Merkin Concert Hall nipped and tucked, 14 pianists astride keyboard genres drew an overflow audience from 2 pm to 9 on Martin Luther King Day — free of charge, and this jewel-box holds only 450, but the acoustics are swell, and so was some of the music.<\/p>\n
Merkin Concert Hall nipped and tucked, 14 pianists astride keyboard genres drew an overflow audience from 2 pm to 9 on Martin Luther King Day — free of charge, and this jewel-box holds only 450, but the acoustics are swell, and so was some of the music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-48","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1i3CL-M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":174,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/03\/cecil_taylor_post-concert.html","url_meta":{"origin":48,"position":0},"title":"Cecil Taylor at 80, part two: A brief review","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"March 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Pianist Cecil Taylor -- who yesterday I might have described as \"preeminent\" rather than \"predominant\" --\u00a0read his erudite, sound-sensitive poetry in the first half of his sold-out 80th birthday concert at Merkin Hall, then performed solo sonatas for approximately 50 minutes. An infant in the audience occasionally cooing along with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":197,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/05\/cecil_taylor_miles_davis_in_ny.html","url_meta":{"origin":48,"position":1},"title":"Cecil and Miles in NYC (and India)","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"May 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Taylor, the pianist beyond genre (age: 80) and still-groundbreaking music of Davis, the trumpeter\/conceptualist (dead 18 years) are at major Manhattan venues this week, continuing to provoke and gratify. Cecil Taylor performs at the Blue Note tonight (Thursday, May 28) while \"Miles From India,\" mixing veterans of Davis' electric bands\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"Miles from India (TWO CD SET)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51IWYEF2M8L._SL500_AA240_.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":171,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/03\/reasons_to_be_cheerful_wynton.html","url_meta":{"origin":48,"position":2},"title":"Reasons to be cheerful: Wynton books Ornette","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"March 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Wynton Marsalis has high regard for the music of Ornette Coleman -- as demonstrated by Jazz at Lincoln Center's just-released 2009-2010 concert schedule, which begins next September 26 with a single performance by Coleman's quartet featuring two bassists and his son Denardo on drums.\u00a0This booking might seem like a point\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2421,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2018\/02\/jazz-projects-with-2018-nea-funding-support.html","url_meta":{"origin":48,"position":3},"title":"Jazz and beyond projects with 2018 NEA funding support","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"February 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Given all the noise, the\u00c2\u00a0National Endowment for the Arts' $25 mil for arts, literature and education\u00c2\u00a0announced Feb. 7 may have been overlooked. But these funds and the projects they support, nationwide, should be noted.\u00c2\u00a0From more than $3 million going to initiatives strictly labeled \"Music\" (exclusive of \"Musical Theater\" or \"Opera\")\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Akropolis Reed Quintet\"","block_context":{"text":"Akropolis Reed Quintet","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/tag\/akropolis-reed-quintet"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/images-1.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":173,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/03\/cecil_taylor_turns_80.html","url_meta":{"origin":48,"position":4},"title":"Cecil Taylor, unique and predominant, 80 years old","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"March 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Cecil Taylor\u00c2\u00a0is the world's predominant pianist by virtue of his technique, concept and imagination, and one of 20th-21st Century music's magisterial modernists. A figure through whose challenges I investigate the avant garde in\u00c2\u00a0Miles Ornette Cecil -- Jazz Beyond Jazz,\u00c2\u00a0he turned 80 on March 25 (or maybe on the 15th), and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":198,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/05\/on_the_corner_program_notes_me.html","url_meta":{"origin":48,"position":5},"title":"On The Corner program notes, Merkin Hall concert 5\/25\/09","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"May 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Miles Davis intended On The Corner to be a personal statement, an esthetic breakthrough and a social provocation upon its release in fall of 1972. He could hardly have been more successful: the album was all that, though it has taken decades for its full impact to be understood. 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\nOf course, an open Steinway grand ought<\/i> to sound fine, when played by a dozen-plus sensitive musicians (one at a time) on a broad, clean stage in a nicely raked room with freshly upholstered seating, a new coat of paint and enough flat wood baffles on walls and ceilings to suggest Birnam Wood removed to Dunsinane.
