Free live music in Las Palmas, May 2021

There are twelve months in all the year, As I hear many men say, But the merriest month in all the year Is the merry month of May.

Folk ballad

The state of alarm ended on 9^th of May, and with it many annoying restrictions, such as the nighttime curfew. We went to see live music every single weekend!

• 1 May: La Local Jazz Band + Tributo Chick Corea @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos, Parque Doramas, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
  What I have misinterpreted, at the moment of ordering the tickets, as Tribute to Chick Corea by La Local Jazz Band, turned out to be a fabulous double bill:
  1. La Local Jazz Band presenting their new album Paisajes sonoros: Miqui Delgado (piano), Samantha de León (double bass), Ernesto Montenegro (trumpet), Miguel Ramírez (sax) and Suso Vega (drums).
  2. Jaume Vilaseca Trio with Jaume Vilaseca (keyboards), Ramón Díaz (drums) and Dick Them (bass) presenting their tribute to Chick Corea.
  Altogether the two concerts lasted for almost three hours.

• 2 May: Joven Borondón Big Band feat. Joan Chamorro and Elia Bastida @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos
  The concert started with Trio featuring Èlia Bastida (violin), Joan Chamorro (double bass) and José Alberto Medina (piano), the continued with Joven Borondón Big Band. Joan Chamorro was directing a few songs and then joining on sax. (You can watch the complete performance here, here, here, and here.) This concert concluded the LPA International Jazz Day, a four-day-long celebration of the International Jazz Day in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

  

• 8 May: Bohemia Lanzarote «Inmarcesible» @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos
  A 12-strong band led by Juanma Padrón presented a mix of folk songs and Latin and Spanish standards such as Gracias a la Vida, Orgullecida, Mediterráneo, Candela, Ojalá que llueva café...

• 13 May: Trinidad Jiménez @ Teatro Guiniguada, Plaza F. Mesa de León
  Another masterclass organised by Mousikê La Laguna. I don’t know how it is for the teachers who normally perform the same evening but for the attendees 4:30 pm is not the best time. I have to confess that I even briefly fell asleep during the class. Sorry, Trinidad!

• 15 May: Fabiola Trujillo «La flor de la canela» @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos
  In her new programme, Ms Trujillo, accompanied by Daniel García, Juan Carlos Sierra, Luis Montesdeoca and Ivanoff Rodríguez, revisited the repertoire of the great María Dolores Pradera, with songs like La flor de la canela, Milonga Sentimental, Ojalá que te vaya bonito, María la Portuguesa and, quite unexpectedly, very much Canarian Palmero, Sube a La Palma.

• 22 May: Cantadores @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos
  Like Bohemia Lanzarote, Tenerife-based Cantadores (formed in 2008 as Jóvenes Cantadores, obviously not as young now) presented a mixed bag of folk and Latin standards of which, in my opinion, the best were cumbias: La Piragua by José Barros, A Dios le Pido and La Gota Fría.

• 26 May: Concierto Extraordinario Día de Canarias @ Edificio Miller, Parque Santa Catalina
  Banda Sinfónica Municipal de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, conducted by Daniel Abad Casanova, with special guest Germán López (timple). The programme included:

  Alvamar Overture Nuevos Tiempos * Malagueña Embrujada * Muelle Viejo † Chipude * Arizona Nana Para Jar † De Isla a Isla * A Punto de Nieve * Folías † Nunca Me Iré de Aquí — with Ana Gil (vocal) Isa del Parralito * — with Javier Montero (cajón) Los Cuatro Gigantes * * Soloist: Germán López (timple) † Duet Germán López (timple) and Augusto Báez (piano)

• 29 May: Toñín Corujo Quartet «Raíz» @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos, Parque Doramas
  What was advertised as “Toñín Corujo Quartet” turned out to be a 11-piece band featuring Toñín Corujo (timple), Carlos Pérez (sax, flute, keyboards), Yarel Hernández (bass), Israel Curbelo (keyboards, cajón), Tony Cantero (guitar), Alex Jiménez (drums), Sergey Saprychev (percussion), Domingo Corujo (lapas, timple, guitar), Almudena Hernández, Ciro Corujo and Rubén Fariñas (vocals).

Bring on June!

How to Steal a Country

a film by Rehad Desai

A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.

Misattributed to Everett Dirksen

According to Wikipedia, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma’s middle name means “one who smiles while causing you harm” in Zulu.

The harm his rule caused to South Africa is estimated to be at least 1.5 trillion rand — a third of the country’s GDP. Smile and wave.

I surely learned a thing or two from this — highly recommended — documentary but was I shocked? Not really. The only truly surprising thing was that old JZ appeared in front of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture at all. So far he has not been convicted. We can only dream that certain “first-world” presidents, chancellors or prime ministers (ex- or otherwise) find themselves in a courtroom, let alone locked up.

¿Qué Pacha, Mama?

by Raquel Riba Rossy

Does RRR’s sophomore effort suffer from the dreaded Difficult Second Album Syndrome? Personally, I didn’t find it as compelling as Más Vale Lola. OK it has no story to talk about, but neiter did her first book. ¿Qué Pacha, Mama? has got some fine illustrations, it just doesn’t glue together. Which is a shame really.

