Isthmus Jazz Festival Shimmers in Summer Heat

by Susan Kepecs

                                                  SKepecs photo

I didn’t catch everything at this year’s Isthmus Jazz Festival, but despite the absence of a ticketed headliner for the first time, the lineup was the best yet.  Friday – the first real summer night of 2011 – the Memorial Union Terrace was jam-packed.  People of all persuasions perched on every available surface, from the famous metal chairs to the Union Theater steps and the tops of the low stone walls that separate levels and surround big old trees. 

I arrived at 7:30 PM, just in time for the Madison Mellophonium Jazz Orchestra, the 23-piece brainchild of Rand Moore, of Drums and Moore in Monona.  Florida-based bandleader Joel Kaye, a veteran of Stan Kenton’s early ‘60s big band, which featured its own mellophonium section, flew in to lead this horde of local musicians, most of them drawn, as you’d expect, from the Madison Jazz Orchestra.  The bright two-hour set featured the kind of old-fashioned tunes Kenton favored – Johnny Richards’ arrangements of West Side Story and My Fair Lady, “Misty,” “My Old Flame.”  Super sax solos from Jeff Sime and Bill Grahn, Ken Gleason’s mellow mellophone grooves and a short vocal set from Angela Babler of Ladies Must Swing embroidered the rich, orchestral sound. 

Though the music was transporting, on the Union Terrace part of the entertainment is what happens offstage.  Here’s what else caught my eye: The variety of Recall Walker T-shirts.  Great big boats bobbing behind the stage – why do people need immense cabin cruisers on Madison’s little lakes, anyway?  A couple in a canoe, paddling among the behemoths on their way to Picnic Point.  A female mallard, flying low overhead.  At a table behind me, a passel of enterprising students stacking beer pitchers into a very tall “tower of power,” precariously pouring frothy yellow liquid from the top container into their cups.

                                                    SKepecs photo

At 10 PM I watched Isthmus publisher Vince O’Hern present Tony Castañeda, whose Latin Jazz Super Group was up next, with the Isthmus Jazz Personality of the Year award.  Castañeda, in fine form, seized the opportunity to dedicate the honor to the demonstrators at the Capitol. Former regular band member Neeraj Mehta, on timbales, called up the orishas with Cusito’s famous guaguancó “Habana de mi corazón” before the current sextet, plus Darren “wildman of the trombone” Sterud, who recently moved out of town, and guitarist Louka Patenaude, who’s been playing a lot with Castañeda lately, plunged into its well-loved mambo and cha-cha-cha repertory.  There was joy on peoples’ faces as the spirits moved their feet.

                                                                                SKepecs photo

On Saturday I made it a point to catch Jan Wheaton’s set at 4:30 – unfortunately her last with primo pianist Matan Rubenstein, who’s taken a teaching job in Vermont.  At 68 Wheaton’s voice is a little less elastic than it used to be, but that doesn’t matter – she still plies plenty of range, and her delivery’s as heartfelt and soulful as ever.  Tunes from her 2005 album Expressions of Love dominated the set – “Almost Like Being in Love,” “One Note Samba,” “That’s All.” Despite sunny skies I was hoping for “Stormy Weather,” too, but I didn’t get my wish.  I settled for a chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream cone instead.

While up-and-coming Indianapolis trumpeter Marlin McKay set up, I watched scrawny undergraduates in bathing suits crowd the pier at the east end of the terrace; the Betty Lou Cruise passed by, going west.  People all around me were desperately fingering their iPhones.

McKay, who studied with ‘60s hard bop giants like Curtis Fuller and George Cables, turned out to have a really fine feel for that funky old New York sound.  With his very solid backup trio he played classic tunes by Pepper Adams and the Adderly brothers, plus an oh-so-slightly slightly Latinized take on Kurt Weill’s “Speak Low.”  And, as if to complement a cool breeze that came up off the lake, McKay blew the cool, sweet strains of Carla Bley’s “Lawns.” 

