Last time we heard With The Cows they performed with a trumpet player, Mike Kaupa. The music was free flowing, complex and engaging but the instrumental interludes threatened to outshine Rick Petrie‘s poetry. At the Bop Shop on Friday night Phil and Roy Marshall performed with Chris Zajkowski on keyboards, in place of the trumpet, and the set was focused and supportive. One was not better, both were great but the readings were more rewarding this time.
As Peggi and I sat there, behind rows of of teenage Roy fans, we were remembering what it was like backing Ted Williams‘ readings at Jazzberrys, Roy, about to start school at the Eastman, sound great and looked great with his Pharoah Sanders t-shirt.
Joe Tunis has been doing Day Tours, a series of performances with guests in six or seven locations, for twenty years. We usually catch at least one of his stops and the ones at Durand are easy. This year Joe played a small, distorted keyboard, Nuuj played some homemade horns, someone gathered solar powered noises, a woman played cello and Brian Blatt walked around and around the giant peace sign near the beach. He was wearing a Phish shirt and a small speaker around his neck while he smoked hand rolled cigarettes and read from the paperback version of Rocky II. It was brilliant.
I’m sorry but that sounds ridiculous. Seriously, do people with years of experience as ‘artists’ still do that silly avant garde stuff?
I think your definition of brilliance needs to be re-examined.
Cut my teeth on silly avant-garde stuff, and when I go to my grave there will be a silly avant-garde ceremony.
Wish I had been there, no one invites me to nuthin these days… gotta get on the right mailing list.