine and a wide-ranging conversation that stayed fluid enough to take tangential tracks when a song lyric, a painting on my wall or a recounting of a conversation with mutual friends provoked something (the latter usually causing major laughter on his part).
I wish that I believed in fate
I wish I didn't sleep so late
Next thing you know, I'm listening to his defense of why he doesn't believe in fate, a point raised by the National's "Mr. November," a song about new blue-bloods and great white hopes. Perhaps he's both; I didn't inquire. I, on the other hand, made no defense for liking to sleep late.
I regaled him with stories from my recent past, including an evening with another friend who'd marveled at not having to "entertain" me after making me dinner because I was more than happy doing nothing more than conversing for pleasure and diversion.
We talked about people we know who are in it for the long game, despite the challenges. He explained the sonic reasons I need to ride my bike over the T Pot bridge. I let slip that I'm only 5'5", which is how he discovered I'm short.
Meanwhile, we listened to records: Lydia Loveless, Roxy Music, The National x 2, Arcade Fire, the XX.
The stars and the charts and the cards make sense
Only when we want them to
When I lie awake, staring into space
I see a different view
A tad long, but otherwise, I'd say that's practically fortune cookie material.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Don't Believe What You Read
Vagabond was not to be tonight.
Oh, it was our intention to have dinner there before the symphony, but Holmes and Beloved had barely picked me up when Holmes realized that he'd left one of the symphony tickets at home, so back we went.
Finally parked and making our way up hill, we decided to detour into Greenleaf's since neither of them had been and I'm rather fond of the pool hall as a dining destination. Beloved's Negronis were testament to the skill of the talented new barman and she happily noted that Greenleaf's vibe and look felt more like being in NYC than RVA.
After deviled eggs - smoky classic style and picnic style with fried chicken skin on top - and bar toast - a scrumptious layering of Chorizo, chimichurra and goat cheese with caramelized onions - we all chose sandwiches for dinner.
High points went to all three, although neither the patty melt nor tuna melt were served as open-faced sandwiches for some inexplicable reason. The artisan bread supporting them was superb, though, with a companion noting, "I like my bread with some resistance." Men and bread, me, too.
And the grilled cheese and chunky tomato soup combo were out of this world, grown-up even, with Gruyere and aged Provolone adding depth and complexity to what is usually a simple, straight-forward sandwich.
I ran into a friend on my way to the loo and we paused to dissect InLight, which we both felt had been compressed into too small a space at the VMFA this year. We agreed that the experience was diminished by the necessity of herding visitors in a way that allowed no time for lingering and truly experiencing any of the installations, not the case in past years.
At least I knew I wasn't alone in my take on the evening.
From there, our trio strolled one block to CenterStage to join the throngs of white hairs and blue hairs slowly making their way inside.
Tonight's program was Sibelius and Liszt and the first selection, "The Swan of Tuonela" was dedicated to the victims and their families in Paris. "We stand in tribute," conductor Steven Smith said of the piece that featured Shawn Welk blowing a beautiful English horn.
As the grand piano was being maneuvered onstage for Liszt's "Concerto No. 2," Holmes sniffed and observed, "Aww, now we can't see the violas." I teased him because for him, a viola player, it's always all about the violas. But even he had to acknowledge, "But we can see the pianist's hands. We have good seats for that!"
Pianist Orion Weiss' hands put on a fine show, although the guy behind me tapping his foot against the back of my chair was maddening. Fortunately, that was followed by Sibelius's "Symphony No. 2 in D Major," a piece that was alternately ho-hum and positively rousing but elicited no foot thumping.
As Beloved noted afterwards, "Once I heard it change to a major, I knew we were coming to the end." I don't say things like that because I don't hear such things.
Because it was still ridiculously early, we took the party back to Holmes' man cave for record-listening with both Hillinger and Corail Rose, despite Holmes' complaints about being a bit tired after a too-raucous Friday night.
We headed straight back to my youth when he began with Squeeze's "East Side Story," in all its New Wave glory and multiple influenced sounds. I'd forgotten how Stray Cats-like they could be at times.
You have to understand the set-up to see the humor in the next story. Holmes is stationed behind the bar, next to the hi-fi, while Beloved and I perch on bar stools directly across the bar. He has full access to his record collection under the bar, which we can't even see, and pulls treat after treat out.
At one point, pulling out a record resulted in another dropping to the floor. "Oh, Streisand fell on the floor," he said and went back to putting Squeeze away. He had no intention of looking for the errant chick record.
Well, the cold hard fact is you're not going to mention Streisand - an album that undoubtedly came from his deceased wife's collection, not his - to two women of a certain age (see: Beloved and me) and not expect them to want to hear it.
Holmes acquiesced, I think because of the huge array of musical talent on the album.
Or maybe because he was tired, but he put on 1977's "Streisand Superman" while we discussed the array of song composers on it - everyone from Paul Williams to Kim Carnes to Roger Miller to Mr. Pina Colada song himself, Rupert Holmes.
Probably the best known song on it was Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind," a classic best sung by a New Yorker a la Streisand.
But for me, that album had been more about a woman's statement of self. Songs such as "Cabin Fever" repudiated the stereotypical housewife role while "Lullaby for Myself" sang the praises of the single life, at least right up until the very end.
Walked the night and drank the moon
Got home at half past four
And I knew that no one marked my time
As I unlocked my door...
Sure, it doesn't sound all that anthemic in 2015, but in 1977, it was enough to make a woman sit up and take notice. Don't forget, that was the same era as films such as "An Unmarried Woman" and young females I knew were taking the message to heart. Sort of.
Time to spare and time to share
And grateful I would be
If just one damn man
Would share the need
To be alone with me...
I give Holmes high marks because he not only tolerated "Superman" but also located "The Way We Were," a soundtrack album notable not so much for the treacly theme song as for a robust discussion of the 1940s and the vintage music on the record, stuff like "In The Mood" and "Red Sails in the Sunset."
Which is right about where we sailed, but not until many hours after we'd left the dock. Not that it mattered. I knew that no one marked my time as I unlocked my door.
Oh, it was our intention to have dinner there before the symphony, but Holmes and Beloved had barely picked me up when Holmes realized that he'd left one of the symphony tickets at home, so back we went.
Finally parked and making our way up hill, we decided to detour into Greenleaf's since neither of them had been and I'm rather fond of the pool hall as a dining destination. Beloved's Negronis were testament to the skill of the talented new barman and she happily noted that Greenleaf's vibe and look felt more like being in NYC than RVA.
After deviled eggs - smoky classic style and picnic style with fried chicken skin on top - and bar toast - a scrumptious layering of Chorizo, chimichurra and goat cheese with caramelized onions - we all chose sandwiches for dinner.
High points went to all three, although neither the patty melt nor tuna melt were served as open-faced sandwiches for some inexplicable reason. The artisan bread supporting them was superb, though, with a companion noting, "I like my bread with some resistance." Men and bread, me, too.
And the grilled cheese and chunky tomato soup combo were out of this world, grown-up even, with Gruyere and aged Provolone adding depth and complexity to what is usually a simple, straight-forward sandwich.
I ran into a friend on my way to the loo and we paused to dissect InLight, which we both felt had been compressed into too small a space at the VMFA this year. We agreed that the experience was diminished by the necessity of herding visitors in a way that allowed no time for lingering and truly experiencing any of the installations, not the case in past years.
At least I knew I wasn't alone in my take on the evening.
From there, our trio strolled one block to CenterStage to join the throngs of white hairs and blue hairs slowly making their way inside.
Tonight's program was Sibelius and Liszt and the first selection, "The Swan of Tuonela" was dedicated to the victims and their families in Paris. "We stand in tribute," conductor Steven Smith said of the piece that featured Shawn Welk blowing a beautiful English horn.
As the grand piano was being maneuvered onstage for Liszt's "Concerto No. 2," Holmes sniffed and observed, "Aww, now we can't see the violas." I teased him because for him, a viola player, it's always all about the violas. But even he had to acknowledge, "But we can see the pianist's hands. We have good seats for that!"
Pianist Orion Weiss' hands put on a fine show, although the guy behind me tapping his foot against the back of my chair was maddening. Fortunately, that was followed by Sibelius's "Symphony No. 2 in D Major," a piece that was alternately ho-hum and positively rousing but elicited no foot thumping.
As Beloved noted afterwards, "Once I heard it change to a major, I knew we were coming to the end." I don't say things like that because I don't hear such things.
Because it was still ridiculously early, we took the party back to Holmes' man cave for record-listening with both Hillinger and Corail Rose, despite Holmes' complaints about being a bit tired after a too-raucous Friday night.
We headed straight back to my youth when he began with Squeeze's "East Side Story," in all its New Wave glory and multiple influenced sounds. I'd forgotten how Stray Cats-like they could be at times.
You have to understand the set-up to see the humor in the next story. Holmes is stationed behind the bar, next to the hi-fi, while Beloved and I perch on bar stools directly across the bar. He has full access to his record collection under the bar, which we can't even see, and pulls treat after treat out.
At one point, pulling out a record resulted in another dropping to the floor. "Oh, Streisand fell on the floor," he said and went back to putting Squeeze away. He had no intention of looking for the errant chick record.
Well, the cold hard fact is you're not going to mention Streisand - an album that undoubtedly came from his deceased wife's collection, not his - to two women of a certain age (see: Beloved and me) and not expect them to want to hear it.
Holmes acquiesced, I think because of the huge array of musical talent on the album.
Or maybe because he was tired, but he put on 1977's "Streisand Superman" while we discussed the array of song composers on it - everyone from Paul Williams to Kim Carnes to Roger Miller to Mr. Pina Colada song himself, Rupert Holmes.
Probably the best known song on it was Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind," a classic best sung by a New Yorker a la Streisand.
But for me, that album had been more about a woman's statement of self. Songs such as "Cabin Fever" repudiated the stereotypical housewife role while "Lullaby for Myself" sang the praises of the single life, at least right up until the very end.
Walked the night and drank the moon
Got home at half past four
And I knew that no one marked my time
As I unlocked my door...
Sure, it doesn't sound all that anthemic in 2015, but in 1977, it was enough to make a woman sit up and take notice. Don't forget, that was the same era as films such as "An Unmarried Woman" and young females I knew were taking the message to heart. Sort of.
Time to spare and time to share
And grateful I would be
If just one damn man
Would share the need
To be alone with me...
I give Holmes high marks because he not only tolerated "Superman" but also located "The Way We Were," a soundtrack album notable not so much for the treacly theme song as for a robust discussion of the 1940s and the vintage music on the record, stuff like "In The Mood" and "Red Sails in the Sunset."
Which is right about where we sailed, but not until many hours after we'd left the dock. Not that it mattered. I knew that no one marked my time as I unlocked my door.
Monday, March 2, 2015
Warming with Wolfie
Listen to the meteorologists and you miss too much.
Braving the ice and cold despite online warnings to stay in, I got exactly one block from home on my walk before taking a tumble on an ice-glazed brick sidewalk, landing on my hip and knee. Thankfully, there were no churchgoers nearby to overhear the string of expletives that came out of my mouth.
Refusing to be beaten by frozen water, I continued on, avoiding brick walkways as much as possible and covering nearly five miles as freezing rain continued to fall. While the terrain was dangerous, the city was silvery and nearly empty so I had it to myself for the most part.
Back at my house I discovered that my umbrella was completely iced over, hard and solid enough that I couldn't fold it up. Can't say that's ever happened before.
Upstairs, warm and making tea for a guest, Africa trumped Austria as I spent a couple of hours with a musician who's about to present the Richmond premiere of a documentary about the time he spent playing in Kenya.
We got so caught up in conversation about music and travel that by the time I looked up, I realized I'd missed the Mozart lecture.
The 2015 Mozart Festival was today in Carytown and I'd hoped to start with a Mozart primer courtesy of VCU Music's Daniel Myssyk, but we'd chatted right through that. But with more Mozart to come, I bade him farewell, layered up and headed to Babe's of Carytown, a place I'd never been.
Arriving 15 minutes before the program "Requiem and Symphonies" was due to start, I found the place crowded with other music lovers. Sitting at the bar in the front room was a guy in a white wig and red waistcoat that read "Mozart" on the back, letter jacket-style.
Inching forward into the back room where an orchestra was set up, I spotted a cello player also in a white curly wig. Periodically, I'd hear, "Musician coming through!" behind me and it would be a guy leading with his trombone or a woman with her instrument case in front of her trying to part the sea of humanity and reach the orchestra area.
Since I'd never been in Babe's before, I'd had no clue that they had that big back room, which was already mostly full. Passing by the bar behind rows of folding chairs, one guy told me he'd arrived an hour ago to score the stool on which he sat.
I finally made my way to the end of the bar directly in front of the violin section. I might not have been seated, but I had a damn fine view considering my arrival time.
Ellen of Classical Revolution, the non-profit devoted to bringing classical music to bars all over Richmond, began by announcing that this orchestra had never played together before. "This is how many rehearsals we've had," she said, holding up her hand and shaping a zero.
But because they're classical musicians, they were excited to be sight-reading Mozart for our listening pleasure. She mentioned that given the weather (humid, rainy), there would necessarily be a lot of tuning throughout the performance.
She also mentioned that the Richmond Symphony, sponsors of this show, were starting a new series of $15 one-hour symphony performances at Hardywood next season. It sounds exactly like the former Kicked Back Classics series that the symphony did for years at places like Tredegar.
Everything old is new again, at least to the young.
I was a huge fan of that series, in part because of the succinct playing time but also because they served free pizza at the end of each show. I vote to bring back that part of the series, too.
The same Daniel Myssyk whose lecture I'd missed came out to conduct the first piece, telling us that Mozart had composed it in four days while traveling from Salzburg to Vienna. He'd stopped in Linz for a break and, according to Myssyk, "Said to himself, what do I do here and wrote a quick symphony."
Next they did a movement from Symphony #41, known as the Jupiter symphony, but Myssyk said, "That's a 19th century name and Mozart wouldn't recognize it." Then we should never utter it again if you ask me.
This was working out better than I'd hope for. Myssyk was spilling all kinds of fun facts to make up for my missing his talk. If only the idiots in the back would stop blathering so I could hear his every word.
We got a real treat when the bassoon player arrived with her impressive instrument and took a chair right next to the conductor for the "Bassoon Concerto," a rare opportunity to hear so much solo bassoon, not to mention that I had a terrific vantage point for watching her play.
After each selection, the audience clapped mightily and the dapper man behind me yelled, "Bravo! Bravo! Yo, yo, yo!" You know, just like Mozart's 18th century audiences would have done.
Richmond Symphony assistant conductor Erin Freeman came out and with no introduction started up the next piece, which also included a chorus singing on the platform behind the orchestra.
Barely into it, she stopped them and turned to us, saying, "So, that," which resulted in the entire audience cracking up. "I always wanted to do that. That was Mozart's last eight bars or as one of the musicians said earlier, that's where he stopped composing and started decomposing."
Long hair humor. And speaking of long hairs, there was a young flute player in a knit cap, his long blond hair sticking out from under it and with a bushy, hipster-approved beard who gave me hope for the future of symphonic music.
Marketing tip: hire him and make him the new face of the symphony.
"Although I do hope you enjoy everything today, this is the most important piece," Erin said introducing "Requiem," the reason die-hard fans were there. When the chorus sang the final "amen," the room rose in an ovation, cheering.
But we couldn't end on something so somber, so next she introduced "the most perfect piece Mozart ever wrote, "Ave Verum Corpus," because it best embodied his spirit." It was truly beautiful.
Almost exactly an hour after the music had begun, it ended, breaking the spell of a roomful of people gathered together because they were willing to go out on a day when weathermen told us to stay in simply to hear Mozart played live.
As I began the slow procession past the bar to get out of the room, a handsome guy next to me made a comment about the people in the back who'd chatted throughout the performance. "I know it's a bar, but why come here and talk the whole time?"
Since this is one of my favorite soapboxes, we commiserated about the cretins as we made our way to the front. He looked like he wanted to punch them while all I wanted to do was escape them.
Where we also found common ground was in how lucky we'd been to have these musicians play for us on this miserable afternoon.