I left after McKay’s set.  But in retrospect, I’m sorry I didn’t pick up a copy of his CD, Deep in the Cosmos, on my way out.

The Divine Dianne Reeves Returns to WUT

by Susan Kepecs  

The Wisconsin Union Theater welcomes back the divine Dianne Reeves on Friday, April 8.  Last time the jazz-pop diva was here, in February, 2007, she was riding the crest of her 2005 Grammy win for  Good Night and Good Luck, the soundtrack CD from George Clooney’s eponymous flick about how TV news anchor Edward R. Murrow brought down Wisconsin’s other great political embarrassment, US Senator and maniacal cold war fear monger Joe McCarthy.  Reeves, a consummate showwoman, fired up the theater that frigid night, unleashing her sumptuous voice on a splendid set of tunes – Nat King Cole’s “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” straight from the movie; the early Betty Carter classic “Social Call," and even the temptin’ Temptations’ 1971 chartbuster “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me).”  

I remember walking up State Street with Union Theater marketing and communications director Esty Dinur a week or two after that concert.  We were still talking about it.  “That’s what it’s like to be in the presence of greatness,” we said at precisely the same time.

Four years later, I expect no less.  Reeves, born in 1956, stands apart from other jazz singers we've heard in Madison lately.  She occupies an interesting niche between the stupendous swing divas of the ‘40s  and ‘50s and the Gen X chanteuses who've made recent appearances on the WUT stage.  Like almost all jazz singers performing today, Reeves was heavily influenced by one particular predecessor, though she stamps the standards with her own definitive style.  Gretchen Parlato's model was Astrud Gilberto; Jane Monheit's was Ella Fitzgerald; Madeleine Peyroux's was Billie Holliday.  For Reeves, it was Sarah Vaughan.  (Reeves can't match Sassy's sax-y glossolalia, but her sound is silkier).  

Also like her younger counterparts, Reeves, who toured with Sergio Mendes in the early ‘80s, has a bent for bossa nova.  But two crucial elements distinguish her from the post-baby boom pack.  Her powerful contralto voice was honed in the black church, and unlike the ‘90s pop and global beats that creep into the sounds of younger singers, Reeves’ mainstream side has late '60s roots.

She was born in the Motor City, so it’s no surprise she’s been singing Temps tunes lately – “Just my Imagination” is the first track on her 2008 Blue Note release, When You Know.  The recording can’t hold a candle to Reeves live in performance, but her approach is luxurious and the slow Motown rhythm’s irreproachable.

“The Temps were my favorite,” Reeves says.  “As a little girl in Detroit I got to meet them.  Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams especially were really down home people who were real easy to be around, and they loved kids.” 

“Just My Imagination” aside, most of When You Know lacks sizzle – it’s got too many tunes that don’t suit my taste, like the very sappy “Windmills of My Mind” made famous in the late ‘60s by Dusty Springfield.  But there's another cut on this disc that blows me away -- the rousing secular gospel “Today Will Be a Good Day,” with the luminous Russell Malone on electric guitar.  It’s the only song on the album Reeves wrote, and it’s for her mother, she says.  “I did it in that idiom because that’s what she loves.  She loves music that allows her to celebrate spiritually.  She’s like this incredible life force. She’s always been a forward thinker – she pushed us to keep moving forward and do our best, and if there’s no way, make a way.”

Last time I interviewed her, Reeves, then 50, talked about how life changes at the half-century mark.  One of her new goals was to produce a full album of her own compositions, though that dream project is taking its own sweet time.  Reeves has other adventures on her plate.  When we spoke last month she’d just returned from a German jaunt with multifaceted singer/songwriter and guitarist Raul Midón.

             “He’s so inspiring,” she says.  “Whenever I’m around someone fabulous like that I start writing, and I’m writing now.”  But there’s no album in the works just yet.  Reeves says she’s busy creating some balance between her zooming career and her desire to be a bit of a homebody, which doesn't sound easy.  She’s playing seven theater gigs in the States just this month.  And she’ll be traveling the world with Angelique Kidjo and Lizz Wright over the summer.  It’s the second “Sing the Truth Tour” – the first, an homage to Nina Simone in 2009, featured Reeves, Wright and Nina Simone’s daughter Simone; the 2011 version pays tribute to three recently deceased divas – Abbey Lincoln, Miriam Makeba and Odetta.

