Live music and stuff in Las Palmas, July 2023

Whoever decided to organise the 32^nd International Canarian Jazz Festival (30 June — 23 July 2023) and 27^th TEMUDAS Fest (6—22 July 2023) at the same time, clearly didn’t think of people like me. Oh well. I tried to catch what I could.

• 6 July: Both Sides of Joni Mitchell and Rey & Syl @ Paraninfo de La Universidad de Las Palmas, Calle Juan de Quesada, 30, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
  This double bill started with a jazzy tribute to Joni Mitchell by Alexis Cole (vocals) and Monika Herzig (piano) with Peter Kienle (guitar/bass), Peter Lehel (saxophone) and Cecilia Sanchietti (drums). I found the second part more engaging: a fantastic band featuring Dorrey Lin Lyles (vocals), Sylwester Ostrowski (tenor sax), Jakub Mizeracki (guitar), Michał Szkil (piano), Adam Tadel (double bass), Owen Hart Jr. (drums), Lucas Balbo (percussion), Mariana Martinez (dance) and Slawek Ostrowski (vocals).

  

• 7 July, 21:00: «Latas» @ Plaza Stagno
  Three people and lots of cans: a show by D’Click from Zaragoza (see the gallery).

  

• 7 July, 22:00: «Pedaleando hacia el cielo» @ Plaza de Santa Ana
  Bikes, circus and opera: a truly amazing performance by the Belgian company Theater Tol which “tells a love story about being together in dark days” (see the gallery).

  

• 13 July: «Juan de Miranda (1723—1805), un relato de ida y vuelta. Músicas para un genio canario» @ Casa de Colón, Calle Colón, 1
  El Afecto Ilustrado immersed us in the music of the times of the Spanish Baroque painter Juan de Miranda (1723—1805), who happened to be born on this day 300 years ago in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Featuring Lucía Caihuela (mezzo-soprano), Adrián Linares (violin), Marta Ramírez (violin), Diego Pérez (cello), Carlos Oramas (theorbo, baroque guitar), Juan Carlos de Mulder (theorbo) and Raquel García (organo). The programme of the concert included:

  Antonio Martín y Coll: Xácaras, de Flores de Música José de Torres: Bosques Umbrosos (cantada) Joaquín García: ¡Ay, qué prodigio! (cantada al Santísimo Sacramento) Josep and Joan Baptista Pla: Trio sonata en re menor Joaquín García: ¡Ah, del rebaño! (tonada de Corpus) Francisco José de Castro: Sonata prima, de Trattenimenti Armonici da Camera, op. 1 José de Torres: Afectos amantes (cantada) Francesco Corselli: Si aquel monarca de Israel (cantada)

  

• 14 July: Le G. Bistaki, «Baïna[na]» @ Plaza de Santa Ana
  You won’t believe what four men with shovels can do (see the gallery).

  

• 15 July: «Grandes finales» @ Terminal de Contenedores del Muelle de La Luz (Grupo Boluda)
  The free buses from La Muelle took us to the container terminal. In our bus, we were entertained by a gospel choir; not sure if there were enough choirs for each bus. The main course: Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria conducted by Karel Mark Chichon. The programme included, well, mostly finales: those of Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov, the Fourth and Sixth Symphonies by Tchaikovsky, Puccini’s La bohème, Enigma Variations by Elgar, and Baba Yaga/The Great Gates of Kiev from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Plus encores (IMHO, the best part): The Sailor’s Hornpipe, the coda of Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours and Radetzky-Marsch by Johann Strauss Sr. (see the gallery).

  

• 18 July: «Un paseo por la Europa de los siglos XVII y XVIII: Entre Chaconas y Pasacalles» @ Casa de Colón
  Another concert of the cycle Música Antigua en el Patio, this time of 17^th- and 18^th-century harpsichord music performed by Patricia Robaina. The programme included:

  Louis Marchand: Suite en Re menor Prélude Chaconne Jean-Baptiste Forqueray: Suite en Do menor La montigni Henry Purcell: Ground en Do menor Bernardo Storace: Ciaccona en Do Mayor Jean-Baptiste Forqueray: Suite en Sol Mayor La Buisson Chaconne Jean-Henri d’Anglebert: Chaconne de Phaëton Henry Purcell: Ground en Mi menor Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer: Uranie Toccata Georg Muffat: Passacaglia en Sol menor from Apparatus musico-organisticus (1690)

  

