About the state: Big Sky Big Grass Festival

Sunday update:

I was up too late Sunday night to post and too busy until now, so I'll hit the highlights.

My suspicions about the acoustic/sound problems in the ballroom on Saturday night were confirmed when I went to see the Traveling McCourys early Sunday evening in the same small venue that Special Consensus played. The Traveling McCourys are Del McCoury's band, only without Del McCoury and with a guest guitarist and/or assorted other guests. This evening, the guest guitarist was Bill Nershi of the Emmitt-Nershi Band. I didn't get to hear that band perform due to conflicts in my activity schedule, but Nershi was a fine addition to the McCoury band, led by Del's oldest son Ronnie on the mandolin and with all the band members other than banjo playing Robbie McCoury taking turns on lead vocals. They used the same old school double condenser mike setup to handle the core of their needs, and in the more intimate setting the sound was superb. I felt a little bad about leaving early, but the beloved was holding down seats at the ballroom and I wanted to join her there.

I was glad to have done so, since opening for Sam Bush was the (apparently) world-famous auto-harp player Bryan Bowers. Anyone (i.e., me) who thinks that the autoharp is little more than a guitar for dummies will get a rude awakening by hearing Bowers perform. There were moments when his playing was stunning, and others when it was merely transcendent, as in a slowed down, wistful performance of Ola Belle Reed's "High on a Mountain," backed by John Lowell on guitar and Tom Murphy on mandolin (of Bozeman-based Two Bit Franks). Del McCoury, who has probably done the most to make that song well-known to modern bluegrass audiences, had performed it the night before, but due to the afore-mentioned acoustic issues, its beauty wasn't really conveyed very well, so I was glad to hear it again. Bowers was at times a bit crude for my taste, but the old man has paid his dues with a lifetime of playing on street corners and smoky barrooms and has earned the right to be who he wants to be. Part of his point was that a lot of traditional and folk music has been sanitized over the years for more polite consumption, and he's certainly right about that.

There were parts that I liked better than others about his show, but I went from the starting point of "who is this old guy who's opening for Sam Bush?" to "I'm glad I got to hear this guy once while he's still alive."

The ubiquitous Sam Bush and his guitarist came out and played and sang on the last couple of songs in Bowers's set, and then was back not long later with his band with what ended up, with encores, being nearly a 3 1/2 hour set. Those who are familiar with Bush know that he is a rock star trapped in a bluegrass mandolin player's body. Well, that's really not true -- "trapped" would be one of the last words one could possibly use to describe Bush. He is his own man with his own style, fusing bluegrass, old-fashioned rock-and-roll, free-form jazz, folk, you name it... If you ever want to try to wrap your head around the idea of a rock band with screaming mandolins and banjos, go experience Sam Bush.

Bush is best known as one of the world's top mandolin players, but he made his name as a young man by playing the fiddle, and we were treated to him playing fiddle for perhaps the last quarter of his show, ranging from straight-ahead bluegrass to psychedelic jazz/folk fusion (really can't think of a better way to describe it).

For an encore, Bush started by coming out to sing a couple of his old crowd-pleasers: Van Morrison's "Hungry for your Love," and Bob Dylan's "Girl from the North Country," accompanying himself solo on the mandolin while his stage man set up for the finale. That finale was a "Sam Bush and friends" moment, with a stage full of performers from the week's leading bands (minus Special Consensus, of course, who were flying back from the Grammy Awards, where they lost to Steve Martin's Steep Canyon Rangers).

In typical Sam Bush fashion, the finale started with that old bluegrass standard -- Bob Marley's "One Love," and ended with a tribute to the recently departed Levon Helm: The Band's "Up on Cripple Creek." Everyone on stage and in the audience seemed to enjoy it as much as Bush, with Ronnie McCoury joining Sam Bush at the center microphone to do his best Robbie Robertson imitation. And needless to say, a good jam was had by all. This being a bluegrass festival, Bush knew how to end it, morphing "Up on Cripple Creek" into the bluegrass fiddle tune "Cripple Creek," accelerating until everyone's strings were ready to melt by the end.

Could my nearly 50 year old body and psyche handle the energy of another Sam Bush concert? Not sure, but I'm pretty that by the next time Bush arrives in Montana again, I'll be ready to give it a try.

Kudos to Steve Merlino for organizing a great festival.

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Saturday update:

Special Consensus played a great show early in the evening at a smaller, more intimate venue than had originally been planned for them. Plan A was for them to open for Sam Bush on Sunday night in the main ballroom, but then their latest album "Scratch Gravel Road" was nominated for a Grammy, which meant that they needed to fly out for the Grammy Awards just in case (they have stiff competition from Dailey and Vincent and the Grascals, among others), and then they are flying back to Big Sky to appear at a couple more events on Monday, including a benefit for the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center.

I had a chance to meet band leader and banjo player Greg Cahill before the show -- very unassuming both in person and on stage, and quite a performer. The rest of the band, as is so often the case in bluegrass music, were veritable kids by comparison -- and as is also so often the case, they all were incredible musicians. I've always enjoyed listening to Special Consensus on bluegrass radio, and wish them well at the Grammy Awards.

I originally felt bad for them, since their crowd was much smaller than it would have been (there were maybe 25 of us at the start of the show, but it had probably tripled by the end -- and it was an enthusiastic bunch). But by the end of the evening, I think that they perhaps got the better end of things in some ways, as will become clear.

The night's headline act was back over at the main ballroom, which is, to put it nicely, an acoustically challenged venue. It was great to see and hear a legend like Del McCoury in person, but it would have been nice to have been able to hear the music better. It was difficult to make out any of what was said between the songs, and not easy to hear the vocals. Granted, not all of this was the venue -- part was also the crowd. The main ballroom was packed and the same young and rowdy crowd that was so invigorating the evening before just didn't seem to be inclined to quiet down enough to let people hear. Still, you gotta love it when the vast majority of those turning out in force to see an old man with silver hair playing traditional bluegrass music are young enough to be his grandkids. I was particularly warmed to have a college-aged kid walk by during his performance of "Vincent Black Lightning" who knew the words well enough to be singing along.

McCoury is old school -- he and his band (which includes two of his sons) perform in dark suits and ties in the best bluegrass tradition. More to the point, he and his band perform with an old-school setup: a couple of multi-directional condenser microphones do most of the heavy lifting. This may have been part of the problem, since the opening act used a more modern setup, with miked instruments and individual vocal microphones -- and their sound projected much better. Sam Bush also uses a more modern mike setup, so I suspect he will sound better in this venue tomorrow night. We shall see...

Speaking of Sam Bush, he made a surprise appearance on stage to close out the set and play the encore ("White House Blues" -- an old 1920's tune that Bill Monroe turned into a bluegrass classic) with Del McCoury and the band. He and McCoury have been touring together as a duo, so they had plenty of material to choose from for this part of the show.

Bush said it best tonight: if there is a king of bluegrass today, his name would be Del McCoury. In spite of the sound problems (oh, and a temporary failure of sound and light systems worthy of this year's Superbowl), he held the young audience's attention just as well as Mumford and Sons could have. Another youngster (if they're young enough to be my kids they are youngsters) standing near me yelled into his friend's ear: "that's bluegrass royalty we're looking at up there on stage." Indeed.

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Friday: Well, posting has been sporadic, and I imagine that will be the case for some time to come. We are going to be a bit shorthanded at work for the foreseeable future, which has cut into my spare time a great deal. In addition, I've become addicted to my new mandolin, and when faced with the choice between learning to play a new fiddle tune and writing about current events... well, there really isn't much competition, to tell the truth. While I've certainly not shirked on being able to read music, this was one instrument where I decided that I was going to follow the advice that so many traditional musicians give: learn everything by ear. And I pretty much have, amazing myself with the fact that one can learn relatively complex tunes listening to them at regular tempo. Funny how those old-timers sometimes actually know what they are talking about.

And as the title indicates, I've taken a break from the rat race to come up to Big Sky to ski by day and listen to bluegrass by night. Tonight's opening evening was a showcase of bands from Montana -- a bit of a mixed bag as one would suspect, but a lot of fun. And New Belgium was on hand to showcase some of their specialty offerings -- with your entrance to the show, you also got a commemorative sampler glass and tickets for 10 fills.

As I had expected, it was a young and relatively rowdy crowd -- nice to be one of the oldest people at something rather than one of the youngest for a change. The beer was high-octane and so was the music. Think "Infamous Stringdusters" rather than "Blue Highway," if you know what I mean. Lots of dreads, a fair smattering of crazy ski-slope hats, and late into the evening I saw smoke rising from near the stage and knew it wasn't tobacco -- and indeed when it wafted back, it bore the unmistakeable scent of something Cab Calloway might write a song about. Probably one of the thousands of 20-somethings here in Montana that are dying from cancer, I suppose.

