Buongiorno, Tutti!
I am still not recovered to the point of coherently speaking, but since when have I ever been coherent before? Besides, fond memories of Venice and fond promises of exciting future keep me energetic despite the lack of sleep. That and a late day tomorrow and the absence of my until now ever-present cold.
It will be very hard to say everything I want to say in this entry because there was so much that happened it will be terribly difficult to put it all into a single blog. Google might run out of room. I'll try my best, though. First, the logistics. I was in Venice over the weekend, leaving early Saturday morning and returning late Sunday night, even later because I got lost in the city and barely missed my train, prompting a trip on the local track to Bologna to transfer, which was so crowded it reminded me of the time I rode the New York Metro during rush hour. The sun never showed up one day, on vacation just as I was. The poor guy deserves a break every once in a while anyway. I went this weekend because it was the last weekend of Carnevale, which turned out to be a mistake because a lot of other tourists had the same idea and I had no intention of buying a mask, dressing up, or painting my face. I thought late January-early February would be good for avoiding tourists, but I guess I should have waited until next weekend. The main Plaza San Marco was so crowded that it was impossible to get close to the Duomo, Palazo Ducale, or the Campanile, and thus the main attractions of Venice are not the ones that burn brightly in my mind.
I still loved it.
Here are my three favorite things about this fantasy land of a city:
1) I loved the whole idea of a city based on water. There were little canals and bridges everywhere. I actually had no idea going into this that Venice was an island, which makes it even more bizarre. Who would ever think to settle on this small island carved up by various canals and then make it one of Italy's most important art capitals? It seems like something a fantasy writer would write about, a city with no cars but only boats, the buses being boats, everything being in walking distance, bridges a thing of everyday life, the smell of salt water permanently imprinted on one's tongue. Venice was a maze of canals that no one would know how to navigate without a map, signs, or the knowledge of locals. It was almost otherworldly.
2) The streets were fantastic. As I said before, there were no cars, and the streets were built with that in mind. They were very narrow, narrow enough to make me long for the sidewalks of Florence, which, if you don't know, are impossible (there's no point to even making some of the sidewalks here in Florence). The "main roads" were too narrow to fit a car in even if everyone was cleared out, even if the car was one of those tiny electric ones. Then there were all sorts of small side streets that were so narrow that some of those football players who played in Sunday's super bowl would not be able to fit through them, so they shouldn't celebrate in Venice. It was a city built for walking. I love walking, and I love mazes, and I could spend hours wandering up and down little streets no one knew about that led to who knows where, and eventually I got lost and didn't care about finding anything in particular, just trying to find out where this side street went and where the next one after that went. There was this one side street where I had to duck through a tunnel to go all the way through, and somehow ended up at a main tourist turnpike. Everything was so interconnected, though not in any recognizable way to non-Venetian eyes.
3) The stairs that went to nowhere. This seems to be a very small thing, but for me it really underscored how much the society was really primed for water. There were stairs and doors everywhere that opened onto canals with nowhere to tie a boat to be seen and with no sign of recent use. And yet they were deliberately built into the ground, probably for some ship to be parked there long ago, but from what I could judge by the water levels the boat would have risen to ground level anyway and there was no need to build steps down that no one would use. There were paintings in the Academia that showed Venetians of the Renaissance getting into their boats from the street, but not by way of stairs but simply by stepping in, and there were also in the paintings stairs that went nowhere, usually by posts to tie boats up with. Still, it tickled me to think of a city state that had built in a way for mermaids to visit frequently, or maybe Poseidon. It was such a water-based culture! Just the feel of the city... there's nothing else like it in the world.
So those are my favorite things about the city itself, and as I've mentioned my best experience in Venice did not have to do with the main landmarks we usually know as being Venetian. I didn't even spend much time on the Grand Canal, opting for the smaller ones. But I didn't spend much time at the monuments. There were too many people around and I get claustrophobic, or just uncomfortable. I even saw the Bridge of Sighs, which was okay.
There are three things I want to talk about at length that I enjoyed greatly that I did in Venice. Three is not my favorite number, but it is right now until I can find a replacement.
