having dinner at the bar with a friend tonight at dojo's, 4th and mercer, some of the cheapest eats in nyc. some guys near us look like they might be techies or road crew for someone at the bottom line, a well-known folkie-plus club just across the intersection. one says, "dar's singing it tonight, syd straw tomorrow". both artists i've heard at the bottom line.
in walks jane siberry. a connection clicks in my mind so i say "hey are you doing something at the bottom line tonight?" she's a bit taken aback (so is my friend, who thinks i'm crazy and doesn't recognize her) so i say "this is Jane Siberry, Christopher" and introduce myself, and she recognizes my name from being a subscriber to her email list, and from the time i ordered directly from her on the phone and she had to call me back to tell me my card was declined. at the time she said "don't worry, it happens to me too" so she orders her dinner and we're all three into a lovely conversation. my friend is a canadian, so they have that. we're all performers so we have that. we talk about her journey, positive and negative, having her own label. biggest news: she's finally completing an album of all new original material, her first since "maria" (1995) which was her last album with reprise and one of my top ten albums all time. turns out she's performing in the bottom line's "downtown messiah" now in its fifth year. after a while she says, "you know, i have a couple of comps for the late show tonight" looks in her calendar, says "well, my extra comps are for tomorrow, but i'll just put you on the list. you may not get seats, but you'll get in" pretty cool. we buy her dinner (not exactly extravagant at dojo's). she leaves. we have three hours to kill. we leave the restaurant, and i can't find my umbrella. we go back to my place, listen to some jane siberry. back to the bottom line. turns out we do get seats, great seats. before the show, i see jane out front so i go over to thank her, point out our great seats. she says "great. oh, i have your umbrella." gives it back. about the show: it's just this odd beast, an electrified, hippified, folkified messiah using the kinds of artists that play the bottom line. soloists included martha redbone, randy brecker, terre roche, david johanson (truly bizarre, and kind of wonderful), jane (just perfect on 'if god be for us, who can be against us'), marshall crenshaw, dar williams, vernon reid, and richard barone, formerly of the bongos, who apparently found his perfect look in 1983 and hasn't felt a need to change. which was just fine with me. musically, it was all over the map stylistically, which was, i think, the point. there was an amplified string quartet, grand piano, drum and standing bass, 20-person choir, solo instruments including a recorder several times. it was so interesting hearing baroque ornaments on recorder, or acoustic guitar, or perfect handelian scales done by an r&b singer. the show was not a home run, but it was awfully fun. bob, this is for you. instead of being sung, the recitatives were all spoken by a woman with a terribly midwestern accent. that probably cut seven hours out of the event. also it ended with the hallelujah chorus, (cutting out about the last 45 minutes of music). earlier, when we were talking to jane, she said she's drawn to move back to new york. i hope she does. anyway, the show is being recorded for broadcast (and i assume, webcast) on wfuv, dates 12/20 and 24. last year's 'downtown messiah' is being broadcast on npr this month (that's a big deal for these folks). and new yorkers who can't see one of two shows tomorrow (saturday) night, or go to see jane solo at the bottom line on sunday (12/15), can hear the downtown messiah for FREE on tuesday, december 17, in the rebuilt wintergarden at world financial center. patrick np - jane siberry - tree [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/ms-tnef which had a name of winmail.dat]