While there was another excellent band -- somebody and the Rusty Dusty Nails -- my favorite band of the evening was the Lil' Smokies -- apparently a Missoula-based band with what were easily the best mandolin and banjo players of the night and a dobro player laying down some very respectable rolls and fills. Their mandolin player was channeling Sam Bush, especially from a rhythmic standpoint.

[Thanks to Ed Kemmick, who point out that the name of my other favorite band of the evening was Billings-based Ted Ness and the Rusty Nails.]Speaking of Sam Bush, he plays here on Sunday night -- the keynote address of the conference, so to speak, and one of the big reasons I didn't want to miss this. He's on my bluegrass bucket list and all that. Anyway, I left a little early this evening to go pick up our tickets and was waiting on the beloved to come join me before I had my first sampling of what New Belgium had to offer. Turns out she had forgotten to ask me where the party was happening. Just as she was deciding which way to go, along comes Sam Bush, whom she decides to follow at a discreet distance, figuring he would know which way to go. Alas, she quickly figured out he was headed elsewhere and not planning to drop in on the evening's activities, so she did what everyone does these days when in doubt -- she shot me a text message asking where to go.

I was carrying my little book where I jot down the lyrics of songs I'm learning and where I keep a list of fiddle tunes I've learned so I can run through them. Armed with it and my trusty pen, I was ready to ask for an autograph in the very unlikely event that I ran into Sam or Del McCoury (the other big name here this weekend) -- so of course it would be the beloved who runs into him in the lobby on the first evening...

I'll update this as the weekend progresses.

Dave Brubeck, RIP -- and some musings on odd time signatures

The world of music was saddened by the loss of Dave Brubeck this week. He is best known for "Take Five," which has the honor of still being highest charting jazz piece ever to hit the pop charts. It is also probably the best known "odd time signature" piece in music -- in part because the time signature (5/4) is alluded to in the title of the song. While there are many vintage clips of Brubeck and his quartet playing this song, this is my favorite:

It is my favorite for a quirky reason -- I absolutely love drummer Paul Morello's casual style in which he makes the most complex rhythms seem like he can play them while hardly moving a muscle. But watch him at 2:48 as he casually adjusts his glasses with one hand without missing a beat. Unbelievable.

Jazz is not generally my cup of tea. I really enjoy listening to about one or two songs, and then I am ready to move on to something else. I think it is something that you have to be immersed in at an early age. The old wag about a jazz quartet being an ensemble where 4 guys are each playing a different song at the same time has more than a grain of truth to it.

The beloved came across an interesting note about Brubeck's early life. He was apparently raised on a cattle ranch in rural California and planned a career as a cowboy. A country boy -- gotta love it.

Another of my favorite odd time-signature pieces of Brubeck is also one of his more famous works, "Blue Rondo a la Turk" (mostly in 9/8) alternating between a 2-2-2-3 and a 3-3-3 construction, before going into a swinging 4/4 interlude:

I love quirky time signatures, so how about more modern pieces in those same time signatures? First, one of the smoothest 5/4 pieces around, by someone else who loves to use odd time signatures, made possible by another amazing drummer -- Vinnie Colaiuta. Thanks to the ridiculous Vevo system, I can't give a direct link -- after hitting play, then just keep hitting the "next" icon at the left lower screen until you reach the song "Seven Days" Vinnie has had a storied career, and he has said that his work on this song is in the top 2 or 3 of any song he has recorded:

And for something in 9, how about a (quasi) country song -- also by Sting, and also featuring Vinnie Colaiuta on drums. Johnny Cash actually covered this latter song, although he converted it to a 4/4 song to fit his personal style:

When the beloved and I saw Sting perform in San Francisco last year, I was happy that both of these songs were on his set list, as was one of his 7/8 time songs -- "Love is Stronger Than Justice." Best of all, Vinnie Colaiuta was touring with Sting, so I got to see and hear one of the great drummers of our time.

Enjoy -- but don't try to dance to any of this stuff, since you might end up with muscle spasms...

Lester and Earl

While my father grew up singing and playing old-timey music on his guitar -- and listening to it on the radio in the 1920s and 30s, by the time I came along in the 1960s he had sadly (I now realize) been overly domesticated, and I didn't get the undiluted exposure to such music that I might have. Still, it percolated through in those G-runs that populated his guitar playing on even the most domesticated gospel songs he sang, not to mention in his vocal style.

Like everyone else my age where I grew up, I only listened publicly to rock and roll, although much of my favorite music was dominated by acoustic guitar work and a folk-infused flavor -- Lightfoot, James Taylor, John Denver, to name a few... They really weren't particularly cool to listen to, but in the privacy of my own car or room, who would ever know, as long as I blasted Styx, Rush, and Queen when others were around to hear? I of course got a steady dose of country music throughout my entire time growing up, just by virtue of being alive and living in a rural setting -- one could hardly escape it. But the lushly boring "Nashville Sound" reigned supreme in those days and rebels like Johnny Cash had been reduced to singing embarrassing novelty songs like "One Piece at a Time," so while it is still a substrate of my musical memory, it never grabbed me.

In college in the 1980s, like so many my age in those days, I lost much of my interest in the new synthesizer-dominated electronic pop music, and found a revitalized country music scene ready and waiting to welcome a refugee. I turned off Tears for Fears, turned on George Strait, and for the most part didn't look back for the next 25 years.

Looking back, I realize how it took a particular confluence of events to make that happen. Country music had been invaded by young artists like Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, and Marty Stuart -- all of whom had been incubated in a straight-ahead bluegrass tradition. Texans like George Strait and Clint Black channeled their western swing roots. All of this was part of the "new traditionalism," and it tapped into something primal for me -- something rooted in the vicinity of the musical brainstem I inherited from my father, and something that decades of classical music training never displaced. Meanwhile, those same country artists and others were astute enough to notice that bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, CCR, the old Eagles, the old Doobie Brothers, etc. weren't going to be making it onto MTV anytime soon (for the uninitiated, Music TV once actually had music going 24/7.) Shrewdly (and also because they probably grew up listening to it too), the new generation of country performers gave to us refugees our regular fixes of classic rock -- we were just getting them on country radio stations.

My generation also had a lot of us who were growing up, settling down, going to church, and basically being solid citizens -- even while living in a distinctly modern and ambiguous world. The morality of country radio had a certain comfort to it. There was plenty of drinking, cheating, violence, and generally questionable behavior described in its contents, but leavened by an "I know it's wrong to live this way, and Lord I want to change" undercurrent. But mostly, it was the sound.

I'm not exactly sure when it started to change -- sometime within the last 5 years, I'd guess. Even with several commercial-free XM country channels and any number of broadcast channels, I increasingly found I couldn't listen to any of the country stations for more than a song or two before I was flipping channels. For many years I had always tended to divide my listening about 50-50 between classical music and country music, but soon I was listening almost exclusively to classical music. Country music had become tedious musically -- just as predictable and soulless as the "Nashville Sound" of my childhood. To make matters worse, the old moral underpinnings were largely gone. There were the same hard-drinking alleycats that populated many old country songs, but the difference was that now they had no shame over their behavior. In fact, they seemed to be pretty damned proud of their new enlightened selves. Welcome to 21st century America, even in flyover land.

I had my full set of Alison Krauss and Union Station CDs to listen to over and over again, but somehow I didn't connect the dots until I saw them in person this past summer and started to leapfrog from one recording to another and to listen to the XM bluegrass channel. I guess you have to be ready. Of course, bluegrass was also ready for me.

Eventually, all roads lead back to the roots -- and these days if I'm not listening to guys with names like Bill, Ralph, and Jimmy (and of course Lester and Earl), well, I'm probably listening to their acolytes: guys with names like Rice, Douglas, Crowe, and Skaggs (yes, things come full circle) and their renditions of the old standards using modern recording techniques, not to mention contemporary compositions using the stylistic conventions of traditional bluegrass music. I recall a statement by Tony Rice to the effect that he could always spot any bluegrass player who hadn't actually drunk deeply from the old stuff. The implication was that anyone who hadn't was never going to quite cut it in his estimation.

Me being me, it isn't enough just to listen. The guitars have come out, and the old walking bass runs that my dad taught me come unbidden like old friends, the pick flicks across the strings and the chord progressions come without having to think about them.

There is a bit of sadness, since I wish my dad was around to listen to all of this with me. I'd enjoy doing my part to undomesticate him a bit -- I think he'd enjoy it as much or more than I would.

