Have you ever watched Télemundo as a non-Spanish speaker, or asked for directions in Hong Kong? Seeing Jacob Anderskov at the Lutheran Church last night was a bit like that, if the person giving directions was a brilliant poet. Anderskov amazed me. I don’t have the training or understanding to really appreciate what I saw, but the experience was absolutely enjoyable. It began with Jack Garner’s introduction, in which he described the “conversation that an artist has with himself.” While I found it ironic that a man who has spent his career rating the creative efforts of others on a scale of one to ten would introduce an act that had and might use an unlimited number of musical paths, Garner correctly and deftly identified what was about to happen. My criticism is not of Garner, by the way, but with the culture that demands such simple and limited analysis. I would take a gig like his in a second.
It was obvious by the people flocking to the exits after each piece, that they did not speak the language either. I don’t want to give the impression that I thought that Anderskov was technically brilliant or creatively gifted. I suspect he was to a greater or lesser degree, but there is no way for me to know that, I don’t play the piano, nor can I read music. Cliché or melodic reference would be lost on me. So when I say the performance was stellar, I am not seeing the emperor’s proverbial vétément nouveau. Rather, I think I understood what those who were leaving did not; that even though I am not a musician I have ears. I can still access and appreciate the performance on many aesthetic and experiential levels.
The intentional contradiction in Garner’s statement (a conversation requires more than one person) suggests multiple activities happening simultaneously. The artist was alone with the piano. He had no other musicians from whom to take or to give direction. But that does not mean he was immune from outside stimuli. For example, what was the impact of people leaving on what he was saying and how he was saying it? After the first song, he asked that a fan be turned off because of the noise and apologized for the request because of the heat. He was aware of the audience is my point. He understood that he was performing and not composing at home. And even an uneducated or illiterate listener like me brings his own set of experiences to the lecture. Many of the people who walked out must know more about music than I do. Many must know about as much. Some of the people who stayed probably knew less, although based on the numbers who stayed I’m on shakier statistical ground there.
Perhaps I am trying to convince myself that the experience was enjoyable because I stayed until the end and therefore need some justification for doing so? Perhaps, I am. But I felt a bit of a camaraderie with the other hangers-on and with Anderskov. I am happy that the organizers continue to book acts that might not be as crowd pleasing, that are more intellectual than feeling. While I love the funk and reggae acts for the pure enjoyment, I also enjoy the acts that make me think and learn.
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