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How old are you now?
Rock-and-roll legend Al Kooper turns 60, Rykodisc celebrates its 20th, and more

Al Kooper’s benefit birthday bash

Rock-and-roll legend Al Kooper turns 60 February 5, but he’s already gotten his birthday present. In recent years the musician, songwriter, and producer best known for his work with Bob Dylan and Lynyrd Skynyrd has survived the onset of diabetes and a brain tumor to enter a creative renaissance. He’s been busy writing, handling reissues of his classic albums, and playing both solo and with his Funky Faculty R&B big band made up of Berklee profs. He’s also just completed his debut tour of Japan, where he’s revered, and his first studio recording since 1975 — a CD Kooper calls "the album I’ve wanted to make for 25 years" — for the Japanese arm of Sony.

So Kooper’s giving something back for his birthday: a concert on Saturday, January 31, to benefit the Watertown-based Perkins School for the Blind and the Berklee College of Music "It Can Happen" scholarship fund, which Kooper set up when he was teaching there in 1998. The show, headlined by Kooper and his Funky Faculty with guest Tony DeBlois, a blind, autistic piano savant who graduated from Berklee in 1996, is at the Berklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Ave., Boston, and starts at 8:15 p.m. (Call 617-931-2000.)

"When I established the scholarship, I thought, ‘What if somebody couldn’t see or walk and had talent and wanted to go to Berklee?’ " Kooper says. "I wouldn’t want anybody to be turned away because of issues related to that. The irony arrived in 2001 when I lost most of my sight. But I felt that was like God telling me I’d done the right thing."

Kooper and his Faculty are adding four new tunes to their repertoire for this show. "They can play my music better than any band I’ve played with." Fans will get to hear more new tunes upon the release of his new Songs from the Basement, which was literally recorded in the basement of Kooper’s Somerville home and will be available domestically via his web site, www.alkooper.com. "I haven’t made a solo album since Act like Nothing’s Wrong [One Way, 1976], but I’ve continued to write and record new songs, so I had 140 numbers sitting on tape. I gleaned the tracks I thought were best from those 140, so I think this is one of my finest records."

— Ted Drozdowski

BCMA back in action

The Boston Creative Music Alliance has announced its late-winter/early-spring schedule, and it’s more manna for the avant-gardists in the jazz community. On February 5, the BCMA bring together one of those one-of-a-kind, possibly once-in-a-lifetime collaborations among heavycats: saxophonist/trumpeter Joe McPhee, Chicago reedman Ken Vandermark, guitarist Joe Morris, bassist Nate McBride, and drummer Luther Gray. On March 6, one of the most scabrous and fearless of avant-gardemen, German reedman Peter Brötzmann, brings his Die Like a Dog Trio, with bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake. Paris-to-Boston transplant Steve Lacy unveils his "Beat Suite" — settings of Beat poetry — with an insanely adept quintet comprised of too-long-from-the-fair genius trombonist George Lewis, and Lacy’s rhythm-mates from his long European tenure, bassist Jean Jacques Avenel and drummer John Betsch, and Lacy’s wife and muse, the dynamic vocalist Irene Aebi. Chicago tenor titan Fred Anderson duets with young drummer Chad Taylor on April 9. And on April 30, the great downtown New York drummer Bobby Previte brings his typically downtown New York band Bump, with reedman Marty Ehrlich, trombonist Curtis Fowlkes, keyboardist Wayne Horvitz, and the great electric bassist Steve Swallow.

All the BCMA concerts are held in the Institute of Contemporary Art, 955 Boylston Street, at 8 p.m. Tickets $15 for Lacy and Previte; $10 for the other three, with 10 percent discounts available for advance purchases to more than one concert. A season pass is $52. For multiple-concert orders only, send check or money order payable to Boston Creative Music Alliance to BCMA, 38 Alpine Street, Somerville, MA 02144. For single ticket-purchases, call Twisted Village record shop, 12 Eliot Street in Harvard Square, at (617) 354-6898.

— Jon Garelick

Rykodisc turns 20 and the Abbey launches a label

With all the carping from the major labels about their current imperiled state, it’s important to note that, locally at least, one Massachusetts-born imprint is about to celebrate its second decade in robust health with a sprawling double-disc retrospective, and another small label has just sprung fully formed from the unlikely locale of a Somerville bar. Maybe the Big Five should reconsider their business models — or at least their A&R strategies.

Rykodisc was founded in Salem back in 1983 as the world’s first CD-only label. (Trivia: "Ryko" is the Japanese word for "sound from a flash of light.") They originally came to fame for re-releasing the back catalogs of canonical artists from Bowie to Zappa, the CDs themselves marked by copious liner notes and a distinctive green-tinted jewel case. As the company grew, it pushed innovation — the first 81-minute CD, the first 3-inch CD single — even as it also began releasing records on moribund formats like LPs and cassettes. It also began cultivating its own roster of talent (Bob Mould and his band Sugar, Morphine, Kelly Willis, Josh Rouse), eventually expanding to the point that Ryko grew out of its Salem digs, was briefly affiliated with Chris Blackwell’s Palm Pictures label, and now has offices in New York, L.A., and London (it still maintains an office in little ol’ Beverly).

