In a message dated 3/25/2003 9:19:29 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Wonderful job, and thanks for sharing your enthusiasm. > Thanks, Stephen! I know that lots of JMDLer's would have love to have been there but couldn't make it for one reason or another. Hopefully I'm helping to bring it to life. OK, so let's get back to it: Burnt Sugar ~ The Arkestra Chamber - The Jungle Line, A Strange Boy: SO this section featured Violin, Cello, Guitar, Piano, Synthesizer, Bass, Drums, and vocals. One of the vocalists sang right into the mic and the other sang through a voice manipulator of sorts. And each person was directed by Greg Tate, with his back to the audience, who would point to someone and bring them in, out, up, down like a conductor which is I suppose what I was. Some of this was accessible and some was not, but I didn't dislike it. It certainly was not your Mom's Joni Mitchell. I wondered what Joni would have thought of this one. Dana Hanchard - The Wolf That Lives In Lindsay: Can you believe it, we got twice as many 'Lindsays' than we did BYT's! Well, it WAS New York. The program shows Dana singing to guitar accompaniment, but as I recall it she accompanied herself on the keyboard. Whichever, it was fabulous, the combination of her smoky jazzy voice and the haunting 'Lindsay'. Elliott Sharp's Terraplane - Shadows And Light: This was an instrumental, with Ellioot playing an electric steel guitar, and drums & bass. It was good when they stuck to the song, but Mr. Sharp got a little show-offy at times and it dimished the performance. Still, worthwhile as this song is rarely covered. Gregory Douglas & Jeremy Mendocino - Court & Spark, Free Man In Paris: Some of you caught these guys at the Club Passim tribute. Young, very young, with the enthusiasm of youth, and a LOT of enthusiasm for Joni. Gregory sang and played piano, Jeremy played acoustic guitar. Superb vocals, right on the money. I liked these guys a lot. Nora York - Both Sides Now, Sex Kills, The Fiddle & The Drum: Nora introduced this piece as a "Triptych" that she assembled as a soundtrack for a film project about Viet Nam. She said that when she asked a soldier what song evoked Viet Nam for him her answered "Both Sides Now". She had a razor-sharp crackerjack of a band, including Claire Daly on a baritone sax as big as she was, and Allison Miller on Drums. Like Helga Davis' presentation, this was presented as a single piece, with segues from song to song and also she inserted sounds like helicopters and war noise. Sex Kills was INCREDIBLE. This is the way Sex Kills was meant to be, edgy and rocking, not smothered with orchestra. Nora's great, her voice is very soulful and she was a real crowd-pleaser. Melba Joyce - Harlem in Havana: Speaking of crowd pleasers...OMIGOD! Melba is an older NYC jazz singer, and she played with this one and sang it like it was a standard. She had the audience in the palm of her hand, singing to Lanny Meyers accompaniment. It saddened me to think that most of the Joni fans in the audience had probably never heard this song before. I couldn't believe she was only doing this one number, then I saw that she was due back up with The Mingus Big Band - whew! Carole Pope - Down To You, Raised On Robbery: I felt so foolish, because I had heard SO many good things about her, and when I saw that she was doing "Down To You", one of my top 5 Joni songs, I whispered to Heather that this was going to be killer. And I started out right...Rob Prusse, her pianist, was right on with the keyboard beginning, really nice. But then, Carole started singing, and she sucked. It was as if she had never heard the song before and was trying to wing it. Missed many notes, never picked up the rhythm of the song, barely emoted what is one of Joni's most powerful songs lyrically. Very disappointing. 'Robbery' was slightly better, but with just a piano backing up it missed the punch that a full band could have given it. The Four Bags with David Garland - Songs To Aging Children Come, Turbulent Indigo: This guy David Garland must have provided lots of funding for Symphony Space and they promised him he could perform. Wow, he was the el-stinko worst of the day by a mile. Absolutely no sense of anything, pitch, rhythm, you name it. I guarantee you that ANY of us in the audience could have jumped on stage and done better than him. The most embarrassing was when he sang to what he thought was some kind of effect "Turbulent Indigo-wo-wo-wo"...I really felt embarrassed for him. He literally drove Patrick out of the building! The Four Bags - Wild Things Run Fast, Help Me: So David left, and not a moment too soon. The musicians stayed and they fared much better. I'm thinking these guys are either in college (Julliard?) or freshly out, and they were really very capable players on accordian, clarinet, trombone, guitar. They were tight. They had the eclectic sound of They Might Be Giants, especially when they played "Help Me" as a polka, which the audience including me LOVED! Very playful and fun. OK, time to close this one out...we're not close to done yet. Bob NP: Billy Joel, "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" 5/16/77
