Memorial Day, Folklife Festival, and more...
Long rant (three-thousand words) plus reviews of
acts seen at Northwest Folklife Festival and some comparisons to the one held
for five years longer on the National Mall in DC - the Smithsonian National
Folklife Festival. Many pictures including several sequences and pans which
attempt to capture the amazing flavor and creativity and unbridled exhibitionism
which - apparently - IS the Northwest Folklife Festival.
Well, I am the complete newbie out here. Back
in DC, Memorial Day usually meant biking down to the Mall to catch the Harley
riders as they trooped into town across Memorial Bridge and made their way
across town down several broad avenues - broad enough for them to ride as many
as ten abreast - making their deep Harley roars and creating the opening wave of
noise for the various parades and other Americana-on-display which the
Washington area has in all its two-state-and-a-District, eleven county,
God-only-knows how many independent municipality "main
streets."
Memorial Day also means the official start of "summer" for many - though I'm constantly reminded that is NOT true for Seattle, where July 4th is the official "start" of summer. Where I grew up - in Pennsylvania - Memorial Day was when the outdoor pools (they apparently don't believe in them out here) opened and when shorts became the official "dress" of the day.
In Seattle, Memorial Day means Folklife Festival. This was the thirty-third Northwest Folklife Festival, it being founded in 1972, a modest five years after the Smithsonian National Folklife Festival was begun in 1967. Before diving into what I discovered here, let me make a few contrasts and comparisons. The Smithsonian Festival runs the ten days before July 4th and is located in three aisles of tents and trailers set up between 9th and 14th Streets on The Mall - that's between the Smithsonian Natural History Museum (and the Castle) and the Washington Monument. It's one of those arrangements, somewhat like a mall, where you can actually start at one end and make your way around to all the tents and other set-ups in a reasonably orderly manner - basically you can wander clockwise or counterclockwise around the perimeter, zoning in on the second run; or you can make a series of "S" curves hitting both sides of the three aisles during a slalom run. Northwest Folklife is set up in 19 different areas on the grounds of Seattle Center, using large lawn or courtyard areas, indoor amphitheaters and meeting rooms, and even the steps of the Key Arena as stages, the equivalent of the Smithsonian National Folklife's tents and trailers.
The Doors said in "Soft Parade," "that you cannot petition the Lord with prayer." I say "that you cannot logically navigate the stages at Northwest Folklife with a plan." And that may be the biggest and best difference between my 23 years of attending National Folklife Festival in DC and my first experience at Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle. It was a "meander" experience. One had to meander around to find things, the stages were literally all over the map. In between were countless food and craft booths (in tents) and even more countless street musicians and street acts (think juggling, magic tricks, hula hoop "hoop" areas). One didn't navigate Northwest Folklife Festival, one meandered around, discovering things everywhere.
Both festivals have printed and online schedules. Both have yearly "thematics" which describe the various staged acts' performances by tying the local (in the case of Seattle) and the national (in the case of DC) in with the theme through either costume, country of origin, or musical taste or heritage. Both are broadcast and recordings made and later sold. But, what I really liked about Northwest Folklife Festival was the fact that all the performers - all the live artists as it were - were "local" in the sense that I could actually expect to go someplace and see them after the festival was over. In DC, most of the performers are from other parts of the country - or even world - and no one in DC save the foreign diplomat or military officer could reasonably expect to see many of the acts later and only a traveling salesman could expect to see the rest as the Smithsonian draws from every culturally distinct region in the US (and world) for its annual festival. That means as a District resident it was not really a "local" event. It was an event so Smithsonian-like - created by committee to cover the spectrum (eventually and over time) of all possible heritages and tastes and backgrounds and cultures and to appeal to the "everyperson" who would show up, which included, obviously, the DC or Metro Washington residents but also the hundreds of thousands who come in to Washington for Memorial Day Weekend from elsewhere in the country and all the foreign tourists who flock to the city in the summer. Classic Smithsonian! Multi-cultural but diffuse. Focused but non-specific. Regional or even hemispheric but not local.
And that, mes amis, is the distinction I finally learned about. Coming from DC meant that I really came from no particular cultural identity. In years past, when Washington had a much more rich musical tradition and before Clear Channel and Radio One wound up owning every broadcast and stage venue in the land, DC had a very rich and very local set of festivals. There were the Blue Grass festivals and the Folk Music festivals and the Local Indigenous Rock festivals and the Blues festivals and the Jazz festivals. That was the DC of the '60s and '70s and before. Now, it's a world-class city with no local roots - oh sure, you say, there's still the 930 Club. Yes, but it's no longer at 930 F Street. Instead it's in the old WOOK AM and FM building on U Street and there's no more WOOK radio either. For old-timer Washingtonians, WOOK and WOL used to broadcast live soul music from their studios in the old H Street and U Street studios in what was then Washington's equivalent of Harlem, that's no more either. WOL is now an all-talk flagship station for Radio One. Pffft. In one decade the musical lore and history of the Nation's Capitol was eradicated by government acquiescence to big business greed. The city with a fabulous bridge named after hometown musician Duke Ellington (Calvert Street Bridge over Rock Creek) has no local musical festival anymore which corrals the local musical heritage in one location at one period of time. Sad and telling in so many ways.
So, as much fun (and it was, otherwise why would I have returned for 23 years to the same spot to see and hear more) as the Smithsonian National Folklife Festival is (and was), it's no match for the thunder, lightning, pzzzazz, spark, originality, creativity, verve, electricity, raw genius, and inspirational chaos which is the Northwest Folklife Festival. Obviously a country as rich and diverse as America needs both kinds - the purely local (or regional as is the case with Northwest Folklife) and the pandemic national.
Here's a news flash. I knew from taking annual long (actually very long, often four week) treks outside the Beltway that there was a "real" America outside Washington. That once I left the six-or-so million people of the National Capitol Area (that may even be a trademarked phrase) I would run into thousands of individuals who lived anywhere else but who were "different." Who had local customs, who spoke in local tongues, who had local heros (and statues to match or streets named after), who had local traditions and local histories which ran deep and often wide (I can't tell you how many towns in the Northland have Leif Ericson parks or statues and a Scandanavian Heritage Center, or how many towns up and down the Mississippi have a long-ago French presence still remaining deep in the local tapestry of street names and building types). But, every time I returned to DC I fell victim to my "District" habits, my Eastern snotty-ness - or effete snobbery - my "I live in the DISTRICT" ways. And, of course, I knew all the tricks having lived there for so long - how to navigate Rock Creek Park, how to use surface streets to get to Maryland or Virginia, where to find the good local bookstores and music venues, even where to go to get the true local history of the place and not the "national" history of the place.
But, dammit Batman, it took me practically a whole life living there to dig this stuff out. To be a true "local" I actually felt like I was swimming upstream the Columbia or Amazon at high Spring melt time. Everywhere one went there was the "national" presence or even the "international" presence but scant record of the local presence. Even the city's vaunted new "neighborhood" walking tours don't tell much about the neighborhood but rather which national figure or national event occurred in that "local" Washington neighborhood. I was lucky, I lived in a part of town which had a real history dating back to the Underground Railroad days and before and was one of the "first on my block" to purchase the then-new History of Tenleytown when it first came out in 1985. 1985!! Tenleytown was on the trail from Georgetown, when it was a tobacco port, to Frederick, when it was a true Colonial farming town. That's about 1769 - or about 216 years before the history of the area was recorded. That's how local goes in the Nation's Capitol.
