The Doorman’s Diary: 10.16-17.10

The club fills near capacity… starting right after I bungee the LIVE JAZZ BLUES sandwich boards to the light pole. It is less a living organism pulsing with inflow and outgo all night and more like a collecting tank steadily filling dangerously close to the spill. At one point, I tell a couple at the door…”squeeze in.” They are poster people for a jazz club. Solidly in their 40’s with style and clothes that hold creases. Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Poncho Sanchez songs—as well as the band’s originals—are exactly what they need to hear. The crowd is remarkable only for its size. Poppy red becomes the accent for the evening. First, it’s the black woman who boldly has a swath of it in her glossy relaxed hair. Then Missy, the flower-seller with her poppy-color bangs, making her rounds through the neighborhood bars with her wicker basket of long-stems hoisted high above. And then in the wee morn, at the tail-end of the final set, a young woman with hair on fire and her boyfriend with the black newsboy cap sneak in, cozily sipping sea breezes through the last note. Smugly she knows she’s a 17 percenter. In the US, the sale of red hair dye has gone up 17% since 2000. 

The Doorman’s Diary: 10.15-16.10

He tells me he turns 28 next Tuesday. We’re at closing time and I’m outside “folding up the sidewalk.” The sandwich board reads: LIVE JAZZ BLUES and the smoking table and chairs must be toted inside. He wants to talk. I want to listen. The trio inside is cooking on Horace Silver’s “Song for my Father,” a request I made earlier, being fulfilled. I should be sitting at the bar with a snifter of cognac, my latest, off-the-clock, free-drink obsession. The young guy tells me he’s a bouncer at a northside club.  “Sounds raw, do you like it?” He tells me he hates it and nods his head in the direction of three sweet-as-chocolate young ladies with skirts short enough to make grown men blind. They’re cackling drunk and stepping in spike heels like the sidewalk is a tightrope. “I’ve got two daughters, 7 and 8… never would I let them dress like that.” We hear his massive round friend, who reeked of whisky when I collected their five-buck covers earlier. The big guy’s inside the sparsely-filled jazz spot yelling, “Play it man…bend that bass!!” The club will be locked-up-dark in a half hour and the band appears to have finally found its groove, thanks to the exuberance of the well-lit giant, whose serious young friend shakes his head while watching little darlings spill out into the cool air of the neon bar across the street.

Some Walls

Two random email alerts I receive are from two art galleries – one in Beijing (see my May 7, 2010 post, Deceivingly Simple), the other in Oakland, Calif. I’m not complaining, actually I’m happy to learn about their new exhibits.  Some Walls, the Oakland gallery, is a bold, brilliant, and insanely creative concept. The gallery is a couple of walls inside the private home of artist and writer Chris Ashley. A visit requires scheduling an appointment. Annually, Ashley curates six solo exhibitions in his home, which are accompanied by an essay, and documented at somewalls.com. Featured in the exhibits are small collections of recent work by established artists, sometimes made specifically for these walls. The project aims to be international in focus. Some Walls does not encourage unsolicited submissions of artist work—the project’s program and process is well-defined, and Ashley warns that inquiries may not be answered. For more information contact Chris Ashley at info@somewalls.com or visit the site to be added to the newsletter list for Some Walls: A curatorial and writing art project.

A Blue Night at Caroline’s

The collage of humanity in its entirety made its way to the jam.  Now 76, he learned the blues at age 8, but his mamma told him ‘stay away from that devil’s music, it won’t do you no good.’ When he sings Hoochie Coochie Man, he means it. Then there’s the old trombone man, the only brass playing tonight. Looking like he fell off the circus wagon, he sips his beer frothily and slides notes mournfully into the gaps left open for him. He knows when to harmonize with Jimmy’s enigmatic blues harp, which holds the corners together when the heartbeat of the bass wanders down her own dark alley. With cat’s pivot, he blows the guitar man into his solo. Guitar Man’s licks echo down to the crossroads where devil’s music deals are made. A young gypsy woman with enough age lines on her round face from rough living jumps the stage to wail ‘but you know he is, everybody knows he is, oh you know he’s my hoochie coochie man.’ And the women she’s with shout “you know he is, girl…you know he is!’ It’s building…and building to the epiphany…  Big O slaps his keyboard with his giant hands and nods to the guitar player for one last push from his strat. He works it, bending blue notes around the room and clear through the ceiling as the sweaty crowd converges with devil-be-gone yelps and hollers.   

