Sidetracks & Detours present PASS IT ON 55 weekly walkabout Sunday 2 6 24
Sidetracks & Detours
present
PASS IT ON 55
weekly walkabout Sunday 2 6 24
CONTENTS
Hear The Call
COME FOLLOW YOUR ART
by Akela
A News Item
shared by KARLA HARRIS
with Sidetracks & Detours
CONCORD OF SWEET SOUNDS
Rochdale Music Society: fifteen years of reviews
MATTHEW KAM: classical pianist.
by Rosa Marie Staves ´Marks The Music´.
Live Jazz
ART THEMEN (saxophones)
Backed by the Pangbourne Jazz Club rhythm section:
Otha Smith (guitar) | Andy Crowdy (double bass)
Jim Pollard (piano) | Brian Greene (drums)review by Jazz In Reading
Live Jazz
jazz concert in support of Ukraine
Friday 14 June 7pm
Reading Minster Church, St Mary’s Butts, Reading RG1
UKRAINE SOLIDARITY JAZZ BAND in collaboration AUGB and Reading Minster
preview by Jazz In Reading
Live Jazz at The Forge, Basingstoke
OMAR PUENTE & ILARIO FERARRI
Saturday 8 June 7:45pm: preview by jazz In Reading
Live Jazz at The Forge, Basingstoke
TORI FREESTONE AND ALCYONA MICK
Saturday 29 June 8:15pm: preview by Jazz In Reading
Jazz On Air
HOT BISCUITS prepared by Steve Bewick
Music: EMERSON STRING QUARTET
receive Honorary Degrees from The Juilliard School
preview by mmf newsletter
Live Music 50th Manchester Music Festival 2024
Featured Artist: CHRISTINE GOERKE
preview by mmf newsletter
A Reader´s Perspective: All Points Forward
WILLIS ALAN RAMSEY: part 2
by Peter Pearson: Americana Correspondent
Island Insights
THE CLARINET CAME TO THE PARTY to dance with the piano and the violin
by Norman Warwick
Hear The Call
COME FOLLOW YOUR ART
by Akela
Hello. So you heard the call? Good hunting all ! Down sidetracks and detours and happy trails we search for news of the arts that are our lifeblood. This week we have heard news from Karla Harris, in a modern format newsletter. She is our favourite jazz artist here in the office and the album she released a year or so ago now is still prominent on our playlists. When you read her news, you will realise that Karla is continuing to enjoy some high profile good publicity and we thank her for sharing it and allowing us to PASS IT ON.
Today we also introduce a new weekly series that will appear in Sidetracks & Detours from Wednesday 12th June This Concord of Sweet Sounds will see us trying to update our files of classical musicians to have played for the Rochdale Music Society membership over the years.
Our friends at Jazz In Reading have once again shared their listings with us including a concert in support of Ukraine.
There is news, too, from Manchester Music Festival newsletter which tells us of their plans in this their 50th anniversary year, and informs of a high accolade for a string quartet we have mentioned many times previously on these pages.
Our forager of Americana, Peter Pearson, completes his comprehensive look at the strange, but lengthy career of an excellent singer / song-writer, Willis Alan Ramsey.
Finally in this 55th issue of PASS IT ON we receive Island Insights from our Lanzarote based head office, this time about a concert that cost our editor two new tyres and more than €200 in taxi fares, the irony being that it was actually a free concert.
All this came at the end of a week in which our news hunters had delivered news of Elbow being the opening act at a new venue, and whilst in the area learned more about Royal Northern College Music brass band. Some of the pack sidled off down to jazz junction but gathered enough news for an excellent article and still had left over all the jazz news you can read in this edition today. There was also an introduction to an actress, author and activist and remember if you missed any of these posts they remain as free to read articles in our archives of almost 1,200 articles.
We have some exciting routes to follow next week too and you can read some clues about next week´s sidetracks & detours on the back page of this edition of PASS IT ON.
A News Item
shared by KARLA HARRIS
with Sidetracks & Detours
What an honour to be part of a distinguished group of 13 recipients selected for the 2024 Atlanta Magazine ‘Women Making a Mark’ award! The article spotlights the educational and arts outreach work I’ve been involved with, working alongside my gifted colleagues to share the sounds, history, values and joy of jazz with young people at camps, classes and community events. I’m humbled, and thankful for this recognition. The issue was published last week, and you can still read the online version.