Here, I listened to groups which have been in the area for thirty or more years and which have been playing for Northwest Folklife ever year since it came into being. I listened to groups which were brand new and barely out of the "garage" stage of development but they were local - local to the Northwest, either born-and-raised or recently transplanted. And, as I suspected, Northwest actually means Washington, Oregon, way-Northern California, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia. It's a region defined by the rivers - the Columbia and the Fraser, by the mountains - the Cascades, the Sawtooth, the Bitterroots, the Olympics, the Coast Range, and by the volcanoes, and by the sequoia and fir and redwood trees which grow here. It's a region defined by blue and green and white - the water and the trees and the sky. It's a region defined by the many immigrants who came here to build something (the railroads and shipyards and harbors and cities and bridges and roads), by the immigrants and Americans who came here to get something out of the land - the mines, the forests, the fish and wildlife, by the immigrants and Americans who came here because it was a "new" opportunity in a place which had very few restrictions and very few vested interests and even fewer long-held traditions.
It's still a place where the history sits like dust on a shelf - right there to look at and rub or even write your name in. It's a place which grew up in light of all the positive and negative experiments in everything which were already tried "over there," or "back East," or in (name your favorite country of origin). It's a place where there are a thousand cultures to choose from, a place where five histories mixed together doesn't even begin to touch the complexity of diversity. It's a place where the gene pool ran into a whirlpool.
And, Northwest Folklife Festival is the expression of that creativity, of that freedom (the impromptu bands playing in earshot of the "professional" stage performers all playing within a ring of street musicians). It's a symphony of diversity. It's the past running headlong into the future and congealing in the present.
But remember, I'm the complete newbie, the "still wet behind the ears" fresh-out, the greenhorn lad from "back East." I'm bound to be impressionable and easily misled and even more easily entertained. And, I'm probably one of the "point-zero-zero-percentage" types who actually went all four days, who sat and listened to endless presentations and performances and who came back for more. Most folks, true here as it is back at the National Folklife Festival in our Capitol City, take in one or two days, AM or PM, or camp out for a day and then relish the thousand moments back in the peace of wherever they traipsed here from. That's a large country, the Northwest, and there were folks from every nook and cranny of this region - both performer and participating observer. There's music, art, crafts, performances, crowd-induced self-discovery, uninhibited exhibitionism, food -- for the mind, for the body, for the soul. There were readings from profound authors and music-writing sessions from published songwriters and novel-creating sessions from published authors. But, darn it, I do know talent and creativity when I see or feel or hear or otherwise sense it and the Northwest Folklife Festival was a contained explosion of creativity and human expression. And what's more important, where I found something which interested me or piqued my ganglia, I know where to go back to get more of the same. This is a creative arts festival where the creative artists are tangible, they're locatable, they're contactable, they're easy to reach and open for communication. This is not an anonymous event. Everyone wanted me to know their name, where they were from, where they would be next, what was coming up on their horizon and what their next project was or is likely to be.
For someone like me who is looking for ideas, looking for that "new angle," listening for that "new sound," hoping to find brilliant creative lights to illuminate my dark corners, this was all too short. I can't wait for next year's festival and will attend every day then like I did this time. I also went down to the Mall pretty much every day of the Smithsonian's National Festival, too, for all the same reasons and to see all the people coming to town from all those foreign lands and outside-the-Beltway counties and states. But now I'm ready to dig into a specific slice of North America and this was like an engraved invitation for me to "dig in."
I sat through 21 performances which represents 10-and-a-half hours of live music or dance or reading or performance. Not quite Wagner's Ring Cycle (16 hours over four nights of opera) but more than enough to give me several areas of follow-up and several themes to chase down and several musical threads to pick up on. In addition, I spent roughly four to five hours a day at the Festival, which means that in addition to sitting or standing or leaning for extended periods while focused on one set of artists, I meandered hither and yon, sampling food, taking in the street musicians (at least two of which impressed me enough to already dig into their past and devour their websites), and all the performance art going on. That was a rough equivalent of 18 or so hours spent immersed in the Northwest Folklife Festival. I ran across a number of people I had met at either meetups or Monorail or here in West Seattle. I also recognized dozens more that "I know I've seen somewhere" but couldn't place them. At least several others recognized me (and I thought I had gotten down pat the "Northwest casual-but-ready-for-any-weather look").
Plus, I love crowds and in those four days I saw thousands of people, crowds here, crowds there, crowds everywhere and yet there was still a perfect spot to find to see whatever it was I wanted to see. Watching the many crowds from the countless elevated areas where one could take in entire scenes made me realize that humans are probably the most fascinating creature on this planet to watch. When there are thousands of us, all with thousands of purposes, confined in areas of indefinite space with elements of interest in all directions, we are unbelievably adroit. We finesse our way through thick and thin agglomerations of ourselves with break-neck and stop-on-a-dime navigation skills, we spin and cleverly miss random arms or baskets or strollers or frisbies with the slightest of ease and most amazing poetry of motion. Among the most interesting movies made are the time-and-motion studies of crowds in such places as Grand Central Station or Times Square or even the Ginza. But, let me tell you, standing still and watching a crowd live is just so much more satisfying than any time-and-motion movie could ever do justice to. The human eye-brain combination is especially skilled at pattern matching and color differentiation and with the rainbow of clothing everyone was wearing it was a breeze to de-focus my eyes and watch the swirl of motion going on around and below me. Then there were the performer-observer participant games enabled by such performers as jugglers. Always a crowd-pleaser but more so when the mood and psychic energy is open and high as it was at the Folklife Festival.
Okay, enough with the subjective ranting. I caught a number of acts which are worth reviewing and passing along to others, mostly because they have either informative websites or recordings or both and because they are talented and worthy of your attention. I've captured only a sliver of what was at the festival - only so much time and so many concurrent events - so this is not a list of what I thought the "best of Folklife" was, rather it's a list of what I saw which merits mention. Brief notes and links where they exist with each citation. Not sure how far some of these performers travel, most seem to be quite content to make their venue the Pacific Northwest, but if you can catch any of these, they are worth your time.
Notable Acts from 33rd Northwest Folklife Festival:
Armadillo Borealis - <http://www.armadilloborealis.com/> - a very eclectic Texas-Country-Rock group with musicians from Baltimore and North Carolina who write their own music and have at least one EP album out. The band consists of bass guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar and drums. Their name is very descriptive; their music is very rock and very Texas-style, interesting since none come from Texas. Good country rock, good Texas modern rock, good rhythms and good, funny, lyrics. Catch them around the city.
