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By Jacob Stockinger
This is a slow time of the year for classical music concerts, the winter intermission between fall and spring semesters. But The Ear received for the Salon Piano Series the following announcement to post:
"We caught this West Coast group on a rare Midwest tour. Trio Céleste (below) has firmly established itself as one of the most dynamic chamber music ensembles on the classical music scene today. They've wowed audiences worldwide with their "unfailingly stylish" (The Strad) and "flawless" (New York Concert Review) interpretations.
"The piano trio has firmly established itself as one of the most dynamic chamber music ensembles on the classical music scene today. This season's highlights include recital debuts at the Chicago Cultural Center and New York's Carnegie Hall, and the world premiere of Paul Dooley's Concerto Grosso for Piano Trio and Strings.
"Winners of the prestigious Beverly Hills Auditions and the recipients of the 2017 Emerging Artist Award from Arts Orange County, the ensemble has performed hundreds of recitals worldwide.
"Their first album on the Navona label debuted at No. 5 on iTunes for "Best Seller New Release." (You can see them recording the first album in the YouTube video at the bottom.)"
The program for Trio Celeste's concert on this Sunday afternoon, Jan. 6, at 4 p.m. at Farley's House of Pianos, 6522 Seybold Road, on the far west side of Madison near West Towne Mall, will include:
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50 (1882)
Sergei Rachmaninoff – Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor (1892)
Astor Piazzolla – Four Seasons of Buenos Aires (1965-1970) (selections) arr. for piano trio by José Bragato
For more information, about the trio, go to: http://www.trioceleste.com
On this Saturday, Jan. 5, at 4 p.m., Trio Céleste will teach a master class at Farley's House of Pianos, where they will instruct students from Farley's House of Pianos and the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO). This is a FREE event that the public is invited to observe.
The master class program will include portions of:
Joseph Haydn – String Quartet Op. 33, No. 3 "The Bird"
Klaus Badelt (arr. Larry Moore) – Theme from "Pirates of the Caribbean"
Ludwig van Beethoven – String Quartet Op. 18, No. 1
Edvard Grieg – String Quartet Op. 27, No. 1
The master classes for the 2018-19 season are supported by the law firm of Boardman & Clark LLP.
Tickets are $45 in advance (students $10) or $50 at the door. You can purchase tickets at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3499176
An artist's reception will follow the concert.
For more information, go to https://salonpianoseries.org
Service fees may apply. Tickets also for sale at Farley's House of Pianos. Student tickets can only be purchased online and are not available the day of the event.
IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE or TAG IT (not just "Like" it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event.
ALERT: This Saturday, Dec. 1, sees the start of the "Live From the Met" opera broadcasts on Wisconsin Public Radio with Arrigo Boito's opera "Mefistofole." The weekly series, now in its 88th year, will continue through May 11. Starting time is usually noon. Here is a link to the radio broadcast season: https://www.wpr.org/metropolitan-opera-begins-its-88th-season
By Jacob Stockinger
As usually happens towards the end of the semester, concerts are backing up, especially on the weekends.
Yesterday, information about the two performances of the annual UW-Madison Winter Choral Concert on Sunday afternoon was posted. Here is a link: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2018/11/29/classical-music-two-performances-of-the-uw-madisons-popular-winter-choral-concert-takes-place-this-sunday-afternoon/
But much more is going on.
Take a look and listen:
Non-music majors, take heart. If you attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison, you can still play and perform while pursuing other studies.
At 4 p.m. in Mills Hall, the All-University Strings (AUS) will perform a FREE concert that is open to the public.
The group (below, in a photo by Jeff Miller for the UW-Madison) is comprised of two non-major string orchestras (named Orchestra One and Orchestra Too), and is open to all interested string players. No audition is required, seating order is voluntary, and there is no ranking within the sections.
The AUS program endeavors to be a true learning community, serving students from virtually every department and major with the goal of nurturing lifelong engagement in music and the arts.
Pedro Oviedo is the conductor, and the guest artists are The Hunt Quartet. (The string quartet is made up of graduate students at the UW-Madison's Mead Witter School of Music: Chang En Lu and Ava Shadmani, violins; Fabio Saggin, viola; and Alex Chambers-Ozasky, cello. They will be joined by Max Herteen, double bass.)
The appealing program includes:
Norman Leyden: Serenade for Strings
Karl Jenkins: Allegretto from "Palladio" (A neo-Baroque piece you might recognize from a De Beers "Diamonds Are Forever" ad. Listen to it in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Eric Whitacre: October
Modest Mussorgsky, orchestrated by Maurice Ravel: "The Hut on Fowl's Legs (Baba Yaga)" and "The Great Gate of Kiev" from Pictures at an Exhibition
Astor Piazzolla: La muerte del angel (The Death of the Angel)
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Concerto Grosso
At 12:30 p.m. the UW Horn Choir (below) will present its annual holiday concert at the Chazen Music of Art as part of the Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen series.
The FREE and public concert, directed and conducted by horn Professor Daniel Grabois, takes place in Brittingham Gallery No. 3.
The event will also be streamed live. Here is a link to the streaming portal as well as information about the program, which includes Bach and Mahler, the players and how to reserve seats:
At 8 p.m. in Morphy Hall, a FREE concert of chamber music by distinguished guest artists will be held.
The Brooklyn-based soprano-violin duo Cipher Duo (below top, Justine Aronson and Sarah Goldfeather) will team up with cellist Nicholas Photinos(below bottom), a member of the Grammy-winning chamber music ensemble eighth blackbird, for an evening-length performance of both new and reimagined music.
The program will include works by Sarah Goldfeather, Amy Beth Kirsten, David T Little, Dolly Parton and more.
On Monday, the performers will also give public master classes:
The Cello Master Class is Monday, Dec. 3, 12:15-2:15 p.m. in Morphy Hall.
The Violin-Voice Master Class: Monday, Dec. 3, 1:15-3:15 p.m. in Music Hall.
For more information about the program and performers, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/guest-artists-nicholas-photinos-cello-and-cipher-duo-voice-and-violin/
By Jacob Stockinger
The Madison Bach Musicians will perform their seventh annual Baroque Holiday Concert (below, in a 2014 photo by Kent Sweitzer) this Saturday night at 8 p.m. in the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1609 University Avenue, across from Camp Randall stadium.
The concert will be preceded at 7:15 p.m. by a lecture by MBM founder and director Trevor Stephenson (below), who will talk about period instruments, the pieces and composers on the program, and historically informed performance practices.
The seasonal program features works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Arcangelo Corelli and Antonio Vivaldi.
Soprano Alisa Jordheim (below top) and baritone Joshua Copland (below bottom) will sing the solo parts in a cantata by Bach.
