On music: Five songs worth hearing this week

Discovering new music provides me with much joy – a moment of zen, maybe? – and listening to good music is a blissful, aural pleasure. Today, there’s so many different avenues for discovery, including Spotify, NPR Music, and through binge-watching shows on Netflix – even conventional FM radio. Never underestimate the value of your Shazam app to help identify new sounds, too.

Whether you’re still digging out of a winter storm or have already escaped to a sunny, warm beach on a Caribbean island, here are five songs I’ve recently discovered – some through serendipity – that are worth adding to your playlist:

1. Zero 7 - “Aurora,” featuring vocalist José González.

Famous for their downbeat jazzy rhythms, Zero 7 returns with a new single, “Aurora,” featuring Swedish vocal contributor José González. I’ve been a longtime fan of this European electronica duo, which helped launch the solo careers of not only González, but also Sía and Tina Dico.

2. Hatchie - “Without A Blush”

Stereogum described Hatchie’s music as a “cosmic concoction of dream-pop and shoegaze.” I would have to agree. Born Harriette Pilbeam, the 25-year-old Australian singer/songwriter’s music has been influenced by Mazzy Star, the Cocteau Twins and the Cranberries. “Without A Blush” is from Hatchie’s forthcoming June 2019 album ‘Keepsake.’

3. Jungle - “Heavy, California”

London soul collective Jungle (Josh “J” Lloyd-Watson and Tom “T” McFarland) caught my attention with the groovy disco-funk rhythm of “Heavy, California” from their newest album ‘For Ever.’ It’s full of excitement and guided by a funky ‘70s rhythmic and bass soundtrack. The video for the song is a must see as it’s filled with some outstanding dance moves.

4. Jessica Pratt - “As The World Turns”

“As The World Turns,” by Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Jessica Pratt is quiet and subtle, a great song to listen to while going on an evening walk or caught up in pensive thoughts. Her new album, ‘Quiet Signs,’ reflects a sense of quiet meditation and calm. NPR Music called Jessica Pratt’s music “cosmic brilliance.” Indeed, this is a very soothing listen after a hectic day.

5. Real Estate - “Darling”

It’s been said that the members of the Brooklyn-based group Real Estate look like a bunch of school teachers who decided to quit their day jobs and form a great indie band. After listening to “Darling” from their 2017 album ‘In Mind,’ their dream pop sound reminded me of great indie groups like Phoenix and Tame Impala.

On film: Cuarón’s Roma is a very personal project

In Roma, Academy Award-winning director and writer Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men, and Y Tu Mama Tambien) has delivered an artful love letter to the women who raised him. Presented in Spanish with English subtitles, this immaculately photographed 135-minute film presented in black and white is a beautiful ode to his Mexican childhood. It draws upon Cuarón’s early life experiences growing up in a middle-class family in Mexico City’s Colonia Roma district to create both “a vivid and emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst political turmoil of the 1970s.” It’s a film about resilience and survival.

As Roma begins, one critic describes its opening as “a mesmerizing four-minute credit sequence – the mopping of a courtyard – the flow of foamy water establishes a rhythm as well as a cleansing metaphor about life and memory.”

The film follows its protagonist Cleo (portrayed by first-time actress Yalitza Aparicio), a young live-in domestic helper, and captures both her devotion to Cuarón’s family as well as detailing her personal problems. She becomes the focal point of the film in what becomes a collection of childhood memories about Cuarón’s family, the house he grew up in, and his neighborhood.

As the film’s writer, Cuarón wrote the script as a stream of consciousness. So, we see a combination of personal and social issues unfold in front of us. It seemed that because Cuarón allowed his emotions to play out, some of the scenes run long without tight editing. However, as the film unfolds it becomes its strength and not a liability.

Roma is meant to make us think. It’s an art film not an entertainment movie. Because Cuarón chose to film it in black and white, we gain more intimate details – and it lends itself toward recalling memory. After all, memory can be subjective – but it can also be objective, too. There is a lot of subtlety, a touch of humor, and plenty of honesty. Several things that are foreshadowed play out later in the movie such as an earthquake, a massive fire and the Corpus Christi massacre of 1971 that is shockingly detailed and restaged by Cuarón.

Roma opens in theaters just in time for the holidays and it’s sure to gain momentum as the awards season comes into full view. It will also be released simultaneously on Netflix, which will allow the film to reach a wider audience. However, Roma is best seen on a large screen and preferably in a classic, single-screen cinema like I saw it on a recent Sunday morning in northwest Washington, D.C. Its directionality of sound is truly amazing. Recently, one critic described Roma’s sound as a “bewilderingly intricate tapestry of distant street sounds, ambient noise and close-up conversations.” It’s a film that you can definitely watch with your ears, but you’ll want to see it with your eyes, too.