The People's Rhythm Party - <no website> - a group of what I gathered to be either Fremont or Wallingford locals who use a variety of percussion instruments and singing to create a very vibrant rhythm and sound. More like an impromptu set of street musicians but definitely "rocking" the house with their beats and voices. Fun to watch, tapping to the beat. Catch them in the city probably in Fremont at the Saturday market.
Campbell Road - <http://www.valleyint.com/campbellroad/contact.htm> - group of four, two men and two women, who play "hard driving" traditional Scottish and Irish folk tunes. Very captivating. They have one CD out and perform around the western Washington area. The band has evolved from a set of core performers and has been playing since 1997 with previous band names being Predator Parasites and later Violet and the Dead Husbands. At one time this band had as many as nine members but the four remaining make rocking music. Catch them somewhere in Western Washington at fairs and festivals.
Keeler, Melvin and Morse - <no website> - a trio which appears to have been together since their 1980 high school days playing Americana folk music. Good stuff, very listenable but no CD, alas. They are based in Spokane so they are likely to be heard in the eastern Washington, Idaho and maybe western Montana area at folk fests and summer music events at the parks.
Skweez The Weezle - <http://www.skweeztheweezle.com/> - a four person (three guys, one woman) Celtic band using bodhran, fiddle, bagpipe and guitar who play very fast-paced traditional Celtic tunes with an electric, rock-and-roll, attitude to their various jigs and reels. No CD either, but this Celtic band is from the Tri-Cities (Richland, Pasco and Kennewick) and plays in that area and Yakima a lot, coffee houses, fairs and music fests and outdoor parks.
Plaehn & Hino - <http://home.comcast.net/~eventsbydelynn/DJ/> - Blues harp and steel guitar, a duo from Corvallis, Oregon, who play in that college town a lot at coffee houses and local bars (cover for both venues). They've got two CDs out and are using the Portland CDBaby group as their publishing house (if you haven't checked CDBaby.com out yet, please do, lots of good local bands from all across the land, really cheap prices for good music and most of the money actually goes to the musicians with CDBaby getting about a ten percent overhead for reproduction and stocking and shipping). Good stuff, great blues harp playing with really good steel guitar backing. Blues with a very rocking feel.
Ricky Lee Bob - <no website> - and no CDs yet either. A local, Seattle, band with a folk-rock outlook and three part harmony. They don't seem to have that many appearances and I'm hoping this changes because they were good, rocking, and great fun to listen to. They look like they play in the general U-District, Wallingford and Fremont areas so check listings (Stranger <http://thestranger.com>, Seattle Weekly <http://seattleweekly.com >, KEXP <http://kexp.org>).
The Aaron English Band - <http://www.aaronenglish.com/> - completely took me by surprise - amazing new world rock and rhythm sound incorporating ocean, life-on-earth, world people themes. Aaron English is the band leader and has a fantastic set of drummers (two), lead and rhythm guitar players and singer (he sings too, actually sings great). Beyond genre descriptions - rock, world, rhythm, African, Caribbean, Asian, Pacific, Northwest - great stuff. Only one CD so far which took two years to accomplish. Aaron himself does synth keyboards (Korg and Roland together) and sings in a voice not unlike a well-sampled synthesizer under genius control. He and his band members built a studio in the Georgetown area of Seattle (south of SODO) and spent two years assembling the music and tuning it and re-tracking and adding layers. Two of the musicians (the lead electric and one of the drummers - Congos) are from NY City and travelled here to accomplish their first CD. Definitely worth listening to (samples on website) AND worth buying and playing. Hopefully he's close to his second CD, some tracks from which he and the band played during his set. This was the single most illuminating group I heard - wish their set had gone longer than the stipulated 30 minutes.
Straw Dogs - <http://www.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Straw_Dogs/> - Seattle duo who write their own songs, play guitar and appear in local venues. They've been compared to Indigo Girls gone male but their lyrics are much stronger than the music which they write to accompany them. Plus, they are genuine and the antithesis of what a "hot" local group should be - maybe that's part of their appeal. They've got three albums out (local record shops and CDBaby) and will probably be working on more. Good music but more than that - interesting and reflective lyrics.
Michael and Don Fraser & Paul Anastasio - <http://www.swingamajig.com/> - this is a father-son guitar (father) and fiddle (son) combo who play jazz violin, swing, and way more. At the Folklife Festival they were accompanied by another violinist to perform 30 minutes of Stuff Smith's original 1930's jazz violin compositions <http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/1073/Stuff_Smith_one_of_the_best_at_his_craft> - an amazing exposition of some of the earliest representations of now-well-known jazz riffs ever crafted. Several subsequent jazz greats, including Dizzy Gillespie, attribute much of their early stuff to Stuff Smith and his compositions. The duo is from Vancouver and plays in BC all over the province, down to and including Washington, Oregon, and California. They also travel a world circuit of jazz music festivals. If you like jazz and really enjoy hearing a fantastic violin wizard you should either catch this duo or get their CD. The kid, the violinist, is a great performer, evoking the feel and rhythm of the great 1930's jazz players with his swing and sway on stage and his facial expressions - and he is only 15. Great stuff, truly.
And, two reviews of simply groovin' street bands:
Bakra Bata - <http://www.bakrabata.com> - six member steel drum band with lots of other drums including full western rock drum kit, congos and bongos, hand drums and more. They've played across the US and have 5 CDs available and some cassettes from earlier years (they've been around since 1984). They're Seattle-based and play what they call a unique, Americanized version of pan-Oceanic rhythm and drum beats which have migrated to these shores from both Eastern and Western oceans and have become native to this continent as expressed uniquely through Bakra Bata. Captivating group - they have two dancers also. I saw them at the same location on all four days and never was there less than a hundred or more gathered around in a circle to listen and watch these artists. Check out their site, they've got entire MP3 cuts, one or two each, from all their CDs. They also appear in local music festivals throughout North America so do check local listings. Home office is on Capitol Hill (naturally) and looks like they'll be as far East as Pittsburgh come this Fall. Definitely worth following up on if you're into rhythm, beats and dance or even the influence of Africa, Asia and other cultures on what it means to be an American.
Taarka - <http://www.taarka.com> - four guys, mandolin, violin, upright bass, percussion, playing what they describe as "seismic gypsy hypno-jazz." Also captivating and rhythmic (with a definite beat from both the drums and the bass fiddle) and definitely gypsy and definitely jazz but with a decided rock and roll mannerism. This group have roots in Brooklyn and Williamsburg and transplanted themselves to the Northwest, finally Seattle, in early 2001 and have played amazing venues out here including Tahoe, the High Sierra Music Fest in California, San Francisco, Seattle (of course) and a bunch of county fairs in Oregon and way-Northern California (read Humboldt County - the only California County to consider itself NOT in California). They also have a radio following which goes as far East as Chatanooga (another folk town). They've got a new CD nearly ready (tracks from it are on their website). Very eclectic and very much worth a listen - they groove.
Now, 24 images, some containing up to a dozen sequences, of the four days of the 33rd annual Northwest Folklife Festival held on the grounds of the Seattle Center over the Memorial Day weekend (Friday through Monday).