• 21 July: Carmen Souza and Caramelo de Cuba @ Plaza de Santa Ana
  Six years after we went to see her trio in the Auditorio, a welcome re-encounter with Carmen Souza (vocals, guitar, paino), this time as a quartet with Deschanel Gordon (piano), Elias Kacomanolis (drums) and Theo Pascal (electric bass). Caramelo de Cuba seemed to be an interesting project but I didn’t stay beyond the first song.
• 22 July: Puertas al Sur 5tet and Ayom @ Plaza de Santa Ana
  Puertas al Sur 5tet mixes the traditional Afro-Latin rhythms rhythms such as bomba, cumbia, festejo and plena with modern jazz and electronica. I’d say too much electronica and loops for a quintet/sextet featuring Beatriz Alonso (voice, keys), Ariel Bringuez (sax, keys, percussion), Kumar Sublevao-Beat (MC, percussion), Luis Suarez (percussion, loops, samplers) and Miguel Manescau (guitar, bass guitar), plus a special guest Octavio Hernández (guitar). And yes, they better loose that rap. I enjoyed Ayom much more: not as much jazz as a catchy amalgam of Lusophone African and Atlantic with Mediterranean music styles. Featuring Jabu Morales (voice and percussion), Alberto Becucci (accordion), Timoteo Grignani and Walter Martins (percussion), Ricardo Quinteria (guitar) and Francesco Valente (bass).
• 23 July: Música en la Francia del siglo XVIII @ Gabinete Literario, Plaza de Cairasco, 1
  This free concert was given by the teachers of the forthcoming International Course of Early Music (I Curso Internacional de Música Antigua en Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 24—27 July). I learned about this event thanks to Patricia Robaina. Performers: Paula Pérez (violin), Mariana Pimenta (soprano), Patricia Robaina (harpsichord) and Pablo Sosa (flute). The programme included Cantata Medée by Louis-Nicolas Clérambault; Le deuxième récréation de la musique by Jean-Marie Leclair; and Cantata Le sommeil d’Ulisse by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre.

  

And two photography exhibitions:

• 15 June — 28 July: «La Isla/El Agua» @ Centro Cultural CICCA, Alameda de Colon, 1
  An exhibition of water-related works by Canarian photographer Tato Gonçalves.

  

• 29 June — 28 July: «San Juan Night Tour» @ Centro de Artes Plásticas (CAP), Calle Colón, 8
  As the name suggests, the images of barrio San Juan by night, by Lidia Esther Díaz Gil.

  

Apart from «Grandes finales», all the events/exhibitions were free of charge.

Four Japanese films

Casa de Colón continues to surprise with free entertainment. This week, it hosted the Japanese Cinema Week of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, organised by Asociación de Cine Vértigo. This year’s edition — 21^st already! — is called NIKKATSU: El crepúsculo de los dioses. Volumen 1. As the name suggests, the programme featured production by Nikkatsu Corporation, with the obvious intent to present Vol. 2, etc. in the years to come. So I watched four (out of five) films in a hope to learn what “the twilight of the gods” was supposed to mean; I failed on that point.

Never mind that. Geishas, geta, sake (excessive consumption of), samurai, yakuza — whatever Japanese stereotype you can think of, you’ve got it. Apart from karaoke, which is probably saved for the next volumes. I loved it.

東京行進曲 / Tōkyō kōshinkyoku / Tokyo March

a film by Kenji Mizoguchi

Only a short (25 minutes or so) fragment of this silent movie survives, but to me it looks like a self-sufficient story. A Bollywoodesque plot with a happy, under the circumstances, ending.

The film’s refreshing brevity, sadly, was compensated for by a preceding “conference”, in fact an hour-and-a-half-long rambling monologue by a guy who should be banned from talking in public henceforth.

河内山宗俊 / Kōchiyama Sōshun / Priest of Darkness

a film by Sadao Yamanaka

Based on a 19^th-century Kabuki play, employing Kabuki aesthetics and Kabuki actors, this 1936 period drama starts slow, then ramps up. Spoiler: expect a lot of dead bodies.

月は上りぬ / Tsuki wa noborinu / The Moon Has Risen

a film by Kinuyo Tanaka

This 1955 romantic comedy is worthy of Molière. Mie Kitahara shines as Setsuko, the youngest of three sisters, who, together with her friend Yasui (Shōji Yasui), schemes to hook up her sister Ayako (Yōko Sugi) with a cute blast-from-the-past boy Amamiya (Kō Mishima). Awww.

殺しの烙印 / Koroshi no Rakuin / Branded to Kill

a film by Seijun Suzuki

In his 12 years with Nikkatsu, Seijun Suzuki directed astounding 40 pictures. Bizarrely, Suzuki’s 1967 hard-boiled masterpiece Branded to Kill prompted the study to fire him claiming that his works made “no sense and no money”.

