Carolina Chocolate Drops + Catherine Russell @ Joe's Pub 1/12/2008

Part I: Carolina Chocolate Drops
Part II: Catherine Russell here

I have to say this was one of the odder experiences I've had going to see a live show--but odd in a kind of weird fuzzy I-hit-my-elbow aftershock kind of way. I've been excited to see the Carolina Chocolate Drops perform since rock journalist Kandia Crazy Horse gave them a shout out in her interview with Rob Fields at Bold As Love. I hustled back from visiting and recording with a friend up North I hadn't seen in months in order to get there to see them. As a result I had banjo and luggage in tow. The first question I got asked as I queued up behind some folks who turned out to be with the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) was if I was one of the performers--I said no "No, I'm just carrying my stuff."--"A logical question" came the reply. Well not exactly; I really wouldn't want to be showing up for a gig at a supper club 45 minutes before the gig started because that would likely mean I'd have missed the sound check. Read: People are seated and eating and drinking; you don't have access to the stage until the set starts. Your set is 40 minutes, and you don't have either your instruments, mics, or sound levels set up. Ouch. Never a good thing. (above right, Carolina Chocolate Drops, l-r: Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, Justin Robinson)

But hey, these are the things with which audiences aren't supposed to have concern themselves, and perhaps even some arts presenters leave these details up to their house crew. Next I was at the door and one of the Joe's Pub staffers asked me if I was one of the musicians. When I said no, he smiled and told me if I said yes, that I'd get in for free--gee I hope so! (When they reached this staffer, the white and middle-aged couple behind me dryly intoned that they were among the performers, eliciting a chuckle from the staffer--if they hadn't looked so surburban maybe.) I responded jokingly that I thought once the musicians got on the stage my ruse would be revealed. Hmm, maybe not. After both artists' sets, I was departing luggage and banjo in hand, and someone passing so quickly in the other direction I didn't even see them briefly clasped my arm and called out, "great show!" I actually stopped in mid-step (which is harder than it sounds when you're carrying a banjo in a hard case), and shook my head calling back in half-voice (sotto) with a rueful half smile, "Not me." And no, I don't look anything like two African American men or one woman that comprise the Carolina Chocolate Drops, nor do I look like the European American male musician, the skilled and amiable Matt Munisteri, who was playing banjo and guitar with Catherine Russell.

It probably won't be surprising to discover that the audience was 99% European American. But I was surprised. I was so sure--what with the Oprah appearance at the end of last year, and their appearance in The Great Debaters, and their four songs on the soundtrack--that African American roots music aficionados would be in full effect. But I didn't even need a whole hand to count the black folks in the room, and the show was sold out. I didn't have a table reserved, and had to stand at the bar (no they don't have bar stools at Joe's Pub--the "pub" being short for "Public" as opposed to referencing a drinking establishment where everyone knows your name). (left, the new cover for the re-released, Dona Got A Ramblin' Mind from the Music Maker Relief Foundation)


The place kept filling, with people arriving for their table reservations up until 5 minutes before the show. A few exasperated people who had expected to be able to come in at 6:40 for a 7:00pm show and get a table, milled around the bar area. Well, maybe under regular conditions tables might still be available, but APAP was in town. It's a huge conference. One of the attendees perks is being able to get into shows at no or low cost. These Arts Presenter Showcases are a big deal for the performers as well; in one shot they get to perform in front of art presenters who control the booking schedules and purse strings for arts venues across the United States. No small opportunity that, which was clear from the laser beam energy with which the CCD's manager was moving through and scanning the crowd, presumably for VIPs he would need to connect the CCD with during the post-show autographing and public greeting.

