Challenging music from Darcy James Argue

BROOKLYN BABYLON-CHAPTER 5-EXCERPT from Danijel Zezelj on Vimeo.

Listen to what composer Darcy James Argue, who will visit Missouri State as visiting composer for the annual Composition Festival, is up to these days.

He debuted "Brooklyn Babylon," a multimedia work in collaboration with visual artist Danijel Zezelj, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival in November. Zezelj's animated artwork was projected on a screen while Argue led his band, Secret Society, through the hourlong piece. Zezelj painted live during the performances in November, according to the "Brooklyn Babylon" website.

Excerpts provided at the website suggest gloriously bombastic music and unsettling geometric visuals. The site offers this description of the work's premise:

"In the teeming metropolis of a future Brooklyn, longtime residents and fresh arrivals work together to preserve their embattled neighborhoods. But plans are afoot to construct an immense tower — the tallest in the world — right in the heart of the city, and Lev, a master carpenter, finds himself torn between ambition and community when he is commissioned to build the carousel that will crown it."

The excerpt embedded above is from Chapter 5 of the "Brooklyn Babylon." It employs mysterious bludgeoning pulses, effects like aerial bombardment, electronics expanding expectations of the trumpet, plus physical trumpet drama from Ingrid Jensen. Listen also to the audio excerpt from Chapter 5, a different segment from the video, with worsening bombardment.

Argue's 2009 album, "Infernal Machines," presents Argue's range of rhythms, colors and effects that range from vibrations to calculated noise, over which stellar musicians improvise. Not your typical big band.

Like many musical things I encounter, I find that "Brooklyn Babylon" is something I can dip into at any point and enjoy, even though I may not understand what's going on.

MSU students will have an opportunity to understand Argue's art. They will be working with him during the festival and performing pieces from "Infernal Machines" and other works.

Jazz + sports bar: A winning combination

MOJO, the Missouri Jazz Orchestra, competes with many musical groups for the title of best-kept secret in town, even as it packs Marty's Sports Bar every first and third Tuesday.

The music is simply astonishing, for these reasons:

• A professional crew comprised of great players with long resumés and huge talent.
• Commitment to the mid- to late-Basie bands and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis institution that sprung from them.
• Most noticeably, great soloists, such as the galvanic tenorist Brent Vaughan and Scott Harris on trumpet in the embedded video above.
• Most distinctively, original writing and arranging by Vaughan and Harris. The video embedded above is Harris' "Waiting for Spring." 

I hear this saying a lot: "Support local bands — they're often just as good as the national acts you follow." It definitely applies to MOJO. Plus it's a great kick in the pants to walk into a sports bar and get a 16-piece blast of sound.

My liquid link to Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson worked for half a century trying to grow an American grape that would make a wine to rival those of Europe. He failed.

According to Todd Kliman, author of The Wild Vine, it was the only thing that Jefferson failed at. However, his quest lived on in the lives of like-minded, Enlightenment-driven, self-made scientists who trusted that they would understand the order of natural things by their own powers of inquiry.

Daniel Norton, a young contemporary of Jefferson and fellow Virginian, developed the grape that bears his name. It fell in and out of favor through the decades and, just within the past 10-15 years, Missourians got it right, according to me.

[I can't comprehend how Poeschel and Scherer's Norton made such as splash in Vienna in 1873. Was Norton better back then? Europe's wines worse?]

As recently as the mid-90s, my friend and mentor, Bill Toben (God rest his soul), said the quest for a palatable Norton was fruitless. It would always have that "foxy" taste. Somehow, the Missouri Nortons of the past decade have defied Bill's judgment. If anyone knows how it was done, please tell me.

My 11-liter jug of Norton, made of grapes grown by Michael Dennis of Tyler Ridge Vineyards, represents one of the stray shoots from the original vine of inquiry that began with Jefferson's failure. I'm really pleased to see this connection, thanks to Kliman's book.

Of course, my contribution is minimal. Dennis did all the work. I merely added yeast and followed sanitary and anti-oxidation procedures. So far, so good.