I made one final stop at Joe's Inn, meeting fellow music-lovers and comparing our upcoming road trip shows: Hooray for the Riffraff, Babymetal and T Swift, as assorted a range of acts as three people could come up with and still want to associate.
Where we could all agree was on chocolate mousse pie after dinner while "Papa, Don't Preach" played to a packed restaurant, all the more enjoyable for what came before it.
Bravo, yo, yo, yo.
Braving the ice and cold despite online warnings to stay in, I got exactly one block from home on my walk before taking a tumble on an ice-glazed brick sidewalk, landing on my hip and knee. Thankfully, there were no churchgoers nearby to overhear the string of expletives that came out of my mouth.
Refusing to be beaten by frozen water, I continued on, avoiding brick walkways as much as possible and covering nearly five miles as freezing rain continued to fall. While the terrain was dangerous, the city was silvery and nearly empty so I had it to myself for the most part.
Back at my house I discovered that my umbrella was completely iced over, hard and solid enough that I couldn't fold it up. Can't say that's ever happened before.
Upstairs, warm and making tea for a guest, Africa trumped Austria as I spent a couple of hours with a musician who's about to present the Richmond premiere of a documentary about the time he spent playing in Kenya.
We got so caught up in conversation about music and travel that by the time I looked up, I realized I'd missed the Mozart lecture.
The 2015 Mozart Festival was today in Carytown and I'd hoped to start with a Mozart primer courtesy of VCU Music's Daniel Myssyk, but we'd chatted right through that. But with more Mozart to come, I bade him farewell, layered up and headed to Babe's of Carytown, a place I'd never been.
Arriving 15 minutes before the program "Requiem and Symphonies" was due to start, I found the place crowded with other music lovers. Sitting at the bar in the front room was a guy in a white wig and red waistcoat that read "Mozart" on the back, letter jacket-style.
Inching forward into the back room where an orchestra was set up, I spotted a cello player also in a white curly wig. Periodically, I'd hear, "Musician coming through!" behind me and it would be a guy leading with his trombone or a woman with her instrument case in front of her trying to part the sea of humanity and reach the orchestra area.
Since I'd never been in Babe's before, I'd had no clue that they had that big back room, which was already mostly full. Passing by the bar behind rows of folding chairs, one guy told me he'd arrived an hour ago to score the stool on which he sat.
I finally made my way to the end of the bar directly in front of the violin section. I might not have been seated, but I had a damn fine view considering my arrival time.
Ellen of Classical Revolution, the non-profit devoted to bringing classical music to bars all over Richmond, began by announcing that this orchestra had never played together before. "This is how many rehearsals we've had," she said, holding up her hand and shaping a zero.
But because they're classical musicians, they were excited to be sight-reading Mozart for our listening pleasure. She mentioned that given the weather (humid, rainy), there would necessarily be a lot of tuning throughout the performance.
She also mentioned that the Richmond Symphony, sponsors of this show, were starting a new series of $15 one-hour symphony performances at Hardywood next season. It sounds exactly like the former Kicked Back Classics series that the symphony did for years at places like Tredegar.
Everything old is new again, at least to the young.
I was a huge fan of that series, in part because of the succinct playing time but also because they served free pizza at the end of each show. I vote to bring back that part of the series, too.
The same Daniel Myssyk whose lecture I'd missed came out to conduct the first piece, telling us that Mozart had composed it in four days while traveling from Salzburg to Vienna. He'd stopped in Linz for a break and, according to Myssyk, "Said to himself, what do I do here and wrote a quick symphony."
Next they did a movement from Symphony #41, known as the Jupiter symphony, but Myssyk said, "That's a 19th century name and Mozart wouldn't recognize it." Then we should never utter it again if you ask me.
This was working out better than I'd hope for. Myssyk was spilling all kinds of fun facts to make up for my missing his talk. If only the idiots in the back would stop blathering so I could hear his every word.
We got a real treat when the bassoon player arrived with her impressive instrument and took a chair right next to the conductor for the "Bassoon Concerto," a rare opportunity to hear so much solo bassoon, not to mention that I had a terrific vantage point for watching her play.
After each selection, the audience clapped mightily and the dapper man behind me yelled, "Bravo! Bravo! Yo, yo, yo!" You know, just like Mozart's 18th century audiences would have done.
Richmond Symphony assistant conductor Erin Freeman came out and with no introduction started up the next piece, which also included a chorus singing on the platform behind the orchestra.
Barely into it, she stopped them and turned to us, saying, "So, that," which resulted in the entire audience cracking up. "I always wanted to do that. That was Mozart's last eight bars or as one of the musicians said earlier, that's where he stopped composing and started decomposing."
Long hair humor. And speaking of long hairs, there was a young flute player in a knit cap, his long blond hair sticking out from under it and with a bushy, hipster-approved beard who gave me hope for the future of symphonic music.
Marketing tip: hire him and make him the new face of the symphony.
"Although I do hope you enjoy everything today, this is the most important piece," Erin said introducing "Requiem," the reason die-hard fans were there. When the chorus sang the final "amen," the room rose in an ovation, cheering.
But we couldn't end on something so somber, so next she introduced "the most perfect piece Mozart ever wrote, "Ave Verum Corpus," because it best embodied his spirit." It was truly beautiful.
Almost exactly an hour after the music had begun, it ended, breaking the spell of a roomful of people gathered together because they were willing to go out on a day when weathermen told us to stay in simply to hear Mozart played live.
As I began the slow procession past the bar to get out of the room, a handsome guy next to me made a comment about the people in the back who'd chatted throughout the performance. "I know it's a bar, but why come here and talk the whole time?"
Since this is one of my favorite soapboxes, we commiserated about the cretins as we made our way to the front. He looked like he wanted to punch them while all I wanted to do was escape them.
Where we also found common ground was in how lucky we'd been to have these musicians play for us on this miserable afternoon.
I made one final stop at Joe's Inn, meeting fellow music-lovers and comparing our upcoming road trip shows: Hooray for the Riffraff, Babymetal and T Swift, as assorted a range of acts as three people could come up with and still want to associate.
Where we could all agree was on chocolate mousse pie after dinner while "Papa, Don't Preach" played to a packed restaurant, all the more enjoyable for what came before it.
Bravo, yo, yo, yo.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
All About That Drum and Horns
I am nothing if not a devoted fan.
Back in 2007, I saw a fairly new 11-piece group called No BS Brass Band and fell in love with their ten horns and a drummer audio onslaught. A webcast producer at the time, I wasted no time in inviting them into the studio to play for a show.
My rationale was purely selfish; I wanted to see them in what amounted to a private show for me and my staff. From there, it snowballed and I rarely missed an opportunity to catch them playing where ever that might be, including a street corner downtown during lunch hour.
When their first album came out, they thanked me in the liner notes, not that I realized it. It was years later when someone pointed it out to me. The irony was that they were thanking me when I was the one grateful not only for their music but their enthusiasm for the Richmond scene.
But if someone as musically illiterate as me could spot their massive talent and overall good vibes, it was inevitable that the rest of the world would follow. Performances at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center and NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series proved it.
So there was no way I was missing their performance with the Richmond Symphony at Center Stage tonight.
A $10 ticket in the next to last row of the nosebleed section was all I could afford, but history had proven to me that the sound of No BS reaches the rafters and beyond. If I needed further proof, it was in the attendants at the theater offering patrons complimentary ear plugs, the first time I've experienced that at the symphony.
"Do I need them?" one geezer-looking man asked. "Well, it's going to be a little loud," the attendant explained tentatively. He took a pair for himself and another for his wife. I kept on walking.
Once in my seat, I saw two little old ladies with stiff helmet hairdos who looked to be straight off the Cedarfield bus trying to rip open their cellophane wrappers. I'm willing to bet it was their first ear plug experience, but they were there. You go, girls.
Around me, seats were being taken by what I can only assume to be No BS fans because they certainly didn't look like the usual symphony crowd. If the goal tonight was expanding the audience base, mission accomplished.
The lights darkened, conductor Steven Smith came out, lifted his baton and music began. When drummer Lance walked onstage, cheering began followed by the sounds of ten brass musicians playing just offstage and then walking on playing "Jalapenos on the Side."
Not going to lie, there was a thrilling frisson in the air, an excitement that rippled through the fan base in the crowd.
"I feel like I'm overdressed," the conductor joked about the more casual attire of No BS before returning to the podium and leaving center stage to them.
"All right, y'all, how you feeling?" trombonist/vocalist Bryan hollered to the hopped up crowd before singing "Runaround," a song that caused some of the oldsters to look worried. Oh, no, Mabel, what kind of music is this anyway? You could just see the concern on their faces.
"Infamous," written by trumpet player Marcus got an MGM-sounding start from the symphony before No BS took over and it tore it up the way Marcus had intended it to sound. You haven't lived till you've seen Stefan wailing on that tuba.
Maybe because they knew they were playing to a lot of fans, but we were treated to a song they've never put on an album, "Get Slow," which writer Bryan described as, "A song about when you think you know what life is supposed to be or who it's supposed to be with and then life says whoa! Slow down!"
I think we've all had our get slow moments and anyone who says they haven't is lying.
Many of the novice members of the audience were flummoxed by trombonist Reggie's six-movement suite, "The Ballad of Eagle Claw," randomly clapping throughout. He explained that the piece had been inspired by a martial arts movie he described as insane and recommended it highly for those who like such things.
Beginning with just Lance and Reggie onstage in front of the symphony, the rest of the band eventually came out to join them, leading us on a cinematic-sounding journey that mimicked a villain, a centipede and much fighting. You know, insane stuff.
No surprise, the band that excels as ambassadors of and cheerleaders for Richmond closed out their set with the anthemic "RVA All Day!" with Reggie instructing the boisterous crowd, "Y'all know this. Feel free to sing along!" Even better, they did a call and response on the chorus. They sang, "RV," we sang "A!" They sang, "All," we sang "day!"
It was one big No BS love fest, unfortunately with no room for dancing, but a memorable moment nonetheless.
I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was still a bit disappointed when the lights came up for intermission and many of the younger attendees bolted for the door. Sure, they'd come for No BS, but apparently they're unaware of Karen's three-song rule for shows.
Many is the time I've gone to see an opening band with no interest in seeing the headliner. Even so, I make myself stay for three songs so I can at least have an opinion about them instead of a presumption. When I went to see Muse, I had zero interest in My Chemical Romance, but I gave them three songs before bolting for the door. Fair is fair.
Talk buzzed around me about No BS's performance during intermission. Several people mentioned that it had been almost impossible to hear the strings over the horns of No BS.
"You don't realize how much like a symphony they sound by themselves till you hear them play with a symphony," one guy said. Exactly why I'd felt sure my cheap seat would serve me just fine.
The second half of the program began with the conductor saying, "Happy Mardi Gras, guys! Now, straight from New Orleans, here's Dukes of Dixieland."
Granted, it's a little over two weeks until Mardi Gras, but there was no way a band whose home base is the Steamboat Natchez wasn't going to flaunt its NOLA jazz roots and they did with not one but two Mardi Gras medleys.
A finely tuned entertainment machine, albeit one with solid musical chops, they were swinging that music every which way.
The trumpet player sang and provided the polished patter. The pianist (who had his back to us so we could watch him play) stood on his bench to play with his hands and one foot on the high keys. The bass player opened his mouth to sing and turned out to be a ringer for Louis Armstrong's gravely rasp.
The classic "It's a Wonderful World," done as an instrumental, got cheers from the first few notes for its instant familiarity. While all three horns soloed on the extended arrangement, the clarinetist's was the sweetest and most moving.
When it came time for the drummer's solo, he moved from behind his kit, drumming on everything he encountered: microphone stands, the floor, even the upright bass the bass player was playing.
Impressive as that was, they took it to a new level when the drummer grabbed the bass to play it and the bassist took the mic to begin singing "All About That (Upright) Bass."
It was probably the most perfect moment of their entire set because it was so unexpected. Then the drummer returned to his soloing.
For the big finale, No BS returned to the stage to join the Dukes of Dixieland for "When the Saints Go Marching In," trading off solos and each band playing separately and together while the symphony swelled behind them.
Unlike his fellow musicians, though, bandleader Reggie was playing triangle (of which he is a master) instead of trombone, eventually trading it for tambourine as the three musical entities wound up for a slam bang finish
In the screaming standing ovation that followed, it didn't matter that some misguided fans had already left. The faithful remained, the first-timers were rewarded and we all got a showstopper of a finale that left little doubt that No BS is the real deal.
They help make RVA all day a wonderful world. Any idiot could have seen that from the start. Oh, wait, I did.
Back in 2007, I saw a fairly new 11-piece group called No BS Brass Band and fell in love with their ten horns and a drummer audio onslaught. A webcast producer at the time, I wasted no time in inviting them into the studio to play for a show.
My rationale was purely selfish; I wanted to see them in what amounted to a private show for me and my staff. From there, it snowballed and I rarely missed an opportunity to catch them playing where ever that might be, including a street corner downtown during lunch hour.
When their first album came out, they thanked me in the liner notes, not that I realized it. It was years later when someone pointed it out to me. The irony was that they were thanking me when I was the one grateful not only for their music but their enthusiasm for the Richmond scene.
But if someone as musically illiterate as me could spot their massive talent and overall good vibes, it was inevitable that the rest of the world would follow. Performances at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center and NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series proved it.
So there was no way I was missing their performance with the Richmond Symphony at Center Stage tonight.
A $10 ticket in the next to last row of the nosebleed section was all I could afford, but history had proven to me that the sound of No BS reaches the rafters and beyond. If I needed further proof, it was in the attendants at the theater offering patrons complimentary ear plugs, the first time I've experienced that at the symphony.
"Do I need them?" one geezer-looking man asked. "Well, it's going to be a little loud," the attendant explained tentatively. He took a pair for himself and another for his wife. I kept on walking.
Once in my seat, I saw two little old ladies with stiff helmet hairdos who looked to be straight off the Cedarfield bus trying to rip open their cellophane wrappers. I'm willing to bet it was their first ear plug experience, but they were there. You go, girls.
Around me, seats were being taken by what I can only assume to be No BS fans because they certainly didn't look like the usual symphony crowd. If the goal tonight was expanding the audience base, mission accomplished.
The lights darkened, conductor Steven Smith came out, lifted his baton and music began. When drummer Lance walked onstage, cheering began followed by the sounds of ten brass musicians playing just offstage and then walking on playing "Jalapenos on the Side."
Not going to lie, there was a thrilling frisson in the air, an excitement that rippled through the fan base in the crowd.
"I feel like I'm overdressed," the conductor joked about the more casual attire of No BS before returning to the podium and leaving center stage to them.
"All right, y'all, how you feeling?" trombonist/vocalist Bryan hollered to the hopped up crowd before singing "Runaround," a song that caused some of the oldsters to look worried. Oh, no, Mabel, what kind of music is this anyway? You could just see the concern on their faces.
"Infamous," written by trumpet player Marcus got an MGM-sounding start from the symphony before No BS took over and it tore it up the way Marcus had intended it to sound. You haven't lived till you've seen Stefan wailing on that tuba.
Maybe because they knew they were playing to a lot of fans, but we were treated to a song they've never put on an album, "Get Slow," which writer Bryan described as, "A song about when you think you know what life is supposed to be or who it's supposed to be with and then life says whoa! Slow down!"
I think we've all had our get slow moments and anyone who says they haven't is lying.
Many of the novice members of the audience were flummoxed by trombonist Reggie's six-movement suite, "The Ballad of Eagle Claw," randomly clapping throughout. He explained that the piece had been inspired by a martial arts movie he described as insane and recommended it highly for those who like such things.
Beginning with just Lance and Reggie onstage in front of the symphony, the rest of the band eventually came out to join them, leading us on a cinematic-sounding journey that mimicked a villain, a centipede and much fighting. You know, insane stuff.
No surprise, the band that excels as ambassadors of and cheerleaders for Richmond closed out their set with the anthemic "RVA All Day!" with Reggie instructing the boisterous crowd, "Y'all know this. Feel free to sing along!" Even better, they did a call and response on the chorus. They sang, "RV," we sang "A!" They sang, "All," we sang "day!"