Part of Folklife Festival is the many crafts and art vendors in their tents. These clothes use a native dye which is
photosensitive and which has natural plants placed atop while being exposed to sunlight. Once exposed, the dye is
colorfast and with proper washing will last a very long time. Very very blue.
Tie-dyed using colorfast dies in all sorts of dresses, shirts, pullovers, smocks, and other loose-fitting clothing. Both this
view and the one above are two panels placed adjacent, the clothes were hanging around inside the tents in a "C"-shaped
fashion.
This view, of yet another colorful vendor's wares, is a three-panel showing of the shirts, T- and long-sleeved as well as vests which use a
technique whereby the artist (who lives in Oregon) paints using very small camels' hair brushes, and then coats the painting (usually on the
sleeve or back or front vest areas of the shirts) with wax and then dyes the fabric and then melts the wax off with hot water. Very beautiful,
colorful, and, except for the fact that I already own over one hundred T-shirts (longsleeve and not), I would have bought at least a dozen of
some of the clothes in this and the previous two panels.
Near the Northwest Courtyard is this pool which was being used by both the smallfry and their larger parents. Behind
on the image on the left are the size and placement of a typical set of craft and arts tents.
And, just so you know Folklife occurred at the Seattle Center, here's not only the usual kids and adults playing in the
fountain, but a marching band which was parading around the walkways surrounding the fountain, the guy with the
orange is the drum major.
The Fisher Plaza Green - one of the many venues for staged performances and one of the many places for picnics, lawn chairs and general
milling. That's Queen Anne Hill in the background and below it the International Fountain.
Here's the view from the other side of Fisher Plaza Green, with the plaza immediately in the middle and above the lawn. The stage is on the
right and the tent on the left was the sound tent. Many of these stages were also being broadcast or recorded or both in addition to being
amplified for the local crowd. I heard only one instance of feedback and it was controlled and squelched within two seconds, the sound crew
for the Festival does an unbelievably outstanding job of delivering first rate sound to all the audiences cited - live, recorded for later and
broadcast. And by first rate, I mean the correct microphone for each and every instrument and voice with ample and appropriate sound
amplification and speakers which delivered a full spectrum of clear music.
This is looking north across Fisher Plaza Green with the elevated plaza on the left and the stage and sound tent on the right with the green
in between. This image was taken from in front of the Center Pavilion, which houses the Center food court and a huge auditorium which was
yet another stage venue.
What music festival would be complete without Flamenco dancers? Certainly not Northwest Folklife
Festival. This five-deck set of images captures two of the three dances presented by Maria Morca
and the Dancers of Spain (a local group).
Of course the Folklore Society had a bookstore with live performance stage and lots and lots of CDs and cassettes by the performing
artists and many books on the art of the various kinds of music as well as the Smithsonian recording series of original folk songs
performed on original instruments (one of the features of the National Folklife Festival is the performance of indigenous folk music
on original, period, instruments).
It's hard to saw which of the many walkways around the Seattle Center was considered the main concourse for the Folklife Festival. I simply
decided this was the one and took this 180-degree panorama. This is the western walkway which passes in front of the Key Arena and links
the Fountain with the Pacific Science Center.
Standing to the east of the International Fountain, this is a 360-degree panorama of the scene with Key Arena to the right of center, the
Fountain on the left, and what I called the Goth Tree on the right.
This is looking across the International Fountain at the scene on the south and north sides of the Fountain lawn. The
previous panorama was taken from an area to the right of the Fountain in this view. This view also shows the proximity
of Queen Anne hill to the Center and how many of the Queen Anne residents have a bird's eye view of activities at
Seattle Center.
Just northeast of the International Fountain is this large tree which seems to be the favorite camping spot of the city's
Goth and Alternative teenage crowd. This was the first day of the Festival (Friday) and it was slightly raining. Later
days saw the crowd grow much bigger and settle down into much more permanent-style arrangements, some complete
with drum kits and small kitchens. I'm presuming this is an ongoing tradition and next year will be looking for Goth trends
under this tree.
Two images up and beyond the western concourse (between Key Arena and Fisher Plaza Green) showing the density
of the crowd in the early afternoon. I arrived each day about 10:00 am and wandered around watching everyone set
up. By 2:00 pm the place was packed and rocking with smells, sounds and bodies wafting and rustling everywhere.
And, although slightly offset (sorry, really!), this is a stereo-pair image and if you cross you eyes and tilt your head
slightly (to accommodate the offset) you can get a three-dimensional view of the crowd scene. Really!
That's Don Fraser on guitar and Michael Fraaser with the fiddle performing the Stuff Smith Jazz Violin Event. The
fiddle player on the right is Paul Anastasio and he and Michael played back and forth for the entire 30
minute performance with Michael's dad, Don, providing guitar accompaniment. Michael is one virtuoso
performer with an astounding stage presence - he really is worth catching. Light was limited and Michael
moved so fast both images of him are slightly blurred. Michael is 15 years old and has the mark of a seasoned
fiddle player and a stage pro. Catch this duo/trio if you can - the kid is absolutely amazing and their music
is phenomenal and captivating.
A three-shot view of another group I thoroughly enjoyed - the People's Rhythm Party -from, I'm presuming, either Fremont or
Wallingford. Very enjoyable and lots of rhythm, for sure. The group has apparently grown, shrunk and grown again so I got the
idea that it's been around for a while and draws from the neighborhood where everyone lives. There wasn't much about this group
but they can be seen at the Fremont and Wallingford festivals. I'll have to ask one of them next time I see them, which I will.
The Mossy Back Morris Men performing a Morris dance. Morris dancing involves fanciful costumes, sticks or swords
wielded by each dancer which are crossed or batted against a partner as they dance and legs and arms adorned with
colorful handkerchiefs and anklets and bracelets of little bells. Amazing stuff and very lively. This group made lots of
noise with their bats and are from Seattle. Most of the Morris dance troups are in the former English colony countries and
the dances themselves originated in several specific English counties.
Another panorama of the International Fountain and the eastern walkway on the last day of the Festival, Monday. Lots and lots of people, still.
Here's one juggling troupe (sorry I didn't write their name down). They were most entertaining and from their signboard appear at
lots of Seattle-area festivals and, yes, they DO make their living with this by passing the hat after each performance and enlisting
the aid of the audience.
I'm equally sorry I didn't get this group's name though I think it was something like "Brothers from Different Mothers."
These guys were performing on the steps of Key Arena and had a huge crowd following their juggling and antics. The
next panel captures an interaction with these two and an audience member.
This poor guy volunteered to hold a pencil in his mouth and move in between the juggling clubs as these two were
tossing them back and forth to each other. The idea was that he would move into the middle when they said and then they
would continue to juggle and finally knock the pencil out of his mouth without hitting him. The pencil was moving up and
down fairly vigorously - indicating the state of nervousness of this poor bloke. On the other hand the crowd loved it and
the two jugglers were true to their word - they didn't hit the volunteer and the pencil was knocked out by the club
approaching it on the left.
And, what would a festival at Seattle Center be without a picture of the Space Needle and a sleeping baby in a cart?
