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Re: Joanna Newsom and Philip Glass - San Francisco June 25

PostPosted: 02 Jul 2012, 03:57
by ILL=InterLibraryLoan
Wanbli wrote:so is someone going to ban the troll making the accounts?


Ah, good Ms. Wanbli, have you forgotten? Every good Narwhal knows the best way to get rid of a troll is to expose it to sunlight. They burst when hit by a ray of light from the sun! Good luck!

Re: Joanna Newsom and Philip Glass - San Francisco June 25

PostPosted: 02 Jul 2012, 04:13
by polliwog
Yes, Ms.Wanbli, every good Narwhal knows that. And, it is another reason why I shouldn't be a Narwhal. Jordan! Oh, Jordan! Can you please let in a ray of light from the sun, and then do something about my status as a Narwhal? Maybe I should be a "plot of land", or a "paving company". I know! I know! I want to be a "diver"!

Re: Joanna Newsom and Philip Glass - San Francisco June 25

PostPosted: 02 Jul 2012, 04:22
by Podgeback
polliwog wrote:Yes, Ms.Wanbli, every good Narwhal knows that. And, it is another reason why I shouldn't be a Narwhal. Jordan! Oh, Jordan! Can you please let in a ray of light from the sun, and then do something about my status as a Narwhal? Maybe I should be a "plot of land", or a "paving company". I know! I know! I want to be a "diver"!


Good choice, madam. Although, being a diver is actually quite dangerous and may require more or less extensive training. I think "plot of land" might be a good one for you or maybe a "ribbon bow".
When they add the new designations I think I will choose "plot of land".

Re: Joanna Newsom and Philip Glass - San Francisco June 25

PostPosted: 02 Jul 2012, 04:38
by Mod or Gammon?
queenofnerds wrote:Oh god what is happening here?!!! I am sorta finding this very funny :lol:


Dear Queen, you are too kind. However, I fear that we may be having slightly too much fun. The new Joanna Newsom song is actually a deadly serious matter, and we must be able to keep our focus. It is my own fault for acting the fool. If the blog nazis declare martial law on milky moon and start their assy id-rain of terror I hope I am the only one to feel the wicked sting of their attacks. D%

Stay on topic! Please! Save yourself while there's still time!

Quick, to the Plotoflandmobile! There's so much lyric left to decode!

Re: Joanna Newsom and Philip Glass - San Francisco June 25

PostPosted: 02 Jul 2012, 17:09
by Podgeback
Ummm... That was weird.

By the way, did anyone happen to get a recording of the song that Glass and Fain played right before "Diver"? Or any of the other songs besides her solo songs?

Re: Joanna Newsom and Philip Glass - San Francisco June 25

PostPosted: 06 Apr 2017, 13:51
by Steve
I found this non-professional review, from a user called bmack, dated 25-06-2012 (11:18 PM) on the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival Message Board > Non-Coachella Discussion > Music Lounge > Joanna Newsom Appreciation Thread [https://www.coachella.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-35197-p-3.html], and felt it ought to be collected here.

Joanna Newsom and Philip Glass with Tim Fain (violin).

Tonight Geezr, Pot, Wmgaretjax, Dorkfish and I saw Joanna Newsom and Philip Glass with Tim Fain. It was a benefit show for the Henry Miller library in Big Sur. They billed it as a collaborative night, and that was largely true. They started with a song from The Screens by Philip Glass, with all three of them playing. It was a bit too forward for Joanna's harp to really differentiate from Philip's piano. After that, Glass announced that Joanna and Tim would be doing Sadie. It was the first time I ever heard her perform it live, and it was my favorite thing of the whole night. Her newer, more focused vocals really lent power to the lyrics, and Tim Fain wrote a stunning fiddle melody to play over it. I was in tears, and that alone was worth the whole price of admission. After that, Glass did a solo song and then they all collaborated on another song from the Screens, which was much more successful. I may be missing a song here, but I know Joanna did Sawdust and Diamonds on her own. That was the first time she performed it in California since 2007, and it was amazing. That song really showcases her performing skills, as she completely powered through the knotty instrumental parts and nailed the vocals. Stunning. Again, maybe missing something, but the next thing I recall is Joanna and Tim doing another song from The Screens, which Glass introduced by saying, "This was intended to be a trio, but when I heard Joanna and Tim play it, there was no need for anyone else." He was right, as they were completely locked in. Glass came out on his own, and told a story about how he and Allen Ginsburg had collaborated once, with Glass writing music to all of Ginsburg's poems in one manic session. Wichita Vortex Sutra #3 was one that he really enjoyed, and they performed it live quite a bit. When Ginsburg couldn't show, Glass would play a recording of him reading it. After Ginsburg died, Glass didn't play it for a long time, but he slowly returned to it with Patti Smith reading the poem, until he realized that he had the tape. He performed the song, and it was a really fun pairing of two different media. Fain and Glass then did a take on a song called Pendulum, and Fain again showed how incredibly talented he was with his instrument, blasting out so many notes that it seemed inhuman. Joanna's response was "Wow! pendulum..." and then she played the new one. We all agreed it's probably something along the lines of Diver's Tale, as she frequently references a diver. Drew and I both agreed that her harp playing was even more nuanced and dense than on prior tracks, and the lyrics went the same way. It wasn't a return to Ys style writing, but neither was it a continuation of Have One on Me: there were parts when the rhythm seemed to be the center of the song, rather than the melody. I can't wait to hear it recorded.