And as I have mentioned a few times, I splurged on a beginner's mandolin that has become my nearly constant companion for the last month or so. I could have just stuck with the guitars, but I wanted a fresh start with an instrument that is rarely used outside bluegrass and other traditional music forms. Besides, I hadn't learned a new instrument since learning to play the Irish tin whistle back in college -- I was due... nothing quite like that feeling of discovery as leaps forward take place. Maybe the mental stimulation will hold off an early onset of Alzheimer's.

Speaking of having this music close to the brainstem, how about a few of my favorite clips of youngsters picking and singing? Lester and Earl would approve (of course, they appear in a couple of them.)

A youngster who needs no introduction playing with Lester and Earl:

And then there is a young Marty Stuart with Lester:

And while there are several great clips of a young Sierra Hull performing with the greats, there is none better than this (her break comes at about 1:30):

sa

Thanksgiving reflections

So it is late on the Friday after Thanksgiving when I finally sit down to write my Friday "cultural" piece. It has been a rich week. My oldest son arrived from California, accompanied by a lovely young woman whom we had the privilege of hosting for much of the week.

The beloved and I consider ourselves to be very blessed -- with three offspring ranging from age 22 to 26, we have had all of them home with us every Thanksgiving and Christmas of our lives, in spite of distances and schedules. Truth to be told, I think they come home as much (or more) to see each other than to see us parents, but that in itself is the greatest blessing of all -- something to be thankful for, since we have raised them to stick together, knowing that they will be there for each other (or not) long after we are gone from this life.

The meal was traditional, as always (there would be a revolt on our hands were we ever to try to do otherwise.) All of the kids took part in the preparation, with my youngest doing a phenomenal job with the turkey -- I'm not sure we've ever had a better-prepared bird, with all due respect to the beloved.

The house has been filled with music, in different ways at different times. My oldest son and I are pianists, and our very nice instrument that I finally rewarded us with some years back stayed busy with Brahms, Chopin, Bach, and Debussy. As is usually the case, whoever isn't playing tends to drift over to look over the shoulder to read along.

His girlfriend is an accomplished violinist and he a talented violist, so they enjoyed fiddling around (pun intended) with my new mandolin (mandolins and violins are tuned the same way.) Strains of Bach, in particular, arose softly from the strings, providing a backdrop and an aura of peace and beauty that enhanced the lively conversation during the evenings.

We enjoyed discussing the ongoing orchestral season at their university and the newly built (and apparently spectacular) concert hall there. We will be making it out there at least once during the spring for concerts, as we try to do at least once yearly. It has been a blessing that he has continued to play throughout his graduate studies, even though he is studying an engineering discipline. Most of the time, once kids graduate from high school, their performing days are done, and we want to enjoy them while they last.

After their flight left today (yet another thing to be thankful for living here in Billings is having the airport 5 minutes from our house, and yet rarely hearing the sound of a jet), we went out for lunch with my in-laws and the two remaining offspring, then split up to run some errands. My daughter and I ended up at my youngest son's apartment to visit Liam the Girl Cat (the name is a long story) -- our family's jet-setting cat who started as a lowly farm cat out at the South Dakota ranch (we try to keep a supply of cats there at all times to keep the rodents down), was "rescued" by the beloved to bring to Billings only to discover that I have become highly allergic to cats (I'd only interacted with them outdoors at the ranch, where the fresh air rules), then flown out to Tacoma where my daughter was living and working at the time and wanted a companion. Cat and daughter then moved to Seattle, and now the daughter is in the middle of a job-related move out east, so Liam was flown back to Billings where my youngest is taking care of her at his apartment for a few months before we will eventually fly her out east when the daughter is settled in her new abode.

Anyway, both my daughter and I were anxious to see our jet-setting feline friend, and spent some pleasant hours visiting her (when Liam deigns to acknowledge our presence (cats!)... until it was time for me to reach for a Claritin, that is.

This evening, the youngsters were out and about and I managed to get my dad's Martin (that I inherited after his passing) into the hands of my father-in-law, who grew up in Arkansas and who now lives with my mother-in-law in North Carolina, where they regularly go to a barbeque joint that has live bluegrass music almost every night. Ah, the things we miss out on, living out here on the frontier. We made tentative plans to come to North Carolina sometime in the next year for a bluegrass festival -- maybe the famous "Merlefest" up in Wilkesboro in April. Yet another thing to be thankful for.

Once I had the guitar in his hands (just to try it out), I quietly got out my mandolin, and as I had hoped, before long he was getting his playing fingers back after long disuse. Eventually, the mother-in-law and my wife made their way into the room, and we were playing and singing as many of the old songs as we could remember -- as is often the case, remembering only one verse and a chorus. I recalled with some sadness something I had once read by the late Mel Bradford (a personal hero) in which he talked about the importance of remembering the old songs, and that when they are finally forgotten (preservation by historicists doesn't count), something about a culture dies inside. But there was more warmth than sadness, since tonight is a night of remembering -- not one of forgetting.

I've only been playing mandolin for a couple of months, but had fortunately learned enough chords and have listened to enough bluegrass to have the feel of the mandolin "chop." A few chord forms were more than enough to be able to play with gusto and enjoyment at this kind of thing, and we had a grand time. The fire was burning brightly in the hearth, and we would laugh as one of us periodically had to break into a melodic "da-de-da" when we couldn't remember some of the words. We surely weren't going to desecrate the atmosphere with any books.

Magical moments when harmonies just materialized as out of nowhere, the satisfying feeling of getting a chord progression smoothly the second time through a song... you just don't trade moments like those for anything. I was surprised to reach back to my one-room country school childhood for a few old songs, like "Hole in the Bottom of the Sea," which George (who is in his 70s) and I knew, but the women-folk didn't (as I have said before, I grew up in a world that is gone -- even the memory is nearly gone, and will die with artifacts like me, who lived in a world that was, even then, archaic.)

There were plenty of old gospel songs I haven't sung in years (but which never fail to move me), rounds of "Dooley" and "Wildwood Flower" and "Bluebirds are Singing for Me" and "You are my Sunshine" (the latter sentimental to me since it is a crowd favorite at my extended family's gigantic reunions that take place once every 5 years or so.) All things to be thankful for, since while none of us are optimistic about where our country is headed, evenings like this help keep the emphasis where it belongs: what is most important is remembering what we have loved dearly about life here in this country, and not dwelling on the changes that frighten, sober, or sadden us.

The beloved has told me that we will need to repeat the musical evening tomorrow night both since it is great fun and since she wants the remaining two kids to experience it -- should be interesting. I expect that more songs will percolate to the surface between now and then -- that's how these things work.

And now, with the sun long down, and the rest of the family in bed, I am here in front of the fire in my leather chair that feels just right, with my legs up on a leather Ottoman that is just the right length. I have a fine single-malt at my side, fixed just the way Alan, my Scottish roomate in Germany (I believe I mentioned him in my Natalie MacMaster review) taught me -- neat, with a small splash of mineral water to bring out the subtle qualities of the aroma and taste alike. When I push "publish," I will go back to the Pointing Dog Journal that I purchased at B&N today, and if I finish that, I'll move on to one of my favorite indulgences in atmospheric richness -- Sporting Classics -- truly a magazine that is a work of literary and visual art that makes one want to be out in the field every day, or at least every week. I had just had a reminder of just such a life when out at the ranch earlier this month -- out every day hunting, usually with my trusty pointing dog working her own art, then returning to enjoy good food, good company, a lively fire in the stove, and a good book.

Of course, whether such experiences are lived in the field or vicariously lived through a work of art like a fine magazine, one cannot live that life every day, not really. Most of life is full of hard work -- satisfying in its own way, and often a work of art in its own right. But still work.

Moments such as I have described above, and indeed the entire experience and the very thought and memory of a warm and loving home, are to be savored each time they happen. Some make the mistake of forgetting the need to live in the moment of love while it is there to be enjoyed. Yet others of us forget that they are, ultimately, foretastes of another and better life yet to come (we hope, pray, and believe.) That knowledge, when we are blessed enough to see it and believe it, is perhaps the thing for which we can be the most thankful of all. Someday, God willing, the petty sorrows and worries of this life will melt away and we will understand the words of that old song we sang tonight:

Oh, come, angel band
Come, and around me stand
Come bear me away on your snow-white wings
To my immortal home...

About Town: Natalie MacMaster touches down in Montana

It seems like it shouldn't be time for concert season yet, but it is. I missed the season opener for the Billings Symphony, but since it involved mixing orchestral music with daring young women on the flying trapeze, it was probably just as well. Sigh.