The foyer area of the Opera House contains a series of undulating glass walls and hanging metal screens. By standing
between the two sets of glass walls right at one of the corner points of the undulation, one can capture a double image
reflected off the two adjacent glass wall panels - that's Katherine in the yellow and me as doppelganger blue and
a sideways shot of the undulating wall on the east side of the courtyard area - the west side was straight-edged glass
wall.
And that's it, my pictorial essay on the 33rd annual Northwest Folklife Festival, my first and a really fun one it was.
Chas
Memorial Day also means the official start of "summer" for many - though I'm constantly reminded that is NOT true for Seattle, where July 4th is the official "start" of summer. Where I grew up - in Pennsylvania - Memorial Day was when the outdoor pools (they apparently don't believe in them out here) opened and when shorts became the official "dress" of the day.
In Seattle, Memorial Day means Folklife Festival. This was the thirty-third Northwest Folklife Festival, it being founded in 1972, a modest five years after the Smithsonian National Folklife Festival was begun in 1967. Before diving into what I discovered here, let me make a few contrasts and comparisons. The Smithsonian Festival runs the ten days before July 4th and is located in three aisles of tents and trailers set up between 9th and 14th Streets on The Mall - that's between the Smithsonian Natural History Museum (and the Castle) and the Washington Monument. It's one of those arrangements, somewhat like a mall, where you can actually start at one end and make your way around to all the tents and other set-ups in a reasonably orderly manner - basically you can wander clockwise or counterclockwise around the perimeter, zoning in on the second run; or you can make a series of "S" curves hitting both sides of the three aisles during a slalom run. Northwest Folklife is set up in 19 different areas on the grounds of Seattle Center, using large lawn or courtyard areas, indoor amphitheaters and meeting rooms, and even the steps of the Key Arena as stages, the equivalent of the Smithsonian National Folklife's tents and trailers.
The Doors said in "Soft Parade," "that you cannot petition the Lord with prayer." I say "that you cannot logically navigate the stages at Northwest Folklife with a plan." And that may be the biggest and best difference between my 23 years of attending National Folklife Festival in DC and my first experience at Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle. It was a "meander" experience. One had to meander around to find things, the stages were literally all over the map. In between were countless food and craft booths (in tents) and even more countless street musicians and street acts (think juggling, magic tricks, hula hoop "hoop" areas). One didn't navigate Northwest Folklife Festival, one meandered around, discovering things everywhere.
Both festivals have printed and online schedules. Both have yearly "thematics" which describe the various staged acts' performances by tying the local (in the case of Seattle) and the national (in the case of DC) in with the theme through either costume, country of origin, or musical taste or heritage. Both are broadcast and recordings made and later sold. But, what I really liked about Northwest Folklife Festival was the fact that all the performers - all the live artists as it were - were "local" in the sense that I could actually expect to go someplace and see them after the festival was over. In DC, most of the performers are from other parts of the country - or even world - and no one in DC save the foreign diplomat or military officer could reasonably expect to see many of the acts later and only a traveling salesman could expect to see the rest as the Smithsonian draws from every culturally distinct region in the US (and world) for its annual festival. That means as a District resident it was not really a "local" event. It was an event so Smithsonian-like - created by committee to cover the spectrum (eventually and over time) of all possible heritages and tastes and backgrounds and cultures and to appeal to the "everyperson" who would show up, which included, obviously, the DC or Metro Washington residents but also the hundreds of thousands who come in to Washington for Memorial Day Weekend from elsewhere in the country and all the foreign tourists who flock to the city in the summer. Classic Smithsonian! Multi-cultural but diffuse. Focused but non-specific. Regional or even hemispheric but not local.
And that, mes amis, is the distinction I finally learned about. Coming from DC meant that I really came from no particular cultural identity. In years past, when Washington had a much more rich musical tradition and before Clear Channel and Radio One wound up owning every broadcast and stage venue in the land, DC had a very rich and very local set of festivals. There were the Blue Grass festivals and the Folk Music festivals and the Local Indigenous Rock festivals and the Blues festivals and the Jazz festivals. That was the DC of the '60s and '70s and before. Now, it's a world-class city with no local roots - oh sure, you say, there's still the 930 Club. Yes, but it's no longer at 930 F Street. Instead it's in the old WOOK AM and FM building on U Street and there's no more WOOK radio either. For old-timer Washingtonians, WOOK and WOL used to broadcast live soul music from their studios in the old H Street and U Street studios in what was then Washington's equivalent of Harlem, that's no more either. WOL is now an all-talk flagship station for Radio One. Pffft. In one decade the musical lore and history of the Nation's Capitol was eradicated by government acquiescence to big business greed. The city with a fabulous bridge named after hometown musician Duke Ellington (Calvert Street Bridge over Rock Creek) has no local musical festival anymore which corrals the local musical heritage in one location at one period of time. Sad and telling in so many ways.
So, as much fun (and it was, otherwise why would I have returned for 23 years to the same spot to see and hear more) as the Smithsonian National Folklife Festival is (and was), it's no match for the thunder, lightning, pzzzazz, spark, originality, creativity, verve, electricity, raw genius, and inspirational chaos which is the Northwest Folklife Festival. Obviously a country as rich and diverse as America needs both kinds - the purely local (or regional as is the case with Northwest Folklife) and the pandemic national.
Here's a news flash. I knew from taking annual long (actually very long, often four week) treks outside the Beltway that there was a "real" America outside Washington. That once I left the six-or-so million people of the National Capitol Area (that may even be a trademarked phrase) I would run into thousands of individuals who lived anywhere else but who were "different." Who had local customs, who spoke in local tongues, who had local heros (and statues to match or streets named after), who had local traditions and local histories which ran deep and often wide (I can't tell you how many towns in the Northland have Leif Ericson parks or statues and a Scandanavian Heritage Center, or how many towns up and down the Mississippi have a long-ago French presence still remaining deep in the local tapestry of street names and building types). But, every time I returned to DC I fell victim to my "District" habits, my Eastern snotty-ness - or effete snobbery - my "I live in the DISTRICT" ways. And, of course, I knew all the tricks having lived there for so long - how to navigate Rock Creek Park, how to use surface streets to get to Maryland or Virginia, where to find the good local bookstores and music venues, even where to go to get the true local history of the place and not the "national" history of the place.
But, dammit Batman, it took me practically a whole life living there to dig this stuff out. To be a true "local" I actually felt like I was swimming upstream the Columbia or Amazon at high Spring melt time. Everywhere one went there was the "national" presence or even the "international" presence but scant record of the local presence. Even the city's vaunted new "neighborhood" walking tours don't tell much about the neighborhood but rather which national figure or national event occurred in that "local" Washington neighborhood. I was lucky, I lived in a part of town which had a real history dating back to the Underground Railroad days and before and was one of the "first on my block" to purchase the then-new History of Tenleytown when it first came out in 1985. 1985!! Tenleytown was on the trail from Georgetown, when it was a tobacco port, to Frederick, when it was a true Colonial farming town. That's about 1769 - or about 216 years before the history of the area was recorded. That's how local goes in the Nation's Capitol.
