Triptic, Traverse

Take 3 members of the much lamented Moishe's Bagel quintet, and give them a good cause to support.  This was a benefit gig in support of Medical Aid for Palestine (MAP), one of the most important and essential charities currently operating.

The trio are Greg Lawson (fiddle), Phil Alexander (piano and piano accordion) and Mario Caribe (upright bass and guitar).  Togerther they play an eclectic mix of tunes from around the world, a few composition so their own, and the audience is taken, musically, to Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, Ukraine, Russia and beyond.  The arrangements are often complex, and at times it feels like all 3 unstruments are paying their own melodies, albit ones that jigsaw so well together.  They's a joy to watch too.  Caribe and Alexander exchanging smiles, grins, glances, while Lawson brings drama in his body language as well as his playing.  He has an incredibly pure tone to his sound, no doubt a product of his classical background.  

They're good storytellers too, by way of introducing their numbers.  Notably Lawson's tale of approaching a policemen for directions, whilst too stoned to realise that the spliff in his hand might attract the worng sort of attention!  (He was lucky to find a very relaxed constable...)

Fun, depth, top class musicianship and some wonderful tunes.  An exceelent way to spend the evening.

A Complete Unknown

This is the young early 60s Dylan (Timothee Chalamet), from his arrival in New York until the storm of controversy that erupted in Americn Folk Music after his famous/infamous electrified set at Newport Festival.  A formative period not just for the man who would become one of the greats, but for the future direction of US music and beyond.  

Seeking out the legendary Woody Guthrie, now in hospital, he also meets Pete Seeger, who takes the young Bobby under his wing, and into his family.  With that lift, and lyrical quality of his songs, Dylan will take the folk world by storm, but wants to be more, wants to explore different directions and fusions.  Along the way relationships will be made and broken, fans won and lost, and our=trage generated.

The movie has a wonderful period feel, conveying the state of the US folk world of the time.  Plenty great music too, noit just Dylan songs, but Guthrie, Seeger, Baez, Cash...  The quality is impressive, the more so when you learn that the actors performed the voals themselves.  If you get Dylan's voice and phrasing right he's not too hard to impersonate, as his strengths do not lie in the techincal quality of his vocals.  But all credit to Monica Barbaro for doing such a great job in capturing the purity of Joan Baez.

Chalamet's also hit Dylan's mumbled speaking voice, which can be an issue, and there were times when subtitles would have helped!

It would be easy to pick up the few flaws in the movie, and the only one that irked was a lack of editing.  The movie felt overlong, and the final scene with Guthrie unnecessarily loaded with symbolism.  But the overall impression is triumphant.  A celebration of the times, a warts and all portrait (Dylan isn't always the best of human beings in his realtions with others), and a striking impression of just how big an impact his decsion to go electic was at the time.  

Well worth seeing.