Delivering American University's news and views since 1925 | Saturday, December 2, 2023
Many moons ago, piano legend Thelonius Monk made his reputation by changing the way pianists viewed Western Civilization. His compositions stand as staggering contradictions- classic standards that can never truly be duplicated, layered with rich dynamics that seem motionless.
The strangest part of discovering Ted Leo is realizing that he never cried out to be found. Nothing about his music or work ethic has really ever suggested anything overly self-promotional. He just puts his nose to the grindstone and doesn't worry about image.
The shroud of an Ennio Morricone spaghetti western score as a prelude should have been the first hint that Tuesday night would be a different sort of Flogging Molly concert. The Irish folk/rock sextet were launching into the first of a two-night stand at the 9:30 club, reestablishing their work ethic outside of tours geared toward album promotion.
It was Leslie Feist's third stop to D.C. in the last four months. After playing with Broken Social Scene at the 9:30 club, she was an opening act for Bright Eyes at Constitution Hall and finally sold out the Black Cat as a headliner Wednesday night. But even those who've had her solo debut "Let it Die" on repeat have only been barely introduced to Feist.
Every month, it stands out as a bold curiosity on the Black Cat's schedule: "Mothertongue: Women's Spoken Word $5 Backstage." The inevitability of it showing up each second Wednesday has been an unshakeable truth for the past seven years. Mothertongue, in adherence to its mission statement, commits itself to nurturing an empowering atmosphere where women "use their voices, art, talents and skills to build a just and inclusive community.
There is something cosmically unfair and maybe a little un-American about Halloween falling on a Monday this year. The burden, henceforth, falls on the activities of the weekend before to provide a degree of mischievous fun and a sense of the fantastic. Looking at the lineup of the first Vegoose musical festival in Las Vegas, there's a fair amount of dress-up on the lineup to make for the scheduling flap.
They blew kisses and thanked D.C., but the crowd wasn't done with Q and Not U for the night, even if they were moments away from permanently dissolving as a group. Coaxing them towards a first encore was simple, with the applause not faltering or even tripping on itself for one second.
The Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz's 18th annual international competition was an invitation to jazz guitarists all over the world, an opportunity to prove their skills on a stage that has evolved into a generational testing ground for the likes of Joshua Redmond, Jane Monheit and Tierney Sutton, among many others.
A funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century. In the midst of America's love affair with prepackaged music, from Lou Bega's boppy "Mambo No. 5" to the Backstreet Boys' opus "I Want it That Way," there was a primal scream let out by one of the last original club kids.
Somehow we all blinked sometime around the year 2000, and Austin, Texas made its first steps toward ruling the world by the time the half millisecond was over. Anyone in the know was telling you about all the awesome things happening down in the creative heart of the Lone Star state.
