10th Wave Redux

We’ve never been disappointed at a performance by 10th Wave Ensemble. We’ve heard them twice now, and they’re holding strong.

The qualities that make their performances engaging are:

a. We know nothing about who they are or what they’re trying to do, beyond presenting refreshing, engaging, and sometimes challenging music that we’ve never heard of and know nothing about.

b. Their instrumental arsenal is unusual and impressive: clarinet, cello, piano, marimba, violin, tabla, bass, vocals, flute, and whatever else might be required for a piece they’re dying to do.

c. Their performances are casual, relatively brief, and relatively cheap—pay what you can, or what you choose.

d. The group is multi-ethnic: Asian, white, African American.

d. Their musicianship is top-flight.

e. The program notes are accessible only on-line. (Listen now with an open mind and heart; read about it later. OK?)

e. They're making their “home” this fall at University Lutheran Church of Hope, which is located on a back street in Dinkytown.

This last item might seem inconsequential, but it’s fun to return to the neighborhood where Hilary and I lived back in our college days, half a century ago. They’ve closed off some streets since then and built a few apartment high-rises, but as we zigzagged here and there we might have reminisced about the Eighth Street Market, the ice cream truck that once passed us by (long gone), listening to the West Bank Trackers at Bootlegger Sam’s (long gone), the great LP sale at Bank’s liquidation center (now gone), or buying Steward Sandwiches at Positively 4^th Street (now gone.) 

I used to walk two miles before sunrise, three days a week, from East Hennepin across Dinkytown to the university police station (to pick up my moneybag), then on to my post at a large parking lot on the River Flats (now gone).

But more than any of that, Dinkytown once epitomized the curiosity, creativity, and freedom of university life that was opening up to young adults like me who had just arrived from the suburbs, and at a concert like this one, that same spirit was brought to life again.

(If you're interested in any of that history, you might want to read the recent article "How Alive or Dead is Dinkytown?"

We had no idea what the program would be. It wouldn’t have mattered. The music was fresh, varied, quirky, moving, humorous, and haunting, with more than a few touches of the sublime.

The piece de resistance was Robert Aldridge’s “Three Dance.” In which violin, marimba, and tabla set off at a furious pace, though the mood was occasionally haunting, reminding me, in snatches, of Stravinsky’s “Duo Concertant.”

In James Rolfe's “The Connection,” the performer, Eri Isomura, was required to recite an absurdist narrative while playing the marimba. The tale deals in chance meetings ala Andre Breton’s Nadja, but it wouldn’t have held my interest without the resonant plung-plung-plung on the rosewood keys. The marimba looked unusually long to me, and Isomura is not tall, which added an element of gymnastics to her performance as she stretched from one end of the beast to the other.

The “Billy Collins Suite” for clarinet, cello, piano, and narrator was more complex but didn’t quite work for me. Narrator Elwyn A. Fraser, Jr. has a beautiful and expressive voice, with the power to be heard even at a whisper, but the sound system was erratic and failed to deliver. I had trouble following the text, but unfortunately picked up just enough to keep trying, rather than leaving it behind and following the music. (Words are themselves a form of music, powerful and suggestive. My preference is for art songs in languages I have no knowledge with.)

The composer of “Power and Beauty,” Victoria Malaway, was present, and she informed us before the piece that it dealt with interactions of whites and Native Americans with the nearby Falls of St. Anthony, and each other, over a long span of history. The piece was frothy and engaging … but far too short for the subject at hand.

But random notes like these do little to convey the general flow of the evening, which was relaxed, gracious, lively, and full of lyricism and surprise. And I have failed to mention the intricacy and "touch" of Ben Yats' tabla playing. It gives us reason enough to look forward to the group’s upcoming concert, "East Meets West: India America," on September 20th. 

 

Minnesota State Fair — Questions of Space

I would never volunteer to join a mission to Mars. (I already saw the movie.) But that’s one of the questions they ask you when you visit the fascinating Journey to Space exhibit at this year’s state fair. To judge from the poker chips piling up in the plexiglass voting tubes, more people are claiming they would go than wouldn’t. I doubt it.

We went to the fair on opening day, to beat the crowds, and we approached in our usual way, from the west, down Larpenteur. The line was longer than usual; it took us an hour to get in, probably because they’ve put a new policy in place by which those who park on the streets in Falcon Heights are being charged $25. I suspect that many who used to park there are choosing to park in the lot, which is closer to the fairgrounds and now costs the same amount.

