Down by the Water | Music and Sunset by the Hudson River

A few visual memories from last night at Henry Hudson Riverfront Park. with stunning views of the sunset, while listening to music from live performances at the Hudson.Water.Music festival.

Performances | Improvisation | Music

Down to the Lower East Side on Monday evenings is where you will find us for the next few weeks.








And why? Because The Stone at 2nd Street and Avenue C is the setting for music improv performances organized by the Woodstock-based Creative Music Studio (www.creativemusicstudio.org).




Karl Berger inspires, teaches, and leads performances from the piano.







From the opposite end of the performers, Ingrid Sertso's vocalizations soar above, jump in with, and underpin the other performers.

This jazz-inspired, world-sounding music, with western underpinnings presents something new every time.

Exhibitions | NYC, Traveling Full Circle: Frank Stewart’s Visual Music

Don’t miss this engaging art- and photo-documentary exhibition at the Peter Jay Sharp Arcade, 5th floor, Frederick P. Rose Hall at Columbus Circle, NYC. Images are by Frank Stewart, senior staff photographer at Lincoln Center.
Stewart travels the world with the Center’s Orchestra, and best of all, he takes stunning pictures, many of which are found in Sweet Swing Blues on the Road, written by Wynton Marsalis.
On view are images from Stewart’s early travels to Africa and Cuba in the 1970s;


through his artistic studies with Romare Bearden that lasted until Bearden’s death in 1988;


and into the 1990s with his work at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the National Urban League’s Gallery 62, the Kenkeleba House, and Cinque Gallery.

A photo from New Orleans after Katrina

On May 20, a panel, including Stewart, exhibition co-curators Robert O’Meally and C. Daniel Dawson, the noted photography critic A. D. Coleman, and Dr. Petra Richterova explored Stewart’s work in the context of jazz photography, an art form in itself.
Photography and jazz came of age together; until the Rhythm ‘n Blues era, jazz had the most musical influence on photography. Jazz was extremely expressive physically and exciting to photograph. Both endured a second-class status in the arts world, another point of common ground.

Spiral Music at the Rubin Museum

Spiral Music, with Jen Shyu on vocals, Thomas Morgan, bass, and Ches Smith on percussion, performed at the Rubin Museum last night (Wed., Sept. 8, 2010).
In a mesmerizing performance, while we sipped our favorite mango martinis, we heard Shyu’s earthy voice and improvisatory ways with strings of sounds joined with her sinuous movements.


Vocalizations, along with text in English and non-English languages delivered in atonal melodies created a performance art. Sprechstimme incursions melded beautifully with the accompanying acoustic instruments to surround the voice with a glow. Some of the texts spoke of pain (“sold as a slave for sugar”); some seemed purely aleatoric (“the last word is the fact that all good things”).
On some selections Shyu accompanied herself on a moon lute (moon guitar). In one of these, she sang a strophic song, with hard-driving rhythms (reminisicent of Frankie Lane’s “Mule Train”). Behind her, the Rubin Museum’s electronic introductory images showed horses running across the Himalayan plains while she sang it.
Dressed simply in black, Shyu’s free movement was integral to the performance. Her movements were closely contained in the space, with lots of up-and-down trunk motion and freer hand/arm movements. A long red scarf, which she held in her arms and sang to, turned into a river on the floor, and eventually wore, was her only prop.

Jain Images (with Music)

The Rubin Museum of Art's magnificent show on Jain Images of Perfection has a wonderful surprise--a music piece--i.e, Jain devotional music from Pune, India. So nice to move beyond the tyranny of the eyes.