Quoted as an influence by the likes of John Zorn and Quentin Tarantino, the movie stars Joe Shishido as Hanada, a contract killer who gets high on sniffing boiling rice; Mariko Ogawa as Mami, Hanada’s cute and unfaithful wife with a penchant of running naked around the house; Annu Mari as a femme fatale Misako; and Kōji Nanbara as a mysterious “Number One”. Very cool jazzy score by Naozumi Yamamoto. The version we were shown, like the one of The Moon, is lovingly restored in 4K from the original 35 mm reels — not sure if the projector at Casa de Colón is actually 4K, but still, the quality of the picture was outstanding.

La Isla del Doctor Schubert

by Karina Sainz Borgo
illustrated by Natàlia Pàmies

Do we have to compare the writer’s style with that of others? One can say It’s tempting to say I was about to say that Karina Sainz Borgo writes as concisely as Borges and as poetically as Márquez... But no, that would be denying the author her own style. I don’t know how proficient she is in Dragon but sometimes she writes in what must be close to the tongue of true mages, in Le Guin’s sense^*. I say “sometimes”, for the book published entirely in that language won’t be readable by most humans. Sainz Borgo is well aware of it. In fact, this novel (novella, fable, chronicle, whatever you call it) refers to another book called La isla del doctor Schubert, the real one:

La intérprete dejó por escrito la vida del navegante educado por un centauro, el último secesionista berlinés, expedicionario y cirujano que zarpó sin argonautas de un portal de la calle Lagasca. Encuadernada en silencio, La isla del doctor Schubert es la bitácora de un paraíso... para quienes consiguen soportarlo. Sus páginas están escritas contra el viento, y si los renglones a veces se quiebran es porque la prosa se marea cuando alguien la recita en tacones.

So it is not magical realism: it is magic, with no need for realism whatsoever^†. Doctor Schubert himself, ex-surgeon of the Kaiser, appears to be a nice guy, a powerful if a bit absent-minded wizard à la Magician from An Ordinary Miracle. And the story of two Juanas is a pure genius.

La isla del doctor Schubert is not especially difficult reading but it is intense. It took me about a month to finish the book — every evening I could read no more than one chapter. That’s magic for you. Be warned.

Al tercer día de su llegada a la capital alemana, el doctor Schubert halló una nota manuscrita en su buzón que alertaba sobre la desaparición del retrato que pudo pasar por un Modigliani. Cuando subió para comprobar si era cierto lo que afirmaba ese papel, encontró un trozo de pared limpia que señalaba su ausencia. Desorientado y confuso, convocó al jurado de la Secesión, pero todos habían muerto tras su última visita.

🐉

Tras sorber la primera cucharada, los hombres más fuertes de la isla se desplomaron como naipes. Despertaron confusos, con la mente en blanco. El bebedizo había borrado los tatuajes y las arrugas que surcaban sus pieles e hizo retroceder sus recuerdos. Con el paso de las semanas, perdieron los dientes cubiertos de sarro y en su lugar renacieron otros de leche. De su rostro áspero y barbudo una piel lisa e inédita. El doctor Schubert intentó perfeccionar su receta durante treinta cenas más.

🐉

El doctor Schubert suele perdonar la vida a los pasajeros de los barcos de recreo: criaturas alimentadas con col agria que una vez al año viajan por el mundo convirtiéndolo en un lugar peor. Justamente porque jamás aprenden de sus errores, quiso diseñar para ellos un castigo ejemplar, pero le fallaba la concentración.

🐉

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*	Speaking of dragons: I didn’t know until now that there are only two surviving artifacts featuring the phrase “hic svnt dracones”. Apparently, mediaeval cartographers preferred more reasonable if a tad pedestrian “hic svnt leones”. Another day, another bit of knowledge. In any case, dragons were not the top of Doctor Schubert’s concerns.
†	“The dragons do not dream. They are dreams. They do not work magic: it is their substance, their being. They do not do; they are.” — Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore.

Spider-Man: Cruzando el Multiverso

a film by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson

It’s been a long time since we visited a mainstream cinema so it came as a surprise that the nearest one, Cinesa at CC El Muelle, has closed on 1 May 2023. So we went to Yelmo at CC Las Arenas where they still show the latest of the Spider-Verse franchise.

