One of many highlights of Broken Social Scene’s performance at CMJ last fall was the presentation of “Mrs. Morris,” the first song from Charles Spearin’s The Happiness Project. Spearin, fascinated by the musical qualities of speech, interviewed his neighbors, friends and family members about happiness, then set those interviews to song. Though Spearin says he never expected The Happiness Project to go beyond his living room, he released an album of material on February 14th, put together a band and took the record on the road, stopping at New York City’s swanky Le Poisson Rouge on Sunday night.

Spearin and his eight-piece band began with “Mrs. Morris,” the most straight-forward format of speech to song. As he did at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple in October, he played just the recording of her voice, then played it with a saxophone accompaniment.

Charles Spearin: “Mrs. Morris” (download)

With the rest of the pieces, the band experimented. In some cases, one sentence would be repeated in a sort of minimalist style, as with “Vanessa,” an interview with a woman who was born deaf, then at the age of 30 got a cochlear implant. Describing what it was like to hear, Vanessa said, “All of a sudden I found my body moving inside,” and the band repeated the notes of this phrase, then turned it into a sort of chant, singing the words over and over and clapping. For “Marisa” and “Mr. Gowrie,” just a few short snippets were played, then the band drew from those tones to create instrumental jams, not unlike those of Spearin’s main projects, Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think.

Charles Spearin: “Marisa” (download)

Taking a page from the Broken Social Scene concert format of everyone shares the spotlight, two of The Happiness Project band members got a chance to play their own projects. Ohad Benchetrit played “Don’t Let The Blind Go Deaf,” from his solo project Years, which will be released on Arts & Crafts (also the label of Broken Social Scene and The Happiness Project) in May, and Michael Barth, who plays the flugelhorn and trumpet, performed a piece by Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi. Each band member was noticeably talented, though, as they were all multi-instrumentalists.

The performance was part of the always stellar Wordless Music Series, so two classical groups opened the show. First was the Verge Ensemble, who played Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Tierkreis, a piece consisting of 12 melodies based around the zodiac sign. This autonomous work leaves a lot of room for experimentation – it can be played on any instrument, with most recordings lasting anywhere from 12 to 96 minutes. The Verge Ensemble used two laptops, cello, violin, flute, piano and clarinets. The woodwinds and strings often seemed to be facing off, while the piano was often trilling in and out. The laptops were oddly unnoticeable, or perhaps just hard to hear – the speakers at the venue were frequently hissing and popping during their set. (Yet another frustration with Le Poisson Rouge.)

The second opener was duo Todd Reynolds & Evan Ziporyn, who first played an unknown piece, then Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale, about a soldier who sells his fiddle to the devil to learn about the economy. The piece was not only fitting to current times, but as an accompaniment to Spearin’s Happiness Project, with sections meant to imitate the characters in the story. But, all powerful and alluring as the devil may be, it was the wistful meditations of Spearin’s Happiness Project that prevailed that evening.

For more T-Sides pictures, click here. For the setlist and to see a T-Sides video of “Mr. Gowrie” from this concert, click the jump.

SET LIST:
Mrs. Morris
Ondine
Vanessa
Marisa
Anna
Ohad Benchetrit, “Don’t Let The Blind Go Deaf”
Michael Barth, selection from Giacinto Scelsi
Vittoria
Mr. Gowrie
Mrs. Morris (Reprise)

The Happiness Project Official Site
The Happiness Project on MySpace

Click here to view the embedded video.

The first time I heard A Love Supreme, I was on a train coming back from MacArthur Airport in Islip, Long Island. I was in my senior year of college and had just watched my long-distance boyfriend board a plane back to California.

It had been an interesting and emotional trip, as rushed visits between distant lovers can be. He had told me early on in the relationship that he loved me. It was the first time anyone other than a family member or friend had used that word to describe how they felt about me. It put me in a confusing state of mind. I wanted to tell him that I loved him, too, but regardless of what my emotions were telling me, I felt obligated to understand what, exactly, that word meant. What it meant to him. What it meant to me, in regards to those I felt I had loved in the past, but also in relation to him. I felt like I had to explore what I was acknowledging, what I was committing to, what was expected of me.

After an extended visit from him, I was exhausted. And the fact that the confusing Long Island Rail Road schedule caused him to miss his flight didn’t help. He booked another and I rode out to the airport with him. After we parted ways, I hopped back on a train to campus. I was exhausted and selected the “Jazz” genre on my iPod and drifted off to sleep.

Eventually, I was awakened by a fast and furious stream of notes from a saxophone. It was A Love Supreme. I had never really listened to it, but owned it because of my jazz history class. Music history courses usually came with listening tests, which I was habitually horrible at. I made sure I owned all of the music from the course so I could listen to it on repeat. A Love Supreme was one of the pieces.