Reeves’ longtime pianist Peter Martin will be with her Friday night; the rest of her backup personnel this time includes Reginald Veal on bass, Terreon Gully on drums and the brilliant Romero Lubambo (who was here in ’09 with Luciana Souza) on guitar.

         Will they play “Today Will Be a Good Day”?

        “We can probably do that!” Reeves laughs.

Madison Ballet's Midsummer Night's Dream Delivers

       Titania (foreground) and Puck.  Photo by Andrew Weeks 

by Susan Kepecs  

Peter Anastos’ Midsummer Night’s Dream, a blithe bit of fluff, wrapped up Madison Ballet’s fourth season (March 19-20 in Overture's Capitol Theater) with a bang.  Anastos’ ballet isn’t perfect.  I longed to see more from Titania’s lovely fairy corps, and in several spots slapstick acting upstaged dance.  The frequent tugs of war between the two jinxed couples in particular could have used some judicious editing, and a more balletic approach to humor would have played up the considerable chops these dancers possess, especially the limber Yu Suzuki (who also works with Chicago’s Elements Contemporary Ballet), in the Helena role.

Madison Ballet isn’t perfect, either.  While artistic director W. Earle Smith has assembled 17 strong dancers and stamped his rhythm-savvy Balanchine style on all of them, which lends unity to their individual strengths, the company’s other productions this year didn’t escape with clean slates.  But it was hard to find fault with this performance of Anastos’ 90-minute caprice.

In 2004, when Madison Ballet was still a pre-professional studio company, Anastos himself set the Titania role on Genevieve Custer Weeks, who often flew in for soloist roles while also dancing with now-defunct Oakland Ballet.  Last weekend a more mature Custer Weeks, in total possession of the part, took buoyant pleasure in its simple variations, pushing luxuriously through the music, syncopating a waltz or stretching an arabesque on pointe a breath beyond the beat.  Her acting-while-dancing skills are sharp, too – her gemlike little pas with the bumbling Bottom (played to the hilt by Zachary Guthier), hexed into a donkey by the wood sprite Puck shone with sincere humor.   

Joseph Copley, who joined Madison Ballet last year – he also works with San Francisco’s Margaret Jenkens Dance Company –  was an utter hoot as Oberon, parading around in a bright blue mohawk and long purple capes.  Copley, who’s blessed with both stage presence and striking technique, whipped off cabrioles, tour jetes, tours en l’air and a coupe jete menege with no break, and embroidered his entrechat quatres and brise voles with épaulement.  Even just standing, his back to the audience as he commanded his tiny fairies (drawn from studios across Dane County, including Madison Ballet) to dance, he was impressively expressive.

The wedding grand pas classique was gratifyingly full of movement.  The Royal Court corps and the two soloist couples flowed across the stage in kaleidoscopic combinations.  The regal, understated pas de deux was an ideal vehicle for Jennifer Tierney, an impeccable music box ballerina and a Madison Ballet soloist since the studio company days.  Tierney, solidly partnered by Gabriel Williams, floated in and out of his embrace, wheeling around in arabesque or rising weightlessly into low lifts.  At one point Williams kneeled; Tierney, balanced on pointe in deep penche arabesque, supported only by his upheld hands, lowered her head almost to the floor – a breathtakingly extended line.

A couple of amusing moments captured the essence of Shakespeare’s comedy without sacrificing the ballet canon.  Juliana Lehman, from Titania’s fairy corps, bounded onstage alone in a big pas de chat, eyes wide, only to be chased away by a hissing Puck.  Helena, fleeing the pursuing Lysander (Bryan Cunningham), disappeared stage left.  Cunningham flung himself into a wide échappé, pointed toward the wings – you could hear him thinking “Aha! There she is!” and lept after her.