Glancing over the offerings for the year, it was immediately clear, however, that whether I was ready for it or not, this week held one of the performances I least wanted to miss -- a visit from Natalie MacMaster, the famed Cape Breton fiddler. So, I scored front-row tickets and made reservations at Bin 119 so the beloved and I could have a nice meal and a couple of glasses of wine before going the block and a half to the Alberta Bair. (It also makes parking easier for ABT events if one patronizes that particular establishment.)

With a nice Shiraz and a light pasta pleasantly warming my innards, we strolled to the theater for the show. Some guy from New York was lost -- he and his hot dog stand were on the street corner. There were quite a few people out walking the streets in the dusky evening light, and I was reminded that we here in Billings are the home of what styles itself as Montana's only Urban University. There is a certain point to the claim -- all I have to say is that this country boy couldn't be happier to live in a state where Billings is the most urban place around.

Back to Natalie MacMaster, though. What can I say other than that she thoroughly won me over? I'm a big fan of acoustic music of all sorts, and in particular of traditional/Celtic music (it's a north country thing -- even we Norwegians have our version), ever since being introduced to it by my Scottish flat-mate when I was studying in Germany for a year back in college. He played the Northumbrian pipes and tin whistle, and we both played guitar. I didn't know a jig from a reel but was eager to learn. Alan and I had many a happy evening together with him playing on his pipes or whistle and me accompanying on guitar. Eventually a neighbor would tell us to pipe down (so to speak), and the nights thus usually ended by sipping a single-malt over a game of chess -- Alan taught me that life was too short for cheap whiskey, even for students like us.

I even learned to play a few tunes on the whistle, and such is the nature of these things that I can to this day pull out my D-whistle and after a little warm-up, throw down acceptable performances of a couple of traditional Scottish tunes from memory.

Anyway, Cape Breton Island is a part of Nova Scotia where Scottish Highlanders came in droves some centuries ago, in no small part because they were Roman Catholics seeking a place where they could practice their religion in peace. The world of Sir Walter Scott's wonderful Waverly novels in exile, so to speak. Speaking of novels, the beloved is a big fan of Alistair MacLeod, Cape Breton's most famous writer, and those books, filled with the depth and distinctives (and music and dancing) of Cape Breton life, are sitting on the shelf, marinating, waiting for me to read them, too.

Wherever Celtic folks went, they brought their wonderful music, and in places like Appalachia and Cape Breton, one can encounter various forms of the Scottish tradition and its descendents. By the time I became acquainted with Celtic music, the guitar had become the standard rhythmic accompaniment to the tunes. But prior to the 20th century, fiddles, pipes and whistles were largely unaccompanied, and the first instrument that was used, early in the 20th century, to provide backup was actually the piano. While the use of the piano in Celtic music elsewhere has pretty much completely died out, Cape Breton music has preserved the piano as the indispensable accompanying instrument, giving its music a characteristic sound.

It took a little getting used to on Wednesday night, even though I knew this history -- the tonalities introduced by the use of a piano just weren't familiar to me. But again, it didn't take long before I was won over. MacMaster's band was an eclectic one -- a drummer/percussionist (one who toured with Shania Twain in her heyday, no less), a fine guitarist, her excellent long-time pianist, Mac Morin, and a phenomenal kid (Nathaniel Smith) playing the cello. By the way, I just knew I recognized him from his performing with Sarah Jarosz, but she wasn't listed in the program as one of the people he had worked with in the past. Sure enough, when I got home and looked him up, it was the same guy. He is breaking new ground with the cello -- it works wonderfully, since it can creditably function either as a rhythmic acoustic bass instrument or as a upper-register melodic instrument for soloing or harmonic interplay.

I had heard about Macmaster's high-energy performances, but I have to say that I wasn't prepared for her fine dancing -- let alone for a woman who had recently given birth to her 5th child to be dancing up a storm while also rolling off breakneck reels and jigs on her fiddle at the same time. (There's got to be a joke about walking and chewing gum at the same time in there somewhere...) Her six year old daughter even made a cameo, playing fiddle like a little pro and dancing admirably.

MacMaster, like most modern practitioners of traditional music, has spent much of her career exploring the boundaries and borderlands of her genre, and I like that. Someone recently wrote that Alison Krauss and Union Station function as a sort of "gateway drug" for bluegrass music proper, and MacMaster has likewise introduced countless people to Cape Breton music.

For most of the concert, she stayed close to her roots, while regularly putting in just enough elements to make it more accessible to audience members whose ears aren't (yet) accustomed to traditional music.

I remember when I was a youngster playing music, one of my respected teachers told me, "assume that there is at least one real musician in your audience -- play for him." And indeed, the beloved and I found ourselves sitting next to the only other person in the building who was from Cape Breton -- a fiddler herself, no less, who had met MacMaster when she was growing up and playing back home. She had nothing but good to say about MacMaster and the performance. Good enough for me, then, too.

MacMaster's only other performance in Montana was in Helena last night, but she has been here before, and will likely come again. Don't miss it next time.

The next similar thing on my schedule is the Big Sky Big Grass bluegrass festival in February -- the great Sam Bush will be performing, along with many others.

About town: Alison Krauss/Union Station at the Billings Blues Festival

Better late than never, but it is really an impossibility that my heroes could come to town and not have me pay homage.

While I've been listening to Alison Krauss/Union Station for many years (and was irrevocably hooked from the first note), I've never had the privilege of hearing them perform in person. Their last visits to Billings were before I moved here 11 years ago, and by that time, they had hit the big time, and their only stops in Montana were at high-capacity venues in university towns like Bozeman, and I was never able to make the trip.

Krauss and the band played to a packed South Park crowd to close out the Billings Blues festival a couple of weeks ago and did not disappoint in the least. Having suffered through my share of outdoor concerts that had abysmal sound quality, I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about having my first (and perhaps only, who knows?) experience of AK/US be at an outdoor venue rather than in an intimate concert hall with great acoustics.

I needn't have worried -- the sound was perfect in every way -- vocals and instrumentals perfectly balanced, instruments perfectly in tune for every perfectly played note, vocals perfect. Just perfect.

That perfection -- artistic sensitivity and surefootedness combined with technical mastery -- has been part of what has made me an AK/US afficianado over the years -- never a sloppy note, never any muddy engineering on the recordings, never a miscue when it comes to choosing material (Krauss writes very little herself, but unsurprisingly has the pick of the finest material available in what can only be described as the "country/bluegrass/crossover" world.)

It is a world that Krauss and her band have themselves largely created and defined, drawn deeply from bluegrass and "roots" music but integrated with insights from an eclectic range of influences. It is music with the polish to fit in with the slickness of most modern country programming, but it is rarely played on those venues. Rather, it exists in a world that could perhaps be described as "underground," if only it weren't so huge. Perhaps the best indicator of what I am talking about is that their latest album "Paper Airplane" was the number one album on the country charts for two weeks, while no single from the album even made the charts at all as a "top 100" song. Huh?

It is a testament to the formulaic nature of country music today that Alison Krauss, with the most Grammys of any female artist and tied for the second most Grammys period (coming in only behind the legendary conductor of the Chicago Symphony, Sir George Solti, who racked up decades of uninterrupted clasical Grammys; and tied with Quincy Jones, the legendary Jazz/R&B producer) -- that someone like that can't get playing time on country music radio. OK, my rant's over now.

Krauss played a nice mix of new material from Paper Airplane and old material going well back into her catalogue, ending with a gentle encore medley/montage of snippets of her most well-known songs -- really quite brilliant, since playing all of those favorites in their entirety would have crowded out gems like Jerry Douglas's dobro pyrotechnics paired with Dan Tyminski's equally compelling vocals on "The Boy Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn."

And the gazillionth full-length performance of "When You Say Nothing at All" or "Whiskey Lullaby" might have caused me to miss my own favorite of the night -- "Daylight," from the 2001 album "New Favorite." That song has been bringing tears to my eyes ever since I first shoved the CD into the player more than a decade ago. It was the first fall I was back up here in God's country after 20 years away, and I was driving through eastern Montana along the Yellowstone, with the leaves turning to gold and the prairie burnishing to dun as autumn came on. I had finally completed what had seemed like a lifetime of exile, off in the (mostly) big cities completing the necessary business of education, surgical training, and military service. It had been an experience simultaneously irreplaceable and yet often somewhat akin to being buried alive. I was back again in the region I loved and where my heart had never left, and it somehow seemed like Alison Krauss gave voice to the full range of emotions I was experiencing.

Tears it brought again that Sunday night in South Park. I could spend several paragraphs analyzing the sonic landscape of just that one song -- with its effective mix of hurtling but gentle instrumentals and intense yet languid vocals -- but I don't want to. What I do know is that only Alison Krauss and Union Station could create that particular work of art -- one that never stops piercing me with its painful beauty. Like so many Alison Krauss songs heard for the first time, it was hard to decide what would be more painful -- to have to experience its sweet melancholy again... or never to be able to hear it again. Almost always, of course, we AKUS devotees choose the latter, and keep coming back for more, and yet more again.