It was one big No BS love fest, unfortunately with no room for dancing, but a memorable moment nonetheless.
I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was still a bit disappointed when the lights came up for intermission and many of the younger attendees bolted for the door. Sure, they'd come for No BS, but apparently they're unaware of Karen's three-song rule for shows.
Many is the time I've gone to see an opening band with no interest in seeing the headliner. Even so, I make myself stay for three songs so I can at least have an opinion about them instead of a presumption. When I went to see Muse, I had zero interest in My Chemical Romance, but I gave them three songs before bolting for the door. Fair is fair.
Talk buzzed around me about No BS's performance during intermission. Several people mentioned that it had been almost impossible to hear the strings over the horns of No BS.
"You don't realize how much like a symphony they sound by themselves till you hear them play with a symphony," one guy said. Exactly why I'd felt sure my cheap seat would serve me just fine.
The second half of the program began with the conductor saying, "Happy Mardi Gras, guys! Now, straight from New Orleans, here's Dukes of Dixieland."
Granted, it's a little over two weeks until Mardi Gras, but there was no way a band whose home base is the Steamboat Natchez wasn't going to flaunt its NOLA jazz roots and they did with not one but two Mardi Gras medleys.
A finely tuned entertainment machine, albeit one with solid musical chops, they were swinging that music every which way.
The trumpet player sang and provided the polished patter. The pianist (who had his back to us so we could watch him play) stood on his bench to play with his hands and one foot on the high keys. The bass player opened his mouth to sing and turned out to be a ringer for Louis Armstrong's gravely rasp.
The classic "It's a Wonderful World," done as an instrumental, got cheers from the first few notes for its instant familiarity. While all three horns soloed on the extended arrangement, the clarinetist's was the sweetest and most moving.
When it came time for the drummer's solo, he moved from behind his kit, drumming on everything he encountered: microphone stands, the floor, even the upright bass the bass player was playing.
Impressive as that was, they took it to a new level when the drummer grabbed the bass to play it and the bassist took the mic to begin singing "All About That (Upright) Bass."
It was probably the most perfect moment of their entire set because it was so unexpected. Then the drummer returned to his soloing.
For the big finale, No BS returned to the stage to join the Dukes of Dixieland for "When the Saints Go Marching In," trading off solos and each band playing separately and together while the symphony swelled behind them.
Unlike his fellow musicians, though, bandleader Reggie was playing triangle (of which he is a master) instead of trombone, eventually trading it for tambourine as the three musical entities wound up for a slam bang finish
In the screaming standing ovation that followed, it didn't matter that some misguided fans had already left. The faithful remained, the first-timers were rewarded and we all got a showstopper of a finale that left little doubt that No BS is the real deal.
They help make RVA all day a wonderful world. Any idiot could have seen that from the start. Oh, wait, I did.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
A House is Not a Home
If you know me, you know I'm not the suburban type.
I get to say that because I tried it a long time ago in a county not all that far away and I was miserable with all of it: the distance to the city, the lack of sidewalks, the dead end streets, excuse me, cul de sacs, every bit of it.
So while I wasn't nearly as curious to see the Richmond Symphony Designer House all the way out in Hallsley as I'd been when it was in the city, the reliably generous Holmes offered me tickets so I grabbed a friend and went to the county.
Clearly, I went in biased because I'm not a fan of a) big, showy houses or b) suburban architecture or even c) overly designed rooms that don't seem livable.
Example: designers who put color-coordinated covers on books in the library or study so the books match the decor (actually happened at another designer house). Spare me.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that much of the designer house was not to my taste. Not the pseudo-Hamptons architecture, not the retro '80s wallpaper styles, not the nouveau riche accouterments.
Even so, I can always find something to appreciate and today it was the porches and the graffiti.
The screened porch was unlike any I'd ever seen, with its arched screened walls and enormous center screen wall with no support pieces breaking up the view of the woods.
Oh-so politically correct, it had a faux wood floor, touted as easy to clean, but I tend to think that's a non-issue because rich people don't actually use screened porches, do they?
I also gave it points for its multiple uses given there was a sofa, two chairs, a chaise lounge and a table for eating, all with views.
The upstairs sleeping porch, just as huge, had only a single bed where I would have put a queen bed and used it every night of the summer. But that's just me.
A couple of women came in behind me, noted the whirring ceiling fan and immediately started asking where the vents for heat and air conditioning were. None were to be found.
Reminding them that it was a sleeping porch, I said that the idea was to have the many windows open to the night air. But wait, rich people don't want fresh air ever. What was I thinking?
The porch had a lot of charming elements including an unusual shape that gave it six walls of windows and a table with an old Candyland game set up on it.
One room I got a kick out of was a guest room designed by the U-Fab guys over on Robinson Street. What I loved about their very colorful room was that the inspiration had been all the street art on the old GRTC bus sheds which sit directly across from U-Fab.
Photographs on the walls were close-ups of the street art - including a scarred door on which was painted "just another day in paradise" - and the palette was just as colorful, all bright primary colors. The rug had been made out of bright t-shirts woven together making it very soft underfoot.
Maybe I liked it because it had such an un-suburban feel.
An unexpected bonus to my suburban field was walking into bedroom #4 to find a designer friend who had created the modern, masculine room. He proudly explained that the colorful, large, abstract photographs were close-ups of geodes he'd found as a kid. One sat on the dresser.
I gave him much credit for such a nerdy take on his design. Well done, my friend.
We hadn't seen each other in months, but part of that is how busy he's been since he took on the designer house project, a seven day a week proposition apparently. On the plus side, he said he'd given out hundreds of business cards, and hopefully that will translate into new customers, surely the goal of doing one of these extravaganzas.
I heard on the way out that the house has been sold to a young family who will take possession of it once all the designers' hard work is removed. One woman said she'd heard a rumor that the new owners had bought everything in the master bedroom because they liked it so much.
Meh. Not my style.
But then, neither is county living. I'm the type who prefers to actually sleep on porches. And I like to see my street art first hand.
That said, I'm glad I went. It's important to be reminded how good you have it. Simple, but so good.
I get to say that because I tried it a long time ago in a county not all that far away and I was miserable with all of it: the distance to the city, the lack of sidewalks, the dead end streets, excuse me, cul de sacs, every bit of it.
So while I wasn't nearly as curious to see the Richmond Symphony Designer House all the way out in Hallsley as I'd been when it was in the city, the reliably generous Holmes offered me tickets so I grabbed a friend and went to the county.
Clearly, I went in biased because I'm not a fan of a) big, showy houses or b) suburban architecture or even c) overly designed rooms that don't seem livable.
Example: designers who put color-coordinated covers on books in the library or study so the books match the decor (actually happened at another designer house). Spare me.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that much of the designer house was not to my taste. Not the pseudo-Hamptons architecture, not the retro '80s wallpaper styles, not the nouveau riche accouterments.
Even so, I can always find something to appreciate and today it was the porches and the graffiti.
The screened porch was unlike any I'd ever seen, with its arched screened walls and enormous center screen wall with no support pieces breaking up the view of the woods.
Oh-so politically correct, it had a faux wood floor, touted as easy to clean, but I tend to think that's a non-issue because rich people don't actually use screened porches, do they?
I also gave it points for its multiple uses given there was a sofa, two chairs, a chaise lounge and a table for eating, all with views.
The upstairs sleeping porch, just as huge, had only a single bed where I would have put a queen bed and used it every night of the summer. But that's just me.
A couple of women came in behind me, noted the whirring ceiling fan and immediately started asking where the vents for heat and air conditioning were. None were to be found.
Reminding them that it was a sleeping porch, I said that the idea was to have the many windows open to the night air. But wait, rich people don't want fresh air ever. What was I thinking?
The porch had a lot of charming elements including an unusual shape that gave it six walls of windows and a table with an old Candyland game set up on it.
One room I got a kick out of was a guest room designed by the U-Fab guys over on Robinson Street. What I loved about their very colorful room was that the inspiration had been all the street art on the old GRTC bus sheds which sit directly across from U-Fab.
Photographs on the walls were close-ups of the street art - including a scarred door on which was painted "just another day in paradise" - and the palette was just as colorful, all bright primary colors. The rug had been made out of bright t-shirts woven together making it very soft underfoot.
Maybe I liked it because it had such an un-suburban feel.
An unexpected bonus to my suburban field was walking into bedroom #4 to find a designer friend who had created the modern, masculine room. He proudly explained that the colorful, large, abstract photographs were close-ups of geodes he'd found as a kid. One sat on the dresser.
I gave him much credit for such a nerdy take on his design. Well done, my friend.
We hadn't seen each other in months, but part of that is how busy he's been since he took on the designer house project, a seven day a week proposition apparently. On the plus side, he said he'd given out hundreds of business cards, and hopefully that will translate into new customers, surely the goal of doing one of these extravaganzas.
I heard on the way out that the house has been sold to a young family who will take possession of it once all the designers' hard work is removed. One woman said she'd heard a rumor that the new owners had bought everything in the master bedroom because they liked it so much.
Meh. Not my style.
But then, neither is county living. I'm the type who prefers to actually sleep on porches. And I like to see my street art first hand.
That said, I'm glad I went. It's important to be reminded how good you have it. Simple, but so good.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
The Speed of a Lush Life
This I learned on my walk today: everywhere has a center.
In Virginia, the center is under the Harry Byrd memorial, a monument I noticed for the first time today strolling through Capital Square toward the Arts Commission.
It's apparently ground zero and the point from which all distances in the commonwealth are measured. Now who the hell knew that?
After adding to my mile marker knowledge and making a deadline this afternoon, it was time for some NASCAR.
VCU's Southern Film Fest kind of lost me this year with a sports theme, but the double allure of Richard Pryor and Pam Grier was enough to get me to the Grace Street theater to see 1977's "Greased Lightening."
I asked the woman next to me why she was there and she said her husband was chairman of the history department, the ones presenting the film fest, so she thought my reason for coming far superior.
The true story of Wendell Scott, a Virginian and the first black stock car racing champion, was being introduced by Scott's son and grandson who told us the film had premiered in Danville, Wendell's hometown.
He also advised us to take note of the way racial issues were portrayed, unnecessary because it would have been hard to miss ("Don't let him knock you up, young lady. You know how you people are").
Although this was not a comedy role for Pryor, he's so innately funny that a hapless look on his face and a side step became hilarious.
Wendell developed his speedy driving habits while running moonshine on the back roads of Franklin county, which he knew like the back of his hand. When he finally gets caught and jailed, a racetrack owner works a deal to get him out if he'll come race at his track.
He knows Wendell will draw blacks to the track (in the "colored only" section, of course), meaning more business for him, and that the white drivers will try to annihilate him, making for an exciting race. A sign outside the track that day read, "See the one and only negro race car driver."
Beau Bridges' character, a former driver who quits and befriends Wendell to become one of his mechanics, about stole the movie in a scene where he defends the two steak dinners he and Wendell are trying to eat in a whites-only restaurant by holding the rowdy customers at bay with a nearby Confederate flag.
Wendell's life made a great story, overcoming odds to become a champion, a near-fatal crash, a comeback and victory and all set in southern racetracks with the stands filled with people in mostly '70s clothes, a glaring mistake since no one, and I repeat, no one was wearing mini-dresses in 1947.
But at least I now know what the checkered flag means.
I left the '70s and images of Pam Grier's bodacious body for Joe's Inn and a travelogue about Nicaragua over drinks, BLTs and mozzarella sticks.
The returning traveler had scads of photographs of rain forests, low-hanging clouds, living rooves, strangler trees and adorable big-eyed children in colorful clothes.
Joe's was an early evening mob scene with strollers, tables of guys talking about "the" game and a line waiting for a table.
I wasn't sorry to get out of there.
By the time I got to CenterStage, the symphony was already warming up.
Tonight's program, "An Evening of Jazz with Rex Richardson" had its seeds in a show I'd gone to at the Singleton Center back in 2006.
Richardson had been playing in a group called Rhythm and Brass and that night's program had ranged from the Beatles to Radiohead with bits of everything in between.
That was the night I'd fallen for Rex's trumpet playing. I might have even gone up to him afterwards and gushed a bit.
Fast forward and now he's fronting an evening with the Richmond Symphony and you can be certain I'd gotten my $10, next-to-the-last-row ticket two weeks ago.
Waiting for the music to begin, I listened to the discussion behind me of the altitude of the seats, the fact that people were sneaking drinks in ("This is my first time, so I followed the rules. I did throw back a martini across the street first, but next time I'll know better," one woman said), and what was on the program, with one woman singing a snippet of "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing). Badly.
I saw a higher than usual percentage of faces from VCU in addition to the usual mothball-scented crowd like the gent next to me who exuded eau de camphor every time he applauded.
With guest drummer Nate Smith and symphony pianist Russel Wilson front and center, they launched into the first piece called "Ellington Portrait," swinging the room through everything from "Sophisticated Lady" to "Prelude to a Kiss."
Then Rex came out to take us through "Rextreme," a piece composed especially for him by James Stephenson to highlight Rex's ability to jump around between wildly separate notes and blow incredibly long note sequences.
Watching and listening to him, it was hard to conceive of how he could hold enough air to make possible the sounds he was producing.
When the three-movement piece ended, the guy behind me wailed, "Yea!" not what you tend to hear at the symphony.
As intermission began, the center front of the stage began to slowly drop below main stage level, taking away the drums and piano for the start of the second half.
That began with Gershwin's overture to "Of Thee I Sing," which the conductor told us was the only musical to win the Pulitzer prize. What the what?
The things I was learning today!
Then the stage rose back up and Rex (his suit history and now wearing an untucked blue shirt), his three horns and friends - musicians playing drums, sax, upright bass and piano- played through more Gershwin and Ellington, including a very different version of "Caravan" than the one the symphony had done in the first half.
For me, one of the best parts of "Caravan" was watching pianist Russell Wilson's masterfully improvised solos because a few years back, I took a jazz appreciation class from Russell and that man has forgotten more about jazz than most of us will ever know, so hearing him play is always a treat.
VCU's Doug Richards, whom Rex called "one of the best arrangers in the world...and he lives right here," had done a beautifully inventive take on Billy Strayhorn's classic "Lush Life," which came next.
Before the last piece, Rex warned us not to be afraid even though it had been arranged by James Stephenson, he who'd done "Rextreme."
From the start of "A Tribute to Louis Armstrong," the crowd's pleasure in the joyous melodies everyone knows was palpable.
"Hello Dolly" about caused apoplexy and "What a Wonderful Life" got everyone sentimental.
But they couldn't leave us like that, so they finished with "When the Saints Come Marching In," a surefire way to get everyone in the cheap seats clapping along.
And while those of us up there hadn't paid $76 to hear a night of jazz, I'm willing to bet we enjoyed it just as much as those who did.
Mile markers and mozzarella, racers and Rex, what a wonderful life indeed.
Besides, you know how we people are.
In Virginia, the center is under the Harry Byrd memorial, a monument I noticed for the first time today strolling through Capital Square toward the Arts Commission.
It's apparently ground zero and the point from which all distances in the commonwealth are measured. Now who the hell knew that?
After adding to my mile marker knowledge and making a deadline this afternoon, it was time for some NASCAR.
VCU's Southern Film Fest kind of lost me this year with a sports theme, but the double allure of Richard Pryor and Pam Grier was enough to get me to the Grace Street theater to see 1977's "Greased Lightening."
I asked the woman next to me why she was there and she said her husband was chairman of the history department, the ones presenting the film fest, so she thought my reason for coming far superior.
The true story of Wendell Scott, a Virginian and the first black stock car racing champion, was being introduced by Scott's son and grandson who told us the film had premiered in Danville, Wendell's hometown.
He also advised us to take note of the way racial issues were portrayed, unnecessary because it would have been hard to miss ("Don't let him knock you up, young lady. You know how you people are").
Although this was not a comedy role for Pryor, he's so innately funny that a hapless look on his face and a side step became hilarious.
Wendell developed his speedy driving habits while running moonshine on the back roads of Franklin county, which he knew like the back of his hand. When he finally gets caught and jailed, a racetrack owner works a deal to get him out if he'll come race at his track.