\nThat’s not to criticize: Manhattan can well stand an intimate yet unpretentious concert place like Merkin (at Kaufman Center, on 67th St. off B’way, just one block from the Lincoln Center complex and LaGuardia — “Fame” — High School). The real test of the acoustics will be when drums, horns, and electric amplification come into action. But it’s already been made: the year-long renovation did little of note inside the hall, instead focusing on an expanded entry-reception area, better bathrooms, and double doors to keep extraneous noise from the concert area.
\nEnough about the setting — how about the sets? Well, concert division director Gregory D. Evans convened New York players of considerable stature and impressive variety. Ursula Oppens with a world premiere of William Bolcomb’s “Ballade” was the cocncert ender, only one hour late of its scheduled time. . . and though a serious piece performed by a keyboard heroine, my ears were tired after 7 hours of notes-notes-notes and I wasn’t as impressed as I was by Lisa Moore’s range of expressivity on both “The Dream of the Lost Traveller” (composed by her husband Martin Bresnick, based on a poem by Blake) and “Piano Piece No. 4” by Frederic Rzewski (protesting the Pinochet regime, with thunder and hope). Moore is pianist for the Bang on a Can All-Stars, but alone truly distinguished herself.
\nOrli Shaham demonstrated why Chopin’s works are essential piano literature – Jimmy Roberts (composer of “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” was a crowd-pleaser with deadpan conflations of “Moonlight Sonata” and “My Funny Valentine,” Vivaldi’s “The Seasons” and “I Get By With A Little Help from My Friends” and an Elgar variations with “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Michael Riesman reduced Philip Glass’s soundtrack for the Bela Lugosi version of Dracula from cues for string quartet to just enough. Theater composer Stephen Flaherty’s pieces seemed quite kitschy an under-developed to me, and I inexplicably dozed off while Igal Kesselman pounded through Rachmaninoff’s Sonata No. 2. Taking a supper break, I missed Lee Musiker and a John Adams work for two pianos.
\nWhich leaves the “jazz.” Firstly: no one swung — not usually a problem for those seeking jazz beyond<\/i> jazz, but still surprising, given the pianistic context. No one even tried to swing. It didn’t use to mean a thing if it didn’t have that swing. It’s swing becoming extinct?
\nSecondly: I won’t say much here, because I was on assignment for Down Beat and am reserving detailed reviews for that gig. But Jonathan Batiste is an up ‘n’ comer to listen for: he got the biggest sound out of the instrument, and worked his charisma as well as funky vamps. Vijay Iyer is dependably unpredictable, and played the direst version of John Lennon’s “Imagine” imaginable. John Medeski deserves attention for his music way beyond the vamps made famous by jammin’ Medeski, Martin & Wood. Anat Fort served virtually as light relief, penultimate in the program, between Shaham’s Chopin and Oppens’ Bolcomb.
\nIn the upstairs outside the balcony, Gyorgy LIgeti’s “Symphonique for 100 Metronomes” clattered in and out of sync during intermissions. The triumph of the piano marathon was how seriously the musicians took their responsibilities, giving full accounts of their repertoires to return Merkin to the concert circuit. It’s always been a place worth checking out for musical offerings a bit different from what’s offered at more prestigious Carnegie\/Zankel and Lincoln Center halls. Its bookings depend on its concert director, though, and occasional rentals. What’s constant is that solo piano — I bet any<\/i> solo instrument — and most chamber-sized ensembles with natural acoustic balance are clearly heard there. The sight lines are good, too. The chairs, though, might cramp one after six or seven hours. Let’s see, what can we do about that?
\nhowardmandel.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"