Peerless professionals that they are, everyone got their money's worth from Alison and the boys, who finished up with Ron Block's iconic composition (and the band's traditional closing number), "There is a Reason." It is one of those rare songs that fully and sensitively acknowledges how difficult it is to hold on to religious belief in this life... this world -- and yet gently but firmly expresses that faith anyway. And really, would an authentic evening of "roots" music not have at least one moment like that? Not for me, and probably not for Alison Krauss, as best as I can tell.

It was a night to remember in Billings, and unsurprisingly, the crowd was mellow and at peace with the world, with each other -- and who knows, for some, maybe even with God -- as we walked away together under the fading light of a Montana summer sky.

Music: The BBC Proms Online

Each year, I look forward to mid-July and the start of the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, a.k.a. the BBC Proms. But first, a digression.

When I was growing up in a remote corner of the high plains, the choice was clear -- if you wanted plenty of “culture” you had to move off to the big city and make your way amongst the crowds and the crime. As your reward, there were plenty of concerts, museums, and bookstores to frequent. You would usually have access to large public libraries and university libraries. If you consider such things to be cultural (I do), you could throw in various sporting events, horse shows, movie theaters showing obscure foreign films... you name it. And there is a variety of restaurants, pubs or coffee shops where you can drop in for a bite or a drink before or after.

The more of such things as you might want, the bigger the city you needed to seek out, and the more of the hassles and expense of city life you needed to endure. Now, the truth is that whether you live in Chicago or Chinook, the constraints of time and money mean that most people spend their days working and their evenings at home. But still, it is a bit easier to get to the Lyric Opera when one lives in the former.

The fact that our wired age makes it possible for many workers to telecommute gets a lot of attention. It never ceases to amaze me that I can be out at the remote family ranch, researching and writing articles, sending manuscripts and queries to editors anywhere in the country, and of course, putting up content on Montana Headlines courtesy of the wonders of DSL. When my daughter comes home, she can spend a few extra days with us without having to burn vacation time because she can work anywhere as long as she has her laptop and high-speed internet, putting in a regular work day, and then spending the evening with us. It is truly marvelous.

What gets less attention, I think, is that the modern wired age also makes it possible for people to experience cultural events from around the world that one would otherwise be unlikely ever to attend. Which brings me back at long last to the BBC Proms, the world’s largest and longest classical music festival, lasting for 8 weeks every summer in London, running from mid-July to mid-September, every minute of which can be listened to online.

Every concert (this year there are 76 -- plus assorted chamber music concerts, recitals, and other events) is carried live on BBC 3 Radio online, and each concert remains available for streaming for one week. Because of the time difference, the live broadcasts of evening concerts taking place in London’s Royal Albert Hall start in the afternoon in the U.S. for those who might be working at a desk where they can listen. For the rest of us, streaming the recordings over the ensuing week is usually the thing.

The full booklet of program notes for every concert is available online -- a veritable treasure-trove of first-class writing on composers, works, and performers. Finally, it is worth noting that in recent years, the Proms have expanded to include literary events -- poetry readings, panel discussions on literature, and the like -- all also available for listening online.

The workhorse of the Proms is the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which is based in London and which does regular performances throughout the festival, with the other four BBC orchestras from around the UK also taking their turns in the spotlight. Perhaps even more importantly, this is a time of year when the whole musical world comes to London, with major orchestras, conductors, and performers traveling from around the globe to perform at the festival.

As I have discussed before here at Montana Headlines, there is still no substitute for live performances and experiences. I once read a comment by someone on the internet who claimed that sculpture and architecture were the only things he felt he really needed to experience in person -- he could stream any music he wanted to hear, could watch recordings of plays and operas, and could experience all of the great paintings of the world’s museums on Google Art. I couldn’t disagree more about the idea that one can just sit at home in front of a computer -- no matter how large the screen and how high the resolution, and no matter how wonderful the sound system -- and have this replace concerts and museums and galleries.

On the other hand, the internet does give an infinitely broader exposure to the world of the arts than could have been imagined even a decade or two ago, especially those of us who have the privilege of living in places like Montana. I suppose I more deeply treasured the bits of connection that I did have when growing up -- the Time magazine reviews of the arts that I devoured from an early age, the weekly PBS television broadcast of the Boston Symphony (and in summer, the Boston Pops), my few treasured classical music records (especially a cheap set of the complete Beethoven Symphonies, and my dad’s favorite -- a set of records containing Mozart’s sonatas for violin and piano that he listened to again and again), and so on... But I love the infinite variety of music, art, and knowledge available 24/7 at the click of a mouse in this modern age and look forward to even more of the same as technology advances. It is a consolation, I suppose, for the equally infinite variety of insanities and indignities that that same modern age deals out to us on a daily basis.

So, some practical notes on the Proms for a conclusion:

There are several ways to access the concerts. One is to visit the BBC Proms homepage and start exploring. An easy thing is to look at the calendar and click on the previous 7 days, seeing if there are any concerts that seem to be of interest. Another way is to go to the “Performances and Events” page on the BBC 3 website, where the currently available concerts will show up, along with other BBC 3 program recordings. If there is a concert on the schedule that you want to listen to live “as it happens” some quiet afternoon (again, something I find to be just amazing,) just go to the BBC 3 homepage and click “listen” in the upper right hand corner. Something unfortunate is that none of the video content is available outside the UK. The BBC is a taxpayer-supported entity, so unless one lives where such taxes are paid, one can’t access the content. Fortunately, all of the concerts are available in high-quality audio, no matter where one lives. Which means that we can enjoy the beauties of a Montana summer by day, and, should we choose, go to London for the Proms that evening. What’s not to like about that?

More on Hilton Kramer

The May issue of The New Criterion was in large part dedicated to the memory of the recently departed Hilton Kramer, founder and visionary behind that influential journal of culture and the arts. Particularly worth reading are editor Roger Kimball's lead essay and the reminiscences of the legendary Joseph Epstein, long-time editor of The American Scholar, but a browse through all of the tributes is well worth the time spent.

An interesting tidbit that I hadn't read before was that when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn finally decided to allow his reclusive privacy in Vermont to be violated long enough to allow the New York Times to interview him, one of his stipulations was that he would only speak to Hilton Kramer, then art critic for The Gray Lady. It was a request that must have seemed unusual at the time, since there were any number of literary or political editors or reporters who would have been more logical choices from the perspective of the Times. Kramer's reputation for honesty had apparently preceded him, making him someone Solzhenitsyn could depend on to tell the truth -- something Solzhenitsyn valued above all other qualities. Kramer's review of The Gulag Archipelago couldn't have hurt, in all fairness to the competition.

On another note, long-time readers of The New Criterion are so used to the fact of that periodical's unstinting championing of things like abstract expressionism in painting and the honesty of certain kinds of modernist architecture that it is easy to forget what an unusual sell this combination of modernist art and conservative culture and politics must have seemed at the time when seeking start-up funding from largely conservative foundations.

The combination made perfect sense to Kramer, for whom the two were organically woven together in his critical life. Those who may have been skeptical (present company included) but who read the journal through the years came to understand modernism in a new light, seeing its many currents,learning to separate the pretentious from the profound, the trendy from the potentially timeless. Most importantly, we discovered the that while engagement with a "canon" of proven artistic worth is an irreplaceable anchor to one's aesthetic life, life without contemporary artistic engagement with the human condition is an impoverished one, even when it involves sifting through dusty sands of trendy post-modernism to find that occasional jewel...

This issue has some interesting comments and anecdotes about Kramer making that sale (in part through the good offices of Irving Kristol.) He of course did, and the rest, as they say, is history.

_________________________________

Afterthought (what would MH be without digressions and afterthoughts? -- or parenthetical filiations, for that matter): While working yesterday with one of the progeny at the ancestral homestead, planting trees for the next generation to enjoy, that phrase came up in the course of conversation. He, shovel in hand, asked the following question -- since the saying has long been "and the rest, as they say, is history," wouldn't it today be more proper to say "and as they say, 'the rest, as they say, is history?'" My reply felt feeble but I tried: besides its obvious infelicities, eventually a third "as they say" would have to be added to the phrase, and so on. True?

Musings for a weekend...

Hilton Kramer, RIP

Profound gratitude. There’s not much else to be said about the MH attitude toward the newly departed Hilton Kramer, founder of the favorite periodical of the MH household. Even the youngsters are caught reading it from time to time when they are home.