Thoughts on music: Cécile McLorin Salvant

When I recently listened to Cécile McLorin Salvant sing the hard-hitting “Okie Wise,” during an NPR “Tiny Desk Concert,” I was awed by the way in which she embraced the discomforting theme of this acapella American folk song with both calmness and ease. “Okie Wise,” which tells a tragic story of a murder victim, Naomi Wise and her husband and killer, John Lewis, addresses gender-based violence head on and McLorin Savant places it in a historical context, too.

Then pushed her in deep waters
Where he knew that she would drown
He jumped on his pony and away he did ride
The screams of little Okie went down by his side.

I’ve always been impressed by the powerful sound and range of the Miami-native McLorin Salvant’s voice and her choice of songs. She can at times sing spiritually, and other times jazzy, but always – always – it’s her voice that’s both superb and exquisite in its sound and in its presentation. Little did I realize that as a teen, McLorin Salvant, 29, the son of a Haitian father and French mother, once sported a Mohawk hairdo and was into bands like Alice In Chains and other “radical feminist punk stuff,” she recently was quoted as saying in an NPR interview. “Sometimes I still really like Bikini Hill, and I still have my little Pearl Jam grunge moments.”

I first became acquainted with McLorin Salvant a few years ago when she was a featured guest vocalist during a Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra holiday concert, and have always thought of her first and foremost as a jazz vocalist – think of her as a young Sarah Vaughan. I still remember how much expressiveness came across in her voice – not to mention that she exuded such a wonderful vocal foundation thanks to a classical music upbringing.

McLorin Salvant’s set list for her recent “Tiny Desk Concert,” which featured, “Fog,” “Look At Me,” “Monday” and “Okie Wise,” showed off the depth and breadth of her vocal range. Her just released fifth album, The Window, is a series of duets with pianist Sullivan Fortner that “explores and extends the tradition of the piano-vocal duo and its expressive possibilities.” Throughout, we see how “the two are free to improvise and rhapsodize, to play freely with time, harmony, melody and phrasing.”

On The Window, McLorin Salvant covers Leonard Bernstein’s “Somewhere” from West Side Story and “Were Thine That Special Face” by Cole Porter. Plus, she sings in French on two songs, her own composition “A Clef” and “J’ai L’Cafard.”

McLorin Salvant isn't interested in the idea of relevance – although being a Grammy Award-winning artist has given her credibility and drawn much attention toward her music. Instead, as she noted in a press release for The Window, she’s interested in the idea of presence. Nothing wrong at all with that kind of attitude.

An imperfect rendition: "... how sweet the sound"

President Obama / An imperfect rendition of "Amazing Grace
brought the room to its feet and resonated with an entire nation.

Last Friday, President Obama moved a congregation -- and a nation -- when he broke out into spontaneous song, singing "Amazing Grace" at the conclusion of his eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, one of nine slain members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston, South Carolina.

That President Obama broke out in an imperfect rendition of this most spiritual of American songs was so unexpected. His surprising ability to make the music connect reaffirmed for us that music is, indeed, a ministry, one of the deepest expressions of the Christian faith. 

"Music is almost to me an echo of the sounds of the divine world, and when you hear these sounds, it stirs something deeply spiritual within you," said Grammy-nominated gospel singer Wintley Phipps, who has sung for every president since Ronald Reagan and who sang at President Barack Obama's National Prayer Service following his inauguration. In a 2009 interview with PBS' Religion & Ethics Newsweekly program, Phipps went on to say: "Music also is the most powerful way of impressing the human mind with hope."

In describing "Amazing Grace," the newsweekly magazine Time wrote: "Amazing Grace was written by an Englishman who in the early part of his life was an outspoken atheist, libertine, and slave trader. John Newton was born in London in 1725, the son of a Puritan mother and a stern ship commander father who took him to sea when he was 11 (“I am persuaded that he loved me but he seemed not willing that I should know it,” he later wrote).

"By 1745, Newton was enlisted in the slave trade, running captured slaves from Africa to, ironically, Charleston, S.C. After he rode out a storm at sea in 1748, he found his faith. He was ordained an Anglican priest in 1764 and became an important voice in the English abolitionist movement. At that time he wrote the autobiographical 'Amazing Grace,' along with 280 other hymns."

President Obama embraced race and religion in his moving address in Charleston, saying: "As a nation, out of this terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us for he has allowed us to see where we've been blind. He's given us the chance, where we've been lost, to find our best selves." He named each victim of the church shooting and declaring each "had grace."

At the conclusion of his eulogy, President Obama turned to "Amazing Grace" -- a go-to hymn at American funerals -- as a means of comforting the grieving families. It's been said that the African American spiritual teaches each of us that we're going to come up rough sides of mountains, and from time to time experience difficulties in our lives. However, we learn, faith gives us the ability to weather any storm.

"As the president segued from the words 'amazing grace' into the musical notes of 'Amazing Grace,' the audience members could be heard murmuring their surprise," wrote the Los Angeles Times. "So unlikely was it that a leader of the free world would try singing his way out of a eulogy that many weren't sure whether to believe he was. The fact that Obama's singing was a little off-key only seemed to help the cause, inspiring the audience to join in instead of just sitting back and listening."

