Mike Gonzales, Greg Noll and Jim Anderson

Tuolumne County (pop. 50,000) has it’s own born and bred rock star guitarist. His name is Greg Noll and his band, Crazy Ivan, is a regular at events around the county. During the 80s, he was the guitarist for the heavy metal band Poison, which had commercial success and a substantial following in Europe and Japan.

On March 22, 2011, at age 46, Greg suffered a stroke. He was lucky, in that the stroke happened while he was being examined by a local ER doctor for dizziness. He was airlifted to Doctors Hospital in Modesto, the nearest stroke unit. There, according to the Crazy Ivan blog:

Chris met the chopper at the hospital and helped get Greg admitted and stabilized. It’s now Wednesday afternoon and a few of the Ivan family went to visit him. He was in pretty bad shape BUT.. He had full mobility (including fingers and tongue) no slurred speech and was aware of his surroundings, himself and the people in the room. AMAZING!!!

To make this a little shorter, he was discharged on Saturday and is staying with good friends in Modesto who live close to the hospital. He is able to pursue his course of physical therapy and adjust to his new diet and medication regime. He continues to make slow but steady progress to what we hope will be a full recovery.

The hopes for recovery were realized at a benefit concert for Greg on May 13, 2011, at the Tuolumne Memorial Park, where he performed with the band, seemingly without missing a beat.

Crazy Ivan will be playing again in Tuolumne Park on July 20, 2011, at the Tuolumne Farmers Market. It’s always great fun to watch them perform for friends and family in their home town. We’re very lucky to still have Greg Noll with us to rock the house.

Doing the Strawberry Stroll - Fall 2009

The Strawberry Music Festival is a Central Sierra tradition that goes back 30 years. The festival takes place twice a year – over Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends – at Camp Mather, just outside of Yosemite National Park. The performers are diverse, the setting spectacular and the festival-goers are now into their 3rd generation.

Since I always like to check out the performers who I haven’t heard before, I thought I’d share videos for each of the 22 bands that will be playing at the Fall festival. My family and I look forward every year to spending four days immersed in “The Strawberry Way”.

Sunday, 9/4/2011

12:45 Dala

2:15 Martyn Joseph

5:15 Dan Crary and Thunderation

6:45 Greensky Bluegrass

8:45 David Grisman Bluegrass Experience

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 1

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 2

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 3

Jamming in camp - Fall 2009

The Strawberry Music Festival is a Central Sierra tradition that goes back 30 years. The festival takes place twice a year – over Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends – at Camp Mather, just outside of Yosemite National Park. The performers are diverse, the setting spectacular and the festival-goers are now into their 3rd generation.

Since I always like to check out the performers who I haven’t heard before, I thought I’d share videos for each of the 22 bands that will be playing at the Fall festival. My family and I look forward every year to spending four days immersed in “The Strawberry Way”.

Saturday, 9/3/2011

11:00 Joe Craven Trio

12:15 Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan

1:45 California Honeydrops

5:15 The Wailin’ Jennys

6:45 David Lindley

8:45 Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 1

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 2

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 4

Marley's Ghost at the Sunday Revival - Fall 2007

The Strawberry Music Festival is a Central Sierra tradition that goes back 30 years. The festival takes place twice a year – over Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends – at Camp Mather, just outside of Yosemite National Park. The performers are diverse, the setting spectacular and the festival-goers are now into their 3rd generation.

Since I always like to check out the performers who I haven’t heard before, I thought I’d share videos for each of the 22 bands that will be playing at the Fall festival. My family and I look forward every year to spending four days immersed in “The Strawberry Way”.

Friday, 9/2/2011

11:00 Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers

12:15 Dave Gunning

1:45 Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk

5:15 Marley’s Ghost

6:45 Preservation Hall Jazz Band

8:45 Tower of Power

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 1

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 3

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 4

Early morning in Music Meadow

The Strawberry Music Festival is a Central Sierra tradition that goes back 30 years. The festival takes place twice a year – over Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends – at Camp Mather, just outside of Yosemite National Park. The performers are diverse, the setting spectacular and the festival-goers are now into their 3rd generation.

Since I always like to check out the performers who I haven’t heard before, I thought I’d share videos for each of the 22 bands that will be playing at the Fall festival. My family and I look forward every year to spending four days immersed in “The Strawberry Way”.

Thursday, 9/1/2011

5:00 Buster Blue

6:15 Nathan Moore

7:30 Rose’s Pawn Shop

9:00 Hot Buttered Rum

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 2

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 3

Strawberry Video Preview – Day 4

While Gillian has been more in the foreground, David’s contribution as singer, producer and guitarist extraordinaire make the pair into an inseparable whole. Their music is often quiet and introspective but also displays a full range of emotions. I actually find this performance of Caleb Meyer to be frightening in its intensity.

