Mixed Media

Listen Again: A remembrance of 60s artist Alton Kelley

If the Summer of Love had a visual, it probably came from the drawing pad of artist Alton Kelley. Kelley's work graced album covers and concert posters, and has been described as art that defined a generation. The 67-year-old artist died this week in California from complications of osteoporosis.

Alton Kelley arrived in Haight Ashbury in 1964 with a sketchbook full of hot-rod drawings. He'd raced cars and bikes back home in Connecticut. But when Kelley met a fellow hot-rod artist from Detroit named Stanley Miller a few years later, cars and motorcycles gave way to skeletons and roses.

The two started making posters for dance concerts featuring up-and-coming groups such as The Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. Miller, who goes by the name "Mouse," says the work — and good times — rolled like a freight train.

At their peak, Kelley and Mouse were cranking out their elaborate posters once a week, and later expanded their portfolio to include album covers.

The Grateful Dead liked the skeleton-and-roses image the pair created for a concert poster so much that the musicians adopted it as their logo.

Some call the art a visual extension of the music. Others call it the visual for a psychedelic experience. Mouse says it was both, and that the joke between the two of them was that you had to be under the influence to understand it. But ideas, Mouse says, came from trips to libraries and art galleries. Kelley and Mouse pored over books of Gustav Klimt, Japanese poster art, and art nouveau.

Mouse says he and Kelley developed a work style that allowed them to stand side-by-side at the same art table. The pair worked together for more than four decades, and Mouse says that his work routine with Kelley never changed.

Just five months ago, Alton Kelley and Stanley "Mouse" Miller completed their last work together, a poster for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

Click here to listen to the piece that aired on All Things Considered.

Listen Again: Riverwalk Jazz explores the heroes of swing

At the dawn of jazz, in early 20th century New Orleans, players like trombonist Kid Ory and cornetist King Oliver taught themselves how to play—or learned informally from other musicians. Many worked 'day jobs' on the docks, or as servants. 'First generation' jazz musicians created a driving, rhythmic style that caught on around the country. But it was a relatively simple music—you might have called it 'urban folk music.'

Though early New Orleans jazz lacked the spit and polish of technical proficiency, jazz soloists of the Swing Era declared this territory their battleground. These 'Heroes of Swing' won their medals with precise intonation and the ability to play fast, clean runs, with absolute accuracy in both low and very high ranges. As author John McDonough wrote in "Streamlining Jazz: Major Soloists of the 1930s and 40s" in The Oxford Companion to Jazz, "In the struggle to outgrow its origins, jazz became caught up in an arms race of virtuosity that took the solo form from folk art and popular art to the portals of high art."

Just as King Oliver was the visionary who wrote the rules on what ensemble-style jazz bands should sound like, his protégée Louis Armstrong led the pack on defining the art of the jazz soloist.

And ever since Louis Armstrong recorded his first spectacular jazz solo inventions in the 1920s, the music has revolved around stellar solo playing. Louis Armstrong and reedman Sidney Bechet were among the first jazz players to define their art with equal emphasis on technical expertise, dazzling solos, and passionate performances. But by the mid-30s, their influence was heard in a new generation of jazzmen, in some cases, using formal musical training to expand the language of jazz, inventing new rhythms and more daring harmonies. The results thrilled audiences.

In this program, Riverwalk Jazz salutes the great soloists of the 1930s, who propelled jazz to a new level. We'll hear the music of two Irish-American brothers from Pennsylvania who shared a drive for musical perfection—Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey; as well as the work of the self-taught, European gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, whose solo playing re-invented jazz guitar. And, also on the bill is music from a trio of highly inventive reedmen—Benny Goodman, Bud Freeman, and Benny Carter.

Find a link to the program here.

Listen Again: William Kapell reDiscovered

In the 1940s, William Kapell was classical music's next great pianist.

He won his first competition at age 10. By the time Kapell was in his early 20s, he was famous.

In 1953, he spent 14 weeks touring Australia, playing 37 concerts. But on the return home, he was killed when his plane crashed outside of San Francisco. He was only 31.

By the 1960s, Kapell's recordings were out of print. Only the most dedicated of collectors hunted them down in secondhand stores, and William Kapell was largely forgotten.

But long before TiVo, MP3s or even cassette tapes, there was an Australian music fan named Roy Preston. He avidly recorded concerts broadcast on Australian radio, including several from Kapell's last tour more than half a century ago.

Those recordings have just been issued commercially in a two-CD set called Kapell reDiscovered: The Australian Broadcasts. Washington Post music critic Tim Page has written extensively about Kapell — he wrote the liner notes for the new album — and spoke with Andrea Seabrook about the collection.

Click here to listen to the piece that aired on All Things Considered, and to listen to recordings of William Kapell's final tour in Australia.

