Page 8 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, April 12, 1991 Threadgill plays avant-rags by Peter Shapiro It's not an exaggeration to say that no one plays more strands of the African-American musical ex- perience with more expertise and more individual style than Henry Threadgill. From the off-kilter avant-rags on Air Lore and Rag, Bush and All to the mythic/primal experimentation of Air Time to the straight funk of Sly and Robbie's Rhythm Killers, Threadgill's in- strumental work is a stunning indi- vidual interpretation of the blues continuum. Threadgill began his career in Chicago in the late '60s/early '70s among the first generation of artists associated with the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), a collective organized to provide musicians with an economic foundation outside of the normal production/gigging channels. All of the musicians that grew out of the AACM (Art Ensemble of Chicago, Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton) play with the same angular, haunt- ing, minimalist primitivism that characterizes Threadgill's playing. After the collapse of his first group, Abrams' legendary Exper- imental Band, Threadgill joined forces with bassist Fred Hopkins and drummer Steve McCall to form Air. Free jazz's answer to the power trio played stark and challenging music with Threadgill's alto, tenor, flute and hubkaphone leading the jagged rhythmic figures of the battery through African, Kabuki, Eastern and African-American "folk" musics. After Air fizzled out in the early '80s, Threadgill formed a "sextet," really a seven piece band, with Hopkins staying on as bassist. With two omnipresent members of the harmolodic jazz avant garde on hand, trumpet player Olu Dara and drummer Pheeroan Aklaff, Threadgill's reworkings of ragtime standards and his own compositions got progressively funkier without losing any of the elemental textures that characterize his sound. Threadgill's new ensemble, the Very Very Circus, is even more firmly rooted in the musical tradi- tions of the diaspora than any of his previous groups. With a trombonist, two guitarists, a drummer and two tuba players, the Very Very Circus' brand of jazz hearkens back to the era of New Orleans funeral marches and pre-Ellington big band. The rhythms sputter and chug along, as the tubas are used only to suggest bass lines and funk grooves, while Threadgill's horn parts are rarely more than spasmodic fragments of a melodic idea, creating music that sounds like shards of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band floating from their waste up in a cubist landscape. HENRY THREADGILL AND VERY VERY CIRCUS play tomorrow night at the Ark at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.. Tickets are $12.50, $10 for students with ID (n.e.s.c.) at TicketMaster. don your black tights and join the ranks of those people who spend en- tire days at Cafe Depresso Royale. Alan Lommasson, who received an MFA degree in dance from the University, is directing the Dance Gallery (one of its members, Lisa Johnson, is pictured at left) in their performance this weekend, entitled Personal Geography. Lommasson treats his audiences to a personal glimpse of his own feelings about dance and life. Included will be "a solo for two," which stems from the grueling experience of ten consecutive mornings of pancake breakfasts in Ames, Iowa. You can still catch the show tonight and tomorrow night at 8 in the University Dance Building, Studio A. Tickets are $10, $8 for students and seniors. The Women's Glee Club has in- troduced a novel twist to University choral presentations: a theme! The women's chorus will memorialize the Holocaust with pieces such as Hardyk's I Never Saw Here's a success story for all of you artsy types who are yearning to STREET Main Source Breaking Atoms Wildpitch Imagine the lyrical and musical nonconformity of De La Soul minus that trio's deliberate weirdness, with all the density of Eric B. and Rakim's Paid In Full album under- lying the similarly innovative rap- ping. Main Source achieves the im- provisational style of rival produc- tion crews without biting their style, instead tapping the still- bulging vein of '70s funk - remi- niscent of Isley Brothers, Isaac Hayes and the Bar-Kays, with a touch of King Curtis. Moreover, with the combined turntable efforts of Sir Scratch and K-Cut coupled with musical performances deriva- tive of that decade, Main Source have restructured a hybrid of rap and R & B - sloppy, fragmented and funky. Main Source must deal with being intelligent, multifaceted Black men in a genre where dogma is highly valued and their particular identity is only vaguely embraced by Native Tongues fans. Their coun- terattack on white supremacy is most direct in "Just A Friendly Game Of Baseball," an analogy to See RECORDS, Page 9 5HAE. AT LIBERTY 761.9700 $ A7E DAILY SHWS BEFORE 6 PM &AALL DAY TUESDAY U j (EXCEPTIONS) STUDENT WITH ID.