By B. Noel Barr, Music Writer Dude
For the last few weeks, we have been out cruising the highways and byways of the Southland for some sweet tunage. Our travels took us into Hollywood and West Los Angeles to the hallowed grounds of rock, blues and some good ole Americana stylings.
By Melina Paris, Music Columnist
A few hours spent at the Classical Underground concert on a recent Monday evening was an experience in live art for all the senses and the soul. To experience it, I advise getting on their email list.
Many people had already arrived a half hour before the show was to begin. A potluck buffet full of mostly homemade fare greeted attendees at the entrance. Many bottles of wine, at least 30, sat at the end of the table waiting to be emptied. The invitation requested that attendees bring enough good food, the kind that you would want to eat, and booze for everyone. They did just that. The scene was a genuine expression of gratitude by a community that has been cultivated through these monthly concerts. The invites are extended to a certain amount of people via email to these exclusive performances.
Classical Underground performances take place in a warehouse that is also the studio of Alexey Steele, the artist who puts on these events with his partner Olga Vlasova. His many works of art cover the warmly hued steel blue and deep red walls in this great room. Paintings are propped on the floor and perched on furniture.
The cavernous studio space quickly filled with people. The crowd–eagerly awaiting the concert to begin–anticipated a musical treat. Attendees knew they would be gratified. The dynamic internationally recognized composer Juan Jose Colomer was in attendance as violinist Ambroise Aubrun and pianist Anna Sarkisovapro prepared to perform Colomer’s composition, “Downtown Bagatelle,”
Alexey is a social magnet with an easy manner. Barely three steps out, people swarmed Alexey with questions and casual conversation. Olga had to draw his attention to the fact that Colomer had arrived.
Colomer, born in Valencia, Spain, has lived in the states for 20 years. He has been a student of classical music since the age of 8 when he learned the trumpet. He progressed from playing instruments to writing suites and always played in orchestras. A tragedy is what redirected him to music composition. A car accident left him in a wheelchair, robbed of the ability to play the trumpet.
“I’ve been lucky enough to keep busy and am getting busier,” Colomer said.
Colomer met the cultural power couple during a series of concerts he staged at his downtown Los Angeles loft some years ago. Alexey and Olga heard about the concerts on the grapevine and attended. They soon learned they had three friends in common.
Colomer got a Latin Grammy for best classical album in 2008 for the CD Passion Espanola with Placido Domingo. Colomer describes his latest compositional work, “Downtown Bagatelle” as an unpretentious piece of work. He said that bagatelle means “something of little value or importance– a trifle.”
“Downtown Bagatelle” has a tranquil start before quietly expanding with moving nuances. The lower piano chords in the middle of the piece played so softly surprisingly offer a different experience for the senses. I was able to take in the quiet vibration rather than the dramatic sound that these chords can sometimes convey. The intensity slowly builds and then as the music softens again I was left to feel an elevated sense of peace and serenity by the close of the number.
Culturally speaking, Alexey says on his website that today’s Los Angeles is reminiscent of Paris 100 years ago in that there was much artistic churning under the radar of the mainstream gaze.
“I think Los Angeles is ‘the Paris of the 21st Century’, and that the brooding under the radar of mainstream dramatic artistic changes in the creative combustive City of Angels closely repeats what was happening exactly 100 years ago in the City of Lights.”
“The messiness of making music is in LA right now, not in New York anymore, musicians compose in a different way here. We are defining new things, new ways… how do we function in the new times?”
On this night, he made a similar parallels between Spain and Los Angeles when he invited Colomer to the stage, underscoring Los Angeles’ importance as a hotbed of globally significant art.
The next number, Igor Stravinsky’s “Trois mouvements de Petrouchka” a piano arrangement renowned for its technical and musical difficulties, was performed by Anton Smirnov.
With its wild and rapid jumps that span over two octaves, its complex polyrhythms, extremely fast scales, multiple glissandos and tremolos. It’s no wonder that the piece achieved the notoriety that it did. Glissandos , an act of sliding a finger up or down a keyboard from one note to another and tremolos,the rapid repetition of a tone or the rapid alternation between two tones in singing or playing a musical instrument to produce a quavering effect are incorporated with superlative effect here.
