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October 31, 2005
October update
I owe y'all one, don't I?
Posted by Jeff at 3:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 5, 2005
Al Neil, King of the Underground [Globe & Mail]
[Globe & Mail, October 11, 2005]
KING OF THE UNDERGROUND
Jeff MacIntyre
Al Neil may not be the king of the underground. For many years, it would seem, he was the artistic underground of Vancouver.
In a performing career spanning five decades and a significant if not pioneering stay in as many fields of artistic endeavour—including jazz, visual collage, novels and poetry, noise music, performance art and installations—Neil, 81, has grown from scenester alchemist to elder rascal.
“It never occurred to me why no one would stop me from doing what I wanted to do,” he smirked last week in interview.
Beginning this week, a month-long series of concerts, readings and installations known as the Al Neil Project is paying homage to Vancouver’s preeminent name among interdisciplinary artists.
Why all the fuss? Neil was a vagabond artistic spirit.
“Here’s a guy who introduces Vancouver to hard bop in the ‘50s,” explains Glenn Alteen, curator at the Grunt Gallery, “then starts playing music that sounded like [the Frank Zappa-fronted] Mothers of Invention, before they even existed.”
Musician and artist Gregg Simpson, who played with Neil from the age of nineteen in the ‘60s, drumming and--long before hip hop--fingering records on a turntable, says Neil’s nearest peers in jazz are pianists Elmo Hope and Bud Powell.
Author Michael Turner, who will present a night of readings as one of the upcoming events, similarly applauds Neil’s artistic prescience, but also his precociousness. After starting the famous Cellar club in ’52, not having anywhere else to play jazz, Neil as quickly walked away a decade later when fellow musicians insisted he “just play the changes.”
“Al’s important, a conscience, but a ghost to most,” Turner says.
Unfortunately, but for a recently re-issued double CD, “Retrospective: Al Neil Trio, 1965-1968,” the documentary record of Neil’s work is scant. The absence of recordings and traces from his career is something the Al Neil Project aims to reverse, reintroducing Neil to the artistic scene he did so much to invigorate over the years.
A born and raised Vancouverite, what is most telling about Neil’s artistic trajectory is that he chose to do—and in many cases, introduce--all these trends in art, music and literature, here. Not missing a beat, Neil credits “a history of difficulty at the border.”
Neil is not just “the consummate improvisational artist,” as guitarist-composer Ron Samworth notes; in Vancouver terms, his work remains without precedent. Drawing from an impossibly wide array of influences, from the Dadaists through the Psychedelics, and gleaning as much from John Cage as Marcel Duchamp, while holding court socially and in performance with Janis Joplin, Art Pepper, Kenneth Patchen and the Grateful Dead, Neil’s work comes off as remarkably sui generis.
“He brought a fusion to performance art that is not seen anymore,” says Glenn Alteen, curator at the Grunt Gallery. “He was such an anomaly, in terms of where he was coming from and where he was going. He did not fit in. He belongs to all these communities and yet none, so nothing will give you a true sense of his total output.”
It has been a decade since Neil retired from playing piano, but Neil’s mental acuity remains sharp. He guffaws about “the Bush dilemma” as only a retired radical could, reads voraciously, and keeps one ear to the radio. He especially commends the New Orchestra Workshop’s Samworth and saxophonist Coat Cooke for “being astounding for many years now,” continuing the legacy of improvised music in Vancouver, a scene he created.
“If there was no Al Neil we would have had to invent him,” Brian Nation, a local jazz aficionado, notes. “He’s that original.”
THE AL NEIL PROJECT:
October 15, 8:00 PM, Western Front
: The LIVE 2005 event features concerts, screenings, readings and performances related to Al Neil.
October 21, 8:00 PM, Vancouver Public Library
: A series of readings, including from Neil’s work, curated by Michael Turner.
November 10, 8:00 PM, Roundhouse Community Centre
: A tribute concert presented by the Coastal Jazz and Blues Society.
November 25, 9:00 PM, Vancouver Art Gallery: FUSE night project installment of Neil’s visuals and imagery.