They did an encore where each played a solo track. Glass did one of my favorite of his works, Closing from Glassworks. Tim Fain then did a solo from Glass' classic opera, Einstein on the Beach, which was a close contender for song of the night. At times he would be doing arpeggiated fills on the high strings while beating out a dense rhythm on the low bass string. As Joanna put it, "I've seen him play that four times, and it's still amazing." She played On a Good Day. It was the first time she'd ever done it in California, and it was even more beautiful than on the album. She inserted a little melodic solo before the third verse, something I'd never seen her do before.

Overall, it was a fantastic night.

Setlist (from what I can recall)

? (A Philip Glass song from The Screens)- Joanna, Philip, Tim
Sadie - Joanna, Tim
? (I think it was the cadenza from the Canyon, but I can't recall) - Philip
The Orchard - Joanna, Philip, Tim
Sawdust and Diamonds - Joanna
The French Lieutenant's Dream- Joanna, Tim
Wichita Vortex Sutra #3 - Philip, Allen Ginsberg
Pendulum - Philip, Tim
Divers - Joanna

Closing (from Glassworks) - Philip Glass
Solo (from Einstein On the Beach) - Tim Fain
On a Good Day - Joanna Newsom

Re: Joanna Newsom and Philip Glass - San Francisco June 25

PostPosted: 06 Apr 2017, 14:18
by Steve
And here's the SF Weekly review, linked by Wanbli back at the time, ending with a more authoritative setlist than the one above...

Live Review, 6/25/12: Philip Glass, Joanna Newsom, and Tim Fain Team Up for the Henry Miller Library at the Warfield Posted By Ian S. Port on Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 8:52 A; [pictures by Christopher Victorio - not reproduced here]

Joanna Newsom and Tim Fain at the Warfield.
Philip Glass, Joanna Newsom, and Tim Fain

Benefit for the Henry Miller Memorial Library

Monday, June 25, 2012

The Warfield


Better than: Your last experience at a concert with assigned seats and a program.

"I don't want to embarrass Mr. Glass, but I think this is the happiest day of my mom's life," said Joanna Newsom last night, giggling from behind her towering harp. It was somewhat unusual territory for the acclaimed San Francisco singer-songwriter, whose records are puzzled over and adored in the indie world. But Newsom appeared comfortable and more than capable sharing a stage with Phillip Glass, one of the world's most famous living composers, and his young violinist friend, Tim Fain, in what was a stunning benefit for the Henry Miller Memorial Library. (The library, an outpost of high culture amid the foggy ridges of Big Sur, will soon be forced to close if it doesn't raise enough money to make federally required building improvements.)

With no program announced beforehand, and no information on what would be played in the paper program given to the audience, each performance was a surprise. The only hints about the music for the evening where those Glass dropped in interviews last week. As it turned out, the musicians alternated performances, with everyone performing solo and in every combination possible.

Newsom's solo performances were the only parts of the program that wouldn't be considered classical music, although calling them pop doesn't quite seem accurate, either. Even given the clear country influences in "Sadie," for instance, Newsom's performance felt more like art music on last night's stage. She played a sped-up version, with Fain adding fiddle-esque exclamations on his violin, soaring into the upper registers with plenty of Appalachian swing. Perhaps it was the formal setting -- seats on the floor of the Warfield, an older, richer crowd, etc. -- but "Sawdust and Diamonds" also felt like more of a "piece" than a "song," a long tale set to music, rendered with the unflappable rasp of Newsom's mighty mite of a voice.

