The venue was not well suited for the numbers in attendance. You had to be a mosh pit lover to enjoy the show. Speaking of the show, I did not like it at all, especially considering what the cost was. About 40 minutes of exercise class followed by nothing remotely resembling the artistry of Fats Waller. My group of four was very disappointed to say the least. We left ten minutes after the main act started. I expected better from UMS.

i thoroughly enjoyed the band, jason moran, the dancers and pre-show dance lessons & especially to not be stuck in a seat in an auditorium! being able to move around, talk to people and go back inside to the performance and dance some more was a blast. great idea ken and michael!

The venue was too small inside for this kind of dance party.
The dance warm up was awkward and strange but she was stunning to watch.
I was extremely disappointed in the band – both singers were not in tune – really strange … – the first piece was ok – the dance duet was lots of fun but, it was all down hill from there. The band was no better than a bar band, repetitive and just not great. What ever possessed UMS to hire this band ? Really expensive for nothing interesting – get it together Ken.

Well, you missed the Fats Waller-ish stuff. Jason Moran was great, but it was hard to hear him due to the sound quality.

So much fun! The venue was fantastic, the band spectacular, and the crowd invigorated. This was billed as a dance party, and it was! Thank you UMS for your willingness to bring a new approach to the season kick-off. We loved it.

Branding

Yesterday I heard Brahms’s German Requiem in a superb performance by the UMS Choral Union and the Detroit Symphony. In a warmup interview on WJR, I’d heard Jerry Blackstone, who conducts the Choral Union, compare Brahms to a “well-made German car,” and listening to yesterday’s concert, I realized he’s right. Even my little Passat has a weight and sturdiness—a gravitas, if you will—that Japanese and American cars lack, and there’s more than a touch of that same sobriety and earnestness to Brahms’s magisterial rumination on death.
All of which got me to thinking about renegades. Because I can’t quite conceive of anyone using the term to describe Brahms, with his grandfatherly beard and girth, his sturdy repertoire. Which begs the question: why Beethoven and not Brahms? Could it be the hair?
Last week’s concert by the Hagen Quartet—an exquisite rendition of three Beethoven quartets, plus a mysterious, and sublime, encore that even my musicologist husband can’t pinpoint, though he’s sure it’s late Haydn—was listed as part of UMS’s “renegade” series. On the one hand it makes all kinds of sense (Beethoven as the ultimate maverick, revolutionary, tormented genius, what-have-you), but on the other it gets you wondering what the term signifies. Or rather, what kinds of expectations it sets up in an audience? If you listen to Beethoven as Beethoven, is this a different experience from listening to him as a “change-agent” or renegade? Do you hear differently? Focus on different facets of the work? Think differently as you’re experiencing the music? Are you more aware of historical context? Do you say to yourself, for instance, “My, that Beethoven’s adventurous. So much more interesting than this Brahms guys who’s kind of predictable, like my Volkswagen.”
A related question came up at last week’s Night School. Can a contemporary artist like Wayne McGregor truly merit the name “renegade,” and if so, what happens to him and his work? Does McGregor now feel the need to live up to that role? Does he change his work so that it pushes the bounds of the radical in ways that may be less genuine than if he were simply pursuing his work as before? What happens to his perception of himself? As someone asked on Monday night, “What do you do when you’re hired to break the mold?”
The commodification of “maverick”: it seems worth revisiting the idea as we move forward with this series and contemplate the possibility of more such series in the future. UM is big into branding these days, and maybe UMS is too. Maybe it’s a helpful thing. But I wonder if this kind of slogan might not be a bit too glib. At the very least, it seems worth asking to whom, and to what effect, the term should be applied.

I realize that I may have sounded somewhat picky in saying that the quartets programmed lacked “maverickness.” Like some of you, I look for adventurous concerts, like the upcoming San Francisco Symphony series – which I am thrilled about – and usually purchase tickets accordingly. But Beethoven is in a class by himself, maverick or not, and it was a pleasure to see him perfomed so beautifully. This conert reminded me that there were several cycles of the quartets at Rackham over the years and I hope someone will do this again. The Hagen, maybe?

