Category Archives: Views

Brooklyn Galaxies

Brooklyn, once the stepchild of Manhattan, has become a musical mecca, attracting hordes of musicians and listeners to neighborhoods with “music in the cafés at night, and revolution in the air,” to quote Zimmie, who was writing about another time and place and revolution.

Here are two new releases from folks who live on planets situated in different galaxies but who inhabit the same modest borough of New York City: Musette Explosion and the Suite
Unraveling, headed by guitarist Lily Maase, an Albuquerque native. Continue reading →

Mary Halvorson Quintet: Wow.

Sometimes you just know—and quickly, too.

The first time I heard Jimi Hendrix was on a Friday afternoon in 1967. I was hanging with my friend Eric Walsh at his parents’ house after school when he put on Are You Experienced. It was only a few seconds into “Purple Haze” that, eyes wide and forearm hairs standing involuntarily erect, I knew I had never heard anything like it before and wanted to hear more. It filled a void whose existence I hadn’t even suspected.

MaryHalvorson.300dpi#6C0886Jazz guitarist Mary Halvorson had a life-
changing experience when she first heard Hendrix at the tender age of 11 or so. She abandoned the violin she’d been sawing away at for a few years, grabbed herself a black-and-white Stratocaster and some tablature books, and started on her quest to play like Jimi Hendrix.

The circle came full last week when I slid Halvorson’s Bending Bridges CD (Firehouse 12 Records, 2012) into the tray and hit Play. I knew in just a few seconds that I was hearing something previously unheard. There was something in the angle of the melodic lines, the way the horn lines rubbed against each other, something in the gloriously doleful feel that said: “New voice. Pay attention.”

She’s bringing her quintet—with Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet), Jon Irabagon (alto saxophone), John Hébert (bass), and Ches Smith (drums)—to the Outpost this Thursday, and I’ll be wearing bells. Continue reading →

“Skylights”: Balm for the Eyes and Ears

Research can be fun, boring, illuminating, exasperating, you-name-it—just like the rest of life. Sometimes it delivers more than you expect.

That’s what happened when I was researching guitarist/composer Andy Othling for my
“Tiempo” column in Albuquerque The Magazine. Othling quit a perfectly respectable job at
Sandia Lab to make a living playing music, and I’ll tell you how that suspect decision turned out in the April issue.

For now, I’d like to share an unexpected encounter with the universe that I had in the course of my research: Skylights. It’s a time-lapse video of New Mexico skies composed by Othling’s
photographer friend Knate Myers and scored by Othling.Skylights

It’s 5 minutes and 39 seconds long. I recommend that you set aside some time to view it when you won’t be interrupted, and watch it full-screen. If you can manage headphones for the music, that won’t hurt any, either.

Photo by Knate Myers.

© 2013 Mel Minter. All rights reserved.

She Flew Away

On Thursday, January 17, at 4:30 p.m., Albuquerquejenportrait and the wider world lost one of its fiercest spirits and one of its gentlest in one fell swoop when singer/songwriter Jennifer Robin flew away from us into the Great Unknown.

The first time I saw her perform—at Annapurna, on Silver and Yale—I was taken by the warm embrace of her voice, by the vulnerability twined around strength. I was preparing to write a piece about her, and between sets, we talked—as if we had know each other for donkey’s years. She had by then been wrestling with cancer for 11 years. She spoke candidly and without drama about facing her mortality every day. About the pain. About the deals she cut with the cancer when her meds interfered with her ability to play guitar, ceding a little bit of time for a little bit of art. About her love of color. About returning to New Mexico in 2009 to “get closer to the sky” and to her sister. About
wanting to get her Beatles album finished (and boy, did she ever).

Now, the sky has got her, and I already miss her laughter, but I have her jazzy folky music and the edification of having known her grace and grit. Continue reading →

Dancing about Architecture

“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” The quote is often attributed to Thelonious Monk, and though it may not have been original with him, it certainly has his koanesque humor.

Yes, writing about music is an absurd venture into a laughable incongruence—a fool’s errand. How does one capture the most immediate and slippery of the arts with these clumsy words, and what would be the point?

I get it, but fool that I am, I can’t entirely agree.

Smile

Continue reading →