Crusader’s reveal their
musical wisdom onstage
Jean Armatrading finished up
her encore producing set. The
lady was pretty amazing, espe
cially her British accent. There
were times she would tease the
audience saying, “This song is
dedicated to all the men in the
audience ..applause,
who think they’re God's gift to
women.” More applause and
cheers. Her guitar playing techni
que beats any performer I’ve
seen recently, and her chord
progressions, although a bit re
petitive, radiate originality and
dissonance. She had a wonderful
sense of unity in her music, while
remaining distinctly abstract. She
was good.
But then the lights went up and
there it was folks, in all its
glory—Mac Court. The Pac-8
banners flying, immoveable fold
ing chairs and of course, the tre
mendous Mac Court reverb
system—completely built in and
free of charge. Mac Court really
isn’t that bad when it’s full of peo
ple, but Monday night’s sound
waves only had about 1,200 peo
ple to absorb it. But the ones who
were there received a real treat.
What a thrill to see one of
America’s oldest jazz groups.
The Crusaders have been to
gether since 1952. There is the
nucleus, consisting of Wilton Fel
der on sax, Stix Hooper on drums
and Joe Samples manning the
keyboards. Hooper stated, “We
may be the oldest jazz group
playing together, but we aren’t old
men. We started playing together
in junior high.”
They continued Monday night.
By B.J. PRICE
Of the Emerald
With tunes off their new and old
albums, the Crusaders inter
jected their individual styles to
form one group sound, which is
their intent.
Having been with the group for
only six months, Billy Rodgers,
Larry Carlton’s replacement on
lead guitar, fights a difficult battle,
trying to prove to hard-core
Crusaders’ fans that he can fill
the shoes of his predecessor.
Monday night he had a tough
struggle. Not that he wasn’t good,
he came off with some licks cap
able of tickling even the most
stubborn auditory nerves, but the
sound crew had trouble with his
riffs, along with a lead guitarist’s
nightmare—one of his strings
broke. He finished out one tune,
improvising and compensating,
then finally he had to stop for re
pairs.
Situations such as a broken
guitar string separates the men
from the boys in live perfor
mances. And the Crusaders
showed their true profes
sionalism. The group’s two year
veteran, Robert “Pops” Popwell,
launched into a heavenly bass
solo. (But I must admit a personal
bias here, since my heart holds a
weak spot for bass players. As
John Lennon said, “It’s the
beat.”) Pops slapped, hammered
and chorded his four-stringed
friend, inviting Hooper to play
along. They were having fun. And
some of the audience afterward
didn’t even notice the bass was
filling in while Rodgers re-strung
his guitar.
After a minor feedback problem
was cleared up, Felder took off on
some pretty incredible sax
ophone feats. Plugging his horn
into an electric amp helped. He
produced sounds out of that in
strument that were gutteral,
spacey and melodic. Samples
joined in on keyboards, with a
motif bordering on a classical
sound.
It was a taste of their past
present music. The signs of the
band's R&B, dixieland, gospel
and classical upbringing, pointing
to the directions of what is to
And the Crusaders do sell their
tunes. They live up to their name,
constantly on the road, crusading
for universal and peer accep
tance in a non-verbal mode. Their
sound can be understood by au
diences in Japan, Europe and
maybe even Russia, if negotia
tions go right. But all the travel
was the reason Samples gave for
Carlton’s decision to quit the
group. The band plans to travel
for the next two years, at least.
And the road is tough. Wayne
Henderson, one of the group’s
founding fathers, found the road
too rough, also. He finally traded
in his trombone for the role of a
Wilton Felder played tenor sax to the delight of many last Monday
in Mac Court with the Crusaders.
come. The Crusaders’ have a
new album coming out this week,
centering around the quintet’s
sophisticated level of proficiency
and integrity, while incorporating
some orchestration. Certainly a
new approach to their music,
which Hooper feels, "... is an ex
tension of the times.”
The Crusaders’ decision to
drop the misnomer, “jazz,” from
their title, also was a sign of the
times. It was an effort to get away
from the confusion and identifica
tion surrounding the 1960’s jazz
image—the intellectual, or “cere
bral sound’’—the altered har
monies and instrumentals aimed
at the jazz “buffs” constantly
measuring their hipness. The
Crusaders want to reach out, with
their beat, overall sound and
emotional qualities. As Hooper
put it, “Music is emotion."
When people started picking
up on the Crusaders, it opened
the door for many instrumental
jazz musicians. Jazz had gotten
marketable.
producer. He is now realizing his
dream, producing such groups as
Pleasure and Ronnie Laws. And
doing a decent job, too.