Sheer perfection! I thought I knew these quartets really well, but the Hagen showed me I only knew the music, the framework that Beethoven’s incomparable mind used to show itself and seek companionship. The imagination, immersion, verve and discipline the Hagen bring to their reading and performance allows Beethoven to stand above all the music he created and bring us past it, closer to the world he alone inhabited. Incredible to think the Hagen Qtt hasn’t been here for 14 years. How long will we have to wait again?

Precisely so!

…..”pitchy” moments and slightly overdone portamenti.

N O P R O B L E M!

Hagen and the Jerusalem Quartet have risen to the top of my list!

WOW & Encore was wonderful too!

Where can I find a list of songs that they played that night?

ahmad Jamal was a surprise and a puzzle. His amazing virtuosity was awesome, and the quartet was masterful, creating ever-changing environments of sound and rhythm.

but I found myself frequently baffled. Although the quartet clearly knew where a piece was in its progress, I found it nearly impossible to define where they were in the piece. With no tune definable to my ear, almost no repetition to allow defining whether we were in the A section or B section or wherever, I found my ear and mind adrift, adrift in a beautiful kaleidoscopic haze, watching the images move by likemagically changing sets sailing by on the shore.
Wonderful, but puzzling. Guess I need training in modern jazz structure.

It’s been a while since I enjoyed a concert as much. Other jazz musicians I’ve listened to like to interact more with the public and put up more of a show, but Mr. Jamal’s show is all in his music.

His tunes sound so classic and so fresh at the same time. They sound like they’re coming from all over the world – New Orleans, Latin America, Africa.

Thank you for a wonderful night!

Great to see a legend still in prime form, I loved the pointing that was going on and when the drummer lost his stick and Jamal gave it back to him. What a way to kick off the 2011/12 season! Thank you UMS:)

What a wonderful performance. I’ve been following Jamal for 45 years and he is getting better and better. Herlin Riley was terrific.

What a great concert…the perfect performance to kick-off the UMS season. So what was the percussionist whispering into the microphone?

This was a tremendous evening. Those who point out Big Head Todd and the Monsters’ alleged inauthenticity are shortchanging themselves. Todd has never held himself out as a disciple of Robert Johnson, nor as a Delta Blues virtuoso. UMS never promoted him as such. Most casual music fans would know that this band is not a traditional blues band. Yet Todd Mohr and the entire program exceeded our expectations (I was there with a number of musicians, including a guitarist who toured extensively with Cedric Burnside). Honeyboy Edwards onstage for 7 or 8 numbers? Younger, serious blues cats like Cedric Burnside and Lightnin’ Malcom filling out the house band to support Honeyboy and Hubert Sumlin? I also rebutted annarbor.com’s gratuitously negative review of this concert in admittedly ornery fashion, but would like to accentuate only the positive here. This show was nearly a perfect balance of art versus commerce. UMS and Todd Mohr deserve our thanks for truly celebrating the Delta Blues, examining its influences on subsequent generations (yes, rock and roll!!…the Hooker and especially the R.L. Burnside songs they threw in (Hill Country Blues)are meant to rock), and providing 3,500 folks the opportunity to hear Honeyboy Edwards and Hubert Sumlin in a great venue.

I have studied the blues and been a fanatic for years. This was a show Robert Johnson would have loved. Blues stretching across generations and racial barriers. Amazing!!!

Unfortunately I have to agree that this was not the experience I expected. At 40 dollars a pop for the middle of the mezzanine, I was thinking it would be the “real deal”. Instead I feel it was a poor, loud modern imitation, not interpretation, of music that is timeless and supposed to be from the gut. I usually would not bother to leave a comment, but I was truly disappointed that the Hill would choose to bring this to Ann Arbor. I do not see this as a personal preference in taste either, judging by the amount of people that left early, including my party.

Tonight was truly a moving experience. It was worth the drive from Columbus, OH to see Honeyboy and Hubert performing with such energy at their advanced ages. It might be a cliche, but anyone in attendance tonight witnessed living history. This was my first time seeing Cedric Burnside, Lightin’ Malcolm or Big Head Todd and the gang, but let me tell you it won’t be my last. These men should be commended for keeping a true, uniquely American art form relevant and active. The whole night was great and I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing a sesquicentennial Robert Johnson event. haha

Mark, the rotating cast was consistent with the genre and the context in which this music developed. Loved it! Reminded me of Clapton’s Crossroads Concert series. After all, isn’t this type of music a dialogue between musicians and their instruments?