CalPerformances presents WORDLESS! featuring Art Spiegelman & the Phillip Johnston Sextet
2014-10-10
Zellerbach Hall Auditorium
U.C. Berkeley, Bancroft Way at Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA
8:00 PM, Friday, October 10, 2014

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WORDLESS!, an innovative hybrid of slides, talk, and musical performance features celebrated cartoonist Art Spiegelman in collaboration with acclaimed jazz composer Phillip Johnston. Spiegelman leads audiences on a personal tour of the first graphic novels – —silent picture stories made by early-20th-century masters like Frans Masereel, Lynd Ward, and Milt Gross— – accompanied by an all-new score by Johnston, who performs with his sextet. In navigating “the battle between words and pictures,” Spiegelman smashes at the hyphen between high and low art, featuring a new work drawn specifically for this project called “Shaping Thought!”

[8:06 PM lights down, announcements]

1. [8:m PM] [Introduction]
2. [8:m PM] [segment on A.B. Frost]
3. [8:m PM] [segment on Frans Masereel]
4. [8:m PM] [segment on H.M. Bateman]
5. [8:m PM] [segment on Lynd Wand]
6. [8:m PM] [segment on Otto Nickel]
7. [8:m PM] [segment on Milt Gross]
8. [9:m PM] [segment on Si Lewen]
9. [9:m PM] [segment on Wilhelm Busch
10. [9:m PM] [segment on Art's own work]
    [show ends 9:36 PM]

• Joe Fiedler: trombone;
• Mike Hashim: baritone saxophone;
• Rob Garcia: drums;
• Dave Hofstra: contrabass;
• Phillip Johnston: soprano saxophone;
• Neal Kirkwood: piano, melodica.

• Art Spiegelman: cartoonist, speaker;
• two sign language interpreters, unidentified.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from tonight's performance, but overall, I'm satisfied, and happy with what I saw, heard and learned. Inasmuch as this event could be thought of as a lecture on the history of wordless storytelling, it was quite successful – it was interesting to see so many examples of comix from the days before my time with Mad Magazine. I was a little surprised to learn how many of the artists were staunchly leftist – it's curious to consider whether that was simply chance, or a subtle correlation between the artistic brain and socialist politics. Not every coincidence is just chance!

I probably could have done a better job trying to keep track of the sections of the event, but the demarcation between the parts was kinda blurry, and once I'd realized that I missed the first few, I just gave up. Gotta just go with the flow sometime.

Musically, the event wasn't quite so outstanding, as it seemed to me that the purpose of the live band was simply to provide aural wallpaper to support the visuals that were the primary focus of the event. It's interesting to consider whether or not this accompaniment was necessary (such as the requirement to add a musical bed beneath a silent film). I'm glad that the group was present, and feel that the expectation that I would hear improvised accompaniment was one of the reasons that I signed on for the event. Which automatically suggests that a canned audio track would have been less satisfactory.

Finally, the visuals deserve comment for being quite impressive. Just as there is pleasure to be found in careful study of a densely constructed page of comix, it would be nice to be able to study tonight's visuals in a printed large-format book – and perhaps one was being sold in the lobby, but possessing an anti-consumerist bent, I tend to ignore most of the marketing crap that surrounds us like pollen on a spring day.

After the show it was fun to go drink boba with Scott and Joanne – post-show socializing is always a good idea!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2014 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2014 event list! ☸ On to the next event!