Each year, Atlanta’s South Fulton Arts Institute runs a program pairing established Atlanta filmmakers with select artists to produce portrait-style documentary short films about the artist. Excited to share that I’m one of seven subjects chosen for this year’s program, and have been paired with an amazing young filmmaker. It’s incredible to be a part of this new creative experience, and I look forward to sharing more about it soon as I’m able to tell more …
Upcoming this Summer:
June 7: Greenville Jazz Fest, Greenville, SC. (Nice festival feature in this “Women in Jazz Spotlight” article.)
July 13: Jazz Discovery Series, Atlanta Wolf Creek Branch Library, jazz-appreciation community event.
July 23-24: At Auburn University’s recording studio, in sessions for NEW CD project
July 31-Aug 1: Jazz Discovery Series, Creative Camp for kids at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, Atlanta.
August 23: Jazz on the Lawn concert with Joe Alterman Trio, Callanwolde Fine Arts Center. Atlanta.
Aug 25: with Joe Alterman’s Tribute to Milt Gabler, iconic founder of Commodore Records, Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center, Atlanta.
Keeping in touch …
1) Get the latest performance dates plus additional details about the shows anytime at karlaharris.com
2) Visit my FaceBook Music Page. P.S. Your page Like helps us build awareness of the music. Thanks!
3) My students are after me to get going on Instagram! You can follow me giving it a go.
Thank you for being a part of my music community, and a big welcome to all of the new subscribers who’ve joined us! Heading into summer with lots of news to share and celebrate with you. Hope to see you at an upcoming performance — we appreciate you!
much love,
Karla
CONCORD OF SWEET SOUNDS
Rochdale Music Society: fifteen years of reviews
MATTHEW KAM: classical pianist.
Rosa Marie Stave ´Marks The Music´.
It was as part of the narrative dialogue of The Merchant Of Venice that Shakespeare wrote
Because of the diligence of various members of The Rochdale Music Society (RMS) we find ourselves with the opportunity to follow the Bard´s advice and to simply ´mark the music´.
RMS are updating and enhancing their on line records and are finding new ways to share such information with their members.
Sidetracks & Detours hope to introduce you to many of the artists who have performed for RMS since the founding of the organisation in 1980. We hope that each ´concord of sweet music´ we are able to bring you from the RMS will send you to read more of their on line site. We are confident, too, that you will want to learn more about these ephemeral players and the transitory nature of live music.
So let us first introduce you to an international classical pianist Matthew Kam (right) who in 2010 opened Rochdale Music Society’s new season in style. He was already being spoken of as a rising star in the classical music world.
Born in Borneo but brought up in Australia from the age of 11, Matthew Kam graduated from Melbourne University in 2005 by which time he had won several prizes and achieved international notice. He then moved to the UK’s RNCM becoming a Junior Fellow from 2007-9, continuing to attract acclaim.
His opening work was, unusually, by a living composer: Carl Vine’s Piano Sonata (1990) is a brilliant piece of piano theatre, full of energy and references to jazz and popular music styles combined with pure percussion, even extending to a forearm smash! This could have been an inaccessible modern experiment but Kam’s skill, control and communication proved just how fresh fruit on the vine can be.
Sonata No 3 in B minor Op 38 by Chopin brought us back to the nineteenth century tradition and demonstrated why this player has become so highly regarded.
After the interval we continued in Romantic mode with Prelude and Fugue in E minor Op 35 No 1 by Mendelssohn, atmospheric impressions of Oiseaux tristes by Ravel and three concert pieces by Faure, which are heard played live all too rarely. A further vignette by Faure served as a delightful and thoroughly deserved encore. The music sounded all the better because of the Steinway grand piano specially hired for the occasion.
An update on this article will appear in Sidetreacks & Detours on Wednesday 11th June 2024.
ART THEMEN (saxophones)
Backed by the Pangbourne Jazz Club rhythm section:
Otha Smith (guitar) | Andy Crowdy (double bass)
Jim Pollard (piano) | Brian Greene (drums)
preview by Jazz In Reading
A fantastically exciting, playful and inventive saxophonist, Art Themen (below left) has been a beloved character of the British jazz scene for 60 years, famously combining his role as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon with saxophone duties in the bands of Alexis Korner and Stan Tracey among many others.
