Session
6 - Arrigo Barnabˇ & Le Silo
We're resuming our ProgRock Concert Video
Series this Wednesday night April 20, as usual at 7:30 PM in the
third floor lounge of E14. This edition will be a double
bill - both sets will quite avant-garde, but also very playful. We'll
show a concert by Brazilian composer Arrigo Barnabˇ in the first hour (playing
with what I'd term a comedic jazz/classical/rock orchestra) and will be featuring
the music of the edgy Japanese trio Le Silo in the second hour.
Descriptions below....
South America has produced many interesting
prog rock bands - although the scene there wasn't quite as expansive as it
became in Europe and Japan, Argentina and Brazil have gestated some great
musicians working in this genre over the last four decades or so. Although
there's some variation, Argentinian prog bands tend to play in a grand
symphonic style - e.g., my current favorites are perhaps Musicos Independientes
Asociados (MIA), Bubu, Ave Rock, and Crucis. But the scene in Brazil has
been extremely diverse, yielding many different shades of prog rock and extreme
music. Most of us know about the Os Mutantes, who started in psychedelia
during the early 70s, but put out some strong prog albums before moving on to a
weird kind of tropicalia/pop (some of you may have seen them at the Somerville
Theater last year - I missed the show because I needed to give a talk in Rio at
the time!). A little deeper into the scene, there was O Ter¨o, who went
through a similar evolution and produced some really beautiful music along the
way. I can also vouch for great albums by Terreno Baldio, Bacamarte, and
many others (it's hard for me to remember much as I type hastily waiting to
board at National Airport).
But Arrigo Barnabˇ breaks the mold. A
noted film composer, he put out a couple of albums in the early 80's (Clara
Crocodilo and Tubar›es Voadores) that are simultaneously zany and amazing. His
hyper-quirky music and humorous style are strongly reminiscent of Zappa, and
his gritty, evocative non-vocals remind one of Captain Beefheart. The
closest artist who comes to mind is the French composer Albert Marcoeur (if you
don't know Marcoeur's music, you're missing something special). We'll be
showing his recent "Arrigo Barnabe & Orquestra a Base de Sopro de
Curitiba" DVD - a concert featuring a Arrigo
ranting alongside a 16 piece band with conductor and 3 female vocalists. It's
all in Portuguese and slightly risque (hey, it's Brazil after all), but totally
entertaining with music that's wonderfully over the edge, fantastically filmed,
and expertly performed.
As the Barnabˇ show clocks in at under an hour,
we'll feature another band this Weds as well - namely Japan's Le Silo, an
over-the-top trio led by pianist Miyako Kanazawa (we saw her perform with
Koenjihyakkei in this series last month). Le Silo provide a fantastic display
of musical dexterity and competence while still having a ton of fun - their
music is definitely in the take-no-prisioners style of the Japanese
avant-garde, but these guys really keep you engaged as the compositions and
improvisations twist and turn through abrupt changes that keep a smile on your
face. I saw them a few years ago at a small live house in Kichijoji -
they played along with Mumu, a band led by Masahiro Uemura formerly of P.O.N.
that play in the style of TIpographica - this was probably one of the best
musical evenings I've ever experienced. We'll be viewing excerpts of a privately-pressed DVD they distributed at this show - it's a
bit grainy, but nicely captures the intensity and sheer fun of their
performance.
You can learn more about Barnabe here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrigo_Barnab%C3%A9
and
Le Silo here: http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~tolsilo/contents/lesiloeigo.html
Yes - nothing better to help us recover from a
successful sponsor week than a strong dose of playful (not painful) avant-garde
- so I look forward to sharing some smiles with those of you who can make it on
Wednesday.
===================================================
Joe Paradiso (Spring 2011)