At 6:59pm the lights dimmed and at 7pm (on the dot) the Chocolate Drops hit the stage. The group is comprised of Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson, who both are natives of the hills region of the North Carolina Piedmont, and Dom Flemons who is from Phoenix, Arizona. The three met at the Black Banjo Gathering that occurred in 2005 at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, and apparently had instant chemistry. Flemons moved to North Carolina and the group was born. OK, well first Flemons dedicated himself to playing banjo starting when he was 20 years old (he's around 25 now), three years before he met his bandmates. Giddens had studied opera at Oberlin, and then got deeply involved in the contra dancing community, and Robinson was a classical-trained violinist who heard an NPR report about Joe Thompson, reputedly the last black string player of his generation who lived and still lives in Mebane, N.C. Thompson was a featured presenter/performer at the black banjo gathering and eventually became mentor to the three who visited him weekly to learn songs. My understanding is that this apprenticeship model is typical in string/roots music--younger/emerging musicians seek out older ones and learn songs from these musical elders by ear. Hence the importance of preservation efforts and new generations of players connecting with older ones before the latter pass on. The other option is learning songs from recorded archives such as those created by the Lomax family and the Smithsonian. But this doesn't afford newer musicians the opportunity of the more traditional apprenticeship. (above left the Chocolate Drops with mentor Joe Thompson; photo Lissa Gotwals)

Flemons, Giddings, and Robinson are each highly talented, energetic, and charming performers. Flemons, who plays 4-string, 5-string, 6-string banjo and jug, clearly possesses the most overtly gregarious stage persona, and throughout was working the some of the country vaudevillian, twirling his resonator guitar in his lap, and then playing out a rhythm on the back and twirling it front again in time to give a hard emphasizing strum to accent a beat. A key showcase for his effusive style was the song "Viper Mad," different versions of which appear on Flemons' and the CCD's respective MySpace pages. Robinson was the most laid-back, almost shy, of the three. I noticed in this performance and on YouTube videos of their performances that Robinson is the most internal singer of the three--he seems to be singing from the back of his throat which keeps his volume lower and his voice somewhat muted. Meanwhile, Giddens alternated between the two poles. An animated and personable entertainer, who plays fiddle and 5-string banjo, at one point she gave us some contra dancing and high stepping moves and in another ably handled simultaneously belting out a strong soprano vocal and fiddling into the same mic (no easy feat since the two instruments were claiming some of the same frequency range, despite their timbral distinctions). In other moments she assumed more of a more supportive role, backing up her bandmates. (above right, the Carolina Chocolate Drops playing with Thompson)

They came out and asked folks how they were doing and when they got a reticent response, Giddens asked again this time getting more energy from the crowd. She announced that they were the Carolina Chocolate Drops and they were going to give us some music from North Carolina--one whoop came from the crowd (what, only one Carolina native in the whole audience?). The CCD came on strong from that first song, which I'd like to say was "Black-Eyed Daisy" (Flemons: Resonator guitar & harmonica; Giddens: Fiddle; Robinson: Fiddle)and didn't let the crowd go. After that first song was done there were plenty of whooping hollers from the crowd. Subsequently Giddens encouraged that crowd acknowledging though she knew they were in New York where everyone is cool and wears the fashions "we copy down south, but feel free to do what you feel like doing--singing along, dancing, bopping your head, or just listen if you feel like it." At which point Flemons interjected "Wait a minute, we're not doing the avant garde," at which the crowd laughed. He continued, "We're all a community here. So do what you want to do but make sure we're all together." After the subway rumbled past ("Something's going on down there" commented Giddens with a tinge of playful wonder) the Drops performed the rollicking Joe Thompson tune "Georgie Buck" which might be a good PSA soundtrack for health-motivated caution in southern cuisine (Georgie Buck is dead/ Don't put no shortening in my bread). Afterwards it seemed like wisps of smoke ought to be coming off the stage, or that the floor boards should be buckling from the energy summoned by their playing. The Joe's Pub lighting tech was doing some nice work accentuating the rhythmic high times of their tunes, and in between songs Robinson looked up and noted with wittily dry southern sincerity, "The lighting changes make us feel professional" (I don't know if folks from other regions of the U.S. can carry off the dry delivery concurrent with the actual sincerity--but it makes me nostalgic). After this came "Don't Get Trouble in Your Mind" and the aforementioned "Viper Mad." These were followed by a short history lesson from Robinson on the origins of drum and fife music and "Rickett's Hornpipe" which again featured some enthused musicianship from Flemons on a shoulder-strapped snare drum played with brushes and on which the Chocolate Drops substituted fiddle for fife. Robinson had lead vocal on "Jack o' Diamonds" which they adapted from a Lomax archive recording. They ended the set with the same song that ends their latest CD, "Sourwood Mountain" which Giddens repeated for us again slowly noting that a number of audiences have had some trouble making out the title through their Carolina accents. It was a hell of a way to go out, and the crowd was on its feet giving them a standing ovation, which they definitely deserved.