Smirnov’s performance of the music was nothing less than amazing. This is the majesty of music. Stravinsky’s “Petrouchka” is musically the equivalent of the meaning of our final human reincarnation – perfection.
After intermission, Steele shared that they were fortunate enough to acquire a Steinway piano for the evening. When the piano was put in place, Steele explained that he just soaked in the sight of this instrument and said to himself, “Damn, this is something humans do right! This is what art gives us.”
Pianist Anna Sarkisova, performed Isaac Albeniz’s “Evocation” accompanied by a cello. It’s an elegant piece that slowly insinuates itself into your mind. It’s a little melancholy and lets your thoughts be taken away. Contentedly I was doing absolutely nothing but listening.
The next two pieces were for cello and they were described as invasive and intrusive by a guest speaker. He went on to say about the pieces that this is not Alexey Steele, this is Dr. Spock; intellectual and complicated. Apparently at the first rehearsal he says he could not even tell if the musicians were playing the right notes. He further described the pieces as objects in space and cosmic time.
Right he was. Both pieces were very cerebral. They expanded in my mind’s eye new patterns of sound. Through the cello, I simultaneously experienced an emotional connection to this earthly plane while my imagination traveled the cosmos.
It was getting late and I had to go home but for Classical Underground the night was still young. The last number that I saw was for the clarinet and guitar. It was Spanish music that sounded like the beautiful melodies of Gypsies; sweet and joyous integrating a Mediterranean sound. The moods this number conveyed went from serene to celebratory. I was transported back in time to a Sultan’s castle dancing with impunity amongst belly dancers, incense and hookah pipes. My spirit wanted nothing more than to move with the music.
I am hooked on Classical Underground. I have always appreciated classical music but I have now encountered the depth, complexities, joy and immensity of it. In Classical Undergrounds words, “In Art We Trust!”
By Andrea Serna, Contributing Arts Writer
Have you ever counted the rings on a giant redwood to estimate its age? Woodworker Harold Greene is intimately familiar with the slow pace of time that it takes to create his show stopping hardwood creations.
On a recent visit to his studio, Greene was found working on a massive wavy grained top for a coffee table. The table top occupies the middle of his amazingly efficient small San Pedro studio. The process of obtaining material to fill each inch of his workspace is an art of its own. The artist revealed he occasionally obtains wood cut by the Los Angeles City Tree Department. However, the removal must be done on the same day the tree is cut, and to keep it interesting, the only notice for the public is posted on each random tree marked for clearing.
By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
The Happy Diner isn’t your average diner. Unlike Burger King, when they say, “have it your way,” they really mean it. And if enough people like a particular dish, “your way,” then that dish will be named after you. That’s why there’s a chicken and vegetable soup named for Congresswoman Janice Hahn when she’s home from Washington D.C. That is also why there’s Port Police Burger which is a double paddy, fresh jalapeño burger with a habeñero pepper sauce infused mayonnaise.
“Everything is made with a sense of making it right and serving it with love and passion in what you do. That is probably the difference between Happy Diner and the average diner., Roman Carrillo, proprietor of Happy Diner said.”
If you pay attention to their special me menu on their blackboards (yeah plural, they have about three through the length of the diner), it’s almost a certainty you’re going to find something new from week to week. On the week of Feb. 19, they rolled out their Pastrami burger that came on a medium sized hamburger patty with grilled onions and thousand island dressing.
By Peter Mathews, Co-founder of Rescue Education California
California’s oil, the Black Gold that belongs to all of us, is a limited natural resource that will run out eventually. A small portion of it, in the form of a 15 percent oil severance tax, must be used to rebuild our education and economy, and make California the Golden State once again.
California is the only major oil producing state with no oil severance tax! Other major oil producers, Alaska and Louisiana, have taxes of 25 percent and 12.5 percent, respectively. It is past time that we impose a 15 percent severance tax on crude oil that is extracted from California. This will generate approximately $3 billion annually to be invested in California public education and job creation. Louisiana’s oil severance tax helps fund its schools. Texas generates about $2 billion annually for its universities from its oil severance tax. Public university tuition in Texas is significantly lower than tuition at California public universities.