Here, I listened to groups which have been in the area for thirty or more years and which have been playing for Northwest Folklife ever year since it came into being. I listened to groups which were brand new and barely out of the "garage" stage of development but they were local - local to the Northwest, either born-and-raised or recently transplanted. And, as I suspected, Northwest actually means Washington, Oregon, way-Northern California, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia. It's a region defined by the rivers - the Columbia and the Fraser, by the mountains - the Cascades, the Sawtooth, the Bitterroots, the Olympics, the Coast Range, and by the volcanoes, and by the sequoia and fir and redwood trees which grow here. It's a region defined by blue and green and white - the water and the trees and the sky. It's a region defined by the many immigrants who came here to build something (the railroads and shipyards and harbors and cities and bridges and roads), by the immigrants and Americans who came here to get something out of the land - the mines, the forests, the fish and wildlife, by the immigrants and Americans who came here because it was a "new" opportunity in a place which had very few restrictions and very few vested interests and even fewer long-held traditions.
It's still a place where the history sits like dust on a shelf - right there to look at and rub or even write your name in. It's a place which grew up in light of all the positive and negative experiments in everything which were already tried "over there," or "back East," or in (name your favorite country of origin). It's a place where there are a thousand cultures to choose from, a place where five histories mixed together doesn't even begin to touch the complexity of diversity. It's a place where the gene pool ran into a whirlpool.
And, Northwest Folklife Festival is the expression of that creativity, of that freedom (the impromptu bands playing in earshot of the "professional" stage performers all playing within a ring of street musicians). It's a symphony of diversity. It's the past running headlong into the future and congealing in the present.
But remember, I'm the complete newbie, the "still wet behind the ears" fresh-out, the greenhorn lad from "back East." I'm bound to be impressionable and easily misled and even more easily entertained. And, I'm probably one of the "point-zero-zero-percentage" types who actually went all four days, who sat and listened to endless presentations and performances and who came back for more. Most folks, true here as it is back at the National Folklife Festival in our Capitol City, take in one or two days, AM or PM, or camp out for a day and then relish the thousand moments back in the peace of wherever they traipsed here from. That's a large country, the Northwest, and there were folks from every nook and cranny of this region - both performer and participating observer. There's music, art, crafts, performances, crowd-induced self-discovery, uninhibited exhibitionism, food -- for the mind, for the body, for the soul. There were readings from profound authors and music-writing sessions from published songwriters and novel-creating sessions from published authors. But, darn it, I do know talent and creativity when I see or feel or hear or otherwise sense it and the Northwest Folklife Festival was a contained explosion of creativity and human expression. And what's more important, where I found something which interested me or piqued my ganglia, I know where to go back to get more of the same. This is a creative arts festival where the creative artists are tangible, they're locatable, they're contactable, they're easy to reach and open for communication. This is not an anonymous event. Everyone wanted me to know their name, where they were from, where they would be next, what was coming up on their horizon and what their next project was or is likely to be.
For someone like me who is looking for ideas, looking for that "new angle," listening for that "new sound," hoping to find brilliant creative lights to illuminate my dark corners, this was all too short. I can't wait for next year's festival and will attend every day then like I did this time. I also went down to the Mall pretty much every day of the Smithsonian's National Festival, too, for all the same reasons and to see all the people coming to town from all those foreign lands and outside-the-Beltway counties and states. But now I'm ready to dig into a specific slice of North America and this was like an engraved invitation for me to "dig in."
I sat through 21 performances which represents 10-and-a-half hours of live music or dance or reading or performance. Not quite Wagner's Ring Cycle (16 hours over four nights of opera) but more than enough to give me several areas of follow-up and several themes to chase down and several musical threads to pick up on. In addition, I spent roughly four to five hours a day at the Festival, which means that in addition to sitting or standing or leaning for extended periods while focused on one set of artists, I meandered hither and yon, sampling food, taking in the street musicians (at least two of which impressed me enough to already dig into their past and devour their websites), and all the performance art going on. That was a rough equivalent of 18 or so hours spent immersed in the Northwest Folklife Festival. I ran across a number of people I had met at either meetups or Monorail or here in West Seattle. I also recognized dozens more that "I know I've seen somewhere" but couldn't place them. At least several others recognized me (and I thought I had gotten down pat the "Northwest casual-but-ready-for-any-weather look").
Plus, I love crowds and in those four days I saw thousands of people, crowds here, crowds there, crowds everywhere and yet there was still a perfect spot to find to see whatever it was I wanted to see. Watching the many crowds from the countless elevated areas where one could take in entire scenes made me realize that humans are probably the most fascinating creature on this planet to watch. When there are thousands of us, all with thousands of purposes, confined in areas of indefinite space with elements of interest in all directions, we are unbelievably adroit. We finesse our way through thick and thin agglomerations of ourselves with break-neck and stop-on-a-dime navigation skills, we spin and cleverly miss random arms or baskets or strollers or frisbies with the slightest of ease and most amazing poetry of motion. Among the most interesting movies made are the time-and-motion studies of crowds in such places as Grand Central Station or Times Square or even the Ginza. But, let me tell you, standing still and watching a crowd live is just so much more satisfying than any time-and-motion movie could ever do justice to. The human eye-brain combination is especially skilled at pattern matching and color differentiation and with the rainbow of clothing everyone was wearing it was a breeze to de-focus my eyes and watch the swirl of motion going on around and below me. Then there were the performer-observer participant games enabled by such performers as jugglers. Always a crowd-pleaser but more so when the mood and psychic energy is open and high as it was at the Folklife Festival.
Okay, enough with the subjective ranting. I caught a number of acts which are worth reviewing and passing along to others, mostly because they have either informative websites or recordings or both and because they are talented and worthy of your attention. I've captured only a sliver of what was at the festival - only so much time and so many concurrent events - so this is not a list of what I thought the "best of Folklife" was, rather it's a list of what I saw which merits mention. Brief notes and links where they exist with each citation. Not sure how far some of these performers travel, most seem to be quite content to make their venue the Pacific Northwest, but if you can catch any of these, they are worth your time.
Notable Acts from 33rd Northwest Folklife Festival:
Armadillo Borealis - <http://www.armadilloborealis.com/> - a very eclectic Texas-Country-Rock group with musicians from Baltimore and North Carolina who write their own music and have at least one EP album out. The band consists of bass guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar and drums. Their name is very descriptive; their music is very rock and very Texas-style, interesting since none come from Texas. Good country rock, good Texas modern rock, good rhythms and good, funny, lyrics. Catch them around the city.
The People's Rhythm Party - <no website> - a group of what I gathered to be either Fremont or Wallingford locals who use a variety of percussion instruments and singing to create a very vibrant rhythm and sound. More like an impromptu set of street musicians but definitely "rocking" the house with their beats and voices. Fun to watch, tapping to the beat. Catch them in the city probably in Fremont at the Saturday market.
Campbell Road - <http://www.valleyint.com/campbellroad/contact.htm> - group of four, two men and two women, who play "hard driving" traditional Scottish and Irish folk tunes. Very captivating. They have one CD out and perform around the western Washington area. The band has evolved from a set of core performers and has been playing since 1997 with previous band names being Predator Parasites and later Violet and the Dead Husbands. At one time this band had as many as nine members but the four remaining make rocking music. Catch them somewhere in Western Washington at fairs and festivals.
