I wanted to express belated excitement about one of my last evenings hearing music in New York (although that sounds so final — I plan to be back in NYC regularly). This was March 23, a night that began brilliantly uptown at the Thalia at Symphony Space, where clarinetist Andy Biskin played music from his CD Early American: The Melodies of Stephen Foster. Foster (1826-1864) is considered to be America’s first professional songwriter, in the modern sense. We’re talking things like “Camptown Races,” “Oh! Susanna,” “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair” and “Beautiful Dreamer.” Biskin gave them all a kind of postmodern makeover. Bits of humor and camp, sure, but this was no fooling around — it was musicianship on the highest level, with Pete McCann on guitar and banjo, Chris Washburne on trombone and tuba, John Hollenbeck on drums and percussion, and Theo Bleckmann guesting on vocals.
Downtown at Cornelia Street Cafe the same night, guitarist Joel Harrison presented his arrangements of music by Paul Motian, the iconic jazz drummer, still going strong at 76. Motian’s original compositions have been pretty well documented over the years, but Harrison has highlighted their beauty as never before by setting them for string quartet and two electric guitars (Liberty Ellman played the second axe). The bewitching set included “Conception Vessel,” “Etude,” “Drum Music” and “Time After Time” and “Mumbo Jumbo.”
Two venues, two bands, two tributes to composers from different aesthetic worlds. That’s New York, and there’s no place like home.
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