Ok, maybe they got yer hi-tech burritos and yer designer tacos in
And if Mexican food is miraculous, what about the music? I discovered to my delight that on Friday nights El Taco Mexicano features an excellent mariachi band, and they serenaded fellow diners and ourselves with a heartwarming selection of romantic canciónes. They played beautifully, and in their silver studded charro outfits they were a dashing sight.
Watch: Marvelous Mariachi
What is this strange creature appearing from behind Yoshi's sumptuous red velvet curtains? It's Pat Metheny, sporting one of the most spectacular hairdos I've ever seen. And it's not only his trademark thatch which is in fine fettle tonight, as he proves when he settles into a brief solo acoustic set on his legendary custom-made Pikasso guitar. Metheny fashions intriguing combinations of sounds on Make Peace and The Sound of Water.
I mean, come on, Metheny is a hugely popular artist who has sold millions of records and won a mind-boggling 17 Grammy Awards.
Link: Yoshi's
But I was blown away this afternoon when I visited Oakland School for the Arts - a college preparatory arts high school founded in 2000 - to watch my goddaughter’s dance class in action.
Dance teacher Reginald Ray-Savage is a renowned choreographer, and these students are fortunate to benefit from his inspirational guidance. Since founding his Savage Dance Company in 1992 he has choreographed over 100 works inspired mainly by the music of jazz greats like Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Dave Brubeck. Only the week before my visit Savage received rave reviews for his presentation Ritus at the San Francisco Black Choreographers Festival.
Savage is a demanding and inspiring teacher. His studio is decorated with graffiti urging, “There is no justice!”, “Stop Complaining!”, and “Shut Up!” His blend of ballet, Dunham technique, and contemporary dance give his works a fresh feel which he communicates to the students at OSA. As Savage puts it, this is way beyond jazz dance, rather it’s modern dance set to jazz music.
As I watched, his protégées swept across the floor with an astonishing grace and energy, and their interaction with jazz rhythms communicated instinctive and sophisticated urban statements. If their teacher insists they learn the rules of dance before they can break them, they do so with a ferocious intelligence which will stand them in good stead not only as artists and performers, but more importantly as human beings.
18% of Sierramont students take a musical elective, whether it be choir or orchestral practice, and it was inspiring to watch these youngsters singing and playing their hearts out (admittedly for school credit.) The school orchestras applied themselves with impressive concentration, and as the school choir sang, their faces were filled with joy.
A sign on the wall of Ms. White‘s class reads ‘Teamwork: Listening, thinking, working together’, and that seemed to sum things up pretty well.
Early musical training is of immense benefit to young minds. It helps develop brain areas involved in language and reasoning, and students who study the arts receive higher grades and are more successful on standardized tests.
Students of the arts also learn to think creatively and to reject outdated assumptions. Since studying the arts exposes children to other cultures, it teaches them to be empathetic towards others.
In addition, students of music learn craftsmanship, teamwork, discipline, and the concrete rewards of hard work. Crucially, music performance teaches youngsters to conquer fear and take risks, providing them with a means of self-expression.
The dedication of Ms.White was an inspiration. I wish I had had a music teacher like her when I was a teen. This energetic and committed educator moved to
I'm on my way to Los Angeles via Honolulu, cruising at an altitude of 42,000 feet. That's eight miles high: "When you touch down /You’ll find that it’s stranger than known."
I don't feel so good. I just had the worst airline meal of my life, after giving the wrong answer to the question, “Chicken or Beef?” I chose the beef after playing paper, rock, scissors with myself.
1. 4 Minute Warning - Radiohead
In a democratic band vote this was vetoed from the initial version of In Rainbows, proving that generally five heads are indeed better than one. “This is just a nightmare”, sings Thom Yorke. He should try the beef.
Another In Rainbows reject, and in perfect synchronicity the plane plummets ninety feet as we hit turbulence, prompting nervous gasps around the cabin. I feel the beef trying to do an about-turn and I remember: I really don’t like flying. This track proves that the rejects of mega-bands are only marginally more interesting than those of no-hopers. Are we in
Hmm. This oldie still packs a vicarious punch, but as the plane ducks and weaves its way through the turbulence, negative thoughts continue to percolate in my mind. I recall loudQUIETloud, the 2006 Pixies documentary which proved that famous musicians are just as boring and dysfunctional as we lesser mortals.