             But it was Marguerite Luksik, as Puck, who stole the show, delivering her light, elastic, Pan-like variations, built from impish sixth position prances, low tours en l’air, pas de chats and bounding saut de chats, with sheer mischief.  That’s exactly how wood sprites would dance, if they were real. 

Acoustic Africa Brings On the Spirits

by Susan Kepecs

It always moves me when people, faced with adversity, make art.  There’s been a lot of that around here lately – the citizens of Wisconsin have been superlatively creative in the struggle against Dictator Walker.  But nowhere have our brothers and sisters survived more catastrophic political and economic assaults than in Africa.  Somehow, through slavery, colonialism, economic exploitation, environmental disasters and post-colonial strongmen, the spirits of the arts persevere.  Beyond a shadow of doubt, African musicians make some of the most magnificent music on earth.  Get ready to savor the sound on Thursday night, (March 10), when the 2011 Acoustic Africa tour takes the Wisconsin Union Theater stage.  This is music from the Orishas, a panacea for the Walker-weary blues. 

The Acoustic Africa tours (they’re semi-acoustic, really) sound more intimate and closer to the music’s traditional roots than heavily amplified Afrobeat / Afropop, though this softer sound is contemporary, with cutting edge, socially conscious lyrics.  The first Acoustic Africa tour, which played the Union Theater in the fall of 2006, featured Malian guitarist Habib Koite plus South Africa’s Vusi “The Voice” Mahlasela and Ivorian dancer / chanteuse newcomer Dobet Gnahore, who was such a hit she was asked back to Madison several times in rapid succession.

The second installment of Acoustic Africa is a guitar-based show, featuring three superstars, Koite, Afel Bocoum and Oliver Mtukudzi, who’ll perform individually and together in varying combinations. Each of these virtuosos brings several backup musicians from his own band to fill out the sound.  In addition to backup vocals, percussion and bass, these players add the lute-like West African n’goni, the Malian njarka fiddle, the Zimbabwean m’bira (thumb piano) and other instruments.

Of the three frontmen, Koite’s by far the best known in the States.  He’s played with US musicians as diverse as Bonnie Raitt and the avant garde Art Ensemble of Chicago.  Koite plays traditional music in non-traditional ways, usually on a nylon string, plugged-in acoustic guitar that he tunes like a kora or n’goni.  International flourishes acquired by listening to Jimi Hendrix albums and spending years playing club gigs in cosmopolitan Bamako, Mali’s capital, adorn his multi-ethnic approach to Malian music.  Koite’s a griot by birth – “I come from a family of traditional musicians,” he says.  “But I went to school – the National Institute of Arts – to study classical guitar.  When I started to create a style for myself I learned the regional musics of Mali so I could play for everybody in my country.  I wanted to use language and music and scales from the north, from the west, from the Sahel.  To you it probably sounds like one style, but Malian people know the regional differences in my songs.”

Afel Bocoum, also the son of musicians and the protégé of his uncle, Ali Farka Toure, the late king of Malian desert blues, has a gentle sound, steeped in the ambience of his ancestral town, Niafunké, in the semi-arid, agrarian Sahel on the Niger river.  Of the three stars on this tour Bocoum is the most traditional, though his lyrics address the contemporary social issues of his home turf.  In his music the Malian roots of the delta blues come through loud and clear.  Compare Bocoum to, say, a recording by Robert Johnson.  You can’t miss the echoes of Mali in 1930s Mississippi.  (Blogger isn't letting me post YouTube videos today, but you can easily find both of these artists, and in fact, all of the musicians I talk about in this post, on the web). 

Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi, from Zimbabwe, created his own mix – “Tuku music,” a name his sons came up with – from the sounds of southern Africa. “Borders are created by a handful of divided people with special interests,” he says.  “The borders don’t matter.  Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa – the same tribes live in all those places, and their art overlaps.” 