Unlike the daily Billings Gazette, which is easily divvied up each morning at breakfast (sports section for MH -- liking to start the day with the part with the highest percentage of factual truth; front section for the beloved,) the monthly New Criterion cannot be read simultaneously, not least because we would turn first to different essays (Jay Nordlinger’s music criticism for MH; lead article for the beloved.)

Fortunately, there is usually an easy solution -- the previous few issues are usually lying close to hand, and one has rarely read every word of those. So the first to the prize gets the literary Beaujolais Nouveau, while the loser gets a more aged vintage -- hardly a loss.

Readers are encouraged to browse through some initial laudatory pieces about Kramer.

And this old post from some years ago touches in passing on the deep MH respect for the New Criterion and specifically on the admiration due to Hilton Kramer. With deepest gratitude for his gift to those who care deeply about the arts and about our civilization -- rest in peace... memory eternal.

About Town: Solas

Again, something I wanted to hear. Again, I was scheduled to be out of town -- on business this time. And again events beyond my control forced me to be back in Billings unexpectedly for the weekend.

My solace? Solas. Ever since hearing this fine Irish-American band on a Celtic music sampler CD back in the 90's, I have thought they were something special. The piece I first heard was "Crested Hens," a haunting, spare, and softly lilting tune that stretched the melodic boundaries of traditional Celtic music. Almost New Age-ish, but not quite... Tugs at parts of you that you forgot were there until gently reminded.

So, when scanning the Alberta Bair season, Solas was the first performance I marked on the calendar (only later to find that I had to be out of town that weekend.) As with most Celtic music concerts at the AB, I arrived to find a most pleasant gathering -- jackets, ties, and dresses here and there, cargo pants and flannel shirts (me and many others,) a good showing of Wranglers and cowboy hats... and everyone seemingly as relaxed and happy as if they had a couple good, relaxing drinks aboard. Which is of course possible. In short, I was reminded of why this particular ranch boy who also loves the arts finds Billings to be such a comfortable place to live.

Solas has been through a number of personnel changes over the years, but two founding members are still with the band -- multi-instrumentalist Seamus Egan and violinist Winifred Horan. The band members are Irish and American, to various extents -- Horan was born and raised in New York, Eagan was born in the US, but grew up in Ireland and has an accent to prove it. The rest were born in Ireland but are based out of the US now, hence allowing Solas to make a credible claim to be the most prominent Irish-American band on the Celtic music scene.

Regardless of geography or chauvinistic sensibilities, Solas is an exquisite acoustic band in the traditional music vein. They can spin off traditional jigs and reels with the best of them, but it is in their original material and adaptations that they shine, making use of modern chord progressions, unusual time signatures and bridges -- all very good stuff. Joining us was my 20-something son with musical tastes eclectic enough to encompass genuine passions for old-school jazz and West Coast hip-hop alike. He, too, was unexpectedly still in Billings, thanks to the happenstance breakdown of his truck that prevented his scheduled return to college. Last minute ticket purchasing was successful -- the house was almost sold out up through the loge, but thankfully there is still an occasional hesitancy in this town to sit in the front row. We therefore felt obliged to take a few seats up there.

A pleasant surprise was learning that this tour has a Montana connection. The historic center of Montana, Butte, hosted the National Folk Festival from 2008-2010, and while Solas was there performing, Seamus Eagan had the opportunity to explore an old family story of his great-great uncle who came to Butte to work in the mines at the turn of the last century. At the time when "no Irish need apply" was the rule elsewhere, Irish knew that if they could just get to Butte (no mean task in those days,) the legendary Marcus Daly (born in County Cavan,) had no such prejudices, and would give an Irishman a job. It being a very rough mining town that was dangerous for miners both above and below the surface, Eagan's relative unsurprisingly died a young, violent death.

Solas decided to explore the Irish-American experience in Butte with a combined recording and film project they have called "Shamrock City," and tonight's concert featured original music from the project. We greatly look forward to seeing and hearing the final project.

It is always a mark of confidence when a performer or band concentrates on their more recent material rather than just trotting out old favorites, and Solas did so tonight. Not only was there no “Crested Hens,” I was surprised that they didn't perform the one big hit co-written by Eagan -- "I Will Remember You," made famous when covered by Canadian Sarah McLachlan (another co-writer on the song.) It really wouldn't have fit into the set, and I respected the musicality they showed by leaving it out (assuming that Eagan still has rights to perform the song.)

Not much more to say than to congratulate the AB schedulers for getting Solas on the calendar, and to hope that they'll be back soon. All in all, a magical evening.

About town: Billings Symphony, Elgar, Butterworth, Beethoven

It is exceedingly hard to ruin George Butterworth's "The Banks of Green Willow," a paragon of that lovely turn-of the century British sound -- an idyll if there ever was one. Makes one want to drink tea with milk and nibble scones while watching Downton Abbey episodes.

Hard to ruin, but not impossible, and the Billings Symphony Orchestra's conductor, Anne Harrigan, gave it a shot. The ensemble's playing was passable, but seemed under-rehearsed -- we know they can play better than that. As happens too often, the conducting was exaggerated, which only served to highlight the lackluster sound of the orchestra, and the distraction from the podium threatened to deprive the audience of the soothing Butterworth experience (this was his one symphonic triumph -- don't ruin it for the poor guy!) When Harrigan is at her most controlling -- her micromanaging "best," entrances become tentative and the flow breaks down. It helps to close one's eyes. At times like this, one sometimes thinks that the orchestra would do better if it were simply given a downbeat by the concertmaster and just allowed to play. This muddle in the opening piece has often been a characteristic of the BSO's playing under Harrigan, where the orchestra often starts with something light and short, but which is then not played with the precision and sensitivity that even an "easy" piece deserves.

When it comes to the musicality of a performer, one can often learn as much by how he performs a simple work as by how he dashes out the scintillating virtuoso showcase piece. One's mind goes back to the performance with the BSO of Valentina Lititsa several years ago. She had filled the Alberta Bair with the lush sounds of Rachmaninov's 2nd, and encored with some fiendishly difficult Liszt piece or another. She graciously came back for a second encore and with a smile strolled out the opening 9 simple notes of Beethoven's "Für Elise," upon which there was an audible giggling from some quarters of the hall. It had to be a joke, you know -- a children's piece -- (I certainly hadn't played it since childhood, but thankfully was entranced enough by Lititsa's playing that chuckling never occurred to me.)

Paying the disturbance no mind, she simply and thoughtfully took the audience through the piece, neither trying to play it up by using a breakneck tempo (the fashion of concert pianists playing everything as fast as their God-given fingers can possibly go has never appealed to me -- what is bracing in NASCAR loses its thrill on the concert stage, where one would sometimes actually like to hear the individual notes of a run or the delicious harmonies of a chord long enough for them to register with the brain,) nor playing it with expression. It was rich in its directness, the rubato was subtle and just right, and the lesson learned by all was unmistakable: "Für Elise" is a gem. That is it beautiful is apparent when one's young niece is playing it at a recital -- that it is a work of a certain kind of brilliance can only be brought out by a master of the craft like Lititsa, who, it should be added, like a number of previous soloists with the BSO, has gone on to bigger and better things. We have, with pride, since seen her appear on season schedules with the Seattle and San Francisco Symphonies, and understand that she has made some prestigious appearances at points east as well. It's rather like the kind of satisfaction one gets when seeing a favorite minor league baseball player from the stands one summer, then seeing him on television the next year after he has made "The Show."

But back to the present, and to music. Another Beethoven was on offer tonight -- his triple concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano. It was an interesting choice of work, since our own concertmaster Randy Tracy was featured on violin and our principal cellist, David Heinzen, played second base (the baseball analogies will be dropped now, promise.) The guest artist was Gustavo Romero on piano, and what made it all a bit odd is that the piano part is by far the easiest part of this triple concerto, mainly because it was written for a skilled amateur who was going to be flanked by a couple of pros. Tracy and Heinzen are fine players, and it was great to hear their talents highlighted, but they are not experienced soloists, and we might more have enjoyed hearing them take on something else.

String players are already at a disadvantage when it comes to intonation when sharing the stage with a piano (unless the piano tuner was particularly incompetent,) and putting our semi-pro guys on the hard parts while giving the visiting pro the easy parts only made the contrast sharper. How this concert was conceived is a bit of a mystery -- one possible clue was in the program notes, where we learn that Romero's specialty is to do the complete works of one composer or another. One wonders whether the conversation went a little like this:

"Mr. Romero, we'd like to have you come to Billings as a guest artist with our symphony."

"Billings, where's that?"

"Montana."

"That in America?"