Keeler, Melvin and Morse - <no website> - a trio which appears to have been together since their 1980 high school days playing Americana folk music. Good stuff, very listenable but no CD, alas. They are based in Spokane so they are likely to be heard in the eastern Washington, Idaho and maybe western Montana area at folk fests and summer music events at the parks.
Skweez The Weezle - <http://www.skweeztheweezle.com/> - a four person (three guys, one woman) Celtic band using bodhran, fiddle, bagpipe and guitar who play very fast-paced traditional Celtic tunes with an electric, rock-and-roll, attitude to their various jigs and reels. No CD either, but this Celtic band is from the Tri-Cities (Richland, Pasco and Kennewick) and plays in that area and Yakima a lot, coffee houses, fairs and music fests and outdoor parks.
Plaehn & Hino - <http://home.comcast.net/~eventsbydelynn/DJ/> - Blues harp and steel guitar, a duo from Corvallis, Oregon, who play in that college town a lot at coffee houses and local bars (cover for both venues). They've got two CDs out and are using the Portland CDBaby group as their publishing house (if you haven't checked CDBaby.com out yet, please do, lots of good local bands from all across the land, really cheap prices for good music and most of the money actually goes to the musicians with CDBaby getting about a ten percent overhead for reproduction and stocking and shipping). Good stuff, great blues harp playing with really good steel guitar backing. Blues with a very rocking feel.
Ricky Lee Bob - <no website> - and no CDs yet either. A local, Seattle, band with a folk-rock outlook and three part harmony. They don't seem to have that many appearances and I'm hoping this changes because they were good, rocking, and great fun to listen to. They look like they play in the general U-District, Wallingford and Fremont areas so check listings (Stranger <http://thestranger.com>, Seattle Weekly <http://seattleweekly.com >, KEXP <http://kexp.org>).
The Aaron English Band - <http://www.aaronenglish.com/> - completely took me by surprise - amazing new world rock and rhythm sound incorporating ocean, life-on-earth, world people themes. Aaron English is the band leader and has a fantastic set of drummers (two), lead and rhythm guitar players and singer (he sings too, actually sings great). Beyond genre descriptions - rock, world, rhythm, African, Caribbean, Asian, Pacific, Northwest - great stuff. Only one CD so far which took two years to accomplish. Aaron himself does synth keyboards (Korg and Roland together) and sings in a voice not unlike a well-sampled synthesizer under genius control. He and his band members built a studio in the Georgetown area of Seattle (south of SODO) and spent two years assembling the music and tuning it and re-tracking and adding layers. Two of the musicians (the lead electric and one of the drummers - Congos) are from NY City and travelled here to accomplish their first CD. Definitely worth listening to (samples on website) AND worth buying and playing. Hopefully he's close to his second CD, some tracks from which he and the band played during his set. This was the single most illuminating group I heard - wish their set had gone longer than the stipulated 30 minutes.
Straw Dogs - <http://www.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Straw_Dogs/> - Seattle duo who write their own songs, play guitar and appear in local venues. They've been compared to Indigo Girls gone male but their lyrics are much stronger than the music which they write to accompany them. Plus, they are genuine and the antithesis of what a "hot" local group should be - maybe that's part of their appeal. They've got three albums out (local record shops and CDBaby) and will probably be working on more. Good music but more than that - interesting and reflective lyrics.
Michael and Don Fraser & Paul Anastasio - <http://www.swingamajig.com/> - this is a father-son guitar (father) and fiddle (son) combo who play jazz violin, swing, and way more. At the Folklife Festival they were accompanied by another violinist to perform 30 minutes of Stuff Smith's original 1930's jazz violin compositions <http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/1073/Stuff_Smith_one_of_the_best_at_his_craft> - an amazing exposition of some of the earliest representations of now-well-known jazz riffs ever crafted. Several subsequent jazz greats, including Dizzy Gillespie, attribute much of their early stuff to Stuff Smith and his compositions. The duo is from Vancouver and plays in BC all over the province, down to and including Washington, Oregon, and California. They also travel a world circuit of jazz music festivals. If you like jazz and really enjoy hearing a fantastic violin wizard you should either catch this duo or get their CD. The kid, the violinist, is a great performer, evoking the feel and rhythm of the great 1930's jazz players with his swing and sway on stage and his facial expressions - and he is only 15. Great stuff, truly.
And, two reviews of simply groovin' street bands:
Bakra Bata - <http://www.bakrabata.com> - six member steel drum band with lots of other drums including full western rock drum kit, congos and bongos, hand drums and more. They've played across the US and have 5 CDs available and some cassettes from earlier years (they've been around since 1984). They're Seattle-based and play what they call a unique, Americanized version of pan-Oceanic rhythm and drum beats which have migrated to these shores from both Eastern and Western oceans and have become native to this continent as expressed uniquely through Bakra Bata. Captivating group - they have two dancers also. I saw them at the same location on all four days and never was there less than a hundred or more gathered around in a circle to listen and watch these artists. Check out their site, they've got entire MP3 cuts, one or two each, from all their CDs. They also appear in local music festivals throughout North America so do check local listings. Home office is on Capitol Hill (naturally) and looks like they'll be as far East as Pittsburgh come this Fall. Definitely worth following up on if you're into rhythm, beats and dance or even the influence of Africa, Asia and other cultures on what it means to be an American.
Taarka - <http://www.taarka.com> - four guys, mandolin, violin, upright bass, percussion, playing what they describe as "seismic gypsy hypno-jazz." Also captivating and rhythmic (with a definite beat from both the drums and the bass fiddle) and definitely gypsy and definitely jazz but with a decided rock and roll mannerism. This group have roots in Brooklyn and Williamsburg and transplanted themselves to the Northwest, finally Seattle, in early 2001 and have played amazing venues out here including Tahoe, the High Sierra Music Fest in California, San Francisco, Seattle (of course) and a bunch of county fairs in Oregon and way-Northern California (read Humboldt County - the only California County to consider itself NOT in California). They also have a radio following which goes as far East as Chatanooga (another folk town). They've got a new CD nearly ready (tracks from it are on their website). Very eclectic and very much worth a listen - they groove.
Now, 24 images, some containing up to a dozen sequences, of the four days of the 33rd annual Northwest Folklife Festival held on the grounds of the Seattle Center over the Memorial Day weekend (Friday through Monday).
Part of Folklife Festival is the many crafts and art vendors in their tents. These clothes use a native dye which is
photosensitive and which has natural plants placed atop while being exposed to sunlight. Once exposed, the dye is
colorfast and with proper washing will last a very long time. Very very blue.
Tie-dyed using colorfast dies in all sorts of dresses, shirts, pullovers, smocks, and other loose-fitting clothing. Both this
view and the one above are two panels placed adjacent, the clothes were hanging around inside the tents in a "C"-shaped
fashion.
