A Dream Deferred

Performance? Art? Both?


All fair questions within the context of what we did last Friday night. My wife is a CPA by training and really knows her way around a set of books. That is more then I know about anything. Anyway... she helps people out who need it now again sometimes getting paid and sometimes as a favor but either way... it is kind of cool. As I have documented several times this diner has two crazy dogs and my wife is a “crazy dog lady”. She hangs out at the park when she can with crazy dog people (I have visited once) and one of them is a booking agent for local talent.
All of that is well and good but the local talent pool similar to my gene pool is just not that deep. So that is all good. But in return for doing the books for the booking agent... (does that make sense even to me?) the booking agent (a very nice crazy dog lady) gave her tickets to go see one of her clients in a performance. the client is a professional storyteller and I met this opportunity with a little incredulous response but... I have been married for 24 and 1/2 years and this does not happen for an accident. If my wife says I should go it means I SHOULD go. And it is the least I can do but jeeez... this was a Friday night.

Worse... my son Patrick is a talented 17 year old who loves to stay in our basement and do... well, God only knows what all he does down there. My wife had determined that we had not exposed. So we truck on down to this rehabbed church on Tennessee and Shanendoah a little east of Grand. It was a nice space which would probably seat 150 people or so but there were about 30 people there to see the talent. There was a screen for one of the actors to change behind and then they got introduced and Blake Thomas came out and laid the background for this two man tribute to Langston Hughes.

According to Wikipedia:
“Hughes' life and work were enormously influential during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s alongside those of his contemporaries, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Aaron Douglas, who, collectively, (with the exception of McKay), created the short-lived magazine Fire!! Devoted to Younger Negro Artists.... Of primary conflict were the depictions of the "low-life", that is, the real lives of blacks in the lower social-economic strata and the superficial divisions and prejudices based on skin color within the black community.[27] Hughes wrote what would be considered the manifesto for himself and his contemporaries published in The Nation in 1926, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”.

Blake and Norfolk sat with a little table and a pitcher of beer and a few mugs as Blake took the roll of a narrator Langston Hughes and Norfolk was Jesse Simple, Langstons iconic character. The pace of the performance was good and encompassed several different “pieces” on feet, landladies, the last whipping and a toast to Harlem. the vignettes were punctuated with Thomas and Norfolk singing and percussing with hand claps and thigh slaps. But they sang well. The final piece of the evening which made it all worthwhile when Norfolk performed Hughes’ poem regarding all the Jazz artists who passed through Harlem... not just in the renaissance but through all time. It was impressive and bordered on brilliant and I could not help but think it would make a great You Tube video.

The whole thing was only about an hour and was very engaging. Simple/Norfolk’s wordplay and characters seemed spot on. The Simple character reminded me prominently of Lamont who works down at the chili parlor where I have breakfast and I often hear him leaning over the counter and riffing with his friends about life, women... and life. My son Patrick is watching all this but finds it hard to connect and looking around he is 25 years younger then anyone in the place. The audience seems made up primarily of arty people but they are there to watch and learn. Norfolk and Blake seem very comfortable with one another but it is clearly Norfolks show and he shines. I understand he is an awesome storyteller and we will have to go check that out sometime.

Here is a link to his booking agents site where they have information on Norfolk:
http://www.folktale.com/

The great thing about attending a performance like this is that I did not know anything about Hughes before this. What I knew of the harlem Renaissance could be summed up by what I had seen in the movie “Cotton Club” which is at best a limited view of the scene through a white film maker’s eyes. there is something about a black man interpreting a black man’s view of those times which paints a more telling picture. University of Missouri Press has come up with the complete works of Hughes and I will need to check out some that going forward.
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
-Langston Hughes


***


Dream Boogie
Langston Hughes
Good morning, daddy!
Ain't you heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred?
Listen closely:
You'll hear their feet
Beating out and beating out a --
You think
It's a happy beat?
Listen to it closely:
Ain't you heard
something underneath
like a --
What did I say?
Sure,
I'm happy!
Take it away!

Hey, pop!
Re-bop!
Mop!
Y-e-a-h!

Concert Review Number 11: Bob Dylan, St. Louis October 22, 2007

Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Amos Lee
The Fox Theatre



Sooooo...my second $180.00 concert ticket in three days. Who is a millionaire genius? Not me...on either count. There was a chance my wife would eventual start to speak to me again after I paid this much for a concert ticket...several times... but that chance has been...frittered away. Heading out to the Fox on what seems like the first day of winter. I was looking forward to the Fox after having suffered the indignities of U.S. Cellular Coliseum in Bloomington. I was also looking forward to (in no particular order) seeing the hot Elvis Costello set and getting home and being in bed by 11. Such is the life of the sad pathetic 46 year old man.

I have made a strategic decision to Miss the Amos Lee set. As I stated he was deemed non-essential. This is the second harshest epithet I could dump on him but on more careful reflection he is entitled to the number one unkindest thing I could say about ANY live rock show. He was...pleasant. There is nothing more unforgivable in rock then being pleasant. Save it for the Holiday Inn Lounge my friend where people can talk over your set and enjoy a tequila sunrise. Of course that is just my opinion.