Once inside, our usual route is to begin at the eco-building, followed by the art building. Then hotdogs and maybe a Kiwanis chocolate malt. Then education, crafts, and out into the passing stream of hot bodies, on our way to agriculture, fish, milk, and four-legged creatures.

The Journey to Space exhibit threw a wrinkle into the itinerary. It's housed in a building just inside the north gate. As we were passing Hilary said, “Why don’t we stop in? The line's not that long.” I’m glad we did.

Inside the building we stood in another line for ten minutes--not bad. Then we were ushered up some stairs and into a re-creation of one wing of the international space station. We stood with eight or ten other people on a stationary gangplank while the walls of the eight-sided room slowly rotated around us and various science experiments and TV screens moved slowly past. Scenes from 2001: A Space Odessey flashed through my mind once or twice. I found myself gripping the hand rail, as if I might otherwise fall over. It was all slightly destabilizing, but it was also cool. It made me a little queasy, but it was something new, and the talking heads of genuine astronauts on the screen were interesting to listen to. The lights went dim several times, I’m not sure why.

Back on the exhibit floor, we wandered from one hands-on exhibit to the next. One of them recreated the effect of trying to use your hands to manipulate two toy blocks under conditions of weightlessness. There were also immense screens on which videos of solar flares were being projected, and others showing the northern lights as seen from various locations above earth.

Hilary was especially taken by the one explaining that if we lived on Saturn, we’d only be six years old. (We could have gotten into the fair for free!)

Back in the lobby, we took a look at some of the spacesuits worn by genuine astronauts while in space. But the highlight of that part of the exhibit was the discussion we had with a NASA volunteer who was standing by a small, pyramidal piece of moon rock embedded in plexiglass.

He knew all about various probes that were exploring the planets, their moons, and the asteroid belt. He seemed genuinely interested when I told him about 31/ Atlas, the new object that arrived from deep space just three weeks ago. We were soon discussing how speculative much of cosmology remains, and how important it is to make assertions that will secure grant money, regardless of the actual strength of the claims being made.

All in all, it was an unusual and stimulating start to the day. By that time we’d worked up an appetite, and Giggles Campfire Grill was right down the street. The walleye cakes were as good as I remembered them, and the smoked salmon on a stick wasn’t bad either. When we got our food, I took one look at the glass of pink lemonade and said, “But we ordered a large.”

“That is a large,” the woman said with a winning smile. “Have a nice day.”

_________

The science on view in the eco-building seemed modest indeed to someone who'd just been blasting through outer space. The art building offered an engaging mix of styles and themes, as usual. We chatted at some length with a highly enthusiastic couple at the Friends of the BWCAW booth, and registered to win a new tent.

"I hope we win that," I said. "We're still using a Marmot backpacking tent. The ceiling is only four feet high, and my back gets so stiff I have trouble crawling out in the morning."

"I just bring a folding cot," the woman said. "And a folding chair." As we were leaving she gave us each a dark green plastic spork.  

The knitted sweaters and quilts in the handicraft building were impressive, but a little hard to admire with the temperature outside pushing eighty. We stepped out into the glare and surveyed the colorful scene. Strange aromas were drifting our way from O'Gara's Irish Pub, where the sounds of a man playing the bagpipes rose above the din. We opted instead to find some shady seats at the bandstand nearby and caught the last number of Davina and the Vagabonds' set. That was enough for me. 

The thing that impressed me most in the agriculture building was the very long line of people waiting patiently to view the crop art. (Are we getting tired yet?) You never know quite where you are when you emerge from that eight-sided building, but we somehow made our way downhill to the DNR building to see the fish. 

Inside the cool and cavernous log cabin nearby we discussed buckthorn eradication methods with one of the volunteers. Clearly, it was time to go home.

During the long walk back to the car we passed the parade, which was heading in the opposite direction: Farmington, then Rosemount, then Worthington. Some of the kids weren't even playing instruments. Were they having a good time? Why did they sign up? Well, at best, high school is a bundle of confusion, anxiety, and mixed emotions. Under the weight of those conditions, listening to a bunch of trombones and trumpets blasting in your ears to a regular rhythm is probably good for your health.