They will be joined by UW-Madison oboist Aaron Hill (below bottom) and a baroque string ensemble in Bach's lyrical masterpiece Cantata BWV 32 Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen (Dearest Jesus, My Desiring). A aria and a song by Bach will also be performed.
Also on the program is the rarely performed but electrifying chamber cantata or motet "In Furore iustissimae irae," RV 626, by Vivaldi. (You can hear it in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The concert will open with the Concerto Grosso in F Major, Op. 6, No. 12, by Arcangelo Corelli.
The concert will conclude with MBM concertmaster Kangwon Kim as the featured violin soloist in the Winter section from Vivaldi's popular Four Seasons.
Advance-sale discount tickets are $30 for general admission and are available at Orange Tree Imports and the Willy Street Co-op (East and West).
Advance sale online tickets: www.madisonbachmusicians.org
Tickets at the door are $33 for the general public, $30 for seniors (65+). Student Rush tickets for $10 go on sale 30 minutes before the lecture at 6:45 p.m.
For more information, go to: www.madisonbachmusicians.org
By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a special posting, a review written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker. Barker (below) is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who writes for Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who hosts an early music show once a month on Sunday morning on WORT-FM 89.9 FM. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison.
By John W. Barker
An unusual program opened the 14th season of Trevor Stephenson's Madison Bach Musicians (below) at the First Unitarian Society of Madison on Saturday night, and was repeated on Sunday afternoon at Holy Wisdom Monastery in Middleton.
Instead of a string of compositions with few or no connections, there was a cumulative assemblage illustrating an overriding theme, as summed up in the title of "Imitation."
To be sure, only two composers were involved: Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach. The focus was on their uses of imitative textures, including canon and fugue. There were 11 pieces in all, mostly — although not entirely — grouped in pairs, Vivaldi leading each.
The organization was fugue-like, too, beginning with two-part textures and culminating in nine parts. Thus, the nine players (four violins, two violas, two cellos and a harpsichord) were gradually built into the full company by the end.
The pairings did not evoke any direct parallelisms between Vivaldi (below top) and Bach (below bottom), though the former's experimental and extroverted Italian style stood in regular contrast with Bach's Germanic seriousness, even as each explored similar contrapuntal possibilities.
The entire concept of the program was intriguing. I did, however, find that two specific selections, both by Bach, did not fit well. They were given in transcriptions rather than as the composer intended. Thus, a fugue from The Well-Tempered Clavier was delivered not on the keyboard, but by five string players.
To be sure, that transformation allowed the three-voice counterpoint to be heard more distinctly, but the fact remains that it was written for keyboard and Bach's part writing deserved to be heard as he intended.
A more serious instance was the tantalizing idea of hearing Bach's own transcription of a work by Vivaldi. The original was the Concerto in D minor, Op. 3, No. 11, a true concerto grosso, matching a concertino of two violins and cello against a full four-part string ensemble.
Now, Bach made transcriptions of a number of Vivaldi concertos, but presenting any of them in this context posed practical concerns for these players. In this case, Bach's adaptation was for solo organ. Instead, we heard it with Bach's organ transcription transcribed, in turn, into a concerto for nine players by one of the group's violists, Micah Behr.
(You can compare Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins to Bach's reworking of the same concerto for four harpsichords in the YouTube video at bottom.)
Again, this third-hand edition allowed for contrapuntal clarity, but it totally distorted Bach's intentions as a transcriber himself.
That said, the performances were all brilliant. Visiting Baroque cellist Steuart Pincombe (below) was something of a star, but all musicians played wonderfully, sitting in a circle for closest interaction and without an intermission.
Still, reservations about this program aside, this concept or idea concert is worth trying again.
By Jacob Stockinger
In an original program that is organized much like the music it features, the early music group Madison Bach Musicians (below) will open their new season this weekend with a concert that offers a counterpoint of music by Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi — all done with period instrument and historically informed performance practices.
The two concerts are:
This coming Saturday night, Sept. 23, with a 6:45 p.m. pre-concert lecture by MBM founder, artistic director and keyboardist Trevor Stephenson (below), and a 7:30 p.m. concert at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive in Madison.
This coming Sunday afternoon, Sept. 24, with 2:45 p.m. pre-concert lecture and a 3:30 p.m. concert at Holy Wisdom Monastery, 4200 County Road M, in Middleton.
The guest soloist is Steuart Pincombe (below, in a photo by Ryan West), who plays the baroque cello. He will join the Madison Bach Musicians for this innovative concert – an dual exploration of fugues and imitation from the German Bach and the Italian Vivaldi — two masters of the Baroque.
The concert itself is structured much like a fugue. Starting from a single voice, selections alternate between pieces by Vivaldi (below top) and by Bach (below bottom) ―with each new section of the concert requiring an additional performer. (Sorry, no word on specific works except for the finale.)
The program culminates with the entire ensemble performing Vivaldi's D minor Concerto Grosso alongside a string arrangement of Bach's own transcription of the same piece. (You can hear the original by Vivaldi in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Advance-sale discount tickets cost $30 for general admission and at available at Orange Tree Imports and Willy Street Co-op, East and West.
Advance sale online tickets can be found at: www.madisonbachmusicians.org
Tickets at the door are $33 for the general public, and $30 for seniors 65-plus with Student Rush tickets costing $10 and going on sale 30 minutes before the pre-concert lecture.
By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a special posting, a review written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker. Barker (below) is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who writes for Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who hosts an early music radio show once a month on Sunday morning on WORT-FM 89.9. For years, he served on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison. Barker also took the performance photos.
By John W. Barker
For six seasons past, the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (below top), founded and led by Mikko Rankin Utevsky, has enriched our summers.
It seemed that last year's offerings were to be their final one. But they returned in an "Encore!" concert on last Friday night at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, giving hope that this wonderful ensemble of talented young musicians will yet continue to be with us.
The program was a brave and challenging one.
It opened with the Concerto Grosso in D major, Op. 6, No. 4, by Arcangelo Corelli. The wonderful concertos of the Op. 6 are well known from recordings, but are not that often heard in concert.
Corelli's richly satisfying string sound was beautifully realized by MAYCO's 22 players. The concertino was nicely set out in front of the full-ensemble tutti, and the performance was led by concertmaster (and Utevsky's wife) Thalia Coombs — who, to my ears, worked in some lively embellishments of her own.
Benjamin Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings is one of the musical masterpieces of the 20th century, composed for horn virtuoso Dennis Brain and Britten's partner, tenor Peter Pears, as well as the Boyd Neel Orchestra. It takes its point from the Italian word sera, meaning either "evening" or "night." The six English poems Britten set to music deal with aspects of night, the horn adding comments to the tenor's singing, all framed by a horn solo.
