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Students moved by Amos
Singer Tori Amos performs at the Lied Center. She played to a sold-out crowd of 2,000 Sunday night and poured listeners with an encore song about rape.
By Tommy Gallagher
Kansan staff writer
Tori Amo clutched her crotch, caressed her breasts and pounded her piano in a spirted performance for 2,000 people at a sold-out Lied Center Sunday night.
Amos plugged through a 15-song, 90-minute set as she hammered away at a piano, harpsichord and organ. She played a well-balanced mix from her three records to date: 1991's Little Earthquakes, 1994's Under the Pink and 1996's Boys For Fele.
REVIEW
Before the first of two encores, Amos ended her set with a stunning a cappella performance of Me And A Gun, a song about rape so moving that most of the people were motionless.
"I sang 'holy, holy' as he buttoned down his pants," Amos sang. Niki Beals, Manhatan sophomore, trembled and cried for those who had been victims of rape.
"I'm not sure what the name of the song was, but I bawled when she sang the song about rape towards the end," Beals said. "Any woman who has been raped, or anyone who knows someone who has been raped, couldn't help but feel the honesty in that song."
Earlier response to *Me And A Gun* by her fans prompted Amos to co-found the Rape and Incest National Helpline. She also was awarded a Visionary Award from the Washington, D.C., Rape Crisis Center for her efforts to help sex crime victims.
Susan Robison, Lyndon freshman, said the performance was a success.
"It was amazing; it was incredible; it was orgasmic," Robison said. "She fuses into her songs intelligence with sexuality more than any other artist out there today."
Josh Clayton Felt, formerly of the band School of Fish, opened the show. He loosened the crowd during a 40-minute set of blues- and funk-influenced music that included a cover of The Commadores' classic Brick House.
After a 45-minute intermission, Amos
"The concept of sin is a whole other story to my father," Amos said after singing *Icicle*, a song about masturbation. "I always wind up spending Christmas with my family, but I'm 33 years old. I want to get drunk, I want to get laid, and he can't understand that."
Although her father might not always
"I was turned on to Tori about five years ago when I saw an interview of hers because she was so honest and straightforward," said Scott Ede, Overland Park freshman. "I think that anyone with an open mind could listen to and appreciate her music."
Bottleneck's open mike night provides undiscovered bands a chance to shine
By Jeff Ruby
Kansan staff writer
Sometimes the band on stage is so young and raw, they have yet to come up with a name, and they have to be home by 10 because it's a school night and Mom said so.
For the last eight years, open microphone night at the Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St., has given young, unsigned area bands from as far as Columbia, Mo., the unique opportunity to play for an open-minded audience. The popular downtown music venue continues to encourage amateur musicians and artistic acts to take the stage every Monday night.
"My dream open mike is a guy sitting on a stool, then a metal band, then some guy juggling or something," said Brett Mosiman, owner of the Bottleneck. "I like an eclectic mix. You never know what you're going to get down there."
Mosiman, who said artists simply called the Bottleneck to sign up for an open mike night time slot, added that he had to limit bands to one appearance a month because the bill filled up consistently.
"It's an exposure gig, and it worked well for a lot of bands," Mosiman said. "It's real important that you play, even if it's for no money."
Open mike night, which usually featured five or six bands, is a crucial elec
"It's an exposure gig,and it's worked well for a lot of bands."
Brett Mosiman owner of The Bottleneck
ment in building up area interest in live music, Mosiman said.
"It was instrumental in bringing the Lawrence music scene back to life a long time ago," he said. "Since then it has come and gone in popularity and significance. But it'll always be valuable to young bands."
Ron Hayes, guitarist for Kill Creek, longtime fixtures of the Lawrence music scene, said his band got its start at the Bottleneck's open microphone night so long ago that he could barely remember it.
"It was either '88 or '89," he said. "It was kind of considered the big venue. It was the first time we'd ever played in a bar. We were definitely fitted."
Hayes, whose band has gone from vir
tual anonymity to national acclaim since its first show at the Bottleneck, said open Mike night was the best way to get his band exposure at a time when it wasn't particularly visible in the music scene.
"If it hadn't been for that, I don't know — you couldn't just call up and say, 'Hey, we're Kill Creek; can we play a show?' " Hayes said. "They'd just laugh at you. Everyone thinks they deserve a show."
