The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts & Sports
Wednesday, April 15, 2015 — 7A
‘M’ looks for another
win in lopsided rivalry
By CHRIS CROWDER
Daily Sports Writer
Michiganders agree on many
things.
There’s
widespread
acclaim over Euchre and drinking
Vernors when
you’re
sick.
But
there
is
one
question
that
divides
the state more
than anything
else: Michigan
or
Michigan
State?
Michigan
softball coach
Carol Hutchins
was
born
in
Lansing
and
played
for
Michigan
State. But she will give you a
straight and short answer to the
question.
“I’m not really caught up in the
rivalry,” Hutchins said. “I know
Michigan fans don’t like to hear
that. To me, I only care about
Michigan. I work for Michigan,
my team is Michigan, and I want
Michigan to win. And I don’t care
who we’re playing.”
Wednesday, the fourth-ranked
Wolverines (10-2 Big Ten, 37-6
overall) will head to East Lansing
to play the Spartans (1-11, 16-24).
The Spartans haven’t given the
Wolverines much of a challenge
historically, as Michigan leads
the
all-time
series,
82-27.
Michigan State’s last win came
in 2009.
Despite Michigan’s consistent
success against Michigan State,
junior second baseman Sierra
Romero said the rivalry hasn’t
become any less competitive.
“(The rivalry) is kind of like
the Ohio State one,” Romero said.
“We go out there with that kind
of chip on our shoulder that it’s
a rivalry game, and that makes it
all the more fun. Other than that,
it’s just another game.”
Added
sophomore
pitcher
Megan Betsa: “If you asked me,
I don’t think they’re our biggest
rival. It’s always fun to play an
in-state rival, but we just play the
same regardless. We don’t play
who’s across the chest.”
Betsa said that a team like
Minnesota may be more of a
rival than Michigan State. And
there’s something to that. While
Michigan and Minnesota occupy
the top two slots in the Big Ten
standings, Wednesday’s matchup
will be a battle of worst versus
first in the Big Ten.
Michigan State has the worst
batting average in the conference
(.274) and has a team earned-run
average of 5.13. The Wolverines
maintain the best ERA in the Big
Ten with a 1.65 mark and have a
whopping 60 more home runs
than their in-state foe.
With Michigan being the
Spartans’ first ranked opponent
of the season, they’ll face an
uphill battle trying to pull off
an upset. Leading the charge
will be starting pitcher Kristina
Zalewski, who is sixth in the
conference with a 3.15 ERA.
Zalewski has 117 strikeouts and
12 wins, and she will likely be the
Wolverines’ biggest challenge on
Wednesday.
No matter the statistics, the
rivalry still has meaning. Both
teams want to boast bragging
rights for softball supremacy in
the state.
“I’ve
always
grown
up
knowing about the Michigan
State/Michigan rivalry,” said
junior
right
fielder
Kelsey
Susalla. “It’s always a fun game
for us because it is a rivalry
game, but it’s just a matter of
how we play and focusing on our
game.”
If the Wolverines stay focused,
they should have no problem
beating the Spartans. As for
the always-focused Hutchins,
her players know where her
allegiance lies in the rivalry.
“Her
heart
bleeds
blue,”
Susalla said.
Added sophomore shortstop
Abby Ramirez: “She’s definitely a
Michigan woman now.”
And that can’t be debated.
Michigan
at Michigan
State
Matchup:
MSU 16-24;
Michigan 37-6
When:
Wednesday
4:30 P.M.
Where:
Secchia
Stadium
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
Megan Betsa has helped lead Michigan’s pitching staff to a 1.65 ERA.
Jazz legends to
perform at Hill
Hancock and Corea
prepare an acoustic
piano set
By COSMO PAPPAS
Daily Arts Writer
The last time jazz titans Chick
Corea
and
Herbie
Hancock
performed at Hill Auditorium
would have been Jan. 26, 1978 ,
but winter conditions kept the duo
from
flying
out of New
York
and,
memorably,
closed
the
University
for the last
time
until
2014.
The
rescheduled
concert, set a
month
after
the first date,
featured
Miles Davis’s two former sidemen
— and by this time widely
renowned jazz musicians in their
own right — in an intimate setting,
pared down to two acoustic pianos.
They elected such a performance
just as they were fully immersed
in the electronic experimentation
of jazz fusion that defined the late
’60s and ’70s.
It will be one of the most
significant events UMS puts on
this year as Ann Arbor welcomes
the pair back for a performance
that will feature the two pianists
with just acoustic instruments
between them on the famous Hill
stage. For two careers that have
been defined by groundbreaking
experiments in electronic media
and forms in jazz, it’s a special
opportunity to see Corea and
Hancock going back to basics.