The urban vineyard in winter

The mild winter makes me want to skip forward to pruning time in the urban vineyard. That time is really not all that far away, maybe a month, and slight bumps suggesting buds are already scattered along the sticks of the vines.

The first vintage (2010) from these St. Vincent could use a 1 percent shot of sugar and should be ready to drink. The 2011 is also coming along.

Last year, I acquired Norton and Chambourcin grapes from Michael and Sandy Dennis of Tyler Ridge Vineyard and Winery in northern Greene County. The Norton already has that rich fruit and spice character.

Norton is that variety that growers, seeking a truly American wine grape, have been developing for nearly 200 years. It's story is documented in the absorbing book, The Wild Vine, by Todd Kliman.

David Binney

I have been enjoying "Barefooted Town" by David Binney (above). It combines straightforward jazz with a suggestion of the math-oriented music of the past 10-15 years. His approach to repetition is always welcome — the repeated bits are integrated with new bits, so that the repeated bits seem pleasant, not overbearing.

I remember the bombastic group Lost Tribe (below) for which his searing alto was the signature sound. He's come a long way since then, but the strident, uncompromising tone remains even in "Barefooted Town," a relatively restrained album.

Children baptized in music

Over the weekend, I saw three little children enjoying live music maybe for the first time. 

Sunday afternoon at Copper Run Distillery, a young father brought his (2-year-old?) son into the tasting room as a packed house of listeners was applauding and cheering for a song performed by Cindy Woolf and Mark Bilyeu. The boy clapped his hands. They stayed only a few minutes, but throughout that time, the boy's eyes were gigantically wide open, and he struggled against his father's grasp as he walked out of sight of the band.
 
Friday night at Springfield Brewing Co., a girl, about 3 years old, bounded up the stairs ahead of her mother and curled around to confront the Johnny Strickler Trio. She immediately began jumping up and down. The she shuffled sideways across the floor, keeping in step with the 4-4 triplet pulse that the band was into at the moment. She shuffled kind of like a shortshop moving to his left to scoop up a grounder, then back to the right. After a couple of shuffles, she'd look back to her mother to see if it was OK to keep going. Mom did not indicate no, so the kid kept dancing. Finally, Mom hoisted her on her hip, and they went off to a table.

Also at the BrewCo, a father seemingly baptized his infant son in the sound of the band. Dad picked up the kid, holding him at the waist, and held out his son over Karnell Robin son's drums, anointing the boy with percussion. Then he stepped over to Kyth Trantham and immersed the boy in the bass. The son absorbed the vibrations with a serious look. Then Dad finished the rite in the same manner with Strickler. The musicians were totally blasé about the whole procedure, but I hope the little guy manages to internalize the experience.

Lilly Bee & The Johnson Three update

Lilly Bee & The Johnson Three, a collective group that played its first gig about six weeks ago, will be sounding off in several places early in the new year.

First, group members will be interviewed and will perform in this Sunday's (1/8) Local Live program by TAGSGF. The interview/live music portion is from 8-9 p.m. on KBFL 99.9 FM/1060 AM. You can watch live on tagsgf.com and podcast the shows there or on iTunes, Brett Johnston of TAGSGF said.

In the near future, the band plans to perform two local gigs in the span of less than a week. I am working on a story for The News-Leader about these performances.

In addition to the great grooves, the band stands out as a collective in which all members have a hand in making creative decisions. The band's original songs are generated as a group effort.

Here's what I wrote about the band in my post from late November, with edits to accurately reflect the collective nature of the group:

Cheers for Lilly Bee & The Johnson Three for their debut gig, opening for Speakeasy. LBJ3 featured all-original songs, created collectively by group, that sounded like unfamiliar but great B-sides from Motown and other 60s-70s repositories. I like the way Melissa Henderson remained relatively calm while belting out these tunes. The sound was a little muddy, somewhat restricting our appreciation of her voice. Dan Maple's use of electric piano, making it sound much like a distorted guitar, reminded me of Keith Jarrett's work in Miles Davis' electric bands that made Live Evil and Live at Fillmore East — squiggly, smeary sounds.