$.50 GOODRICH QUALITY THEATERS, INC. Continued from page 5 neously fulfilling the psycholo- gists' desire to understand him. Unfortunately, Street is contin- ually nabbed by the authorities for his impersonations - and always before he begins making money. The fun exists in the charade, which is not solely fooling people, as Street seems to derive Enjoyment from playing the part. But the fatalistic overtone of his impending discovery lends a suspense to the film, a ten- sion between his unquestionable su- periority and the fact that he cannot continue his course of behavior. However, the film tends to lose this suspense toward the middle, some- what diluting the final irony. Another Butterfly. Accompanied by oboe, the song-cycle will bring to life poems written by children dur- ing their stay in Terezin, a Czechoslovakian concentration@ camp. The tragic theme and poignant music is so beautiful that one mem- ber said, "I'm moved every time we rehearse it." On a lighter note, the Glee Club will also perform folk- songs, Michigan tunes and selec- tions from The Wiz. The perfor- mance is tonight at 8 in Rackham Lecture Hall. Tickets are $5 and $3. The Uptown String Quartet,0 featuring someone who is related to Max Roach, will perform this Sunday at Rackham Auditorium. Sponsored by the Afro-American Music Collection of the School of Music, the concert promises to bring tears to jazz lovers' eyes. Tickets are $7, $10, $15, or if you prefer, $75/ person and $100/couple. Soul Stretch, a profile of one man's Black Experience in White See WHO, Page9 The overall concept of Cha- meleon Street is brilliant, however. The film is a patchwork of styles that brims with wit, and even when the narrative lags, Harris - as actor and director - remains original and compelling. CHAMELEON STREET (making its Ann Arbor debut) opens tonight at Showcase. plays better tennis, he's able to marry the woman he loves and his whorish wife rests eight feet under. Bruno violates the very codes we live by and we love him for it, whether he is murdering without guilt or popping a kid's balloon. Though eerie, he's far more amusing than Guy could ever be. Guy's re- fusal to kill Bruno's disciplinarian father is nothing less than disap- pointing. Bruno engenders sympathy as well as suspicion, and Walker plays him perfectly. Somehow, Strangers on a Train slipped by the Hitchcock canon: it's never really mentioned in the same breath as the director's mainstays. But Hitchcock's never been more subtle or devious. He slyly juxta- poses Guy's tennis match and Bruno's desperate attempt to re- trieve the lighter; in the film's most (in)famous scene, the uniform heads of a tennis crowd swivel back and forth with the ball while one head - Bruno's - remains per- fectly still and fixed on Guy. This is one of the Hitchcock's most enjoy- able films, as well as one that is most likely to be shown in a film class. Strangers on a Train will be shown tomorrow at 9:30 in MLB 4. - Gregg Flaxnan CAMPUS Continued from page 5 Train, avoids the hokey Freudian subtexts that crept into some of the master's other works. The director's tight narrative is in evidence, but evil (or is it?) speaks for itself rather than fobbing itself off as convoluted psychosis. The plot revolves around what Guy Haines (Farley Granger), an unhappily married tennis pro, thinks to be a concession - or, worse yet, a joke. Guy desperately wants to marry Ann Morton (Ruth Roman), but his wife Miriam (Laura Elliot) won't give him a divorce. On a train, Guy meets stranger Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker), who offers to kill Miriam if Guy will reciprocate by killing Bruno's wealthy father. Guy agrees for no other reason than to brush off the bizarre Bruno. But Bruno actually does it. In a classic scene, Hitchcock's camera shoots Bruno strangling Miriam through the victim's fallen glasses. But Guy - the morality man - isn't about to off Bruno's father in return, so Bruno connives to frame Miriam's murder on Guy by plant- ing his cigarette lighter at the scene of the crime. Hitchcock never contents him- self with mere intrigue consistently skewing the picture. The demented, inane Bruno (at one point he reveals a sketchy plan to blow up the White House) becomes the film's hero. Miriam's death is a blessing: Guy "THE NASTY GIRL" PG-13 "THE FIELD" PG-13 R PRESENT THIS COUPON wIl PURCHASED TICKET THRUI 4/26/91 T-SHIRT PRINTERY * QUALITY GARMENT PRINTING AT REASONABLE PRICES ONE WEEK DELIVERY ON MOST ORDERS * OUR ARTISTS WORK WITH YOU TO PRODUCE SHIRTS YOU CAN BE PROUD OF " COMPLETE LINES OF 100% COTTON & 50/50 QUALITY WEARABLES "WE FEA TURE THE 994-1367 MINIMUM ORDER HANES BEEFY- T 1002 PONTIAC TRAIL ANN ARBOR 12 SHIRTS 1 CELEBRATE SPRINGTIME AT THE GALLERIA The most important consideration in the search for housing,.. ,,,othe BOTTOM LINE I MALL ............. FURNI. ............. ...... At University Towers Apartmentsyou can rent a huge two bedroom furnished apartment for just $715 per month including heat, water, andcable tv. 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