Arts and Humanities Reports; Arts and Humanities Reports #6

So you think you got problems with your mother? Then there is the Jewish mother who vacations to Europe and returns a vampire who just won't quit. Bloodtives, a new comedy by Judas Robbins Rose, shows this weekend at the Street Player Theater, 771 asks in Norman. The playwright lets us in on the making of a bloodthirsty comedy. You have to take the comedy and you have to really push it and push it and push it to the limit. So when writing Bloodtives, the idea was I wanted to write about a very serious topic which is the fact that your parents are with you, always, always. In fact, even after they're dead. So in doing that, I tried to think of who is the ultimate parent, you know, who would be the ultimate parent, you know, how can I, how can I push this?

And who is the ultimate guilt-ridden child whose parent is always with them? And that's how I came up with these characters. Judas comedy ties link her with Neil Simon and Woody Allen. The important part of my background is that I took a comedy writing class from Danny Simon who is Neil Simon's older brother and he is credited with having taught the art of writing comedy to Woody Allen in Neil Simon. And you couldn't ask for a better coach. One of the things that he did for me is he read my first play which nobody else is going to get a chance to read. And he said, I'm going to solve your whole problem for you. If when Neil had written the odd couple, if Oscar Madison had been kind of sloppy and Felix Unger had been kind of neat, it would have been a kind of funny play. And that was very meaningful to me.

First productions are the specialty of Street Player Theatre where the audience becomes part of the development of a new play. That's very exciting because there's not many theater companies around that really specialize in that. And I think it's wonderful because I think there's sort of an image about Oklahoma, that there's not a lot of culture here. And I was really excited and surprised coming here to find that there is a lot of support in a relatively small campus community for new work. That is so great because when you're coming to see a new piece, you're coming because you want to see something that's new, something that's just getting on its feet, and you want to support that. One of the most exciting things about this for me is that it is very exciting to have a new play and to see it doing well and see people coming and laughing and really enjoying themselves.

But for me, in the long run, this play is not the end all be all. It's the fact that I went through that process of writing it, rewriting it, promoting it, getting a theater company interested, getting them to come back and help me with more rewrites, seeing the rehearsal process, seeing what does work, seeing what doesn't work rewriting again, and then having the audience react and now knowing what I need, what I want to do with it next, which is minor, but still there's still some things I know I could do and things I don't need that I can get rid of. The former news reporter for radio and television knows the business of promoting art. It's commercial, you know, and I know that's the word that a lot of people don't like to have applied to their art. For me, that's exactly what I want to hear. I don't necessarily think everybody has to get all the symbolism. If you come and you laugh and you go home thinking, wow, that was a fun evening, I feel good. If you come and you think you laugh and you think you've had a fun evening, but you also

got some of the symbolism and you've got the message out of it and you feel like you've learned something, that's even better, but it's not necessary. This week end at Street Player Theatre, 771 Ass in Norman, the vampire comedy thriller that puts new bite into wolf bean, garlic, and chicken soup. For the Arts Report, I'm Mary Collins. Born in 1950 into a staunchly Baptist family, blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter, Spencer Borin was raised on clean living and gospel music.

At age 14 he first picked up the guitar. It started playing little women's clubs and nursing homes and stuff like that immediately. As soon as I learned three chords, I was playing in front of people. It's been 25 years or more now. Spencer Borin's ground level searing guitar delivery was influenced by an assortment of blues players like Mississippi John Hurt, Brownie McGee, Blind Willing McTell, and Blind Blake. But the most lasting impression credits to a single Mississippi Delta musician. When I heard Charlie Patton, who was relatively obscure unless you're really a blues fan, but when I heard Charlie Patton from the Mississippi Delta, it really swapped in for me. It was just such an intense delivery, and yet it was a very personable music he was singing about people that he knew in the town that he was living in. It was almost like reading a newspaper, and at the time I was also listening to things like a Rolling Stones, and I kept hearing I would be listening to a Charlie Patton record