He knows Wendell will draw blacks to the track (in the "colored only" section, of course), meaning more business for him, and that the white drivers will try to annihilate him, making for an exciting race. A sign outside the track that day read, "See the one and only negro race car driver."
Beau Bridges' character, a former driver who quits and befriends Wendell to become one of his mechanics, about stole the movie in a scene where he defends the two steak dinners he and Wendell are trying to eat in a whites-only restaurant by holding the rowdy customers at bay with a nearby Confederate flag.
Wendell's life made a great story, overcoming odds to become a champion, a near-fatal crash, a comeback and victory and all set in southern racetracks with the stands filled with people in mostly '70s clothes, a glaring mistake since no one, and I repeat, no one was wearing mini-dresses in 1947.
But at least I now know what the checkered flag means.
I left the '70s and images of Pam Grier's bodacious body for Joe's Inn and a travelogue about Nicaragua over drinks, BLTs and mozzarella sticks.
The returning traveler had scads of photographs of rain forests, low-hanging clouds, living rooves, strangler trees and adorable big-eyed children in colorful clothes.
Joe's was an early evening mob scene with strollers, tables of guys talking about "the" game and a line waiting for a table.
I wasn't sorry to get out of there.
By the time I got to CenterStage, the symphony was already warming up.
Tonight's program, "An Evening of Jazz with Rex Richardson" had its seeds in a show I'd gone to at the Singleton Center back in 2006.
Richardson had been playing in a group called Rhythm and Brass and that night's program had ranged from the Beatles to Radiohead with bits of everything in between.
That was the night I'd fallen for Rex's trumpet playing. I might have even gone up to him afterwards and gushed a bit.
Fast forward and now he's fronting an evening with the Richmond Symphony and you can be certain I'd gotten my $10, next-to-the-last-row ticket two weeks ago.
Waiting for the music to begin, I listened to the discussion behind me of the altitude of the seats, the fact that people were sneaking drinks in ("This is my first time, so I followed the rules. I did throw back a martini across the street first, but next time I'll know better," one woman said), and what was on the program, with one woman singing a snippet of "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing). Badly.
I saw a higher than usual percentage of faces from VCU in addition to the usual mothball-scented crowd like the gent next to me who exuded eau de camphor every time he applauded.
With guest drummer Nate Smith and symphony pianist Russel Wilson front and center, they launched into the first piece called "Ellington Portrait," swinging the room through everything from "Sophisticated Lady" to "Prelude to a Kiss."
Then Rex came out to take us through "Rextreme," a piece composed especially for him by James Stephenson to highlight Rex's ability to jump around between wildly separate notes and blow incredibly long note sequences.
Watching and listening to him, it was hard to conceive of how he could hold enough air to make possible the sounds he was producing.
When the three-movement piece ended, the guy behind me wailed, "Yea!" not what you tend to hear at the symphony.
As intermission began, the center front of the stage began to slowly drop below main stage level, taking away the drums and piano for the start of the second half.
That began with Gershwin's overture to "Of Thee I Sing," which the conductor told us was the only musical to win the Pulitzer prize. What the what?
The things I was learning today!
Then the stage rose back up and Rex (his suit history and now wearing an untucked blue shirt), his three horns and friends - musicians playing drums, sax, upright bass and piano- played through more Gershwin and Ellington, including a very different version of "Caravan" than the one the symphony had done in the first half.
For me, one of the best parts of "Caravan" was watching pianist Russell Wilson's masterfully improvised solos because a few years back, I took a jazz appreciation class from Russell and that man has forgotten more about jazz than most of us will ever know, so hearing him play is always a treat.
VCU's Doug Richards, whom Rex called "one of the best arrangers in the world...and he lives right here," had done a beautifully inventive take on Billy Strayhorn's classic "Lush Life," which came next.
Before the last piece, Rex warned us not to be afraid even though it had been arranged by James Stephenson, he who'd done "Rextreme."
From the start of "A Tribute to Louis Armstrong," the crowd's pleasure in the joyous melodies everyone knows was palpable.
"Hello Dolly" about caused apoplexy and "What a Wonderful Life" got everyone sentimental.
But they couldn't leave us like that, so they finished with "When the Saints Come Marching In," a surefire way to get everyone in the cheap seats clapping along.
And while those of us up there hadn't paid $76 to hear a night of jazz, I'm willing to bet we enjoyed it just as much as those who did.
Mile markers and mozzarella, racers and Rex, what a wonderful life indeed.
Besides, you know how we people are.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
An Auvergne Kind of Evening
So now I know I can sub out for a 92-year old woman.
Holmes and Beloved had an extra ticket for the symphony because his Mom had plans and couldn't use it.
Enter moi, who, when asked if she wanted to be taken to the symphony, responded with a resounding yes.
The invitation came with pick-up service and I even got to choose the pre-theater dinner location: Aziza's.
Most of the tables were taken or reserved, but we preferred sitting at the bar anyway, reservations be damned.
Holmes chose a South African sauvignon blanc and we started with a cheese plate of buttery and grassy-tasting Point Reyes Toma and Fourme d'Ambert, a creamy bleu from Auvergne.
Here's where I get nerdy. Auvergne was a recurring theme tonight, although I didn't know it at this point.
The cheeses came with the loveliest toasted fruit and nut bread, a welcome change to the ubiquitous baguette slices.
Because my couple date had never had gnudi, we got the ricotta and spinach version in a decadent sage butter so they could experience pasta-less ravioli.
Overhead, the music was fine with songs by Al Green and Gladys Knight and the Pips audible when the dining room wasn't too lively.
To compensate for the absent pasta, we also had some of the real thing, garganelli with broccoli rabe and hot Italian sausage in a garlic white wine sauce, a dish that led to a discussion of the wonders of really good Italian sausage.
A guy who'd been eating by himself came over while we were eating it and said he'd heard us say we were going to the symphony.
He wanted to tell us he'd been recently and been overwhelmed by Verdi's breathtaking crescendos, describing his rapture to strangers. Then he remembered himself and wished us a good evening.
For our last savory course we got octopus (from Spain, according to the menu) with sauteed red Russian kale, chickpeas, mixed peppers and walnuts, an appetizer so generously-sized it could have been an entree for one.
And the R & B played on.
We were quickly running out of time to have dessert and get to CenterStage, but what's the point in going to Aziza's and not getting cream puffs?
Our fate was sealed with two puffs split three ways as we pondered cream puffs versus eclairs and ate every crumb of both.
Holmes even took a swipe of some leftover cream on Beloved's plate before it was whisked away.
Don't judge until you, too, have been faced with these fat beauties even after you've had enough food to last you the weekend and still can't resist.
And then it was back up the hill to hear a local celebrity sing her heart out.
Former Chesterfield County resident Kate Lindsey, now a rising mezzo-soprano who sings with the Metropolitan Opera and Los Angeles opera, was in the house.
Booya and all that.
The only sour note was that our seats were directly in front of three overly-perfumed women with Paula Deen-like southern accents (Deltaville managed to be four syllables: del-ta-vee-ul) and an incessant need to talk.
After hearing the prelude to "Carmen," Kate came out in a stunning copper-colored evening gown and began the process of reminding Richmonders how proud they were that she'd come from their midst.
"Well, Kate, welcome home!" conductor Steven Smith greeted her.
"Hey, y'all," she called out to the adoring crowd. When he asked her for memories, she recalled family trips into the city for shows and eating.
"We used to come downtown and eat at the Robin Inn. Is it still there?" she asked to much delight.
She went on to do a major shout-out to symphony librarian (also bass player for Goldrush and the symphony) Matt Gold, citing his hard work in tracking down all the music for tonight's program.
"You have to search and search for all this stuff," she said. "And there's 15 different versions of each one. Thank you, Matt, for making it happen."
Looking over at Matt behind his bass, his handsome face was grinning even wider than usual.
She also graciously thanked all her music and drama teachers dating back to elementary school and, of course, her parents, sitting somewhere down front.
Her first piece was selections from Canteloube's "Chants d'Auvergne," an unexpected thread from our cheese plate earlier.
Make fun of me all you want, but how often do you suppose I'm served a cheese and folk music selections from the same part of central France in one evening?
And, yes, I'm aware of what it says about me that I even noticed such a thing.
Kate was a bit stiff for the first couple of songs, arms hanging at her side like slabs of meat on a hook, but by the third song, she began slipping into character and her demonstrative hand gestures added a great deal to her interpretation of the songs.
She left for the Debussy that ended the first half and after intermission, Kate came out to stay, naturally in another knockout of a dress.
Doing arias from a variety of composers, she played Cinderella, Ophelia and a duchess who far preferred the array of men in the military to the one man who'd been chosen for her to marry. She played that role to the hilt, vamping and flirting with the imaginary men.
But she got her biggest reaction when she came out with a bottle of champagne and a glass for Offenbach's "Ah, quel diner" from "La Perichole," playing it for all kinds of laughs.
Ah, what a dinner I just ate!
And what an extraordinary wine!
I drank so much, so very much
I believe that now
I'm a little tipsy. But hush!
Should not we say, shh!
Of course, she was singing it in French, complete with hiccups, stagger and more pouring and drinking and the audience ate it up.
When the song ended, she meandered off stage with the champagne glass waving high over her head.
The performance closed with a Spanish-influenced Ravel piece that did not involved the lovely Kate.
It seemed an unlikely way to end a show with our favorite local opera singer.
So out she came and held up a finger to indicate she had a surprise.
Launching into "Shenandoah," the loudest mouth behind us announced, "Oh, god, now I'm going to cry!" but fortunately that was the last we heard of her.
Kate's rendition of the American folk song was sublime, the added meaning of a song about leaving Virginia making it all the more poignant.
I don't know Kate Lindsey from Adam, but hearing her sing that song so beautifully, so achingly, was truly a high point in music-going for me.
A transcendent moment courtesy of our very own Richmond symphony and a local girl.
Thanks, Mrs. Holmes' Mom. I owe you big time.
What a dinner! What an evening! And I'm not even tipsy.
Holmes and Beloved had an extra ticket for the symphony because his Mom had plans and couldn't use it.
Enter moi, who, when asked if she wanted to be taken to the symphony, responded with a resounding yes.
The invitation came with pick-up service and I even got to choose the pre-theater dinner location: Aziza's.
Most of the tables were taken or reserved, but we preferred sitting at the bar anyway, reservations be damned.
Holmes chose a South African sauvignon blanc and we started with a cheese plate of buttery and grassy-tasting Point Reyes Toma and Fourme d'Ambert, a creamy bleu from Auvergne.
Here's where I get nerdy. Auvergne was a recurring theme tonight, although I didn't know it at this point.
The cheeses came with the loveliest toasted fruit and nut bread, a welcome change to the ubiquitous baguette slices.
Because my couple date had never had gnudi, we got the ricotta and spinach version in a decadent sage butter so they could experience pasta-less ravioli.
Overhead, the music was fine with songs by Al Green and Gladys Knight and the Pips audible when the dining room wasn't too lively.
To compensate for the absent pasta, we also had some of the real thing, garganelli with broccoli rabe and hot Italian sausage in a garlic white wine sauce, a dish that led to a discussion of the wonders of really good Italian sausage.
A guy who'd been eating by himself came over while we were eating it and said he'd heard us say we were going to the symphony.
He wanted to tell us he'd been recently and been overwhelmed by Verdi's breathtaking crescendos, describing his rapture to strangers. Then he remembered himself and wished us a good evening.
For our last savory course we got octopus (from Spain, according to the menu) with sauteed red Russian kale, chickpeas, mixed peppers and walnuts, an appetizer so generously-sized it could have been an entree for one.
And the R & B played on.
We were quickly running out of time to have dessert and get to CenterStage, but what's the point in going to Aziza's and not getting cream puffs?
Our fate was sealed with two puffs split three ways as we pondered cream puffs versus eclairs and ate every crumb of both.
Holmes even took a swipe of some leftover cream on Beloved's plate before it was whisked away.
Don't judge until you, too, have been faced with these fat beauties even after you've had enough food to last you the weekend and still can't resist.
And then it was back up the hill to hear a local celebrity sing her heart out.
Former Chesterfield County resident Kate Lindsey, now a rising mezzo-soprano who sings with the Metropolitan Opera and Los Angeles opera, was in the house.
Booya and all that.
The only sour note was that our seats were directly in front of three overly-perfumed women with Paula Deen-like southern accents (Deltaville managed to be four syllables: del-ta-vee-ul) and an incessant need to talk.
After hearing the prelude to "Carmen," Kate came out in a stunning copper-colored evening gown and began the process of reminding Richmonders how proud they were that she'd come from their midst.
"Well, Kate, welcome home!" conductor Steven Smith greeted her.
"Hey, y'all," she called out to the adoring crowd. When he asked her for memories, she recalled family trips into the city for shows and eating.
"We used to come downtown and eat at the Robin Inn. Is it still there?" she asked to much delight.
She went on to do a major shout-out to symphony librarian (also bass player for Goldrush and the symphony) Matt Gold, citing his hard work in tracking down all the music for tonight's program.
"You have to search and search for all this stuff," she said. "And there's 15 different versions of each one. Thank you, Matt, for making it happen."
Looking over at Matt behind his bass, his handsome face was grinning even wider than usual.
She also graciously thanked all her music and drama teachers dating back to elementary school and, of course, her parents, sitting somewhere down front.
Her first piece was selections from Canteloube's "Chants d'Auvergne," an unexpected thread from our cheese plate earlier.
Make fun of me all you want, but how often do you suppose I'm served a cheese and folk music selections from the same part of central France in one evening?
And, yes, I'm aware of what it says about me that I even noticed such a thing.
Kate was a bit stiff for the first couple of songs, arms hanging at her side like slabs of meat on a hook, but by the third song, she began slipping into character and her demonstrative hand gestures added a great deal to her interpretation of the songs.
She left for the Debussy that ended the first half and after intermission, Kate came out to stay, naturally in another knockout of a dress.
Doing arias from a variety of composers, she played Cinderella, Ophelia and a duchess who far preferred the array of men in the military to the one man who'd been chosen for her to marry. She played that role to the hilt, vamping and flirting with the imaginary men.
But she got her biggest reaction when she came out with a bottle of champagne and a glass for Offenbach's "Ah, quel diner" from "La Perichole," playing it for all kinds of laughs.
Ah, what a dinner I just ate!
And what an extraordinary wine!
I drank so much, so very much
I believe that now
I'm a little tipsy. But hush!
Should not we say, shh!
Of course, she was singing it in French, complete with hiccups, stagger and more pouring and drinking and the audience ate it up.
When the song ended, she meandered off stage with the champagne glass waving high over her head.
The performance closed with a Spanish-influenced Ravel piece that did not involved the lovely Kate.
It seemed an unlikely way to end a show with our favorite local opera singer.
So out she came and held up a finger to indicate she had a surprise.
Launching into "Shenandoah," the loudest mouth behind us announced, "Oh, god, now I'm going to cry!" but fortunately that was the last we heard of her.
Kate's rendition of the American folk song was sublime, the added meaning of a song about leaving Virginia making it all the more poignant.
I don't know Kate Lindsey from Adam, but hearing her sing that song so beautifully, so achingly, was truly a high point in music-going for me.
A transcendent moment courtesy of our very own Richmond symphony and a local girl.
Thanks, Mrs. Holmes' Mom. I owe you big time.
What a dinner! What an evening! And I'm not even tipsy.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Fifths and Sacred Dances
The only thing missing was the rioting.
On this glorious spring afternoon, I was at CenterStage for the Richmond Symphony's program of "Musical Revolutionaries."
Our seats were in the nosebleed section, but given the $10 ticket price, neither me nor either of my companions was complaining about the height.
Hell, I've bought $10 seats that landed me in the very last row and this time there were two rows behind us, so it was plenty uptown for me.
Even from so far away, I spotted my favorite bass clarinet player, looking handsome and ready to play.
Likewise, the lanky bass player with whom I love to chat was holding up his large instrument (and no, that's not a metaphor although I feel sure he'd say it was).
The program began with Monteverdi's "Toccata and Ritornelli" from an opera, "Orfeo" he'd written in 1607.