Glass' performances were haunting and powerful, of course, from the solo piano of "Metamorphosis Two" to his jaw-dropping collaboration with Fain on "Pendulum for Violin and Piano," a piece written in celebration of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the ACLU. Rather than minimalism, the works Glass performed last night demonstrated his ability to evoke motion with music. Maybe I've seen Koyaanisqatsi too many times, but Glass' repeating musical phrases, speeding up and slowing down, rising and falling in volume, seem like the fluttering motions of a heart valve, or the hi-rev precision of a hummingbird flapping its wings. His pieces seem to have a working mechanism at their core, one that Glass sometimes showed in plain view -- as on solo works like "France" -- and sometimes obscured under, say, bright flashes from Newsom's harp, or long, moaning phrases from Fain's violin.

Fain got some of the show-stopping moments of his own, with his evocative playing on "Pendulum" and a thrilling performance of the ultrafast violin solo from Glass' opera Einstein on the Beach. (You should just watch that and have your mind blown.)

Oddly, though, one of the highlights of the night came from someone who wasn't even onstage: Glass performed "Wichita Vortex Sutra," the spare, dramatic music he wrote to accompany Allen Ginsberg's anti-war poem of the same name, and played along with a recording of Ginsberg reading it. Written in about an hour as Ginsberg streaked across the plains in a car, the poem is an ecstatic, optimistic work about the effects of war on the psyche of a nation. "Let Congress legislate its own delight!" Ginsberg's voice exclaimed in warm, welcoming tones, prematurely declaring the Vietnam War over. Glass here truly felt like the accompanist, his deep, oceanic chords getting a bit lost under Ginsberg's excitement.

Glass introduced the piece by explaining that after Ginsberg's death in 1997, he had trouble performing it, as it reminded him his poet friend was no longer alive. The work fit perfectly in last night's program, though, emphasizing Glass' connection to the line of American literary dream-chasers whose legacies and loves -- Henry Miller announced Big Sur as actual paradise upon discovering it, then quickly moved there -- this concert aimed to preserve.

Critic's Notebook

When the lights go out
: There were men asleep in my row before the music even got started. Pretty sure they woke up when Joanna Newsom walked out onstage, though.

Program

1. "France" (Glass, Newsom, Fain; from Glass' The Screens)

2. "Sadie" (Newsom and Fine; from Newsom's The Milk-Eyed Mender)

3. "Metamorphosis Two" (written and performed by Glass)

4. "The Orchard" (Glass, Newsom, Fain; from Glass' The Screens)

5. Partita for Solo Violin, Movement 1 (Fain; written by Glass for the soloist)

6. "Sawdust and Diamonds," (written and performed by Newsom)

7. "The French Lieutenant Dreams" (Newsom and Fain; from Glass' The Screens)

8. "Wichita Vortex Sutra" (words and recorded voice by Allen Ginsberg, music by Glass)

9. "Pendulum for Violin and Piano" (Glass and Fain; written by Glass)

10. "Diver[s]," a new, unreleased Joanna Newsom song, in its live debut

Encores:

1. "Closing," (from Glass' Glassworks)

2. Violin solo from Einstein on the Beach (Fain, written by Glass)

3. "On a Good Day" (written and performed by Joanna Newsom)

See also:

* Q&A: Philip Glass on Collaboration, Minimalism, and His Henry Miller Library Benefit Show with Joanna Newsom - located at http://archives.sfweekly.com/shookdown/ ... nna-newsom

I repeat the text of that article below ...

Q&A: Philip Glass on Collaboration, Minimalism, and His Henry Miller Library Benefit Show with Joanna Newsom
Posted By Chloe Roth on Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 9:08 AM

Popular, influential, and cult musicians come through San Francisco every day. But it isn't every day when an event comes along that you know will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and serve a good cause.

On Monday, Philip Glass' Days and Nights Festival and local promoter (((folkYEAH!))) present a benefit for Big Sur's Henry Miller Memorial Library, an evening at the Warfield featuring Glass and Joanna Newsom, with violinist Tim Fain. Though the Henry Miller Library has received permission to host an abbreviated 2012 (June to October) performance season, featuring Lucinda Williams, Jenny Lewis, the Woodsist Festival, and the Flaming Lips, its long-term survival is in jeopardy. Federally-mandated health and safety requirements require upgrades that will cost more than the Library currently has in its savings. Monday's performance is a benefit for the massive upgrade project.

We spoke with Glass over the phone from his home in New York City about how the benefit came together, his relationship with the Library, and what audiences can expect on Monday. It was somewhat intimidating to think of salient questions to ask one of the most prolific and influential composers of the 20th Century, and difficult to find one that he hasn't been asked in his 75 years. But Glass made it easier with his thoughtful responses.

First, some background: Born in 1937, Glass went to the University of Chicago at age 15, studied philosophy and mathematics, graduated from Juilliard with Steve Reich, studied in Paris with prominent French composer Nadia Boulanger, and -- while pursuing his career in music -- worked for a moving company, as a plumber, and an even as a cab driver for the better part of the 1970s.

