|
NEWS:
Dogma
Dance Off - Oct 21, Cherry
St. Tavern
A Night
of Bob (Stagner) w/ Kenito Murray, The Heroes Are Horses, Jon
Brumit - Nov 11, Barking
Legs Theater
Trevor
Watts & Jamie Harris - Nov 15, Barking
Legs Theater
History
Funhouse: The Wayne-O-Rama Story - through Dec 31, 2023
Wayne-O-Rama is now
closed! It was open from Nov. 19, 2016 through Sept. 30, 2017.
Designed by Emmy-winning artist Wayne White, it's a funhouse of
Chattanooga history for all ages. Wayne-O-Rama is sponsored by See
Rock City, Inc. and presented by The Shaking Ray Levi Society at the
Tenn Arts space, with generous support from the Benwood Foundation,
the Footprint Foundation, the Lyndhurst Foundation and the McKenzie
Foundation.
|
Founded in 1986, the
Shaking Ray Levi Society is a volunteer-run, 501(c)(3) non-profit arts
education organization.
Make a
tax-deductible donation to the SRLS using PayPal:
100%
of your donation goes directly toward our outreach and
project work.
"Like"
us on Facebook!
Check out our Store!
Watch our videos on YouTube!
The mission of the Shaking Ray Levi Society is to nurture and support
music, film, and performance art that is challenging, non-traditional,
and falls outside the mainstream, in order to help nourish the cultural
growth of Chattanooga.
This is done by sponsoring shows by artists recognized on a national and
international level, supporting original work by area musicians and
filmmakers, and engaging the community through workshops and educational
outreach programs.
"Only in our country are our children not receiving the benefits of the
dynamic energies taking place in our culture and in the heritage of our
culture and so, the work of the Shaking Ray Levi Society in my
opinion is very important because they are seeking to provide
an alternative to the marketplace dynamics." - composer, saxophonist and
MacArthur fellowship recipient Anthony Braxton (video)
"SRLS is a very sound organization that has made a strong contribution
to Chattanooga over the years" - Dr.
Thomas Wolf, WolfBrown
|
|
TONY
MOSTROM'S REVIEW OF LIVE AT LAMAR'S CD - Derek Bailey
/ Bob Stagner / Dennis Palmer |
| Free-improvisation
guitar pioneer Derek Bailey's current career phase - that of elder statesman
eagerly courted by and collaborating with a seemingly endless stream of
young players (as well as some unlikely veterans from other musical worlds
including Pat Matheny and Tony Williams) - has produced a glut of releases
in the last couple of years that could seem almost daunting to newcomers
curious to dive into the guitarist's angular, highly abstract music (remember
Anthony Braxton's still-accurate '70s description: "the most amazing
guitar player on the planet"). One good rule of thumb - if you ask
this veteran listener - is to start with Bailey's solo guitar albums and
group CDs featuring fellow musicians from free playing's "first generation"
- men like Steve Lacy, Braxton, Han Bennink, Evan Parker (this would include
the majority of releases on Bailey's own Incus Records label or the excellent
Emanem - yes, the label). And yet --- what a piece of luck to have heard
this excellent limited-edition EP, LIVE AT LAMAR'S (Shaking Ray Records),
27 minutes' worth of a 1999 restaurant gig in Chattanooga, Tennessee featuring
DB with latter-day Southern collaborators Dennis Palmer (synthesizers)
and Bob Stagner (drums) - sometimes known as the Shaking Ray Levis, one
knows not why. "Fine Food - We Deliver" on the grainy cover
photograph is indeed borne out, particularly at half point through the
superior second set ("Catfish Night"), when a standard-issue
free-improv noise climax (splang splang, thrumble rumble, wheeeooosshh)
subsides and slowly lurks into several rich minutes of almost cinematically
dramatic, dark atmospheres of noise: into the relative quiet of random
synthesizer comets comes Bailey (on amplified big-band acoustic), chopping
away at scumbly single-note runs, letting float long feedback hums while
Stagner percusses with scattered, quiet but portentious all-over spangles
and attacks - then the three heat up as Palmer's whirlwinds and ominous
cyclones spirit around the room, cut by Bailey's dry but tasty cigar-box
banjo runs; it's an atonal sound fest that makes perfect sense as music
- noise that rocks, literally.
--- ANTHONY MOSTROM of L.A.
WEEKLY
Los Angeles
Sept 22, 2003
|
