{"id":6833,"date":"2007-05-15T16:05:37","date_gmt":"2007-05-15T16:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/?p=6833"},"modified":"2019-10-15T16:10:15","modified_gmt":"2019-10-15T16:10:15","slug":"the-maine-attraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2007\/05\/15\/the-maine-attraction\/","title":{"rendered":"The Maine Attraction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
opening night of the Deer Isle Jazz Festival. Photo by Larry Blumenfeld.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maine Attraction<\/p>\n

By Larry Blumenfeld<\/p>\n

\u201cCondoms. Tampons. Excess hair. SMALL AN-I-MALS!\u201d<\/p>\n

So sang the dozen folks forming a circle within a tiny cabin last July, holding that last syllable until Arturo O\u2019Farrill dropped his right hand with a conductor\u2019s authority. I\u2019d just made the nine-hour drive from Brooklyn, New York, to Deer Isle, Maine, but my bleary eyes found strength to widen. I laughed.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d walked in on a rehearsal for Haystack, The Opera: An Afro-Cuban Jazz Odyssey<\/em>\u2014 and it was no joke. O\u2019Farrill\u2019s wife, Alison, sat at a keyboard, his eldest son, Zack, before a set of conga drums. His youngest, Adam, held a trumpet, awaiting his cue. Soon various rhythm instruments \u2014 hand drums, cowbells, guiros, clav\u00e9s \u2014 were handed out.<\/p>\n

Before long, O\u2019Farrill had these painters and potters and sculptors, all of whom had come to the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts for a summer session, creating four layers of rhythm and sounding pretty damn in-sync.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Farrill had come to Maine to headline at the annual Deer Isle Jazz Festival, for which I\u2019ve been curator since its inception, in 2001. Each summer, one festival musician serves as artist-in-residence at the Haystack School. O\u2019Farrill, a celebrated pianist and bandleader, the son of a legendary Cuban composer, met this challenge by bringing his whole family and creating an opera, with lyrics drawn from Haystack Director Stuart Kestenbaum\u2019s work \u2014 not his celebrated poetry, but his school manual, the part about \u201cwhat not to flush down the toilet.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d grown accustomed to such odd surprises. This unexpected turn in my own career stemmed from, well, an unexpected turn. A decade ago, my wife, Erica, and I were driving around Stonington, Deer Isle\u2019s southernmost town, tracing curve after curve, gawking at cove upon cove, when one right left us facing a dilapidated circa-1912 opera house bearing a \u201cFor Sale\u201d sign. I mumbled something about quitting our jobs and selling our co-op. \u201cWe could turn it into a nonprofit arts center,\u201d I said, to which Erica flashed a look that\u2019s come to mean something between \u201cMy, that\u2019s a fascinating idea\u201d and \u201cShut up already.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was, and I did. A year later, four women bought the place, cleared out the dead raccoons, and renovated. The Stonington Opera House \u2014 at various points, a dance hall, vaudeville theater, and high-school basketball arena \u2014 was now home to the nonprofit Opera House Arts. I introduced myself. Linda Nelson, the indefatigable executive director, suggested we mount a jazz festival. Artistic Director Judith Jerome talked with me about improvisation in all its forms. We sat until sunset, when the island sky turned blue and pink and cast eerie reflections on the water that changed with each passing moment. Whitney Balliett famously called jazz the \u201csound of surprise,\u201d I thought, but this place looked\u00a0<\/em>the part.<\/p>\n

We were off. There were jazz fans hidden in the hills, literally. Several opened their homes to visiting musicians and didn\u2019t stop there; they baked blueberry muffins, demonstrated lobster bisque recipes, loaned Subarus. Saxophonist Dewey Redman, our first headliner, sent yearly Christmas cards to his hosts. I recall indelible images: Romero Lubambo sitting on a porch after breakfast, strumming his guitar as Luciana Souza slapped soft percussion on her thighs and sang bossa novas into the morning mist; William Parker\u2019s band members dotting the sloping hill near Lindsay Bowker\u2019s stately house, grinning giddily as they carried bright-red lobsters in varying stages of dismemberment; Greg Osby and his wife heading off to Nervous Nellie\u2019s Jams and Jellies.<\/p>\n

There were silly, touching moments (Jason Moran lifting his pant leg onstage and thanking his host, Stan Bergen, for the dress-sock loaner), and scary stretches (driving from the Bangor airport through pounding sleet and blinding fog with Randy Weston cramped into my Saab, praying not to be scripting his bio\u2019s final line).<\/p>\n

I\u2019d come to Deer Isle 10 years ago to be refreshed. Yet even more invigorating then the brisk air and chilly water was the attitude of these audiences. The morning after Parker\u2019s 2004 concert, I asked Perry Hunter, who had offered to drive the band to the airport, whether the music sounded too \u201cavant-garde.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly an old man would say that,\u201d he shot back. With that, the 75-year-old slammed the van door shut and drove off. I felt transported.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maine Attraction By Larry Blumenfeld \u201cCondoms. Tampons. Excess hair. SMALL AN-I-MALS!\u201d So sang the dozen folks forming a circle within a tiny cabin last July, holding that last syllable until Arturo O\u2019Farrill dropped his right hand with a conductor\u2019s authority. I\u2019d just made the nine-hour drive from Brooklyn, New York, to Deer Isle, Maine, but … <\/p>\n

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