The influences in Tuku music include Zimbabwe’s polyphonic m’bira, chimurenga (Zimbabwean social justice music), the swift Harare beat called jit and South African mbaquanga, itself a mix of Zulu jive, township jazz and Xhosa tribal twists.

Though they have very distinct styles, Koite, Bocoum and Mtukudzi wrote a song together for the tour.  It’s based on Malian Mandinga music and Shona sounds from Zimbabwe, and appropriately titled “MaliZim.” 

Mtukudzi, who says this is the first time he’s done a project with West African musicians, was delighted to find common musical ground.  “What surprised all of us when we wrote ‘MaliZim,’” he says, “was that despite the geographic distance we have rhythmic similarities.  We use those similarities in the song, but we also take different rhythms and mix them.  If you know what you’re looking for and have a good ear, when you listen to it you can say ‘oh, that’s Mandinga,’ or ‘that’s m’bira,’ but it all comes together very well.”

What’s notable, besides the music, is the determination of these players to live in their home countries when so many African musicians have set up shop in Paris or New York.  “Show business in Africa is done poorly,” says Koite.  “I completely understand why someone African would want to live in Europe where you can do the gig with a good sound system and get royalties for the albums people buy after your concerts.  You can bring money and hope back to Africa without living there.  But for me it’s important to stay in my country.  I’m really proud and happy that I can bring Malian culture to the world and then come back home.  If I can inspire the young people – I want them to ask themselves ‘why does he go and come back?’– if they go on to do the same, we all win.  Mali wins.  Africa wins.”

Madison Becomes Hotbed of Politics and Performing Arts

It always happens over the long haul.  When the established social, political and artistic order goes stale, places on the peripheries of the centers of power, having more flexibility, become hotbeds of innovation.  So it is that when Japan displaced America in the automobile industry, Silicon Valley arose to replace Detroit as the country’s economic engine.  And as the 21st century starts to reveal its character, mid-size cities may become the country's new cauldrons of creativity.  Certainly, Madison is emerging at last from the shadow of that great nearby 20^th century city where I was born and raised, Chicago.  Definitively, the cow town with a university in “Wisc – where??” that I was somewhat embarassed about when I moved here four decades ago is gone.

Madison dominates the news cycle as the national leader in the new struggle for workers' rights, which is a whole damn lot to crow about.  But since this is an arts blog, what I want to point out is the synergistic growth of our local arts organizations.  We aren't Chicago, or New York, yet.  But in particular, it’s worth noting that Madison Opera’s Threepenny Opera (Overture’s Isthmus Playhouse, Feb. 4-13) was so innovative and brilliant it sold out consistently.  The company had to add extra performances.  And I happen to know we’re about to be socked with another piece of local performing arts wizardry.  In three weeks (on March 19-20, in Overture’s Capitol Theater), Madison Ballet performs a luscious production of Midsummer Night’s Dream, choreographed by Peter Anastos, noted ballet historian and founder of that famous troupe of men on pointe, Les Ballets Trocadero de Monte Carlo. 

As a balletomane and a dance reviewer, I couldn’t be more excited.  When Madison Ballet was just a pre-professional studio company it put on Midsummer twice, in the old Civic Center, in 2002 and 2004.  The production looked lovely on artistic director W. Earle Smith’s student dancers.  It’s going to absolutely sparkle on Smith’s professional company, which wraps up its fourth season with this show.  I don’t say that lightly.  I’ve been watching Madison Ballet’s progress carefully, and writing about it regularly.  In the innovative spirit that’s enveloping our city, Smith’s managed to transcend the economic straitjacket of the times.  Despite the very short seasons dictated by shrunken funds, he’s built a strong, cohesive company with a recognizable, Balanchine-based style.  The upcoming production of Midsummer should put Madison Ballet on the national map.  Watch this space for further updates, and my review.

