2009.09.25
Show notes: Sweet Honey in the Rock at Jefferson Center
Now for a couple of things I didn't have room for in the review:
> Ysaye Barnwell held down the bottom end for this act. It would be tough going for Sweet Honey without a solid bass presence, or at least the lower end of baritone. Barnwell made that happen, and in combination with the other vocalists' chord singing on beats two and four, provided a deep groove for whoever was singing lead at the time. It was like drums and keyboard at once.
> Sweet Honey in the Rock has long worked with an interpreter for the deaf. Its interpreter, Shirley Childress Saxton, apparently gets quite a workout, too.
> I am pathetically ignorant about sign language, but I learned two things tonight. First, the sign for the word "heaven" is flat palms to the heart. For "devotion," the hands are clasped in from of the chest.
> During a percussion-only section of the Malian prayer song "Denko," Saxton worked out a hip polyrhythm with her hands. It doesn't take fluency to get that, and you don't need to hear it to realize something cool is going on.
Now for a quick note on Jefferson Center's latest version of its Star City Performance Series. Announcer Cyrus Pace, filling in for the Jeff's artistic director, Dylan Locke, told the crowd that the 2009-2010 series has recorded its best-ever season ticket sales.
Afterward, box office and guest services manager Sarah Webber said it has sold 397 season tickets this time out. Last year, it sold 289.
Next up in the Star City series: The Robert Cray Band, on Oct. 18. That show has already sold out, and judging from a couple of listens to Cray's latest disc, "This Time," the audience is in for a series blues/rock/soul treat.