Nominated in the 2023 Parliamentary Jazz Awards for instrumentalist of the year, Art is the owner of Ronnie Scott’s tenor saxophone. The instrument, reputedly owned by Hank Mobley before Ronnie Scott, was sold at auction after Ronnie’s death in 1996 and was kept privately in Oxford at Allegro Music before being offered for sale to Art upon the retirement of Allegro’s owner, Roger Baycock.
“Themen is one of the very few totally original, utterly engaging jazz musicians around.” (Dave Gelly – The Guardian)
7 July: Paul Higgs, trumpet
4 August: Derek Nash, saxophone
1 September: Alan Barnes, saxophones
6 October: Vasilis Xenopoulos, saxophone
Live Jazz
Friday 14 June 7pm
Reading Minster Church, St Mary’s Butts, Reading RG1
UKRAINE SOLIDARITY JAZZ BAND
in collaboration AUGB and Reading Minster
preview by Jazz In Reading
We will bring fabulous music with messages of peace and unity to our audience. We’ve got a great band for this event – Maff Potts, Robert Otwinowski, Steve Kershaw, Ben Roberts, Fleur Stevenson, Steve Foster, Katrina Likhtman, Kyrill Avilov.
Please join us in standing with Ukraine, the country fighting for the freedom of its people and the wider democratic world.
If you can’t attend our concert but would like to support our initiative, you can still make a donation on line and every donation would be greatly appreciated.
Please help us spread the word and invite as many people as possible to make this concert a great success!
Light refreshments will be available in the interval.
Live Jazz at The Forge, Basingstoke
OMAR PUENTE & ILARIO FERARRI
Saturday 8 June 7:45pm: preview by jazz In Reading
We are glad to welcome this very special duo; internationally renowned for his masterful performances in a variety of musical styles, Cuban Jazz violin virtuoso Omar Puente and Italian pianist, singer, and composer Ilario Ferrari.
Exploring the common ground and new possibilities of afro-Cuban jazz and Mediterranean culture. From new original compositions to beloved pieces of Latin Jazz, their performance is an enchanting blend of humour, instrumental brilliance, and soulful vocals. Prepare to be transported from the vibrant rhythms of Cuba to the sun-kissed shores of Southern Italy and back again.
Live Jazz at The Forge, Basingstoke
TORI FREESTONE AND ALCYONA MICK (left)
Saturday 29 June 8:15pm
Preview by Jazz In Reading
The award-winning pairing of Tori Freestone and jazz pianist Alcyona Mick (left) are currently creating a stir on the UK jazz scene.
The premiere of Tori’s new composition, Birds of Paradise at the Royal Albert Hall Elgar Room (EFG London Jazz Festival) resulted in the Ivor’s Award for Jazz Composition 2022. Alcyona has recently been shortlisted for a Parliamentary Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year Award.
About Jazz in Reading
Jazz in Reading stages regular events with top-class bands at Reading’s Progress Theatre.
Jazz In Reading list jazz events in Reading and the wider area at no charge – simply submit your gig details. We also offer an affordable service to further promote events – such as the one above.
Jazz in Reading, using its extensive contacts in the jazz world, is in an excellent position to help you find the right band for your wedding, party or other special occasion.
Jazz On Air
HOT BISCUITS prepared by Steve Bewick
Enjoy the return of Pete McSloy & his Sextet with excerpts from a live recording in Manchester in next weeks podcast. Also in the show is Sam Qureshi‘s Night patrol with a new take on Charlie Parker, Alexander Bryson‘s Trio with `L’te Darlin. Zoe Gilby Music with a new single, `Cast away` from Living In Shadows. James Pearson gives a portrait of Dudley Moore in a song for Susie. Cyrille Aimée with Emmet Cohen with, a stunning `La vie en Rose.` If this looks interesting please like it, pass it on and join me at www.mixcloud.com/stevebewick/ 24/7
Jazz Music: EMERSON STRING QUARTET
receive Honorary Degrees from The Juilliard School
Review by mmf newsletter
The Juilliard School held its 119th commencement ceremony in New York on May 24 at 11:30am at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall. It celebrated more than 325 students graduating from the music, dance, and drama divisions, and honorary doctorate degrees were bestowed upon the following artists in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the fields of classical music, dance, education, and theare and film: critically acclaimed Paul Taylor principal dancer, educator, and community activist Carolyn Adams (Juilliard faculty 1984-2011); Academy Award-winning actor and producer Jessica Chastain (Group 32); nine-time Grammy Award-winning Emerson String Quartet (right) (cellist Paul Watkins; Eugene Drucker, Diploma ’72, violin; Philip Setzer, BM ’73, violin; MM ’74, violin; Lawrence Dutton, Pre-College ’72, viola; BM ’77, viola; MM ’78, viola); and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Tania León.
