New York Studios and Factories as Concert Halls - NYTimes

8/12/2019 New York Studios and Factories as Concert Halls - NYTimes

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Dreamed-Of Music, Undreamed-Of SpacesN e w Y o r k S t u d i o s a n d F a c t o r i e s a s C o n c e r t H a l l s

By NATE CHINEN AUG. 6, 2014

Twenty-five years ago, when I was in junior high, my father produced a

jazz festival on the North Shore of Oahu. It lasted only a few years, wellreceived and well attended, but not what youd call a financial success.

For me it was an incalculable gift, because of the up-close exposure to

artists like the pianist McCoy Tyner, the trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and

the saxophonist Branford Marsalis, none of them regulars in our corner of

the world. I listened, watched and lurked catching the musicians

warming up, talking shop, busting chops.

I remember Charlie Haden lumbering over with his bass after closingthe first festival with Herbie Hancock. Hey, man, he said. Is there any

place to get a hamburger around here? It was after midnight. We were in

a pasture on a remote stretch of island coastline. My dad recommended

room service.

Festivals have played an outsize role in my musical education since

well before I began to think of myself as a critic. (I also have some working

history with the producer George Wein, whose pioneering Newport Jazz

Festival celebrated its 60th anniversary last weekend.) Along the way, Ive

compiled a mental catalog of things that worked or didnt. And Ive seen

the level of organization that goes into a good festival, which must be the

reason Ive never been tempted to start one.

But given the chance to dwell in possibility, to design a festival with no
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risk to my solvency or sanity, I couldnt rightly resist. I began by thinking

broadly, about the what, where and why of the thing.

Most music festivals fall into one of two camps. The Field of Dreams

camp as in, If you build it, they will come, a willful misremembering

of the movie line involves a transient, sprawling oasis with the logistic

tangle of a metropolis. Think of Coachella, Bonnaroo and, in a modest

way, my fathers brief venture.

The second camp call it Choose Your Own Adventure is more of

an urban entitlement: a string of otherwise unrelated shows, using existing

infrastructure, often with la carte ticketing. We see a lot of these in New

York; the groundbreaking example was a George Wein production, the

Newport Jazz Festival-New York, birthed in 1972 and put to rest, lacking atitle sponsor and a driving purpose, several years ago.

Recently, Ive taken note of a third camp, more site-specific and

curatorial than either of the others. Basilica Soundscape, in a former

factory in Hudson, N.Y., fits the bill. Im looking forward to its second

edition, on Sept. 12 and 13, with a lineup including Deafheaven, Julia

Holter and Swans.

One of my closest friends, Mark Christman, runs Ars Nova Workshop,

an avant-garde presenting organization in Philadelphia. This spring he

produced the New Paths Festival, a textbook embodiment of the form. Its

most tantalizing event had Milford Graves, the visionary drummer and

herbalist, playing a solo recital in a barn on the grounds of Bartrams

Garden, the nations oldest botanic garden.

My ideal festival would borrow choice elements from all three camps.

What I found myself thinking about was a celebration of the crucial but

often unseen hubs of cultural production in New York, reaching acrossartistic disciplines: Not the concert hall but the rehearsal space. Not the

gallery but the studio.

Pair these nonstandard rooms with the right musicians, creating work

inspired by their settings, and you might have something. Ill call it the

Engine Room Fest.
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Start with the Steinway Piano Factory, in Astoria, Queens. You can

take a guided tour by appointment, but its uncommon to hear music

performed on the factory floor. Id like to see a deconstructed solo recital,

in stages, at different manufacturing stations. Sticking to Steinway artists,

Id pick two classical pianists with a feel for the physicality of the

instrument: Emanuel Ax and Jeremy Denk. Then the same for jazz: Geri

Allen and Vijay Iyer.

Also in Queens is Silvercup Studios, the crown jewel of our film and

television industry. One of its hangar-like shooting stages could

accommodate a bigger show, featuring artists of cinematic resonance. I

could see Lana Del Rey on the bill, along with Kanye West, who had her

sing at his wedding. The opener: a full orchestral set by RZA, the producer,rapper and soundtrack savant who has dabbled in directing.

Not knowing where to begin with artists studios, I reached out to

another good friend, Carolina A. Miranda, a staff writer at The Los

Angeles Times and the mastermind of its Culture: High & Low blog. She

lived for 11 years in Brooklyn and brought a gimlet-eyed enthusiasm to her

art criticism on WNYC.

She sent an email with nine suggestions, of which I picked two. The

collagist and painter Fred Tomaselli, whose newest series, The Times,

features whimsically altered front pages of The New York Times, has a

Bushwick studio that could host an acoustic show. Im thinking of the

guitarist Bill Orcutt, the trumpeter Arve Henriksen and the country-folk

singer Laura Cantrell, who once had Mr. Tomaselli design an album cover.

My other favorite suggestion: the headquarters of a business like Art

Crating, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Showing a perfect grasp of the Engine

Room ethos, Carolina observed that so much art is about these unseensystems that support it: crating, conservation, curation. Id go with a hair-

trigger instrumental unit like Dawn of Midi, a process-mad indie-rocker

like St. Vincent and a heavy drone band like Ensemble Pearl.

Finally, dance. I thought about the stately Alvin Ailey and Mark

Morris dance centers, each of which has a resident company with a history
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of musical collaboration. But I wanted something less identified with a

singular choreographic vision, which led me to the Peridance Capezio

Center, housed in a 1904 Beaux-Arts building near Union Square. Theres

a resident ensemble there, too Peridance Contemporary Dance

Company, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year but the center is just

as widely recognized for its open classes and workshops. Its main studio, a

brick-walled, high-ceilinged space, would suit a showcase for Lil Buck, the

ambassador of jookin, a Memphis street dance. He has collaborated with

Yo-Yo Ma, the genre-fluid cellist, and Janelle Mone, the hyperkinetic

R&B singer.

So lets enlist those two, along with the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis,

another of Lil Bucks proponents, and the pianist Jason Moran, for whominterdisciplinary art is practically a given. Id open the evening with a

jookin class and close it with a dance party.

And I count at least a half-dozen totally solid burger joints that should

be open after the gig.

Critics for The Times play the role of curator.

A version of this article appears in print on August 7, 2014, on page C1 of the New York edition with

the headline: Dreamed-Of Music, Undreamed-Of Spaces.

2014 The New York Times Company
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New York Studios and Factories as Concert Halls - NYTimes