Imports Fill the Empty Bottle
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Floridis is from the northern city of Thessaloniki, where Greek and Balkan cultures mingle freely–and where the clarinet plays a more prominent role in music than it does in western Europe. Floridis has also recorded rembetika (the guttural “Greek blues”) and lightning-fast Macedonian brass-band music, and brings a rough-hewn microtonality and thick, sensuous tone to collaborations with his northern counterparts. On Pyrichia (released on his own Ano Kato label in 1991), with German bassist Peter Kowald and Greek lyrist Ilias Papadopoulos, he plays with muscular authority and acrobatic flexibility; he can uncork a choked, raspy blurt one minute and unspool a long, elegant line the next. Floridis will be joined by Kowald and German percussionist Günter “Baby” Sommer (see Critic’s Choice) on Friday night, and on Saturday afternoon he’ll play in an all-reed trio with Jaume and Ken Vandermark at the Cultural Center.
Brotzmann’s Nipples
Drag City has also just published a remarkable collection of writings by guitarist John Fahey called How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life. The pieces don’t always adhere to an overarching theme, but weaving hallucinatory fiction with what seems to be autobiography, Fahey often takes aim at the hypocrisy and dishonesty of “normal” behavior. Among other things, he attacks the 60s folk-blues revival as a balm for white-middle-class guilt, reminisces about punching Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni, and recounts a charming and hilarious conversation with Roosevelt Sykes in which the great bluesman shares his dignified method of keeping the upper hand in potentially humiliating situations. It’s difficult to follow Fahey’s train of thought at times, but his energy, imagination, and odd wisdom make the book hard to put down.
