Oscar Wrapup

Ok, I'm getting a bit obsessed with movies. I think my last two significant conversations over meals were about stuff I've been watching. The good news is that I'm no longer blabbing about music no one else has heard before. The bad news is that I'm still not over my egocentric need to voice critical opinions.

And thus begins a few reflections about the Oscars last night.

In the fallout of "The Hurt Locker's" big night, some have argued that the secret to its success vs. the box-office behemoth that is "Avatar" is that actors, who make up more than 2/3 of the Academy voters, feel threatened by its profusion of special effects. Or it at least makes them think about how much is filmed in this universe and how much is created in the digital one. These voting actors wanted to award a movie that showcases acting, rather than effects. And that's why they gave the best picture Oscar to "Up in the Air."

Whoops. Maybe not.

But this would be the logical conclusion from this argument. If actors were indeed voicing their preferences for performance-driven movies, "Up in the Air" would certainly take the cake. It had the most nominations in acting categories and probably would have picked up a couple if it was nominated in most other years. So this can't be the whole secret to "The Hurt Locker's" success.

While Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty certainly did a good job in animating their roles in "The Hurt Locker," their performances did not make the movie. What gave the movie its emotional potency were the technical elements. "The Hurt Locker's" Baghdad is one of the most penetratingly real settings ever filmed for a war movie. The attention to detail combined with the tension-driven story make the film a nerve-racking thrill ride from start to finish. I think this had a lot to do with "Hurt Locker's" eventual success--the technical elements are transparent and easy to recognize and have a definite expressive purpose of amping up tension. The film has a bite that was lacking in every other film nominated for best picture. "The Hurt Locker" did what a good action movie is supposed to do--keep your adrenaline up for a good two hours--and was rewarded for it by both actors and technicians.

So yes, I am a bit disappointed that two terrific films--"Up in the Air" and "An Education"--went away empty handed. But that has more to do with the strength of this year's nominees than anything else. I could easily see "Up in the Air" taking a good four or five awards home if it were came out last year and was up against that weaker field. Oh well. The one bit of silver lining is that Jason Reitman and Carey Mulligan are still at the beginning of their careers and certainly have the obscene talent to get their hardware in the near future.

In the end, as A.O. Scott so elegantly put it in Sunday's New York Times, the Academy Awards are really about what Hollywood thinks of itself, or at least wants itself to be. As more and more boutique studios get shut down and the box office is dominated by buzz rather than artistic merit, I think many academy members wanted to show that there is still a place for thoughtful and independent film in the industry. Just the number of cracks last night about "Avatar" showed how much Hollywood is uneasy with technical and economic Goliaths. This isn't to say that artsy movies are going to make a comeback. The so-called independent films that got nominated were far from weird or inaccessible, were cleanly made, and came from relatively mainstream sources, be it best-selling novels or prescient current events. With this lens, it's easy to see how a well-shot indie movie with an archetypal plot like "Slumdog Millionaire" was so successful last year.

I feel I can't end though without some final thoughts about "Avatar." So what if it came home with three minor awards. It's still the most audacious piece of filmmaking out of the nominated bunch. You can criticize the script, the score, and the acting all you want, but it's hard not to admit they did their job well. "Avatar's" real problem lies elsewhere.

It's a bit ironic that a sci-fi movie that was so immersive through its use of 3-D technology would feature a relatively compact alternate world. In the great sci-fi and fantasy movies, like "Star Wars," "Star Trek," and "Lord of the Rings," the worlds that the filmmakers have created are so rich and detailed that you feel that the story you're watching isn't all that's going on out there. The worlds are filled with minor places and characters that probably have colorful histories of their own; you just have to fill them in. "Avatar" lacks a world of this magnitude. Pandora is a land lost in time. The Na'avi live the same way they have lived forever. There are no other adventures to be had on the other side of the planet. Everything that's important or interesting about this world is confined to the 3 hour run time. Our imaginations aren't allowed to run wild after the fact like they do after watching "Star Wars" or "Lord of the Rings." Certainly James Cameron loves the world he has created, but he doesn't make it large enough for the audience to take a piece of it home with them and love it too.