                                                                                                               Susan Kepecs

Madison Ballet Romances the Audience, Sometimes, in its Annual Valentine's Day Show

by Susan Kepecs

Madison Ballet’s “Evening of Romance” in Overture’s Capitol Theater last Saturday (Feb. 12) – a repertory show featuring four new works by artistic director W. Earle Smith – was notable for how much this four year old professional company’s grown lately.  The hard work of training together over time has paid off handsomely.  Technical unity and group rapport were in evidence throughout.  Madison Ballet’s become a smooth, well-trained unit that can turn out nearly flawless performances, which bodes very well for the company’s future.

That said, “Evening of Romance,” like most repertory shows, was a mixed bag.  The first piece, “Rhythm, Where Are You?” was a suite of ensemble dances, duets, trios and quartets, performed before a giant video screen showing footage (restored and compiled by Timothy Tomano) of Dizzy Gillespie, Cab Calloway, Cole Porter and other greats from the era of big band swing.  The movement onstage wasn’t ballet, but it was definitely rooted in ballet technique.  It echoed rather than replicated the dance steps of the ‘30s and ‘40s, a strategy that worked.  The big group numbers were colorful, and there were highlights: Jacob Brooks danced a good old-fashioned jazzy spat with Michelle Tucker, who’s starting to shine in her second season with the company.  A balletic solo with a touch of soft shoe (in pointe shoes) by veteran company member Jennifer Tierney was flirty and joyful.

But the video screen was set so high on the back wall my field of vision was split between the dancers and the film.  And despite the dancers’ smooth performance, the choreography was repetitive and uniformly jivey.  Some virtuoso airborne steps added to this mix would have broken the monotony and knit screen and stage together in interesting ways while providing visual and rhythmic counterpoint to the overarching dips and jitterbug language of swing. 

The second piece, “Rain,” a solo for company veteran Genevieve Custer-Weeks with composer / pianist Michael Massey playing a concert grand live onstage, was billed as a dance “inspired by the childlike joy of skipping through puddles on a rainy afternoon.”  But the long dark pink dance dress Custer-Weeks wore, with its unfortunate empire waist, was more frumpy than youthful, and “Rain” was as wistful as it was joyful.  Repeatedly, Custer-Weeks pushed away from the piano, danced a combination, and then returned to stand still, facing the instrument rather than the audience, as if lost in nostalgia.  The dance itself was a repetitive series of pique arabesques and chaine turns that crossed the stage on the diagonal or in an arc.  On any other dancer this work would have looked dull, but Custer-Weeks found freedom in its simple patterns, pushing through the notes with elastic musicality and revealing nuances that made an otherwise unmemorable piece mesmerizing.

“Palladio,” the only pure neoclassical work on the program, was a complex short ballet with a very traditional structure.  The presto movement opened with four women (Megan Horton, Molly Luksik, Madelaine Boyce and Yu Suzuki) in white tutus, moving in and out of unison against dark blue backlight.  A staccato series of releves on pointe in échappé, fourth, and fifth position, adorned with bent-elbowed, expressive wristed, Balanchine-style port de bras, was broken by a lyrical solo from Tierney.  Swift shifts between Tierney and the corps followed, all involving very fast petit allegro footwork.

In the adagio pas de deux that followed, Tierney, seemingly weightless, was ably partnered by Bryan Cunningham.  This pair has been dancing together since the company went pro, and their confidence in each other was palpable.  Tierney floated into lifted pas de chats, then landed on pointe in arabesque or folded back dreamily over Cunningham’s arm.  The corps joined Tierney and Cunningham for the third, allegretti movement, which mirrored the relentless petit allegro of the first.

I have profound respect for “Palladio,” both as a piece of choreography and as it was danced.  Petit allegro is the hardest element of the ballet vocabulary, and this long, difficult piece required endless endurance.  Madison Ballet couldn’t have carried off a work like this even a year ago, but it looked quite beautiful Saturday night.  Still, it’s grand allegro, with its sweeping leaps, that usually draws gasps from the audience.  I would have liked to see “Palladio” balanced by a second, freer work in the classical canon; I often wonder why Smith, whose masterful grand allegro combinations are the highlight of his company classes, so rarely lets this side of himself loose in his stage choreography.