Yea, that didn't mean anything to me, either.
Wait, wasn't that the year the colonists were landing in Jamestown?
The short piece was notable mainly for how the orchestra had to simulate the sounds of instruments no longer in use.
Fast forward 200 years for Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5," or as it was called in the '70s, "A fifth of Beethoven."
From the first distinctive four notes, da da da DA, I could only think of one thing.
Just how many cartoons have used this piece of music.
When the orchestra finished the four-movement piece, the audience rose to its feet for a standing ovation.
After intermission came the reason I was at CenterStage today: Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring."
This month is the centennial of the first performance of the composer's tradition-smashing work.
My only complaint was that the program, in describing it, referred to "the shear noise of new music."
Two of our group are serious language geeks, and that egregious error left us shaking our heads in disgust.
Perhaps I should volunteer my proofreading skills to the symphony.
But that aside, hearing "The Rite of Spring" performed live was a magical experience.
Just before it began, one of my companions began adjusting stuff on the floor, saying, "I need to clear the decks for toe-tapping."
Let's just say before long my toes, my legs and everything else was pulsating along with the pagan rhythms.
Conductor Steven Smith called the revolutionary piece of music a "sonic extravaganza," trying to prepare us for what we were about to hear.
And that was the music written for a ballet about a pagan rite, namely old men sitting around watching a young girl dance herself to death.
As you can imagine, that didn't go over terribly well in 1913.
Today, however, it was a tour de force beginning with a bassoon and moving through, according to Smith, revolutionary rhythmic patterns that sounded both tribal and primitive, evocations with which we're far more comfortable today than they were 100 years ago.
So instead of throwing catcalls and insults at the musicians, today's audience sat there raptly and when the piece ended, gave a prolonged standing ovation, topping even the one we'd given Beethoven's fifth.
Why riot when it's so much more satisfying to indulge your primal side?
On this glorious spring afternoon, I was at CenterStage for the Richmond Symphony's program of "Musical Revolutionaries."
Our seats were in the nosebleed section, but given the $10 ticket price, neither me nor either of my companions was complaining about the height.
Hell, I've bought $10 seats that landed me in the very last row and this time there were two rows behind us, so it was plenty uptown for me.
Even from so far away, I spotted my favorite bass clarinet player, looking handsome and ready to play.
Likewise, the lanky bass player with whom I love to chat was holding up his large instrument (and no, that's not a metaphor although I feel sure he'd say it was).
The program began with Monteverdi's "Toccata and Ritornelli" from an opera, "Orfeo" he'd written in 1607.
Yea, that didn't mean anything to me, either.
Wait, wasn't that the year the colonists were landing in Jamestown?
The short piece was notable mainly for how the orchestra had to simulate the sounds of instruments no longer in use.
Fast forward 200 years for Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5," or as it was called in the '70s, "A fifth of Beethoven."
From the first distinctive four notes, da da da DA, I could only think of one thing.
Just how many cartoons have used this piece of music.
When the orchestra finished the four-movement piece, the audience rose to its feet for a standing ovation.
After intermission came the reason I was at CenterStage today: Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring."
This month is the centennial of the first performance of the composer's tradition-smashing work.
My only complaint was that the program, in describing it, referred to "the shear noise of new music."
Two of our group are serious language geeks, and that egregious error left us shaking our heads in disgust.
Perhaps I should volunteer my proofreading skills to the symphony.
But that aside, hearing "The Rite of Spring" performed live was a magical experience.
Just before it began, one of my companions began adjusting stuff on the floor, saying, "I need to clear the decks for toe-tapping."
Let's just say before long my toes, my legs and everything else was pulsating along with the pagan rhythms.
Conductor Steven Smith called the revolutionary piece of music a "sonic extravaganza," trying to prepare us for what we were about to hear.
And that was the music written for a ballet about a pagan rite, namely old men sitting around watching a young girl dance herself to death.
As you can imagine, that didn't go over terribly well in 1913.
Today, however, it was a tour de force beginning with a bassoon and moving through, according to Smith, revolutionary rhythmic patterns that sounded both tribal and primitive, evocations with which we're far more comfortable today than they were 100 years ago.
So instead of throwing catcalls and insults at the musicians, today's audience sat there raptly and when the piece ended, gave a prolonged standing ovation, topping even the one we'd given Beethoven's fifth.
Why riot when it's so much more satisfying to indulge your primal side?
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Ready to Rhumba
Don't ask me who I saw there, because I don't remember.
"There" is a club in my hometown of Washington, the subject of the documentary, "The Bayou: D.C.'s Killer Joint," being shown as part of the Richmond International Film festival.
And while most of the festival's movies screened at the Byrd, this one showed at the Camel.
I arrived when the doors opened to ensure a good seat, not tough among a very small crowd.
That changed suddenly five minutes before the movie began when suddenly the room filled up in one fell swoop.
I heard friends calling to friends, attempting to sit together.
"No, no, we're back in steerage where we're comfortable," one smart-assed guy yelled to his friend after being invited closer to the front.
Beginning with the thank you credits, it was my first film with a thank you to Kickstarter.
How very 21st century.
The movie traced the history of the club that began as the Pirate's Den with all the male servers dressed as pirates.
That was followed by a jazz club called The Hideaway, but that closed once there was a gangster-style shooting in the place.
Eventually it became the Bayou, that venerable institution that was still around when I came of age.
What I missed, according to the film, was the years when they had a groovy scene, complete with go-go dancers.
"I don't think the girls got paid," one former manager recalled. "They just wanted to do it."
Looking at the old photographs of them in their sassy dresses and boots, I'm guessing plenty of people wanted to watch, too.
Talking about a former Bayou manager as a real tough guy, an associate said, "I think he managed the horses for the Riders of the Apocalypse."
Now that was funny.
Since the club was only shuttered in '98, there were plenty of people the filmmakers could interview to reminisce about the trials and tribulations of the joint.
As one manger recalled, yes they hosted Foreigner's very first U.S. show as well as U2's first show here, too (opening for the Slickee Boys) but they also hosted bands like Julius and the Polar Bears.
At this point, I'm guessing even Julius has forgotten about that band.
Several people recalled the vibe of the club was nothing more than boys seeking girls.
"Sex and power chords just go together naturally," one said, sounding practically poetic to me.
One guy told a fabulous story about booking Dire Staits before they got big and by the time the played, the crowd was enormous.
He said it got to be almost 2 a.m. and the band was still going strong, but the club staff was justifiably worried about their liquor license.
Telling the mob that the only way Dire Straits could go on playing was if they removed all the liquor, people began gathering up glasses and handing them to the servers.
On with the show was their point.
One manager remembered an early Ramones show, saying, "I stole the set list off the stage, I was so moved."
Moved by the Ramones, that's one way to put it.
The filmmakers showed how the Bayou got left behind when alternative music came along ("Those bands didn't want to play after Foghat"), essentially abdicating that growing audience to the 9:30 Club.
Gotta keep up with the times.
The film ended with the club's destruction (to build "yuppie farms") and nothing but a bunch of middle-aged people with memories.
And speaking of, that about summed up many people in the room, including the filmmakers, who took the stage afterwards to share.
The project, originally begun in 1998, languished and was conveniently restarted in 2008.
"That made it much easier because of YouTube, Facebook and Google," one of the writers said. "Mostly Facebook. A whole new world opened up to us."
How many relationships these days could say the same?
Ah, Faceboook, our debt to you is impossible to repay.
Singer Robbin Thompson was in the audience, significant because he'd been interviewed for the movie.
Although all but one of his stories ended up on the cutting room floor, tonight he shared one about Springsteen, whose band he played in briefly.
During that stint, the Boss had given Thompson a throwaway song.
That night at the Bayou, Thompson had sung the song and Bruce had complimented it, saying, "I like that song."
"You wrote it," Thompson reminded him.
Ooh, stick.
The filmmakers told us that their target demographic was 35+ (uh, yea, just look around the room) and one woman piped up, "You have taken me down Memory Lane and I absolutely loved this film."
I don't even remember what two shows I went to at the Bayou (although I do remember the guys who took me) but I was right there on Memory Lane with her.
And, just for the record, Mickey Mantle got turned away because he didn't have a jacket on and years later, Robert Plant got thrown out.
That's the kind of place the Bayou was.
From there, the evening moved in a southerly direction.
The Richmond Symphony was playing with Cuban band Tiempo Libre and while I'd gotten the nosebleed seats (back row but only ten bucks), all that percussion reached right up to the rafters.
The Latin evening began with Gershwin's "Cuban Overture (Rhumba)," making for a stellar start since any night that starts with Gershwin should be a good one.
From the first note, it was clear that Gershwin had visited Cuba (February 1932), but what I loved was that he waited until July and August that year to compose the piece.
You need heat to get in a Cuban frame of mind, you know?
The classically-trained septet (keys, bass, drums, percussion, sax, trumpet, vocal) of Tiempo Libre came out post-Gershwin and took up their instruments in front of the symphony.
From their opening notes, every band member except the drummer was moving his feet side to side.
"Let me tell you," said lead singer Joaquin, "My English is very Cuban." Not that it mattered.
Next they showed us how a song sounds normally and how it can be funked up Cuban-style, using the symphony as back up.
Joaquin was a whirlwind, dancing and singing along with the symphony to standards like "Guatanamera," while trying to get the audience to help with some of the lyrics.
A very cool piece was Beethoven's "Sonata in D Minor" (for which Joaquin exhorted us to, "Dance if you want to"), mainly because they did it ch-cha style with the keyboard and the horns killing it.
And when these guys do a sonata cha-cha style, they need no help from the symphony, who just sat there taking it all in.
There had to be an intermission, if only to give the members of Tiempo Libre a few minutes to cool down.
When the show started again, it was with the symphony doing Roldan's "Carnival Ballet," which conductor Steven Smith said was, "Worth playing for its title. It sounds like a party, all rhythm and colors."
The four-movement piece had terrific percussion, meaning we were instructed to dance.
Once again, the symphony's services were not needed; Tiempo Libre had this one covered.
Soon couples were dancing in the front row of the nosebleed seats.
For all I know, they were doing the same down below, but you couldn't prove it by me.
I did see a viola player keeping time by tapping his bow.
Seeing people dancing in their seats, Joaquin came down off the stage to party with the orchestra seats.
"This is going to be our last song of the night, so if you want to dance, here's your chance," he said.
"Do you remember Desi Arnez? How about conga lines? I love Lucy, too, but this is about Desi."
It was time for "Tu Conga Bach," if you can believe that.
Taking off his suit jacket, he demonstrated his conga-fluid hips before going down into the audience to start a conga line.
And therein lies the disadvantage of the cheap seats.
When the bandleader is dancing for the front row, he may as well be in Kansas for all I can see.
Fortunately, he soon regained the stage for some major moves before jumping off it into the orchestra seats and starting another conga line.
"Richmond, are you ready?" he called, inviting two female audience members (who must have passed the conga test he'd given) onstage to dance on either side of him.
The trumpeter and sax player moved over to frame the two women dancing as the song reached an ecstatic, sweaty climax.
Sitting in Kenn-Tico afterwards having a Cubano sandwich while nearby couples chatted in Spanish, I took stock.
Sure, I'd been in steerage, but plenty happy up there shaking my ass Cuban-style.
Haven't you heard? Sex and percussion just go together naturally.
"There" is a club in my hometown of Washington, the subject of the documentary, "The Bayou: D.C.'s Killer Joint," being shown as part of the Richmond International Film festival.
And while most of the festival's movies screened at the Byrd, this one showed at the Camel.
I arrived when the doors opened to ensure a good seat, not tough among a very small crowd.
That changed suddenly five minutes before the movie began when suddenly the room filled up in one fell swoop.
I heard friends calling to friends, attempting to sit together.
"No, no, we're back in steerage where we're comfortable," one smart-assed guy yelled to his friend after being invited closer to the front.
Beginning with the thank you credits, it was my first film with a thank you to Kickstarter.
How very 21st century.
The movie traced the history of the club that began as the Pirate's Den with all the male servers dressed as pirates.
That was followed by a jazz club called The Hideaway, but that closed once there was a gangster-style shooting in the place.
Eventually it became the Bayou, that venerable institution that was still around when I came of age.
What I missed, according to the film, was the years when they had a groovy scene, complete with go-go dancers.
"I don't think the girls got paid," one former manager recalled. "They just wanted to do it."
Looking at the old photographs of them in their sassy dresses and boots, I'm guessing plenty of people wanted to watch, too.
Talking about a former Bayou manager as a real tough guy, an associate said, "I think he managed the horses for the Riders of the Apocalypse."
Now that was funny.
Since the club was only shuttered in '98, there were plenty of people the filmmakers could interview to reminisce about the trials and tribulations of the joint.
As one manger recalled, yes they hosted Foreigner's very first U.S. show as well as U2's first show here, too (opening for the Slickee Boys) but they also hosted bands like Julius and the Polar Bears.
At this point, I'm guessing even Julius has forgotten about that band.
Several people recalled the vibe of the club was nothing more than boys seeking girls.
"Sex and power chords just go together naturally," one said, sounding practically poetic to me.
One guy told a fabulous story about booking Dire Staits before they got big and by the time the played, the crowd was enormous.
He said it got to be almost 2 a.m. and the band was still going strong, but the club staff was justifiably worried about their liquor license.
Telling the mob that the only way Dire Straits could go on playing was if they removed all the liquor, people began gathering up glasses and handing them to the servers.
On with the show was their point.
One manager remembered an early Ramones show, saying, "I stole the set list off the stage, I was so moved."
Moved by the Ramones, that's one way to put it.
The filmmakers showed how the Bayou got left behind when alternative music came along ("Those bands didn't want to play after Foghat"), essentially abdicating that growing audience to the 9:30 Club.
Gotta keep up with the times.
The film ended with the club's destruction (to build "yuppie farms") and nothing but a bunch of middle-aged people with memories.
And speaking of, that about summed up many people in the room, including the filmmakers, who took the stage afterwards to share.
The project, originally begun in 1998, languished and was conveniently restarted in 2008.
"That made it much easier because of YouTube, Facebook and Google," one of the writers said. "Mostly Facebook. A whole new world opened up to us."
How many relationships these days could say the same?
Ah, Faceboook, our debt to you is impossible to repay.
Singer Robbin Thompson was in the audience, significant because he'd been interviewed for the movie.
Although all but one of his stories ended up on the cutting room floor, tonight he shared one about Springsteen, whose band he played in briefly.
During that stint, the Boss had given Thompson a throwaway song.
That night at the Bayou, Thompson had sung the song and Bruce had complimented it, saying, "I like that song."
"You wrote it," Thompson reminded him.
Ooh, stick.
The filmmakers told us that their target demographic was 35+ (uh, yea, just look around the room) and one woman piped up, "You have taken me down Memory Lane and I absolutely loved this film."
I don't even remember what two shows I went to at the Bayou (although I do remember the guys who took me) but I was right there on Memory Lane with her.
And, just for the record, Mickey Mantle got turned away because he didn't have a jacket on and years later, Robert Plant got thrown out.
That's the kind of place the Bayou was.
From there, the evening moved in a southerly direction.
The Richmond Symphony was playing with Cuban band Tiempo Libre and while I'd gotten the nosebleed seats (back row but only ten bucks), all that percussion reached right up to the rafters.
The Latin evening began with Gershwin's "Cuban Overture (Rhumba)," making for a stellar start since any night that starts with Gershwin should be a good one.
From the first note, it was clear that Gershwin had visited Cuba (February 1932), but what I loved was that he waited until July and August that year to compose the piece.
You need heat to get in a Cuban frame of mind, you know?
The classically-trained septet (keys, bass, drums, percussion, sax, trumpet, vocal) of Tiempo Libre came out post-Gershwin and took up their instruments in front of the symphony.
From their opening notes, every band member except the drummer was moving his feet side to side.
"Let me tell you," said lead singer Joaquin, "My English is very Cuban." Not that it mattered.
Next they showed us how a song sounds normally and how it can be funked up Cuban-style, using the symphony as back up.
Joaquin was a whirlwind, dancing and singing along with the symphony to standards like "Guatanamera," while trying to get the audience to help with some of the lyrics.
