‘Passione’ is a new movie by John Turtuffo, one of our great actors, who also has a great passion for Naples or Napoli in southern Italy on the Mediterranean, and its music. We see everybody singing, lots of beat up walls, some classic art and unique architecture, very expressive enactments of songs, plenty of history, people digging out of a 1944 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, but mostly all sorts of music. And some fantastic dancing, especially one piece framed in a four story building with a central archway and a dancer per balcony, 3 to each floor. I think
all beautiful women – can’t recall any man on one of those balconies.

The title connects to the jazz song ‘Passione’ played by James Senese’s band, Mr. Senese on saxophone. He speaks about being black in Italy, and the prejudice he had to go through, as there weren’t too many black folks in Italy until after the USA invaded the land of Mussolini and overthrew the Fascists at the end of World war 2. You can see how happy a lot of Italians were to see the Americans rid them of Mussolini. Remember, they hung the mug-chinned dictator by a lightpost in the streets when the people had the opportunity to do so.

Mr. Senese explains that his father was a black soldier from North Carolina, and his mother was a Neopolitan (which means she came from Napoli or Naples).

Five men from the band Avion Travel perform in a building-framed square, then are asked who the best singer was from Napoli. Three of the five say Sergio Bruni. Then the middle person of the five sings one of his most famous songs, to the joy of the others. Then Turtuffo provides us with some footage of
the man himself on black and white film, dressed in suit and tie, with a lovely voice and a big Italian schnozzola, with a unique flute soloist interacting with Mr. Bruni on the tune provided.

Riaz, of mixed descent, does a great reggae tune, very MTV, shot in the poor streets of Napoli, with beautiful women walking
throughout the filming, including going thru this one tiny door cut out of a temporary steel wall in a building that is being renovated – which is so typical for Italy and most of Europe.

If you love music and Italy, go see this one. It’s playing one more night in Westhampton at the Performing Arts Theatre, Thursday August 11, 2011, where Wynonna Judd arrives and plays on August 13. The fantastic ‘Incendies’ will be in the Theater midweek, next week. French, terrific plot/story, but yes
quite heavy. I highly recommend that one too.

The Church from Australia is playing some of the best music on planet Earth right now. They’re in Atlanta Tuesday night at 7 PM at the Variety Playhouse,
1099 Euclid Avenue. If the music is anything like it was in NYC at the Highline
Ballroom, I would not miss the opportunity to experience a concert of a lifetime.

The Church has been together for more than 25 years, playing exotic rock/alternative
music with two of the finest most beautiful yet often pungent guitarists of the
recorded music era. Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper are just fantastic in
person, playing and jamming off of each other. Then there’s the bass player in
the middle, who sings most of the songs and leads the band, Steve Kilbey. He’s
become very good looking in his older years, lean yet muscular, dancing through
each song, conducting the music. And the drummer is solid, John Powles, backing
up every innuendo and accent the up front guitar/bassists place amidst all the
ever changing themes and leads. There’s also a young mop haired Craig
Willson on the keys and guitars filling in lots of holes, playing riffs and leads
and background openings.

This band is so professional now, they decided to do this brief American tour that
ends in Atlanta, by playing three albums, all songs in order, in three separate
sessions, with two intermissions, and no encores. They started off with their
very unusual critically acclaimed ‘Untitled #23′ that opens with ‘Cobalt Blue’-
available for sampling on The Church website. This has a Beatles-esque refrain
that haunts and entrances. ‘Desert wind in a telephone box…’ is the first line.
Don’t expect simple un-creative lyrics. Poetry abounds, and not just simple
easy images of love. But it seems each and every tune, especially on Untitled #23,
has some fine lovely guitar work somewhere in it, often Koppes and Willson-Piper
trading off, lifting each other to greater heights. And Steve Kilbey is great on
the bass but then sometimes he plays guitar. Watching these guys play, there
seemed to be something totally new and unpredictable making you glad you were
alive to see this level of musicianship surprising you song after song during
this benchmark concert. Anchorage will be song #8 on your list in the very first
set. Lyrics…’Music of the snow the template of a flake/Nature you don’t know/A
nice delicious ache/The conscience of a fox….

The second album showcased is the 1992 release ‘Priest=Aura’ which I apparently
did not appreciate for its terrificness. The CD tho hasn’t all the guitar on it
like the band gave us with voluptuous energy in NYC LIVE!! Especially the first
song ‘Aura’ which started like a classical magical fugue almost – Craig Willson
doing the honors on the keyboard – and then Marty Willson-Piper performed his
best guitarwork for the last half of this 7 minutes plus tune. I thought that
was the highlight of the entire concert, so get back early after the first
intermission and really enjoy yourself with ‘Aura’. This 1992 album is not
all melody and lush beauty. There is a 9 minute tune called ‘Chaos’ that is
rather dissonant but really jammy and together. Then there is the very disturbing
‘The Disillusionist’ that Kilbey really shakes you up with, the last 20 or 30 seconds
of this piece sung a cappella. ‘Feel’ is great, the most melodic tune from the
album. ‘Kings’ is a staccato-guitared piece to throw you back in time, but with
today’s instrumentation instead of lutes and flutes. ‘Mistress’ is the only tune
I missed from my front table seat, but I still loved hearing it from the bathroom.