Utevsky led a strongly disciplined string ensemble, while horn soloist Joanna Schulz coped confidently with her terribly difficult part.
The weak link, unfortunately, was tenor Dennis Gotkowski, whose voice is neither attractive nor precise, and whose diction generally failed to project the important words clearly.
Still, in all, it proved a brave delivery of a demanding and absorbing work. (You can hear it performed in its entirety by the artists for whom it was composed, hornist Dennis Brain and tenor Peter Pears, in the historic YouTube video at the bottom.)
Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550, is certainly a familiar and often performed concert work. But I have to say that this student ensemble, under the baton of Utevsky, gave it a remarkably exciting performance.
This was not a performance that floated in a dark, but passively tragic gentleness. This was a performance that grabbed you by the lapels, looked you straight in the eye, and gave you a good shaking.
Its pungency was aided, of course, by the altering of the wind parts, nine of them – sitting apart (below) — against the string band that was far smaller than most orchestras muster these days.
One really could hear the different ways in which the winds spice or dialogue with the strings. But the exuberant playing that Utevsky drew from his orchestra made this a truly memorable rendition. (As a graceful gesture, Utevsky allowed his conducting apprentice and assistant, violist Brett Petrykowski, to preface the full Mozart performance by conducting just the exposition of the first movement.)
The audience was a modest one, perhaps diminished by concerns about the weather or by the limited promotion the event was given. But those present clearly enjoyed the concert, which makes many of us anticipate that MAYCO will really continue.
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following announcement to post:
"The Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO, below) is a summer training orchestra dedicated to providing an intensive chamber orchestra experience for advanced high school and college musicians, ages 12-35.
"MAYCO was founded in 2011 by music director Mikko Rankin Utevsky (below). The ensemble prepares a full program over the course of each of its one-week summer sessions, culminating in a public concert.
"We had planned for last summer's "Finale!" concert to be MAYCO's last, but at the urging of disappointed students, we decided to stage a comeback. Student response has been incredible, and we hope to keep the program alive into the future.
"This summer, we will present a single concert, "Encore!", featuring works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Benjamin Britten and Arcangelo Corelli.
"The program of bewitching atmosphere and stark contrasts will be performed this Friday night, July 21, at 7:30 p.m. in the Atrium Auditorium (below in a photo by Zane Williams) of the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive.
"The program opens with Corelli's vivacious Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 4 in D major. Corelli's Baroque concerti grossi all feature a solo group ("concertino") of two violins and cello opposed by the full string band (the "ripieno").
"Our performance will feature MAYCO concertmaster Thalia Coombs (below), principal cellist (and former conducting apprentice) Majestica Lor, and violinist Glen Kuenzi (a returning high school player now entering the UW School of Music, selected by audition).
"Benjamin Britten's nocturnal Serenade, written for his partner, tenor Peter Pears, and virtuoso hornist Dennis Brain, sets an enchanting array of English poetry, including texts by William Blake, John Keats and Ben Jonson.
"Set in seven movements bookended by a Prologue and Epilogue for unaccompanied horn, the work traverses a wide range of emotions and orchestral colors. Joining the orchestra will be tenor Dennis Gotkowski, a recent doctoral graduate of the UW) and hornist Joanna Schulz (below, a current DMA candidate), who plays with the Wingra Wind Quintet.
"The concert will conclude with Mozart's Symphony No. 40, the so-called "Great" G minor. Long beloved for its tempestuous character and affective power, it captivates players and audiences alike with its intense chromaticism and unrelenting darkness. It is a tremendously compelling piece, and we are excited to perform it this week. (You can hear the famous opening depicted with an unusual bar graph in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
"Tickets are $10 cash at the door; by donation for students.
"More information about the MAYCO and its programming can be found on our website, http://mayco.org
By Jacob Stockinger
To The Ear, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below) just keeps getting better and better, each concert building on the last one.
Take the final concert of this season last Friday night in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center.
It proved typical WCO fare in the quality of the soloists and orchestra players and in the variety of the program.
WCO music director Andrew Sewell (below) continues to mold his group into the tightest of ensembles. You know you are hearing precision when the rests and silences become as important to the music as the sound. And when you are listening, you feel how relaxing it is to rule out worrying about raggedness.
Here's a rundown:
The concert opened with a tried-and-true masterpiece, the "Le Tombeau de Couperin" by Maurice Ravel (below). Each of the five dance movements pays homage to a friend of Ravel who fell in World War I, the centennial of which, the gracious Sewell explained, is being marked this year. The Ear likes such tie-ins. (The Ear also loves the original piano version, which has a sixth movement, a fabulous toccata conclusion.)
The Symphony No. 2 in C Major by Romantic master Robert Schumann is not The Ear's favorite Schumann symphony – that would be No. 4 – and The Ear thinks that Schumann's orchestral writing is generally not up to his piano writing, his chamber music or his songs.
Indeed, long-form music was not Schumann's strength, as his many miniature movements in his longer suites and his fragmentary esthetic attest. Perhaps it had to do with his mental illness; perhaps it was just his preference and temperament, much as was the case with his contemporary Chopin, who also preferred the miniature to the epic.
Still, the work proved enjoyable and moving, especially in the vivacious and energetic Scherzo that was executed so precisely and then in the poignant slow movement, which was beautifully shaped with the romantic yearning that Schumann (seen below, with his wife Clara Wieck Schumann) was peerless at expressing. (You can hear the third movement, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
And once again, the smaller size of the chamber orchestra — versus a full symphony orchestra — created transparency. Listeners got to hear inner voices and the interplay of parts in all sections of the orchestra that they might otherwise miss.
But the piece that everyone came to hear was the finale: The world premiere of a Two-Piano Concerto by American composer Thomas Cabaniss (below top). The WCO commissioned the piece with help from two local patrons (Jun and Sandy Lee) and the soloists, Michael Shinn and Jessica Chow Shinn (below bottom), who have ties to Madison.
The work and its three movements – "Surfaces," "Disturbances" and "Revelation" — did not disappoint and received a rapturous reception from the large audience, which demanded and received a piano-four hands encore.
The concerto struck The Ear as perfectly fitting its title, "Double Rainbow." You heard elements of Maurice Ravel and John Adams. But you did NOT hear the typical standout solo playing of, say, a piano concerto by Beethoven or Brahms, Rachmaninoff or Prokofiev.
This was a much more atmospheric ensemble work that shimmered and glittered, much like a rainbow. It almost seemed in many places similar to a Baroque concerto grosso, with the piano incorporated into the orchestral texture rather than standing out against it.
That is not to say the concerto, more mood than melody, wasn't impressive. The score seemed very difficult, even virtuosic, and it certainly had moments that allowed the two soloists to show off their first-rate, Juilliard-trained chops.