What's Goin' on Here

So, yeah, that last post doesn't really fit with everything else here. And there's a reason for it. I'm taking a class on film criticism and so I've been doing a lot of writing in that department. Since Yellow Handkerchief came out last weekend and I had done a piece on it, why not throw my piece into the ring. There's also a forthcoming review of the Sundance fan-favorite "Daddy Long Legs" for when that gets released in the spring. But in the meantime, check out this podcast created by members of my journalism class. I have a quick bit about how District 9 and Avatar are the same movie, and how James Horner recycles his old scores yet again in Avatar.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/03/04/25413/

And if you're wondering about who I think should win (rather than will), here are a couple of picks:

Picture: "The Hurt Locker"

Actor: Colin Firth, "A Single Man"

Actress: Carey Mulligan, "An Education"

Best Animated Feature: "Fantastic Mr. Fox"

Best Original Score: "Up"

Best Score assembled from previous work: "Avatar"

The Yellow Handkerchief: A Journey Small and Strange

Most movies are afraid to be small. People don’t talk about or line up to see small movies. But in the midst of movie culture that rewards excess, The Yellow Handkerchief, directed by Udayan Prasad, dares to be small without a hint of apology.

Part road movie, part old-time country song, the film follows an unlikely threesome’s travels through the backcountry of summer-soaked Louisiana. Martine, an enticing and embittered 15-year-old played by Kristen Stewart, is desperate for escape, which is provided by an awkward 20-something itinerant named Gordy (Eddie Redmayne) and his beat-up convertible. Joining them is Brett (William Hurt), a balding and taciturn just-released ex-convict who lives in a social isolation chamber of his own construction. These aren’t people you would have a coffee date with. They can be impulsive, immature, inconsiderate, and downright mean. Yet the common bonds of loneliness and the quiet optimism of the road join them.

The three begin their trip as total strangers, as mysterious to each other as they are to us. Prasad doesn’t reveal their back-stories, save for some of Brett’s flashbacks about a woman named May (Maria Bello) that only come into focus when he explains them. The directness with which Prasad presents the characters forces us to project our own preconceptions on them, which are then molded by subtle visual cues—the way Brett looks at Martine when he sees her for the first time, the giddiness that comes over Gordy’s face when he gets a female travel companion. While this sense of mystery would appear to increase dramatic tension, the pace and tone of the movie sap it of intended suspense. The overly manicured shots and Eef Bazelay’s score, a sort of Brian Eno does Americana, sooth rather than seethe.

What does keep the viewer engaged at first is the capable acting of the major players. Brett, Martine, and Gordy are quirky outcasts, roles that lend themselves to overacting. But Hurt, Stewart, and Redmayne’s understated performances give the characters a sense of dignity and genuineness. Working with a merely serviceable script, the actors revel in their poignant scenes of silence, like Brett’s first taste of beer in six years. Though they all fit into different sociological archetypes—the ex-convict looking for redemption, the maturing teenager looking for meaning, the young man looking for his place in the world—they are real people with complex issues. We begin to see in them the awkward co-worker or distant family member, or maybe even parts of ourselves.

Unlike most road movies, The Yellow Handkerchief isn’t about the car, or the wild antics, or the setting for that matter. Though the characters are driving toward a post-Katrina New Orleans, the storm is a mere specter, revealing itself through the run-down landscape rather than explicit reference. Prasad is instead much more interested in the dynamics of intimate human relationships rather than how humans interact with the world around them and narrows his shots accordingly. All of the film’s set pieces are oddly devoid of other human presence. When Gordy’s car springs a leak, he pulls over to a grimy old gas station, long since abandoned. As he rummages through the garage looking for ways to fix the car, Martine, frustrated by another setback, complains to Brett about Gordy’s social ineptitude. As her words trail off into the bayou, Brett mutters that she should be patient with him. Alone in the wilderness, without the luxury of a crowd to disappear in, the three begin to realize that despite their mutual strangeness, they are no longer strangers, to each other and to us.

Like the paintings of Edward Hopper that depict the loneliness of a crowd, The Yellow Handkerchief shows the intimacy of isolation. But while Hopper’s paintings strike the viewer with their aggressively peculiar compositions, Prasad’s film retreats in on itself, preferring to revel in its own subtlety. The movie can be so self-absorbed at points that it doesn’t bother to care whether the viewer is really engaged or not.

