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Friday, November 17, 1978
University Daily Kansan
City's jazz groups share players
Staff Renorter
By BRENT R. SCHLENDER
Jazz musicians have always been polygamous in their musical marriages. They were one of the few groups in the past few years, local musicians have been playing around more than ever, and the number of thriving jazz bands has grown from a few to as many professionals has stayed about the same.
This increase in steady groups has allowed many local jazz players to work more and to develop their individual styles. It also has led to an intimate and lively community of jazz in Lawrence—a community who reprimands its members for serious jazz is reporting widely known.
Two notable members of the Lawrence jazz community, Tommy Johnson and Mike Beisser, typify the combination of individuality and musical greygriouriness that characterizes so many of the local jazz musicians. Each leads his own jazz group, and each has played with nearly every other jazz player in town at one time or another.
JOHNSON, WHO PLAYS trumpet and fugelhorn and occasionally dabbles at the keyboard, leads the Tommy Johnson Experiment. His group has been playing together, through various incarnations, for two years. He plays in the Kansas City and Topeka areas.
The band's current lineage has Johnson on trumpet and fuglhorn, David Hill on guitar, Tom Harrington on electric and acoustic bass, Robert Dickie on drums and Steve Rice on electric piano. Johnson and Hill, who originally played with the Experiment, the other members of the band sit in with various other jazz groups around town.
"We play a wide variety of musical styles in an attempt to integrate everybody's musical background," Johnson says. "We experiment a lot with electronic effects and original numbers, but we also play a lot of standard and popular modern jazz tunes."
Hill and Johnson write the original compositions.
"We try to use the democratic process when we write. We know the effect we want to hear and we figure it out together." Johnson says.
Johnson's thoughtful, percolating style is the product of many influences.
*DON ELLES HAS influenced my playing most, their obviously are others - Miles Monroe, Jamie Gibson and Kyle Becker.*
Right now I'm listening to a lot of Clark Terry's music. Johnson says.
Johnson is working on a doctorate in music education and human development. He used to direct the special education program for the Kansas City, Kan., Headstart
With all these irons in the fire, Johnson has little free time. He says he uses most of it booking and selling his band to clubs in Kansas City.
"That's a tough job because nine out of ten places won't book us if they haven't heard us. Lawrence is like heaven for us because they know we here, and besides that, they know we there."
Johnson still finds time to practice—something he can't afford to neglect.
"If I lay off for three days I'll fit it for the next three months," he says.
**WHEN I WORKED in Kansas City, I used to practice on my mouthpiece while I drove**
But Johnson says his hectic life is worth it.
"It's more than just dedication," he says.
"It's a lot of fun to play jazz. Some people have families and some people play tennis."
While Johnson is busy juggling work and playing, Mike Beisner, another trumpet player, is busy juggling himself between four jazz groups.
Beisner also keeps busy during the day as manager of the combo department at Pullman's Music House, formerly Rose Keyboard, in Lawrence. At night he is ubiquitous, often playing with a different group each night.
He leans the Mike Beiser Trio, or Quintet. Quintet, depending on the height of the gate, is a great showpiece.
Versatility is Beisner's creed.
"I play piano when the group is a trio, and then we have a quartet I get to play some trio," he says.
His changing group comprises himself on piano, trumpet, flugelhorn, valve trombone and trombone, John Lomas on guitar, Johnny Moore on drums, Paul Miller on bass, Bob Dylan on electric and acoustic bass, and, occasionally, Jim Stringer on guitar and vocals.
"It depends on who's available on a given night," Beinser says.
Beiser's group plays modern jazz tunes and several of his own compositions.
"I USED TO write a lot. A few years ago I arranged for big bands, but that is very time consuming. I don't have as much time to write these days," he says.
Beisner also plays with Paul Gray's Gaslight Gang, a Dialectian jazz band, and the River City Jazz Band, another modern jazz group whose members vary from week to week.
"The River City band has many of the same people in it that play in my groups, but we play differently. I play nothing but my horns in that group. We play many of the same tunes that my group plays, but in a different style." Beaisser says.
Joining Beisser in that group are guitarist Lomas, bass-drummer Dickie and sax player Chuck Berg. Berg also leads a trio of his own.
THE RHYTHM SECTION from the River City Jazz Band is the nucleus of Thursday night jam sessions at Paul Gray's Jazz Place. Beiser stays away from those sessions because "I'm down there so much on them that I've got to stay away some nights."
Beisner has also played with the Nairobi Trio, a group led by vibe player Greg Mackender. Johnny Moore, whom Beisner calls 'the best drummer in the Kansas City area, and bassist Paul Miller, the man,' make up the other two-thirds of the trio.