Indeed, as we observed, President Obama's "Amazing Grace" moment showed us all what a little music could do in the right context. It was a moment in which he notably brought the room to its feet and resonated with an entire nation.

To see a video of President Obama singing "Amazing Grace":

http://ti.me/1GFeVld

To learn more about "Amazing Grace":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace

Photo: Courtesy of CNN.com and Google images.

Grace Cathedral at 50: Defining beautiful architecture

A San Francisco sacred space / Grace Cathedral turns 50 this week.

How does one define beautiful architecture?

"Space has always been the spiritual dimension of architecture," the 20th century Canadian architect and urban planner Arthur Erickson once said. "It is not the physical statement of the structure so much as what it contains that moves us."

Grace Cathedral is the third
largest Episcopal cathedral
in the United States.

One of my favorite spaces in the entire world -- and one that I've experienced many times during the past two decades -- sits tall atop Nob Hill in San Francisco. The vibrant city's famous cable cars pass by it on the California Street side of this sacred space. It's a place that I return to often on Sundays, especially during Lent for Easter Sunday and in the season of Advent to worship on Christmas Eve. 

That space is Grace Cathedral, a place to explore; a place to go deeper in one's faith. It is the third largest Episcopal cathedral in the nation, and this week, Grace Cathedral turns 50.

Each time I climb the staircase that frames the cathedral's entrance on Taylor Street and enter this sacred space, I am moved by the beauty of the cathedral's French Gothic architecture, designed by Lewis P. Hobart; the Ghiberti Doors that are opened for special occasions; and the vaulted ceiling arches. There is much to admire in this exalted sacred space -- and photograph, too.

The Keith Haring AIDS Chapel altarpiece.

There's the lyrical Rose window above the main entrance with its the colorful prism-like reflections of light beaming through it and through the stained-glass windows, bathing the pillars and indoor labyrinth in beautiful colors.

There's the historical aisle murals that were painted by Polish painter Jan Henryk De Rosen between 1949-1950 and composed in a style blending the stylistic elements of early Italian masters Giotto and Mantegna.

And, there's the Keith Haring AIDS Chapel altarpiece.

Colorful prism-like colors beam
through the stained-glass
windows onto the indoor
labyrinth at Grace Cathedral.

Cathedrals have long been places of pilgrimage, and Grace Cathedral is celebrating its past, its present and its sustainable future. Work was begun on the present cathedral structure in 1928 and its completion and consecration took place in 1964. Duke Ellington performed his televised Concert of Sacred Music inside Grace Cathedral on September 26, 1965.

I enjoy worshiping at Grace Cathedral, absorbed by its sacred space, which is defined by the beauty of its art, including its medieval and contemporary furnishings. There's also the echoing sound of the majestic Æolian-Skinner pipe organ; the 44 bell carillon, and the harmonious voices of the Choir of Men and Boys.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Of course, the homilies are meaningful, whether delivered by the Dean of the Cathedral, a visiting theologian, or by a guest homilist such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the anthropologist Dr. Jane Goodall or the playwright Anna Devere Smith.

And, they are always thought provoking, too.

Marcel Proust wrote how "Love is space and time measured by the heart." 

In Grace Cathedral, a house of prayer for everyone, I find solace here each time I visit.

And I know God's generous love awaits me.

To learn more about Grace Cathedral:

http://www.gracecathedral.org/

All photographs by Michael Dickens, © 2014.

A sacred space is graced with light

Sacred space /Graced With Light

Imagine a series of light pathways that connect heaven and earth, manifest as ribbons.

Graced With Light is a stunning, music-inspired installation created by American visual artist Anne Patterson that incorporates a French Gothic-style cathedral's vaulted ceiling arches.

In engaging audiences through this remarkable creation that synthesizes art and music, light and sound, space and self, Graced With Light, which had its debut last month in San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, brings the beauty of art into a famed sacred space.

Grace Cathedral, whose ancestral parish, Grace Church, was founded in 1849 during the California Gold Rush, has always been a place to belong; a place to explore; a place to go deeper in one's faith. And, Graced With Light, part of a celebration of 100 Years of Music at Grace Cathedral, is designed to grow and change.

As I entered Grace Cathedral on an overcast Easter Sunday morning, I saw the Episcopal cathedral, located on Nob Hill, in a brand new light. What I witnessed was miles upon miles of colorful ribbon ~ 20 miles-worth of shimmering ribbon ~ hand-assembled by Patterson, this year's cathedral artist in residence, with help from the Grace Cathedral community.

Each viewing of Graced With Light will be different thanks to the way in which light reflects inside the cathedral from both the natural ceiling lights as well as from the many colorful stained glass windows.

The message Patterson has conveyed is a personal one ~ and one which left a lasting impression with me. Imagine ribbons carrying our prayers, our dreams and our wishes skyward. And, in return, see grace streaming down the ribbons to each of us.

Graced With Light will be on view at Grace Cathedral through this summer.

To learn more about Graced With Light: http://www.gracecathedral.org/air.