Summer 2008
Arts Life
By Susan Green
Mining the Roots
"In the early 1990s, Kathy Mattea was one of the goddesses of country music, suggests Dan Dubonnet of WOKO, a South Burlington radio station specializing in the genre.
The Grammy-winning singer and environmental activist has since descended from the heavens, and her new CD "Coal is a down-to-earth, unflinching look at how coal mining fueled Appalachia's cultural history.As the granddaughter of miners, Mattea's roots are there, specifically in the mountains of West Virginia. On July 13, she's slated to play in the mountains of Vermont: Stowe Performing Arts will present her concert at the Trapp Family Lodge Concert Meadow.
"Mattea has a deep, silky voice without the traditional twang, explains Dubonnet, WOKO vice president and general manager. "But she's become more of a folksinger in recent years.
That designation seems to be a badge of honor for Mattea, a self-described "songcatcher. In gathering topical tunes for the album, she chose Hazel Dickens' "Black Lung and Merle Travis' "Dark as a Dungeon, as well as ballads by legendary folkies Jean Ritchie and Bruce "Utah Phillips, who once recorded for two now-defunct Vermont labels.
Inspired by the 2006 Sago disaster that killed a dozen West Virginia miners, "Coal evokes the often bleak realities of mining. The website Bluegrassjournal.com said the record "leaves little doubt that Mattea intimately knows her subject matter.
- What: Kathy Mattea concert
- When: July 13
- Where: Trapp Family Lodge Concert Meadow, Stowe
- Information: 253-7792 or www.stowearts.com
Thinking Jazz
A saxophone pioneer with a complex sound, Ornette Coleman had quite a year in 2007. February brought him a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement. His album "Sound Grammar won a Pulitzer Prize in April. Then, as summer temperatures reached 95 degrees during an outdoor concert in Tennessee, he collapsed on stage from heat stroke.
Now back in fine form, Coleman, 78, will headline the 25th annual Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, taking place May 30–June 8.
"He's recognized as a supreme original, an innovator, a thinker and a conceptualist, says Arnie Malina, the event's artistic director and chief programming officer for the Flynn. "Coleman came out of the Charlie Parker bebop era but wanted to do something totally different. He's coming here on June 7 with three bassists, for example.
A Texas kid steeped in rhythm and blues, Coleman migrated to Los Angeles and released his first jazz recording in 1958. An eminent composer, he has collaborated with the likes of Charlie Haden, Thelonious Monk, Pat Metheny, the New York Philharmonic and the Grateful Dead.
While long dubbed a proponent of "free jazz, Coleman prefers to call his unique style "harmolodic.
"These are beautiful melodies on an emotional plane people can connect to, but they're also experimental in some ways, Malina says. "He's one of the major figures who revolutionized the music.
- What: Ornette Coleman concert
- When: June 7, part of the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival May 30-June 8
- Where: Flynn Center, Burlington
- Information: 863-5966 or www.discoverjazz.com
Intimate Impressions
Artist Mary Cassatt had a four-decade relationship with Edgar Degas, the Frenchman who influenced her more than any other colleague, even though he was a notorious misogynist. So could it have been sweet revenge when she included his work in a 1915 New York gallery show benefiting women's suffrage?
Cassatt's surrogate sister was Louisine Havemeyer, a fellow feminist whose daughter Electra Havemeyer Webb founded the Shelburne Museum. "Mary Cassatt: Friends and Family, an exhibit featuring about 43 of her works, begins there June 21. Part of the exhibit focuses on Cassatt's relationship with Degas.
"Among the greats of French Impressionism — Monet, Renoir, Degas — there was only one American: That's Mary Cassatt, says Stephan Jost, the museum's director. "And there was only one woman: That's Mary Cassatt. While the European establishment disdained them, this "bohemian subculture gained acceptance in the United States largely thanks to Havemeyer.
A longtime expatriate in Paris, Cassatt specialized in portraits of mothers with their children. "What I love about her work is that it's so intimate, Jost says. "Most of the Impressionists were doing landscapes. Cassatt chose to paint people.
But some people were second-class citizens, which led to the movement that Cassatt and Havemeyer embraced. "Louisine was arrested in 1919 for picketing the White House, says museum archivist Polly Darnell. The protestors also burned an effigy of President Woodrow Wilson.
Degas, who had died two years earlier, was surely rolling in his grave.
- What: "Mary Cassatt: Friends and Family
- When: June 21-Oct. 26
- Where: Shelburne Museum, Shelburne
- Information: www.shelburnemuseum.org or 985-3346
