Free live music and stuff in Las Palmas, February 2020

Here are some free events that I attended this month:

• 5 February: David Quevedo & Ensemble Salvaje @ Paraninfo de La Universidad de Las Palmas, Calle Juan de Quesada, 30, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
  The last event of Festival en paralelo that Timur and I were able to attend (it was free but one had to pick up the tickets beforehand, and I know people who weren’t so lucky).

  The programme included

  • Llamada Tribal (David Quevedo)
  • Intro Salvaje (David Quevedo)
  • Advenimiento (David Quevedo)
  • Excuses (Manuel Bonino)
  • Wild Wild Hip Hop (Tana Santana)
  • Todo Lo Que Te Propongas (Ernesto Mateo)
  • La Ceremonia (Mario Ferrer Medina)
  • Sr. Castaño (Luis Merino)
  • Trance (Giulia Valle, arr. Toni Vaquer)
  • Folías Calmas (David Quevedo)
  • Blues Saljaje (David Quevedo)
  • Interludio para Cello y Violín (Manuel Bonino)
  • Mestizarama V.A. (David Quevedo)

  The band featured:

  Toni Vaquer (conductor), Esther Ovejero, Errol Woiski (vocals), Kino Ait Idrissen (gimbri, vocals), David Quevedo, Manuel Bonino, Ernesto Mateo (piano), Tana Santana (double bass, rap), Tom Warburton (double bass), José Carlos Cejudo (electric bass), Luis Merino (guitar), Germán López (timple), Javi Montero (drums), “Mayin” Mario Ferrer Medina, José Carlos Cubas, Nasim López-Palacios (percussion), Ana Muñoz, Carlos Alemán, Carlos López, Gustavo Montesdeoca, Ana Gil, Jairo Cabrera, Ernesto Aurignac, Kike Perdomo, Gabriel Domínguez, Juan Domingo Travieso (woodwinds), Rubén Guerrero, Abimael Ojeda, Matthew Simon, Idafe Pérez, Josep Tutusaus, Yossi Itskovich, Óscar Sanitso (brass), David Ballesteros, Matej Osap, Liliana Montané, Elisabeth Hernández, Laura Espino, Beatriz Nuez, Ismel Leal, Elena Mederos, David Cáceres, Juan Pablo Alemán, Caterina Trujillo and Miguel Ángel Gómez (strings).
• 6 February: Quiana Lynell @ Auditorio Alfredo Kraus, Avda. Príncipe de Asturias
  Before playing two dates with Perinké Big Band, Ms Lynell gave a masterclass of jazz vocal which, I think, was useful for instrumentalists too although none of them had a chance to jam (unlike, say, Aubrey Logan’s masterclass last year). There was a moment of embarrassment when in the end of the class Quiana asked “Well, who is coming to the show?” and apprently nobody in the audience was going to. “See you tonight maybe?” she tried again hopefully but then Ximo Martínez, the musical director of Perinké Big Band, attempted to save the situation by announcing that both shows are sold out, which made the moment even more embarrassing.
• 7 February — 4 March: Leonardo Da Vinci. Observa, cuestiona, experimenta @ Parque de San Telmo
  Although there are no original works of Leonardo, I found this fun interactive exhibition well worth 30 minutes of my life.
• 8 February: Carmen París “En síntesis” @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos, Parque Doramas
  Accompanied by Diego Ebbeler (piano) and Jorge Tejerina (percussion, vocals), Carmen París brought her inimitable fusion of jota, bolero, cha-cha-cha, Candombe, jazz etc. etc. with hits such as Cuerpo triste, Distancia espeluznante and Mucho Ringo-Rango. Half-way through Guaraní, the power went off but the trio continued unplugged as if nothing had happened.

• 21 February: Exposición Multiculturalidad @ Centro Cívico Suárez Naranjo, Calle Pamochamoso 34
  With the participation of Coro del Distrito Centro del Ayuntamiento de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the African Percussion workshop (including yours truly; however, we played just one African song together with a choir) and the Tango workshop.
  