So it pains me to say that nevertheless, in the end, the show felt like the showcase it was, as opposed to an actual show, which I sense is the better circumstance under which to see the CCD. The Joe's Pub set was a serious--here's all we can do and then some--presentation, but it didn't exactly feel like a regular concert date for the group. Still the fact that they are individually all rather young (Giddens is the "eldest" born in 1977, while her bandmates were both born in 1982), and they've only been together as a group for two years, makes their collective acumen and professionalism, not to mention chemistry, all rather astounding. I personally missed the range of work represented on their latest CD Dona Got A Ramblin' Mind, no mid-tempo tunes like, "Sally Ann" or "Short Life of Trouble" where Robinson opens up his voice, or the haunting "Little Margaret" or "Another Man Done Gone" both of which feature Gidden's soprano. The music, while excellent and fun, was all fast and faster rollicking, head-bobbing and foot-stomping tunes. As a final offering, their arrangement of Blu Cantrell's "Hit Em Up Style (Oops)" demonstrated their connection with modern music and the possible connections between the fiddle-ready string-evocative samples (such as the one that loops throughout the background of Cantrell's cut) and percussive elements hip hop, which can be played out on the percussive stringed-drum of the banjo. They had the predominantly white multi-generational group clapping along with Flemons who led the hand-claps, on the beat. Bringing home the connections between wronged hip hop shorties, maligned early 20th century hilltop gals, the exclusive predominantly white upper middle-class late-20th-century first wives club members, and everyone else. The Chocolate Drops gave a heartfelt acknowledgment of their mentor, Thompson, and announced he had recently been recognized with a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Award, and not posthumously as is so often the case. Thompson turned 89 in December.

Granted much of the music they're mining is toe-tapping dance music, but that's not all of their musical focus. I'd be interested in hearing them again at a regular gig; goodness knows they're playing out enough. A November 2007 Boston Globe story on the group indicated they were booked into 2009. Their website has them playing back to back dates until the lighter scheduling of May/June of 2008, and then fully booked again in July and August. So if they're going to be at a venue near you, run do not walk to get your tickets while they're still affordable and available.

At the Joe's Pub show they mentioned that they were touring in a 12 passenger van with all their gear and merchandise, which was a step up from their previous minivan situation. Nevertheless, the schedule sounds grueling, and while I understand the import of taking advantage of the present moment with all the recognition they are getting as the only African American string band out there, and not just with the ethnic identity question, but the fact that each of them is an accomplished musician who is seriously committed to this area of music history and performance. Add to that the spotlight from positive reviews for their latest release Dona Got A Ramblin Mind, and the exposure on Oprah, and The Great Debaters, and it is a hot moment. But you just hope they can take it all in, enjoy it, and not get burnt out with the heavy performance/travel schedule and increasing demands on their time that are the flip side of increased recognition. (DGARM is actually a re-release through the The Music Maker Relief Foundation which has its own label, a small roster of artists, and is committed to helping "the true pioneers and forgotten heroes of southern music gain recognition and meet their day to day needs.")



Endnote I:
• Boston Globe article about the Carolina Chocolate Drops.
• Independent Weekly article about the Carolina Chocolate Drops and mentor Joe Thompson.
• Susan Budig's Carolina Chocolate Drops profile on Minnesota's Gather community blog.
• Website for the documentary film, Black String Revival in which the Carolina Chocolate Drops and other African American string revival performers and scholars appear.

Brandon Ross' "Theorema" @ Jalopy 12/28/07 + URB ALT (Oops) + Upcoming...Incoming NYC/Philly

I arrived late to the show; bridge and Brooklyn-Queens Expressway(BQE) traffic slowing things down. Plus there's the trick of getting to Jalopy aka Jalopy Theatre and School of Music (despite the somewhat institutional sounding name, it looks like a well-loved funky club, both inside and out). You can't trust the directions from either Mapquest or Googlemaps as they will get you to the wrong side of Columbia Street, looking woefully at the BQE and wondering how to get to the other side. You've got to keep going up Hamilton and then turn left, going under the BQE, and left again to get to Hamilton going the other way. Then you'll end up on the side of Columbia Street that houses Jalopy almost on the corner. It's a great club, with old-style wooden church pews and folding wooden chairs, hardwood floors, and a bar with alcohol (and I think some juices), a string instrument rental display, and an intimate stage space framed by heavy red velvet curtains.

