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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (April 29, 2004)
BY BRETT CAMPBELL Genre-Bending Jazz Les Schwab AMPHITHEATER Bend Oregon TICKETS ON SALE SATURDAY MAY 1ST AT 10AM! ONLY O REGON APPEARANCE SEPTEMBER 21 RESERVED SEATING & GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS AVAILABLE www.jeweljk.com JUNE 21 RESERVED SEATING & GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS AVAILABLE PORTION OF TICKET SALES DONATED TO JEWEL CHARITIES PLUS SPECIAL GUEST CAROLYN DAWN JOHNSON FRIDAY JULY 23 RESERVED SEATING & GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS AVAILABLE SATURDAY JULY 24 RESERVED SEATING & GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS AVAILABLE ALSO APPEARING DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 4 FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 17 GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS AVAILABLE MONQUI.COM The show’s on us, when you stay with us at www.mtbachelorvillage.com/concerts ADVANCE TICKETS AVAILABLE AT ALL TICKETMASTER OUTLETS INCLUDING ticketmaster.com CHARGE BY PHONE AT 503.224.4400 SUBJECT TO SERVICE AND/OR USER FEE 26 APRIL 29, 2004 NO OUTSIDE FOOD, BEVERAGE (SEALED OR UNSEALED), COOLERS OR CONTAINERS SAND CHAIRS ONLY • FREE PARKING AT OLD MILL SHOPS AND MT. BACHELOR LOTS DJ Spooky brings music beyond category to WOW Hall. W hen we see the letters DJ before a performer’s name, most of us get a pretty narrow idea of what kind of music we’re going to hear. But we should discard all stereotypes in the case of DJ Spooky , who plays the WOW Hall on Thursday April 29, and whose musical canvas is as broad as his other interests. Those interests include conceptual art, writing, including a novel, articles for the Village Voice, Artforum and footnote- laden academic journals, and more. One of the most thoughtful and histori- cally informed observers of contemporary music and culture, he’s worked with musi- cians from contemporary classical com- posers Xenakis and Pauline Oliveros to new jazz pianist Matthew Shipp to Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore to Su Ra to Yoko Ono; the great, mad reggae producer Lee “Scratch” Perry collaborated on Spooky’s new album, Dubtometry, a remix of his phenomenal 2002 release, Optometry, which he calls “jazz for the genre splice generation.” Incorporating turntables, violin, piano, Apple Powerbook-generated samples, bass, kalimba, and a galaxy of other sound sources, Optometry embodies Spooky’s philosophy as a “partisan for the impure,” a product of an age in which art happily crosses all artificial bound- aries of genre. He’s happy mixing John Cage and Thelonious Monk, Duchamp and dub. His danceable soundscapes can appeal to fans of jazz, hip hop, contem- porary classical, or whatever category you name — but the point is, categories only limit creativity. DJ Spooky offers a beautifully expansive vision of 21st century art and music. He’ll also be speaking at the UO — see Calendar. Another paragon of 21st century music who ignores genre boundaries like an ambu- lance zooming through a red light is the great jazz-oriented trumpeter composer Dave Douglas , appearing in Eugene with his fourth band in three years. One of the most cre- ative figures in American music, Douglas has worked with Horace Silver, John Zorn, Bill Frisell and plenty of avant garde musicians in Europe and America in dozens of different band config- urations, yet his trademark melodi- ousness informs all his varied projects, including the quintet he’ll bring to The Shedd on May 5. Every one of Douglas’ shows here has been memorable, and his most recent music, which employs Fender Rhodes along with sax and rhythm section, is as bright and inventive as anything in jazz today, invoking contemporary sounds without falling into fusoid excess. The Shedd hosts yet another jazz pio- neer on May 9, when sax legend Dave Liebman brings his quintet to town. Liebman, who played in Miles Davis’s 1970s bands, can stretch pretty far into the stratosphere with screechy pyrotech- nics, yet his most recent disk shows Liebman fully capable of warm, accessi- ble sounds as well. Probably not for the most conservative listeners, but a recom- mended to improvised music fans with adventurous ears. One of Eugene’s most cherished chan- nelers of new sounds, the great percus- sionist Charles Dowd , plays a recital at the UO’s Beall Hall on Sunday, May 2. Faculty piano masters Gregory Mason and Victor Seinhardt will accompany Dowd, who’ll play timpani, xylophone, drums, triangle, cymbal and more in this brilliant, brooding masterpiece of 20th century chamber music. The show also features music by Elliott Carter, Anthony Cirone, David Maves and others. That same afternoon, the Oregon Wind Ensemble plays Symphony No. 1 (“Lord of the Rings”) by Dutch composer Johan DeMeij, based on Tolkein’s works and composed well before the recent movies appeared. And on Thursday, April 29, the Oregon String Quartet performs the quartet movement in C minor that Franz Schubert left unfinished at his early death (featuring the world premiere of a completion by Livingston Gearhart), Brahms’s piano quintet, and Prokofiev’s gorgeous first quartet. Beethoven is inescapable in Eugene these days. Even as the Eugene Symphony completes its Beethoven cycle, the Oregon Mozart Players perform his third sym- phony on May 1 and 2 at the Hult Center’s Soreng Theatre. This exhilarating, revolu- tionary work — variously credited as the culmination of the Classical style or the inauguration of Romantic expressive- ness — was actually written for a chamber orchestra of the OMP’s size, and hearing it for those forces really illuminates the details and interplay among the instru- ments. The concert also features Tchaikovsky’s tribute to Mozart (his fourth orchestral suite) and music by Rossini. Rossini’s death sparked the cre- ation of the other big classical work on the horizon: the Eugene Concert Choir’s performance of Verdi’s massive Requiem on May 8 at Silva Concert Hall. Operatic, dra- matic, it’s one of the monuments of choral orchestral music. ew DJ Spooky, WOW Hall, Thursday, April 29.
