Before The Chieftains review — which it’s not, because I lost my Lamy Al-Star pen following a disaster of a restaurant meal so I couldn’t take notes — a roundabout.
I try to be a jack of all journalism tricks. I even covered a lecture and poetry reading by ex-NBA star Tom Meschery in about 2000 at the University of Arkansas for The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas — almost sports reporting. In about 1982, I photographed a workshop in Irving, Texas, taught by jazz guitarist Lee Ritenour. Later I realized I heard little and saw little, except for notes I made for the photo-page captions and what came through my Minolta’s lens. In the 1990s, reviewing occasional plays and classical and jazz concerts for the Arkansas Democrat then Democrat-Gazette, I found that deadlines changed my appreciation of the stage. It wasn’t just plot and character, but more story and acting. Was that a dramatic pause or a missed cue? Are those French horns in tune? Reading books evolved with reviewing a few a year.
We all do this though, without writing. Honey, did you like the movie? We exchange experiences and opinions. Maybe it’s that the critic needs specific sentences immediately, not fuzzy impressions, especially if the show is over at 9:45 and the copy desk needs the 10-12 inches by 10:30. Notes are necessary.
In the last decade, outside of Brick I’ve written no reviews. I still jot a rare note during a show. I fear I’ll forget. Yet in the last decade I have forced myself to sit back, just absorb. You leave the theater then glowing, with a total impression, hard to summarize and, too soon, hard to recall. So when I buy $48 tickets for us to see Randy Newman on Jan. 22, at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, I want to leave with something besides, “Duh, rockin’ show, durn, he’s funny.” The value of a top-dollar entertainment only starts with the two hours in a dark auditorium. It continues with memories and any enrichment afterward. On Newman, the first revelation was as a young man he wrote 3 Dog Night’s “Mama Told Me Not to Come”; when he sang it that night you realize, with that croaky voice and singsong pacing, who else? A more valuable revelation was that at age 67, Newman is still creating fresh, great material. Artists don’t have to burn out. On Feb. 27, he was awarded an Oscar.
The Chieftains keep it new, too, come to think of it. (They and Newman started in the 1960s.) As folk traditionalists, they’re not creating original music, but three of the earliest members have surrounded themselves with young virtuosos.
Their concert, at the WAC on Feb. 27, was so moving I reached for my pen, only to find it missing. I decided against recalling my impressions after we got home, to just enjoy the good feelings, then changed my mind in the morning. Probably just as well, because the song titles seemed to be nearly be unguessable Gaelic, except for “Wabash Cannonball” (Chieftains don’t just play Irish folk music).
Honey, did you like the show? My Beloved (this was on her birthday, as well as Oscar night), enjoyed it, but I loved it, maybe even more than Newman’s a month earlier, unless that’s apples and oranges, or porter and stout.
Grateful that I recorded my notes as a journal entry, what happens but that The Chieftains just two weeks after playing Fayetteville, played on NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Monday night, the 14th.
Want to see the video? It’s like sitting in the WAC again. Click here, it follows a couple of 15-second ads but in return you get network quality.
What made The Chieftains a superlative show? They did more than play their hearts out. Randy Newman and for that matter Mark Knopfler, whom MB and I saw last April in Kansas City, enthusiastically performed works from throughout their careers. Song welcome song intro song song funny story song song song quip song introduce the band (Knopfler, not Newman, who played solo) joke about needing a break, intermission, then more song song patter song song, feature each sideman generously song story song song song song bow encore one encore two bye-bye.
The Chieftains followed that pattern, but after a few instrumentals, an elegant redhead entered and sang an Irish tune. Alto range. The main dude, Paddy Moloney, playing tin whistles (plural) and uilleann pipes (like bagpipes), noted one fiddle player was from Nashville, so then she led the band in “Wabash.” Note: where’s the bass and rhythm lines? It’s provided by the thumping quarter notes of the acoustic six-string guitar. The hand drummer, who also sings, adds flourishes not the beat. At some point the second fiddler walked down stage and started clogging. He was joined from the wings by his brother and his wife. They’re featured on the Fallon video, as is the alto. Later, Moloney introduced local teens from the McCafferty School of Irish Dance, who wore traditional costumes. (The three with The Chieftains wore mostly black jazz-dance slacks and tops — and tap shoes.) Later a local Scottish bagpipe and drum corps joined the ensemble. Later, in a finale before the encore, the corps and the girls and the adult dancers second-lined down the aisles of the auditorium.
The Chieftains in essence threw a variety show, full of surprises. Was that four bars of the Rolling Stones “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”? Yes. Sure they played hits from their top albums, but we simply did not know what was coming next. The process brought utter joy.
Just like most of my occasional reviews of 30 years, I have barely reviewed my notes. The writing must be what engraves them. What, it’s St. Patrick’s Day? What do you know!
