Welcome to the Rochester International Twang Festival. A subsidiary of the Rochester International Jazz Festival. And later this week, the Rochester International Lynyrd Skynyrd Festival.
Jazz is a misnomer at this event, of course. And on Sunday, day three of nine, it was the folksy, dusty bands – archivists of string anarchy – that seemed to be of the moment. Corner House playing The Little Theater. Durham County Poets on the free stage on Gibbs Street. Big Lazy at The Wilder Room, reverb-drenched Western noir, sometimes drifting to rockabilly, with every song suitable for a spy-movie soundtrack.
Yet for pure cosmic dust, Nduduzo Makhathini wins the night.
It started out so seemingly simple for Makhathini’s second show at Kilbourn Hall. A trio of bass, drum and Makhathini himself, outfitted in Afro-Adidas, at the piano. And he was having a great time. Smiling, gleeful, playful. Stomping his feet, his body unable to contain itself to the piano bench. The music swiveled from pensive to bombastic cacophony, a pendulum of tempo.
This was jazz you heard, saw and felt.
And then, what is this? Makhathini pulled the microphone close, and began talking and singing. But these were not words that most people, and probably everyone in the audience, could understand. Murmured phrases. Sudden exclamations. Makhathini is from South Africa, and these words were from his Zulu heritage.
What Makhathini was saying did not matter so much as how the language fit the shape of the sounds around it. The audience leaned in, as though it was eavesdropping on something private. This wasn’t a composition, it was a conversation. A conversation between the pianist and his music.
And then, Makhathini stepped away from the piano. Wandering to a far corner of the stage, he paced and shuffled and danced to the bass-and-drum-groove.
Then the college professor of music drifted to the front of the stage, leaned back on the piano, and began delivering a lecture. A talk of high spirituality.
Sound, he said, is older and more mysterious than the human language. He spoke of homelessness and the notion of identity, and where your umbilical cord is buried. Sound is meaningless without cosmic sequence, Makhathini said.
And he spoke of slavery and apartheid, a dark history to which, “the Black body is incapable of conforming.” Taking on the role of the African Carl Sagan of time and space, Makhathini suggested African people “have a different relationship to time,” and how “we have to agree there are multiple worlds.” And how “each geography dances differently,” but that is merely an invitation to dance together.
The guy sitting behind me saw that I was taking notes, leaned over my shoulder and asked, “Did you get all that?”
Not yet. But I’ll be working on it.
About that twang…
Corner House was simple brilliance. A Boston-based band, its first show Sunday at a packed Little Theatre (that’s almost 300 people) was a string quartet of guitar, mandolin, cello, banjo and violin. A contented cat would have fit in nicely in this setting as well. Virtuosity string plucking, yet wonderfully melodic.
Scottish fiddle player Louise Bichan, guitarist Ethan Hawkins, mandolinist Ethan Setiawan and Casey Murray on cello harmonized with plaintive, cooing voices. Murray, who grew up here in Rush, is the most-recent addition to the band.
In the record stores, you’ll find Corner House filed under “Americana.” Heavy on instrumentals, Hawkins explained how songs such as the Celtic jam of “Caribou Party” were created during the pandemic in the most rustic of ways: In a barn, the band’s equipment powered by truck batteries.
Song titles can be cryptic, and Corner House certainly had one in “Two Rights Make a Chicken.” Hawkins suggested it might have something to do with how he doesn’t like turkey on Thanksgiving, but that cleared up nothing.
Intent on heavy research into that question, I bought one of the band’s CDs. The next time it’s raining, and the windows are open, I want to hear this music.
Today’s jazz haiku
Americana,
where two rights make a chicken
a bucket of breasts
Spevak’s picks for Monday, June 26:
Dawn Thomson and Gary Versace, Hatch Recital Hall, 5:45 and 7:45 p.m.
While Thomson’s guitar and Versace’s keyboards have been heard with many collaborators, both have also released their own albums. Thomson, as many RIJF patrons know, is married to the event’s co-producer, John Nugent; Versace is not.
NYChillharmonic, Theater at Innovation Square, 6:30 and 8:30 p.m.
This exciting big band is a mix of prog rock and jazz.
Olli Hirvonen Group, Christ Church, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.
We’ve just had our first sighting of a Finnish guitarist! Now living in New York City, Hirvonen’s Nordic electric rage is reportedly evolving into an Americana sound. (We’ll see about that.)
Fred Costello, City of Rochester Jazz Street Stage, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.
There must not be a baseball game tonight; the Rochester Red Wings’ longtime stadium organist shows off his jazz chops from years of playing gangster-controlled nightclubs.
Jeff Spevak is senior arts writer for WXXI/CITY Magazine. He can be reached at jspevak@wxxi.org.
This article appears in Jun 1-30, 2023.