Ironically, it is on a journey that requires a great deal of self-reliance that Brett, Martine, and Gordy learn that it’s ok to rely on others, that it’s just fine to be small. That this realization should come without fanfare is a given. This movie is too committed to its own smallness to have it any other way.

Hersch in High Places

While still on the subject (sort of) of Fred Hersch, I'd like to draw attention to a major profile of Mr. Hersch in this weekend's New York Times Magazine. I first heard of this feature over the summer and am very excited to see it finally published.

In the article, critic David Hajdu (known in the jazz world for his wonderfully insightful biography of Billy Strayhorn) makes a particularly strong claim that the strongest artistic trends in jazz over the past ten years, manifested by the genre-smelting music of pianists like Brad Mehldau, Ethan Iverson, Jason Moran, and Vijay Iyer, have their source in the music of Fred Hersch. Considering Iverson (and his group the Bad Plus) and Jason Moran were the two jazz artists featured on NPR's 50 most important albums of the decade and that Vijay Iyer's "Historicity" was the runaway critic's choice for best jazz album of the year (making its way onto pop lists as well), Hadju's claim of Hersch's influence is no faint praise. As a (relatively) long-time listener of Hersch's music, I would agree with Hadju's statement. But aside from mentioning that Hersch was an important teacher of both Mehldau and Iverson, Hadju does not delve particularly deeply on what aspects of Hersch's music have paved the way for this new generation of jazz innovators.

The aspect of Hersch's music that Hadju talks about most prominently is his expressive lyricism. However, this beauty and lyricism is not exclusive to the new jazz of Iverson, Moran and co., and none of these piano players are lyrical in the traditional sense as Hersch is. These Gen X musicians are indebted to other aspects of Hersch's music that are not as instantly recognizable as his lyricism but still a vital part of his approach.

At the onset of his solo recording career, Hersch was primarily known as an interpreter of both standards and the works of other older jazz musicians. Certainly in order to get a recording contract of any sort with this kind of repertoire, Hersch had to bring something new to each of the compositions he played. Beginning with a harmonic palette superficially related to that of Bill Evans, Hersch would use a tune's form and chord changes as a superstructure over which he could organically develop a fully realized composition, not merely to string licks around like lights on a Christmas tree. In this way, Hersch would become a co-creator of the composition rather than just a performer rehashing something that had already been done. This organic unity of song and solo is a distinctive feature in Mehldau's, Iverson's, and Iyer's music, whether they are playing Blondie or the Beatles, Radiohead or MIA.

One of the most important aspects of Hersch's technique on the piano comes from this spontaneous-composition approach to playing tunes of any kind. Instead of concentrating all of his technical acumen in his right hand, Hersch's hands are nearly equally adept, allowing him to improvise multiple contrapuntal voices at once. This technique gives Hersch a greater range of expressive tools to use when developing his solos, such as the ability to thicken or thin the harmonic texture at different times in order to change the mood of the moment. All of the top next generation pianists have integrated a more active left hand into their playing, but each with a slightly different twist on it, whether Moran's percussive accents or Mehldau's slinky, Scarlatti-like lines.

In his appraisal of Jason Moran's album Black Stars as one of the fifty most important records of the last decade, Patrick Jarenwattananon writes that its importance comes from how Moran was able to deftly combine the over-taught, stringent techniques of post-bop with free improvisation. Though Jarenwattananon concedes that players have attempted this since the 1960s, he was right to emphasize the unique Franken-likeness of Moran's music. What goes unnoticed to many musicians and critics alike is how Hersch has subtly integrated lessons from free improvisation into his music. This is most conspicuously evidenced through Hersch's choice of sidemen, from drummer Tom Rainey, to bassist Drew Gress, to trumpeter Ralph Alessi, among many others (even Moran's own drummer Nasheet Waits). The variety of textures Hersch coaxes from his instrument in addition to his seemingly through-composed solos demands that his sidemen are equally adept at creating new context on the fly, a necessary ingredient of free improvisation. In recent years, Hersch's music has become even more open, particularly in his collaborative group "Focus" with reedman Michael Moore and drummer Gerry Hemmingway and his bass-less Pocket Orchestra, where Hersch is able to take the tune in any harmonic direction he pleases.