Will this new concerto join other two-piano staples, such as the famous two-piano concertos by Poulenc and Mozart? It would take more hearings to be sure, but The Ear suspects not. It will surely get repeated hearings, especially from the Shinns, without becoming a go-to default piece in the two-piano repertoire. But he could well be wrong.
In any case, one would be hard put to find a better summary of the WCO approach to music-making than this outstanding concert that combined the old and the new, that mixed works from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries and performed them with technical precision and moving interpretation.
Bravos to all.
And all the more reason to look forward, after the WCO's six summer outdoor Concerts on the Square from June 28 to Aug. 2, to the next indoors Masterworks season, both of which you can find here:
By Jacob Stockinger
Here is a special posting, a review written by frequent guest critic and writer for this blog, John W. Barker. Barker (below) is an emeritus professor of Medieval history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is a well-known classical music critic who writes for Isthmus and the American Record Guide, and who for 12 years hosted an early music show every other Sunday morning on WORT-FM 89.9 FM. He serves on the Board of Advisors for the Madison Early Music Festival and frequently gives pre-concert lectures in Madison.
By John W. Barker
The Willy Street Chamber Players (below) gave the second concert of their 2016 season on Friday night at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 1021 Spright Street, on Madison's near east side.
The program might have been called the "three Sch-es" in view of the alphabetical incipits of the three composers involved.
The first item was titled The Violinists in My Life, composed in 2011 by Laura Schwendinger (below), the American composer currently on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.
The Belgian violin virtuoso and composer Eugène Ysaÿe set an example with his set of six Sonatas, Op. 27, for solo violin, each one a tribute to a great musician with whom he had worked. So Schwendinger composed five pieces for violin and piano, each one a kind of character piece about violinists with whom she has had fruitful contact.
The style can be sharp and abrupt, but there is a clear individuality to each piece, evoking the different personalities. The first of the five is dedicated to UW-Madison alumna Eleanor Bartsch (below), one of our Willys, and she played the whole set, deeply engaged in it, with pianist Thomas Kasdorf, also a graduate of the UW-Madison.
Kasdorf (below) joined another of the group's violinists, Paran Amirinazari, who also graduated from the UW-Madison, in a rarely heard late work by Franz Schubert, the Fantasie in C Major (D.934).(You can hear it played by violinist Benjamin Beilman, who has performed with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Schubert's compositions for violin and piano are rarely heard in concerts these days, but this one has particular interest in that its latter portion is another of the composers set of variations on one of his own songs—in this case, the beautiful Sei mir gegrüsst. The total piece has a lot of lively passage work, which Amarinazari played with a mix of flair and affection.
The crowning work was that extraordinary string sextet by Arnold Schoenberg (below), Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night). Composed in 1899 at the beginning of the composer's career, it catches him still emerging from Late Romantic sensibilities, a good way before his radical move into the 12-tone idiom he created.
The score is just a trifle longish for the musical content, but its gorgeous chromatic richness is irresistible. It was inspired by a poem of Richard Dehmel, and both the original German text and an English translation were supplied to the audience, an interesting touch.
Above all, however, the performance was glowing, avoiding too much sentimental lushness, but conveying the emotionally charged writing with beautiful balance.
A clever touch, too, was the sitting pattern chosen, with the two violas facing the two violins and the two cellos in the rear—allowing the recurrent interaction between the first violin and first viola to emerge more clearly.
In sum, this was another wonderful session of first-class music-making by this remarkable assemblage of young talent.
NOTE: A program of music by Ludwig vanBeethoven, Philip Glass and Dmitri Shostakovich will be given next Friday at Immanuel Lutheran, but at NOON; and then that evening (at 8:30 p.m.) the group will participate in a special performance of George Crumb's "Black Angels" — with an accompanying video — at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in the Overture Center.
The final Friday evening concert will be back at Immanuel Lutheran, at 6 p.m. on Friday, July 29, with music by Baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli (Concerto Grosso), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Clarinet Quintet), and George Enescu (Octet).
By Jacob Stockinger
Last Saturday night saw one of those unfortunate train wrecks.
And making it even more unfortunate was that it came at holiday time, when music takes on special meaning and seems more festive or celebratory.
The conflict centered on two very worthwhile concerts by two very reliable groups.
The first was the fifth annual Holiday Concert by the Madison Bach Musicians at the First Congregational Church of Christ, seen below in a photo by Kent Sweitzer.
The program featured two cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, a recently discovered "Gloria" Cantata by George Frideric Handel; and the Christmas Concerto in G minor by Arcangelo Corelli plus chamber music by Georg Philipp Telemann. (You can hear the lovely Corelli concerto performed by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra in a YouTube video at the bottom.)
Here is a link with much more information as well as an interview with MBM founder, director and harpsichordist Trevor Stephenson:
The second concert was a single performance – there used to be two – by the UW-Madison Choral Union and UW Symphony Orchestra with graduate student and guest soprano Tyana O'Connor, all under the baton of Beverly Taylor, in Mills Hall on the UW-Madison campus.
That program was all 20th-century and featured the Overture to "The Wasps" by Ralph Vaughan Williams; the Symphony of Psalms by Igor Stravinsky; and the Gloria by Francis Poulenc.
Here is an interview about the program with Beverly Taylor who is the choral director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music:
The Ear couldn't go to both and went to the memorable Choral Union concert, which I will comment on tomorrow.
But veteran critic John W. Barker (below), who writes for Isthmus and often for this blog, did go to the Madison Bach Musicians and filed this rave review:
Thanks to Wisconsin Public Radio – the biggest friend of classical music in the state – you can hear most of the Madison Bach Musicians' concert (the Bach, Handel and Corelli) this Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m.
The broadcast may be delayed and not live. But it is NOT too late for the holidays!
The Ear will be tuning in.
If you also missed it, perhaps you will too.


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Quintana Roo's latest tri bike is the PR6, shipping now in size-52. A suite of sizes will arrive a size at a time, 5 in all, 700c except for the 46cm, which will be in a 650c size as is traditional with this brand.
There is one thing new with this bike, new meaning not found anywhere on any bike as far as I can tell. First, the 52cm bike actually measures 52cm. No tri bike since the early 90s has had a sizing nomenclature that matches any dimension on the bike. With this bike the 52cm size means the stack of the bike is 52cm tall. That by itself means something else: stack and reach were inputs to the bike's design, rather than outputs. That might not mean anything to you, but the upshot is this: the bike's sizing is properly graded, that is, a 54cm is proportionally longer and taller than a 52cm, a 56cm equally proportionally larger than a 54cm, and so forth.