A very cool piece was Beethoven's "Sonata in D Minor" (for which Joaquin exhorted us to, "Dance if you want to"), mainly because they did it ch-cha style with the keyboard and the horns killing it.
And when these guys do a sonata cha-cha style, they need no help from the symphony, who just sat there taking it all in.
There had to be an intermission, if only to give the members of Tiempo Libre a few minutes to cool down.
When the show started again, it was with the symphony doing Roldan's "Carnival Ballet," which conductor Steven Smith said was, "Worth playing for its title. It sounds like a party, all rhythm and colors."
The four-movement piece had terrific percussion, meaning we were instructed to dance.
Once again, the symphony's services were not needed; Tiempo Libre had this one covered.
Soon couples were dancing in the front row of the nosebleed seats.
For all I know, they were doing the same down below, but you couldn't prove it by me.
I did see a viola player keeping time by tapping his bow.
Seeing people dancing in their seats, Joaquin came down off the stage to party with the orchestra seats.
"This is going to be our last song of the night, so if you want to dance, here's your chance," he said.
"Do you remember Desi Arnez? How about conga lines? I love Lucy, too, but this is about Desi."
It was time for "Tu Conga Bach," if you can believe that.
Taking off his suit jacket, he demonstrated his conga-fluid hips before going down into the audience to start a conga line.
And therein lies the disadvantage of the cheap seats.
When the bandleader is dancing for the front row, he may as well be in Kansas for all I can see.
Fortunately, he soon regained the stage for some major moves before jumping off it into the orchestra seats and starting another conga line.
"Richmond, are you ready?" he called, inviting two female audience members (who must have passed the conga test he'd given) onstage to dance on either side of him.
The trumpeter and sax player moved over to frame the two women dancing as the song reached an ecstatic, sweaty climax.
Sitting in Kenn-Tico afterwards having a Cubano sandwich while nearby couples chatted in Spanish, I took stock.
Sure, I'd been in steerage, but plenty happy up there shaking my ass Cuban-style.
Haven't you heard? Sex and percussion just go together naturally.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Requiem for Beauty Rest
If ever anyone doubted the musical quality of life in this town, I offer the following.
At 4:00, I had no plans. None materialized by 5:00 or even 6:00.
So by 6:30, I knew I needed to start working towards something to do until the late night birthday party I was attending began.
As I showered, I considered my options, looking for low cost.
I could go to a movie or for that same ten bucks, I could go hear the Richmond Symphony.
At 7:15, I left for CenterStage and by 7:30, had purchased a $10 ticket.
By 7:35, I was settled into the very back row with an empty seat next to me.
Before long it was filled by a guy who'd driven in 40 minutes from the far reaches of Hanover County.
When I asked what had brought him out on this slushy evening, he got right to the point.
"I was trying to decide whether to go to a movie or come hear some friends play music, so I decided on this."
Bingo. Here was tonight's soul mate.
Like me, he didn't mind being in the cheap seats.
"I don't need to see their faces," he said with a smile. "Hi, I'm Steve."
Turns out he's roommates with one of the symphony's viola players.
"People ask if that isn't really cool, getting to hear classical music all the time," he said. "But it's a viola, so I hear a lot of background stuff, but never any melodies. And lots of scales."
Before long, the concert began and the new concertmaster was introduced.
And there he was, the guy I'd met at the Mardi Gras party Tuesday, the one whom I'd heard say, "Where are the single women?" just before the host introduced us.
Let's just say he was way more dressed up tonight.
To get us in the mood for tonight's piece de resistance, first we heard Mozart's overture for "The Magic Flute."
I saw my friend Matt, the symphony's librarian and a bass player, come onstage with music and I knew it wasn't the last I'd see of him tonight.
Next came what conductor Erin Freeman described as "a sonic journey," composed in 2007 by John Hedges and called, "Prayers of Rain and Wind."
The cool part was that Hedges had written the concerto for double bass player Joseph Conyers, who also happened to be in the house.
And playing for us tonight.
Hedges had written the piece for Conyers, a weather freak.
It began with "Summer Rain Fantasia," a rendering of a muggy, humid night, a lovely thing to evoke on this frigid evening.
Conyers' bass then offers up a prayer, "Hymn," to the weather gods and a gentle rain begins, followed by horns announcing the hurricane.
It started with winds (think "The Wizard of Oz") and moves on to the eye of the storm and you could almost feel the release as the sky exploded sonically.
For me, it was a lot like watching the weather from my balcony, knowing that the oppressive heat will eventually give way to the release of a good thunderstorm.
After intermission, we got the reason every seat was full tonight.
The symphony, along with the Richmond Symphony Chorus (all 140 of them) and four soloists, was doing Mozart's "Requiem."
My knowledge of classical music is embarrassingly shallow, but even I knew that it was Mozart's last work and left unfinished when he kicked the bucket.
It was an incredibly moving piece that got a standing ovation afterwards.
Walking out, a woman behind me said, "It was all I could do not to sing along."
I only wish I was savvy enough to wish for the same.
Steve wished me a good evening and I had no doubt it would be since I was heading to a musician friend's birthday party at Patrick Henry Pub in Church Hill.
Turns out it was a multi-person party, with not one, but four people being feted, of which I knew two.
There were probably only 25 people when I arrived, but that number soon grew.
As if the birthdays weren't enough to celebrate, it was also Saturday night, so everywhere I turned, I got interesting if not inebriated conversation.
A woman told me about her shoplifting blind aunt who used to take her with her to Woolworth's when she was a child.
"She'd always have a cigarette hanging out of her mouth," she said. It's quite a visual.
Overheard near the bar: "Back in high school drama class, she supported Bush/Cheney, but now she says she didn't, but I know she did."
When the subject of tequila came up, the talented Herschel made a face, saying he couldn't stand the burning sensation going down.
When I asked if he'd tried good tequilas, he looked at me like I was an idiot.
"I'm Prabir's brother. Of course I've tasted every tequila."
Someone walked up to the guy next to me and inquired, "Are you rolling in the deep?" to which my friend responded, "I don't even know what that means."
And, yes, Matt showed up again, this time sans tux, and there was a protracted discussion of attending a bris, something I did once and intend to never repeat.
The party's hosts had promised food "to soak up the alcohol," and I, for one, couldn't resist the array of potato skins, meatballs and wings.
Now, that's party food.
After a few hours with the DJ spinning the Ramones and the like, our attention was called.
"Does everyone know what we're celebrating?" one of our hosts asked.
It's a good bet that most people did not.
I know that when I had walked into the pub next to a stranger and asked if he was coming to Willis' party and he had said, "Who's Willis?"
So that was clarified for all who weren't overly loopy at this point. and then the live entertainment began.
Everyone's favorite ukulele player who wears a ninja hat, Herschel, then proceeded to play while birthday boy Willis held the mic and did interpretive dance.
There was "Beauty Rest," about a girl who was ugly on the outside, but working on it.
Aren't we all?
He introduced the next song by saying, "It's weird that the way you move has so much attraction. So this is like a sex advice column."
Rile #1 was, "Don't talk."
Rule #2 was, "Shake that ass."
So you see where this song was going.
Meanwhile, Willis danced to Herschel's beat, moving the mic up to his mouth and down to his uke and inciting the crowd to sing the "na-na-na" chorus when appropriate.
His last song was dedicated to several friends who'd died, taking Herschel on a tangent about children dying before their parents.
His suggested solution was not to have children.
But then he sang Randy Newman's "Losing You" beautifully and his lecture was forgotten.
Performance over, the DJ cranked it up again and the party started back in earnest.
I wiled away some time with the smokers on the front porch before deciding to slide back down the hill and call it a night.
It had been a hell of a night's entertainment for ten bones.
And how often do you get wings and Mozart on the same night?
At 4:00, I had no plans. None materialized by 5:00 or even 6:00.
So by 6:30, I knew I needed to start working towards something to do until the late night birthday party I was attending began.
As I showered, I considered my options, looking for low cost.
I could go to a movie or for that same ten bucks, I could go hear the Richmond Symphony.
At 7:15, I left for CenterStage and by 7:30, had purchased a $10 ticket.
By 7:35, I was settled into the very back row with an empty seat next to me.
Before long it was filled by a guy who'd driven in 40 minutes from the far reaches of Hanover County.
When I asked what had brought him out on this slushy evening, he got right to the point.
"I was trying to decide whether to go to a movie or come hear some friends play music, so I decided on this."
Bingo. Here was tonight's soul mate.
Like me, he didn't mind being in the cheap seats.
"I don't need to see their faces," he said with a smile. "Hi, I'm Steve."
Turns out he's roommates with one of the symphony's viola players.
"People ask if that isn't really cool, getting to hear classical music all the time," he said. "But it's a viola, so I hear a lot of background stuff, but never any melodies. And lots of scales."
Before long, the concert began and the new concertmaster was introduced.
And there he was, the guy I'd met at the Mardi Gras party Tuesday, the one whom I'd heard say, "Where are the single women?" just before the host introduced us.
Let's just say he was way more dressed up tonight.
To get us in the mood for tonight's piece de resistance, first we heard Mozart's overture for "The Magic Flute."
I saw my friend Matt, the symphony's librarian and a bass player, come onstage with music and I knew it wasn't the last I'd see of him tonight.
Next came what conductor Erin Freeman described as "a sonic journey," composed in 2007 by John Hedges and called, "Prayers of Rain and Wind."
The cool part was that Hedges had written the concerto for double bass player Joseph Conyers, who also happened to be in the house.
And playing for us tonight.
Hedges had written the piece for Conyers, a weather freak.
It began with "Summer Rain Fantasia," a rendering of a muggy, humid night, a lovely thing to evoke on this frigid evening.
Conyers' bass then offers up a prayer, "Hymn," to the weather gods and a gentle rain begins, followed by horns announcing the hurricane.
It started with winds (think "The Wizard of Oz") and moves on to the eye of the storm and you could almost feel the release as the sky exploded sonically.
For me, it was a lot like watching the weather from my balcony, knowing that the oppressive heat will eventually give way to the release of a good thunderstorm.
After intermission, we got the reason every seat was full tonight.
The symphony, along with the Richmond Symphony Chorus (all 140 of them) and four soloists, was doing Mozart's "Requiem."
My knowledge of classical music is embarrassingly shallow, but even I knew that it was Mozart's last work and left unfinished when he kicked the bucket.
It was an incredibly moving piece that got a standing ovation afterwards.
Walking out, a woman behind me said, "It was all I could do not to sing along."
I only wish I was savvy enough to wish for the same.
Steve wished me a good evening and I had no doubt it would be since I was heading to a musician friend's birthday party at Patrick Henry Pub in Church Hill.
Turns out it was a multi-person party, with not one, but four people being feted, of which I knew two.
There were probably only 25 people when I arrived, but that number soon grew.
As if the birthdays weren't enough to celebrate, it was also Saturday night, so everywhere I turned, I got interesting if not inebriated conversation.
A woman told me about her shoplifting blind aunt who used to take her with her to Woolworth's when she was a child.
"She'd always have a cigarette hanging out of her mouth," she said. It's quite a visual.
Overheard near the bar: "Back in high school drama class, she supported Bush/Cheney, but now she says she didn't, but I know she did."
When the subject of tequila came up, the talented Herschel made a face, saying he couldn't stand the burning sensation going down.
When I asked if he'd tried good tequilas, he looked at me like I was an idiot.
"I'm Prabir's brother. Of course I've tasted every tequila."
Someone walked up to the guy next to me and inquired, "Are you rolling in the deep?" to which my friend responded, "I don't even know what that means."
And, yes, Matt showed up again, this time sans tux, and there was a protracted discussion of attending a bris, something I did once and intend to never repeat.
The party's hosts had promised food "to soak up the alcohol," and I, for one, couldn't resist the array of potato skins, meatballs and wings.
Now, that's party food.
After a few hours with the DJ spinning the Ramones and the like, our attention was called.
"Does everyone know what we're celebrating?" one of our hosts asked.
It's a good bet that most people did not.
I know that when I had walked into the pub next to a stranger and asked if he was coming to Willis' party and he had said, "Who's Willis?"
So that was clarified for all who weren't overly loopy at this point. and then the live entertainment began.
Everyone's favorite ukulele player who wears a ninja hat, Herschel, then proceeded to play while birthday boy Willis held the mic and did interpretive dance.
There was "Beauty Rest," about a girl who was ugly on the outside, but working on it.
Aren't we all?
He introduced the next song by saying, "It's weird that the way you move has so much attraction. So this is like a sex advice column."
Rile #1 was, "Don't talk."
Rule #2 was, "Shake that ass."
So you see where this song was going.
Meanwhile, Willis danced to Herschel's beat, moving the mic up to his mouth and down to his uke and inciting the crowd to sing the "na-na-na" chorus when appropriate.
His last song was dedicated to several friends who'd died, taking Herschel on a tangent about children dying before their parents.
His suggested solution was not to have children.
But then he sang Randy Newman's "Losing You" beautifully and his lecture was forgotten.
Performance over, the DJ cranked it up again and the party started back in earnest.
I wiled away some time with the smokers on the front porch before deciding to slide back down the hill and call it a night.
It had been a hell of a night's entertainment for ten bones.
And how often do you get wings and Mozart on the same night?
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Curtain Call
To a theater-lover, it was a thing of beauty.
I walked into my neighborhood joint, Bistro 27, around 6:00 to find it easily 80% full.
Granted, we were the only ones at the bar, but there were very few empty tables.
Everywhere I looked, couples, groups and families were talking, laughing and eating.
It was so lively it could have been staged.
We took bar seats and cracked the wine list; by the time we'd decided on a Sangiovese, every table was taken.
Within minutes, every bar stool. And then there were people standing just to wait for a stool.
Be still, my dramatic heart.
Don't get me wrong, the meal was lovely, too.
A Caesar salad boasted loads of anchovies and gnocchi with duck ragout had a deep heartiness and was full of duck meat.
Even the fresh tomato and garlic aioli that came with the bread was worthy of not only of commentary but of using every last scrap of bread in the basket.
But my favorite part of it all was that most of these people were theater-bound.
Virginia Rep's rousing production of "The Producers" and Richmond Shakespeare's lyrical "A Child's Christmas in Wales" are playing just across the street from 27.
Tonight was also the Richmond Symphony Pop's "Let It Snow" performance with the talented, lanky and Jewish symphony librarian Matt Gold playing Santa.
That alone would have been worth the price of admission.
I'd heard from someone in the know that Theater VCU's "Avenue Q" sold out the entire weekend days ago (and deservedly so).
Then there was "How the Grinch Stole Christmas: The Musical" playing mere blocks away at the Landmark.
That would be the same green guy who was in the Christmas parade this morning.
If I had to guess, I'd wager that everyone in that dining room had theater tickets in their pocket or waiting for them at Will Call.
We wanted hazelnut chocolate torte for dessert, but given the waiting throngs and impending curtain calls, we ceded our seats and took dessert home instead.
For years now I've been going to Bistro 27, not just because it's within easy walking distance, but because I love the friendly vibe and stellar food.
I've often seen neighbors there, I've heard bands there, I've done New Year's eve and Easter there, but I don't think I've ever seen every single table taken with pre-theater goers.
The late, great lyricist and producer Oscar Hammerstein once said, "The number of people who will not go to a show they do not want to see is unlimited."
Sorry, Oscar baby, but I'm going to have to put a more positive spin on that thought.
The number of people in Richmond who will go to a show and want to eat out first nearby is unlimited.
Why, it's practically proof positive that we're becoming a real theater town.
Now if only we could have more places where we could eat after the show.
Can I get an "amen" from the theater community?
I walked into my neighborhood joint, Bistro 27, around 6:00 to find it easily 80% full.
Granted, we were the only ones at the bar, but there were very few empty tables.
Everywhere I looked, couples, groups and families were talking, laughing and eating.
It was so lively it could have been staged.
We took bar seats and cracked the wine list; by the time we'd decided on a Sangiovese, every table was taken.
Within minutes, every bar stool. And then there were people standing just to wait for a stool.
Be still, my dramatic heart.
Don't get me wrong, the meal was lovely, too.