Guitarist Jim Stringer leads another room that Beiser has played with.
Beamer says, "Stringer is an extremely intelligent, versatile and tasteful player."
Since his return to Lawrence last January, Beisner has become an alumnus of nearly every jazz group in town. He spent many years there on the road with various bands.
"I REALLY MISS the road, but I do like what I'm doing in Lawrence," he says. "per capita, the Lawrence jazze scene is excellent. Right now there is more jazze here than in
"Part of the reason is that this is a college town, and people with diverse interests live here. But another big factor is Paul Gray's Jazz Place. It's a great place for jazz musicians to play because the atmosphere is cool, and the crowd is almost always enthusiastic."
The jazz scene in Lawrence is like a jazz version of musical chairs, with people like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Marner and Moore and Miller continually experimenting with new alignments. The result isn't a repetition rehashing of the same old songs but rather vibrant jazz communities in the Midwest.
Varied art works on sale at Spencer
the gallery walls and 6 unframed works will be placed in a large bin.
Art lovers and holiday bargain hunters will have another place to shop beginning Sunday afternoon when "Collectors" of the National Museum of Art, Helen Freeman-Spears Museum of Art.
Prices for the art objects range from $12
to £13,000.
There will be something for everyone at the sales exhibit, according to Elizabeth Broun, curator of prints and drawings. Broun helped to coordinate the installation of the exhibit in White Gallery on the main floor of the museum.
Brown said prices were determined on the basis of what the museum would have to pay to buy the art.
Sixty-eight works will be displayed on
The art objects, selected by museum curators, were collected from dealers in Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, New York and London.
This year's exhibit features 18th and 19th
Although most of the works that line the walls of the gallery cost more than $300, there are photographs and collages in the contemporary section that cost $20 to $30.
Museum visitors will be able to place an art object on reserve for 48 hours before opening.
Works on display from the contemporary period include photographs and artworks.
century drawings, paintings, watercolors,
sculpture and Japanese scroll and prints.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN Spare Time
Night life
Lawrence Opera House, 644 Massachusetts St.
- Cole Tuckey, Nov. 17-18, 9 p.m., $2.50 general admission and $2 members
- general admission and $2 members.
- Dry Jack will appear in the balcony, free.
- Camerata Band, Nov. 29, 9 p.m., free.
Off the Wall Hall, 737 New Hampshire St.
- Rick Kidd h/suhl Rapp Rapt. N/Ypt/Rapt.
* Pat's Blue Rhythm Band, Nov. 18 9 p.m.
- Cassie Culver and the Belle Star Band.
Helen Hook will also appear, Nov. 27; 8:30AM
Paul Gray's Jazz Place, 926 Massachusetts St
Bullwinkle's, 806 W. 24th St. Private club.
Disney.
G. P. Loyd, Seventh and Massachusetts streets.
J. Watson's 11, Hillcrest Shopping Center.
Private Club
St.
• Jam Session, Nov 30 9 p.m. free.
Pentimento Coffeehouse-Cafe, 611 Vermont St
Movies
Shermanigan', 901 Mississippi St. Bar
Disco.
The Goodbye Girl, dir. by Herbert Ross
with Richard Dryfuss and Marsha Mason,
Nov 17, 18:30, 7 and 9:30am $1.50
Heavy Traffic, dir. Ralph Bakski, Nov. 17-18,
midnight, $1.50.
A China Memoir: The Other Half of the Sky,
dr. Claudia Weill and Sri Maclaike, Geography of the Body, dr. Marle Manken, and Pam Harnes, Nov 28; 7:30 p.m. $1.
The Big Clock, dir. John Farrow, with Ray
Milford, Nov. 20; 7:30 pm, $1.
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, dr. Robert Aldrich, with Bette Davis and Joan Garrison, told the New York Times.
Daily Life in China's Communes, and Black and White, d.疏chrab Shahal-Saidale, and Bakhtar Migration, d.trey Howard, Nov. 30, 7:30 p.m.$1.
- Susie Snyder, cello, Nov. 19, 3:30 p.m.
Susanwhat free
Student Recital Series
Ume Femine Douce, dir. Robert Bresson,
Nov. 29, 7:30 p.m., $1.
- Richard Webb, org, Nov. 19, 8 p.m.
Swarthout, free.
Carlion Recital Series, Nov. 19, 3:30 p.m.
and Nov. 29, 7.pm.
Art & Design Gallery, University of Kansas,
art and drawings by Richard M. Gilles
Exhibits
Lands Gallery, 918 Massachusetts St. bronze and clay sculpture by Jimi Patt.