The word prolific almost fails to describe Glass' body of work, which includes more than 20 operas, 10 symphonies; numerous concertos for solo piano, violin, cello, harpsichord, timpani, and saxophone; works for orchestra, quartet, and chorus; 13 compositions for the Philip Glass Ensemble; music for over 15 theatre productions; and number of film soundtracks -- including The Truman Show and Koyaanisqatsi. (He was also nominated for Academy Awards for his musical work on Martin Scorcese's Kundun, Stephen Daldry's The Hours, and Richard Eyre's Notes on a Scandal.)

Glass' collaborators include artists like Richard Serra, writers such as Allen Ginsberg, filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, and a laundry list of other musicians that includes such luminaries as Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Yo-Yo Ma, Leonard Cohen, Brian Eno, and now, Joanna Newsom.

How did you come to participate in this concert with Joanna Newsom?
We have a mutual friend, Magnus Toren, the executive director of the Henry Miller Library. Magnus has for years been doing special events at the library. He's had Marianne Faithful there, he's had me there, he's had Laurie Anderson there, he's had all kinds of people at this little place down in Big Sur, so he has a very good connection with people in the music world. He was for some time suggesting that I meet Joanna Newsom, and for a year or so we never did meet, but then this concert came up and he said, Look let's do it now, and we could do it for the Henry Miller Library and also for the Days and Nights festival, which is a festival I started in Carmel in Big Sur.

She is in New York some of the time and Northern California some of the time, and once we decided to meet, it wasn't very hard to do. I'd been playing with Tim Fain, a wonderful violinist, and he is a great fan of Joanna Newsom's, and when he heard that she was going to be doing this, he said, "Can I play too?" and I said, "You bet you can!" The idea of violin and piano and harp is a classical setup. It's a beautiful combination, you can hear everything, there is great clarity, and every instrument has its own voice. We had never gotten together until that first rehearsal here at my house in New York, and we spent about three hours the first day and another three hours the next day and we came up with some very nice music.

When was it that you first got together?
Oh, this started happening maybe about a month ago, very recent. We had been talking about it all through the fall. Those kinds of short schedules are common, people don't really know their schedules until it gets much closer. So we began rehearsing then, and we've had a number of rehearsals together. Our musical thinking was very much in alignment. She would pick out things to play with the piano and find that place on the harp. It's been a very enjoyable encounter, and at this concert you'll all get to hear it.

What has the process of your collaboration been like?
Well, we sit around together and we say, "Who wants to start?" We don't have leaders, we have collaborators, so she'd say, "I have a new song, let me play it for you," and she'd be playing and I'd begin playing something to go with it, and she wrote out part of the structure which is unusual. Meanwhile Tim was already writing a part for it, and that would be one piece. Then I took a piece that Tim and I play together and she said found something very nice to go with it, something that we hadn't heard before. So basically we were bringing to the music new pieces, but also pieces that we hadn't imagined in a trio setting, so there will be solos, duets, and trios. It will be very much of a back and forth between the larger ensemble and the smaller groups.

You've had quite a prolific career. Throughout your years in the music business, have you encountered anyone like Newsom?
I love people of that level. She's on a very high level of accomplishment and ability. Wu Man is a wonderful pipa player who lives in San Diego. I could have put Wu Man in that setup and we would have had four people and it would have been fantastic. Then there's Foday Suso, a kora player from Africa. Basically these kinds of collaborations are really visions of global music, people coming from very different traditions, where the overlapping of traditions is so strong that it just seems to be a natural fulfillment of an idea.

In what ways does Joanna Newsom stand out amongst other musicians?
I'm a very curious musician myself and I find that she is, too. I'm always interested in meeting new people. When Magnus began talking about her, I began listening to her, and I began hearing her. You know how that happens -- suddenly I was hearing her on the radio all the time, I didn't even have to look for her, she was there, so I kind of knew her by ear. The same thing happened very recently when I began doing some work with Stephin Merritt from Magnetic Fields. Tim [Fain] is an absolutely top-of-the-line classical violinist. He plays all the concertos, he plays my concertos, but he can also sit in with a soul band or jazz band, and likes to play with people in global traditions. I see that with Joanna because she had no problem working with us at all.

And it's not a question of age. We're all different ages. It's about how you align yourself in the world of music and where your loyalties are, and basically I don't have any. I have a lot of alignments and very few loyalties, which means I can play with whoever I want to. I give myself permission to do that. Many people do that and some people don't. Some people will not get away from what they know, it could be funk or reggae or classical and they won't leave it, and other people are completely ready to. Percussionists often do that. Their instruments allow them to do that very easily. So you'll find percussionists who can do indigenous music very well from the country they're from, whether it's Africa or Mexico, and they can also mix in with all kinds of other music.

