Full Moon Soul Cage

It's a hell of a swing from prepared piano to R & B.

The final installment of UR's John Cage Centennial celebration was tonight.

Pianist Paul Hanson was playing Cage's "Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano," so I gathered some adventurous music lovers to hear this seminal Cage work.

I'd had a taste of prepared piano at least week's Cage concert but tonight it was only about the prepared.

And by prepared piano, we're talking about Cage's instructions to insert all kinds of things into and on the piano's strings.

Stuff like screws of different sizes, some with bolts, wing nuts, strips of rubber, pieces of plastic.

Even a whole pink eraser.

You can imagine what interesting things that does to the sound when the keys are played.

If you can't, I'll tell you.

I heard what sounded like a toy piano, a muted gong, xylophone, harp, vibes and occasionally, an actual piano sound.

When a normal note cropped up during the performance, it was a surprise and a bit jarring, since my ear very quickly attuned to the prepared sound.

Hanson took a few minutes before he began playing to talk about the piece, saying it certainly qualified as "art music" and saying that it takes three hours to "prepare" the piano according to Cage's notes and specifications.

Then he sat down on his bench and since he was all clad in black and the piano was also black, they were a contrast to the orange-lit backdrop behind him.

For the next hour, he played Cage's masterpiece, alternately challenging and lulling the audience.

Most gorgeous of all were Sonatas XIV and XV, known as "Gemini," and they were also the most structured.

It hinted at the more conventional direction Cage could have gone had he chosen to do so.

Afterwards, Hanson invited the crowd up on stage to look at the prepared piano and, like most of the rest of the audience, I couldn't resist.

Seeing the assortment of random objects placed just so on the piano's strings explained a lot about the sounds we'd just heard.

A UR music student, leaning in as I did, regaled me with a tidbit about pianist Ben Folds.

"You know, he always put an empty Altoids box on the high strings for his last couple of songs," she informed me, clearly taking her Ben Folds very seriously.

No, no I hadn't known he did that, but I suppose it speaks to Cage's legacy in some small way.

Leaving Booker Hall, I decided to surprise my companions with another musical stop.

Tonight was Mekong's 18th anniversary celebration and the Hi-Steps, a band neither of them had seen, was playing.

I suggested a beer and some music and then drove them there without waiting to hear them agree to it.

Not surprisingly, the place was mobbed when we arrived and everywhere I looked were people with glasses of beer in their hands.

I don't drink the stuff myself, as I told drummer Pinson Chanselle when he said hi, so it was the promise of vintage soul played live that put me in the middle of a beer fest.

Mekong is one of those Asian places with room after room and I found the Hi-Steps setting up in a back one.

Later, bandleader Jason Scott cracked that it looked like a smoking lounge at an airport and he wasn't far off.

From the fake plastic ficus tree to the peeling paint on a column to the wall of mirrors (so '80s), it was not the most attractive room.

Like anyone cared.

The octet of trombone, sax, trumpet, drums, guitar, bass, keyboard and singer proceeded to fill the room with a funky backbeat that, in a better-suited room, would have had the crowd up and dancing within minutes.

Clearly everyone was well-lubricated enough to shake their groove thing if there was room enough.

Sadly, there wasn't, since I have heard Jason exhort audiences on more than one occasion to dance, reminding them that they are not meant to be watched, but danced to.

The horn section did it up right, swinging their instruments side to side as they played, like generations of soul bands before them did.

The set list ran the gamut from "Lonely Hearts" to the ubiquitous "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" to "Higher and Higher."

The slow burn of Lee Dorsey's "Get Out of My Life, Woman" was especially well-executed.

The talented left-handed guitarist was a treat to watch, both for the soulful voice coming out a skinny white boy body, but also for his excellent guitar faces.

His female counterpart, singer Brittany, brought her mother up to sing "Chain of Fools" and there's nothing like hearing family members harmonize.

After their spirited number, the dutiful daughter kissed her mama goodbye and went back to work with the band.

And I don't want to brag, but the two music lovers I'd brought along were totally digging the surprise musical treat, so different than Cage.

As the set progressed, even more people kept arriving, beer glasses in hand, adding to the party-like vibe of the room.

Look, I'm happy for any restaurant who makes it 18 years in this town.

That Mekong has established itself as the premiere RVA beer venue is also a good thing; I've brought an out of town guests there myself to wow them with the myriad choices.

But for this non-beer drinker, it was all about the Hi-Steps tonight.

Throw in a little John Cage and it might just have been the best possible way celebrate full moon fever.

John Cage: Composer as Painter at UR

I find the UR campus to be a circuitous exercise in futility, despite having been there many times. I'm most successful when I'm going to the Modlin Center, because I've been there more than anywhere else.

And today I was going to the Harnett Museum of Art which is in the Modlin Center and I still made a needless loop around the campus, mostly due to several major construction projects impeding my progress.

Our destination was the exhibit, "John Cage: Zen Ox-Herding Pictures,"displaying the composer John Cage's experiments in watercolor painting on paper towels.

All I knew of Cage was his work in music, so I was intrigued to see what so unorthodox a composer would have created visually.

I knew his interest in East Asian and Indian philosophy took him in the direction of putting aside memory and intention and focusing on process and chance.

I was curious how that would manifest itself in painting.

The images were used to illustrate the East Asian parable of the path to and beyond enlightenment (Zen Ox-Herding) and each watercolor was accompanied by a fragment of Cage's writing that could be tied to the parable.

Since the writing was not done specifically for the images, it was unexpected how utterly poetic and completely appropriate they were in furthering the story.

Looking for
something irrelevant, I found I
couldn't find it

The fifty-five watercolors are striking in their lyricism, especially knowing the man was using the medium for the first time.

They were abstract, some with elements of calligraphy to them, many suggesting activity or motion.

If music can be translated to the visual, Cage did so and he did it on brown paper towels with words that evoke in the same way that music does, meaningfully and beautifully.

Nothing's changed yet
something immense
asking.

The exhibit is most definitely worth seeing...and I wish you luck in navigating that labyrinth of a campus.

Music, Music Everywhere

"You won't hear a thing; you'll hear everything." I wish those were my words, but they belong to the Musicircus event creator, composer John Cage; the annual rva incarnation was held tonight at the Visual Arts Center. Last year's event was at the old Chop Suey Books and featured far fewer musicians; tonight's Musicircus had over 60 musicians, playing solo, in groups and in every combination in between and spread out over two floors, the entryway and the garden out back. A visitor couldn't walk more than a few steps without encountering more music. And that's exactly the point.

The beauty of the Musicircus is that you have to almost be on top of the performers to distinguish what they're playing. If you attempt to listen from a distance, you're bound to hear music from other sources; it can be disconcerting to be watching a banjo player and hearing Christmas carolers. Or watching a jazz trio and hearing the beats of a dj's mixes. Several musicians incorporated multi-media into their performances, providing additional visual stimulation. As the audience walks endlessly through the spaces, each was creating their own individual Musicircus experience, just as Cage intended.

Cage dictated that because the musicians are not paid, the event must be free to the public. How fortunate for Richmond that our own drum king Brian Jones has made this event an annual feast for the ears. I spoke with a half a dozen local musicians, both performers and attendees, tonight and every single one mentioned how lucky we are to have an annual Musicircus here. Don't I know it.