Like any second film in almost any trilogy, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is more grandiose, more fast-paced but nowhere as creative and satisfying than its prequel. Más de lo mismo, I’d say. A welcome addition is the Spot (I liked better his Spanish name, la Mancha), an aspiring Spider-Man’s nemesis who first surfaces as a petty thief. Sadly, the more his powers grow, the duller he becomes. The (Leonardo da Vinci-designed) Vulture is pretty cool. The Spanish dub is very decent, maybe apart from that of Rio Morales, Miles’s mum (Diana Alonso), sounding like, well, typical Spanish dub. The end credits are the work of art, just ignore the song.

A Passion Play

by Jethro Tull

When released 50 years ago, A Passion Play was not exactly loved by critics. According to Wikipedia,

Some members of the band, in retrospect, expressed distaste for the album, including Anderson, saying that “I’ve always thought that A Passion Play suffered more than any other album I’ve ever made from being over-arranged and over-produced and over-cooked” and that Jethro Tull fans who call the album their favourite album of all time “should of course remain in the establishment for the criminally insane in which they probably already reside”.

I first heard A Passion Play in the mid-’90s, when it was already a classic. Now, re-listening to the 1990 CD I bought in Leeds back then (not the 2014 Steven Wilson remix), I just don’t understand why they were so harsh on it. Sure, its 1972 predecessor, Thick as a Brick, was a hard act to follow. The band’s official website says that APP’s “lyrics are, arguably, even more confusing” than that of TAAB, which could be viewed as an achievement in its own right. And then there is The Story of the Hare Who Lost His Spectacles, written and narrated by Jeffrey Hammond, deliciously absurd and yet making more sense than the rest of the album.

Owl loved to rest quietly whilst no one was watching. Sitting on a fence one day, he was surprised when suddenly a kangaroo ran close by.
Now this may not seem strange, but when Owl overheard Kangaroo whisper to no one in particular, “The Hare has lost his spectacles”, well, he began to wonder.

I was ignorant of this film until now. Apparently, during the 1973 Passion Play tour, the video was projected halfway through the live performance. Silly, silly, silly. Get on with it!

La Rive Gauche: Arte, pasión y el renacer de París, 1940–1950

by Agnès Poirier
translated by Ignacio Villaro Gumpert

A rhubarb what? A rhubarb tart! A Jean-Paul who? A Jean-Paul Sartre! John Cleese, Rhubarb Tart Song (1968)

Один Жан-Поль Сартра лелеет в кармане И этим сознанием горд, Другой же играет порой на баяне Сантану и Weather Report. Аквариум, «Два тракториста» (1981)

I haven’t read anything by Jean-Paul Sartre yet. The two quotes above pretty much summarise the extent of my knowledge of him before reading this book; that is, practically nothing.

To my surprise, La Rive Gauche places Sartre and his lifelong friend Simone de Beauvoir in the very centre of French cultural life of the 1940s. And not just philosphising, as philosphers do: apparently, Sartre was selling his books by truckloads. So pretty famous then^*. Still, I feel he was given disproportionate space in the book. (Cf. meagre one page allotted to his neighbour on the book cover, one Miles Davis.) I have to say that both Sartre and the Beaver, together with the likes of Saul Bellow, Arthur Koestler and Pablo Picasso, come out as a thoroughly unpleasant bunch. Of course this is not the author’s fault although probably it wasn’t her intention either.

The book is carefully researched and lively written; also, well-translated. There is even a map to trace the characters’ perambulations around Paris.

Curiously enough, it was first published in English (not French, as I thought) and called Left Bank: Art, Passion and the Rebirth of Paris 1940–1950. “Left Bank”, what nonsense! Anyway, I read it in Spanish and the title sounds much better, n’est-ce pas? I found the Part One, Mi maestra fue la guerra: julio de 1938 – agosto de 1945 (“War Was My Master: July 1938 – August 1945” in the original), most fascinating. (Read the first chapter, La caída “The Fall”, here.) The story of Jacques Jaujard was a revelation for me — I wish the book focused more on true heroes like him rather than “the Family”.

*	In the film I just watched, L’Événement, the literature students of the early sixties compare Camus with Sartre; the discussion does not go in favour of the latter who they feel is too opaque. By the end of the decade, I suppose, “Jean-Paul who” became largely irrelevant.

L’Événement

a film by Audrey Diwan

1963. Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei), finding out that she is pregnant, is desperate for help. Her so-called friends, aware that terminating pregnancy can land Anne in jail^*, tell her that it’s not their problem.

This powerful drama, based on the novel of the same name by Annie Ernaux, is shown as a part of the cycle Diversidad, Igualdad y Cultura organised by Instituto Canario de Desarrollo Cultural (ICDC). Not for the faint-hearted, I must warn you.

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*	It was not until 1975 that abortion was legalised in France.