"Yes, straight north of your home in Dallas -- just follow the Bozeman trail north and take a right half-way through Wyoming."

"OK, but here's the deal -- I, well, have this thing about being able to say I've performed the complete works of composers, and I still need to check off Beethoven's triple concerto. No-one else seems to want to do it -- cost of hiring three soloists and all that. Help me out and we've got a deal."

"Um, OK... you free February 25th?"

Just a thought I had while listening to the performance. One supposes that these days everyone has to have an angle, but things can get a bit strained when applying any sort of doctrine. I own a copy of Alfred Brendel's complete piano works of Beethoven, but how many times, really, is one going to listen through the whole thing?

One final note on Romero, who acquitted himself very well, playing with complete technical mastery and yet with the chamber music restraint that the piece required. This was the first time that I can recall a visiting soloist with the BSO not being brought back for an encore prior to the intermission. An understandable exception was this season's opening concert, when Harrigan wisely chose to have Inon Barnatan's performance of Brahm's massive 2nd Piano Concerto take up the entire final half of the program rather than to occupy the spot before the break. The performance was so satisfying that an encore would have been anti-climactic, almost sacrilegious. But on this evening, I have to confess to feeling as though we got short shrift. You get a pianist of modest national prominence to town, you'd like to get a little more for your money. Since Romero is doing Beethoven right now, would it really have killed him to come back out on stage to give us something simple like, well, I don't know... "Für Elise?"

Speaking of angles, what was with the title of this program, and why do programs need these titles anyway? "Musical Landscapes," Harrigan had entitled it. In one sense, every piece of music has or is a musical landscape, one supposes, but when the opening piece is "Banks of Green Willow," the brain looks for something a little more concrete to complete the thought, only to be frustrated. Beethoven's triple concerto is a fine enough piece, but it distinctly lacks anything "landscapey" -- even by Beethoven standards. And the title becomes even more odd when the final piece on the program is Edgar Elgar's "Enigma Variations," which are musical portraits, not musical landscapes. Just saying.

Lest the reader think otherwise when reading my above comments, the Butterworth and the Beethoven were both quite enjoyable. I had never heard the Butterworth performed live before, and I don't remember having heard the triple concerto at all before, even in a recording or broadcast. Hearing a piece for the first time is always an adventure, and hearing it performed live is an adventure all its own, even when the performances are not perfect. And while on the subject of first hearings, this was the first time "Green Willow" has been performed by the BSO, while the Beethoven had been done by the BSO in the mid-90's with the Guild Trio providing the solo work. The Elgar also was having its BSO debut tonight, which is surprising given its prominent place in the repertoire.

With the Enigma Variations, the joy of a first live listening was there in spades. I own a couple of recordings of the Variations, and listened to a marvelous live performance by the BBC Philharmonic on-line at the BBC Proms this past summer. It is a piece I thought I knew well, by a composer of whom I am particularly fond. And yet, in this performance by the BSO, it was a most fresh hearing of the piece. I noticed the theme in places I hadn't heard it before, the color and texture of the piece was just different, and it was more spatial somehow, which is often true with live performances, but not always.

It was clear that this was where Harrigan and the BSO had put their efforts in rehearsal. It was crisp and clean, Harrigan's conducting was less controlling and the entrances thus more natural and musical. In short, it was all I had hoped for and more when a snowstorm drove me back early to Billings from what was to be a weekend alone reading books and writing in front of the fire at the rural ancestral homestead. I took the impending storm as providential, since I was regretting missing this performance of the Elgar Variations. Part way through the first half of the concert, faith in Providence began to lag a bit, but by the end it was again a man of faith walking out the exit during the final, enthusiastic, and well-deserved ovation. Until, that is, passing through the lobby, he heard the odd sound of Harrigan reprising the final variation as an encore -- a musical practice (to my taste) analogous to being given a second helping of a dessert that had left one feeling just right at the end of a nice meal. The ending had been perfect. Sigh.

But to close the circle on this essay, some things really are difficult to ruin, and while a wave did crash against this fine performance of Elgar, at the end it stood firm in the mind as an evening to remember.

Umphrey's McGee comes to Billings

Didn't think Billings would ever make the Umphrey's McGee circuit, but here they are, playing two nights from now at the Babcock. Montana Headlines may just have to send a cultural critic to the concert to see if they are all they're cracked up to be by jam band aficionados.

Any band that claims King Crimson, early Genesis, and Led Zeppelin as major influences is bound to be serious. Their approach to presenting their music -- few albums, lots of live shows, and encouraging people to record their music in concert and distribute it for free on the internet -- has been unique and for the most part brilliant.

They are doing pretty well for themselves, and while playing as many concerts as they do has to be hard work, it can't be a whole lot worse than slaving in the recording studio and kowtowing to record company executives.

Anyway, we're glad to see someone in Billings got us on the tour, and hope to be able to report on the concert. Oh, and for the record, as far as jam bands go, Umphrey's McGee is to the String Cheese Incident what Johnny Cash is to Kenny Rogers in the country music world. This observation is based on watching and listening to extended video of the concerts of each.

When they go into a "Jimmy Stewart," it takes improvisation to another level. One critic puts it well:

This is what, in essence, sets apart Umphrey's from the major jam bands who've come before them; those cues keep the players on the same page even as they're freely improvising, a clear distinction from the aimless hippie jams of old.

Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind 20 years later

20 years ago, a bombshell hit the liberal educational establishment. A little-known University of Chicago professor wrote a book that was on the summer reading list of just about everyone in the chattering classes.

The Closing of the American Mind was subtitled: “How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students.”

The New Criterion, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the first appearance of this classic, devotes several essays revisiting the book in the November number. One of the things that is in short supply these days is serious criticism -- there is a lot of reviewing that goes on, but criticism requires a broadening of perspective. And it virtually demands some distance -- retrospective, if you will.

Bloom's book was itself a work of serious criticism -- albeit one that had a curious appeal to the more general reader. But then, the best serious criticism can stand the test of being exposed to the general serious reader, as opposed to the academic specialist.

Bloom's book ranged from his contemporary experiences teaching at a major elite university (drawing also on the formative moments of the student rebellion when he was teaching at Cornell) to ancient Greek philosophy to 19th century German nihilism. It brought perspective.

Of course, as with so many serious books, far more people bought it than read it. From Roger Kimball's essay:

But even the success of The Closing of the American Mind had its oddities. One side of the oddity was summed up by a cartoon in The New Yorker. It shows a bemused-looking chap in a bookstore. He is standing in front of a table piled high with the book. As he leafs through a copy, a bookseller stands by beaming and confides, “I haven’t read it, but it’s terrific.”

I have often wondered how many of those million copies sold actually found readers. Five percent? Seven? Not more, I’d wager. But the interesting thing is that it didn’t matter. Poetry, T. S. Eliot said, communicates before it is understood. Similarly, books like The Closing of the American Mind do not have to be widely read to touch a nerve and communicate their essential message.

In James Piereson's lead essay, we are reminded that one of the main themes of the book -- the importance of an education in the "great books" (i.e. the ones overwhelmingly written by dead, white males) -- was hardly a new one, since it had been addressed from within the liberal tradition since the 1930s.

What Bloom was saying was more root-and-branch, and was probably only possible because enough of a culture had developed outside of that liberal tradition that the reading public could conceive of an assault from outside that tradition without the assault being an anti-intellectual one.

Bloom, however, understood that trying to change the curriculum without addressing the more fundamental ideas that have shaped it would be like trying to cure a sick man simply by changing his diagnosis.

Bloom claimed that the West faces an intellectual crisis because no one any longer can make a principled defense of its institutions or way of life. This is most evident in the university, which has reformed itself according to the ideas of openness, tolerance, relativism, and diversity—all of which claim that no political principles, institutions, or way of life can be affirmed as being superior to any others.

This is the near-universal view among students and faculty at our leading institutions of higher learning. The tragedy here, according to Bloom, is that relativism has extinguished the real motive behind all education, which is “the search for the good life.” If all ideas and ideals are equal, there is little point in searching for the best ones.

One remembers the fury with which the book was attacked: which just made some of us recent college graduates all the more interested in what the fuss was about.

A retrospective like this, however, tells bits of the story that only the passage of time tends to send bubbling to the surface. For instance, did we know at the time that the book was written at the encouragement of Bloom's friend Saul Bellow? If so, it is lost in the mists of memory.

Certainly it was not common knowledge that the success of the book was almost certainly due to an unexpected change in editors between the time the book was accepted for publication and the time that editing actually began. The editor called for a snappier title (the original: Souls Without Longing,) and turned on its head the original academic structure that started with the ancients and moved to the modern. Instead, Bloom starts in medias res, with "his discussion of contemporary students, with his unsparing comments on their relationships, the books they read, and the music they like to hear..."

