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Spaghetti Western String Company - Photo by Stacy Schwartz
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Death approached the seated knight from Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. The face of inevitable demise gave the knight pause, he pled for more time. “You all ask for that,” Death laughed. The knight looked Death square in the eye and said, “But I haven’t donated to the Cedar yet.” The Cedar’s quirky advertising was an apropos mix of classics and tongue-in-cheek fun to start the night. Spaghetti Western String Company were there to release their new Lull & Clatter full length, and a legion of brave souls had faced death by freezing to pack the house.
Fat Kid Wednesdays opened up the night, a jazz trio of extremely talented musicians. I love jazz, but I have no idea how to measure it. I can’t tell you about polyrhythms or flattened sevenths, but I can tell you that it is a joy to see and hear a man jumping out of his Cons as he flies up and down his alto sax, as Michael Lewis did Saturday night.
JT Bates (who sat in with SWSCo later) drums like Koko the gorilla with her kittens; there is an incredible amount of strength and training behind each timbre and crash. On “Faithful,” he used brushes, chains, tiny metal rods, sticks and Tibetan prayer bells on all parts of his set to create a shimmering backdrop for Adam Linz’s throbbing bass. FKW covered a range from jazz standards to rock songs and brought ineffable enthusiasm and skill to each song as the crowd ate it up.
The eclectic night continued after a short break with Deviated Septet, a terrible name for a wonderful octet of singers who are featured in several songs on Lull & Clatter. They crowded onto stage left and opened their a cappella set with Imogen Heap’s “Hide & Seek” and carried through with a lovely cover of Hem’s “Leave Me There.” The jewel in their crown, however, was “I Am The Walrus,” a song they “hoped most of us knew.” They were veritably giggling up on stage as they yelped and whooped the guitar lines and chorus, and the crowd yelped and whooped right back.
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Spaghetti Western String Company - Photo by Stacy Schwartz
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Deviated Septet left the stage and Spaghetti Western String Company came on only to call them back to help open their set. Mandolinist/guitarist/singer Nicholas Lemme graciously thanked the audience for coming in from the cold before launching into “Beacon Waltz” and sending the night reeling. The impassioned technicality of Michael Rossetto’s banjo and guitar led the group as they moved through a swirl of melodies inspired by American bluegrass, Roma folk songs and classical chamber music, blossoming with Paul Fonfara’s plaintive clarinet and the humming backbone of Ethan Sutton’s cello.
Like the taste of almonds, delicious and delicate, but with the afterthought of cyanide, there was a vague sense of menace in many of SWSCo’s arrangements that emerged in the first part of the set. This depth made the wonder all the more enjoyable, as if seeing bittersweet moments from black and white films.
After the upbeat, Django Reinhardt-inflected “Fresnel’s Flea Circus,” Rossetto promised to get to “the dark stuff” as they brought back Deviated Septet and bassist Josh Granowski to play an arrangement of Franz Schubert’s “Die Winterreise (Winter Songs).” Lemme made light, calling the composer “Frankie,” but the piece was stunning; melancholy and hopeful simultaneously, with the German lyrics sung by Lemme in his crystal tenor voice. Several more instrumental pieces followed and SWSCo wrapped their set with one of the most beautiful re-orchestrations I have ever heard: Radiohead’s “Exit Music for a Film” re-written in Italian. I had heard it before at the Clapperclaw Music + Art Festival, and before I even realized what was happening, the goosebumps were all over. The song is a wonderful illustration of SWSCo’s vaguely professorial ability to bridge disparate forms through impeccable musicianship and respect for source material. The result is epic, lovely and thrilling.
The audience rose to their feet for a standing ovation as SWSCo left the stage, unleashing the appreciation that had been mostly seated in nice Minnesotan fashion throughout the show. SWSCo returned almost immediately for their encore, “Uncle Roland the Inquisitive,” written for Lemme’s uncle who was in attendance and who must have been proud. FKW and Deviated Septet were called back for the final number, the absurd, awkward, wonderful cover of Survivor’s“The Eye of the Tiger.” The laughs turned to cheers as every member of both bands tore up their chance to solo, and the audience rose again to their feet. Death could wait for another day, today we have music.
Fat Kid Wednesdays has a residency at the Clown Lounge, the basement of the Turf Club every Monday night, and you can probably catch members of SWSCo. there.
Spaghetti Western String Company
Beacon Waltz
Osa’s
Claude
The Percussionist
The Onceler
Fresnel’s Flea Circus
Die Winterreise (Franz Schubert)
Merton’s Woods
Ellesmere Island
Hoof on the Rail
Exit Music for a Film (Radiohead)
Location Info:
Cedar Cultural Center
Artist Info: Deviated Septet, Fat Kid Wednesdays, Spaghetti Western String Company
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