Live music and stuff in Las Palmas, May 2023

This is what I’ve seen in May:

• 1 May: Maratón de Jazz @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos, Parque Doramas, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
  The LPA International Jazz Day concert featuring
  • Tribute to Bill Evans: Jose Alberto Medina Quintana (piano), Tana Santana (double bass) and Juan Perez (drums)
  • Girl in Trouble Band
  • Joven Borondón Big Band + Gabriela Suárez and Vanessa Lemoine
  • Gran Canaria Big Band + special guests Polo Ortí (piano) and Jorge Pardo (flute)

  

• 3 May: Baldosa @ Palacete Rodríguez Quegles, Calle Benito Pérez Galdós, 4
  The first (and, IMHO, the best) concert of the cycle «Miércoles, Mayo y Rock & roll». An indie rock quartet from Tenerife featuring Paula de Vega (vocals, guitar), Pedro Rodríguez (guitar), Victor Garritano (bass, vocals) and Miguel Suárez (drums). Full of youthful enthusiasm, catchy songs, short and to the point. Baldosa, Mejor Banda Revelación de los Premios Canarios de la Música 2022, are playing 28 July 2023 at WOMAD Charlton Park.

  

• 6 May: Taburiente @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos
  The quartet from La Palma celebrating their 50^th anniversary. (Or rather 51^st, according to what Miguel Pérez said during the concert.) Taburiente: Luis Morera (vocals), Miguel Pérez (vocals, guitar), José Eduardo Martín and Carlos Martín Brito (vocals, guitar), accompanied by Augusto Báez (piano), Sergio García (percussion), Juan Carlos León (sax), Germán López (timple), Totó Noriega (drums, percussion) and Jaime del Pino (electric bass).

  

• 10 May: Telurian @ Palacete Rodríguez Quegles
  Vanessa Lemoine (lead vocals, guitar, keys), Jorge Rodríguez (drums, vocals), Guillermo Sánchez (bass guitar, vocals) and Pablo Silva (guitar, sax, vocals). In the beginning the performance was marred by technical problems but the young Telurians persevered!

  

• 13 May: Noche Europea de los Museos @ Vegueta
  In CAAM (Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno), the exhibition Isla de Arte, plus Matriz by Paula Scamparini and Corpografías by Analivia Cordeiro; in Casa de Colón, more Isla de Arte, with paintings by Pedro de Guezala, Francisco Iturrino, Néstor and Sorolla, among others.

  

  

  

• 16 May: «Soleil: Música en la corte de Luis XIV» @ Casa de Colón
  Academia del Atlante has opened the 8^th edition of the cycle Música Antigua en el Patio with music of the times of Louis XIV, “le Roi Soleil”. Featuring Yurena Darias (viola da gamba), Liana Llauger (lute), Jorge Rubiales (theorbo) and Carol Sosa (soprano). The programme included:

  François Couperin: Salve Regina Jean-Baptiste Lully: Qu’Atys dans ses respects mêlé d’indifférence Robert de Visée: Prelude Jean-Baptiste Lully: Atys est trop heureux Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: Par la souveraine sagesse Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: Ah! Quelle affreuse image Jean-Baptiste Lully: Sé que me muero Marin Marais: Marche Tartare André Campra: O dulcis amor Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Sans frayeur

  

• 17 May: Kimera @ Palacete Rodríguez Quegles
  OK covers, much better originals. Luis Auyanet (drums), Dani González (guitar, vocals), Pablo Roldán, (guitar) and Pablo Saavedra (bass, vocals).

  

• 18 May: Gino Marcelli @ Teatro Guiniguada, Plaza F. Mesa de León
  A masterclass organised by Mousikê La Laguna, with focus on harmony on piano and composing for cinema.

• 20 May: Noche Europea de los Museos @ Museo Castillo de Mata, Calle Domingo Guerra del Río, 147
  Yes, another “night at the museum”. A complimentary glass of cider — I didn’t drink it, but still, a nice touch — perhaps to compensate for a shock of the soprano.
  1. Bianca Milacic (live painting) and Francisco Navarro (percussion): «Museum»
  2. Rafaela Carrasco: «Ariadna (al hilo del mito)»
  3. Enrike Solinís and Euskal Barrokensemble: «Canarios y jácaras»
  4. Mariza Donizette Benedito and Santiago del Carmen (body painting): «El santuario de las musas»
  5. Audiovisual presentation «Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 1478—2023»
  6. Juanjo Artero (recitation) and Javier Infante (guitar): «Noche de poesía»
  7. Estefanía Perdomo (soprano) and Nauzet Afonso (piano): Quando me’n vo’ (Musetta’s Waltz) from La Bohème (Puccini) and Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiß from Giuditta (Franz Lehár)
• 23 May: Maui and Susana Baca @ Edificio Miller, Parque Santa Catalina
  This double concert, plus exhibition of photos by Mónica Rodríguez Medina «MUJERES con mayúsculas», was the first part of the cycle «Voces de Ellas». Maui de Utrera presented the show «Quererse a medias», accompanied with Paco Soto (guitar), Kiko Martin and Juan Carlos Gil (palmas, baile). Susana Baca’s magnificent performance included such classics as Canterurías, Negra Presuntuosa and Toro Mata. Now who will explain me why the venue was half-empty?