Hra

a film by Alejandro Fernández Almendras

The last film of the Czech cinema cycle as well as the most strange and beautifully poignant one. Also, the least Czech of them all. It focuses on a few weeks from the life of Petr (Jirí Mádl), a young-ish theatre director in a small Czech town (could have been any small town anywhere) staging Fedra by Unamuno (could have been any play). The lead-up to the casting of Karolina (Elizaveta Maximová) is probably the best part of the movie. While Petr’s affair with Karolina is very much predictable, the rest of the film is not. Now I can’t say that Petr is any more machista than the male protagonists of, say, Tiger Theory or National Street: all fail to understand that women — o horror — can have plans on their own. Nevertheless, for a theatre director, or a human being, Petr’s complete lack of sense of humour is simply unforgivable.

Black and white cinematography by Inti Briones makes the story both credible and universal. Thoughtful direction by Alejandro Fernández and music score by Pablo Vergara makes me wish to watch the other films of this team.

Más Vale Lola Que Mal Acompañada

by Raquel Riba Rossy

According to her creator, Lola Vendetta was born by accident. And what a happy accident was that! Now when I’m putting people (mostly politicians) on my list, I’m also thinking of ways of contracting Lola to do the honours. That cheers me up sometimes.

Then again, I don’t believe much can be solved with violence. Violence is not nice. I wouldn’t even enjoy it outside of the comic universe. In the very same interview, Raquel Riba Rossy says that she has a katana but does not run around with it. It’s good to know.

Národní třída

a film by Štěpán Altrichter

Till the very end I was hoping for a miracle. The miracle of me starting to like the protagonist (Hynek Čermák), nicknamed “Vandam” (after Jean-Claude Van Damme). Nope. Never happened. I might sympathise with the cause — to save the pub where the local lumpenproletariat spends all their time, how noble of him — but it’s really difficult to like such an utterly obnoxious thug. Lucka (Kateřina Janečková), the owner of said pub and Vandam’s romantic interest, is probably the only likeable character in the whole movie. To be fair, the film has enough black humour and violence to keep you interested for 90 minutes, after which you’ll probably want to forget it as soon as possible.

Владимир Качан (1947—2021)

Vladimir Kachan (Владимир Качан), a Russian theatre and film actor and a singer-songwriter, died on 7 May.

One of his best-known songs is Оранжевый кот (Orange Cat) with the lyrics by Leonid Filatov. Until today, it was the only song I knew for sure to be written by Kachan.

I think everybody from my generation (and at least ±1 generation) knew the song from Звезда пленительного счастья, but I learned only now that it was Kachan singing.

What I do remember very well was his appearance in the Soviet TV programme Вокруг смеха in a duo with Lyudmila Cherepanova (Людмила Черепанова).

Betty Boob

by Véro Cazot and Julie Rocheleau

Practically dialogue-free, this heart-warming graphic novel deals with themes of breast cancer, loss, recovery and self-acceptance with rare sensitivity and humour.

Free live music in Las Palmas, April 2021

I wish I went to more live music events this month but hey, three is already an improvement.

• 15 April: Fernando Lamadrid @ Teatro Guiniguada, Plaza F. Mesa de León, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
  Timur and I went to Guiniguada to attend this masterclass. Well. If there is one thing that I learned there it’s how not to give a class. (Which, by the way, is useful as well, I just expected more than that.) Fernando is undubitably a great bass player and his technique and improvisations are incredible, but if you want to teach, you’ve got to prepare — like, to have some sort of plan maybe? The interaction with the audience was not going beyond “have you got any questions?”, invariably followed by stunned silence.

• 24 April: «Mujeres de carne y verso» @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos, Parque Doramas
  Mujeres de carne y verso is a new album and a show by Juan Valderrama (yes, a son of that Juan Valderrama) based on women’s poetry throughout the ages. In this concert, postponed from 14 March 2020 (!), Valderrama was accompanied by a wonderful all-female band featuring Cary Rosa Varona (cello, double bass), Isabel Noa (piano), Mercedes Luján (guitar, tres cubano), Jessica Estévez (trumpet, cajón) and Madeline Espinosa (percussion). The highlights included Gracias a la Vida (salsa-style!), Hombres Necios, and, of course, “by popular demand” — in this case, the populus was represented by an elderly neighbour of mine who kept shouting the name of the song till Valderrama said “I think I heard you” — El emigrante.

• 29 April: Noa Drezner @ Museo Elder de la Ciencia y la Tecnología, Muelle de Santa Catalina
  As if to confirm my theory that women, as a rule, are better music teachers, this masterclass, indeed, was a class. Noa Drezner is an Israeli guitarist based in Jerez de la Frontera. She taught us several compases and made us to accompany her with hand clapping. And in the end there was an unexpected jam with another flamenco guitarist who happened to be in the audience.

  

Looking forward to May and return to normality in general.