culture

Third Thursday Jazz

~ Kate Friederichs ~ Leave a comment

Fifteen years ago, Sunday nights were synonymous with jazz. A group of us often descended the concrete steps, moving in time to the thump of the bass, the music that beckoned us underground to a swaying world of smoke and rhythm and sweat. It was an overdose of sensation: sound, smell, motion, taste. Glorious and fleeting, I can still hear the crooning voices, still see the plucking strings, the amalgamation of colors on skin. It was authentically unadorned jazz: Black Dog. The only consolation when it closed was that I wouldn’t get lung cancer from second hand smoke inhalation after all.

For my husband’s birthday this year, we went to Scat Jazz Lounge, now the only jazz club in Fort Worth. It was our second time to give it a try. Dark and underground, nothing else would resemble the Black Dog days. The environment felt sterile in comparison. A high cover charge combined with a touristy environment keeps it trendy and homogeneously white. No smoke, no swaying, no blaring trumpet or cheap drinks, no black people and sadly, no jazz. Instead, quiet bands play elevator music in the background, taking record long breaks between sets, while cell phone screens light the place as people take selfies with their fancy drinks. As we left, I thought to myself, there is no more jazz in Fort Worth.

Two weeks later, and to celebrate my own birthday, a friend invited me to try the Third Thursday Jazz series put on by the Fort Worth Public Library with her. The idea of jazz inside a library was a bit confusing to me, but we went, not knowing what to expect, but certainly telling ourselves it wouldn’t be much, and quite possibly, it would just be us and a smattering of others at best. But as we made our way through the foyer, we were met with a crowd surrounding the opening to the room. We were informed it was standing room only. Four hundred seats were already taken, and every open space against the walls were occupied. And there, with the sun pouring in from the glass domed ceiling, people fanning themselves in the stuffy heat of summer evening, the sounds of jazz permeated, filling up every empty space. The women swayed, snapping their fingers to the beat, the men shifting side to side in rhythm, feet tapping, couples dancing, heads nodding, voices joining in affirmation. A kaleidoscopic depiction of our city- old, young, poor, affluent, with every color on the spectrum present. These people were here for the music; my heart was singing!

Black Dog was a glorious anomaly. But this is beautiful in its own way, and it beats the hell out of Scat Jazz Lounge. It is lacking in ambiance: folding chairs, bright light, kids playing, no Long Island Iced Tea in your hand…but in between the monologues, it is real jazz. Free jazz. So if you are homesick for propulsive rhythm and improvisational melody, or just want to experience a multicultural event in a highly segregated city, come join on August 16th or September 20th: 6:30 at the Central Library. I hope to be at both.

[In trying to find some archives of Black Dog, I came across this blog post. For those of you who used to attend, it will make you smile.]

Ron Mueck at the Modern

~ Kate Friederichs ~ 3 Comments

Years ago, while going through the permanent collection at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, I came across a miniature of an elderly woman. Her hands were clasped, her back hunched as she sat, weariness marking the lines around her eyes which were tinted a dark pink at the edges. She took my breath away. Had she been rationally sized, I would have mistaken her for a real woman, so lifelike was everything about her, from the complexion of her skin, to the wrinkles, the grey hair, the expression of her face. I loved her, and had I been able to place my hand over hers, I would have done so, and whispered hope into her ear, for despondency was chiseled in all her features.

BN-XT456_MUECK0_1000V_20180306173549Untitled (Seated Woman), 1999

On February 16, the Modern opened its second exhibit by the fantastic Ron Mueck, whose sculptures are realistic in every way except in scale. Born in Australia, but residing in London, Mueck’s career began as a puppeteer for children’s television shows, such as Sesame Street. By the mid 90’s he was transitioning to fine art. He is incredible, not only for his realistic detail, but for his ability to convey emotion and thought in subtle ways. Take, for instance, this larger-than-life couple at the beach:

Ron-Mueck-Fondation-Cartier-photo-Thomas-Salva-yatzer-12Couple Under An Umbrella, 2013

So much is expressed by the way he held her arm- in an affectionate, familiar, and leisurely way- as if after all the years, it was his nature to reach for her, rest on her. And yet, this resting he does on her points to another of the subtleties of this exhibit, which includes six sculptures completed over the last ten years. Five of the six consist of human subjects: two male, two female, and this couple. I couldn’t help but notice the antithetical activities between the sexes: work/leisure; struggle/enjoyment.

Notice the disparity between these two figures:

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Woman with Shopping, 2013

ron-mueck_fondation-cartier_traffic-magazine_10
Drift, 2009

One feels the weight she carries between bags and baby, while he floats, buoyant on the water. Her hands are full while his, adorned and empty, rest at his side. Even the weather surrounding them seems a signal to the radical differences in their environments. She is dressed against the cold, bundled and pale. He is slick and tan and enjoys a cloudless sun.

The next figures also pair together in my mind, possibly because they are both nude and holding sticks:

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main_1200Woman with Sticks, 2009

Ron Mueck 07Poke, 2017

While she is carrying a load, burdened by the back-breaking work, he holds a singular pole, fashioned himself, for an unknown purpose. However, looking at the title, one can assume it is for a laugh, for pure enjoyment.

