An alternative to Smiths

AvantGarden in Houston reminds me of our much beloved Smiths Alternative in Canberra.  It's in an old building (for Houston, perhaps ~1910?) and it hosts weddings and events in several spaces and has a program of burlesque and poetry and hip hop and open mics and a weekly jazz jam.  The jam is not early (9.30pm-2am) and the bar was noisy even before the jam and leading in was the guitarist on a DJ deck and the host band started at 10pm.  It wasn't exactly what I expected but interesting.  Dancing and loud chatter from the people in the room before.  Videos happening.  A crew of jazzers arriving in the early hour and perhaps later.  The band was the Houston Ensemble / Cory Wilson Quartet and they seem to host each week.  I didn't get names but I assume Cory Wilson is the tenorist.  But this was very electric, very loud.  Jazz-fusion-cum-blues to my ears.  Noisy and in your face, apt after the guitarist on his DJ deck. A screaming guitar, strat, pentatonics and blues-rock feels.  Polyrhythm solos from drums and a clashy broken cymbal.  Flashy 6-string bassist playing unison heads with sax and nifty solos.  Fingerstyle.  I'm thinking, not likely too many sit-ins will be up to the 6-stringer; maybe 4-stringers bring their own.  Tenor sax, effective and often understated or maybe better to say sparse as in considered, modern not bop.  I noticed a trom offstage who was merging and a flautist had put his instrument together in anticipation and their were plenty of faces that looked keen.  I thought I caught tunes by Ornette (When will the blues leave?) and Herbie and perhaps a very disguised standard but not too sure.  I chatted with a drummer next to me who was there for his first outing.  All in this avant, boho space with a noisy audience and a stream of sit-ins who were quiet and obviously anticipating.  We were limited in time so didn't see the jammers really get going and it would perhaps have been an uncomfortable challenge anyway, not having played 6-string or even e-bass for yonks.  But then it was probably a reversion to standards and blues for the jam, anyway.  Suffice to say vibrant.

MFAH cont.

We revisited the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and that might look like a failure of adventurousness or even imagination but we've otherwise been busy on various things that aren't reported here, like several Tex-Mex and a classy Japanese and even a Michelin star Indian restaurant and dive bars and the like.  This MFA return was for some dear styles that we had missed, especially a temporary exhibition of life in Trajan Rome (stunning) and the more of the Haute Couture from the Louvre (stunning if often unwearable) and Mediaeval and Renaissance Euro art (unfashionable but I love this stuff), the statue garden and even contemporaries like James Turrell.  As an aside, I get annoyed by works entitled "Untitled" as the artist should know best what a work is about, but I was amused by one entitled "Untitled (Broccoli) / Harry Betoia" which was exactly what it was.  My faves were some lovely works in the style of Cranach, the famed Portrait of an old woman by Hans Memling, a heart rending Botticelli lady and a lesser but large Botticelli nativity roundel, a glowing blue-white Andrea della Robbia and a few French bronze nudes in the garden.  Plenty of others of interest, too, of course.  Not a collection like the Met or Louvre or Uffizi but still a pleasure and given a second visit, we are satisfied.

The Museum of Fine Arts is in Houston.

Musical families

We're back in Houston and again off to Red Cat Jazz cafe for another gig.  This time a male singer, Spud Howard, fronting the house band.  But it led me to query definitions: Soul, R&B, neoSoul and related jazz and funk.  I know jazz well enough but the others merge into a mush of similarity in my thoughts, being similar and related.  My readings suggest a matter of historical development, relationships and influences (including from jazz), varied instrumentation and lyrical styles all grouped under the broad umbrella of R&B (from an AI overview but clearly taken from Wikipedia and probably some other sources).  Listening to a string of tracks from Spotify playlists just confirmed the similarities and justified the confusion.  Whatever, this night was the male voice of Spud Howard in place of Jenni P and her female voice.  I expected a difference and there was plenty despite the same back-line band.  Perhaps I'd judge Jenni as neoSoul and Spud as Soul or perhaps R&B, for what it matters.  There was energy of drive and funk here, and immense expression, with or without accompaniment.  Arms adrift and feet moving across stage.  Occasionally songs that I knew and plenty more known by the audience who sang along.  Busy, bent notes, screams, dense improv and touches of spoken words, dirt and emotions raw and evident.  Immensity and intensity that expresses but also invites, so many of the audience, as usual virtually all women, were up and dancing along, then perhaps a slow, staccato reverb on a pensive ballad then the snap and excitement resumes.  This was a show of obvious energy and rabid invitation.  Again pretty much a medley for an hour or so.  Just a stunner.  A second week at Red Cat and a second week of stunning R&B-somewhere music.  I smiled widely, whooped frequently and loved them both and I was not alone.