7E7 Gallery, 7 E. Seventh St., paintings by Robert Sutluyd
The Gallery, 745 New Hampshire St., watercolor by Sherry Slaymaker Bichera and ceramics by Linda
Kansas Union Gallery, Walker Evans at Fortune
Roy's Creative Framing and Gallery, 711W. 23rd St, watercolors by Sherry Slainmaker Breicha and John Garcia, oils by Don Hoyer and Paul Penny.
Odds & Ends
Theatre
Candida, Nov. 17 and 18, 6 p.m. and Nov.
19 at The University Theatre, free for KU
students (U.D.)
The Tragic Vision in Architecture: Lecture,
research and presentation, author
and author Spencer Museum, Nov. 19-28, 2004.
Gallery tour of Hunt Helsen's paintings by
hunting-tia L, Spencer Museum. Nov. 19, 3.
PAGE 207
Three Newspapers for Three Hundred CITIZENS, an evening program at Watkins College, will be held on Friday, March 20th.
Sudlow's art shows his mastery of light
Bv SARAH ILES JOHNSTON
This month marks the seventh anniversary of the TEF Gallery, *T.E. Seventh St*. And it's not easy to keep an art gallery going for years, especially in a town as small as Awarenes.
To celebrate their success on this special anniversary, co-owners Judy Kellas and Pat Blair have brought the landscape paintings of Robert Sudlow, K university professor of painting, to the gallery. The exhibition will remain until Nov. 28.
Suddow, 58, was born in Holton and joined the KU faculty in 1946. His paintings of Kansas landscapes hang in museums, galleries and private homes throughout the state and country. In 1975, when Gov. Robert Docking instituted the "governor's art" program, Suddow's work was the first chosen to hang in Docking's studio. Suddow picked a favorite artist and had his paintings displayed in such places as the Statehouse and the governor's office.
SUDLOW WROTE in his artist's statement, which accompanies the exhibition, that he lived in the "greatest mysteries live in the common light of day." The 19 paintings of Kansas fields and forests show the diversity of this common light.
Sudlow's sunshine is never blatant; he slowly captures the light of the sky in washy clouds, and allows the sun to come from; the sun seeps through as it does after a rain, falling on trees and fields subtly. The sunlight becomes part of what it illuminates, turning biceps dawn wheat in colors.
Sudlow likes to play with the moments
KANSAN Review
The presence of Sudlow's clouds is felt in the same subtle way his suns are. Often one doesn't see the clouds, or if he does see them, they are as unobtrusive as real clouds usually are. Sudlow's clouds make their appearance on the ground that they dangle and shadow.
In the foreground, though, the grass is still bright and single stalks are still resillable, while the backdrop consists of Sudiwu's brush. It is almost possible to draw a line through the background in sketch, labeling the point of "sketch."
SUDLOW'S TECHNIQUE contributes to the feeling of quiet statement that emanates from his paintings. Up close, the paintings look like a mass of nebulous colors; light blues, grays, beiges, greens and yellows can be seen by an occasional tree branch or flower stalk.
But when the viewer steps back and looks at the painting from a distance of six or seven feet, the colors and washes become features.
The softness is still present, but an
when light changes—at sunset or before a storm breaks.
“Evening Sketch” is a study of the sun “evening west over a field. In the background all is darkened and quiet; a pink, weak sun passes over cloudy range clouds. The trees and grass are somber.
ONE OF them, "Altarstone No. 2," brings the viewer into the purple dusk of the woods, where trees prevent much of the sunlight from reaching the ground. The background is made of spots of brown, gray and blue paint, carefully placed to create depth.
underlying structure appears. Objects do not leave out jarringly, but they are defined. They remain part of the background but cause a significant existence. The effect is cohesive yet detailed.
Sudbury's smaller paintings—about 12 by 18 inches—are particularly appealing because they are "concentrated." It is as if Sudbury took all the color present in the sky and feet, and fit it into a smaller format. Instead of pale colors, stretching across the stark, windswept sky of a large painting—an image that is attractive in its own right—takes on the dusky, dark rich colors. Most of the small paintings are of forest floors or wildflowers.
Out of the gloom emerges a massive tree, as if it was as tall as the trees. One doesn't see the dome at first but if one's eyes have to adjust for forest light. The painting has a dripping texture, stalking. The painting has a drudging feel.
"Allarstone No. 2." and the other small paintings, which has its sense of intimacy, contrast Sudlow's larger paintings of vast landscapes in more traditional colors this reviewer, the more familiar ones and seem to be more often displayed in this area. Sudlow proves with the smaller works that he can create yet another variation of what he calls "common" light of day.