The next installment of Quick Thoughts, Short Takes, holiday edition. This time, some great performances and a few books.
Lionel Loueke. We saw the great young Beninese guitarist Lionel Loueke and his trio at Zankel Hall. We had seen him once or twice before in supporting roles with other players, and enjoy his solo recorded work, but the opportunity to see him at Zankel was one not to be missed. The hall, deep below Carnegie Hall, is one of our favorite places—intimate, beautifully modern and elegant, with great acoustics and sight lines. The night started with some fairly straight-ahead jazz, Loueke playing a fluid mix of African and jazz guitar, with Massimo Biolcati, the bassist, and Ferenc Nemeth, the drummer, playing as one, anticipating every turn in the music. Then they were joined by the extraordinary Brazilian percussionist, Cyro Baptista, playing an array of instruments, some of his own devising, moving from one to the other, sometimes only for a few bars, adding a depth and richness that you did not even realize was missing until it was there. And, to top off a great night of music, Angelique Kidjo, also from Benin, and a goddess of world music, music in general, and amazing dancer, joined in, her energy sparking through the room as she moved around the stage and then into the audience, everyone on their feet, singing and clapping, all fully immersed in the music, her energy and spirit. What a night!
Broadway Meets Bowery. Bowery Poetry Club has been a mainstay of poetry and spoken word for several decades. This is the second installment of what I hope is a continuing program of young Broadway performers with poets and spoken word artists, organized by Mason Granger. This was different from the first event, but no less astonishing, funny, moving, powerful. It is an unlikely pairing but one that really works, the singers and musicians and word artists appreciating each other, learning, enjoying sharing. We left elated. A recap is available on YouTube.
Six Feet of Books, Short Takes Edition. I am delighted to call your attention to several books by writers I met in the writing program at University of King’s College. The program in its relatively short existence has produced and continues to produce some of the best new non-fiction writing, but this fall marked the first books published by my classmates (graduates in May 2019), Jennifer Thornhill Verma, Cod Collapse: The Rise and Fall of Newfoundland’s Saltwater Cowboys and Phil Moskovitch, Adventures in Bubbles and Brine. There will be more from the 2019 graduating class. And joining writers from prior classes of graduates, books from two of the mentors of the program, Ayelet Tsabari, The Art of Leaving, and Ken McGoogan, The Flight of the Highlanders, were published and have received accolades, prizes, and all that good stuff. I am probably leaving some people out, for which I apologize.
As for some recent reading, I seem to be slowing down as work, other writing, and life leaves less time for reading, but two recent reads include Javier Marias’ Berta Isla, and Stephen Price’s Lampedusa. I wrote about Marias in an earlier post. His book, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa, is both a spy story and the story of a complicated relationship and marriage, and the toll the secrecy takes. Lampedusa is a fictionalized tale of the last years of Giuseppe Tomasi, the last prince of Lampedusa, and the author of the great Italian novel, The Leopard. It builds around characters and events of Tomasi’s life to tell the story of a world gone by, and the creative drive that moves Tomasi to write his only book, first published a year after his death.
Coming up: the Guggenheim, Freestyle Love Supreme, the Rubin Museum, a few more late shows.