This bike is going to be less "long/low" than some bikes in its competitive set, like the Felt DA and its own CD0.1 and Illicito. It's more of a fat-of-the-bell-curve bike, fitwise, like all the new Cervelos and Trek's Speed Concept. It's a "superbike" in that the frame, fork and stem all kind of smoosh together. This means the bike will defy typical methods of prescriptive fitting, and will require a fit spreadsheet or chart that gives you a complete bike prescription based on either handlebar x/y metrics or a pad x/y numbers.
What did I just say? Nothing that scary. What I'm saying is that, as in the case of, say, a Speed Concept, if you measure the horizontal (x) distance from the bottom bracket to the center of the armrest pad, and the vertical (y) distance as well, QR is going to have a chart for you. You'll plunk those numbers into that calculator, or you find the intersection of those x and y numbers — that cell, as you might find on a spreadsheet — and you'll be given the "solution" which sounds something like "56cm, center hole-set, 10mm of pedestals." If that doesn't tell you exactly how the bike should be purchased and set up, it'll tell your dealer how it should be set up.
By "center hole-set" I'm referring to how the stem on this bike works. The stem has a top and bottom piece, like the top and bottom of a sub sandwich roll slit horizontally. You can slide the top of the stem forward and if you do so bolts passing through the top half of the stem thread into the bottom half of the stem in a forward set of holes. There are 3 hole-sets altogether. You get height through a set of aero-shaped pedestals that are part of the stem assembly. It is not the most elegant stem motif I've ever seen on a bike, but it's functional, soundly conceived and, as far as fitting goes, intuitive.
One final thought about fit: Do not resort to standard measurement ideas when deciding which size fits you. Me, for example, I just about always ride a bike company's 58cm bike, road or tri. With this bike, no way. Its 56cm bike measures 560 in stack and 435mm in reach. That's plenty of reach for me and bordering on too much stack. Really, it'd be about perfect, with no pedestals or spacers. Were I to ride this bike's next size up, 58.5cm, its largest size, that bike would be monstrous big. It's got a stack/reach of 585/445, with a front/center of 665mm, which just makes it a big, big bike. I'm 6'2", and I would probably have to be 2" taller to ride this larger size.
QR is doing with the PR6 what Felt did with the IA: designing a bike just for tri, without consideration given to UCI's rules. QR says it designed its bike with that in mind, and employs a "boat tail" theme to the trailing edges of its tubes as opposed to, say, Trek's use of Kamm tails. In fact, QR experimented with making Kamm tails into boat tails on a Speed Concept and adjacent is an image of that experiment. QR says it saw a significant advantage. Boat tails are deeper than Kamm tails and are probably less effective on a UCI-legal bike.
The PR6 keeps with the really huge non-driveside chain stay (image below), but it uses all 4 stays — 2 seat stays and 2 chain stays — to make this bike stiffer in all axes (especially the lateral) than, presumably, its Illicito.
Then there is the drag chart. You've got to have one these, right? It's at the bottom of this overview. One thing I like about this bike: it doesn't "win" its own wind tunnel test. If anything, the Speed Concept wins. (I'd like to have seen the Felt IA in this test.) What QR tries to do, I think, is make a bike that's "in the discussion" aerodynamically while remaining easy to build and adjust, and while being relatively light, a good fitting bike for most people and so forth. In other words, it seeks to do what all bikes are supposed to do (stop when the brake levers are depressed, handle well, not break, etc.) while still being competitive aerodynamically.
One thing I noticed right away, first glance, is that all the fork's surface area is behind the dropout. I've had to wrestle with some of the new superbikes when riding deep wheels in gusty conditions, and I suspect some of it may be a lot of fork and nosecone surface area in front of the steering axis. I don't know how this new QR bike is going to handle because I haven't yet ridden it, but one thing that almost never gets tested is the torque on the fixture holding the front wheel during a wind tunnel test when the bike is in a yaw. That torque would represent the force you feel when you're steering in a yaw. Some surface area behind the steering axis wouldn't be unwelcome. Heck, I wouldn't mind something resembling a fly swatter emanating from the front dropout and pointing backward, to add surface area behind the steering axis, magnified by a long lever. But I digress...
QR maintains that 2 Allen wrenches will assemble this bike. I haven't built this bike from the ground up but, assuming so, great. I need 3 wrenches — 2 Allens and a Torx — just to mount and adjust each Campagnolo brake caliper on my road bike. Speaking of brake calipers, nice that this bike uses just a standard front brake. Bikes have been getting pretty hard to assemble and adjust lately. This seems to be a bike you could disassemble for airline travel without wondering whether you'll get it all back together again at a race.
Known unknowns
QR says this is a light bike, that it built a bike with both aerodynamics and weight in mind. But I don't have published weights yet nor have I weighed this QR bike myself.
Also, there are some specs I don't have yet. I do not know what the stem lengths are in their various configurations. Basically, you have 3 stem lengths you can make out of this proprietary stem config, and those lengths are X, X+1cm, and X+2cm.
Because I do not know what X is, I don't know what the 3 stems lengths are. X is, to me, the distance from the center of the stem clamp to the center of the handlebar clamp, and I don't know that measure. So, the 3 stem configs are 8cm, 9cm and 10cm, or 9cm, 10cm and 11cm, and so forth. I would like to know this.
I don't know the fork offset. Because of this I don't know the trail. I'm kind of hoping for an offset like 43mm to 45mm, because that would place the bike's trail at 60mm to 62mm. The longer those stem configs, the more I'm hoping for 62mm of trail. The shorter the configs the more I'm hoping for 60mm of trail.
The QR fellows will be reading this overview and I suppose they'll post in the Facebook comments below appending to this article.
Price and spec
There are some nice spec choices on this bike and I'm not surprised because QR has been forward thinking on spec for a half-dozen years now. First, how nice that they send the bike with both horizontal, rear facing, dropouts and semi-verts? You have your choice of style, and you choose horizontal if you want to move that wheel right up behind the seat tube, vertical if you don't want to hassle with wheel exit during a tire change. Thing is, if you suck a chain and bend your dropout all to heck, you have a set of replacement dropouts. Me, I ride my MTB with a set of dropouts in my spare tube bag, because I've gotten stuck in East Hell-and-gone with a bent dropout and I don't want any more experience with that sort of thing. You could do the same with these dropouts, and take the second set with you, just make sure you also have the corresponding Allen key that changes the dropouts.
The chain rings are a split-the-baby 52/36, saddle is an ISM Road, and the aerobars are Profile Design's excellent T4+Carbon. The groupkit is Shimano's electronic Ultegra and the bike comes with a set of Reynolds deep (clincher) race wheels, and as I'll be writing I've come to hold a new opinion on this. On my tri bike, I always ride with my race wheels. I err on the side of the deepest wheels I can handle, but that means I need to spend a lot of time riding these wheels in training. I therefore think it's okay to sell a bike with deep wheels, just make sure that they're the wheels you want.