Sacrificing Democracy for the Bottom Line
James Preston Allen, Publisher
Pundits on the right and left chant balance budget like some religious mantra. In the recent Los Angeles primary elections, Republican candidate Kevin James accused the three leading mayoral Democrats of leading the city to bankruptcy because of a $200 million deficit. And the current mayor and city council have responded to the doomsday forecasts of Chief Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, by asking voters to approve a regressive half-cent sales tax. This, from the man who couldn’t even provide an answer when asked point-blank how much property the City of Los Angeles owned, or how much revenue the land generated!
By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
Graphic Design by Mathew Highland
On March 7, 1965, a young John Lewis, head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, co-lead 600 people in a voting rights march intended to go from Selma, Alabama to the state capitol in Montgomery. They only got as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge where they were brutally beaten by a mob of state troopers, county sheriffs and deputies, in what came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.”
Living Treasures Dinner
Honor and hear the stories of some of the oldest folks in town. A special dance presentation and concert will follow. Presented by San Pedro Historic Waterfront PBID. Friday, March 1, 2013, 6:00 pm, includes dinner. Tickets $50 each available online at livingtreasures.brownpapertickets.com or at the Chamber office – 390 W. 7th St.
Details: sanpedro125@gmail.com
Venue: Crowne Plaza LA Harbor Hotel
Location: 601 S. Palos Verdes St. San Pedro
E-Waste Drive and Shred Fest
With the rise in identity theft, the Shred Fest is a good opportunity to safely dispose of old personal records and documents., Shredding documents will be taken from 9 am to 12 noon, and e-waste will be collected from 9 am until 2 pm Documents will be destroyed on site.The first five boxes per vehicle are free, and it is only $5 for each additional box.In addition, residents can properly dispose of electronic waste, such as old computers and other electronics, for proper disposal. Proceeds from the donated items will benefit the Expo Arts Center Fund, to support its maintenance and operations.No batteries, fluorescent tubes or household hazardous waste will be accepted.
Details: (562) 570-6685,district8@longbeach.gov.
Venue:Scherer Park, corner of Atlantic and Del Amo
Location:4600 Long Beach Blvd Long Beach, CA 90807
Rosa Parks, the seamstress whose refusal to give up her seat on the bus sparked the civil rights movement, was enshrined in the US Capitol building today.
The nine foot tall statue depicts the civil rights icon in her most famous posture, sitting. San Pedro sculpture Eugene L. Daub, who along with partner Rob Firmin, created the statue said “Parks raised sitting to a new level, it’s not just sitting, it’s heroic sitting, sitting that changed history.”
President Barack Obama spoke at the unveiling “This morning, we celebrate a seamstress slight in stature but mighty in courage,” the president said. “In a single moment, with the simplest of gestures, she helped change America and change the world.”
Rosa Parks is the first African American woman to be honored with a statue in the Capitol. The Statuary Hall collection includes 100 statues in five locations in the Capitol. Among the others in Statuary Hall itself are William Jennings Bryan and Daniel Webster — and Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy. Parks was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1999.
Rosa Parks Statue Unveiling Video
For the past two months, some Long Beach hotels have found ways to work around a law that requires them to pay a $13 minimum wage to their employees.
With over 64 percent of the vote, Long Beach voters approved of Measure N during the Nov. 6 election.
Measure N guarantees that employees at a hotel of 100 rooms or more will be paid about $2,000 a month for full-time work, receive five paid sick days a year and assures that workers receive 100 percent of guest service charges.The Long Beach Business Journal reports that Measure N adds about $7 million annually into Long Beach’s economy.
In reaction to Measure N, some hotels have closed rooms or reduced workers hours so they no longer meet the qualifications needed for the health benefits.
Real people. Real news. Random Lengths is the Los Angeles harbor area's remaining independently owned progressive news magazine. We cover news in Carson, Wilmington, Long Beach, Lomita, Torrance, Rancho Palos Verdes and San Pedro.
Contact us: letters@randomlengthsnews.com
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