A tale of two concerts- part one

Ventured out into the cold and rain on Wednesday evening to hear a most amazing concert in St. John's Cathedral in the Stare Miasto. From the altar of this grand church that houses Polish presidents, princes and pianists in its crypts, the Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek layered improvisational jazz licks on top of the purely eerie vocals of the Hilliard Ensemble. Sitting under the pipe organ in the cathedral's balcony, I closed my eyes and listened to the oddly perfect juxtaposition of the single sax melody and those four pure male voices that echoed in a hollow, yet solid, way.

A lone group of monks slowly rose from stone chambers in the dark of the medieval dawn, intoning their morning prayers in major fourths, occasionally deviating with a blue slide up to a fifth. As they ventured out to their fields to work, their tone lightened as the sun emerged from the heavy rains, bringing with it a long, languid, brassy melody. The harmonies played around together as the day brightened then headed west to the smokey cafes of the New York poets in the 50s, shifting into short, syncopated bursts of melody, full of deep meaning and unexpressed anger, justifying the social cause of the day. They modulated into a smooth zen state after a while, mellowing and accepting destiny, dipping back into the fourth dimension to rise high out of the mists of the holy Himalayas, floating eerily over the dark green valleys and lush mountains, winding in and out of consciousness and spirituality on the path of a harmonic minor.

Abandoning Eastern lands, then, they forged a path to the north, the pure soprano sliding smoothly down the translucent teal of the Norwegian fjords, interrupted by lightning-quick runs of the golden sun, splashing down into a bottomless lake of minimalist despair, a dark and lonely existence in this desolate land of endless farms and black wooden houses. Plunging down, down, down... until they forced their way up through a rusty sewer grate into the gritty and glamorous City of Angels, ca. 1943. An abandoned starlet wails plaintively over lost love in a divey motel as a police siren screams down Sunset, and the university crowd swings to the big bands in a Westwood club, all youthful energy and wild abandon... and somewhere in Pasadena, a retired professor drinks his evening sherry in a plush armchair, listening to a modern recording of an established madrigal group.

This is a good idea, the harmonies think, so they bend time once more to drop into the middle of Renaissance Firenze, jauntily coordinating their different voices to sweetly sing the stories of shepherds and roses, love lost then found, fields and flowers, lads and lasses... until they remember that the Americans did this, too, and shyly modulate to a softer, hazier sound, reminiscent of a Copeland melody, all lazy and languid on a warm Iowa afternoon, ending with a proud tribute to Our Town America on the bandstand at dusk. The harmonies decide then that they've had enough for one day, so they meander their way back through tentative intervals and nervous arpeggios to land solidly back on their major fourth feet under candlelit brick arches and stained glass windows, unaware(?) of the effect they've had on their unsuspecting audience.