I want to write about how thought-provoking, engaging, and rich-sounding this show was in some kind of specific detail, and I find myself at a loss. Even while I was sitting in one of Jalopy's the center row pews, I was occasionally thinking 'how am I going to write about this so I remember it?' I mean I could talk about harmonics, and rhythms which were so key to the music played, but it wouldn't give the most embodied portrait. Key for me were the ways that bodies at play created sounds; the flesh-and-bone interactions of this show which was a mix of improvisation and notated work. I didn't get to see the notation so I don't know what Ross' scores looked like. I know there were a number of instances when bassist Stomu Takeishi looked as though he was reading the score very closely.

Tonight I didn't have a camera, still I felt myself watching intently the process by which each musician played their instrument, drew sound from it with their whole body. It was a frame-by-frame recording experience to be sure. What my uncle would call making "memory pictures." This was more obvious with the playing of Stomu Takeishi whose bodily invocations communicated so much as to the route of sound through his body--bubbling up from his shoe-shorn feet, toes curling around pedal knobs, knees bending as his torso extended forward and then back. The music percolated through his chest as he moved his shoulders never losing contact with the bass which didn't seem to hold its solid wooden form against these movements. Although Takeishi's music stand obscured some of the view of his electric bass--a really beautiful instrument by the way--its body was a part of these ambulations ultimately as resonator even though Takeishi wasn't playing an acoustic body this evening. Most evocatively, the sound would pop into one of Takeishi's cheeks and he'd hold it there, looking like he had a big rubber ball between cheek and gums, waiting for the moment to play a note. You could almost feel the tension of someone saying, "Wait...wait for it, wait for it...Now!" Then he'd pluck or tap a string and the cheek would deflate and the cycle would start anew. It's a really amazing experience to be allowed to witness that aspect of someone's creative trajectory. I had been moved previously by Takeishi's commitment when I saw him play at Rose Live Music, with the Out On A Limb All-Stars conducted by Lawrence "Butch" Morris, as part of the curated series Brandon Ross put together in September of this year (Takeishi and Ross have played together as an acoustic duo For Living Lovers, as well as in Henry Threadgill's and Butch Morris' respective ensembles). In the former instance even though he was sitting I could still see his embodied expressiveness. I don't know how it feels to him, but watching Takeishi I felt I was seeing an artist willing to fully give himself over to the process of achieving particular sounds. For vocalists I suppose the equivalent for vocalists is the "ugly face." (Rachelle Farrell's performance ethos is a good example of this.) (Takeishi pictured above left in 2005 playing with the Sax Pistols in Italy; no offense to F. Truono but this image doesn't fully capture the energy circuitry I described above, though you do get to see those cheeks bursting with channeled sound.)

I had never seen drummer Gerald Cleaver before this evening. (I actually didn't get to see much of him this evening either due to the combination of Jalopy's raised stage and the angle of the kit set up vis-a-vis my seat view.) The "Answers.com" bio I read (and link to here) cites his playing as "powerful and tasteful." I get the "powerful," but have no idea what was meant by "tasteful." All the restrained, self-conscious politeness I would associate with that adjective wasn't in evidence tonight. But if the writer meant to say Cleaver can be powerful without overpowering and playing over the rest of an ensemble I could see that. He certainly is inspired and creative. There was one moment of soloing when he seemed to get carried off on an improvisatory thread, but Ross did seem to be intentionally giving Cleaver the musical space to do just that at particular moments (for example in one case where he looped ambient feedback that played under Cleaver). Cleaver was massaging, striking, hammering and shimmering sounds from the drum kit. In various instances he pulled a drumstick across a the edge of a cymbal; tapped and stroked the floor tom, snare and symbols with his fingers--something that has become ubiquitous for some players. But Cleaver sounded like he was talking, having a conversation, or sneaking into the conversation that Takeishi and Ross had already started, or cajoling and teasing them into having a conversation with him. Some other interesting moments: Cleaver played the snare with a regular drumstick and the floor tom with a drumstick with a percussive attachment adding a subtle polyrhythmic element; he played this stick alone a few times and its tone sounded like a shaker filled with seeds, or a cabaça. Going further with this layering of simultaneous percussive timbres, he played the snare with a what looked to be a bass mallet, and the floor tom with a regular drumstick, and then the floor tom and snare both with bass mallets during one piece where he repeated a rhythmic pattern until it was its own chant, or maybe a ring shout. (Cleaver pictured above right playing with David Torn during 28° JazzFestival Saalfelden [24/8/2007]; photo: Claudio Casanova/AAJItalia]