We arrive at the Fox and it has been a while since I have been there. I do not remember who I saw there last but every show is an experience just because it is such an impressive venue. It is gaudy and beautiful at the same time with over worked detail in every nook and cranny. there is no plain space in the building and from the moment you walk in... it is just wow. it is also nice because even though it is a pretty venue with nice padded theatre seats you can take e your cocktail to your seat.
We were in row E in the center in front of the stage. Unfortunately it is not the fifth row because the orchestra pit is full of folding chairs. The crowd is an older crowd but full of regular people. I see a few people I know as well as Steve Pick, music critic and Euclid Records clerk...very good guy. It was a fairly mellow vibe when we walked in on the end of Amos Lee’s set. We found our way to our seats and evicted some people who were supposed to be on the other side.

After seeing the show the other night I was really looking forward to Costello. From reading prior reviews I knew that the set, the jokes and the stage patter did not vary a great deal. It didn't. He started off with “Angels Want To Wear My Red Shoes” and other then mixing the order up (slightly) he stayed with the same set i had heard a few nights before. The strange thing was that he was still kind of hypnotic and compelling for me. Once again...I just like to hear the guy sing. He is a weak guitar player but plays well enough to accompany his voice.

He tried to lead a sing along again tonight just like he did in Bloomington on the song “Wake Me Up”. It was a little of a reach there and was a big reach at the Fox in St. Louis. I have seen a lot of bands do this more or less successfully but it is really best done in the intimacy of a bar with a lot of beer involved. It was hard in the Arena atmosphere in Bloomington and was really disconnected in the padded seat theatre of the Fox.

Nothing made his set stand out from the other night. He made references to T-Bone Burnette and Henry Coward (the same person) as writing partners, told the same Schwartzenegger joke and talked faux nervously about his American born kids needing to be in a war. With “Radio Sweetheart” he broke into the Jackie Wilson song “Let It All Hang Out” and attempted another failed sing along but it did not seem to bother him.

He closed once again with “Peace love and Understanding” and a new song I think that was called “Willow From The Rye” which was an anti war song from the point of view of a mother speaking to the country’s leaders since she had lost her son to the war. It was a quality sad, pretty song containing the poignant line “Admit you lied and bring the boys back home.”
Pretty good stuff... then after a short break Dylan came out, just as he had the night before. The thing is... I had just seen him a few days before and he was not that great then. The bad was dressed in leather suits and bowler hats. Dylan was dressed like Dylan still with the big hat and sadly...he still could not really sing. The good news/bad news was that he played a dramatically different set list. That is impressive on a number of different levels:

1. His band can play anything and they could wing almost anything he wanted to play.
2. Dylan has some respect for his craft and his audience and is not mailing it in.
3. He remembers the words to songs like “Visions of Johanna.” (no one else does)

So we got that going for us. Danny on guitar was awesome again and it was not quite the same Soulard Blues Band feel that we had in Bloomington. He also did not play my favorite song “Tangled Up In Blue” so I did not have to suffer through it. he opened with “Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat” which is a classic and went into “It Ain’t Me Babe” which... is a classic. Those classics are from almost 40 years ago. Then he hit some new classics. “Sick of Love” and the still timely “Levees Gonna Break: which he had also performed two nights before and really got the band and the crowd rocking. There was sweet pedal steel guitar through most of the show and it just swung and twanged a little better then the the night before.

“Visions of Johanna”....”Things Have Changed”...”Nadine”...on and on. A little numbing. When I say he cannot sing I do actually mean it. Some people love his voice from when used to be able to sing (me) and some-people think he never could. Now however he really has no lung capacity so every delivery is breathy and forced, jamming words into too small a places and ruining the flow and timing. Still...he is Dylan and on this night Costello came out to join him for a few encores and well...you just do not get to see two members of the holy (little h) trinity sharing a mike for the night.

Anyway... I think I am done seeing that nice Bob Dylan. I am happy I got to see him several times... once with my oldest son and I needed to see him a few times before he croaked. Unlike some of my music snob friends I will miss Dylan...it has been nice to have him croaking around for the last 45 years or so. That is a long ass time. So we got that going for us. Danny on guitar was awesome again and it was not quite the same Soulard Blues Band feel that we had in Bloomington. He also did not play my favorite song “Tangled Up In Blue” so I did not have to suffer through it. he opened with “Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat” which is a classic and went into “It Ain’t Me Babe” which... is a classic. Those classics are from almost 40 years ago. Then he hit some new classics. “Sick of Love” and the still timely “Levees Gonna Break: which he had also performed two nights before and really got the band and the crowd rocking. There was sweet pedal steel guitar through most of the show and it just swung and twanged a little better then the the night before.

“Visions of Johanna”....”Things Have Changed”...”Nadine”...on and on. A little numbing. When I say he cannot sing I do actually mean it. Some people love his voice from when used to be able to sing (me) and some-people think he never could. Now however he really has no lung capacity so every delivery is breathy and forced, jamming words into too small a places and ruining the flow and timing. Still...he is Dylan and on this night Costello came out to join him for a few encores and well...you just do not get to see two members of the holy (little h) trinity sharing a mike for the night.

Anyway... I think I am done seeing that nice Bob Dylan. I am happy I got to see him several times... once with my oldest son and I needed to see him a few times before he croaked. Unlike some of my music snob friends I will miss Dylan...it has been nice to have him croaking around for the last 45 years or so. That is a long ass time.