I’ve been home for 3 weeks, and the city has been seducing me all over again – warm days, cold nights, blue skies and riotous colours in the foliage – yes, it’s autumn in new york…
a couple of great gigs last week – first, the public debut of a new band, at the favourite small venue, Barbes in Park Slope Brooklyn. (If someone had told me years ago that I would end up living in the west village and going out to brooklyn to play I would have laughed – but hey, just call me old-fashioned… we are all eternally grateful to Olivier & Vincent for providing the musical community with such a wonderful home.) The brainchild of Doug Wieselman, clarinetist extraordinaire, the Funes play “mostly quirky tunes suited for an urban tight rope walker – most of which came to Doug Wieselman while walking”. The other members are Don Falzone on bass and Jim Pugliese on drums, and it’s a total pleasure playing accordion with them all (and not being in charge!) – I look forward to more… the second was a house concert on the sunday after Thanksgiving, for an invited audience at a beautiful West Village home, that was a total delight: a gorgeous autumn afternoon turning to evening, birds singing outside the window, making music in a room that sounded sooo good… with no piano and no bass player, I combined the”In My Skin” and “Baseless Rumors” quartets for the baritone uke/accordion repertoire – what a joy…
with me were Charlie Burnham on violin, Marika Hughes on cello, Doug W on clarinet and the incomparable Matt Munisteri on guitar. I’ve been working with Charlie, Marika and Doug a fair bit this year, both on Baseless Rumors and Septimus & Clarissa, but it felt like an age since Matt and I had played, so it was a real pleasure…
I got back to town just in time to join a good friend at the bi-annual gathering of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, held at the NYPL. Gilberto Gil talked, and sang solo with his guitar – what a shining light he is… Osvaldo Golijov turns out to be as articulate and inspiring a speaker as he is a composer – I hope to pursue that some day… Brian Eno talked of the choice between creating from the top down or the bottom up – “do you want to be an architect, or a gardener?” – a revelation – I realise I need to do more gardening… And then that strange moment when Gilberto, Jessye Norman and Jose van Dam, put on the spot, jammed on The Girl From Ipanema – could have been embarrassing in the extreme but was in fact totally charming… and witnessed by about 30 of us… only in new york…
Speaking of which, I’ve walked the length of the HIgh Line a couple times recently – this is a great time to be up there, with the grasses and foliage all turning – first time I’ve seen the new section – the variety in astounding… what a great addition to the community, it’s the best thing that’s happened to the city since the opening of the Hudson River Park. I look forward to when they finish the final section of the High Line and you can walk all the way to the river… the opening up of the riverfront reminds me of what’s happened in London – back in the day, that city had its back to the Thames, now it’s becoming the centre, with the south bank as vibrant as the north, and river traffic flowing. More of that…
Having finally completed Septimus and Clarissa in September, and having also put Baseless Rumors out into the world this year, completing the trilogy of ‘solo’ projects that began with Bed Time, I now feel ready to work on a bigger canvas again… I’m going to be spending some time in a beautiful but remote part of the north of England, for family reasons, and have decided to use this time out of the hurly-burly as a gift, to work on a new opera, one that’s been on the back burner for far too long. Third time’s a charm…