The ceremony was led by Juilliard’s president, Damian Woetzel. Speakers will include the chair of Juilliard’s board of trustees, Vincent Mai, and vice chair Julie Choi (BM ’85, MM ’86, piano), along with members of the school’s leadership. The program wasalso be live-streamed at juilliard.edu.
“We look forward to celebrating the class of 2024, which represents the bright future of music, dance, and drama,” said President Woetzel. “As our graduates embark on an ever-wider array of traditional and innovative next steps, we honor the careers of seven extraordinary artists—four of whom are Juilliard alumni—who have paved the way forward embodying Juilliard’s commitment to artistic excellence. This year, we are proud to bestow honorary doctorates upon Carolyn Adams, Jessica Chastain, the Emerson String Quartet, and Tania León for their profound contributions to the arts.”
Juilliard’s Commencement Concert took place on Thursday, May 23 at 6pm at Alice Tully Hall. Marin Alsop (Pre-College ’72, violin; BM ’77, violin; MM ’78, violin; honorary degree ’21) conducted the Juilliard Orchestra in a program that opened with the world premiere of Sercy, a Juilliard-commissioned work by Hilary Purrington (MM ’15, composition), and also included Strauss’ Don Juan and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra.
Carolyn Adams was a principal dancer with the Paul Taylor Dance Company for nearly 20 years, creating roles in such Taylor masterpieces as Esplanade, Arden Court, and Cloven Kingdom, and further distinguishing herself in Taylor’s classic Aureole. After retiring from the stage, she maintained close ties to the company, restaging works, teaching Taylor technique and repertory at Juilliard, the City College of New York, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and the Ailey School. She now serves the Taylor Company as director of education.
Adams’ passion for teaching emerged early in her career along at a time wehen she committed, also. to community development and preservation. In 1969, the Adams family founded the Harlem Brownstone Preservation Committee to save historic buildings and established the Harlem Dance Studio “to nurture an endangered art form in an endangered community.” In 1993, she and her sister, Julie Adams Strandberg, founded Dancing Legacy to develop programs addressing access, education, and preservation. She was founding artistic director of the NYSSSA School of Dance where, for 32 years with co-director Strandberg, she developed innovative workshops for middle and high school students.
Celebrated for her work across film, television, and theatre, Jessica Chastain (Group 32) holds an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a Drama Desk, five Critic’s Choice, and three SAG awards. She has also received multiple nominations including for an Emmy, two Tonys, five SAGs, two BAFTAs, three Oscars, six Critics’ Choice, and nine Golden Globes.
After she trained at Juilliard, Chastain’s journey began with breakthrough roles in acclaimed films such as The Help, Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, and Zero Dark Thirty.
Some of her most notable roles include her captivating portrayal of Tammy Faye Bakker in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, the astronaut Melissa Lewis in The Martian, the enigmatic Murph in Interstellar, and the real-life Molly Bloom in Molly’s Game. In addition, Chastain has appeared in numerous other films including Take Shelter, Lawless, Miss Sloane, and Crimson Peak. On television, she starred in the critically acclaimed miniseries George & Tammy for Showtime and Scenes From a Marriage for HBO.
Her notable roles in theater include Nora in A Doll’s House, Catherine Sloper in The Heiress, and in the title role in Salomé, opposite Al Pacino.
Chastain’s talent extends behind the camera through Freckle Films, a New York-based film and television production company she launched in 2016. In addition to The 355, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and George & Tammy, Freckle Films has produced Mothers’ Instinct for NEON, the upcoming Apple Originals’ limited series The Savant, and Michel Franco’s upcoming film Dreams.