1) This was a complete accident. I was taking my time passing through the city on my way to the main plaza, taking my pictures, going into stores and buying playing cards (my collection of weakness), into a paper store and buying a hand-made address book, etc. I walked past a church, but I noticed it was playing music and had its doors open. Odd, because most churches were having mass. There was something on the door about Antonio Vivaldi, and I figured I might as well go in and find out how much it costs. I was blown away, actually close to the point of tears. There in front of me was a church filled with musical instruments, an exhibit of the history of instrument craftsmanship. There were violins and their precursors dating back to the 800's, Oboes from the same time, a 1400 year old harp and lute, a myriad of Renaissance-time instruments including the ancestors to the piano and guitar, instruments I remembered from Renaissance paintings. I could go on an on about this part of the trip alone. I took so many pictures, practicing my indoor picture taking without the use of a flash. My mind was blown. I can't quite explain it, looking at these beautiful instruments from the days in which all instruments had personal craftsmanship was involved. These instruments were works of art, much different than any instruments I had ever seen before. The museum, "Antonio Vivaldi e il suo tempo," gave note to each outstanding instrument craftsman like the painters attributed in the Academia. I was particularly fond of the "Viol D'amor," a 16-string 1785 violin that had the engraving of a woman's head above the tuning pegs. There were somewhere between 50 and 75 instruments of history, and I really had a perspective jolt to see physical evidence of the long and great history I am involving myself in.
2) The Venetian specialty in terms of food is gnocchi. Some people might say it's fish, but don't listen. I had gnocchi twice, the first time at a cute cafe, and it was so creamy and warm and cheesy and nothing like any of the gnocchi I ever remembered, even the amazing gnocchi I had at Santa Margarita 3 years ago (at a restaurant aptly nicknamed "F***ing Delicious"). On Sunday I went to a restaurant from the guide book that said it was a local favorite, and, what do you know, there is no menu after all, like the Cheeseboard Pizza, and the cute old woman (Melia, according to the pictures on the wall), simply asked whether I wanted gnocchi with ragu or pomodoro (meat sauce or tomato sauce). This was a meal to remember, and I certainly will remember it next time I'm in Venice. Called "Cucina Da Mario," the place was indeed quite local, with everyone inside speaking no English, even to me, the obvious tourist. This is where the gondola boaters had lunch, and they were very loud at the table to the left. As far as the gnocchi goes, it even topped the gnocchi from the day before, impossibly. It was so good I even liked the tomato, and I don't like tomatoes. It was made from scratch, obviously, and they obviously knew exactly how to cook it. They even had homemade bread, or so it seemed, because the bread in Italy is usually tasteless, but this didn't even need olive oil. It took me half the meal to remember what I was in the middle of thinking about when it made it to the table. I'm serious. It was actually that good. Go to 2614 San Marco to find out for yourself. It is in between the Vivaldi museum, which I don't know how to find again, and San Marco, I think a block away from the Vivaldi museum, maybe 1/3 of the way from the train station to the main plaza. I'm dead serious. Go there.
3) I saw a couple art museums and a few churches as well. Of course I went to the Academia, the main art museum of Venice, where there were a ton of different Renaissance paintings, kind of like the Uffizi but not quite as cool. The cool dude of the show was this guy Bellini, who decorated nearly every wall with prime examples of goodness. My favorite room, though, was the one that had huge wall-sized paintings of everyday life in Venice, two of which I had seen in my history class this year. There was a picture from when the Duomo was built but before the Campanile was started, which was cool, and lots of cramped streets and stairs going... to nowhere. It was a pretty good organization of a museum, except one room was in restoration and the rooms around it suffered the temporary guest paintings. Not much stood out to me the same way with Botticelli in the Uffizi. Maybe I'm still on a little bit of an art overload, but I had a great time and there were a lot of great pieces, though no one stood out to me individually. I also took a brief trip to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, and it was a shock to see the modern art collection after all the Renaissance art of the Academia and the Uffizi. I didn't want to spend too much time there, but there were Picasso, Pollack, and Miro paintings, so I had to stay. I don't think I had ever seen a Miro painting before. I usually like Jackson Pollack the best of all modern painters, but it was the Picasso painting "The Poet" that really got to me in that museum. The way he used cubes not just for the sake of using cubes but to attain a totally new perspective you can't get without the use of cubes. That was very good for me to see.
After the Guggenheim museum I went to catch my 5:00 train, but the city turned me around and I missed it by just a hair. It wasn't such a big deal, but I missed my connection on the mainland and I had to take a local train to Bologna, which I talked about later. Hence my excuse for being so tired, but it was a nice trip, and now I know the train system better. It's not such a long train ride on express, but on the local track it's about an hour and a half longer or so, and I made it back late just in time to learn my gig at the Jazz School for the summer fell through. This means now I have a lot of communicating to go through to the states in the next few days, so I hope things get better.