made in the late 1920s, and I'd keep hearing that it was just unamplified Rolling Stones. The bridge was really complete to me, that Charlie Patton was doing something that wasn't with a big band, but it was the same exact type of rhythmic ideas that the later rock and roll stuff had. Upon graduation from high school, Borin moved to Denver, Colorado. He began to search out early blues recordings and seriously study the music. He soon traveled to the West Coast and the Seattle Portland area, where he found himself performing rock and roll while harboring an intense love for the blues. In 1975, his life changed forever when he moved to New Orleans. I'd met Dr. John, and I'd heard some great stories from him about just about Louisiana culture and New Orleans culture in particular, and it really peaked my interest, and I was really tired of what I've been doing, and I really wanted to see a guy named Professor Long here play, and I realized that he was getting old.

So we went down to New Orleans, my wife and I, and it was just such a magnificent city. It really sucked us in, and we ended up staying there for nearly 10 years. The playing and recording that he did in New Orleans began to generate widespread attention. In 1983, Spencer and his family moved into an air-stream trailer and began what was to become a seven-year journey encompassing clubs, concerts, and festivals across the US and Europe. I asked Spencer why he prefers his continuous touring schedule. In our case, it's made a huge difference. We're able to live what I perceive as a very normal life in a sort of unusual way. And one of the better things is that I can continue to go in a straight line. I can go as far from New Orleans as I want, and I don't have to turn around and come back, which is not only expensive to just go backwards, but it takes a lot of extra time. So the rubber band effect, so to speak, is missing in our life, and I really love it. Plus, it's a great education for my children.

Boren's constant motion in the near future includes performing dates in Belgium and appearance with Blues Great Johnny Shines and an extended video documentary on the Blues. And tonight, Spencer Boren's 55 Chevy Bel Air with House on Wheels and Toe goes into Norman for a one-of-a-kind show, just the man and his blues at Liberty Dees. For information called 321-1776, for the Arts Report, I'm Phil McKenzie. This guy is crying, what's the tear draw down the street? The downtown branch of the Metropolitan Library system is hosting a jazz exhibit through

May 25th. The display features music, photographs, and other jazz paraphernalia, and is the concept of public service librarian Philip Talbert. It began about a year ago. I was attending the Charlie Christian Festival down on Second Street in Oklahoma City there, and I was just observing the music and the musicians there, and I was observing the people as well. They were enjoying themselves so much and reminiscing about how things used to be on Second Street and how much they enjoyed just seeing those bits of history repeated there. And so I began to think that it might be a good idea if we could do something in the library to give a little bit more emphasis on the history of jazz, particularly in Oklahoma, and in some ways to branch out and cover jazz and its development and evolution here in the entire United States.

The core of the exhibit is a collection owned by the Oklahoma Historical Society. It contains artifacts from the jazz heyday of Oklahoma City's deep-duce area. In the downtown Second Street exhibit, that aspect that was done by the Historical Society, we have pictures of some of the prominent musicians here in Oklahoma City back during the 20s and 30s, one of the notable music instructors from that era in the Oklahoma City area was a Miss Zidia Blow, and there's information about her in there and some of the things that she did as a music instructor. And then we've got information about some of the groups in Oklahoma's Blue Devils being one of the major groups of that time period that was here in Oklahoma City where I think about ten years. And then we've got information about Charlie Christian in there and other groups that are familiar with the Oklahoma City area. To this basic exhibit, Tolbert added jazz, photos, albums, and even musical instruments solicited from private collections.

We've got a bass drum and a suzerphone donated by Andre Francisco. He's another musician who teaches school here in the Oklahoma City area also. We've got albums from other people who contributed, we've got over a hundred album covers that were donated by people who collect jazz albums who are interested, they just, they poured into it. Really, they just came from all over the place, albums from earlier days to the present. We've got Ella Fitzgerald in there, Sarah Vaughan. We've got Billy Harday, Jamie Chan, Oklahoma's as well as people across the United States, Count Basie of course, included in there. We even have, in a rotating showcase, some of the earlier 78 albums donated by another person in the Oklahoma City area, one or two of the first jazz albums ever to be recorded. Tolbert also incorporated some of the library system's own educational material on jazz.