With so much of modern jazz indebted to Hersch's music, why has he gone so criminally unnoticed as a major jazz player? Part of it may have to do with the time in which Hersch came up as a bandleader. If one had to boil the history of jazz in the 1990s down to one story, it would be the conflict between the traditionalists and the avant-garde. With Wynton Marsalis still loudly pontificating the importance of (his) canon in jazz today, and others like John Zorn pontificating just as loudly against it, there was very little artistic room for someone who did fit easily into either community. Fred Hersch was one of these players. Though he played with progressive, downtown musicians like Dave Douglas, Erik Friedlander, and Bill Frisell, his music was certainly not "out" enough to catch a hold of the avant-garde's attention. And though his playing was unequivocally part of the jazz piano tradition, his interests were just varied enough that his style was not considered ideal by the neo-traditionalists. Luckily, the story of the last decade has been the breakdown of this dichotomy in the post-Ken Burns documentary jazz world, giving players the freedom to bring any sort of influence to the table, creating music that is not bound by ideology, just beautiful music. In a time when it was difficult to follow one's own personal artistic path in jazz, Fred Hersch did, paving the way for a new generation to do the same.

Contrary Motion, Heard Fresh

Pianist Fred Hersch and drummer Paul Motian have rarely crossed paths in their long musical careers, having only played together once in the mid-1980s for a week, but share some key musical associations. First is with pianist Bill Evans. Motian was the drummer in Evans's groundbreaking trio in the late 1950s and early '60s and Hersch is one of the many current pianists expanding on Evans's concepts of harmony and lyricism. The two are also quite fond of the music of the pianist Thelonious Monk, having both recorded albums exploring Monks oeuvre. With these connections and their reputations as modern masters preceding them, Hersch and Motian's performance with bassist Drew Gress at the Village Vanguard this week was highly anticipated, as they played to packed houses each night.

While Hersch and Motian's pairing produced many provocative moments, their unique and unapologetic musical personalities did not flatter some of the music during Saturday's set. While Hersch is the epitome of elegance, with an immaculately deft touch and a predilection for expansive lines over percussive attack, Motian is more of musical eight-hundred pound gorilla, with bright sizzle cymbals and jocular accents that cut through even the largest bands. Hersch's own compositions suffered most from this contrast. On "Whirl", Hersch's dedication to the ballet dancer Suzanne Farrell, the feeling of dance in Hersch's loping arpeggiated vamp turned to one of clumsiness when Motian dug into his ride cymbal.

But the magical sparks that one expects from a collaboration of this caliber did fly when the two reached for common musical ground. Ornette Coleman's "Forerunner" featured some ecstatic and playful trading among the trio, from Hersch's nearly baroque counterpoint to Motian's unexpected-but-impeccably-placed accents to Gress's parallel tri-tone double stops. The group followed with a pleasantly understated reading of "I'll be Seeing You," with Motian's brushed cymbals simmering under Hersch's solo. The set's seemingly inevitable closer, Monk's "In Walked Bud", was the night's high point, rife with Monk-ish rhythmic and melodic unpredictability while never sounding like a traditionalist rehash.

While Hersch and Motian's performance illustrated the distinctiveness of their respective styles, it also proved that their rich colors are too bold to mix well. In the end, the best place to hear Motian's drumming is with one of his own idiosyncratically-instrumentated ensembles, while Hersch's is best appreciated when alone on stage, such as during his encore performance of his tune, "Valentine".

A Little Egocentric Fun

I'm sitting in my room listening to a really great set from Maria Schneider's band a couple of weeks ago at the Kennedy Center in DC and perusing the Bad Plus's wonderful blog, "Do the Math." A while back, they sent out questionnaires to different musician friends asking some simple music-related questions. Considering how much I like making lists (see below), how can't I get in on the act.

GIVE US AN EXAMPLE OR TWO OF AN ESPECIALLY GOOD OR INTERESTING:

1. Movie Score. Johnny Greenwood's "There Will be Blood" and Michael Giacchino's "Ratatouille." I'm also a major sucker for Randy Edelman's "Gettysburg" score.