I missed the introduction and explanation of Theorema, that is the specific meaning for Ross, aside from a more elegant and open way of referencing theory/theorem/concept which I had already kind of hypothesized. As it turns out Theorema is in process, which somewhat harkens to a scientific read of the term, as in "testing a theory." Everybody should be so fortunate to have their process sound this compelling. Some improvisation, or working through of concepts, can be quite cerebral; someone playing with an algorithm, or attempting to work through intervals via some randomized system. These efforts meant to free a performer/composer from the constraints of their traditional (read= History of Western Music) compositional knowledge can become another kind of prescriptive for the creative process.

Ross' compositional work has a consistent cerebral element, it also has considerable sensuality. This union becomes apparent when watching him play. Tonight he solely played his Klein electric headless guitar, with which he has an extensive and unique rapport. Something about this melding of the cerebral and sensual reminds me of Jason King's article on Roberta Flack in Listen Again, Experience Music Project's latest collection of presented papers from its Annual Pop Conference. There's a great quote from by Flack where she calls her music a mixture of science and soul; I believe she's talking about her arranging style having been honed both in the gospel and classical music training of her youth and the way in which she applied the chordal and counterpoint grammar of classical music to the arrangements of the soul, pop, gospel and folk music she recorded. from a 1977 radio interview that King cites "Flack is asked to explain what she leared from classical training. She responds that she likes 'to stay involved in the structure of music' in a 'scientific and soulful way." [182] Ross has also cited an engagement with diverse "folk" musics (he places folk in quotation marks in his description) of which he's pushing the boundaries by purposeful employ of considered compositional approaches.

Ross' performance physicality is more internal than Takeishi's; instead of movements of several inches, his gestural changes were contained in a minimum of inches and millimeters. You could watch as some element changed in Ross' face, or in the manner of his frequent leaning into the score, or within the literal space between himself and where the music was traveling--you could call that sound, or energy, or air molecules. With that leaning, in the instances where there was no score, I found myself wondering if Ross was was listening for progressions that were coming to him as he played, or for the changes that Takeishi and Cleaver were creating, or if something else entirely was happening. (Obviously, I have an ongoing fascination with the creative process as it's experienced by different folks) There would be changes in the music that were telegraphed a second before in some minor shift in Ross' posture, or the expression on his face. Interestingly, I noticed the facial expressions weren't just visual shifts, but you could feel a shift of energy with those subtle ripples as well. During the improvisatory moments (no one called out songs until the final number when Ross announced an Ornette Coleman cover) Takeishi looked at Ross intently, both at his face and where his fingers were on the fretboard, seemingly reading when to answer a note and what harmonies he might consider. Recently, I had been listening to a lot of Ross' recorded work and there were a couple of moments when I was stunned by how close to the recorded sound of his guitar this live work was. Despite working in the electric frame it's not a given that with direct line in a musician will be able to achieve the sound that he/she hears in her/his head or in a live context, given the vagaries of room sound and various mics, etc. In one really beautiful moment I recall, Ross was playing softly but with great articulation and rich tone, then he slightly increased his volume and played for a few more measures at which point Takeishi and Cleaver joined him. The power of quiet intensity has been coming up in few places for me recently; in the aforementioned Jason King article, as well as in a Victor Wooten video tutorial a friend sent me where Wooten talks about how Curtis Mayfield would play his electric guitar very softly and very intensely, in live contexts, clubs where people were talking and eating and people would get quiet in order to hear him. Not just because he was Curtis Mayfield, but because of the quality of that quiet voice, the kind of power it imbued. Similarly Ross' quiet intonations have that quality of power as well as startling clarity and color, all of which makes you want to hear what he's saying musically. (Ross pictured above left in a fairly similar representation of his "conscious listening/responding" stance--I'm just gonna call it that for now, to mark the posture)