We have books on display that people can check out and take with them. We have also a number of audio cassette tapes that people can check out and take with them as well and listen. Keep those for anything there could be checked out for a two-week time period and then it's returning and other people can listen to them. We have a small bibliography of information on some of the books that we have in the library system and then we've got information about audio cassette tapes and then some videos as well that we've got on jazz musicians and groups. The exhibition also has a performance component with some jazz bands playing live in the library itself. The Downtown Library's Jazz Exhibition continues through May 25th and is free to the public. The library is located on 131 Dean McGee Avenue, which is right in the downtown area on the corner of Dean McGee and Robinson. The library hours are 9 until 6 on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, 9 until 9 p.m. on Tuesday

and then 9 till 5 on Friday and Saturday and we'd like to encourage everyone that could come out and to see the exhibit we look forward to seeing you. For more information called the Downtown Library at 2350571 for the Arts Report, I'm Phil Kenzie. Most people have seen them on TV, but few people in this area have had the chance to see a steel drum band perform live.

The Oklahoma panhandlers plan to take care of that. They give their premier performance this Friday night at Brothers on campus corner. The instrument originated in Trinidad and according to band member Joe Reagan, the history of the steel drum is as curious as the sound it produces. What happened for the steel drum was that someone found a small steel drum probably a tenor or 15 inch approximately inside and was carrying it down the street and someone had thrown a rock and hit it and put it on a little strange dip and the guy with the person carrying it found that when he hit on it, it created a definite pitch. So he went home and made two or three of these little indentions in the head of the drum and he found that by changing them and making the ride a little higher than the lower control pitch and the first one had four pitches and they played Mary had a little lamb and marched around and created a parade and everyone singing that song along with it. And so it was an outgrowth of probably for carnival for the festival of the noise maker

and it was really a freak accident and this was just close to World War II, right after World War II. With such a unique instrument, I asked Chris Harris lead player for the Oklahoma panhandlers, how a group of percussion students at OU came to form such a band. Well actually, most of them are played in the OU percussion ensemble steel band which is a university function and pretty much we were using their equipment with that group and we just happened to play for the first time in a while we happened to play for students. We usually just play on the tail end of concerts and that doesn't get much publicity and concerts aren't very well attended as far as outside students, students outside of the music school and we happened to play for the Oklahoma University Leadership Symposium and they went nuts. It was our peers and they just loved it and we realized that it was something that Oklahoma doesn't have is an independent steel band and as much as people enjoyed it, we decided

just to make the investment and start the band up. And Harris feels confident that the Oklahoma panhandlers will be very well received. I think it's going to go across very well, especially around here with campus corner activities and stuff and mostly it's just a lot of rock and roll band and to me a lot of them sound the same. I mean we're going to really be a different sound in this area and I think it's really going to take people by surprise and you know we play pop stuff too, you know just played on pans and it's just a totally different timbers, a totally different sound that unless you've been doing an OU professional ensemble concert you haven't heard it yet, you know maybe you heard it one and it's kind of fuzzy but you know hopefully people will really be into what we're doing and come see it a lot. Although all but one of the Oklahoma panhandlers or music majors at OU, their experiences

have included anything from rock and roll garage band to the Blue Doubles Drum and Bugle Corps to playing in professional symphony orchestras. Dr. Oral Processon's student, Lisa Rogers tells how playing in the Oklahoma panhandlers has affected her. Well I think you know in order to be what I would consider a good musician you have to be able to broaden your horizons and play all aspects and all the varieties and might be leaning being a good percussionist you have to be the same thing you have to be able to play all areas whether it be a timpani and Oklahoma Philharmonic or a score or a stroke or playing percussion ensemble and this is just a great opportunity for me and I'm really enjoying it playing with these guys to expand and do some different things. Even with the diversity within the group all the members share one common element, a strong sense of professionalism which is essential for a successful musical group.