2. TV Theme. "The Simpsons"

3. Melody. Ornette Coleman, "Lonely Woman," Joni Mitchell "Refuge of the Roads"

4. Harmonic Language: "Introitus" from Manuel Cardoso's Requiem, Steve Reich "Music for 18 Musicians"

5. Rhythmic Feel. Brian Blade on anything, Olodun on Paul Simon's "Obvious Child" (and whenever else they play Batucada)

6. Hip-Hop Track. "You Got Me" by the Roots w/Erykah Badu

7. Classical Piece. (This changes by the week) Schoenberg's "Pierot Lunaire," John Cage's "Third Construction"

8. Smash hit. "One Week" by the Barenaked Ladies, "You Get What You Give" by the New Radicals

9. Jazz album. Fred Hersch's "Leaves of Grass," Don Cherry "Symphony for Improvisers"

10. Non-American Folkloric group. The Chieftains. Seriously.

11. Book on Music. The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross and The Joy of Music by Leonard Bernstein

Bonus Questions:

A) Name an surprising album (or albums) you loved when you were developing as a musician: something that really informs your sound but that we would never guess in a million years:

Buddy Rich "Mercy, Mercy"
Ben Folds "Songs for Silverman"

B) Name a practitioner (or a few) who play your instrument that you think is underrated:

Nate Wood, Han Bennink, Bob Moses, Scott Amendola, Gernot Bernroider.

C) Name a rock or pop album that you wish had been a smash commercial hit (but wasn’t, not really)

Ted Leo "Hearts of Oak," so that "Where Have all the Rude Boys Gone" would be played at every high school dance.

D) Name a favorite drummer, and an album to hear why you love that drummer:

Hmm, this changes by the week too: Jack DeJohnette on Pat Metheny's "80/81"

Why musicians should be playing close attention to politics right now...

It's the morning after the so-called Republican drubbing last night and political pundits are clamoring about how voters are sending a message to President Obama. Well I don't buy it, at least here in New Jersey; the Democrats suffered from a weak and uninspiring incumbent that I barely had the heart to vote for. The real story is most likely that in an off-year election like this one, it is the bases that come out. The conservative had a lot more reason to vote than the liberal one based on all the town hall shenanigans and what not, which makes Democrat Bill Owens's win in the upstate NY congressional special election more surprising.

So what does any of this have to do with music anyway? Well it should get musicians thinking about how government policy can have a real effect on their lives. For example, now Governor-elect Christie promised to cut "wasteful spending" in the NJ budget instead of raising taxes, but in order to close NJ's massive budget gap, he's going to have to cut a lot of non-wasteful spending too if he is to keep his promise. In NJ under governor Jim McGreevy, the arts was a plump target for the chopping block and probably will be again. Grants that have powered many local arts initiatives, including the Princeton Laptop Orchestra I'm a part of, have gotten grants from the Jersey Council on the Arts. If funding is cut substantially, like under McGreevy, Jersey-based musicians will have to look elsewhere for financial support and will probably gravitate toward New York and Philadelphia. So much for Christie's promise to keep jobs from leaving New Jersey.

But more importantly than this local issue, the potential for national health care reform has very large implications for musicians and artists everywhere. In February 2008, Nate Chinen wrote a great article in the New York Times about the health issues of bassist Dennis Irwin and saxophonist Andrew D'Angelo. Both had tumors, Irwin's spinal and D'Angelo's in the brain, and both were without health insurance. As the article reported the many fund-raising concerts to help pay for D'Angelo's and Irwin's medical bills, some of their musical compatriots, like saxophonist Michael Blake and multi-reedist Chris Speed, reported they had no health insurance either. Speed says his lack of coverage is "idiotic" but is too expensive, as is the case for many of Speed's musician friends. Now, D'Angelo is healthy and playing a lot (I caught him this summer at the Cornelia Street Cafe) but Irwin sadly has been gone for over a year now.

One argument for health reform and a public option in particular that has gone under-utilized is the effect it would have on musicians and artists. With public health insurance, musicians would be able to better pursue whatever musical avenues they found most stimulating. They would not have to make the choice of taking a potentially non-music related job (like Charles Ives the insurance salesman) or going without insurance. An argument like this could help reframe the health reform debate in terms of the duty to provide it for all. This argument puts a face on the uninsured better than the sob stories because almost all Americans let musicians into their homes via the stereo and iPod. Even for popular music, a politician could say that Miley Cyrus certainly can afford health insurance, but what about the drummer or the guitarist on your favorite track of hers?

At this point in the game it seems highly unlikely any Democratic leader would break out this argument for health reform. But who says we musicians can't start stumping for health insurance ourselves?