(More info:
http://www.coastaljazz.ca/index.php?page_id=88&event_id=551)
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Posted by Jeff at 10:29 AM | TrackBack
October 1, 2005
The Talented Mr. Dzama [ELLE]
[ELLE, October, 2005]
THE TALENTED AND CHARMING MR. DZAMA
Canada’s hottest artist goes bling.
Text: Jeff MacIntyre
Marcel Dzama, most definitely Canada’s hottest artistic export of the last decade, has just taken another unexpected turn in his already novel career. He’s gone bling.
Dzama’s illustrations, a madcap cartoon tableau of mirth and the macabre, have long endeared the artist to the Canadian art scene and, further south, to the indie hipster brigades of McSweeney’s founder Dave Eggers. His most recent outing, a series of charms that debuted at New York Fashion Week last fall, are his first foray into jewelry design.
Manhattan is now toasting Dzama’s talents. From his new home base on the Lower East Side, Dzama is fending off a surge of Stateside publicity not unlike that which he’s enjoyed back home, including a feature-length anointment in the pages of the New York Times Magazine as “a Canadian wunderkind.”
Designed for accessories company MZ Wallace, the 18-carat-gold charms are part of a limited edition set of five, each featuring either rubies, diamonds or other semi-precious stones. The charm figures are all fancifully twisted Dzama mainstays: an alligator, a bat, an octopus, and two bears hanging from nooses. Priced for the celebutante set, they retail for between $4,000 and $5,000 US. (Sure, they’re pricey, but is there a surer lure for the next Greek shipping magnate blowing through town than one of these dangling from your cell?) As a bonus, the charms have moving parts that are sure to be eye-catching.
For those living closer to reality, the charms are accompanied by a luxe t-shirt series as well. An elegant, long-sleeved, princess-necked grey marino wool jersey, the $160 US shirts feature the same Dzama characters hand-stitched in five different colours.
Others who are mad for Marcel are finding their fix on eBay, where free MZ Wallace catalogues that Dzama has art-directed, each displaying his illustrations and photography, are fetching prices under $10 US.
All of MZ Wallace’s products are available online at mzwallace.com, or at their SoHo and Tokyo locations.
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Posted by Jeff at 10:43 AM | TrackBack
Student Housing Goes High Concept [Azure]
[Azure, October, 2005]
STUDENT HOUSING GOES HIGH CONCEPT
AZURE Jan/Feb; Forms & Functions (FOB)
Jeff MacIntyre
An unfamiliar sight welcomed returning students at Technical University Munich this fall: somebody shrank the dorm hall. A cluster of seven sleek Micro-compact Homes, the O2 Village, debuted to press fanfare and curious onlookers in Germany. In the rarely innovated architecture of student housing, one could hardly have found a surer way to make a splash.
An academic creation from the start, the Micro-compact Home design has been the brainchild of instructor-architect Richard Horden and his students. The cube structure, which sits lightly upon and contours to its landscape, is a marvel of miniaturized mobile architecture and a careful distillation of showroom-calibre living space. Students, faculty and guests will be breaking in the O2 Village this academic year.
“People thought we were mad,” architect and project partner Lydia Haack noted when the high concept residences were first proposed to German housing authorities, as government officials scoffed at the possibility of engineering for such miniaturized architecture. The reduced space allowed for the design team to minimize design compromises, however, and so students can enjoy a plasma television and a fully appointed, highly adaptable interior.
Richard Horden, the lead designer, drew inspiration equally from the interiors of the Swissair Airbus and post-2001 BMWs as he did from the Japanese tea house. The result is a streamlined, ascetic vision, a still from Woody Allen’s Sleeper come to life for its inhabitants—wherever their travels take them. Alternate designs include a tree of the nest-like homes.
The high-quality, small-footprint design appeals to a much broader audience, Horden adds, who envisions micro-compact housing comprising in-situ surfing or snowboarding cabins, an Olympic press village, or, thanks to the included tow equipment, an RV. Haack has even fielded early requests from admiring faculty wanting their own. Just don’t call it a student ghetto.
[Ref: http://microcompacthome.com/index.php]
[Ref: http://microcompacthome.com/projects/?con=o2]
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