Reminds me of a girl who had a cat named Alexander and a goldfish named Sebastian. She was my first true love. On rainy days we sat in bars or walked on the beach. She was raised on a ranch and told me, “You don’t know much about animals, do you?” As usual, she was right. Talking of animals....
5. The Past is a Grotesque Animal - Of Montreal
No one with an iota of life experience could dispute the truth of this assertion. Sometimes you knock things down only to build them up again. Even if you succeed, there will always be something missing, in particular the purity and innocent joy which made it special in the first place.
6. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart - Wilco
The singer’s egomania and self-delusion merges with my own, and I wonder if I will end this flight in one piece, or in many pieces. As my pal Red used to say, the devil has his price to pay.
7. Dusty Nothing -
As this one pummels my senses, the plane stabilizes and I begin to feel better. Have all my epiphanic, life-defining moments been refracted through a musical lens? Can the only possible meaning to existence be reached through the amorphously precise and hazy joy that is musical expression? Nah.
8. It Stoned Me - Van Morrison
As the plane banks steeply I glimpse the Pacific shimmering many miles below, and I am gripped by a feeling of inexpressible gratitude. This is a song which communicates the majesty of pure experience, and I sense the vast gulf which separates Van from a multitude of artists who can never hope to approach his genius. As I look down I see
Listen: The Byrds, "Eight Miles High"
Although I was curious to witness this uniquely Japanese experience, I was a little hesitant about attending. I’d heard Noh described as an interminably tedious endurance trial with little in the way of drama or action, performed in a mostly unintelligible form of ancient Japanese.
How wrong those descriptions were. This was one of the most unique, mind-blowing things I’ve seen in
The 250 plays in the Noh repertoire depict mythic stories concerning vengeance, madness, spirits and supernatural worlds. Performances last four hours or more - they can be a tad exhausting - and consist of two plays separated by a humorous interlude known as kyogen.
The first play we saw - Soshiarai Komachi - concerns a poetess wrongly accused of plagiarism by a jealous rival.
It doesn’t sound like much of a story, but seen in the flesh it was quite compelling
The second play was no less fascinating, though I had no clue what it was about. My culturally savvy companion informed me that all was not well in the land of the rising sun. He knew this because there were priests, a poem on a stick, and a menacing looking demon who took forever to exit the stage. When he finally did leave, everybody stopped whooping, lay down their fans and suddenly it was all over.
I was fascinated to discover that, by tradition, Noh actors and musicians never rehearse together. Each actor, musician, and choral chanter practices his or her contribution independently or under the tutelage of a senior member.
Neither are performances entirely scripted. There's a good deal of improvisation and negotiation. Thus the tempo of the performance is set by the interactions of all the performers together. It’s all got something to do with the traditional Japanese aesthetic of transience, or "ichi-go ichi-e" ("one time, one meeting").
For all its inherently traditional, stylized drama, Noh is spectacularly weird. During the final act the leading actor, or shite, dressed in a costume resembling a giant chicken, his chest decorated with four turquoise pom-poms, repeatedly (and I mean repeatedly, it went on for all of twenty minutes!) addressed the hayashi (musicians) with the following bizarre intonation:
“YEEeeeeOOooooooooooooooW!”
The hayashi then replied with random drum beats and a rolling “HOoooooooooooaaa!” sound. Far out.
To this western viewer, despite Noh’s traditional roots, its minimalist aesthetic and unwitting surrealism gve it an "alternative" even Pythonesque feel. This is hardly surprising since the Noh-play creates its own “reality” which is simultaneously opposed to realism. Its virtual dream space simultaneously evokes solemnity, transcendence, mystification and amusement.
If that’s not alternative, I don’t know what is. There's nothing quite like Noh, and should you ever visit
VIDEO: An Invitation to Noh