John Coltrane: “A Love Supreme: Part 1: Acknowledgement” (download)

I watched the Long Island scenery flash by, perfect suburban houses with yards and swimming pools. I thought about my boyfriend, about graduating, about where I would be in a year. But mostly I just listened to Coltrane. Its complexity and hyperactive energy had a strangely calming effect. When the “a love supreme” chant kicked in, I felt like everything I wanted to know had been explained. Sure, Coltrane was making an ode to his supreme love for God, but damned if it didn’t feel prescient. A Love Supreme, it seemed, was telling me that this was just the way love was, the way life was. Chaotic. Complex. Constantly changing. And that despite the way that might sound at first, there was something lovely about it, too.

Since then, A Love Supreme has been the light in dark times. A reminder of the simple facts of life. I heard it last November. It was election week. I had just met someone new, and my brain was in bloom with all of the seeds of thought that get planted in those first whirlwind moments of adoration. And there was the election. Despite what I wanted to believe, I was still nervous that I would watch my country make me feel like a stranger for the third election in a row. I walked through the subway at Union Square, and a man with a saxophone was quoting from A Love Supreme, and I was reminded of that train trip from MacArthur airport. That night, I went home, made myself dinner, and listened to A Love Supreme while I ate. I felt a supreme calm.

It’s been months since then, and though the election turned the way I had hoped, there is plenty in my life that remains chaotic, that leaves me feeling uneasy, stressed, out of control. But I have A Love Supreme to remind me that, hey, that’s just how it goes. And that’s okay.

My friend Clay Franks is a true Louisianan. I’ve been hounding him to write something ever since he finished his ethereal urban prose set to My Bloody Valentine. So, he recently wrote a lovely piece on New Orleans and the Preservation Hall Jazz band, and what with New Orleans being the center of attention during this late summer weather, it feels like the right time to share it here with you.

In New Orleans, we spend a lot of time remembering. Remembering a certain meal, a certain place. Remembering what restaurant used to occupy such and such block, remembering what it was like before the storm disemboweled the city. We can spend long afternoons remembering lovers we’ve lost and longer ones still trying to remember the best way to make a particular cocktail. How much sugar. How much rye. Just a roll of absinthe and only a single kind of bitters. In a city so aged, so storied, nostalgia can be the most heady libation.

So for any son or daughter of this place, any child of this Creole dirt, that high honk of horns is one of the most enduring memories. It’s an echo of every walk through the Quarter, every wedding and every funeral. Every sight of old black faces playing under the jazzman’s hat. Of names like Olympia, Algiers and Treme. It’s every time you ever got caught up in a Second Line and completely forgot where you were supposed to be. Of hot nights and smoky clubs. Sweat-sticky bodies dancing closer and closer together.

One note of a New Orleans horn is a shout out to generations of a city’s collective experience. It doesn’t matter if you hear that horn in Paris or New York City, the first bars of old standards like “Eh La Bah” will put you firmly in the holy city of New Orleans. Drunk on every ounce of the history. Every moment of the experience. It’s an understanding that once this place gets in you, you will never be able to see, able to taste, able to hear a place quite like you did this one. Go anywhere else in the world, and the smallest remembrance of New Orleans will make your eyes light up. As sure and steady as jazz rolling through the night, that’s a promise.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band: “Eh La Bah” (download)
Preservation Hall Jazz Band: “When The Saints Go Marching In” (download)

Preservation Hall Jazz Band Official Site
Preservation Hall Jazz Band on MySpace

Amazingly enough, we’ve reached the two-year mark here at T-Sides. I say amazingly because as any avid blog reader/writer will tell you, blogs — and music blogs in particular — tend to have a short shelf life.

After many unsuccessful brainstorms and attempts, T-Sides will not, in any foreseeable future, be implementing any sort of regular features beyond those that already exist. It would help the blog attract more readers, it would help you know when to come back, but ultimately, it’s just not part of what T-Sides has been about.

Originally, it was hard to decide what direction to take T-Sides, and it’s obvious from those first couple entries. As my music writing career grows, T-Sides is best kept in its status quo. It’s good to have a place to put things that might have trouble finding a home elsewhere, and it’s part of what sets this blog apart. Plenty of blogs – good and bad – have news, interesting links, and those kinds of things. They aren’t my competition. More than anything, T-Sides is about the enjoyment and appreciation of music, in all of the various forms it may take, and distorting that into easily digested, uniform pieces is not conducive to that spirit in its purest concentration. At least not the way this muse works.

And so, we remain, irregularly, long-windedly, but charmingly yours. Thank you for your support and affection – it’s meant more over the past two years than you could possibly know.

Beau Brummels: “Two Days ‘Til Tomorrow” (download)
The Doors: “Love Me Two Times” (download)
Jay-Z: “22 Two’s” (download)
Sun Ra: “Two Tones” (download)
Two Gallants: “Two Days Short Tomorrow” (download)