The concert Monday night pro
duced the Crusaders’ sponta
neity. With a tamborine jiggle here
and a sowbell punctuation there,
each individual enjoyed solos and
innovations. A trait they are
known for.
Who can deny the outstanding
performances offered by the
Crusaders Monday night? Right
down to Hooper’s drum solo, with
teetering cymbal. The Crusaders
are a group of polished musicians
with an undisputed ability to
emote sound, not just play it.
Maybe next time around,
Eugene will have grown-up and
built a decent performing facility,
along with a place to refresh
yourself afterwards. How embar
rassing when Samples asked
after the concert, “Where's a
good place to get a drink?" And
received only shrugs for answers.
Photo by Kim Smith
Mime class performs in concert
"Flub-a-dubs and Unicorns," a con
cert of mime pieces, will be presented in
the Dougherty Dance Theatre, Ger
linger Annex, tomorrow and Saturday
night at 8 p.m.
Five students under the direction of
Graduate Teaching Fellow Ray Miller,
will be performing in the concert. The
performers, Cecelia Forrest, Trudi
Cooper, Rob Faust, Tim O'Connor, and
Rich Hutzler, are all students of Miller s
in his Dance in Mime class
The concert is being sponsored by
the Student Dance Board and the De
partment of Dance. Tickets are $1 and
may be purchased at the door. Pro
ceeds from the concert are being do
nated to the Student Dance Board s
Scholarship Fund
Swigart discusses ‘Little America’
By MICHAEL KESTEN
Of the Emerald
Rob Swigart unbuttons his shirt
and reveals a red T-shirt under
neath. Emblazoned across the
chest pocket are the words, “Lit
tle America.” Swigart turns
around to display the design on
the back of his T-shirt. It is a sten
ciled pattern of the Li’l Injun gas
pump, drawn by Charles Shields,
that also adorns the cover of
Swigart’s new book, Little
America.
Swigart is at the Son of Koob
dooga Books signing copies of
Little America and as the talk
turns to promotion, he shows off
his Little America T-shirt. It's all
part of a new game for the writer
and he seems to be enjoying
himself.
Before writing Little America
last year, Swigart's creative ef
forts had been confined to mak
ing documentary films and writing
poetry, neither of which has been
too profitable. As Swigart points
out, it isn’t too easy to get poetry
published and he still hasn’t sold
his last documentary, an ethnog
raphic study of island people liv
ing off the west coast of Ireland.
A year ago last winter, Swigart,
an English professor at San Jose
State College, decided to
broaden his horizons and sat
down to write a first novel. He
proceeded to turn prose out at the
rate of three chapters a day, each
chapter consisting of one single
spaced typewritten page. The
shortness of the chapters, and
the fact that the scene changes in
time and space from chapter to
chapter, makes the book rapid
Hite of bpring concert held
University music majors will be celebrating the “Rite of Spring on
Saturday.
The annual concert, sponsored by the Music Graduate Group, is a
spoof. Stravinsky will receive his traditional mauling this year, and so
will a new assortment of other subjects. These range from the ‘ Roller
Skate Concerto," to disco, to new degree programs (such as Page
Turning Performance).
The “Rite of Spring” is meant for more than entertainment, how
ever. Proceeds from the concert will go toward an “MGG Award,
given to a returning masters degree student in music. The award
recognizes service to the school, its ensembles and organizations.
“Rite" will begin at 8 p.m. Saturday night in Beall Concert Hall.
Admission is $1; tickets are available in advance from the music
school office, or at the door.
i
Brecht s ‘Mother Courage
provides solid show for
another sold-out weekend
By CHERYL RUDERT
Of the Emerald
Anna Fierling, Bertolt Brecht s indomita
ble Mother Courage, has come blaringly to
life in the Pocket Theatre—and it’s defi
nitely a didactic experience. With her bar
rage of dubious morals and commonsense
axioms she is a character worth reflecting
on in these days of David & Goliath strug
gles with corporate rationalizations of
necessary woes.
Anna is the both detested and pitied kind
of creature that pops up overnight when a
war begins. She makes her living selling
goods at outlandish prices to soldiers; she
is, in effect, feeding off the efforts of others
in a time of upheaval.
Not unlike the profit gobbling military in
dustry during the Vietnam war, Anna's uni
versality led Lowell Fiet to choose the play
to produce. Mother Courage and Her
Children, first presented in 1941, may
have been a strong dose in its contempor
ary setting; today it is more so, for only the
names of the issues have changed.