The PR6 is not an inexpensive bike, at $8,500. But then its spec, Ultegra electronic plus pricey Reynolds wheels, kind of demands a price of this nature. This is not going to be the only price point this frame class ever sees. You'll no doubt see this frame mold downstreamed eventually, and I would not be surprised if this bike is sold at something under $5000 and maybe under $4000 in a year or two. But it won't be with this groupkit and these wheels.

subset: commoncrawl


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Bhumi Horta social enterprises (CV Bhumi Horta) or www.temanberkebun.com has a close relation with Farming Office & Food Security Office of Semarang City for the last 2 years. We support their program by providing farming trainers, and farming tools as well as technology to support their farm community.
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There is three space that you able to use: collaboration space, culinary space, and farming space. You are able to use our space for your creative works. If you want to book your attendance at our space or even discuss to have a future partnership. Please kindly follow our space


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What Does Louis Armstrong Mean? It is an interesting question, and a vague one. The questions' interest is derived from that very vagueness. It can be interpreted narrowly and answered as "What does Louis Armstrong mean to me," and be used as fodder for a personal exploration of the impact that Armstrong's life and music may have had in the way one views the world or carries on his or her life. The question can also be given a broad interpretation (The Supreme Court of Satchelmouth!) and examined in the context of his imposing presence on our cultural landscape, what he means to us. Wynton Marsalis, for example, speaking in Gary Giddins' documentary "Satchmo" (a companion to the book of that name) said Armstrong's was "the sound of America and the freedom that it is supposed to represent." In Armstrong's art there is possibility and triumph and celebration and the blues. It is in the very humane-ness, of his playing and singing, as well as his off-stage life, and his ability to elicit emotional responses in people that make this question ripe for discussion. Some may answer viewing Armstrong as the magnetic pop star of "Hello Dolly," or "What A Wonderful World," while others will no doubt answer in terms of the innovations of his early "Hot Fives and Sevens" period. So we ask "What does Louis Armstrong mean?"
"He's inspired me in a number of ways throughout my life. At first, my father was into him and I wasn't. I kept saying, man, he's an Uncle Tom. I wasn't hearing it. The only thing I heard was him singing. And then I joined Art Blakey's band and Art was talking about how great Pops was, so I said, well damn, if this renegade is talking about how great Pops is, then maybe I need to check it out. Then I started to understand how great a trumpet player he was and what kind of impact he had on the music world. Not just in jazz, but music in general. Because you have to remember that in the time that he came along, in the '20s and '30s, nobody was playing like that. And those are great arrangements he did with the Hot Five and all those groups. It's not necessarily all about improvisation, but it's written in the style of jazz, and that's the thing I always talk about when I'm talking to film directors. I say you know jazz is not just about improvisation. It's a language that can be utilized in many different ways. So that's another influence that he's had on me.
"But the other thing I've been really getting into within the last two or three years is his pure genius in bringing together his art and his ability to entertain. Because all too often the younger musicians from my generation and younger we got into the late '50s and mid-'60s, where you were just an artist, and you just played what you wanted to play. But Pops was playing his stuff for mass audiences, and people were into it because he knew how to entertain and make them feel welcome and comfortable with his music, which allowed him to probably do just about anything he wanted."
—Terence Blanchard
"Louis Armstrong is everything that I aspire to be. Not only was he a musical genius and trumpet virtuoso, his ability to entertain people was unmatchable. He touched millions of people without sacrificing his craft. You can hear magic in every single note that he ever sung or played. To me that's an artist."
—Jeremy Davenport
"Louis Armstrong means several things. His spirit, to me as an Afro-American, represents all of what is positive about us as a people: beauty, humor, the ability to think and create. What is striking about Louis is that the core and essence of the sound of his voice is the core and essence of the sound of his trumpet. He played like he sang and he sang like he played. So what I take from Armstrong is the idea that I am an instrument and I'm expressing my thoughts and feelings through my horn. He teaches that an individual is an extension of his or her instrument. Louis Armstrong had a certain style and with it he created something new. That's what New Orleans is about and should be about, creativity and keeping the music new."
—Clyde Kerr, Jr.
"Louis Armstrong—Wow! I guess whatever you can say about him, there's going to be something else that you have left out. Because there's just so many things you can say about this one great individual who has affected not just musicians but just people. He left a legacy…as far as musicians, he laid a ground work for musicians to build upon, and set a standard that I don't think we'll ever amount up to. In terms of the impact that he had on musicians, you know, when you think of Louis Armstrong, you think of him as a trumpet player, as an entertainer, singer, a musician in general. A great individual. That's it."
—Jamil Sharif
"He was a jazz ambassador."
—Floyd Soileau
"When I was very young, an art student at New Orleans Academy of Art, just starting building floats—I couldn't have been 20-years-old so this had to be in 1950, Louis Armstrong was coming to New Orleans with Jack Teagarden, Big Sid Catlett, Earl 'Fatha' Hines and some of the greats of jazz. They were going to come and play at Municipal Auditorium and I heard about it. I was brought up on jazz and my daddy was a promoter when I was a kid. Gosh, it was too good to be true!
"I was a 52-20 recipient in those days—52-20 meant when you got out of the Army after World War II was over, for 52 weeks, they gave you 20 bucks a week. That was my income and I was using it at the art school.
"I wanted to see Louis Armstrong and I went down and I just knew he was going to be so incredible, I borrowed $300 and I bought the whole front row of the Municipal Auditorium. I think the seats were about $4.95 or $6.95. I bought the whole front row and I brought the tickets to the art school. We had about 150 students over there and I just knew everybody was going to want to buy these tickets from me. I wasn't going to scalp them—I just wanted my friends to have the opportunity to see the greatest man in jazz.
"What happened was I only sold a few and I was stuck with all these tickets. Good God, I didn't know what to do. Anyway, I do remember going to the big jazz concert that night at Municipal Auditorium. Louis comes out and he starts playing. I'm sitting front row and center with all my friends, my sisters—because I gave most of the tickets away. He's playing and it's going incredible. I'm tapping my feet. What a glorious, wonderful thing to see all these great musicians. I was on the very first row.
"Then he stops playing and all of a sudden, he watches an old man coming down the aisle, walking towards him and Louis spots him. And Louis starts to cry. And the old man walks up on the stage and walks toward him and Louis is positively bawling. The old man proceeds to unwrap this towel under his arm and he brings out a battered cornet. It was the first cornet that Louis ever played on in his life. And this old man gave it to him and he fell into the old man's arms and they were crying together. And laughing—it was glorious! The hair went up on the back of my neck. I remember this 50 years later to this day. It took me a year to pay off that $300 but it was worth it. I witnessed history: Louis being back with his mentor and his first cornet."
