I finally finished writing about Falcon Ridge so I can now move on to other things. After spending six days surrounded by friends I have been almost totally isolated since then. I spoke to Bri on the phone once and saw my therapist yesterday. I had enough Falcon Ridge glow that I didn’t feel that until yesterday. I’ve become a guy that talks to his cats, and they aren’t even my cats. I suspect that in Dusty’s mind she has taken possession of me.
Last night I heard my first post-Falcon Ridge music. It was part of a series presented by Carnegie Hall in Bryant Park. This is as convenient as it gets. I take the train from therapy to Grand Central Station, walk a few blocks, and I’m there. I saw no rain yesterday but that’s because I have made a deal with the weather gods. It moved all around me. After my train left Harrison my weather app said there was a thunderstorm there. I hardly saw clouds. The weather was nice the entire trip to the City. I got out of Grand Central and the ground was soaked. I had just missed an intense cloudburst. That put a money wrench into the concert plans. The weather was fine but the Bryant Park lawn was left too vulnerable to let people sit on it. I was upset as I didn’t travel into the city to see the concert from the fringes of the lawn where you can’t see the stage well and the sound is sketchy as you are off to the sides. I talked it over to the woman in charge and they let us sit in the gravel area right in front of the stage. I was the first person to set up. It was too close for the best sound so I sat as far back as I could. It was fine.
I didn’t mention who was playing. In my calendar I had written Eileen Ivers et al. I forgot about the et al. I figured it would be an hour and a half concert like when I saw Le Vent Du Nord. I was wrong, this was the series finale extravaganza, there were three acts and Eileen wasn’t even the headliner. The bill was;
Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas
Eileen Ivers
Matuto
I love Zydeco music and have seen Nathan so that was great, except for one thing. I hadn’t eaten and planned on eating after the show. I got a waffle from Waffle & Dinges but that’s not really dinner. I decided to play it by ear.
Matuto was totally new to me. Can anyone guess what kind of music they play based on their name? The answer is no. It’s Brazilian Bluegrass. The band is from New York City but they love a particular style of Brazilian music, not what you usually hear. They also love bluegrass, so they combined them. Much of their career is going on goodwill tours for the State Department. They told a story about playing in the desert of Northwest China where the entire crowd arrived on motorcycles and watched sitting on their bikes until they danced. This was not a few people, it was thousands. To me this is the essence of America, a band from New York City playing music from Brazil and the Appalachians for people in remote China to spread American good will. Hell, I gotta love a country that would do that. Too bad some people don’t realize that’s a big part of what makes America great. They think the features are bugs.
The China story was a lead up to asking the audience to form a conga line as the Chinese did spontaneously. As the lawn was closed that was difficult. They asked people to make a small one right in front of the stage. Nobody moved, so you know what happened; I got up to lead the conga line. A few people joined me. I don’t know where they will be shown but there was lots of professional equipment making a video of this. I just can’t stand to leave a musician hanging. If a musician needs a volunteer and nobody else steps up I will. Of course Carey and I led huge conga lines at Falcon Ridge when Da Vinci’s Notebook played. That’s different, we were official stalkers. With DVN that was an official position.
Eileen reminded me why I love her. She’s younger than me but she’s been around so long it would be easy for her to become a legacy act. She could do shows playing the same songs in the same way as she did 20 years ago. She doesn’t do that. She’s experimenting. The experiments don’t always succeed but that she keeps expanding her musical horizons. The looping was not my favorite thing but I enjoyed it. I guess I shouldn’t assume everyone knows Eileen Ivers. She is one of the great Irish Fiddlers. It’s her band but she does not do most of the lead singing. I should know who did but I don’t. Just that he’s from Brooklyn. Her band is primarily local and it’s how she introduced them. Eileen is from County Bronx. Her high school schoolmates were in the audience.
Like the last band I saw play there, Le Vent Du Nord goes straight to central nervous system and energizes the listener. There was no room to dance but I was moving in my seat, singing along, and letting out whoops. That’s as good as it gets.
When she was finished I had to decide whether or not to stay. In addition to being hungry my back was hurting. I took a walk around to see how it felt. The answer was, “not good” so I didn’t stay for Nathan. That saddened me as I haven’t heard good zydeco in years and I love zydeco. But I’ve been listening to my body and my body said go home.
WFUV had no presence there at the show and that’s sad. They are the reason I was there. Back in the late 80s and early 90s the station played a lot of zydeco and a lot of Irish music. I thought I didn’t like Irish music until I was exposed to it enough. Now it’s a favorite genre. I had never even heard of zydeco but I loved it from the first notes off Buckwheat Zydeco’s accordion. The station now relegates Irish music to Sundays and zydeco is nowhere to be hears.
I have nothing planned for today. If anyone is around and wants to do something, let me know. If nothing else I’ll take a walk in the beautiful weather. Maybe I’ll do my laundry. I have plenty to do. I have to finish editing my Falcon Ridge pics, prepare the event for the next edition of John Platt’s On Your Radar, and I should record new segments of Gord’s Gold for Folk Music Notebook. We’ll see if I can get any of that done.
Wise Madness 