A Caesar salad boasted loads of anchovies and gnocchi with duck ragout had a deep heartiness and was full of duck meat.
Even the fresh tomato and garlic aioli that came with the bread was worthy of not only of commentary but of using every last scrap of bread in the basket.
But my favorite part of it all was that most of these people were theater-bound.
Virginia Rep's rousing production of "The Producers" and Richmond Shakespeare's lyrical "A Child's Christmas in Wales" are playing just across the street from 27.
Tonight was also the Richmond Symphony Pop's "Let It Snow" performance with the talented, lanky and Jewish symphony librarian Matt Gold playing Santa.
That alone would have been worth the price of admission.
I'd heard from someone in the know that Theater VCU's "Avenue Q" sold out the entire weekend days ago (and deservedly so).
Then there was "How the Grinch Stole Christmas: The Musical" playing mere blocks away at the Landmark.
That would be the same green guy who was in the Christmas parade this morning.
If I had to guess, I'd wager that everyone in that dining room had theater tickets in their pocket or waiting for them at Will Call.
We wanted hazelnut chocolate torte for dessert, but given the waiting throngs and impending curtain calls, we ceded our seats and took dessert home instead.
For years now I've been going to Bistro 27, not just because it's within easy walking distance, but because I love the friendly vibe and stellar food.
I've often seen neighbors there, I've heard bands there, I've done New Year's eve and Easter there, but I don't think I've ever seen every single table taken with pre-theater goers.
The late, great lyricist and producer Oscar Hammerstein once said, "The number of people who will not go to a show they do not want to see is unlimited."
Sorry, Oscar baby, but I'm going to have to put a more positive spin on that thought.
The number of people in Richmond who will go to a show and want to eat out first nearby is unlimited.
Why, it's practically proof positive that we're becoming a real theater town.
Now if only we could have more places where we could eat after the show.
Can I get an "amen" from the theater community?
Monday, September 10, 2012
Simple Sunday Gifts
Order in : A September celebration of summer
Ingredients:
exquisite weather
picnic supper
stirring live music
dessert bonanza
Step one:
It was a day with a sky so blue it hurt and not a trace of humidity in the air.
A drive through the bowels of Chesterfield county deposited us at Pocahontas State Park for a winding walk through the trees to a clearing in the woods.
There, in the lat afternoon sun, stood the Heritage Amphitheater aglow in the late afternoon sun.
Making our way to the front row of wooden benches, we secured four places (front row center) with purple velvet pillows and an outstretched black sweater.
Step two:
Taking a blanket and our picnic in hand, we climbed the rolling hillside behind the benches where some people had already chosen to put down stakes, despite plenty of bench space still being available.
When we reached the top of the hill, we spread out the blanket under the canopy of trees facing the amphitheater, a gentle breeze all around us.
Supper was a simple one of shrimp salad wraps, a marinated salad of cucumbers and tomatoes, watermelon and red grapes with vinho verde.
As we sat there eating, we were treated to the Richmond Symphony musicians warming up.
Bits of a famous movie theme drifted up, but in a deconstructed manner.
Here were the woodwinds playing one part, a horn doing another entirely and a couple of strings playing something else.
I spotted Russell Wilson, pianist for the Richmond Symphony, walking by and called out to him.
Strolling over with his ubiquitous camera slung over his shoulder, I went to meet him.
"You didn't have to get up," he said smiling and reaching out to embrace me in a hug, "But since you did..."
Fact: I will always happily stand to hug a symphony musician who will come play a free concert in a park.
Step three:
We slid into our front row seats just as the conductor walked onstage and the couple joining us arrived just after the "Star Spangled Banner."
Tonight's program was all about American composer John Williams, he of the "Jaws" theme.
One of the first pieces we heard was :"Air and Simple Gifts," the moving piece Williams had written for Obama's inauguration.
It set the bar very high for the evening.
The conductor had chosen the Sibileus' piece used in "The Hunt for Red October," as an example of the style of Williams' music.
We heard a piece from "Schindler's List" with a haunting violin solo that could break hearts.
Donning a Harry Potter-style hooded cape, the conductor announced that selections from H.P. were next.
"I think I'm going to cry," said the H.P. lover in our group.
For the record, she did tear up, later saying, "I can't believe it's really over."
At one point during "Hedwig's Theme," Russell moved from his piano to play what looked like a tiny piano but produced a tinkling sound.
I had no clue what it might be.
No John Williams evening could be complete without the theme to "Star Wars," but first we heard music from another in the "Star Wars" series before getting to the original.
And while I'm no Skywalker fan, it was positively stirring to hear that familiar theme played live by a symphony orchestra from a few feet away.
Once it was all over, I saw a familiar face onstage.
It was Matt Gold, a symphony member and friend, and surely he could tell me what the tinkling sound had come from.
He could. It was a celesta, a keyboard instrument where hammers strike steel plates suspended over wooden resonators.
It was the cap on the performance. My favorite experiences are where I learn something.
Step four:
After a scenic drive out of the park at dusk, we motored back to the city and met our symphony companions at Garnett's for dessert.
Over black and white cake and hummingbird cake (the women) and strawberry-peach pie (both guys), we discussed the recent Democratic convention and the rousing speeches of Michelle Obama and Clinton.
"Why can't Bill be our president again?" the black and white cake eater asked half seriously.
All of a sudden, our server joined the conversation.
"Yea, Clinton is my first choice for make-out president," she said smiling. "Obama is my number two make-out president."
And while I'd never pondered which presidents I might choose to suck face with given the chance, I saw her point.
I could make out with Bill or Barack, too.
Order out: A practically perfect picnic and rousing performance on an exquisite late summer evening, followed by cake and make-out fantasies.
Yield: Unadulterated Sunday night happiness and complete surrender to it.
Ingredients:
exquisite weather
picnic supper
stirring live music
dessert bonanza
Step one:
It was a day with a sky so blue it hurt and not a trace of humidity in the air.
A drive through the bowels of Chesterfield county deposited us at Pocahontas State Park for a winding walk through the trees to a clearing in the woods.
There, in the lat afternoon sun, stood the Heritage Amphitheater aglow in the late afternoon sun.
Making our way to the front row of wooden benches, we secured four places (front row center) with purple velvet pillows and an outstretched black sweater.
Step two:
Taking a blanket and our picnic in hand, we climbed the rolling hillside behind the benches where some people had already chosen to put down stakes, despite plenty of bench space still being available.
When we reached the top of the hill, we spread out the blanket under the canopy of trees facing the amphitheater, a gentle breeze all around us.
Supper was a simple one of shrimp salad wraps, a marinated salad of cucumbers and tomatoes, watermelon and red grapes with vinho verde.
As we sat there eating, we were treated to the Richmond Symphony musicians warming up.
Bits of a famous movie theme drifted up, but in a deconstructed manner.
Here were the woodwinds playing one part, a horn doing another entirely and a couple of strings playing something else.
I spotted Russell Wilson, pianist for the Richmond Symphony, walking by and called out to him.
Strolling over with his ubiquitous camera slung over his shoulder, I went to meet him.
"You didn't have to get up," he said smiling and reaching out to embrace me in a hug, "But since you did..."
Fact: I will always happily stand to hug a symphony musician who will come play a free concert in a park.
Step three:
We slid into our front row seats just as the conductor walked onstage and the couple joining us arrived just after the "Star Spangled Banner."
Tonight's program was all about American composer John Williams, he of the "Jaws" theme.
One of the first pieces we heard was :"Air and Simple Gifts," the moving piece Williams had written for Obama's inauguration.
It set the bar very high for the evening.
The conductor had chosen the Sibileus' piece used in "The Hunt for Red October," as an example of the style of Williams' music.
We heard a piece from "Schindler's List" with a haunting violin solo that could break hearts.
Donning a Harry Potter-style hooded cape, the conductor announced that selections from H.P. were next.
"I think I'm going to cry," said the H.P. lover in our group.
For the record, she did tear up, later saying, "I can't believe it's really over."
At one point during "Hedwig's Theme," Russell moved from his piano to play what looked like a tiny piano but produced a tinkling sound.
I had no clue what it might be.
No John Williams evening could be complete without the theme to "Star Wars," but first we heard music from another in the "Star Wars" series before getting to the original.
And while I'm no Skywalker fan, it was positively stirring to hear that familiar theme played live by a symphony orchestra from a few feet away.
Once it was all over, I saw a familiar face onstage.
It was Matt Gold, a symphony member and friend, and surely he could tell me what the tinkling sound had come from.
He could. It was a celesta, a keyboard instrument where hammers strike steel plates suspended over wooden resonators.
It was the cap on the performance. My favorite experiences are where I learn something.
Step four:
After a scenic drive out of the park at dusk, we motored back to the city and met our symphony companions at Garnett's for dessert.
Over black and white cake and hummingbird cake (the women) and strawberry-peach pie (both guys), we discussed the recent Democratic convention and the rousing speeches of Michelle Obama and Clinton.
"Why can't Bill be our president again?" the black and white cake eater asked half seriously.
All of a sudden, our server joined the conversation.
"Yea, Clinton is my first choice for make-out president," she said smiling. "Obama is my number two make-out president."
And while I'd never pondered which presidents I might choose to suck face with given the chance, I saw her point.
I could make out with Bill or Barack, too.
Order out: A practically perfect picnic and rousing performance on an exquisite late summer evening, followed by cake and make-out fantasies.
Yield: Unadulterated Sunday night happiness and complete surrender to it.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Going to the Rodeo
If you wear a dress, you will get your man.
And if you plan on going to an outdoor show, the temperature will drop and it will rain.
I passed on my ticket to less of a weather wimp and regrouped.
Plan B was a non-brainer; Richmond Ballet and Richmond Symphony were doing an evening called "Wild Wild West."
Given my limited pocketbook, my seat was in the nosebleed section (also known as the Second Dress Center), notable mainly because the girl behind me had a nosebleed during the performance.
The first piece was "Pops Hoe-Down" and featured dancers from the School of Richmond Ballet and their Minds in Motion program.
It's a piece of music I've heard many times and always get a kick out of, with its racing fiddles and oddball assortment of sounds.
Pop goes the weasel.
When the symphony finished the rousing performance, conductor Steven Smith yelled, "Yee-ha!" making for a spirited way to begin an evening in the west.
That was followed by two pieces without dance, John Williams' rousing Overture to "The Cowboys" and the Copland-inspired "Prairie Morning."
With the Williams piece came the next surprise; we were treated to live video of the symphony members playing projected onto a screen on the stage.
We saw close-ups of musicians in cowboy hats, neckerchiefs and Western shirts, which was fun.
But the treat was seeing things like the bassoon, oboe and all kinds of unusual percussion played close up.
Someone must have figured that if we didn't have dance, we needed a visual.
Stunning was Philip Glass' "Runaway Horses" and the ballet's tour de force interpretation of it for five dancers.
Male and female wore brown costumes, the women tossed their hair like manes, and they all galloped around like colts in a field.
This was not your West End blue hair's ballet.
Introducing Rossini's Finale from "Overture to Guillaume Tell," Smith mentioned how much classical music has infiltrated popular culture.
The moment it began, heads began to nod as people recognized it as the Lone Ranger's theme.
In a similar vein, we heard "Wolf's Fiddle," described as "dueling fiddle sections," a rarely heard pleasure, and one that caused my seatmates to want to talk about the differences in violins and fiddles.
Ending the first half was Bernstein's "Suite from The Magnificent Seven," instantly recognizable to the audience.
With its swelling and soaring score, I wasn't surprised to see many of the musicians smiling broadly as they played.
During intermission I scored dessert downstairs and as I ate my chocolate cupcake, a guy approached me.
"Your husband should have told you that you have chocolate on your chin," he said, as if he was concerned about my dirty face.
Honestly, I don't think he was.
Back in my seat with a clean face, we began with Sunrise from "Grand Canyon Suite" before arriving at the evening's highlight.
Agnes de Mille's "Rodeo" set to Aaron Copland's music is one of my all-time favorite ballets, uniquely American, but I hadn't seen it performed in over a decade.
It's amazing how a Jewish guy who lived in Brooklyn managed to capture the essence of the American West so adeptly.
"Rodeo" is subtitled "The Courting at Burnt Ranch," so there was plenty of lovesickness, boys showing off and endless partner changing, all things wooing related.
It is, in simplest terms, a ballet about how to find the right man.
And Copland's score with traditional folk songs throughout is a distinct pleasure to hear performed live.
Likewise the rambunctious ballet, which oozes with boy/girl tension.
The Cowgirl does everything she can think of to try to get the attention of the Head Wrangler while more feminine girls effortlessly get their cowboys.
But does the big, obvious guy win her? Nope, it's the tap-dancing champion roper who eventually steals her heart, scooping her up at the hoe-down.
And kissing her. First tentatively and then good and hard.
No surprise there. She'd finally ditched her cowgirl duds for a bright red dress.
Truth is, with the right dress, a man won't even notice if you have chocolate on your chin.
Or, if he's the right one, he'll just wipe it off and go right on kissing you.
That's how they do it in the wild, wild west.
I know. I saw it at the ballet.
And if you plan on going to an outdoor show, the temperature will drop and it will rain.
I passed on my ticket to less of a weather wimp and regrouped.
Plan B was a non-brainer; Richmond Ballet and Richmond Symphony were doing an evening called "Wild Wild West."
Given my limited pocketbook, my seat was in the nosebleed section (also known as the Second Dress Center), notable mainly because the girl behind me had a nosebleed during the performance.
The first piece was "Pops Hoe-Down" and featured dancers from the School of Richmond Ballet and their Minds in Motion program.
It's a piece of music I've heard many times and always get a kick out of, with its racing fiddles and oddball assortment of sounds.
Pop goes the weasel.
When the symphony finished the rousing performance, conductor Steven Smith yelled, "Yee-ha!" making for a spirited way to begin an evening in the west.
That was followed by two pieces without dance, John Williams' rousing Overture to "The Cowboys" and the Copland-inspired "Prairie Morning."
With the Williams piece came the next surprise; we were treated to live video of the symphony members playing projected onto a screen on the stage.
We saw close-ups of musicians in cowboy hats, neckerchiefs and Western shirts, which was fun.
But the treat was seeing things like the bassoon, oboe and all kinds of unusual percussion played close up.
Someone must have figured that if we didn't have dance, we needed a visual.
Stunning was Philip Glass' "Runaway Horses" and the ballet's tour de force interpretation of it for five dancers.
Male and female wore brown costumes, the women tossed their hair like manes, and they all galloped around like colts in a field.
This was not your West End blue hair's ballet.
Introducing Rossini's Finale from "Overture to Guillaume Tell," Smith mentioned how much classical music has infiltrated popular culture.
The moment it began, heads began to nod as people recognized it as the Lone Ranger's theme.
In a similar vein, we heard "Wolf's Fiddle," described as "dueling fiddle sections," a rarely heard pleasure, and one that caused my seatmates to want to talk about the differences in violins and fiddles.
Ending the first half was Bernstein's "Suite from The Magnificent Seven," instantly recognizable to the audience.
With its swelling and soaring score, I wasn't surprised to see many of the musicians smiling broadly as they played.
During intermission I scored dessert downstairs and as I ate my chocolate cupcake, a guy approached me.
"Your husband should have told you that you have chocolate on your chin," he said, as if he was concerned about my dirty face.
Honestly, I don't think he was.
Back in my seat with a clean face, we began with Sunrise from "Grand Canyon Suite" before arriving at the evening's highlight.
Agnes de Mille's "Rodeo" set to Aaron Copland's music is one of my all-time favorite ballets, uniquely American, but I hadn't seen it performed in over a decade.
It's amazing how a Jewish guy who lived in Brooklyn managed to capture the essence of the American West so adeptly.
"Rodeo" is subtitled "The Courting at Burnt Ranch," so there was plenty of lovesickness, boys showing off and endless partner changing, all things wooing related.
It is, in simplest terms, a ballet about how to find the right man.
And Copland's score with traditional folk songs throughout is a distinct pleasure to hear performed live.
Likewise the rambunctious ballet, which oozes with boy/girl tension.