• 25 February: Juanes @ Parque Santa Catalina
  After a gloomy weekend, with many Carnival events cancelled across Canaries thanks to calima, the Mardi Gras Martes de Carnaval celebrations went as planned, culminating with Juanes’ concert in Santa Catalina, attended by some 30,000 revellers. The place was absolutely packed and for a good reason. Starting with A Dios le Pido all way through Bonita, La Camisa Negra, La Paga, Volverte a Ver, Yerbatero and so on, finishing with La Luz.

Come on, let’s have Spring already.

Chris the Swiss

a film by Anja Kofmel

In war, the choice is not between good and bad; it is between bad and very bad.

Gaston Besson, mercenary

Thanks to the Documental del Mes programme of Filmoteca Canaria, I discover amazing films that I would otherwise never know about, let alone watch.

Shall the war correspondents take sides? And if the answer is yes, just how far can they go? While bearing some similarity to Another Day of Life (another animated documentary about another dirty war — if there ever was such a thing as “clean war”, which I doubt) Chris the Swiss is quite unlike any film I’ve ever seen. The haunting black-and-white animation story is punctuated and at the same time glued together by the “proper” documentary bits. The “Making Of” is worth watching too.

At some point in the film, Anja Kofmel and her Croatian host talk about how easy it was back in 1990s to board a train from, say, Switzerland, and simply go to Yugoslavia, at your own risk. Why, I did that myself in 1994, without much thinking, although I knew all too well that the war wasn’t over yet. (Incidentally, I was the same age as Christian Würtenberg at the time of his mysterious death.) I took a train from Trieste to Budapest through Slovenia and Croatia. I had a transit visa for Slovenia and hoped that Croatian border officers will just ignore me. No they didn’t. We had a three-quarters of an hour stop in Zagreb about five or six in the morning; I was forced to embark on a search of the police station, rather foolishly leaving my bag “with everything” on the train. The police was not far from the train station. I found it manned by a number of, well, men, all of them asleep, some at, some on the tables. The now-partially-awake policemen did not want to accept the foreign currency, so I rushed to look for bureau de change — at this hour, none was opened, but, luckily, the post office was. A sleepy woman changed my few dollars to the local legal tender. Back to the police, got the funny sticker in my passport for an equivalent of two US$; back to the train to reunite with — o miracle! — my bag. There was nobody to show my newly acquired visa though. One week later, on my way back to Italy, the Croats didn’t even bother to check if I had a visa. How annoying.

Бриллиантовая рука

a film by Leonid Gaidai

Yes, we all knew that there was no sex in USSR, years before one Ms. Ivanova blurted out that infamous maxim; and yet, here it was, on screens big and small. In his film “from the life of smugglers” (smuggling = bad, West = decaying, abroad = dangerous, jazz = bourgeois), Gaidai himself masterfully smuggled some forbidden fruit for our domestic consumption. The top-grossing Soviet blockbuster of 1969 and one of the most successful Soviet films of all time, The Diamond Arm contained as much sex (and provocatively jazzy soundtrack) as any viewer in our country could possibly dream about, or more:

• A prostitute (Viktoriya Ostrovskaya) in a foreign city, whose inhabitants speak in a kind of Channel 9 lingo, with her wonderful catch-the-client-phrase «Цигель, цигель, ай-лю-лю!»
• Models on the (Soviet!) catwalk demonstrating the collection “Mini-bikini ’69”
• The femme fatale Anna Sergeyevna (Svetlana Svetlichnaya) working to seduce the naïve Mr. Gorbunkov (Yuri Nikulin) with probably the first ever striptease to grace the Soviet screens

This latter scene is accompanied by the tango Помоги мне (Help Me) performed by Aida Vedishcheva, who also provided the voice for the “song about bears” in Кавказская пленница. This obvious parody, most probablly inspired by ¿Quién será? (Sway), features incredibly silly lyrics. In its turn, the line «Вы называли меня умницей, милою девочкой» is practically begging for being parodied further, for instance

Вы называли меня девочкой, мальчиком-с-пальчиком...
Вы называли меня белочкой, зайчиком, кошечкой...
Ты называла меня слесарем, токарем, мастером...
Ты называла меня Штирлицем, Мюллером, Борманом...
Я называла тебя Винтиком, Шпунтиком, Гаечкой

and so on. The long winter evenings, as well as calima-dominated weekends, must just fly by.

