The Grand Old Lady of 12th Street, The Folly Theater has been a landmark in Kansas City for over one hundred twenty years and I was there last night. Opened in 1900, The Folly featured Burlesque and Vaudeville entertainers. It is one of few buildings from that era that remain. At 12th & Central it has a new parking pavilion, an updated ticket office and lounge but the theater itself still speaks to another time. Most often compared to New York’s Carnegie Hall, visiting performers laud Kansas City for protecting and preserving its legacy. I’ve been there at least a dozen times, to see Rose Ann Cash, Judy Collins and Randy Newman most recently.
Last night the Linda Hall Library at U.M.K.C. sponsored a jazz collaboration titled, The Jazz In Physics. Stephon Alexander, a theoretical physicist and renowned alto sax man along with Donald Harrison, New Orleans tenor sax legend have been collaborating for the past decade on a project that links the improvisational nature of jazz with the language and principles of quantum physics. Last night was their first performance together from that effort with a score written just for it and it was great.
I don’t know much about jazz other than I like most of it. The most interesting and attractive thing I do know is that if you actually listen, there are no boundaries. I liken it to a juggler with too many balls, hoops, oranges and butcher knives in the air, too many to manage but somehow they do. Frequently they get into call & response exchanges that go down perfectly, without words. They described their music as notes and emotions that create their own destination like an electron that is nowhere in particular but actually everywhere all at once; the clever quantum physics caveat.
I am good with Newton and his laws and if I don’t have to do the math I can keep up with thermodynamics but once you cross over into theoretical physics I throw in the towel. Alexander and Harrison laid down some very real music and when they finished, the abstract concepts were confined to the conversation and tongue in cheek one liners.
I went with a friend who had an extra ticket, who likes math & science and like me, doesn’t like to do concerts alone. The theater seats just over a thousand; I think the number is 1,076 plus or minus and there weren’t many no-shows. The crowd was pretty savvy, knew a transition from the end of the piece and timed their applause accordingly. But jazz fans don’t bother with boundaries either. The whistle and hoot whenever the spirit moves them. If you try to listen for something logical or an underlying pattern, forget it. The band counted five other musicians who slipped into and out of the set, sharing the same tools; piano, base and drums.
Toward the end they were just having fun. Harrison lost track of the time and had to ask the stage manager. They played a Miles Davis classic, Bye Bye Blackbird and there were parts I actually recognized. Still I kept wondering if they actually memorize the classics, all those fast notes and too fast notes or freelance their way through the central melody and skip away like a dog off its leash, following a new scent. I had a good time. If it feels good do it. You don’t have to understand anything.
Last night the Linda Hall Library at U.M.K.C. sponsored a jazz collaboration titled, The Jazz In Physics. Stephon Alexander, a theoretical physicist and renowned alto sax man along with Donald Harrison, New Orleans tenor sax legend have been collaborating for the past decade on a project that links the improvisational nature of jazz with the language and principles of quantum physics. Last night was their first performance together from that effort with a score written just for it and it was great.
I don’t know much about jazz other than I like most of it. The most interesting and attractive thing I do know is that if you actually listen, there are no boundaries. I liken it to a juggler with too many balls, hoops, oranges and butcher knives in the air, too many to manage but somehow they do. Frequently they get into call & response exchanges that go down perfectly, without words. They described their music as notes and emotions that create their own destination like an electron that is nowhere in particular but actually everywhere all at once; the clever quantum physics caveat.
I am good with Newton and his laws and if I don’t have to do the math I can keep up with thermodynamics but once you cross over into theoretical physics I throw in the towel. Alexander and Harrison laid down some very real music and when they finished, the abstract concepts were confined to the conversation and tongue in cheek one liners.
I went with a friend who had an extra ticket, who likes math & science and like me, doesn’t like to do concerts alone. The theater seats just over a thousand; I think the number is 1,076 plus or minus and there weren’t many no-shows. The crowd was pretty savvy, knew a transition from the end of the piece and timed their applause accordingly. But jazz fans don’t bother with boundaries either. The whistle and hoot whenever the spirit moves them. If you try to listen for something logical or an underlying pattern, forget it. The band counted five other musicians who slipped into and out of the set, sharing the same tools; piano, base and drums.
Toward the end they were just having fun. Harrison lost track of the time and had to ask the stage manager. They played a Miles Davis classic, Bye Bye Blackbird and there were parts I actually recognized. Still I kept wondering if they actually memorize the classics, all those fast notes and too fast notes or freelance their way through the central melody and skip away like a dog off its leash, following a new scent. I had a good time. If it feels good do it. You don’t have to understand anything.
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