which cities

I was thinking about why it would be that things in NYC are both so difficult now, with so many good clubs closing or on the brink, and things so apparently bright and fruitful among creative musicians.

I was reminded of a revelation I had a number of years ago. Warning: it's a pretty pathetic, obvious revelation. I was in the back seat with my parents somewhere in Connecticut or New Jersey, and we drove by some projects. I thought, this is the last frontier of the civil rights movement: housing. Having just watched my friend Sara Booth's documentary about Newark "Urban Renewal is People Removal" I am even more convinced. Unfortunately, it seems like in NYC, real estate is the last frontier of all these kinds of "more meaningful" battles. I went to Tonic a bunch of times, for amazing shows it seems like it would be hard to replicate anywhere else. I also went, long ago, to the Wetlands, for their cheap ska and hardcore shows, to Tramps, for 3 + hour (I couldn't take anymore) Ween and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion sets. There was such energy to the audience, it wasn't like the interest was lacking in any respect. But how could we, mere fans, mere musicians, do anything when it comes to facing the machine that is NYC real estate. It was slightly more convenient than, say, Pianos, that Tonic was just off Delancey. It had a big space. It was inevitable that some developer, getting fat off the Lower East Side's gentrification, would be hungry for it.

I write this because at first I disagreed with Judd. I think there is a very similar problem in a lot of cities. It's hard to be a musician and do what you want creatively. The world is messed up and wrong that way. In Tel Aviv, there's one free jazz collective that reminded me of the great stuff I saw in Boston while in school, and it's unpaid and disorganized. That being said, I was much more aware and involved in the cultural life of Boston and Rochester than I am in Tel Aviv. Those are my 3 non-NYC examples, from first-hand experience. At NEC there was a panel discussion with 3 Jazz and Contemporary Improv faculty members, about the music business. I don't remember so many specific questions, but I do remember feeling frustrated that it seemed like everyone was preparing to fight for gigs at the same few clubs. So when I say it's about getting out of the cities, I was thinking sort of about that. About getting out of the same places. But we have to make it pay, obviously. That's the hard part everywhere. Judd and I see NYC from a similar perspective, having grown up here and coming back. And on top of that, like 99% of the folks I went to school with in Boston and Rochester have moved to New York, which makes things very nice and convenient for me when I come home to visit. But it means, again, we're all competing for the same gigs in a city that, as Judd pointed out, isn't interested enough in feeding (literally, not figuratively) its artists. Now that chamber music foundations are funding classical music in bars around town, jazz vs. classical gigs become less of an issue.

I don't know where to take this to make it change. We need radio stations like in Germany, where each one has its own resident ensembles. We need unorthodox philanthropists like the lady who left millions to Poetry magazine. We need to make friends with Larry Silverstein. Ok, I'm not going that far! I was going to mention the good old days when Bernstein and folks were put on the cover of Life magazine, but there's not even Life anymore, let alone (sigh) Bernstein. I guess the point is I have to stop being nostalgic. For my college years, for the 50's, which I never actually experienced... Right now I think the solution is to make a big hit teenage romantic comedy with Hilary Duff and, um, some guy (I don't know the names of any teenage superstars) playing a cellist (everybody loves hot girl cellists) and, say, a clarinetist who meet at an international youth orchestra, and fall in love after lots of snafus and misunderstandings. The movie fades with them playing Brahms together, accompanied by the sarcastic, gay, Asian pianist friend. That will get everybody back in.

Rostropovich

I was just reading my friend Judd's blog, and his writing about the sad closing of Tonic got me thinking. It clearly got him thinking too!
(quick little time-out here- this is what I was talking about in the last post about what's going to be so nice when I get home: to talk to Judd about this in person instead of this weird blogversation...)
I'll quote the big questions Judd got to:

The news of Tonic's closing really has me down these days. I've also heard rumors that the Knitting Factory and Galapagos are facing similarly dire straits. Where are we supposed to play?... The free-market approach is simply going to drive out of the city the people who make it an interesting and exciting place to live. Or will it? Certainly, people like me will have to leave, but will the people who are moving here actually care? I see artists as the Dark Matter that keeps the city going - not financially, but spiritually... Will the 20-somethings who move to New York actually stay here to raise a family? I don't know that they plan to. Will they want an active cultural life? For those who stay, I would think that they would. Does the city want to cultivate that type of long-term relationship with those people? I am certain that it does, but right now, the powers-that-be are relying on the big-ticket venues and establishments to provide that cultural backbone, and I don't think that it's working.

really good points. Christopher and I are moving back because we don't want to raise our family in Israel, for various reasons, and whether that goal will be fulfilled in the city or in the Catskills, or by a Maine beach, only time will tell. It's both the best and worst university town anywhere, but as a destination for grown-up-hood, it is scary. Every day I'm looking for new music education postings online. It doesn't feel safe to move somewhere expecting freelancing to feed you. But I do believe there's so many good initiatives happening. Creative endeavors at least, if not solutions, to the problems Judd writes about, and sees much more clearly than lil ol idealistic me can from way out here. And, then again, maybe it is time for all of us to get over the big cities as the centers of our universe. Maybe if public transportation improves, we can start getting out for cultural events like it's a more normal thing, the way my friend Amalia wanted to take me on a traintrip to Leipzig from her homebase of Berlin, to hear some amazing boys' choir. Still kicking myself for not making that happen. My teacher Joe Morris set up a recording studio in his living room. He lives in rural Connecticut. I could see a whole cool scene springing up around his place, if only we could get out of our NYC-Boston fixation. Actually, I don't know many people with Boston fixations these days! Except Mark Wahlberg. We just watched the Basketball Diaries. How does he always get cast as a New Yorker? Are those people deaf? We love him anyway. Or, because.


Big jump. Two nights before I heard the news of Rostropovich's passing, I had a dream about him. I was in his house with Christopher and two of his best friends, Sid (whom I've never met) and Banjo. We were scoping out the place and his routine for our friend Sol, who was going to make a documentary about Slava. The rooms were all huge, and orange and pink, with fireplaces in each one, reminding me of hearts. Slava would teach all day and late into the night, slumped over in a chair by the fire. I don't know, it's not that exciting a dream. I've just been thinking about that, the weird timing of it. He was such a hero. I played under him twice. Once, at Schleswig Holstein, he was a revelation, an inspiration, and absolutely drop-dead hilarious. He would stay up till almost morning playing cards with the Russian-speakers in the orchestra. He conducted us in Shostakovich 5th Symphony and 2nd cello concerto, and then he played the Dvorak concerto, I think the only piece he kept up till the end, or almost the end. Some idiots in the orchestra made comments about his wobbly playing, which made me furious. We were so incredibly lucky to be in the same room with him, let alone actually putting horsehair to string at the same moment!! And there's something about those old folks who keep playing... I remember my teacher Kathy Murdock coaching us on Bartok, encouraging us to try to get "old-man vibrato" as she called it, a vibrato of the bow. It's so human, like the breaking corner of a voice.

I'm tired of writing so I won't get to the second time I played under Rostropovich's baton. Suffice it to say, it was much less positive. It was, unfortunately, like a different person. I live with that first experience as the real one, also because he actually played.
One line I remember him telling us: "Shostakovich was my master in everything- except! for drinking vodka."
In this little reminiscence in the New Yorker, his capital S Soul is alluded to perfectly.

Speaking of missing cellists. I recently inherited a huge collection of sheet music from a cellist, Alida Winokur, mother to one of my Dad's best friends from high school. I hope to play as much of it as possible, and to dedicate concerts to her. I could never imagine a more fortunate windfall, and I am so, so grateful to her.