Together for 47 years, the Emerson String Quartet—Juilliard alumni Eugene Drucker, Philip Setzer, and Lawrence Dutton; David Finckel (faculty 2012-present), Emerson cellist from 1979 to 2013; and Paul Watkins, cellist for the quartet’s final decade—made more than 40 acclaimed recordings and was honoured with nine Grammy Awards (including two for best classical album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, and Musical America’s ensemble of the year award. As part of its larger mission to keep the string quartet form alive and relevant, the Emerson commissioned and premiered works from some of today’s most esteemed composers and partnered in performance with leading artists including Renée Fleming, Barbara Hannigan, Evgeny Kissin, Emanuel Ax, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yefim Bronfman, James Galway, Edgar Meyer, Menahem Pressler, Leon Fleisher, André Previn, Isaac Stern, and Oscar Shumsky, with whom Setzer and Drucker studied at Juilliard.
Formed in 1976 and based in New York City, the Emerson was one of the first quartets whose violinists alternated in the first violin position. In 2015, the group received Chamber Music America’s highest honor, the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, in recognition of its lasting contribution to the field. In October 2023, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center honored the quartet with its Award for Extraordinary Service. For the past 22 years, the Emerson has been quartet in residence at Stony Brook University.
Cuban-born Tania León, a world-class leader on today’s music scene, is highly regarded as a composer and conductor and for her accomplishments as an educator and advisor to arts organizations. Her orchestral work Stride, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music. In 2022, she was named a recipient of the 45th Annual Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievements. In 2023, she was awarded the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition from Northwestern University. Most recently, León became the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s composer in residence—a two-year post that began in September. She also held Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair for its 2023-24 season. León has been awarded the XIX Premio SGAE for Iberian American Music Tomás Luis de Victoria 2023, becoming the first woman to be honored with the highest composition prize conferred by Spain. In 2024, she was awarded the distinguished artist award by the International Society for the Performing Arts.
Her groundbreaking activities include founding member and first music director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, founder of the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s Community Concert Series, co-founder of the American Composers Orchestra’s Sonidos de las Américas Festivals, new music advisor to the New York Philharmonic, and founder/artistic director of Composers Now, a presenting, commissioning, and advocacy organization for living composers.
One of the foremost conductors of our time, Marin Alsop (Pre-College ’72; BM ’77, MM ’78, violin) represents a powerful and inspiring voice. Convinced that music has the power to change lives, she is internationally recognized for her innovative approach to programming and audience development, deep commitment to education, and championing of music’s importance in the world. The first woman to serve as the head of a major orchestra in the U.S., South America, Austria and Britain, she is now in her fourth season as chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and recently extended her contract as chief conductor of Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, where she curates and conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s summer residencies. The 2023-24 season was her first as artistic director and chief conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony and her first as principal guest conductor of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. She begins as principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra in the 2024-25 season. She also serves as conductor of honor of Brazil’s São Paulo Symphony (OSESP), the first music director of the University of Maryland’s National Orchestral Institute + Festival (NOI+F), and music director laureate and OrchKids Founder of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, where she continues to conduct the orchestra for three weeks each season after an outstanding 14-year tenure as its music director. The first and only conductor to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, she also made history as both the first female conductor of the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms as well as the first woman and first American to conduct the Last Night three times. In 2019, Alsop was honored with the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award. To promote and nurture the careers of her fellow female conductors, in 2002 she founded the program now named the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship.
About Juilliard’s Commencement Week
Juilliard’s commencement week festivities began in New York with the Senior Dance Graduation Concert taking place on Monday, May 20 at 7:30pm at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater.
Juilliard’s campus in Tianjin, China, celebrated its class of 2024 with its third commencement ceremony, on Friday, May 24 at 10am China Standard Time (May 23 at 10pm ET). Honoring 30 Master of Music students, the commencement address will be delivered by Jaap van Zweden (’80, violin), music director of the New York Philharmonic, in a prerecorded video. The fifth Tianjin Juilliard School’s Pre-College commencement took place on May 19 at 9am China Standard Time (May 18 at 9pm ET).