Spud Howard (vocals) performed at Red Cat Jazz Club, Houston TX, with the host band comprising Pierre Grijaliva (bass), Ronald Dorsey (drums) and Jorvan Butler (keys).

Entering the final frontier

Houston was the first word transmitted from the surface of the Moon: “Houston, the Eagle has landed” and we went to the Space Center Houston and the NASA displays there.  It’s a madly popular tourist site, of course.  The Mission Control Centre tour has you seated in the very chairs that family and dignitaries would have sat in for these early significant space events.  In fact, we were asked to be reasonably quiet as another control centre (presumably much, much more modern) was functioning on the floor below.  It's a strange combination of old and new.  These are not new buildings and the lift wasn’t functioning so we’d climbed stairs to the old MCC.  It’s as I remembered, having watched the Apollo 11 landing one schoolday afternoon (showing my age!).  All old CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) screens and the like.  Otherwise a fairly obvious display area (maybe I know too much of this topic?) but a fabulous unused Saturn 5 lying in state on its side in its massiveness and a Gemini capsule on a stubby test rocket and a Mercury Capsule on Redstone, a diminutive vehicle for those first suborbital flights and, they suggested, essentially a V2.  Thanks Werner von Braun!  Otherwise a visit to a space shuttle mounted on a 747.  I had seen one of these, perhaps this one, on tour of Europe, flying over Rome, before the first Shuttle launch.  So many memories and much that I knew but had not experienced so intimately.  Other than standing under a Saturn 5 engine cone once in a science museum or that Gemini capsule in David Jones Adelaide on tour of the world, sometime back then.

NASA Space Center Houston, Apollo's Mission Control Center and a museum display of Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Saturn 5 and more is in Houston.

Artz

Always a gallery. I’ll include two here.  First up was Gallery of Illusions: a small private space that amuses and somewhat educates, settled in a large shopping centre with its notable international clothing names and the like.  I was not so much surprised by names like Tiffany reappearing or Ralph Lauren and the rest, but some decidedly more plebian chains that must be international did surprise me.  Whatever, this gallery amused with various illusions that we’ve seen in film and more.  Otherwise, it was the big public Houston MFA (Museum of Fine Arts).  We were limited in time so moved quickly and missed some parts, but impressive as expected.  I was mightily impressed that names of the likes of Picasso were not behind glass so you could view details and experience great intimacy.  Amongst the moderns, I only noticed a few very minor Jackson Pollocks behind glass and they were certainly not Blue Poles equivalents.  Strange that.  Reminds me of Mona Lisa when I first saw it, on a wall, with perhaps six viewers from a few feet away.  Those were the days.  Otherwise a lovely overview of various cultures.  One item reminded us of the Louvre sadnesses: a gold helmet weighing ~80oz that we guessed would be worth ~$A500K.  There were several temporary exhibits including French fashions from the Louvre and Roman/Greek antiquities.  I particularly enjoyed the historical photography exhibit.  Maybe I shouldn’t have been too surprised but we ran into a baroque concert in progress by the local Mercury Chamber Orchestra.  It seems a big organisation although this concert was just a baroque quintet with a countertenor singing for Christmas.  Particularly interesting was a program insert called the Houston Music Card composed by DaCamera which listed 32 concerts (“Chamber music and more”) over the period Dec25-Jan26.  Houston does seem well provided with classical gigs.

The Museum of Illusions and the Museum of Fine Arts are in Houston, TX.  The Houston Music Card is compiled by Dacamera Houston and is accessible online. 

DaCamera Houston Music card