Date: Sunday, March 7
Time: 5pm to 6pm EST
Venue: ZOOM
Ticket: free
Joint event by MFM and Manhattan Producers Alliance
Please RVSP to Adam Reifsteck: adamreifsteck@gmail.com
Date: Sunday, March 7
Time: 5pm to 6pm EST
Venue: ZOOM
Ticket: free
Joint event by MFM and Manhattan Producers Alliance
Please RVSP to Adam Reifsteck: adamreifsteck@gmail.com
Music & Video Review by Dawoud Kringle
Spaghetti Eastern Music, the ongoing project led by guitarist/ composer / improviser / producer / polymath / MFM member Sal Cataldi has done it again. This single, titled Blues for a Lost Cosmonaut, is an exploration of emotions evoked by a look back into the infancy of manned space flight.
Cataldi’s guitars glide and dance in and around the landscape he creates with his synthesizers. The piece has a dreamy rubato feel, combined with the haunted F minor tonality, well-balanced combination of timbres, melodic counterpoints, and motif invention. It is as beautiful as a well-tended garden, and as seductive as a courtesan in an opium den.
The video for Blues for a Lost Cosmonaut compliments the music beautifully. It shifts back and forth between a plethora of images from the late 50s – early 60s Soviet space program, fractal art, and clips from what is obviously an old Soviet era science fiction movie (nothing ages faster than science fiction!).
By Dawoud Kringle
Anne Feeney, folk musician, mainstay in the folk music movement and political and labor activist, has died.
Feeney was born July 1, 1951, in Charleroi, PA, and lived in the Brookline neighborhood of Pittsburgh. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1978, she spent 12 years practicing as a trial lawyer, primarily representing refugees and survivors of domestic violence. She was an active member of the American Federation of Musicians and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). She served on the executive board of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Organization of Women (NOW), and as the president of the Pittsburgh Musicians’ Union from 1981 to 1997, the first and only woman to ever hold that position.
She became a regular at major folk festivals , released 12 albums, and collaborated or performed with Pete Seeger, John Prine, and Peter Paul and Mary, Loretta Lynn, John Prine, Toshi Reagon, The Mammals, Dan Bern, the Indigo Girls, and Billy Bragg. Her anthem Have You Been to Jail for Justice is sung on picket lines and in jail cells around the world. She performed more than 4,000 shows across North America and Europe performing for striking workers, in union halls, and large protests. Her performance at the World Trade Organization protests in 1999 was featured in the documentary “This is What Democracy Looks Like.” She also organized dozens of tours supporting various causes, including the Sing Out for Single Payer Healthcare tour in 2009, and raised tens of thousands of dollars for strike funds and progressive causes.
In this episode of MFM Speaks Out, Dawoud Kringle interviews Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi (a.k.a. SoSaLa). Ladjevardi is a saxophonist, composer, improviser, producer, entrepreneur, activist, and the founder and president of Musicians For Musicians (MFM). He has lived in and performed in Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and the United States as well as releasing several independently produced albums. The topics discussed focused on MFM, the ideas and philosophies behind it, its founding and history, Ladjevardi’s music and how it interrelates to the message of MFM, and the future of MFM and its place in the music community.
“In her brief ten year span as a recording artist (ending with her death at the age of 32 in 1990), Emily Remler not only proved that a female jazz guitarist could be the technical equal of any male counterpart, but also that she possessed the intensity and conviction of a true leading musical voice. Her early departure from the scene is tragic, and her legacy as both an artist and a person should be forever maintained in our collective memory.” – Roger Blanc (MFM Board member, guitarist and composer)
Text by Dawoud Kringle
Most of you who read this are musicians. You can probably name a good number of female musicians. Maybe you are a female musician.