A musical evening at Makor, featuring Chana Rothman, Fools for April, and Odeya

Here’s the announcement concerning this concert (which took place this past Wednesday, November 29, 2006), straight from the November 24, 2006 New York Jewish Week’s Arts Guide:

“Rothman’s songs borrow from Nepal and Thailand to create an urban-influenced reggae, pop, and funk riff on Jewish lessons. Fools for April, a duo featuring C Lanzbom and Dov Rosenblatt, sounds a lot like the music coming from America’s South and folk traditions. Odeya plays jazz, folk, and Middle Eastern music which encompasses the sounds of her Yemenite and Israeli origins.”

I thoroughly enjoyed the music, the part-Hebrew part-English lyrics, and the singing of Chana Rothman, as well as her excellent acoustic-guitar playing. Her band was likewise talented. I’ll keep an eye on her.

Fools for April was a bit big for a duo, having a drummer and a bass player in addition to the guys mentioned above. Among other things, the band can be described as, strictly in alphabetical order, Blue Fringe meets Soul Farm, since the line-up includes Blue Fringe’s acoustic guitarist/lead singer (Dov Rosenblatt) and Soul Farm’s lead guitarist (C Lanzbom). Watching the band run through a sound check while two thirds of the audience walked out gave me some appreciation for just how thick an artist’s skin has to be, and reminded me of Mark's/PsychoToddler's wry remark, some time back, that his band had performed for tens of people.

Fools for April’s music was thoroughly enjoyable English-language secular rock, and didn't sound like either Blue Fringe or Soul Farm. (I guess the guys like a little variety in their music, which is not such a bad idea.) My only major kvetch was my perennial complaint about guitarists who drown out their own voices—I have a strong personal preference for actually being able to hear the words. Other than that, my only problem with their music was that wasn't exactly my speed, literally—as my longtime readers know, and my newer readers are about to find out, I go to rock concerts to dance. :)

Odeya’s music was not all dance music, either. But I found the jazzy musical arrangements fascinatingly complex. I’m keeping an eye on her, too.

Interesting observations, etc.

This is the first time that I’ve ever been unable to figure out how a drummer was playing. I could hear very well that he was using drumsticks, not his bare hands, but I couldn’t see the drumsticks. That didn’t make any sense. So I looked more closely—and saw that his drumsticks were black! That’s one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever seen. Hasn’t it ever occurred to this drummer that there are a few music fans out there who enjoy actually watching musicians play? Black drumsticks are almost invisible. What is this guy, a stealth drummer?

Speaking of watching musicians, Odeya’s percussionist—not the drum-set drummer, but the person who was playing every other kind of percussion—was a trip and a half to watch. How he managed to play a “flat drum” (?)—one of those thin, hand-held drums that look like tambourines without the metal parts that rattle—with one hand, and a knee-held bongo-type drum with the other hand at the same time is beyond my comprehension. Better yet, he sometimes played a big bongo with special brushes that were much wider and made from a different material than drum-set brushes. That’s a technique that I’ve never seen, and it certainly produced a sound very different from what one gets by drumming on a bongo with the hands. More interesting still, he was able to create yet another completely different sound by striking one brush, which was already sitting on the bongo drumhead, with the other.

Then there was my little comedy of errors. There was a sound coming out of the rhythm section that I simply couldn’t trace. It didn’t sound like a drum sound because the tuning was far too clear—those were definable notes. It took me three songs to realize that the sound was coming from the bass guitar. How embarrassing. I think I didn’t recognize the sound partly because the bass player frequently played quite high up in the bass’s range, and partly because the arrangements were really complex. I haven’t listened to enough jazz, apparently.

The “rock star” :)

This is another thing that I’ve never seen: C Lanzbom showed up with three—count ‘em, three—guitars. It gets better, folks—he also brought his own on-stage assistant. Between songs, he and the assistant would swap guitars, and the assistant would tune while C played. At the end of the concert, the assistant walked out with two (all three?) of the guitars slung over his shoulders. Now I’ve seen everything.