“(The piano) is the instrument
that they have gone through their
career with and that has gotten
them to this point,” said University
alum
Brendan
Asante,
who
graduated from the University
School of Music, Theatre and
Dance program in Jazz and served
as a former ticket associate for
the University Musical Society.
“From a foundational perspective,
it signifies a lot of home-growing
and ‘this is where we started.’ ”
Audiences can expect a concert
both historic and historical. It’s a
big deal any time famous musicians
perform
in
their
hometown.
But this concert will, further, be
historical because Hancock and
Corea themselves embody the
history of avant-garde jazz since
the early 1960s. Herbie Hancock
and Chick Corea are “two of the
major jazz piano voices to emerge
in the post-Coltrane era” along
with McCoy Tyner and Keith
Jarrett, as Don Heckman of the
Los Angeles Times describes.
“I think that these two phenoms
of the piano ... are joining forces
to try to present a history – their
playing styles and everything.
They’re trying to present that in a
duo format,” Asante said.
As Harvard Prof. Homi K.
Bhabba says in his introduction to
Hancock’s lecture, “The Ethics of
Jazz” through the Norton Lectures
series at Harvard University, “In
the musical field alone, (Hancock)
has ventured from post-bop to
hip-hop, funk to film soundtracks,
Miles Davis to Joni Mitchell, Lang
Lang to P!nk.”
Hancock has also championed
jazz in his humanitarian career as
a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.
Professor
Bhabba
develops
Hancock’s view on the politics or
ethics of jazz that play out in “the
disjunctive terrains of a world that
is in some aspects synchronized
and
simultaneous,
while
in
other respects, dramatically out
of sync with itself and others.”
He
emphasizes
the
“mutual
cooperation” that, in Hancock’s
ethics of jazz, allows musicians
to “respect (their) neighbors” by
“(working) and (playing) with
them.”
Chick Corea’s career in music
is no less illustrious as we track
his involvement with Miles Davis
for the latter’s foundational fusion
albums Bitches Brew and In a
Silent Way, his tenure with the
fusion group Return to Forever
and his work in classical music
and Latin American music. Chick
Corea is the fourth-most Grammy
nominated artist of all time,
counting 63 separate nominations,
as well as an unprecedented
trove of three “Best Instrumental
Album” Latin Grammy awards.
Hancock
and
Corea’s
performance this Thursday will
animate a history of more than
half a century of jazz, an expansive
archive of the “idiom of jazz”
(Asante’s phrase) unfolding in
real time for Ann Arbor audiences
through Corea and Hancock’s
unquestionable historical import.
UMS
“How are your theton levels Herbie?”
ISLAND RECORDS
“We’ll let you down as soon as you make us look cool.”
Riding in cars with
moms ... and Bono
By REGAN DETWILER
Daily Arts Writer
After meeting people I’ve
never met before, trying things
I’ve never tried before, study-
ing things I’ve never studied
before, and having had pretty
much every preconception I
carried with me to the Univer-
sity challenged, freshman year
has given me a lot to reflect on.
This is what I thought of as my
mom and I drove for the ump-
teenth time down Route 23 back
to Columbus (yes, I’m from
Columbus) listening to The
Unforgettable Fire.
Although it was my first time
driving home from Ann Arbor for
Easter weekend, my grandparents
have always lived in Perrysburg,
just south of Toledo. As a result,
we have made the trek south-
east to Columbus countless times
throughout my life. The wide,
open, flat fields of corn and soy-
beans have seen me through baby-
hood, toddlerhood and childhood.
They’d seen me as a lost middle
schooler, a high schooler way too
preoccupied with extracurricular
activities and GPAs, and now an
Ann Arbor-fied college student.
We’d been through a lot together.
This time when we drove down
23, the clouds were that lovely,
swimming blue-gray as an April
storm settled over the strikingly
unassuming landscape of the bud-
ding fields, punctuated by darkly
beautiful dilapidated farmhouses
and barns. My mom’s new Volvo
sedan was not yet set up with an
aux cord, so we were left to the
basket of CDs she brought for the
three-hour drive.
We listened to late ’80s to early
’90s Tanita Tikaram on the way
out of Ann Arbor, and it was time
to pick something new as we got
on the highway. The Best of the Girl
Groups, Vol. 1, Tanita Tikaram, Van
Morrison and several of my mom’s
favorite U2 albums … Who did we
feel like listening to?
I know people have strong opin-
ions about U2 and what they have
done with recent releases, but it
has been my mom’s favorite band
for almost 30 years. That’s a long
time. My mom would play U2
around the house while she made
dinner, while she cleaned and
fixed up the house, while we sat
out on the front porch in the sum-
mers and all the time in the car,
whether it’s a five-minute drive
to the grocery store or sprinkled
over eight hours on the way to
D.C. to see the band in concert.
