Tomorrow's Institute of Musical Traditions show has me eager from a couple of fronts.
First off - I genuinely enjoy doing them. Strange as it seems, with me behind the scenes and Dave Eisner in front of the camera, we make a pretty good team and though sometimes they're stressful and tarry a bit while hanging off ye olde catastrophe curve, we have a lot of fun.
Second off - do you remember Blackout Tuesday? Wherever you come down on the spectrum of "I noticed it" "it called my attention to Black Lives Matter" "it annoyed me" to "what the Hell, why's all my Instagram blanked out?" - or whatEVER - every folk organization seemed it needed to put out a statement. Few of them were more than boilerplate, IMT included. Almost NONE of them, however, has done what IMT has followed up with every show since: made a point of expanding their bookings from just white guys with guitars. It's something that's absolutely important to me and it's one of the reasons I run my open mics. Tomorrow's show continues in that ... well... it's not a statement because we didn't really say it... Tomorrow's show just continues with its conscious effort of making "booking not just white artists" not an exercise in tokenism - but a true highlight of what the folk world is missing out on by consistently not recognizing the true richness of our community. And it's not a stretch. It's been easy to do. People just aren't doing it.
And thirdly - about the artists themselves: Dennis Lichtman is someone who's new to me, but not new to the world. A jazz artist who sound-checked on mandolin, tenor guitar and clarinet and blew my mind on all of the above. Ruthie Logsdon is a long-time fixture of the Americana and country scene in Takoma Park and is always a joy. And then there's Christylez Bacon.
If you don't know Chris - you should. He's one of the few people who's broken through my depression in the past couple of days. Jazz chords, smart hip-hop styled lyrics... and a clear product of the music of the folk of DC... rhythmically rooted in Go-go. Optimistic and charming and exuding an aura of poise, I've had the pleasure of working with Chris a LOT over the past decade - and his work crossing musical genres as varied as Celtic, Brazilian samba and classical orchestral music with his own jazz / funk / folk and beat box is the exact kind of barrier busting that speaks to my soul.
Was that enough? Have I waxed poetically too long? It's gonna be a great show. And you ought to tune in. Live Tuesday night at 8pm ET on Facebook and Youtube at "Institute of Musical Traditions". |