This view, of yet another colorful vendor's wares, is a three-panel showing of the shirts, T- and long-sleeved as well as vests which use a
technique whereby the artist (who lives in Oregon) paints using very small camels' hair brushes, and then coats the painting (usually on the
sleeve or back or front vest areas of the shirts) with wax and then dyes the fabric and then melts the wax off with hot water. Very beautiful,
colorful, and, except for the fact that I already own over one hundred T-shirts (longsleeve and not), I would have bought at least a dozen of
some of the clothes in this and the previous two panels.
Near the Northwest Courtyard is this pool which was being used by both the smallfry and their larger parents. Behind
on the image on the left are the size and placement of a typical set of craft and arts tents.
And, just so you know Folklife occurred at the Seattle Center, here's not only the usual kids and adults playing in the
fountain, but a marching band which was parading around the walkways surrounding the fountain, the guy with the
orange is the drum major.
The Fisher Plaza Green - one of the many venues for staged performances and one of the many places for picnics, lawn chairs and general
milling. That's Queen Anne Hill in the background and below it the International Fountain.
Here's the view from the other side of Fisher Plaza Green, with the plaza immediately in the middle and above the lawn. The stage is on the
right and the tent on the left was the sound tent. Many of these stages were also being broadcast or recorded or both in addition to being
amplified for the local crowd. I heard only one instance of feedback and it was controlled and squelched within two seconds, the sound crew
for the Festival does an unbelievably outstanding job of delivering first rate sound to all the audiences cited - live, recorded for later and
broadcast. And by first rate, I mean the correct microphone for each and every instrument and voice with ample and appropriate sound
amplification and speakers which delivered a full spectrum of clear music.
This is looking north across Fisher Plaza Green with the elevated plaza on the left and the stage and sound tent on the right with the green
in between. This image was taken from in front of the Center Pavilion, which houses the Center food court and a huge auditorium which was
yet another stage venue.
What music festival would be complete without Flamenco dancers? Certainly not Northwest Folklife
Festival. This five-deck set of images captures two of the three dances presented by Maria Morca
and the Dancers of Spain (a local group).
Of course the Folklore Society had a bookstore with live performance stage and lots and lots of CDs and cassettes by the performing
artists and many books on the art of the various kinds of music as well as the Smithsonian recording series of original folk songs
performed on original instruments (one of the features of the National Folklife Festival is the performance of indigenous folk music
on original, period, instruments).
It's hard to saw which of the many walkways around the Seattle Center was considered the main concourse for the Folklife Festival. I simply
decided this was the one and took this 180-degree panorama. This is the western walkway which passes in front of the Key Arena and links
the Fountain with the Pacific Science Center.
Standing to the east of the International Fountain, this is a 360-degree panorama of the scene with Key Arena to the right of center, the
Fountain on the left, and what I called the Goth Tree on the right.
This is looking across the International Fountain at the scene on the south and north sides of the Fountain lawn. The
previous panorama was taken from an area to the right of the Fountain in this view. This view also shows the proximity
of Queen Anne hill to the Center and how many of the Queen Anne residents have a bird's eye view of activities at
Seattle Center.
Just northeast of the International Fountain is this large tree which seems to be the favorite camping spot of the city's
Goth and Alternative teenage crowd. This was the first day of the Festival (Friday) and it was slightly raining. Later
days saw the crowd grow much bigger and settle down into much more permanent-style arrangements, some complete
with drum kits and small kitchens. I'm presuming this is an ongoing tradition and next year will be looking for Goth trends
under this tree.
Two images up and beyond the western concourse (between Key Arena and Fisher Plaza Green) showing the density
of the crowd in the early afternoon. I arrived each day about 10:00 am and wandered around watching everyone set
up. By 2:00 pm the place was packed and rocking with smells, sounds and bodies wafting and rustling everywhere.
And, although slightly offset (sorry, really!), this is a stereo-pair image and if you cross you eyes and tilt your head
slightly (to accommodate the offset) you can get a three-dimensional view of the crowd scene. Really!
That's Don Fraser on guitar and Michael Fraaser with the fiddle performing the Stuff Smith Jazz Violin Event. The
fiddle player on the right is Paul Anastasio and he and Michael played back and forth for the entire 30
minute performance with Michael's dad, Don, providing guitar accompaniment. Michael is one virtuoso
performer with an astounding stage presence - he really is worth catching. Light was limited and Michael
moved so fast both images of him are slightly blurred. Michael is 15 years old and has the mark of a seasoned
fiddle player and a stage pro. Catch this duo/trio if you can - the kid is absolutely amazing and their music
is phenomenal and captivating.
A three-shot view of another group I thoroughly enjoyed - the People's Rhythm Party -from, I'm presuming, either Fremont or
Wallingford. Very enjoyable and lots of rhythm, for sure. The group has apparently grown, shrunk and grown again so I got the
idea that it's been around for a while and draws from the neighborhood where everyone lives. There wasn't much about this group
but they can be seen at the Fremont and Wallingford festivals. I'll have to ask one of them next time I see them, which I will.
The Mossy Back Morris Men performing a Morris dance. Morris dancing involves fanciful costumes, sticks or swords
wielded by each dancer which are crossed or batted against a partner as they dance and legs and arms adorned with
colorful handkerchiefs and anklets and bracelets of little bells. Amazing stuff and very lively. This group made lots of
noise with their bats and are from Seattle. Most of the Morris dance troups are in the former English colony countries and
the dances themselves originated in several specific English counties.
Another panorama of the International Fountain and the eastern walkway on the last day of the Festival, Monday. Lots and lots of people, still.
Here's one juggling troupe (sorry I didn't write their name down). They were most entertaining and from their signboard appear at
lots of Seattle-area festivals and, yes, they DO make their living with this by passing the hat after each performance and enlisting
the aid of the audience.
I'm equally sorry I didn't get this group's name though I think it was something like "Brothers from Different Mothers."
These guys were performing on the steps of Key Arena and had a huge crowd following their juggling and antics. The
next panel captures an interaction with these two and an audience member.
This poor guy volunteered to hold a pencil in his mouth and move in between the juggling clubs as these two were
tossing them back and forth to each other. The idea was that he would move into the middle when they said and then they
would continue to juggle and finally knock the pencil out of his mouth without hitting him. The pencil was moving up and
down fairly vigorously - indicating the state of nervousness of this poor bloke. On the other hand the crowd loved it and
the two jugglers were true to their word - they didn't hit the volunteer and the pencil was knocked out by the club
approaching it on the left.
And, what would a festival at Seattle Center be without a picture of the Space Needle and a sleeping baby in a cart?
The foyer area of the Opera House contains a series of undulating glass walls and hanging metal screens. By standing
between the two sets of glass walls right at one of the corner points of the undulation, one can capture a double image
reflected off the two adjacent glass wall panels - that's Katherine in the yellow and me as doppelganger blue and
a sideways shot of the undulating wall on the east side of the courtyard area - the west side was straight-edged glass
wall.
And that's it, my pictorial essay on the 33rd annual Northwest Folklife Festival, my first and a really fun one it was.
Chas
Posted: Wed - June 2, 2004 at 05:39 PM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2005 05:41 PM
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