...was the name of Ken Russell's classic 1968 BBC Monitor film about the great English composer Frederick Delius, based on Eric Fenby's memoirs (Fenby the young chap who sacrificed his own career to aid the blind, ailing Delius--then in the advanced stages of tertiary syphillis- in getting the music that was still swirling round his head down onto manuscript paper before he died)- a heart breaking story, a wonderful film, and it was Delius' symphonic tone poem "A Song of Summer" I played last night when the rains came to break the leaden tropical miasma hanging over the city, rain bringing sweet release, sunset peeping brilliantly through the thick purple skies over the Hudson River flowing outside my window--this after a week or so soaking up so much great music to be found on display in NYC ("New York is a Summer Festival" was the slogan du jour during the Lindsey administration, and still held sway when I moved here 30 years ago--and it's still true).

Brazilian Girls keep getting better, Sabina came out wearing a giant Chinese coolie hat at their show on the 15th Street Pier last Tuesday night and launched into "Lazy Lover" from under the lid, and afterwards doffed it to reveal her looking more beautiful than ever, in full lovely voice-- and despite some intermittent sound problems, she and the guys got the crowd pumped and adrenalized nicely, and the rain blessedly held off till they finished. Next night Diamanda Galas delivered one of her typically stunning sets of "Dark Songs" (her latest program) at Joe's Pub, Diamanda's last name might as well be Callas as she is a true monstress sacre, with her formidable scary operatic pipes and Gothic incantatory blackmass blues at the crossroads of the Pit and the Pendulous (there was even a little Garland-- Judy as well as Lily, pace Ben Hecht's "The Twentieth Century"-- thrown into the mix this time). She did a version of Ralph Stanley's "Oh Death", holding long vibrato'ed notes while her impressive forcefully clawed pounded piano explorations wandered into aleatory passages, that literally brought chills: to paraphrase Van Vliet, whose range and vocal prowess on a good day she more than rivals, Diamanda doesn't make music...she makes monsters. (In fact she sat and cackled her way through one of my bands' sets at the Mercury Lounge in '94, one of the early multi-vocalist lineups of Gods and Monsters, with Emily, Dina Emerson, and Richard Barone taking turns in the catbird seat--and later told me that I was the only guitarist she'd ever consider working with...I'm not making this stuff up...well, Lady Di?)

Saturday and Sunday I treated myself to one of the city's best summer pleasures, namely Summerstage at Central Park, a free outdoor dejeuner sur l'herbe--Ska Cubano played their first gig in the US and were a rollicking joy mixing mambo and ska styles and had a gorgeous female tenor/baritone player who blew the house down under the canopy during her solo...and Balkan Beat Box led by

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Posted by Gary Lucas to Gary Lucas at 7/03/2006 10:23:00 AM