Ratatouille in Half an Hour

 

Yes, it’s in the oven, and I’ve got a strict deadline.

Why ratatouille? Because we were walking the aisles at Trader Joe’s this morning, gathering ingredients for our upcoming pesto-making day, and I spotted some bulbous purple eggplants sitting in a bushel-basket alongside a produce gondola otherwise cluttered with onions and potatoes.

“We’ve got to make ratatouille at least once this summer,” I said.

“I’m not that keen on it… but why not?” Hilary said graciously.

So after she left for her knitting group, I got to work.

I made an error immediately, choosing a Brazilian album to listen to as I minced the garlic. That wasn’t right. I switched to a CD of music for wind instruments by Darius Milhaud.

This might seem an even more inappropriate choice. Milhaud’s music tends to be buoyant, open, casual, and spring-like, and these selections are no exception. The frequent harmonic clashes are meant to be rambunctious and exuberant rather than distressing in the serial Germanic style. If memory serves, Milhaud even did the soundtrack for Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932), one of Jean Renoir’s more frothy and frivolous films.  

Yet we’re just now entering into that luscious season of late summer, when the air gets cooler, darkness comes earlier, there’s often dew on the ground in the morning, and a touch of welcome melancholy begins to seep into our thoughts.

On the other hand, Milhaud hailed from Aix en Provence. We went to a wonderful concert at the Milhaud Institute there in 1989. Didn’t understand a word anyone said—many of the songs were performed in Russian, in fact—but the vibe was more than friendly. Ah, those were the days.

And ratatouille is a Provençal dish, after all, and eggplant is just now coming into season. The first piece on the CD is “La Cheminée du Roi René.” The "chimney" of Good King René of Provence, that is. For whatever reason, the pairing was perfect.

Years ago I made a “home cookbook” containing recipes we make often. I do a reprint maybe once a year, adding new things and sometimes taking things out that we no longer make. That ratatouille recipe has been hanging by a thread for a few years, but now I’m glad we kept it. The dish turned out well.

One bittersweet element signaling the approach of fall is the growing irascibility of our backyard hummingbirds. A female or a juvenile will arrive and alight on the feeder, only to be chased off immediately by a ruby-throated male, who doesn’t linger but disappears into the woods himself. What’s the point of that?

As we were out on the deck enjoying our dinner, I got up for a minute and stepped over to the edge to survey the back yard. Just then, a hummingbird flew right up to my face, hovering no more than a foot away. He moved to the left, then to the right, always facing me, as if he (or she) wanted to get a good look at this strange creature from every angle.

They say hummingbirds can be curious. I didn’t get a good look at it because I was reluctant to open my eyes fully so close to such a fast-moving and potentially aggressive creature, but I didn't flinch, either, and the sound of beating wings (fifty times per second) was loud.

As it flew off into the woods, I felt strangely blessed.

A Wild Week for Music

It wasn’t really that wild. I’m just trying to get your attention. But music arrives in many forms, and last week Hilary and I had the pleasure of listening to good deal of it.

It all started on Friday night. The moon was out, tinted by smoke from the forest fires raging in Manitoba. We were out, too, listening to rock-and-roll on the rooftop terrace of Brookview Community Center in Golden Valley. The event was a repeat of the Hopkins Class Reunion we attended last year, but for a different class. Hilary’s brother, David, was playing in the band again, and he’d gotten us complimentary tickets. 

Lively and distinguished?

The venue was classier, the food was slightly better, and the attendees seemed less frenzied, perhaps because of the larger venue and the more ample tables.

Most of the guests stayed inside, where the air was cleaner and it was easier to talk, but we sat out under the stars (only one of which was visible) listening to the music and chatting with spouses and friends of the band members. The band seemed slightly mellower, but also inspired by two new female vocalists. It was a memorable evening all around.

A few nights later Hilary’s other two brothers stopped over for “jazz night.” We’ve been doing this on a roughly monthly basis for at least twenty years. Everyone brings a few cuts, we take turns playing them, listening politely, commenting occasionally. It’s a great way to socialize and also to learn about new artists and forms of music.

Every month we wrap up the evening with pie. Hilary makes them, following in the footsteps of her mother, who made the pies and attended faithfully to the end, though she didn’t much like jazz. “I like the commentary,” she told us. She died a year ago at 97.