The Juilliard Preparatory Division Commencement celebrated graduates from the Pre-College and Music Advancement Program on Saturday, May 25, at noon in Juilliard’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Standup comedian and violist Isabel Hagen (Pre-College ’09, BM ’13, MM ’15, viola) gave the commencement address. The Pre-College commencement concert took place on Saturday, May 25 at 7:30pm. Conducted by Adam Glaser (Pre-College ’88), the Pre-College Orchestra will perform Andrés Soto’s Fantasía en la Plaza, Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 61, Nicolás Lell Benavides’ Querencia, and Elgar’s In the South.
Founded in 1905, The Juilliard School is a world leader in performing arts education. The school’s mission is to provide the highest caliber of artistic education for gifted musicians, dancers, and actors, composers, choreographers, and playwrights from around the world so that they may achieve their fullest potential as artists, leaders, and global citizens. Juilliard is led by Damian Woetzel, seventh president of the school, who has prioritized affordability and access to the highest level of artistic education while championing Juilliard’s tradition of excellence.
Located at Lincoln Center in New York City, Juilliard offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in dance, drama (acting and playwriting), and music (classical, jazz, historical performance, and vocal arts). More than 800 artists from 42 states and 50 countries and regions are enrolled in Juilliard’s College Division, where they appear in more than 700 annual performances in the school’s five theaters; at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully and David Geffen halls and at Carnegie Hall; as well as at other venues around New York City, the U.S., and the world. The continuum of learning at Juilliard also includes nearly 400 students from elementary through high school enrolled in the Preparatory Division—Pre-College and Music Advancement Program (MAP); MAP serves students from diverse backgrounds often under-represented in the classical music field. More than 1,200 students are enrolled in Juilliard Extension, the flagship continuing education program taught both in person and remotely by a dedicated faculty of performers, creators, and scholars. Beyond its New York campus, Juilliard is defining new directions in performing arts education for a range of learners and enthusiasts through a global K-12 educational curricula and preparatory and graduate studies at The Tianjin Juilliard School in China.
Live Music 50th Manchester Music Festival 2024
Featured Artist: CHRISTINE GOERKE
preview by mmf newsletter
Manchester Music Festival is honoured to feature Metropolitan Opera soprano Christine Goerke this summer! Christine has appeared in the major opera houses of the world including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Paris Opera, and more! She’s also appeared with a number of leading orchestras including New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra (in Boston, Carnegie Hall, and the Tanglewood Festival), Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Radio Vara (at the Concertgebouw), Sydney Symphony, New Zealand Symphony, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms, and the Hallé Orchestra at the Edinburgh International Festival.
Her recording of Vaughan Williams’ “A Sea Symphony” with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra won the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Classical Recording and Best Choral Performance. Christine will be performing in MMF’s Grand Finale Concert singing music by Brahms and Respighi. We can’t wait to welcome Christine this summer at Manchester Music Festival’s Grand Finale Concert on 8th August 2024.
A Reader´s Perspective: All Points Forward
WILLIS ALAN RAMSEY: part 2
by Peter Pearson: Americana Correspondent
Last week I told the story of an artist working his way over several years to deliver a fine debut album (right).
However, after releasing his cult classic album in 1972 Willis Alan Ramsey had a difficult time appreciating what he’d done.
He was only 21 and under contract to Leon Russell’s Shelter Records. He suddenly had more money than he knew how to deal with. But he was reluctant to tour and promote the album. In the circumstances Shelter were very understanding and did not insist.
In a recent interview Ramsey said, I retreated to Austin to figure out what I’d just been through, kind of licking my wounds. It took a couple of years out of me. Denny Cordell provided funds to buy recording equipment to demo songs for the next record. With it he built two studios, looked around at other studios, then moved around, going from Austin to Dallas to Nashville to Woodstock, searching for inspiration and that perfect recording situation.
His record deal with Shelter required him to produce an album a year and with nothing forthcoming, rather than cancel the deal, they leniently suspended it. However, as time marched on, they began to lose patience. After unsuccessfully trying to renegotiate his contract, he left the label in 1979.
By this time the Austin music scene was changing. The Urban Cowboy craze was taking over and he found himself being booked into places where the music was secondary to line dancing and mechanical bull riding. He hated it.
In 1981 he quit playing for eight years. His publisher persuaded him to move to Los Angeles in search of song-writing partners. But that was a fruitless exercise and for the following four years he moved back and forth between Austin and Nashville and then London and Scotland, living off royalties.