The retrospective’s diverse track listing is a testament to Rykodisc’s reputation as a label of, by, and for connoisseurs. The two discs span from the early ’70s (Nick Drake’s "Pink Moon," John Cale’s "Paris, 1919") to the present (the Fire Theft’s "Chain," Golden Smog’s "Looking Forward to Seeing You"); from ’80s Amerindie chestnuts (the Replacements’ "I Will Dare," Mission of Burma’s "Academy Fight Song") to world-music gems (Ali Farka Toure and Ry Cooder’s "Ai Du," Mickey Hart’s "Cougar Run"). And that ain’t all: everyone from Badfinger to Big Star, Morphine to the Misfits, Jimi to Yoko — even chain-smoking firebrand comedian Bill Hicks — weighs in. The compilation hits stores February 3.

Meanwhile, a new scrapper on the block is rarin’ to test its mettle. A press release (done up, incredibly, in a font named for the Johnny Thunders/Ramones heroin paean "Chinese Rocks"!) arrived at the Phoenix last week announcing the creation of Abbey Lounge Records, a label that’s using the legendarily punk-garage dive as a home base and a fount for its talent.

Founded by Abbey owner J Grimaldi and "Malibu Lou" Mansdorf, an NYC-transplant late of Roadrunner records, the label has already snagged the Dents (a supergroup formed, with the Downbeat 5’s Jen Rassler, from the ashes of the Decals), Medford’s the Marvels, and Muck & the Mires (their new album, Beginners Muck, is on Amp, but Abbey has inked a deal to distribute it, and will helm any future releases).

Living down the block from the Abbey, Mansdorf started hanging out regularly at the Beacon Street bar. Its energy and camaraderie reminded him of the fertile, fraternal scene that sprang up in New York in the mid-to-late ’90s around bands like D-Generation but had disintegrated when the clubs everyone played closed down. "I was like, ‘Holy fuckin’ shit!’ You got great bands like the Dents and Muck & the Mires and Downbeat 5! You got new bands like the Marvels! Legendary bands like the Real Kids and the Lyres!" All for minimal cover at "a dive bar with one of the greatest sound systems I’ve ever heard."

So it is that early March will see the release of a four-song split single from the Dents and erstwhile Dropkick Murphy Mike McColgan’s new band the Street Dogs (with whom Dents’ Michelle Paulhus has sometimes played bass) and, in April, a seven-song CD from the Marvels. A new full-length from Muck & the Mires, another from the Dents (produced by the Neighborhoods’ Dave Minehan), and a 20-band Abbey Lounge Records compilation, are all due by summer.

"The label and the bands are gonna all grow together," says Mansdorf, who plans to use his connections in distribution and sales to help the bands out, boosting them through the press, college radio, even helping to send them on to bigger and better labels. "Money’s not the big issue. It takes time and love."

Both of which he’s willing to give. Even though he’s saddled with a day job, he’s committed to working nights and weekends — when he’s not onstage doing the "Punk Rock Balladeer" thing (acoustic covers of the Ramones and Hanoi Rocks, of course) as Malibu Lou. You can see for yourself at the Abbey next Friday, February 6, when he joins the Dents, the Marvels, and Muck & the Mires for a night of supercharged rock and supercheap beer. Mansdorf may be a transplant, but he’s a true believer. "The best bands in town play at the Abbey." (The Abbey Lounge is at 3 Beacon Street, Somerville, off Inman Square; call 617-441-9631.)

— Mike Miliard

Jump into the theater talent pool

Looking for work as a designing woman or, for that matter, an administrating man? StageSource, the United States Institute of Theatre Technology New England, and the New England Theatre Conference team up to produce the fourth annual Regional Entertainment Production and Administration Job Expo February 14, and over 40 potential employers are expected to be there. The event — reportedly the only regional job expo designed to help employers in the entertainment industry reach candidates to fill job openings in design, technical production, consulting, and administration — takes place at MIT’s La Sala de Puerto Rico Room (Room 202) of the Stratton Student Center, in Cambridge, from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m.

StageSource Executive Director Jeff Poulos says, "Every production company in the city will have its hands full come July with events around the Democratic National Convention." So there’s more work out there than usual. Crystal Tiala, chair of USITT New England, adds, "Speaking as a designer myself, there is no better place in the region for designers and technicians to find a job."

And the beauty of it is that it’s the production companies who pay to be there. Producer registration fee for the REPA Job Expo is $70 ($60 for members of any of the three sponsoring organizations). Applicants attend for free and are encouraged to bring resumes, business cards, and portfolios. You don’t even have to show up: just send 75 copies of your resume in advance to be distributed to participating producers. For more information, contact StageSource at 617-720-6066 or visit www.stagesource.org.

— Carolyn Clay

 


Issue Date: January 30 - February 5, 2004
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