It was a sweet night, with the pews filling up by the middle of the set as more people found their way to the Jalopy end of Columbia Street. It kind of reminded me of Bold As Live's The Family Stand event because Ross had family there ('tis the season), similar to V. Jeffrey Smith's kinfolk showing out--oh, now wouldn't it be great to see a Bold As Live conversation with Harriet Tubman (Melvin Gibbs, JT Lewis, Brandon Ross)! (Mr. Fields are you reading this? Wouldn't that be a richly diverse series of conversations given the musical history of those three instrumentalists?). So in evidence were his nephew photographer Bayaté Ross Smith, who currently has work in the quite interesting looking Face Off show at the Rush Arts Gallery & Resource Center in Chelsea (hoping to check that out soon). Also present, family friend and photographer Hank Willis Thomas a really gifted conceptually driven artist as well as, hmm, I think artist/curator Shane Aslan Selzer, but we didn't officially meet.

Endnote:
• From Patricia Lay-Dorsey's October 2007 Photo-A-Day Gallery: image of Gerald Cleaver "playing his drums and cymbals using two rolled-up sheets of paper...appropriately enough, music scores. And it worked! The whispery sound he created was just what was needed to set the tone for Andrew Bishop's experimental composition in four movements, "'Metaboles.'"


• Intensely enthused All About Jazz review of Cleaver and his ensemble Veil of Names' 2001 release Adjust















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Oops-a-daisy...
I got out of Jalopy at 11am. I had planned on running uptown from Brooklyn to get to The Shrine in Harlem for the last of the URB ALT 4.5 show. But URB ALT had started at 8pm, and I had the idea that it would only go for 3 hours because a previous Shrine show seemed to be on that clock. So I figured it was a no go. I was wrong, wrong, so wrong. URB ALT didn't finish until 1am! Next time I'll put in a call to confirm what's up, cause I missed a chance to hear some funk-filled improvisations and get my dance on--and we all know how important that is, whatever the time of year! The night featured Meera, a Pakistani band; Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Felili--both Meera and Felili dedicated songs to the recently assassinated Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto. They along with MuthaWit and special guests saxophonist/singer/keyboardist Micah Gaugh and guitarist Soul Product turned the joint out. You can read about the URB ALT 4.5 show (for a limited time, cause MySpace is on limited server space, people) on the MuthaWit blog.

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Upcoming...Incoming...January 2008

At BAM:
BAMcafé Live: FREE! 9pm
Friday, January 4th: Nora York, whom I first heard at the Tom Terrell Benefit 9/11/2006.
She's performing excerpts from her new project Furtiva Lagrima.








Saturday, January 5th: Anna Fiszman & Marc Landesberg with Felili
Boston Fielder has predicted that Felili is going to break bigtime soon. If you listen to her work you can see why. Run, don't walk to see her in the near future.

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At the Kiswick Theatre (Glenville, PA, right outside Philly)
January 11th
Sister Rosetta Tharpe Benefit, featuring The Dixie Hummingbirds, Willa Ward with the Johnny Thompson Singers, Marie Knight, Odetta and The Huff Singers. A Fundraiser to purchase a headstone for Tharpe's gravesite.















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At Joe's Pub
Friday, January 11th
Abigail Washburn featuring Bela Fleck
Multi-lingual roots music singer-songwriter/ banjo player with legendary Bela Fleck

Saturday, January 12th, 7pm The Carolina Chocolate Drops/ Catherine Russell.
The Drops just got featured on The Great Debaters soundtrack, featured on Oprah, and tapped by rock critic Kandia Crazy Horse, yeah, unh-hunh.



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... and somewhere in Brooklyn
January 15, 2008
URB ALT 5.0 - Annual Dr. King Tribute
Time, Place, & Artists to be announced



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...back at BAM
BAMcafé Live: FREE! @ 9pm
Friday & Saturday, January 18-19
Black Rock Coalition's Children of the Revolution Part II

@ BAM but not free
January 22
Mavis Staples

In February....
Harriet Tubman @ BAM
sho' nuff!

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!! HAPPY NEW YEAR !!