One thing that's good about this group, all of us being music students in a sense studying on campus with other teachers, we've learned how to rehearse and that helps. I mean we don't waste time in rehearsal and you find that a lot with people outside of studying music it's pretty much like what's to get together and jam man and that's all it is you know you don't get much done and we pride ourselves on really getting a lot of stuff done and as far as Friday night we're not going to carry your head off with the store or anything we're just you know it's going to be good music and you know come out and see it. The Oklahoma Panhandler Steel Drum Band plays it Brothers from 930 until 1130 this Friday night. There's no cover charge just lots of great music from this unique ensemble. For the Arts Report, I'm Chris Neill. This weekend the 15th annual University of Oklahoma clarinet symposium brings in some of the greatest clarinetists in the world to Norman for three days of masterclasses lectures

and public concerts. Steve Gerko, principal clarinetist with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, is one of the guest clinicians. He gives the first evening concert tonight in Cadillac Music Center. Although Gerko has certainly proven to be an outstanding performer, he also has a great deal to offer in the classroom. He explains exactly what happens in the masterclasses that he gives at the symposium. For the two hours that I'll be there, I will listen to some people that have signed up to perform for me. They will have prepared a piece that they would like to play for me and at that point, I will listen to them and then make comments and criticisms and observations and just generally like a lesson but in front of they'll be an audience there. So it's kind of scary for the person that has to get up there because he's essentially he or she is essentially bearing their own souls in front of all these people and then not even getting paid for it, I might add.

But it's kind of constructive because you know it's very easy to study with a teacher with whom you know and it's a luxury in a sense to get so many artists come in in one given time and I'm not the only person obviously that'll be giving these masterclasses. Harold Wright will be given Anthony Giuliani will be given, I know that Dave Etheridge probably will be giving them and it gives a lot of the people an opportunity to play for all these people. And as many musicians will tell you, one of the best ways to improve is to get exposure to other performers. Certainly critique from a professional player is a great help to younger students. To get a feeling for what it's like to hear different people and that have made it in the profession and they can hear different styles of clarinet playing and it gives them an opportunity to know that some of the things that they may or may not be able to do are in fact attainable on the clarinet.

The standards of the clarinetists now are higher than they've ever been and with each new generation because of this preceding generation the standards get even more high. And I think that at a convention like this where you have the opportunity to hear terrific clarinet players it gives the listener and it gives the potential professional out there the impetus that he or she may need to commit to making clarinet a profession. As clarinetists in the Dallas Symphony and I jumped professor of clarinet at Southern Methodist University Steve Gurko has enjoyed great success in music but there is more to his life than playing the clarinet. I'm a very good cook, I do it as a hobby, I still do it as a hobby and my specialties are gourmet Italian and gourmet French cuisine and he shares his cooking talent through a pizza catering business he runs in his spare time.

What I do is I prepare, see I make everything from scratch, I make my own Italian sausage, I make my own salad dressings, I make my own sauce, I saute obviously I saute my own vegetables and the name of my firm is eat my pizza and when you eat my pizza you eat my pizza you don't eat your pizza if you want pineapple on the pizza you don't hire me but if you want sliced sauteed mushrooms and sliced onions and pepperoni and homemade Italian sausage and a pound of mozzarella cheese on each and the final wonderfulness on this pizza is that I roast red peppers and I marinate it in garlic and olive oil and then I put this stuff on top of each pizza and I bake them in the people's oven so they hire me to come with my equipment and all my stuff I come in there and I assemble the pizzas there and then I bake them in their oven and then I serve the pizzas with the salad and then what I do and this is this is negotiable because everything obviously has