In 1989 he resumed performing, appearing at the Kerville Festival and with an Austin songwriters group. There he shared the bill with a young singer songwriter from Dallas, named Alison Rogers. After sharing several more bills they became an item and soon married, settling in Nashville, building a recording studio and starting a family.
In 1996 Ramsey and Rogers (Shown left, playing live) collaborated with Lyle Lovett on the song That’s Right You´re Not From Texas, which Lovett recorded for his album, Road to Ensenada. In 1998 Lovett also covered a recent composition by Ramsey, the wonderful blues tinged, Sleepwalking, for his double album of covers, Step Inside This House.
Following a move back to Austin, Ramsey convinced drummer Jamie Oldaker, a former Leon Russell employee, to help in producing a second album, with the proposed name of Gentilly. Oldaker managed to coax 10 tracks on to tape but there was no album release.
In 2001 he appeared on Austin City Limits, previewing several new songs.
In 2013 he suffered a studio flood, by which time money was becoming tight and his quest for the perfect album became more difficult to attain. He had ploughed what funds he had into building recording studios.
Willis Alan Ramsey has produced some American gems, both originals and covers, in what seems to be a long and winding road of a career. We thought that too, though about Chip Taylor who over the past ten years or so has written some fantastic stuff, (albeit mixed with some not so fantastic stuff.)
I´m really grateful to Peter Pearson for this reflective two-part piece, and who knows whether work like this might galvanise Willis to enjoying the later years in his song-writing and playing career?
There was no doubt Ramsey (right) had material, as he continued to preview new songs in live performances. I recently viewed a 2022 live-stream of his gig at the Old Quarter Cafe in Texas. In a solo acoustic 1hour 50 minute set, the greater proportion of his songs were new and not from what he refers to as the Green (1972) album.
The reason I wrote this piece is that I was curious to discover what he had been doing since that debut album and why there had been no follow up. Most of the articles I read were simply about the 1972 album and the clamour of his fans for a follow up.
I was able to confirm from the internet that he was still performing, mostly around Nashville, where he lives today.
Eventually, I discovered a piece that shed light on his career up to 2016.Then I discovered the live-stream video and a 2022 YouTube video of him performing a 41 minute studio acoustic session, interspersed with interviews, for the Austin music label, Next Waltz. There are no new songs on the video but there are up to date superb acoustic versions of several songs off the debut album.
Prior to this, Next Waltz founder, Bruce Robison, in 2019 had coaxed Ramsey (left) into a short tour appearing with Robison, John Fullbright and Carrie Rodriguez, with each artist playing some of their own songs while also supporting Ramsey’s performance. Previewing his second release was the bait. Yet even now the album has not surfaced. There is another animated video of him performing Mockingbird Blues, a new song rumoured to be on the album. Performers rumoured to be on the album include Tim O’Brien, Joel Guzman, Lyle Lovett and blues singer, Marcia Ball.
A couple of years ago Jimmy Buffett was in a guitar shop and spotted an old Martin D-18 which took his fancy. Enquiring as to its provenance, the manager told him Willis had sold it to him in order to help fund completion of his new album.
Buffett bought it, played it for a while and then decided he wanted to give it back to him. Maybe we can make a deal he said in an interview. I’ll trade him this guitar if he’ll put his record out. Because I’ve got a record label, and I’ll put it out tomorrow. I wouldn’t even have to listen to it; we’ll just do whatever he wants. We don’t steal, and we don’t cheat. He’ll get paid direct from Mailboat Records. Let me throw that on the table.
But has he run out of road? Even now he has a hard core of baby boomers rooting for a new release but the list is dwindling year by year. Everything nowadays is geared to Spotify and other streaming services, which are dominated by tracks. It would probably have to be a self-issued product sold at gigs. Perhaps he has long since given up on the idea. He has more than sufficient of his compositions to play long live sets. Maybe its a case of the journey not the destination.
He now answers questions as to when it will be released by saying soon. But is he destined to be the Harper Lee or J D Salinger of the music business? If so, the album Willis Alan Ramsey is required listening in the same way that to Kill a Mockingbird is required reading.
