Jerome Kitzke is introduced "as much a storyteller as a composer" in the
booklet notes, and he is certainly acutely in tune with Allen Ginsberg's
text for
The Green Automobile. This is a
tour de force but
great fun, with plenty of manic jazz inflections and fragments of walking
bass to go along with moments of reflective atmosphere and frantic
improvisatory playing and following of word-rhythms. Described as "a
freewheeling musical account" of Ginsberg's 1953 poem, Kitzke turns the
piece into a superbly energetic and highly contrasting work of music
theatre, but theatre of the mind rather than something you would instantly
think of as a stage work. Clever puppetry or animation might do the trick,
but events and switches in mood occur so quickly that a visualisation would
run the risk of coming a clumsy second to the music.
The Paha Sapa Give-back is a heartfelt "exhortation to pay
attention to and act upon the sovereignty and sacred land claim issues of
the world's indigenous peoples." The specific tale of
Paha Sapa,
the Black Hills regarded as "the heart of everything that is" by the Lakota
people, is a tragic one of violence, the breaking of agreements and
frustration in the courts. Kitzke expresses this with tribal drums, cries
and stabbing piano chords in a piece which exudes anger and a sense of
immovable resistance. Kitzke has visited this subject before, and
The
Paha Sapa Give-Back is one of four pieces which together form a large
theatrical work. He acknowledges the influence of Northern Plains Indian
Music in the piece, but none of the melodic or formal elements are direct
quotes. In essence this has aspects of a sort of tribal minimalism, but
there are plenty of layers offering food for thought, from the tracts of
ethnic rhythmic pounding to the use of snare drums which might refer to the
antagonism between cultures.
The title
Winter Count refers to "the passage of time from one
summer to the next [being] marked by noting a single memorable event." It is
described as an anti-war work, using emotionally charged poetry from the
likes of Aeschylus to Harold Pinter and Walt Whitman to express the
nightmares of war through the ages. The wide-ranging vocals of Jennifer
Kathryn Marshall and Barbara Merjan have a huge impact of course, but their
synergy with the violence and melancholy contrasts of the string quartet
amplified by a bass drum creates some striking effects and holds our
attention throughout. Having heard this and followed the text you are sure
to emerge "sadder and wiser", from the opening words, "The first casualty of
was is Truth", to the sublime musical simplicity which accompanies the final
".pondering the themes thou lovest best, Night, sleep, death and the
stars."
All of the texts are printed in the booklet for this release. This is a CD
with something to say, and it says it very well indeed. A bit like those
cunning street acts which tempt you in with comedy and then deliver a more
serious message, we are softened up by
The Green Automobile before
being clobbered by injustice and the sufferings of war, but with the quality
and sincerity on offer here I am happy to go along with the journey on which
Kitzke takes us.
Dominy Clements