Recently, open mike night, which is open to those 18 and older, has gone from once a week to a more intermittent schedule, Mosiman said, to accommodate out-of-town bands that often pass through town on Mondays.
"It still is every Monday," he said. "But I'm under a lot of pressure to book bands that happen to be in the area, and sometimes the shows fall on Monday. As Lawrence becomes a popular touring destination, the pressure increases to book these shows."
Chris Bulgren, drummer for Lawrence's punk rock trio the Bubble Boys and a Lawrence graduate student, said the event could serve as a springboard but that bands shouldn't put too much stock in it.
"It's really just kind of a way to get into the Bottleinen," he said. "But nobody will ever get signed to a label just by playing open mike."
Center tries to preserve jazz history
The Associated Press
LONG BEACH, Calif. — You need only look at the names printed on the relics — Charlie Parker and Ella Fitzgerald, among others — to understand why Richard Birkemeier is excited about the Institute for the Preservation of Jazz.
It's a place where historical reminders of an American art form survive amid stacks of old tape reels and phonograph records.
The institute is one of several jazz preservation efforts around the country. It opened to the public Oct. 12 at California State University-Long Beach.
The effort to create a jazz institute in this port city south of Los Angeles is among the most recent attempts to preserve the history of the genre.
"If we don't get it preserved right now, if we don't save this music, it's going to be gone," said Birkemeier, associate dean of the University's College of the Arts and a trumpet player himself. "When the people are gone, their stuff is literally getting thrown in the trash."
Preserve the history of art engagement Many scholars consider jazz one of America's most significant artistic contributions to the world and often one of its most overlooked.
So a handful of musicians, educators and afficionados, across the country have worked to combat the loss of the music's archival history and to ensure its future by encouraging today's aspiring musicians to learn about it.
Preservation efforts have taken on a renewed significance as the days of the older generation of jazz artists come to an end. The list of jazz luminaries who have died since 1990 includes some of the biggest names in the business: Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Sarah Vaughan, Meryl Mulligan.
For those who remain, the burden of passing on the music's history by recalling the early days can take its toll.
"Sometimes I feel like a messenger," said flutist and jazz educator Buddy Collette. Collette is 75 and is executive director of the institute. "It's hard to go through it emotionally every time.
"You go back and you see people who are not here any more. These guys had worlds of information and wisdom. So much of that should have been recorded."
The institute will feature an archive containing recordings, sheet music, periodicals and other items, Birkmeier said. The archive already contains donated 7- and 10-inch tape reels, LPs, magazines and other materials. Many of the tapes contain rare performances from radio broadcasts.
Birkemeyer said he hoped the institute would become a focal point of iazz education.
"Our mandate is to get out into the schools and do performances and also to bring them (children) here," he said.
On the East Coast, another preservation effort is taking place in New York. Queens College completed a deal in February to convert the home of trumpeter Louis Armstrong into a museum.
Michael Cogswell, director of the Armstrong house and archives, said the collection contained instruments, books, personal journals, photos, scrapbooks, unreleased recordings and other items. Such extensive preservation is unusual for jazz artists, he said.
"It is very rare for a jazz musician's materials to be given this archival care and attention," Cogswell said. "That's only just now beginning to happen in our nation."
Archivists hold varying explanations of why jazz seems to have been largely neglected.
"I think as we get a little historical distance, we're just beginning to appreciate the profound impact that jazz has had in world music," Cogswell said. "We were so close to it that we didn't see it."
Birkmeier said: "It is a very demanding and complex form. As jazz evolved, a lot of people opted to go for the more simple rock 'n' roll."
Dan Morgenstern, head of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., said jazz was an art form that required preservation because of its improvisational nature.
"It needs to be preserved just like any other art form needs to," he said. "Jazz in particular, because jazz is a spontaneously re-created music, so to speak."
The ability to preserve the music often depends on the musicians themselves, particularly how much they allowed their lives and talents to be documented through recordings, interviews and other means. Morgenstern said.
glenstein
"Dizzy (Gillespie) is very well-documented," he said, as an example. "Ella was a very shy woman, so there's not that much in the way of interviews with her."
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