In stressing the universality of Brecht s
work director Fiet has set up a quasi
seventeenth century look. The players ap
pear in full-sleeve shirts with apparently
army surplus vests worn over—archetypal
soldiers and peasants. The stage is set
with a rustic clutteredness, predominated
by Anna’s wagon in the center. Over the
whole scene presides the intrusion of
twentieth century electronic media—a
backdrop on which is projected Goya’s
war-related etchings and a smaller screen
to the side, used to project the scene
legends and song lyrics.
On the whole, this staging is effective.
On the one hand there is the audience
trying to follow habit and slip into the be
lievability that theater is supposed to offer
them—that this actually is the seventeenth
century for the next two hours. On the
other hand there are the manipulative
forces of Brecht and Fief jerking one out of
that mode of thinking, or rather accepting,
and into one of stimulated independent
contemplation. The players applaud at the
end of the play, and it is not for them
selves; it is for the audience, an active in
gredient in the production
There are several notable players in the
cast. As Anna, Freddie Jenkins nas cap
tured the sarcasm of the character. Jenk
ins has a strong voice, which she spurts out
at the audience with vivid arm movements.
When she reaches the height of her
speech her eyes open so wide one can
see white alt around her pupils—intensity.
Her self-righteousness, and ultimate blind
ness to the reason for her fate, is brought
out with superb craft
As her speechless daughter, Kattrin,
Rosa Luisa Marquez is nothing less than
remarkable. Playing the one character who
elicits any positive emotion, Marquez turns
the role into a poignantly tragic one Her
heroic last scene above the farmhouse is a
gripper—instead of speech she uses every
expressive outlet of her body to convey the
feelings that her mother and the rest of the
world won't let her convey.
Anna s other two children, Eilif and
Swiss Cheese (John Holstein and Howard
Farting) are played with apt insight into
their scant parts. The chaplain, played by
Andrew Zavada, is portrayed quite ideally
in his all-encompasssing role indicative of
the church’s stand on war. With his
square-jawed face Zavada fits into the
cleric-gone-astray with a comfortable agil
ity.
The music, composed for this production
by Craig Rafuse and Lee Heuermann, also
serving as musicians, follows the same
drab heightless dialogue of the play. It is
not astonishing music, but it is fitting.
The prodiction is a solid one; every
where there exudes the feeling that this is
what Fiet wanted and accord is such an
agreeable atmosphere. Mother Courage
continues for one more weekend, May 4-7,
Brecht continues forever.
Satirical theatre arrives without props
By BOB WEBB
Of the Emerald
Dudley Riggs s Brave New
Workshop, a Minneapolis
based theatre group, will pre
sent a full concert on Monday
in the EMU Ballroom. The
concert will begin at 8 p.m.
The New York Times called
the Brave New Workshop "an
adornment to the night life of
any town. And St. John s
University paper described it
as "candid, auick-paced and
r
intelligently professional.. The
satire lover, the seasoned
theatre goer and especially
the college student will find
themselves quite at home.
Dudley Riggs s Brave New
Workshop, one of the oldest
and most successful satirical
revues in the country, is a pro
duct of sixteen years of con
tinuous production and much
experimentation with the art of
improvisation.
The Workshop s founder
and guiding light, Dudley
Riggs, a former circus per
Dudley Riggs’ Brave New Workshop
former, who “ran away from
the circus to join a family,” has
done everything from juggling,
to vaudeville, to early network
television, all of which is evi
denced in his Brave New
Workshop.
The Workshop, a presenta
tional rather than representa
tional theatre, asks the audi
ence to participate in an in
teresting way in its produc
tions. Only lights, sound ef
fects and pantomimed props
are used to set the scene and
mood. So, like the listeners of
old time radio serials who
were asked to use their imagi
nation in envisioning the ac
tion and setting of a particular
story, the audience is chal
lenged to use their imagination
in the creative process of pro
duction.
Many talented actors and
writers, currently working on
both coasts, are alumni of
Dudley Riggs' Brave New
Workshop The present cast,
who perform nine shows a
week, use the improvisational
sessions held after regular
performances to sharpen their
skills in a pressure situation.
The group represents a
quick-paced program of com
edy and satire on topics rang
ing from society's foibles to
human nature to tomorrow's
headlines.
As the Minneapolis Star
says, “It is a rare and unusual
treat to attend a theatre and be
able to unreservedly laugh as
well aimed satiric darts hit their
mark. Such is the case at Dud
ley Riggs’ Brave New
Workshop...a thoroughly pro
fessional and amusing enter
tainment.”