  

• 27 May: «Alma» @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos
  Three weeks after his performance with Taburiente, timplist Germán López takes centre stage. With Augusto Báez (piano), Jairo Cabrera (wind instruments), Valentín Iturat (drums), Carlos Meneses (bass), Antonio Toledo (guitar) and Carla Vega (vocals).

Good bye May. I’m gonna miss you.

Tierra & Luchadoras

Both films screened last Thursday in Casa de Colón were filmed in Mexico and released in 2021. Both feature women protagonists; both talk about femicide. So not an easy watch.

Tierra

a film by Gustavo Gamero

This short film is a fiction that strikes you as a true story, thanks to the masterfully understated performance by Ángeles Cruz.

Luchadoras

a film by Paola Calvo and Patrick Jasim

Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Maybe not the most dangerous city in the world in terms of homicide (as they claim in the film), but certainly in the top ten. Not a nice place to be a woman. The title of the documentary refers both to the sport its heroines practice — lucha libre — but also their determination to fight for their rights. Starring Baby Star, Little Star, Mini Sirenita, Lady Candy and Miss Kath.

Napló apámnak, anyámnak

a film by Márta Mészáros

Hungary, 1956. Spoiler: it doesn’t end well.

Diary for My Mother and Father is the final instalment of Mészáros’ trilogy of “Diaries”, the first being Diary for My Children. Somewhat bizarrely, the second film of the trilogy, Diary for My Lovers, was not shown in this cycle.

Zsuzsa Czinkóczi, Jan Nowicki and Anna Polony reprise their roles from the previous films and, I’m sorry to say, they look a bit tired of it all; truly outstanding performance by Mari Törőcsik as Vera. In the middle of the movie’s tragic realism, the Felliniesque New Year’s party is an absolute highlight offering a ray of hope that, as we know, dies last.

La muerte de Stalin

by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin
afterword by Jean-Jacques Marie
translated by Unai Velasco

This edition combines both volumes of the original comic. Compared to its film adaptation, the book is more historically accurate. The tragicomic figure of Vasily Stalin is given extra space (and sympathy). Beria’s final internal monologue brings the story to closure — something I felt was missing from the movie.

Napló gyermekeimnek

a film by Márta Mészáros

If the previous films of the Márta Mészáros cycle poke occasional fun at the system, her 1984 semi-autobiographical Diary for My Children is openly critical of the regime. Which is amazing considering that Goulash Communism still had five years to go. Then again, Hungary was relatively liberal by the Eastern Bloc standards. Starring Zsuzsa Czinkóczi as Juli and Jan Nowicki as János and, in flashbacks, Juli’s father.

Another first: with this film, Mészáros became the first woman to win Grand Prix du Festival de Cannes.

По следам бременских музыкантов

a musical by Yuri Entin, Vasily Livanov and Gennady Gladkov
a film by Vasily Livanov

Speaking of 50^th anniversaries: here’s another one for you. For me too.

Just like it was in the case of its prequel, I first heard On the Trail of the Bremen Town Musicians on the vinyl. Once again, it was a gift from my cousin who came to visit us one weekend. I still remember the magical moment when he put the disc on a turntable and we heard the words, read by Oleg Tabakov:

Давным-давно на белом свете жили не только глупые короли и прекрасные принцессы, не только страшные лесные разбойники и весёлые бродячие артисты, но и гениальные сыщики.

Long, long ago, there lived not only silly kings and beautiful princesses, not only scary forest robbers and merry wandering actors, but also genius detectives.

The musical turned out to be even bigger box of surprises than its predecessor. I certainly did not expect Muslim Magomayev — an establishment singer à la Iosif Kobzon and Lev Leshchenko — to be there. And there he was, voicing not only Troubadour, who, indeed, sounds like the “official” Magomayev, but also his antagonists: Genius Detective (Гениальный Сыщик), with his catchphrase “Oh, yes!”, and Atamansha (Атаманша), the leader of Scary Forest Robbers.

My mum used to quote Genius Detective («А нюх как у собаки, а глаз как у орла»), Silly King («Такая, сякая, сбежала из дворца») and Beautiful Princess («Ни-че-го я не хо-чу»). The two songs that the Bremen Town Musicians perform when posing as “foreign” (as opposed to their native Bremenland) rockers were a staple of my brother’s band repertoire in the early 1980s. Many years later, Yuri would call «сыщик» any vintage convertible reminiscent of the car that Genius Detective drives in the film.