El Placer

by María Hesse
preface by Lara Moreno

Starring Lilith, Eve, Sappho, Cleopatra, Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, Colette, Mata Hari, Anaïs Nin, Simone de Beauvoir, Hedy Lamarr, Marilyn Monroe, Anne Sexton, Betty Dodson, Eve Ensler, Madonna, Helen E. O’Connell, Erika Lust, and even Cersei Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen, but, most importantly, María Hesse herself. Beautiful drawings, just enough text — less is definitely more here — and focus on pleasure. A pleasure to hold in hands, to look at, to read, to share, to give as a gift. And then some more.

Eva comió del árbol y de inmediato se le abrió la mente. Quiso que su companero tuviera la misma suerte y le dio a probar la fruta. Entonces Dios se enfadó muchísimo, o fingió enfadarse, porque ¿para qué plantar un árbol si no quieres que coman de él? A la pobre Eva le castigó así: «Aumentaré tus dolores cuando tengas hijos, y con dolor los darás a luz. Pero tu deseo te llevará a tu marido, y él tendrá autoridad sobre ti». Si os quedaba alguna duda, creo que ahora ya queda claro que Dios era varón.

Кавказская пленница, или Новые приключения Шурика

a film by Leonid Gaidai

The subtitle “The New Adventures of Shurik” implies that the “old” adventures of Shurik in Операция «Ы» (1965) somehow precede the events of Кавказская пленница (1967). This is not exactly the case, as Shurik (Aleksandr Demyanenko) is now an ethnography student and has no recollection of previous encounters with the famous trio of Nikulin, Vitsin and Morgunov. It matters not. This film has got almost everything: Gaidai’s signature slapstick; iconic phrases like «Птичку жалко», «Короче, Склифосовский!» and «Бамбарбия киргуду»; Natalya Varley, the new sex symbol of Soviet cinema; and even twist. Our teddy bears do approve.

The Grapes of Wrath

a film by John Ford

Man, in olden days they knew how to make them movies well — and fast. John Steinbeck published his novel in April 1939. According to Wikipedia, “production on the film began on October 4, 1939, and was completed on November 16, 1939.” The movie premièred in January 1940. How’s that?

I never read Steinbeck’s book and now, after watching the film, I doubt I ever will. I mean, I read enough depressing books in my life and the Great Depression wouldn’t be called that for no reason, so forget it. At least the film offers a glimmer of hope. Henry Fonda is all right as Tom Joad most of the time, at least until the moment when he embarks on that goddamn pompous “I’ll be everywhere” soliloquy. The most likeable character is the ex-preacher Jim Casy portrayed by John Carradine (who also appears in Stagecoach). The children, Ruthie (Shirley Mills) and Winfield (Darryl Hickman) are cute and spontaneous, especially in the scene where they discover “white things, like in the catalogue” (that is, indoor amenities).

Casy: At my meetin’s I used to get the girls glory-shoutin’ till they about passed out. Then, I’d go to comfort ’em and always end up by lovin’ ’em. I’d feel bad, an’ pray, an’ pray, but it didn’t do no good. Next time, do it again. I figured I just wasn’t worth savin’.
Tom: Pa always says you was never cut out for no preacher. I never let one get by me if I could catch her. Have a snort?
Casy: But you wasn’t a preacher. A girl was just a girl to you. To me they was holy vessels. I was savin’ their souls. I asked myself, what is this here called Holy Spirit? Maybe that’s love? Why, I love everybody so much I’m fit to bust sometimes! So maybe there ain’t no sin an’ there ain’t no virtue. It’s just what people does. Some things folks do is nice and some ain’t so nice. That’s all any man’s got a right to say. Course I’ll say a grace if somebody sets out the food, but my heart ain’t in it. Nice drinkin’ liquor.

Mascotas, espíritus y otros prodigios del Inframundo

by Pep Brocal

Looking for her cat Dudu, Amalia ends up going to the underworld. Along the way, she meets Bruce Lee, the author of Divina Commedia, and Lucifer, among the others. Gripping story and stylish illustrations will make you crave for more Inframundo.