82 and Still Painting

"We're living in a total illusion here on earth for better or worse, but whatever is beyond, that's where I'm looking... to the reality behind it all," says George Rhoads (pictured, right). He's talking about his landscape oil & acrylic paintings, his "chosen profession" as he puts it. But isn't he most famous for his huge moving sculptures, which appear at the Corning Museum of Glass, the ScienCenter in Ithaca, the Port Authority in NYC, and around the world? "In the 60's is when I started making the sculptures, and that provided me with kind of a living from then on, so I was able to paint quite a bit." Those paintings hang in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and in the collections of Leonard Bernstein, and Lawrence Tish, among others. "Commercially, that hasn't done me a lot of good," says Rhoads. But painting is his first love. His rare solo exhibit, Landscapes of the Fingerlakes, is at Ithaca's Community School of Music and Arts through March 28.

Rhoads moved to the Ithaca area in 1970, in part because he was tired of living in New York. "I paint what's around me, and I was tired of painting the city," he says. Now his adopted home has named the month of March in his honor. In proclaiming March to be "George Rhoads Month," Ithaca mayor Carolyn Peterson cited, among other things, Rhoads' "international reputation as a painter, sculptor, and designer of kinetic art as well as being one of the first North American origami masters, and a yoga teacher." Rhoads says of the proclamation "it's rather gratifying, but strange... It's fun. I feel that I really belong here in Ithaca."

A few years back, the late Fred Rogers brought a crew to Ithaca to film an episode visiting George Rhoads' studio and looking at his fanciful rolling-ball sculptures. "That was a great day when he and his crew came to do the show, really unforgettable" says Rhoads. "Mr. Rogers was exactly as he seems on TV, a marvelous character."

The area landscapes in Rhoads' rare solo exhibition were all completed within the last three years, some of which had languished for years before being completed for this exhibit. (Pictured, left: Lake Afternoon, up for a raffle to benefit CSMA.)

He'll give an artist's talk Sunday, March 9 at 2pm at the CSMA gallery. He says he'll ask those attending what they want to know about... his career in general or the specific creation of the landscapes on display.

The exhibit's "gala opening" 5-8pm tonight (3/7) is timed to coincide with Gallery Night of Ithaca. Landscapes of the Finger Lakes runs  through March 28 at the Community School of Music and Arts, 330 E. State Street, Ithaca. Gallery is open Monday through Friday, 10am - 8pm.

LISTEN AGAIN: Hear my interview with George Rhoads online.

Read an article by Peggy Haines about George Rhoads in Life in the Finger Lakes magazine.

Visit George Rhoads' website.

--Gregory Keeler
gkeeler@wskg.org

 

Listen Again: Pianist Kariné Poghosyan recital

Classical Pianists of the Future presents
Kariné Poghosyan in recital

Sunday, March 2, 3pm
Tri-Cities Opera Center
315 Clinton Street
Binghamton, NY  1390

Armenian born pianist Kariné Poghosyan will give a recital as part of the Classical Pianists of the Future series at the Tri-Cities Opera Center, 315 Clinton St., Binghamton.

Some of Ms. Poghosyan's performances include recitals at the Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Trinity's Concerts at One series at the St. Paul's Chapel, the Beverly Hills Sundays at Two series,  a recital for the Valley Committee for the LA Philharmonic, the Bach's Lunch Recital Series in Manhattan Beach in California, the Los Angeles Liszt Competition Winners' Concert at the Nixon Library, the Young Artists International Peninsula Festival in California, and the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York. She has appeared with numerous orchestras including the New West Symphony, Musica Bella Symphony Orchestra, CSUN Symphony Orchestra, and Armenian Youth Symphony.

'Classical Pianists of the Future' is a collaboration between Alvin H. Williams III and Lance G. Hill, both of Vestal. Williams has participated for several years as co-director of the Thousand Islands International Piano Competition for Young People; Hill is a well-known piano tuner-technician, musicologist and classical music radio program host. Their intent is to provide emerging top-flight young classical pianists ongoing performance opportunities in the Greater Binghamton area and beyond.

The Tri-Cities Opera Center is home to a magnificent, fully restored 1913 Bechstein concert grand piano, which will showcase the talents of pianists such as Kariné Poghosyan.

Tickets at the door: $10. Details: Call 748-2231.

Listen to Bill Snyder's interview with Lance Hill and Alvin Williams, curators of the series.

Listen Again: Carbon/Silicon on Fresh Air

Old friends Mick Jones, former lead guitarist of The Clash, and Tony James, once of the Billy Idol-fronted Generation X, have teamed up in a band called Carbon/Silicon.

Carbon/Silicon isn't yet as well known as the bands the two co-founders came from, or even the bands the other band members once played in. Leo Williams played bass with Jones in Big Audio Dynamite, and Dominic Greensmith was the drummer for British rock group Reef. But the group's approach to the internet has gained them widespread popularity.

James and Jones began making their songs available on their web site as free downloads in the summer of 2004, and encouraged their fans to record them when they played live and pass those around as well. They've just put out their first full length CD, called The Last Post, but they pledge to keep giving songs away on the internet as well.

Click here to listen to the Fresh Air interview and hear samples from the new CD.