A new project, The David Rawlings Machine, puts the musical emphasis on David’s voice and songwriting. In this short set for the NPR’s Tiny Desk series, Gillian and David perform 4 songs. The first, I’m on My Way Back to the Old Home by Bill Monroe, actually starts out as their sound-check but turns into a full and thrilling version of an old standard.

The sound geek in me notes that this session was recorded with a single microphone and the “mix” we hear is Gillian and David themselves drawing on more than 15 years of performing together. Note too that David’s instrument of choice is the 1935 Epiphone Odyssey arch-top that he plays in both of these clips.

In honor of all the World Cup teams (Go USA!) and their South African hosts, you too can play the Vuvuzela, loud and proud, by clicking on the link below.

Cross posted on webdancers.com.

My mother, who lives in Los Angeles, has been telling me about the new, young conductor of the LA Philharmonic and his involvement in music education for disadvantaged kids but it didn’t really sink in until I watched some YouTube videos (see below) of performances by the youth symphony that he directs in his native Venezuela. Having watched these and followed up with more reading, it’s fair to say that I’m blown away by this sweeping and successful program. Here’s the story.

Thirty three years ago, Jose Antonio Abreu had an ambitious dream to bring music to the youth of Venezuela, without regard for class or race. At the first gathering, his concern was that he had only 50 music stands for an expected 100 children. This turned out not to be a problem when only 11 showed up. From these tenuous beginnings, he forged El Sistema (The System), more formally known as the Fundación del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela (National Network of Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Venezuela).  Today, 300,000 children attend its music schools around the country and perform in its 600 orchestras.

The goal of El Sistema is not to produce virtuoso musicians but rather to promote social organization and community development. From a 2007 New York Times article:

The most remarkable feature of the Venezuelan music-education system is its instant immersion: the children begin playing in ensembles from the moment they pick up their instruments. Their instructors say the students are learning to behave as much as they are discovering how to make music. “In an orchestra, everybody respects meritocracy, everybody respects tempo, everybody knows he has to support everyone else, whether he is a soloist or not,” explains Igor Lanz, the executive director of the private foundation that administers the government-financed sistema. “They learn that the most important thing is to work together in one common aim.” Across Venezuela the sistema has established 246 centers, known as nucleos, which admit children between 2 and 18, assign them instruments and organize them into groups with instructors. Typically practicing for two or three hours every day, the children are performing recognizable music virtually from the outset.

Maestro Gustavo Dudamel is El Sistema’s most famous graduate. Last year, at age 28, he became the Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, while continuing as Music Director of the Gothenburg [Sweden] Symphony and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. (Interestingly, LA has a history of hiring the very young; Zubin Mehta was just 26 when he took over the Philharmonic in 1962.) Dudamel also brought El Sistema to Los Angeles, starting with his debut performance at the Hollywood Bowl. Jill Stewart, of the LA Weekly, blogged about the October 2009 concert:

The most amazing moment last night, by far, was when YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), who were recruited from tough areas including gang-ridden South Central, performed Beethoven. Dudamel almost physically dragged these gifted-but-clearly-a-ways-to-go neophytes through the piece. It was incredible to watch him — and them.

Yes, you could hear a bit of discord, a few instruments coming in late, that sort of thing. But it was gorgeous — and at the triumphant ending, as the final notes rang out, the childrens’ mostly working class parents, sitting right up front in poolside seats that normally probably cost $100 or $200, absolutely ERUPTED with glee.

El Sistema has become a global movement, including established programs in Scotland and England. In the US, The New England Conservatory has launched El Sistema USA, whose first project is the Abreu Fellows Program. This program “provides tuition-free instruction and a living stipend for outstanding young postgraduate musicians, ‘passionate for their art and for social justice,’ who seek to guide the development of El Sistema programs in the U.S. and beyond. ”

To really appreciate the potential of this movement, watch the videos. The first is of Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra, made up of outstanding high school (yes, high school!) musicians from El Sistema.

Also inspiring is this TED Talk  by Jose Antonio Abreu, the founder of El Sistema.

Photo courtesy of  the National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Venezuela

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5OiMfM3txk

Stephen Foster (1826-1864) may be America’s first professional song writer. During his most productive years, he composed such American standards as Oh, Susanna (1848), Camptown Races (1850), My Old Kentucky Home (1853) and Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair (1854). Much of his music was written for minstrel shows, where it was performed in blackface. In what was actually an enlightened attitude for his time, Foster instructed that his songs should be performed in a pathetic, rather than a humorous style (pathetic meaning “to engender compassion”). During this time, he also eliminated dialect from his lyrics and stopped referring to his music as “plantation songs”, preferring the term “American melodies”.

Biographical information drawn from the University of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Joe Pug told this story onstage at the fall Strawberry Music Festival, about a conversation he had not long ago with Steve Earle. Seems Joe was strolling around backstage with an unlit cigarette tucked behind his ear.

Steve (pointing at cigarette): You better quit those things if you want to last 20 or 30 years in this business.

Joe: I know I should, but I just love it so much.

Steve: Yeah, I felt the same way about heroin.