The evening finished with the very popular ‘Starfish’ album released in 1988,
highlighted by ‘Destination’ the first song. The opening spacy stark single guitar
notes slowly charm you into Steve Kilbey starting to sing the lyrics which include:
‘Our documents are useless or forged beyond believing/Page forty-seven is unsigned/
I need it by this evening/In the space between our cities a storm is slowly forming/
Something eating up our days/I feed it every morning/Destination destination’
Then come the great ‘Blood Money’ an all-time classic, and then ‘Lost’ all the way
to ‘New Season’ and the final lovely wistful rocking ‘Hotel Womb.’

It was a wonder to be there, listening to what I think actually is the best music
being made on Earth now – including electric guitars, if I might add that limitation.
The music is almost classical. And The Church played with vitality and joyous
energy. If I don’t go to another concert for the rest of my life, this one could get
me through…but I’d love to see them play again. Next big concert is supposed to
be at the Sydney Opera House with a 70-piece orchestra, so sez Steve Kilbey. (Sydney,
New South Wales, Australia) Yes! This is what music is all about. The Church love
what they do, the music the make, the opportunity to jam, to make beautiful unexpected
sounds and riffs and melodies, while loosening up your mind with their lyrics and
singing. Do NOT miss the Church on Tuesday in Atlanta! You’ll regret it when you
hear some of what was going on in the inevitable aftermath of internet exposure. See more at (and have a bitta listenin’)

http://www.thechurchband.net

I saw the Abu Raed movie last night and it was terrific.  Lovely tale of an older widowed knowledgeable man with 2000 books who finds a Captain’s hat that he sheepishly plucks out of the garbage.  He lives in a poor neighborhood in Amman, Jordan and works at the airport, actually, as a janitor.  But now, when he wears the magical captain’s hat, the neighborhood kids think he is a pilot and want him to tell them tales of his many adventures.  He tries to confess to them that he is not a captain, but then he gets carried away and there is the tale, plus that of his next door neighbor Murad, a young handsome son of a very very abusive father who beats his wife and kids esp when drunkish.  Then there’s the beautiful unmarried independent female pilot who is an important part of the story and all of this interweaves into a very romantic but dire movie that deserves every award it can get.  The lead actor and the female pilot are both splendid, as are all the children, and the cinematography.

The question of a woman’s role in an environment where woman are not very well protected by society is portrayed here.  No veils.  This must be Jordan in the new millenium, yet they are expected to be subordinate, as is the poor woman who is the next door drunken clothes salesman’s wife.  The female pilot is unmarried, says she doesn’t want to get married (to her father, who keeps finding wealthy enuff young men who are nerds who she has no interested in meeting or marrying), but longs for someone intelligent and interesting.  Like Abu Raed.  Whose wife died five years ago, but has wisdom and vision, tho is stuck on his path after death took his one son and his wife time back.  Abu Raed is a great character, mild, helpful, yearning, tho he has never left the country (of Jordan).  Go see this one.

Well, I was surprised when the six woman band accompanying Dave Alvin came out on the stage.  What a hot night it was.  Dave Alvin is one of the great guitarists of the world.  His last appearance at Stephen Talkhouse had him on the electric guitar for the whole show with the Guilty Men.  He was more sober, and less acoustic.  This time his cast led him in a different direction.  There were four and five part harmonies in songs like ‘Downey Girl’ and fiddle solos by Laurie Lewis and Amy Farris; hot lap steel guitar solos by the beautiful Cindy Cashdollar; super-steady drumming by Lisa Pankratz (who looked like Diego Rivera’s wife (twice married – to each other) Frida Kahlo with that flower in her hair off to the left side), and Sarah Brown in the middle of it all holding it together on the bass.  Oh, and then there is Dave’s childhood sweatheart Christy McWilson on the lead vocals of songs like ‘Weight of the World’ and ‘Potter’s Field’ – the latter having mucho four and five part harmonies as the ladies sang the chorus ‘Bury Me in Potter’s Field’.  A bit morbid, but you gotta go anyway and sometimes we do think about it and Christy wrote this song and it’s on the new CD.  Apparently this group was assembled in only 2008 for a San Francisco bluegrass festival, and now they are on the road tearing it up. 

For the entire show proper, Dave played acoustic guitar, and the band was showcased to great pleasure.  Then for the demanded encore(s) Dave strapped on his electric instrument and wowed us all out in Amagansett, especially with the last tune that ‘tells us everything that we have to know about life…a tune written by….?Doris Day?’   Yeah.  Don’t know if my mother would have adequately appreciated undoubtedly the hottest version of ‘Que Sera Sera’ ever performed.  Maybe 8 or 9 minutes with everybody cookin’ but especially Mr. Alvin blasting thru it, flying and penetrating the tune’s essence and rocking beyond anything else done last night.  That peaked off the night.

P.S.  I picked up a Laurie Lewis CD called ‘Earth and Sky’ that is stupendous.  Mostly bluegrass.  Just about every song is terrific.  She hails out of Berkeley, California.  Downey is where Dave is from.  He and his brother formed the Blasters out of Downey.  Which is just down dee road from Whittier, where Christy McWilson hails from (also shamed ex-President Richard Nixon).  These are towns in the San Bernadino valley west of Los Angeles.  Where all the smog collects when the ocean breezes blow it from the freeways and city, toward the trapping mountains….