—Blaine "Mr. Mardi Gras" Kern
"Satchmo—that's why Daddy put me on the trumpet. He wanted me to be another Satchmo because someone was going to do 'The Louis Armstrong Story' and Daddy was promoting me, saying I could be the trumpet player to play the part. That didn't materialize. Satchmo is definitely one of the greatest. We all had problems but his story is just amazing, isn't it?"
—Al "Carnival Time" Johnson
"I adore him. I love his music and always have. He's one of the quintessential New Orleanians and everyone loves him."
—Henri Schindler
"When I first saw Louis Armstrong on television, he filled a void—his personality, more than his music. I enjoyed his persona. I think he really loved himself a lot. I like to see human beings who really like themselves a lot and are not afraid to show that they are enjoying themselves. That's the thing that impressed me about him, more so than the music.
"Most people talk about his music but I expect to see good musicians in the world. I'm not like amazed that he was a great musician. Most of my amazement came from me watching him enjoy himself and his life.
"His playing influenced me—most definitely—but I really didn't know it. When I heard him playing, I immediately thought this is the way you're supposed to play the trumpet. I never tried to copy him because I don't practice but just the feeling. I'm quite sure there were other trumpet players in this country that could really play but you only get to see one guy. So, I like Louis. I felt that he had a burden and I liked the fact that he had a beautiful personality."
—Olu Dara
"I always tell people if God was to ever speak he would probably have Louis Armstrong's voice. He's the best that ever did it, man. He had everything. The charm. The technical ability to play anything in any range. He had the voice. And he's from New Orleans. [laughing] He could cook, too. He's like one of those everything kind of people. A genius, you know? I mean, if it wasn't for Louis Armstrong we wouldn't be sitting here. I don't know what I would be doing if it wasn't for Louis. It goes to show you that your past is your future, you know? We wouldn't have anything if not for him traveling the world to let everybody hear the music and put all those records out. It was totally for me and I wasn't even a thought yet. Same for anybody else that's playing trumpet. Everybody that plays trumpet in the whole world now has to play those licks at one point or another. He set the pace for everybody."
—Kermit Ruffins
"Louis Armstrong is the true manifestation of democracy in a human being. He was a great artist as well as an entertainer of many facets. The more I study his life and music the more I realize the challenge of transcending humanity, art and love, and the more I see the necessity for all Americans to study him."
—Irvin Mayfield
"Louis Armstrong is certainly the focus of the music that I play. I think most importantly he is a synthesis of what went on here, in New Orleans, as far as trumpet playing prior to his emergence as a visible figure. In Louis' playing there is of course Joe Oliver, but also Buddy Petit… and Bunk [Johnson]. I mean, he's just the main character of jazz music."
—Chris Tyle, trumpeter (Silver Leaf Jazz Band)
"If we had to name a 'Man of the 20th-century,' then Louis Armstrong would be my choice. The more I listen to his music, the more I am in awe of him, and the more incredible his achievement seems to be. His contemporaries felt the same way. The clarinetist Albert Nicholas said once that Armstrong made all the other trumpet players sound like little boys. No wonder he swept away all before him.
"And yet his recordings are but little vignettes taken out of time and caught forever on wax. The bassist Truck Parham told me that when Louis caught sight of a group of friends and musicians in the audience he would really open up. What he played on these occasions went beyond anything you could imagine. Toward the end of his life, I was fortunate enough to hear Armstrong several times and played on his 70th Birthday Concert—'Hello Louis!'—in Los Angeles. When I heard him here in New Orleans in 1965, he gave us a brief glimpse of what Truck Parham was talking about when he unexpectedly played a variation on 'The Saints' so rhythmically and melodically intricate that the whole audience gasped.
"Taking the raw material from the neighborhood in which he was born, even to the extent of the language and mugging of the characters he grew up with, Armstrong was able to transform through his music the sum of all those early experiences and present it on stage for the whole world to see and enjoy.
"There is no denying the emotional intensity of Louis Armstrong's music, but it takes us also to a place that I sense is beyond emotions, where the music stands purely on its own terms. There is a quality in Armstrong's tone, in his swing, spontaneity and freedom of expression that is indefinable, yet connects directly to a place deep within us. What I hear is so much joy, so much joy even in sadness… and so much joy in his art of expressing so much joy."
—Clive Wilson
"Louis Armstrong has meant so much to music all over the world. He was a symbol… the greatest trumpet player ever to be from New Orleans, probably the greatest musician in the world. For the culture, he means a lot as the first musical ambassador to the world. For the music, I think Louis Armstrong was one of the first pop musicians that was recognized all over the world. He had a lot of New Orleans flavor, but I think Louis Armstrong added spice and high energy to the music unlike anybody else. When I think of trumpet players, there is no one that comes close to Armstrong when it comes to talent and entertainment."
—James Andrews
"Louis Armstrong means something different to everybody. There is a lot that comes to mind, but for me he is one of those once-in-a-couple-of-century musicians who influences not only the style he's involved in, but music in general. He changed the way music is played. Louis is my hero and inspiration, and not only musically, because the way he lived his life is inspiring. He certainly changed mine."
—Duke Heitger
"My first feeling when I listen to Louis Armstrong, even as a small child, because I grew up with the music in my house…you know, it was popular music when I was a kid and the first feeling was just joy. I would say that when everybody listens to music, you can see the looks on their faces. Everybody experiences that joy, that happiness. Louis' music immediately evoked that joy, that happiness. That's what Louis Armstrong is for me when I hear him play. He is the Father of Jazz, but I would have to say my most simple, reduced reaction is that it's immediate joy, immediate happiness."
—Johnny Vidacovich
"I'm so sorry that I never got a chance to meet that man in person. To have a musician of that caliber from my hometown, now, that is what I can incredible. Younger guys like [Wynton] Marsalis and [Nicholas] Payton are carrying that on, keeping New Orleans in the forefront of producing historical musicians who have done their part for music history. Louis did his."
—Zigaboo Modeliste
"Personally, to me, Louis Armstrong, he's the patriarch of jazz music, past, present and future. All the way around, everything we do in jazz music from the traditional to the contemporary to acid to fusion—all these things he was the foundation for and I think, just his name itself, you can say it anywhere in the world and people know it and that lets you know that this man and his music—our music—is one of the few things that crossed racial, economical and educational boundaries everywhere and that's an amazing thing to be able to do. Especially to be able to use an art form to do it, which seems to me to be one of the few things in our lives that actually ever crosses over to all ethnic backgrounds and cultural backgrounds—it's got no class. It's like social redemption. It's the only thing that people have to make all of the other screwed-up stuff we do mean something."