Island Insights
THE CLARINET CAME TO THE PARTY to dance with the piano and the violin
by Norman Warwick
Regular readers of these pages will know that we have reviewed four previous concerts over the last few weeks all of which featured Iya Zhmaeva. Some of you might wonder what more there can be to say about this excellent classical violinist and her guests. After all, there is very little we can possibly add about the quality of their playing or the exquisite selections they play by the world´s finest composers. There is no razzamatazz, no dancing in the aisles. We leave all that to the musicians entertaining the tourists down in the restaurants and bars of Puerto Del Carmen. So all I can report on is the music and how it is presented. A feature of this year´s Festival De Musica Clasica has been that it has seen Iya playing in tandem with her 18 year old son, Diego, himself a graduate from the conservatoire in Arrecife. They have played one concert as a duo and have been joined in others by Javier Diaz Gonzalez, a teacher and mentor of Diego at that establishment, and once, too, by Eva Aroca, playing castañuelas, a hand held castanet-like, percussive instrument. Tonight the clarinet came to the party to dance with violin and the piano and Pablo Blanco Medina lent some sonorous tones and beautiful flights of fancy to the music
The series has brought us music by Handel, Turina, de Sarasate, de Monasterio and De Fall in a concert that brought us both classical and Spanish Dance music. In the duet performance by Diego and Iya we were given Mozart, De Beriot and pieces from El Barbero de Sevilla by Rossini.
Our reviews had used up all the superlatives I know to reflect the excellence of the delivery and perfect audioscapes we heard at each event.
So, what could possibly be different tonight at El Fondeadero Teatro above the Puerto del Carmen harbour? Well, for one thing, there was no Diego in tonight´s line up, as this was a concert for violin, piano and clarinet, so Pablo Blanco Medina was in the clarinettist seat, and Iya was playing violin, of course, and Javier was at the piano. Tonight´s concert would feature music by Mozart with his Andante, Menuetto and Rondo from Kegelstatt K 498. There was Khachaturian, too, with the Andante, Allegro and Moderato from his Trio work and finally, to my absolute delight the concert had saved the best till last with Dvorak and his five danzes eslaves from his Opus 46.
Some of the beauty of that savage landscape of the new frontiers that Dvorak captures so beautifully can bring a lump to my throat whenever I hear it, (which is often as I have it nearly on all my playlists.) Tonight, though these dances, that put me in mind of Aaron Copland as well as the energy of Oklahoma, were vibrantly played with clarinet adding both depth and sobriety, Javier was so playful that I thought of Tom Waits´ assertion that This Piano Has Been Drinking.
Similarly, the late American songwriter Guy Clark was referring to Texas fiddle, rather than classical violin, in the lyrics of his song Virginia´s Real and his chorus of
oh me, oh my, can´t she make that bow hair fly
and how she hangs that music in the air.
It might sound ridiculous to refer to Iya´s playing in that way, because of course, she is far more precise, but I did mention in an earlier review that she can leave a note in the air until the very moment it falls to silence.
The mutual respect and trust between the individual players was evident as always and Javier in particular seemed to enjoy having a wonderful conversation with his piano.
No wonder the audience rose as one to bring the musicians back for a well-deserved encore.
We didn´t realise as we left the theatre that Friday evening that this marvellous concert had been a soothing prelude to what would turn into a weekend from Hell just as we drove home. A torn to shreds passenger side rear tyre on the way home saw us have to call roadside assistance who loaded us on to his truck. We then went the rest of the way home in a taxi and back next morning returning to the garage in a taxi to oversee the repair of the tyre, as no new ones would be available till Monday morning. The tyre failed on us half way home again, but by now the repair shop had closed, as we discovered at the end of another taxi journey.
You know what, though even with all that my over-riding memory of the weekend will be sublime music rather than the ping of my credit card on the machine as I paid out €55 for a new tyre, and around €200 in taxi fares!
The music was for free, and was worth twice as much as my extraneous costs.
.
We´ll be looking at biopics, baseball and balderdash before we go back to black with a film that doesn´t serve its subject well so instead we head up river with a steamboat banjoist who wrote a song that remains forever gentle on my mind. A new name on our writing team, Rosa Marie Staves, follows a concord of sweet sounds as she looks to trace some classical musicians from a few years ago. There will be a new edition of PASS IT ON (56) on Sunday 9th June,
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