Peace Symbol

The anti-nuclear emblem or peace sign has become one of the most recognizable symbols in the world. In 1958, graphic designer Gerald Holtom, who was a member of Britain’s “Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND),” devised the emblem as a way of quickly telegraphing opposition to nuclear weapon development. After exploring a number of design options, Holtom settled on using the naval flag code of semaphore. He used the code letters for N and D—nuclear disarmament. In 1958, the anti-nuclear emblem had its first use in a protest demonstration against the Aldermaston facility, a British research center for the development of nuclear weapons located in Berkshire. The symbol migrated to the U.S. where it was used in civil rights marches and in anti-Vietnam-war protests (which some American soldiers referred to it as the “footprint of the great American chicken”). Deliberately never copyrighted, the symbol is still recognized in Great Britain as the logo for nuclear disarmament, but is known worldwide for peace and non-violence. No one has to pay or to seek permission before they use it. As a symbol of freedom, it is free for all. Peace-symbols are used everywhere, but I like the little one-inch, union-printed black buttons with a white symbol—the original color scheme—available HERE. 

Irish Dance & Culture

This may seem a bit of a trick question of the when-is-the-4^th-of-July ilk, but it must be asked: Irish dance is strongest in which two areas of the world? Answer: (1) Ireland and (2) America’s Midwest, specifically Chicago and Milwaukee. The strongest Irish dance competitors and best performers are from these two parts of the world.  And the strongest Irish dance schools are located there as well. A young Irish dance school—only four years old—is located in the northern suburbs of Milwaukee. Rince Nia Academy of Irish Dance & Culture offers students, ages four through adult, the opportunity to learn Irish dance for competition and performance. “Rince Nia,” pronounced rinka nia, is Irish for dance champion.  Rince Nia will perform at Milwaukee Irish Fest, the world’s largest celebration of Irish music and culture, with more than 100 entertainment acts at the four-day, 16-stage event, running August 19-22, 2010. The Academy is owned by Sean & Jillian Beglan, both former performers in Riverdance. Sean, who was the lead in Riverdance, was recently interviewed on Lake Effect, produced by the local NPR affiliate, WUWM. The interesting interview provides a mini-bio of Sean, describing his career from his roots in County Caven Ireland to becoming the owner, primary instructor and artistic director of Rince Nia Academy of Irish Dance & Culture, as well as describing the school’s family-oriented, student-centered teaching approach.

Art from the Gray World

Good artists grow, evolve, and adapt to their changing world. Mark David Gray is a terrific Milwaukee painter who incorporates architectural precision, sensual abstraction, and a sophisticated and unique approach to portraiture in his large pieces of work. Gray’s painting collection from 10 or more years ago is not the same as a few years, which is not the same collection he’s building today. Yet, you can mount his work from the past through today on a giant, bigger-than-life wall and it will be apparent that they are all from Mark David Gray. The artistic essence… the creative take of the world rings true. That’s what makes Mark David Gray notable. Gray writes: Themes dealing with individuality, community, propaganda, consumerism and spirituality prevail in my work. The painting, Economy+Nothing, I question the real motivations of our economy by combining the recognizable images of the Wall Street bull, a symbol of power, money and greed, against the background of flying war machines and the ubiquitous, patriotic stars and stripes. With this combination of popular imagery, I utilized bold, saturated color to unsettle the viewer while subverting the images “media-tized” context.