I stayed in a little town just outside, about 20 minutes by train, and it was pretty cheap and a lot of bang for the buck. I don't really know what else to say about it because I spent close to zero time there. Oh, they did have a pretty good free breakfast.
Music Announcements
So, as I briefly mentioned before, the Jazz School gig will not be happening this summer. The hard thing about living here in Florence, other than nothing whatsoever, is that it's hard to get in contact with people back home, 9 hours behind me, and by the time I made contact it was too late. I should have fixed up the gig over the winter break, but there's nothing I can do about it now. So I need all the help I can get finding new venues and contacting them to make sure I have a place to play my big new project, Guest Artist, with the Inspiration Sextet. I'm disappointed I won't be playing at the Jazz school this summer, which is one of my favorite venues, but I'll still make sure to be playing this summer, hopefully at least one gig in the East Bay and one in San Francisco, maybe Jazz At Pearls or something along those lines. If anyone has any suggestions that would help, I would be very thankful. Just write me at samgoldsmithvibes@gmail.com. You won't regret it.
In Italy, however, the gigs are not an issue. I will be playing with the drummer from my NYU jazz ensemble, a local Florentine, on Thursday. I'm not sure if it's a gig or if it's a jam session, but it seems like it's going to be fun. Plus he's going to help me move the vibes. Also there is a gig opportunity in Terni for March 26 or 27, Antonio Vanni's hometown. It seems pretty exciting, and if anyone happens to be in town for that day, you should come by. I'm going to try and bring in Filling the Gap, but you won't hear anything as cool as Rite of Passage, unfortunately. The group is really into standards and not challenging the style of music at all, which makes me unhappy but I could use the practice.
One last announcement: my composition project for the semester is to collaborate with my teacher's other two students and write the film score for an old Italian silent film, and there is a chance that over the summer I'll have a multimedia venue to perform the piece at. It's a long shot, but if it happens you will get a chance to see a different Sam goldsmith than you've ever seen.
CD Review of the Week
Civilians: Joe Henry
I am most familiar with Joe Henry's work starting with "Scar," the breakthrough combination of styles from the singer-songwriter from Texas. "Scar" is a combination of Jazz, Blues, Rock, Pop, and many other styles, nothing like the blatantly bluegrass tendencies of his other projects beforehand. Four years ago, the sequel to "Scar" came out, "Tiny Voices," which was a little tuned down version of the intense wall of fusion mixture that was "Scar," and I could hear the influence of gospel, blues, and country starting to take over, even though the songs are still impossible to characterize.
I waited impatiently for four years for "Civilians" to come out, and I had nearly given up hope that he was still recording, possibly becoming a full-time producer. After the four-year hiatus, what's it going to sound like? Will it sound like the new sound generated by "Scar" and "Tiny Voices," or will it be more like the older "Short Man's Room" or "Trampoline," back in the country/bluegrass days?
It turns out four years gave way to something completely new - again. "Civilians" is a subdued CD compared to the last two CD's, focusing on the lyrics (and Henry is an unreal songwriter) rather than the harmony, instrumentation, and orchestration that gave "Scar" and "Tiny Voices" their unique diversity. Despite Bill Frisell's presence, the jazz element is downplayed, and the CD is certainly under the category of songwriting. And yet it still challenges, partially due to the conviction in Henry's voice. In his other CD's Henry's voice takes the back burner to the amazing musicians (Ornette Coleman stars in "Scar"), while Henry's voice is in the forefront of "Civilians." This is certainly Joe Henry's project, while his other projects have been more focussed on group dynamic. And Henry is certainly deserving of the spotlight, his voice carrying a newfound passion and lyrics that flow effortlessly and evocatively. It's not like nothing you've ever heard before in terms of the simple musical content, but the calm of the CD is only to keep Henry's lyrics foremost in your mind. It is a great CD, but not a CD that hit you over the head with greatness. It is subtly great.
Listen for "Time is a Lion," the single and my personal favorite from the project, also the one that has the most presence. Also, with "God Only Knows," depending on the speakers you listen with, you can hear a tone made by the drums that changes one of the chord qualities during the chorus. Both ways sound great, but I can't help but wonder if that's an intentional effect.
Innovation: B+
Musicianship: B
Entire CD: A
Individual Songs: B
Overall: B+