“Expressions,” a suite of dances to tunes from Madison jazz diva Jan Wheaton’s eponymous 2005 album, with Wheaton and her trio live onstage, was originally choreographed for the company’s 2009 Evening of Romance show – the one that was cancelled in the economic aftermath of the Crash of ’08.  I saw a studio performance of this work two Februaries ago, and I’ve been dying to see it onstage ever since.  I wasn’t disappointed.  “Expressions” was the program’s high point.

Wheaton was a treat, jiving and flaunting a feather boa while emceeing the show, introducing her trio – Matan Rubenstein on piano, John Christensen on bass and Rodrigo Villanueva on drums – and the dancers for each ballet-based, jazzy piece. 

The dancers – women in short black fringed dresses and fishnet tights, men in black jazz pants and shirts – sat at nightclub tables set around the bare stage.  The choreography was similar to that of “Rhythm, Where Are You?,” though the dances in “Expressions” were better and more ballety.  My one complaint is that “Expressions” would have looked fresher if “Rhythm” hadn’t been on the same bill.

I liked everything about “Expressions.”  Custer-Weeks was jazzy, stretchy, free and spontaneous in her solo to “Can’t Help Lovin’ that Man of Mine.”  Cunningham and Phillip Ollenburg, who’s new this year, served up a spunky, high-energy contest of skill in the ballet-jazz idiom to “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” each challenging the other to do bigger, better cabrioles, kick-leaps and pirouettes.  The lush “Don’t Explain” gave Yu Suzuki, Anna Counts and Juliana Lehman a chance to flaunt their classical chops, albeit with jazz attitude. Custer-Weeks, Megan Horton, Rachel Butler and Molly Luksik strutted their stuff in “Stormy Weather,” shimmying hips and whipping off flirty, foot-flicking turns.  And Tierney’s “One Note Samba,” a showcase for her natural coquettish, creampuffy style, was the program’s piece de resistance.

The finale was a festival of jazzy ballet, the company pirouetting, jumping and kicking in unison, with groups of dancers emerging to show off contrasting strings of steps. “That was really fun,” Wheaton said, “let’s do it one more time!”  And they did. 

A Little Sunday Night Mambo Jazz

As usual, I was at the Cardinal Bar Sunday night to catch the Tony Castañeda Latin Jazz Sextet.  But where were you, my still-hip fellow first-wave boomers?  The Cardinal may be best-known as a disco dance club, but on Sundays it draws a small, mellow, devoted crowd of jazz club regulars.  The scene is comfortably intimate, but on a night like this the Cardinal should be packed with like-minded folks.  If you’re looking for a little mambo jazz and a dance or two you’re missing out on a very fine thing. 

       I thought about this when I wrote my previous post – the one on Gaelic Storm.  That band started out playing Sunday night pub gigs, too.  They hit the jackpot with James Cameron’s epic ship flick Titanic, and now they’re a huge box-office deal.  The TCLJS has yet to find its Titanic, but take it from this old jazz writer – it’s as good as any big-name Latin jazz band out there.  If you listen closely to WORT’s Saturday afternoon Latin music show “La Junta” when Cardinal owner Ricardo Gonzalez is spinning discs you’ll hear cuts from Castañeda’s two albums, Mambo o Muerte and Viva el Cardinal, flowing right into the mix with tunes by Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamaria and Tito Puente.

       Yes, I know Monday morning’s just a shot away, but Castañeda’s gig is early, with two live sets, at 8:30 and 10.  DJ Ken Horn plays Cuban son and salsa in between (and afterwards).  And it’s worth the effort – I swear, the three hours I spend at the Cardinal on Sunday nights are what keeps me young.  I’m always home before midnight, anyway, which is this old boomer’s bedtime. 

      Readers, this is one Sunday night ship that shouldn’t sink.  Please get out and support this Madison institution.  If you go, please drop a comment on my blog and let me know how you liked it – and if you don’t go, let me know why not!

                                                                                                         Susan Kepecs