MUSIC NEWS:

August 27, 2008: Jazz Daze

I had a revelation, people.

I guess it’s true what they say about when the student is ready… I’d been working on the Sade covers with jazz guitar like I’d always wanted to do. I’d gone to Chicago and played with some fantastic Latin musicians. I found my sweet practice spot in a local park. I don’t know what all else I did right, but here’s how a teacher appeared:

The Redstone Room, a venue at the Rive Music Experience, hosts a Jazz series on the third Sunday of every month. I had just done a smooth jazz show with Frank Drew the night before where I was on percussion and some vocals. This month’s Jazz workshop was on scat singing so I decided to go.

I walk in a little early and there are a couple of stately black gents sitting there and I get introduced as a singer. One of the older gents stands up, shakes my hand and bows. Wow right there. I’m told his name is Don Meade and that the singer who will be running the workshop is one of his protogés.

He begins talking about the old days and how he’s been there to coach some singers. He mentions a list of first names: Carmen, Ella, Sarah and some others.

Mr. Meade then promptly gives me a 10 minute master class that blows my hair back.

“There are so many kinds of music nowadays, blues or jazz or world, hip-hop or whatever,” he says. “But when people ask you what you do, you just say you’re a musician. And when they ask you what kind of music you do, tell them you do ‘weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs’ and that you’re just trying to pay the bills.”

“People are trying to blow the world up nowadays,” he says. I gather this to mean literally as well as with myriad musical categories. “So learn love songs. People always want to know more about love,” he says. “When doing a show, always leave room for three songs from the Great American Songbook. Learn a bit about the songwriters and how the songs came about.”

“Pay attention and listen. Even a fool can teach you something: he can teach you how not to end up a fool like him.”

He said it all just like that. He had his lesson packed tight like a set list of the best material.

Sure enough, musicians from New York and Chicago start streaming in with hugs and tars and call him Papa. When the singer comes out to do her workshop he leads her onto the stage like a father-of-the-bride down the aisle. As she teaches, she asks him for confirmation on some obscure jazz facts. And he knows them all…

This was about a year ago. All I can say is that I feel like during the past year I’ve been attending the most enjoyable grad school ever. I chose Latin Jazz Standards as my songbook repertoire: “Corcovado”, “Meditation”, “Wave”, and many other great bossa standards along with some others like boleros and salsas. I’ve added to this some world jazz like fado. I bought books, CDs, pestered other musicians, loaded my Ipod and driven down highways wearing a Chinese rice patty hat so that I could hear myself sing over the road noise. Good acoustics inside that comical conical contraption, you’d be surprised. I-88 between here and Chicago has been quite entertained or at least nicely perplexed on Saturday mornings.

And yesterday, after a year of this, I finally hit Send on an e-mail to Edgar Crockett, the director of the Blackhawk College Jazz band. Within twenty minutes he replies back with “That sounds like fun. We will be at Huckleberry’s this Thursday. Feel free to come out and we can talk over tunes/keys and get you playing with us.”

Oh God. I gotta go practice. – Olenka  

January, 2007: Two New grants received!!!

     Grant: Flamenco Fundamentals: The rhythm geek is at it again!  Quad City Arts was apparently sufficiently intrigued by Olenka's video with the red dress to offer her a grant to create a program in the basics of flamenco rhythms and dance.  Good thing too, because she spent a pretty ducat (invested) in a trip to Albuquerque in December to see the National Institute and Conservatory of Flamenco annual recital and sat through 5 shows!  She figures she learned enough by then (it was the same show repeated) to at least know what to aim for.  The new troope, including dancers Toni Griffing, Meg Barry, hopefully Gladys Navarro, and guitarist Lars Rehnberg, will be conducting their first public program at Venus Envy Quad Cities, April 28, 2007.

Oh, and Concerts for Elders was re-granted and is now in it's fourth season.

September, 2006:

       Grant:The Zloti Village Chorus: Public workshops have taught Quad City women to sing in the unique, turn-on-a-dime, no vibratto, open vocal style of Slavic song.  Five brave singers have joined the original members of Zlotenici in learning Slavic and Nordic songs, some in the original languages and some with Olenka's new English lyrics, and have performed, live and in costume, at the Redstone Room, River Music Experience's new national act venue in a double bill with the Balkan Jazz band The Goran Ivanovic Group.A live recording of that show has now been edited.  Look for it on the Music page!

August, 2006:

       Grant: Concerts For Elders III:  Olenka's repertoire of senior-friendly material has seen it's third year in circulation, this time with a partnership with Generations Area Agency on Aging.  The project entailed twelve concerts, of the 40's material, but the reason it qualifies as a world music project is because of the multi-cultural interactive talent show that sprung up spontaneously at a Vietnamese refugee center.

The audience members had escaped from Vietnam in the 80's and early 90's, where they weren't allowed to listen to any American music, so the senior friendly material was completely lost on them, with the exception of Guantanamera, on which they joined with an enthusiastic chorus.    After Olenka's show, audience members (most of whom didn't speak a word of English) came up one after another and sang songs in Vietnamese, told jokes, and evidently had an roaring good time of which Olenka understood little but the melodies and the laughter.  Eleven other concerts to somewhat more docile American audiences occured this summer at various other meal sites throughout southeastern Iowa.

Both of the above projects were generously supported with grants from Quad City Arts.

ART NEWS:

November, 2006:

      The Father Catich Window: Davenport, Iowa, is the home of the world famous legacy of master calligrapher Fr. Catich.  He was the one who, among other things, discovered that ancient Roman stone chisel lettering was born of a style based on brush work.  Olenka's calligraphic glass painting style could not have come in more handy when St. Ambrose University, Fr. Catich's alma mater and teaching residence, embarked on the renovation of their Chapel and desing and installation of a giant stained glass window, designed and painted in the Catich calligraphic style.  In a collaboration with Glass Heritage, Olenka has just completed her portion of the work on the central panels.  It also scored her front page in the Quad City Times.