21 - 27 June 2001
Issue No.539
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 21 - 27 June 2001 Issue No.539 |
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Red dust and angel cake
David Blake awaits the sifting of sand
The Fine Wine Trio; Louis Armstrong 100th Birthday Anniversary Commemoration Concert; Cairo Opera House: Open Air Theatre, 12 June
Throw away chic: the arcades and passages of the Cairo Opera House Open Air Theatre offer a scene almost independent of the show of the night. If it is jazz-related, as the Fine Wine Trio was, the young seven-foot gods and goddesses enjoy themselves. They frisk around happily in groups in an atmosphere which is neither tough, rough nor blood-stained. Not much of a wild party then. Maybe the scene is creative: the kids are the show in one way, the music the background. They, the Fine Wines do a good job. It works in the open air space.
The scene in the Open Air has the Cairo lights, fresh cool air and a spectral atmosphere. And the kids look a dream. Everyone seems in a hurry to get somewhere else, but there is an aroma of culture about which is neither from the fringe nor from the fridge.
The Fine Wine are on the move too. After a number comes the announcement: "See you later maybe." They seem so transitory that they'll fade away, and their whole spread of instrument set-up looks like a picnic. They pat it and arrange it as if it's not going to enjoy a long stay. Just a fleeting gaze at lovely Cairo.
Well tonight it really is lovely -- and the gods and goddesses are still more or less in their seats.
Fifth Avenue, New York (photograph by Andreas Feininger, from The Family of Man, [New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1955])
The show, after some introductory chat from Rob Bargad, moves into action. But the noise from up behind the arcades is distressing. After more talk the trio gets moving. However, the crowd comes first, so the Wine boys give a long stretch of music that is freshly thought, composed and played, but with nary a hint of Louis Armstrong whose spirit this concert is supposed to honour.
As they continued, though, the Fine Wine grew closer to the phantom than we initially expected. The tone of the trio is nice, honouring and bright. They are a relaxed threesome. They make very interesting noises, far on the other side of traditional jazz, and somewhere near the land of Oz. They can easily slip into nostalgia, though without slogans. They are wise and go far out beyond where most of the easy riders wind up. They have listener allure -- and one can do with plenty of that in these post- millennium times. They have an interesting angle -- what is coming? -- and they provide spy holes into a future which could be pleasure and not much pain.
Their drummer, Bobby Kapp, is so fine he not only fits the easy pattern but often sets the form the musical patterns will change into. When he gets going you can go anywhere -- or you can be left where you stand.
The band has a habit of suddenly plunging into deep bass areas -- almost black holes, but they are soft-edged and papered with velvet. It's rather nice and rather new to find yourself going deep but comfortable. With such bright-edged black, why despair? Keep right on into the sunlight. Their perspective seems to cover a couple of hundred years, yet they remain a warm family thing. They reassure. It's alright now.
Gene Perla, the bassist, adds his own degree of warmth to the group, making them a wine from a warm terrain. But where that would be is the Trio's own secret.
With the no-nonsense pianist Rob Bargad they have two real voices -- the pianist and the drummer. And of course there was a third, or a hint of a third, and that was the king himself. He was there and not there, Hamlet's ghost, in and out, unforgotten. Not an embarrassment because his legend, flowery and rich, often has nothing to do with the things he often sang about or the way he sang about them: something nice-nasty; something nasty-nice.
There was a Fine Wine serving of his "Baby." In the plural they, his girlfriends, must have been a gorgeous bunch of errant pickpockets. One of his babies, the one wrapped up in a chinchilla rug under a "Blanket of Blue" (which the Fine Wine played) evoked LA by night, and the sandpaper and Scotch voice of the other LA. This voice: the whole of Manhattan and London followed it like the voice of Pan.
There was always a Brechtian edge to the songs and the voice. His words could leap a lot of fences: from cute to "Back Alleys", which was sung and played by Rob Bargad well enough not to shame memories of the master. It was the best thing of the night. Bargad has no such voice as Armstrong, but he did what you could with the voice if you have guts and imagination. There were no nasty responses from eternity, so Rob must have done quite well.
There was "Mack the Knife" of course. The sharks took their bites, but the true, shivering sheer of the original was not around except from the passionate ghost somewhere in the alleys. Bargad did well sitting in front of his instrument like Thelonious Monk. His feet go down on the beat and you're off. A lot of stuff was in town as well as Mack and his famous bite.
Probably it was LA. He was a king from a noble race of songsters. People will say we know all that, we grew up on it, so what's the deal? This: hail hunk, when you've been up all the back alleys in town, do come back home, we love you.
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