There, too, it is hard to remember that one of the hottest topics of debate about the book was actually Bloom's harsh indictment of rock music (an indictment that Roger Kimball, in his essay, takes up and expounds on in more general critical terms -- a fascinating discussion in and of itself.)

Or how about the fact that the book drew explicit parallels between the academy of the Nazi era and the radicalized academy of the 1960's and beyond?

Yet another thing that the perspective of two decades has yielded is that since this was practically the first book of its sort, the academy didn't see the book coming. As a result, the first major reviews were favorable. The NYT Book Review essay was by Roger Kimball (the contributor of one of the New Criterion essays,) and the editors of that publication helped things along by giving Kimball's review the title of "The Groves of Ignorance." Other favorable reviews quickly followed in the daily Times , the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

By the time anyone went on the counter-attack, it was too late, and the book had leaped to the best-seller list. The attacks on the book then only had the effect, as noted above, of attracting more attention from those who felt that things weren't quite right at America's major universities. Today, such a book would likely have been assigned unfavorable reviewers from the beginning at the major establishment organs. Overtly conservative books still tend to do quite well on the best-seller lists, but they tend to be "shock-jock" books of the Ann Coulter variety.

The end of the story isn't an entirely happy one for the lover of traditional education. While Bloom became a multi-millionaire and became an unlikely celebrity, and while generations of conservatives who followed would forever be emboldened in questioning liberal academic orthodoxies, Bloom's main goal went unfulfilled.

Bloom's primary concern was for the top few dozen universities in America, hoping that the course could be changed, and that there could be a return to liberal education (in the true sense) grounded in the classics and eternal verities. This most evidently did not happen.

But Bloom, of course, was looking at things from the only perspective he knew -- that of someone who had spent his entire academic life, from college student through professorship, in Ivy League level universities. As is often the case, it was probably difficult for him to conceive of the possibility that deep learning and thought can go on outside those elite institutions -- and indeed outside the university setting entirely.

Not surprisingly, one of the fruits of Bloom's work was a genuinely conservative one, in the modern sense where the importance of free enterprise and independence is emphasized. His book began a cascade of self-learning enterprises that ranges from home education of children to book clubs devoted to the great books of Western Civilization.

Who is to save, and pass on to the next generation, the classical learning of Western civilization? Look in the mirror.

Sunday roundup and branding -- the Gazette, and beyond...

Image Courtesy of www.old-picture.com

Knowing a place: It isn't unusual to have someone in Montana claim to know a river or a piece of land well. Ranchers and farmers certainly tend to know every nook and cranny of their land, especially when they grew up there.

Ed Kemmick had a beautiful piece on a Columbus man who sets a high bar for knowing a river -- more particularly "his" 20-mile stretch:

Over the years, Ostwald has swum in it, waded it, inner-tubed on it, navigated it by canoe, raft and jet boat, walked up and down its banks.

He has fished every tributary in those 20 miles, investigated every ravine and gully. He has hunted game on its banks, run trap lines, explored its environs for human and natural artifacts.

Nine years ago, he was even married on it.

While the modern condition has introduced a level of nomadism of unprecedented scale, at the heart of a traditional life well-lived is being rooted in a place and knowing it well.

Thanks to Kemmick for giving us yet another living example of someone doing just that.

Rehberg on SCHIP: We're glad to see that in Rehberg's recently released editorial on SCHIP that he pointed out the inconvenient truth that it was a Republican Congress (of which he was a part) that created the program in the first place -- for children whose families made too much for Medicaid and not enough to afford private insurance or who had otherwise fallen through the cracks.

He points out what was wrong with the original House bill that he opposed, such as benefits for illegal aliens, inclusion of adults in a children's program, and robbing Medicare Advantage programs.

In short, he kept his promise to vote for a more reasonable bill -- and incidentally, it was a bill that does no less for children than did the original House bill for which Democrats and Montana editorial boards were beating the wearying "it's for the sake of the children!" scare-drum.

He calls on President Bush not to veto the bill, but truth to be told, a veto wouldn't be the worst thing for the legislation, since there are many more improvements that could be made. Rehberg himself alludes to one when he points out how many currently eligible children are not enrolled. These lowest-income families need the program the most, and more effort should be put into enrolling them, rather than trying to turn the program into a lower-middle-class entitlement program.

There are those who say, "If we can spend a gajillion dollars in Iraq we can...(insert favorite pet project.)" Not really -- someday we will be out of Iraq, and we are, after all spending half of what we used to spend on defense, as a percentage of our GDP. On the other hand, government entitlements are, as Ronald Reagan used to say, "the closest thing to eternal life you'll ever see on this earth," or something to that effect.

Since entitlements and vote-buying domestic spending are forever, it is worth grinding these bills down until they are the very best and careful legislation they can be.

Sens. Max Grassley and Charles Baucus: In a tribute to a Senator who "embodies the most ancient of conservative principles, a suspicion of institutional power," the New Republic reminds us of what a gem Sen. Charles Grassley is, and how utterly unappreciated he has been by most of the Republican Party over the last decade.

TNR notes that "it's incredible that Grassley has retained this disposition during the Bush years, when amassing institutional power became conservatives' reigning m.o."

Also making an appearance in the article is our Montana Sen. Max Baucus, who has taken a lot of heat from lefty Democrats for many things, including allowing Grassley to continue to set much of the agenda of the Senate Finance Committee, even though the Dems are now ruling supreme:

Losing his Senate Finance chairmanship in January, Grassley was himself to the end. When incoming Democratic chairman Max Baucus presented him with the parting gift of a wooden gavel, Grassley groused, "It probably cost more than it should, and more than I would have spent on somebody else." Luckily, his colleagues knew him well: Baucus assured him that the gavel was not a new purchase but Grassley's old one. "OK, so it's worn out," Grassley said. "Thank you very much."

An interesting bit of human interest, but what follows tells more of the real story, and it is a story that should remind Democrats that in Washington, what goes around eventually comes around -- and that this applies to good behavior, and not just bad:

Grassley's behavior when he was in the majority means that, in the minority, he retains more power than Republicans who screwed their opposition counterparts. Baucus has scolded officials who appear inclined to pay less attention to the demoted Grassley, telling them, "If Chuck asks you something, it's like I asked you for it."

Though Baucus is also worried about private equity, he's allowed Grassley to take as much--if not more--of the lead on the issue. It's a battle in which Grassley's passion for fair government can shine. His continued prominence also feels just because, out of all the Senate Republicans, he probably deserves the least blame for their 2006 catastrophe.

(...Grassley is) still stunned by what happened, and he even entertains the possibility that, via some convoluted mechanism, it might have been all his fault.

Though he noticed his colleagues running wild, "I stood by the sidelines," he says.

The hypothesis is unconvincing. It's hard to imagine other Republicans would have accepted behavioral advice from a guy like Grassley. But at least--unlike other Republicans--he's willing to say he's sorry.

Indeed -- of all the things that Republicans need to be doing right now, the most important thing is a little self-examination in the wake of the well-deserved 2006 blood-letting, and Grassley is one of the guys who can show us the way.

No men with boas in Montana? Say it isn't so! : From the Helena IR -- Women sported giant flashing glasses and pulled feather boas from around their necks to wave at the stage. Men, well, men didn’t.

You don't say.

Boas, glasses, whatever, Elton John is someone who took pop music to heights of genius -- and he still gives people their money's worth at age 60. And that's something that not every aging rocker can say.

One of the things that is worth taking note of with any strutting star is to take a look at the band. Davey Johnstone on guitar and drummer Nigel Olsson (who was the first major drummer to realize that headphones make a world of difference on-stage and not be embarassed to wear them) have been recording and touring with Elton John for most of what is now nearly 40 years -- something else that most aging rockers can't claim.

Missing is bassist Dee Murray, but he's dead, so he has an excuse. And while he's even older than the piano player, percussionist Ray Cooper should be mentioned, who recorded and toured with that lineup, and who also did some unique work when he and "Sir Elton" toured by themselves as a duo. And to think you used to have to prove yourself in battle to be made a knight... My but how England has changed.

And while we're at it, how about another one with Ray Cooper on percussion... plus Eric Clapton and his band doing backup. As we said, still giving folks their money's worth and even singing on pitch.

Look Right: This weekend, we made note of the new "Dextra Montana" wire that has been popping up on conservative blogs around Montana, including Montana Headlines (just look to the right side -- where else? --of this screen.) In a similar spirit, we'd like to link to Last Best Place, where one can find a nice summary of some recent conservative blog-entries from around the state. Check it out.