its price but since I am the principal clarinetist and since I'm doing this in coordination with my name recognition I will play a recital after the party great fun a lot of fun although we won't get to taste the speeds of this evening we won't get quite a sampling of his artistry and musicianship he plans to perform a virtuoso program of clarinet music I'm starting out with Von Weber concertino for clarinet then I'm doing the three pieces of Stravinsky then I'm finishing the first half off with a piece called Hylendale Walsers by Victor Babin intermission adagio and Allegro by Ernest Schosson which is a relatively unknown piece for unknown clarinet piece for the instrument a lot of clarinet players don't know this piece it's wonderful it's by Schosson so it's it's nice to do something that's not usually

done by a composer that doesn't usually write for the instrument and then I'm finishing it off with a piece called Irwin fantasy by Meister which is a lot of flash and swashbuckler type of piece clarinetist Steve Gorko brings diversity and great music to the University of Oklahoma tonight at 8 p.m. in Cadillac music center room 104 tickets for the general public are available at the door for the arch report I'm Chris Neal Dixieland music traditional jazz that fits any occasion is featured at the Oklahoma Museum of Arts picnic and concert on the green Saturday evening picnicers arrive between

7 p.m. to stake a claim on the grounds of the old Kirkpatrick mansion in Nickel Hill and the concert at 7 o'clock features the nationally known civilized tribe Dixieland band Kent Kidwell chairman of the music department at Central State University explains how the civilized tribe became a national touring group a journey which began not in New Orleans but in Edmund, Oklahoma a competition I should say through the Southern comfort corporation which was a national contest to locate the very best Dixieland band in the country and each year that corporation would sponsor a series of auditions and tryouts and competitions that would narrow the field of those entering from all over the country down to three finalist groups that would then go to a nationally selected location the annual convention of that organization and have what they advertise this being a battle of the bands and it was

always a nice fun time that involved three different university bands from different spots in the country and had a big and enthusiastic crowd and then the three bands would just have a battle royal so to speak like they used to do in New Orleans I guess where they'd have a battle of the bands and then with a nationally selected panel of judges they would pick the winning band with Central State entered that contest several different times I think the total number was seven years that we participated in the contest and we were very fortunate to make that final cut every time we entered twice we were picked national champions and that was a really wonderful thing for the kids because the competition prize involved rather substantial scholarships for all the students and a national tour.

Jazz Form 3rd today began with Dixieland and though traditional were far from being considered a proper academic subject we like to think of jazz as an art form really because the music itself has integrity it's not totally for the purpose of commercial performance although it began as functional music really people danced to it it was used in taverns and honky taunts and everything and so it was entertainment type music but it has evolved so that now it covers really two bases it is an art form and people go to concerts just to listen to jazz and listen to performers play that kind of music where at the first it was issues for dancing primarily but now it has evolved into a type of art form with like we say good aesthetic integrity and it is very studied and taught in universities and high schools.

The Civilized Tribe has several pieces and a variety of performers and we have probably five or six Dixieland bands out there in this area who are either students currently enrolled at Central State or who have graduated so our group and groups are able to perform around the area actually nationwide. Professional jazz men bring this pure American music to the Oklahoma Museum of Arts summer concert theory. I'll be playing with the group I really enjoy getting to play myself and my co-worker and the other director of the jazz program here Mr. Lee Rucker will be playing trumpet let's see on clarinet a very fine professional player in the Oklahoma City area it's been playing around here for years is OT Myers and he'll be playing woodwind primarily playing it a little bit of saxophone then our banjo player will be a student that's been using one

of the national championship groups his name is Curtis Nunley he's a music major here just finishing up his undergraduate degree very fine guitar and banjo player the two players another student here at Central State although not a music major is a pre veterinary major the white little bird comes from Del City Oklahoma he'll be the two player and in the drummer is another music major originally from Tulsa named Jeff Smith. Gates open at six o'clock the civilized tribe concert is at seven o'clock at seventy three sixteen nickels road the Oklahoma Museum of Arts picnic and concerts on the green a summer tradition featuring traditional art dixie land jazz for the arts report I'm Mary Collins