The Cowgirl does everything she can think of to try to get the attention of the Head Wrangler while more feminine girls effortlessly get their cowboys.
But does the big, obvious guy win her? Nope, it's the tap-dancing champion roper who eventually steals her heart, scooping her up at the hoe-down.
And kissing her. First tentatively and then good and hard.
No surprise there. She'd finally ditched her cowgirl duds for a bright red dress.
Truth is, with the right dress, a man won't even notice if you have chocolate on your chin.
Or, if he's the right one, he'll just wipe it off and go right on kissing you.
That's how they do it in the wild, wild west.
I know. I saw it at the ballet.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
A Weighty Opus of an Evening
I expected a couple date and instead got an old friend.
Knowing that both the Symphony and the Forum were happening tonight, we made plans to meet at the Magpie at 6.
And a good thing, too.
From 6:15 on, there was a steady stream of people coming in search of dinner only to be told that there was no room at the inn.
Holmes arrived without his lady love (who was under the weather), so it was like the old days pre-girlfriend, when we used to have dinner together regularly.
They were out of our first choice, a South African Chenin Blanc, so we improvised with a bottle of the Bodegas La Cana Albarino, an understated little gem that got us rolling.
Trying to use our time wisely, we immediately ordered the wild boar hushpuppies with honey, pomegranate and rosemary oil.
Holmes was a tad hesitant but how can you go wrong with fried bread? And the wild boar was a minor note, not an overwhelming thing.
As usual, classic rock was the order of the day at Magpie, although there was enough classic R & B to keep me from sticking a steak knife in my ear.
Talk of the Velvet Underground led me to point out how important they were to David Bowie, a fact I had recently read.
The bartender overheard and eagerly asked me, "Did you read that piece on Bowie in "Rolling Stone"?"
Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I had, leading to a gush-fest as the two of us unleashed our inner Bowie groupies.
Like me, she had been taken with the descriptions of Bowie's penchant for walking around naked and his, ahem, long, weighty member swinging in the breeze.
In fact, she said her boyfriend had tried to talk to her while she was reading about it and she had told him not to bother her for twenty minutes.
Exhibit A: I sit at the bar because I don't think you get these kind of conversations at a table.
By the time we finished that passionate discussion, my braised pork cheeks in lobster broth had arrived and Holmes dug into his oyster, leek and roasted garlic soup, sharing tastes with me.
The rabbit and candied pecan sausage was all the better for the sage custard and bleu cheese that accompanied it. When it comes to sausage, Chef Owen is a master.
By that time Holmes had started talking to the guy next to him and they'd established when they'd graduated (within a year of each other) and what friends they had in common.
He instructed me to order dessert, knowing it is an area of expertise for me, and I chose what the server likened to a Twix, with chocolate and caramel over shortbread, sprinkled with sea salt over orange creme Anglaise.
To accompany it, we went Italian with splits of Tiamo Prosecco, savoring its fresh and fruity lightness with our very candy bar-like finish.
When the last bubble was swallowed, we beat feet for CenterStage and the Richmond Symphony.
Once in our seats, Holmes immediately cracked me up by looking down at his tie and nonchalantly observing, "And Holmes' tie tonight is from the deceased partner's collection."
Turns out his partner's widow had gifted him with her dead husband's ties.
Is it just me or is that kind of gruesome but hysterical, too?
Leading off tonight's symphony performance of all Romantic Period music was Grieg's "Suite No. 1 from Peer Gynt, Opus 46."
I had no reason to think I'd recognize it and yet, within seconds of it starting, Holmes leaned over and said exactly what I was thinking: "Classic Bugs Bunny."
Yep, totally familiar from cartoons. Hey, we all have to start our classical music education somewhere and Elmer Fudd is as good a place as any.
For Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 43" a grand piano was rolled onstage and soloist Katherine Chi came out in a stunning black gown with a sheer front and back.
The energetic piece required so much energy from her that her cheeks began to quiver with her movements.
"Like jelly," Holmes grinned, trying again to make me laugh.
The final piece was Finnish composer Sibelius' "Symphony No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Opus 82," like the other pieces, conducted by a guest Bulgarian conductor (who graduated in 2001!), Danah Rachev.
Being the non-musician that I am, I just wallowed in the music from the first horns through the growing pace as it went from slow to a fast finish.
Afterwards, Holmes, ever the musician with classical training, sniffed, "It took him the first fifteen minutes to find the melody."
May I just state for the record that there are worse ways to spend one's life than looking for the melody.
It's been my modus operandi as long as I can remember.
Knowing that both the Symphony and the Forum were happening tonight, we made plans to meet at the Magpie at 6.
And a good thing, too.
From 6:15 on, there was a steady stream of people coming in search of dinner only to be told that there was no room at the inn.
Holmes arrived without his lady love (who was under the weather), so it was like the old days pre-girlfriend, when we used to have dinner together regularly.
They were out of our first choice, a South African Chenin Blanc, so we improvised with a bottle of the Bodegas La Cana Albarino, an understated little gem that got us rolling.
Trying to use our time wisely, we immediately ordered the wild boar hushpuppies with honey, pomegranate and rosemary oil.
Holmes was a tad hesitant but how can you go wrong with fried bread? And the wild boar was a minor note, not an overwhelming thing.
As usual, classic rock was the order of the day at Magpie, although there was enough classic R & B to keep me from sticking a steak knife in my ear.
Talk of the Velvet Underground led me to point out how important they were to David Bowie, a fact I had recently read.
The bartender overheard and eagerly asked me, "Did you read that piece on Bowie in "Rolling Stone"?"
Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I had, leading to a gush-fest as the two of us unleashed our inner Bowie groupies.
Like me, she had been taken with the descriptions of Bowie's penchant for walking around naked and his, ahem, long, weighty member swinging in the breeze.
In fact, she said her boyfriend had tried to talk to her while she was reading about it and she had told him not to bother her for twenty minutes.
Exhibit A: I sit at the bar because I don't think you get these kind of conversations at a table.
By the time we finished that passionate discussion, my braised pork cheeks in lobster broth had arrived and Holmes dug into his oyster, leek and roasted garlic soup, sharing tastes with me.
The rabbit and candied pecan sausage was all the better for the sage custard and bleu cheese that accompanied it. When it comes to sausage, Chef Owen is a master.
By that time Holmes had started talking to the guy next to him and they'd established when they'd graduated (within a year of each other) and what friends they had in common.
He instructed me to order dessert, knowing it is an area of expertise for me, and I chose what the server likened to a Twix, with chocolate and caramel over shortbread, sprinkled with sea salt over orange creme Anglaise.
To accompany it, we went Italian with splits of Tiamo Prosecco, savoring its fresh and fruity lightness with our very candy bar-like finish.
When the last bubble was swallowed, we beat feet for CenterStage and the Richmond Symphony.
Once in our seats, Holmes immediately cracked me up by looking down at his tie and nonchalantly observing, "And Holmes' tie tonight is from the deceased partner's collection."
Turns out his partner's widow had gifted him with her dead husband's ties.
Is it just me or is that kind of gruesome but hysterical, too?
Leading off tonight's symphony performance of all Romantic Period music was Grieg's "Suite No. 1 from Peer Gynt, Opus 46."
I had no reason to think I'd recognize it and yet, within seconds of it starting, Holmes leaned over and said exactly what I was thinking: "Classic Bugs Bunny."
Yep, totally familiar from cartoons. Hey, we all have to start our classical music education somewhere and Elmer Fudd is as good a place as any.
For Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 43" a grand piano was rolled onstage and soloist Katherine Chi came out in a stunning black gown with a sheer front and back.
The energetic piece required so much energy from her that her cheeks began to quiver with her movements.
"Like jelly," Holmes grinned, trying again to make me laugh.
The final piece was Finnish composer Sibelius' "Symphony No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Opus 82," like the other pieces, conducted by a guest Bulgarian conductor (who graduated in 2001!), Danah Rachev.
Being the non-musician that I am, I just wallowed in the music from the first horns through the growing pace as it went from slow to a fast finish.
Afterwards, Holmes, ever the musician with classical training, sniffed, "It took him the first fifteen minutes to find the melody."
May I just state for the record that there are worse ways to spend one's life than looking for the melody.
It's been my modus operandi as long as I can remember.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
A Little Night Music
I played a mother surrogate tonight.
It's not like it sounds. My friend Holmes has three season tickets to the Symphony. He usually takes his girlfriend and his Mom.
But Mom's in Florida at the moment, so I was runner-up for the pleasure of dinner and Masterworks.
We met up at Arcadia, took our positions at the bar and had a splendid time drinking the Cline Cashmere Red Blend and catching up.
Because they're inescapable these days, we began with the deviled eggs, here served over basil gremolata.
Holmes continues to insist that $6 for three egg halves is a bit much, but it seems to be the going rate all over town.
I started with the apple and arugula salad with candied walnuts, bleu cheese and cider apple vinaigrette, regretting only that the kitchen was over-generous with the dressing.
The black tiger shrimp ceviche over polenta with shaved greens and orange curry oil, a dainty portion, followed, but it was the girlfriend's Braveheart Black Angus strip steak that stole the show.
We also gave a nod to the obscenely rich potato pave with thyme and Parmesan.
As we sat there enjoying our food, the bartender popped a bottle of bubbly and Holmes commented, "It's like a woman sighing."
For a guy who was told by a date once to watch "The Notebook" because he wasn't romantic enough, I found that sentiment quite poetic.
It also led to us getting glasses of Cava to accompany our chocolate torte with chocolate gelato.
The torte oozed butter in the best possible way and the gelato was sticky with the heavy creaminess that defines good gelato.
Good thing we had the crisp-tasting Cava to cut that richness.
We barely made it up to Center Stage after lingering over our final course but managed to slide into our seats minutes before showtime.
When the concert mistress walked out to begin things, Holmes commented, "How does she play in those shoes?"
She did have on cute shoes, no doubt about it. But when you have to wear conservative black onstage, your shoes are your only outlet for razzle-dazzle.
I usually defer to him on musical matters since he's a talented viola (and guitar) player, but before I could do so, he went on, "And look at the third chair's shoes!"
Hers were the tallest of stilettos and yet she seemed to have no problem whatsoever playing her instrument.
The program was definitely an interesting one, beginning with Piazzolla's extended tango in five parts, "Tangazo," written in 1968.
I loved everything about it: the knocking on the violins, the tapping of the bows to the instruments, the alternate slow and quick tango pace.
I'm sure that that was an analogy for something.
Applauding afterwards, I turned to Holmes to rave about it and he responded, "He should have scored a Bond movie!"
Yea, a Bond movie's seduction scenes, for sure.
Next up was the featured player of the evening. Guesting was guitarist Jason Vieaux on Rodrigo's "Concierto de Arnjuez for Guitar and Orchestra."
When Vieaux walked out in an open-collared black shirt, Holmes sniffed, "Man, if I'd known, I'd have left the bolo at home."
In fact, he looked quite dapper in his black shirt and black bolo, a gift from his absent mother.
The piece went back and forth between the soloing guitar and the orchestra, highlighting Vieaux's virtuosity.
During intermission, I ran into local rocker Prabir with his Mom (clearly good sons take their Moms to the Symphony) and learned that they'd been as thrilled with that first piece as I'd been.
Prabir said he'd been eagerly anticipating hearing it ever since he found out it was being performed tonight.
Okay, good, so it wasn't just my overactive glands responding to the seductive music of an Argentinian from a family of Italian immigrants.
We returned to Bolcom's "Commedia for (Almost) 18th--Century Orchestra," written in 1971 and based on the idea that the bite of a tarantula can only be relieved by music.
With its unexpected sounds and references to traditional classical music, it offered something for every taste.
Conspicuously absent during the piece were the concert mistress, the second violin and the cello soloist, all of whom reappeared at the end of the piece, having played their parts off-stage.
Just a composer's idea of comedy, I'm figuring.
Last up was Mozart's "Symphony No. 39," which meant nothing to me but thrilled Holmes since he'd heard No. 40 performed before but never No. 39.
I only wish my musical savvy extended to knowing which Mozart pieces I've heard played live.
Hell, I'm lucky he even deigns me worthy to accompany him given my appalling lack of classical music knowledge.
More realistically, I'm lucky Mom's out of town every January.
It's not like it sounds. My friend Holmes has three season tickets to the Symphony. He usually takes his girlfriend and his Mom.
But Mom's in Florida at the moment, so I was runner-up for the pleasure of dinner and Masterworks.
We met up at Arcadia, took our positions at the bar and had a splendid time drinking the Cline Cashmere Red Blend and catching up.
Because they're inescapable these days, we began with the deviled eggs, here served over basil gremolata.
Holmes continues to insist that $6 for three egg halves is a bit much, but it seems to be the going rate all over town.
I started with the apple and arugula salad with candied walnuts, bleu cheese and cider apple vinaigrette, regretting only that the kitchen was over-generous with the dressing.
The black tiger shrimp ceviche over polenta with shaved greens and orange curry oil, a dainty portion, followed, but it was the girlfriend's Braveheart Black Angus strip steak that stole the show.
We also gave a nod to the obscenely rich potato pave with thyme and Parmesan.
As we sat there enjoying our food, the bartender popped a bottle of bubbly and Holmes commented, "It's like a woman sighing."
For a guy who was told by a date once to watch "The Notebook" because he wasn't romantic enough, I found that sentiment quite poetic.
It also led to us getting glasses of Cava to accompany our chocolate torte with chocolate gelato.
The torte oozed butter in the best possible way and the gelato was sticky with the heavy creaminess that defines good gelato.
Good thing we had the crisp-tasting Cava to cut that richness.
We barely made it up to Center Stage after lingering over our final course but managed to slide into our seats minutes before showtime.
When the concert mistress walked out to begin things, Holmes commented, "How does she play in those shoes?"
She did have on cute shoes, no doubt about it. But when you have to wear conservative black onstage, your shoes are your only outlet for razzle-dazzle.
I usually defer to him on musical matters since he's a talented viola (and guitar) player, but before I could do so, he went on, "And look at the third chair's shoes!"
Hers were the tallest of stilettos and yet she seemed to have no problem whatsoever playing her instrument.
The program was definitely an interesting one, beginning with Piazzolla's extended tango in five parts, "Tangazo," written in 1968.
I loved everything about it: the knocking on the violins, the tapping of the bows to the instruments, the alternate slow and quick tango pace.
I'm sure that that was an analogy for something.
Applauding afterwards, I turned to Holmes to rave about it and he responded, "He should have scored a Bond movie!"
Yea, a Bond movie's seduction scenes, for sure.
Next up was the featured player of the evening. Guesting was guitarist Jason Vieaux on Rodrigo's "Concierto de Arnjuez for Guitar and Orchestra."
When Vieaux walked out in an open-collared black shirt, Holmes sniffed, "Man, if I'd known, I'd have left the bolo at home."
In fact, he looked quite dapper in his black shirt and black bolo, a gift from his absent mother.
The piece went back and forth between the soloing guitar and the orchestra, highlighting Vieaux's virtuosity.
During intermission, I ran into local rocker Prabir with his Mom (clearly good sons take their Moms to the Symphony) and learned that they'd been as thrilled with that first piece as I'd been.
Prabir said he'd been eagerly anticipating hearing it ever since he found out it was being performed tonight.
Okay, good, so it wasn't just my overactive glands responding to the seductive music of an Argentinian from a family of Italian immigrants.
We returned to Bolcom's "Commedia for (Almost) 18th--Century Orchestra," written in 1971 and based on the idea that the bite of a tarantula can only be relieved by music.
With its unexpected sounds and references to traditional classical music, it offered something for every taste.
Conspicuously absent during the piece were the concert mistress, the second violin and the cello soloist, all of whom reappeared at the end of the piece, having played their parts off-stage.
Just a composer's idea of comedy, I'm figuring.
Last up was Mozart's "Symphony No. 39," which meant nothing to me but thrilled Holmes since he'd heard No. 40 performed before but never No. 39.
I only wish my musical savvy extended to knowing which Mozart pieces I've heard played live.
Hell, I'm lucky he even deigns me worthy to accompany him given my appalling lack of classical music knowledge.
More realistically, I'm lucky Mom's out of town every January.
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