All of this is speculation; Mueck is silent, allowing his art to speak for him. After seeing the marvelous woman bent backwards, I wanted to know the title. What more could Mueck tell me about this woman? Why did he make her? What is he trying to say through her? I found the placard and it simply stated the obvious: Woman with Sticks. The next figure was the same: Woman with Shopping. He says nothing more, but the women themselves disclose enough. After viewing the man in the pool, I expected to find the title similar, perhaps “Man with Float.” Instead, Mueck wrote something entirely different- Drift– and leaves the interpretation up to us. He does the same with the other man. Rather than “Man with Pole,” we see the title Poke.

In addition to the six statues, (of which four are miniature and two on a grand scale) there is a video of Ron Mueck at work. Like his figures, it is silent for the most part, and yet it proclaims persistent toil as he gives all of himself over to these masterpieces, most of which take over a year to complete. He is fully concentrated, deep in thought, in a world all his own as he forms these characters he knows in the profound way only a creator does. I left in awe, grateful for Mueck’s ten years of dedication to his craft, invigorated by the myriad of ways to communicate and the intrinsic value of art for its ability to touch the soul of a person and make them better for it.

This exhibit is on display until May 6, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. See it before it’s gone. P.S. Sundays are free, so bring the whole family! (Note: exhibit does contain nudity. Use your best judgment.)

The Civic Society

~ Kate Friederichs ~ 1 Comment

I have been introduced to James Baldwin this year and I find him to be such a compelling voice, both in his time, and surprisingly, now: both within me and within the culture I live in; a culture seeming to carry around remnants of past sins as it plunges into a future of unprecedented darkness. This is not what I mean to write about, but I think part of me needed to say those words, make them concrete, see them in black against a white screen. Now I have, and a space that was occupied with tension inside me is eased slightly and I can move on to what I mean to write about. Baldwin writes:

Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent- which attitude certainly has a great deal to support it. On the other hand, it is only because the world looks on his talent with such a frightening indifference that the artist is compelled to make his talent important.

As I have begun writing this past year (I think I will always say that I have just begun it) I have noticed some interesting and perplexing effects. The one I anticipated was isolation. To read and to write are occupations of retreat, though I suppose it depends on what type of writing and reading it is. But for the most part, the reader retreats into the mind of the writer, either to the writer’s thoughts or to a world within the writer’s mind. The writer does the same. In writing, he retreats into his own mind. Even if the writing is nonfiction, even autobiographical, the writer leaves the world of reality to enter only his own reality. At this point, two lives are being led: the extrinsic and the intrinsic. Moving between one and the other is one of the hardest things for me to do; maintain a life of balance. John Steinbeck wrote his friend and editor, Pascal Covici, about this very thing as he was writing one of my favorite books, East of Eden:

When I work on a book to this extent and with this concentration, it means that I am living another life. As it goes along, increasingly I give to the second life more than to the first. Then I must be very hard to live with in real life, not because I am mean but because I am vague. Things ordinarily done are forgotten. My expression must be one of fogged stupidity- my responses slow.

I believe this is why I stopped writing when I had children and why I was so resistant to taking up the pen again some years later, which I wrote about in an earlier post. Soon after I started writing, I noticed how my body interacted with the real world around me- doing dishes, giving a bath, having dinner with my family- while my mind was still in retreat. All of a sudden, having everyday conversations when I picked my daughter up from school became a difficulty. In fact, engaging with others in general became something that required intentionality and anomalous effort.

What I wanted to do was blend the two lives; bring my inner life out into the open. I quickly found that the outside world was not in a place to receive my second life. When asked the question, “What’s new with you?” I would answer with opening the door to the inner life of my mind, by talking about what I was reading or what I was trying to write. This was mostly met with a concentrated brow of confusion or encouraging nods as the other person pretended to actively listen as they occupied themselves with other things. Either way, the conversation was ended, usually awkwardly. I cast no blame in this- they just didn’t know how to respond. After a while, I closed the door, answered “Nothing really,” and the gulf that separates those two worlds grew larger.

For a whole year I continued in this, relying heavily on one or two friends to bridge that gap. The evidence of my life has proven to me time and again that despite being introverted, I require community. I have an innate hunger to interact with others. The connection between author and reader via text is a treasure to me, but it is surpassed by the interaction between author, reader, and other readers. The discourse that follows from that group collectively takes the text further than any one of the individuals can carry it. This is why book clubs abound. We are a people hard-wired for community. Our joy in reading something reaches its height when we praise it to the point that someone else reads it and returns to us praising it as well. Pleasure leads to worship which culminates in corporate worship. (Look to sports fans and one will see this clearly.)

The world seems to be growing more and more “frighteningly indifferent” to the arts, but I am young and have a history of only thirty-four years. In my naivety I can assume rarity in our culture that is no stranger to the past. The pendulum always swings. But as Balwin notes, the very indifference of the many raise the passion of the few. I began my search for “the few” and have found some of them. I am a member of the Fort Worth Women’s Chapter of the The Civic Society and have joined a writers group with Art House Dallas. In my time with these two groups, I have been gifted with encouragement and fellowship. At these meetings I am galvanized by the ideas of others and valued for the work I do. The door between my two lives is left open and the people, and I, walk back and forth.

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The next Civic Society meeting is Saturday, February 17, and we will be discussing George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language.” If you are interested in joining me there, send me a message.