But is this kind of a way of working, where we're blending together, and yet it's not a kind of Esperanto, where everything is becoming the same. It's that you come to the meeting with who you are, and that becomes the gift that you bring to the collaboration. Finding the commonalities of those traditions, that's the sweet part that you're looking for, and it can happen. I've seen Paul Simon do that with Graceland years ago. I was around when he was doing that in Washington and it was great. He would be picking music from South Africa and blending it with his music.

In an interview, you said to Nico Muhly: "John Cage gave me permission to do whatever I wanted to do. And then I gave you permission to do whatever you wanted to do. That's what one generation can do for the next." In what ways do you think your music has opened the doors for artists like Joanna Newsom?
I don't know, really. You'd have to ask her. But I find that younger musicians are happy to play with me. They know the early work, they've grown up with it, it's not new to them in the sense that it suddenly came into the world. I brought it into the world, and now it's there. One of the great pleasures for me is working with people, sometimes younger than me and sometimes the same age as me. It's not about gender or age or ethnicity. It has to do with certain commonalities about music, which, even though you may retain the local flavor of what you do, it will still be able to blend with other things. The trick is to bring what you know to the collaboration, and Joanna does that fantastically well.

The "minimalist" label is often attached to your music.
It's not going to work. If you tell people it's a minimalist concert, they'll think you're crazy. I played a concert last night downtown in New York at Battery Park and there were pieces I played from '69 and '72 that were hardcore minimalist and I introduced them that way, but none of that music will appear in this concert. I've been writing and playing music for more than 40 years, so it's like saying, Yeah, you can wear a dress that you wore 30 years ago and it can be interesting, but you may not be wearing that sometimes. So the trouble with the label is that the label is not fluid enough. The label got stuck in the 1970s, and it gets people into trouble. It doesn't get me into trouble, because the music is the music, but it gets the writers into trouble when they tell the audience that they're going to hear something and they don't hear it. There's not going to be one line of music repeating over and over again, it's not going to happen, and it hasn't happened for years.

On the other hand, last night I played two pieces from the '60s and '70s in the context of other music that happened, music from The Truman Show, music from after Sept. 11, pieces from the last 10 years. And at a concert it's very much fun to do that, and the audience gets into it, they like that. No one expects you to be the same for 30 or 40 years. Paul Simon is writing new music right now. So is Paul McCartney. So is Lou Reed. They're not writing the songs they did when Lou was in Velvet Underground. But very often people will play those hits because everyone wants to hear it.

Joanna's still a little young for that, but she won't be after a while. She'll have a body of work that spans 30 or 40 years eventually, we hope so, and I won't live to see it, but you will perhaps. I asked her about some older piece and she said, "I haven't played that piece in a while and I have to get it back in my fingers." You have to be able to do the old pieces. Debbie Harry can do that. She can still sing "Heart of Glass" beautifully almost in the same pitch as she sang it in when she was in Blondie, but she'll sing new songs too. That's the gift of age, to be able to have suppleness in change.

To better prepare this San Francisco audience, can you talk about what you will be playing at the Warfield?
I'll be playing pieces from 1991 and 1976, there'll be a bit of a spread, but because I'm playing with Joanna we're fiddling on pieces that would work in a language of music that we're both working in right now.

Can you talk about your connection with the Henry Miller Library?
I have a long history with it. I drove a motorcycle down from New York and got all the way to the Henry Miller Library in 1965. A long time ago! The library wasn't there then, but I went to the area because of its history. And what Magnus [Toren, executive director] has done with the library, it's become a wonderful bookstore, and he has a performance place next to it in the redwood grove that's beautiful.

There's a spirit to the Henry Miller Library that is pre-hippie, pre-beatnik. You know, Henry Miller was writing in the '30s, '40s, '50s, and '60s. He is one of our grandparents, he's part of our lineage, the same way that Allen Ginsberg and William Boroughs are part of our lineage. These are the writers who tried to describe the world they really lived in and often were ignored in their lifetime and became very famous afterwards. But it's made the Henry Miller Library a destination place for people interested in American writing and history. Just to be within a few hundred yards of where he lived and worked for some people is a big deal. It's very inspiring, besides being an absolutely gorgeous place.

Re: Joanna Newsom and Philip Glass - San Francisco June 25

PostPosted: 26 Apr 2017, 18:46
by Adam
Thanks for dredging that one up, Steve. It must have been a pretty cool time for JN.