—Tricia "Sista Teedy" Boutté
"I would say Louis Armstrong means freedom. The freedom to overcome any adversity or obstacle. Because after all the adversity that he faced and dealt with, to still be able to smile and come above that and create great music and love people of all races, that's a beautiful thing. You can put on some Louis Armstrong music or read a biography about him and you'll see clearly that you can achieve anything you want to achieve in life."
—James Alsanders
"Louis Armstrong could be the poster child for the opening and the expression of one's spirit and soul. He didn't try to be like another trumpeter: he was Louis Armstrong. He was so distinctive in his playing style, as well as his phrasing. That's how I would sum it up."
—Jonathan Moffett
"All that stuff was done from the heart. And the things he did were just incredible. Nobody still can really do any of that. His sense of melody and rhythm, harmony and syncopation, I mean funkiness, soulful, bluesy—and then to be one of the key figures on how all that came together with jazz at that time. With King Oliver and all his influences, kind of like Clifton [Chenier] did with his influences, I mean it all came together to make this incredible, unique sound that was so powerful you just couldn't ignore it. That's what happens when a purely natural raw talent is developed to all that it could aspire to be, as good as it can possibly get.
"You know what else about Satchmo to me? He was a true hero of New Orleans, of our whole area. And he became so enormously popular throughout the world. A lot of things get misrepresented: there's a misconception of what Cajun is, and Creole. He was the real deal: you wanna hear it—here it is, man."
—Sonny Landreth
"What Louis means is that jazz was born in New Orleans. How else could jazz not have been born in New Orleans? We produced somebody like Louis Armstrong. To get back to the birthday, he was born at exactly the right time. He was there at the right time to absorb all the culture and music to develop all the tools that he needed to become Louis Armstrong. He leaves New Orleans at 21 at a time when not only can he make a living playing the music but we now have the infrastructure within the entertainment industry for him to become a star. Look at Buddy Bolden—Bolden was totally parochial. Twenty miles outside New Orleans, nobody knew who Bolden was. We had no structure in the entertainment industry to go beyond those bounds. So Bolden was this star in a microcosm. But when Louis came along, he could make art with his horn and the world hears what he does and he can influence the entire world, not just New Orleans like Bolden did. That tells me jazz came from New Orleans."
—Tad Jones
"Louis Armstrong is New Orleans music."
—Michael P. Smith
"Louis Armstrong—just the person—don't mean nothing to me. What he did with music, the swing element that he put in, the way he swung and played stuff, he laid a foundation for some stuff to go over. The way I look at it, when Louis Armstrong was playing jazz, Stravinsky was playing in three keys at the same time. So if it wouldn't be for Louis' swing elements, Stravinksy and them couldn't swing."
—Edward "Kidd" Jordan
"Louis means that a great man went out there and did something. If it wouldn't be for Louis, New Orleans wouldn't be on the map. When you say 'New Orleans,' that's the first thing people say—'Louis Armstrong.' He's dead and gone but his feelings are still here."
—Tuba Fats
"He is jazz. He is New Orleans."
—Philip Frazier (ReBirth Brass Band)
"Louis Armstrong means a lot to local New Orleans musicians. He means New Orleans music. My favorite Louis Armstrong song is 'Basin Street Blues.' I just like the way he sang it. He's talkin' about our neighborhood."
—Tanio Hingle (New Birth Brass Band)
"His ability to do two things at once, this combination of control and abandon, is largely what he brought to the definition of jazz. From the widest artistic movement to the smallest musical detail, from popular adoration to the critiques of the most demanding connoisseurs, from the streets of New Orleans to international fame, he had it all and he never lost it, never lost the music. I think the difference is that it still always came down to him and his horn."
—Dirk Powell (Balfa Toujours)
"Louis Armstrong is the most important ingredient in the beginnings, I would say the first stage of jazz, which ended, of course, with the Parker revolution. I started out being influenced by the white players, Bix and Tram [Frank Trumbauer], but when I first heard Louis I said, 'Well, that's it!' He is a man that revolutionized music. Jazz might have succeeded one way or another without him, but it probably would not have become the music it is today."
—Artie Shaw
"Louis Armstrong means, he expresses, that all of us, no matter what culture or color, we should all get together because we are all from the same source. Louis shows us that we are all brothers and sisters and that all this racism and fighting should end. He expressed love for everybody. He showed that we are all human beings, we all live, we all die, we all eat, and that we are alone in this universe, as far as we know, on this little ball traveling through space. What Louis expressed every night I played with him was the idea that we are alone and here we are fighting and destroying each other and for what? Louis Armstrong means we should be trying to get together."
—Arvell Shaw, bassist, Armstrong Alumni All Stars
"To me, Louis means the joy in living, the joy of being alive and feeling good. He felt good when he played music and you can hear that because he conveys that good feeling. He teaches us to play music from a positive point of view. The idea is that it is more than just notes and blowing wind into a horn or a string vibrating, it is feeling good and celebrating the joy of life . I know it sounds corny, but that's what it is. I played with him from 1967 to 1971 and every night he always tried to tap that mother lode of joy. You can't play like he played without coming from a place of joy."
—Joe Muranyi, clarinetist, Armstrong Alumni All Stars
"Louis Armstrong means everything. He's the bottom line. He was the first guy with the rough vocals. I listen to Armstrong incessantly, as much as I can. He was such a great vocalist. It's such a great thing, the Armstrong growl, as they call it now. I have the growly voice, and he was the first one with it. So, I feel like I'm a direct link. When I was little, I would watch Louis Armstrong. He was New Orleans all the way down to the towel to wipe the sweat. If you're from New Orleans, you got to have that. They call it a 'flag' here. He always had a flag in his pocket. He was doing New Orleans on the world. That's what I think I'm doing."
—Theryl "The Houseman" deClouet
"You know, I've got a great view of his statue in Armstrong Park from my window, so every day I can look out and kind of center myself when it comes to music. I can see Pops through the window. I think he was a prophet, using the most powerful medium that we had—music. I also think he was a gift to the world because he was really himself. He didn't have any record company trying to give him an image—he was the image. He was as New Orleans as they get—he didn't put on any airs about himself. He was representing who he was. I think he was the most influential cat in the 20th and 21st centuries."
—John Boutté
"Louis Armstrong is better than he was supposed to be."
—Mark Mullins
"Louis Armstrong means the highest level of musical ability. He means soul, groove, phrasing, good vibes, happiness, sadness, chops—not as in pork chops, entertainment, marijuana, King of the Zulus, swing, inspiration. He also means, to me, Trummy Young and Jack Teagarden, who are two of my favorite trombone players."
—Craig Klein