We keep track of the pieces we’re playing, and I type up a list later and send it around, sometimes manufacturing a “theme” after the fact. As you can see from our most recent gathering, our devotion to jazz is sincere but not exclusive:

July 2025: Jazz beyond borders

 Jeff / “Tin Roof Blues” / Herb Ellis (guitar) Roy Eldridge (trumpet), Getz (tenor) in straight-ahead 1957 performance

 John /  “Remember”  / Hank Mobley (tenor)  in1959 update of often recorded 1925 Irving Berlin tune, corny and sweet. To wit:

"Remember we found a lonely spot

And after I learned to care a lot;

You promised that you’d forget me not

 

But you forgot to remember"

 Hilary / “Fly with the Wind” (1964) mellow Lucky Thompson (tenor) with nice Hank Jones piano solo

 Paul / “Fuzzy” / Laura Jurd (Scotish composer / trumpet) in an upbeat, party-like New Orleans work w accordion & guitar             

 Jeff  /  “Seattle” Avishnu Cohen / young Jewish pianist in trio piece from album “Gently Disturbed”

 John / “Ka Ju Mot” / Albanian “folk” vocalist Elina Duli in slow, haunting piece with Colin Vollan (Swiss pianist) on ECM

 Hilary / “Reminiscence”/ a quieter side of Lucky Thompson from album “Lucky Strikes”

 Paul / “Little Opener” /Laura Jurd,  fun explosive arrangement with guitar and button accordion                       

 Jeff / “Ashé” /  Aaron Parks (piano)   Lyric and emotive jazz

 John / “After You’re Gone”/ rich modern harmonies and cookin’ solos on Nicolas Payton ensemble remake of 1915 tune

 Hilary / ”Siboney” / Cuban crooner/ballad from Los Super Seven album “Canto”

 Paul  / “Bonito Y Sabroso” / Cuban pianist Harold Lopez Nossa in live performance

A few days later we drove down to the West End theaters to see a matinee “encore” screening of the Met’s controversial production of Donizetti’s “Lucia de Lammermoor,” set in a nameless American Rust Belt slum rather than a 17^th century Scottish court. Donizetti’s music is very fine, but it didn’t jibe very well with the garish, seedy milieu, and several important elements in the plot were all but obliterated in the process of modernizing the story.

I didn’t like it … until I started to like it. The performance was lively, and slightly “cool,” all the ugly tattoos notwithstanding, and the singers were outstanding. Soprano Nadine Serra was spectacular in the title role, even with a bucket of blood splashed across her wedding dress. (She’d just murdered her newly wed husband with a fire extinguisher in a motel room.)

The next morning we headed downtown to see an exhibit of graphic art by Many Sully, a Sioux artist whose work dates mostly from the 30s and 40s. I’m including it in the lineup here because all art is in some sense musical, and because Sully’s work in particular draws upon repeated colors, patterns, and rhythms to achieve it effects. 

It’s a small exhibit, tucked into a room at the far end of MIA, but I’m glad we saw it. Most of the pieces consist of three-tiered panels with which Sully “depicted” famous personalities of her era and transformed them into native symbols.

Sully was raised in an aristocratic Sioux family, and she spent much of her adult life in New York City. I was interested to learn that she was related to the scholar Vine deLoria, Jr. When we got home I downloaded deLoria’s book, Spirit and Reason, in which he ridicules the Western philosophical establishment, pokes fun at his publisher, and tries to draw parallels between the Messiah and the Trickster figure who plays such a prominent role in Native American folklore. I can’t say that I fully caught the drift, but it’s definitely a subject worth investigating.

The next afternoon we returned downtown to attend a recital given by the vocal students at the annual Source Song Festival. The young performers had drawn their pieces from the standard romantic repertoire—Schubert, Wolf, Rachmaninov, Debussy, etc.­—and I shouldn’t have been surprised to see how many of the lyrics were of the “twittering birds,” “forest glen,” “lost love” variety.

No doubt, the pianists were as skilled as the singers. And if the lyrics sometimes teetering on the edge of schmaltz, one of the baritones redressed the balance by shaking the hall with a boisterous rendition of Charles Ives' "General William Booth Enters into Heaven."  

I'll spare you a blow-by-blow of the documentary we watched the next night, devoted to the career of eighteenth-century French composer Jean-Phillippe Rameau. Suffice it to say that music is often in the air-- 

or on the wall-- 

Or on the dining room table!