Admission for the concert
will be $3 for University stu
dents and $4.50 for others.
Tickets are on sale at the EMU
Main Desk.
fire reading.
“There’s a tendency in fiction
now to go towards short chapters
and fast pacing — especially in
the comic novel,” says Swigart,
referring to his own work. “Von
negut writes in short chapters. I
guess it’s in competition with TV.
We're used to really fast editing.”
To keep the reader hooked,
Swigart ends each chapter with a
mini-cliffhanger and connects the
end of one chapter to the begin
ning of the next with verbal jokes
and metaphors. For example,
Chapter 76 ends with a scene in a
gas station garage. The last two
lines read. “He replaced the tire
and opened the trunk. Now, he
said, flipping on the hydraulic lift,
let's service this mother. Chap
ter 77 begins with the main
character’s mother indeed being
“serviced”, by her lover.
Little America is a comedy
satire which concerns one Orville
Hollinday, his obsession to do in
his father, and his numerous at
tempts to do so. Much of the story
takes place around a truckstop
called Little America. The Little
America in the book vaguely re
sembles a real truckstop, with the
same name, on Interstate 80 near
Granger, Wyoming. The real Lit
tle America, with 100 gas pumps,
is purported to be the world’s
largest gas station.
Swigart explains why he chose
the truckstop as the main theme
of his novel. “Oil companies in a
way really control everything be
cause nothing can go from one
place to the other without their
product. The service-consumer
aspect of oil companies is the
part we all see. So to have a gas
station with a hundred pumps
somehow captures the essence
of American culture.”
Gas pumps play another role in
Swigart’s novel, as sexual sym
bolism. There’s a lot of sexual
symbolism and pure sexual
energy portrayed in Little
America just as, says the author,
there’s a current preoccupation
with sex in big America.
“I’m sure the real Little America
does not have an X-rated motel
room (the fictional one does),” he
says, “but they’re all over Califor
nia.”
In the last year, Swigart has
finished his second novel, A.K.A.,
due to be out next winter, and is
presently planning his third.
Meanwhile things are looking
good for him and Little America.
Houghton Mifflin Publishers have
printed 45,000 copies, a large
number for a first printing of a first
novel. And Ingo Preminger, best
known as producer of MASH, has
bought the movie option on the
book. He is talking seriously to its
author about writing the screen
play.
“Soon to be minor motion pic
ture, as Swigart puts it.
Batiks, ceramics shown
Batik artists are rare. Of five practicing batikists in the Northwest,
Lou Robillard guesses that she is one of only two who make a living at
it. She estimates the proportion is similar on a national scale.
This is probably because, although batik is a very old craft, it has
only recently been rediscovered as a serious art. Lou Robillard feels
that when practiced seriously, it can be as versatile as the art of
printmaking. Many of its possibilities are only beginning to be explored.
Lou Robillard stumbled across batik in the Encyclopedia Brit
tanica 15 years ago, looking for a creative project to interest her class
of restless seventh grade students. From the encyclopedia descrip
tion, with common kitchen equipment and simple wax and dyes, she
naively tried it. Almost immediately she won a competition at the Joplin
Museum in Omaha.
Robillard takes a painterly approach to batik, as opposed to the
more usual linear style. What lines she does use divide areas of color,
and she finds herself working mostly with brushes. Her subjects are
simple and straightfonward, allowing the little surprises inherent in the
batik process to asset themselves.
Her most frequent subject is a single tree. Trees are significant to
her as symbols of life and growth. She was born and raised on the
rolling midwest prairie where “if you want to go someplace special, you
go to a tree." She feels that people respond to trees and that she is
best known for her tree batiks. Her trees always seem to be reaching
to the sun, as do their roots to the earth; human figures to the universe.
To an extent Lou Robillard lets her work lead her. For instance,
her show at Gallery West in Eugene will reveal a trend to more lines
than in past work. It will also show her colors moving from what she
calls warm tones (oranges and gold) to cooler blues with bolder con
trasts. Recent travels have inspired a variety of new treatments of the
familiar subjects.
Robillard has exhibited throughout the United States and is rep
resented in several collections, both public and private. Most recently,
she was accepted from a national competition to participate in Florida's
Cocoanut Grove Arts Festival. She has also successfully competed on
a national level to participate in the American Crafts Council Regional
show in San Francisco this summer.
Lou Robbillard s cheerful batiks will hang at Gallery West Eugene
through May 25. Beryl Coleman's pottery will be exhibited simultane
ously.