I’ve listened to the band’s music
mindlessly for pretty much my
entire life, and eventually came to
know their entire collection with-
out realizing it. Over the years
my mom would rewind the songs
and make me listen to her favor-
ite lines and we would play over
and over again those parts of their
songs where Bono’s ever-clear
voice slips into that gristly, splin-
tery growl.
“I want to listen to U2,” I said.
My mom said that was good
with her, and then I asked which
album we should put in. Shuf-
fling through them, I landed on
one that she had raved about and
I knew was legendary. I asked,
“Are you okay with The Unforget-
table Fire?”
“Oh, Regan, I’m always okay
with The Unforgettable Fire,”
she replied.
I had heard the album before
piece by piece. My mom would
play certain songs she loved,
playing a song’s regular version
and a live version one right after
the other, or two songs on the
album together that blend into
one another seamlessly. But I had
never listened to The Unforget-
table Fire all the way through,
uninterrupted. My mom calling
it “required listening,” so I knew
listening to this album was some-
thing that had to be done.
The Edge’s distinctive guitar
welcomed us to the long highway
drive as “A Sort of Homecoming”
trickled through the speakers – an
all-too-appropriate opening song.
And then it was the two of us,
the open road and our dog, Lucy, in
the backseat. Classic, right? It was
perfect. We passed by our favorite
billboard for Beef Jerky Unlimit-
ed, stopped to pee at a McDonald’s
in North Baltimore, “the armpit
of Ohio,” as my mom calls it, and
commented on the exquisitely
uncomplicated landscape of the
Midwest. We admired the way the
overcast lighting brought out the
contrast between all of the colors
– the bright green budding fields,
the golden brown of the ones that
hadn’t yet recovered from winter
and the bright red-shelled semi
trucks we shared the road with.
After the firm and quick beats
of the album’s title track echoed
through our ears, hearts and
minds, the album settled into
the contemplative, “Promenade,”
which flowed beautifully, like
water into “4th of July” – the
heady, wordless predecessor of
The Unforgettable Fire’s master-
piece, “Bad.”
It’s a song that we’ve listened
to countless times, giving it both
bouts of silence and our best Bono
impressions belted out when the
song deserved it. We both looked
forward at the patch of gray
highway immediately in front of
our car as it continuously raced
underneath us. The same not-yet-
stormy, but already heavy and
foreboding blue-gray swarms of
vapor hanging above us as if they
had some kind of awareness of
what they were witnessing. This
time, almost impishly, The Edge
drew us into the song, remind-
ing me of my presence here with
my mom, listening to her favor-
ite band and giving her favorite
album of all time the respect it
beckoned for.
The thing about “Bad” is that
it starts out mellow and smooth.
Only “The Edge” is playing. But
then comes a distant tambourine,
then Bono singing gently, then
the bass and drums, and soon the
song gains a sort of pulse. The
song builds, the cymbals pick up
and the lyrics move into “this
desperation, dislocation, separa-
tion, condemnation, revelation, in
temptation, isolation desolation …
Let it go … and so to find away…”
Then Bono’s voice cracks into
that gristly, painfully organic
growl as he iterates, “I’m wide
awake … I’m wide awake …” with
this certain vitality that reminds
you of all it is to be human. Almost
suddenly, just as the song has built
to this, the cymbals fade out, the
song slows, and soon we’re left
again with just Bono, “The Edge,”
my mom and I. “I’m not sleep-
ing…” and the music leaves our
ears to tire on concrete.
What does it mean to listen to
your parents’ favorite music – to
really listen to it, to really give it
your attention? I see it as a form
of empathy. Listening to my moth-
er’s music was to put myself in her
shoes and to experience humanity
as she experiences it. It’s to rec-
ognize something that speaks to
her, and by extension to recognize
something that has contributed
to who I am. And we were doing
it together, here, on the road we’d
travelled so many times – just me
my mom (and yes, Lucy).
The band that does this for you
may not be U2, and if you’re not a
U2 fan, then I’m sorry you’ve had
to endure my ranting all the way
up to 1000 words. But if your par-
ents have an affinity for music,
you should take a look at their col-
lection if you haven’t already. Ask
what their favorite album is, and
don’t go to iTunes – get the CD. Go
out to the car and go for a drive.
And listen.
DID YOU KNOW IT’S IYAZ’S
BIRTHDAY TODAY?
EVENT PREVIEW
An Evening
With Herbie
Hancock and
Chick Corea
Thursday, April
16, 7p.m.
Hill Auditorium
$35-$125
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
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