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(09/18/00 4:31am)
Sara Caswell and her band took the stage Thursday at Bear's Place to celebrate her first CD, First Song, recently released on Double Time Records. The concert featured a mix of songs from her CD and old standards.\nAt its heart, jazz is a series of tone poems, with the music evoking other senses: a rainy night, a sunny day, a bittersweet parting, a playful kitten, a hipster swinging down the street. This tone poetry came through well in front of a crowd of 80 or so patrons at Bear's.\nCaswell, a recent IU graduate, is becoming a master at playing the violin, arranging songs and mixing them into sets, at bringing out the best in her band and at letting them bring out the best in her. As she has accumulated experience, Caswell's playing has gotten progressively more confident. \nOver the course of the few years since her undergraduate days at IU, she has gone from a talented, but sometimes tentative and shy person, to someone in command of herself, her music and her surroundings.\nHer vibrato was very evident on "When Sunny Gets Blue," helping to evoke a slide from sunniness to discouragement. Perhaps most noticeable was the ability she has to match her sister Rachel's voice with her violin. During "Charms of the Night Sky," Rachel's scat singing blended with the smooth ligato of Sara's violin until it became, at times, hard to tell the two apart. Both sisters managed to achieve an eerie quality that evoked images of a beautiful night sky and the pleasures of sitting back in the grass and watching the moon and the stars.\nIn "Sneezin'" Sara used a lot of detache (quick bow movements) to produce crisp articulation, matching Rachel's bouncy scat of "dub-dub-dub-dub-dub-dub-dub-dooah-duh."\nRachel and Sara's mother, Judy Caswell, commented on this, "Mark O'Connor said he's tried for years and years to blend voice and instrument. But it has to be a family thing."\nThe mixing and arranging of the songs was also impressive. In addition to the tunes from First Song, Caswell mixed in old standards such as "Sneezin'," "Got a Match?" and "Oleo." In Chick Corea's "Got a Match?" the opening bars sounded vaguely like a Slavic folk dance. In "When Sunny Gets Blue" the band achieved a low, mellow, almost bittersweet tone. One could almost imagine a sunny, cheerful person made blue by a streak of bad luck. It faded out with a C minor.\nIn "Anna's Song," written in memory of the Caswells' cat, Jack Helsley on bass and Luke Gillespie on piano had a nice little duet, evoking the pitter pattter of a cat's feet. Helsley, the ubiquitous bass man, has quick hands. After Helsley strummed and picked for most of the song on "Ifsahan," this reviewer looked down for an instant only to look up to see him with a bow in his hands deftly finishing off the song.\nLuke Gillespie got way down low in the register on "Bemsha Swing" and helped evoke the image of swinging down the street. David Miller, in addition to some very mellow mute work on the trumpet, also brought a flugelhorn for the songs in the second set. Pete Wilhoit, also a music school employee, did a nice steady job of background on the drums, though it would have been nice to see him get a chance to solo.\nIt might not have been a real weakness, but although the sisters achieved uncanny tonal similarity on the whole, they did not do so on "Useless Landscapes," a ballad from the CD. This is not to say they did a bad job individually, only that the tonal similarity was missing on this tune.\nThe only other weakness is that the announcing of the songs was inconsistent. Why not just run off some copies of the two set play list and put them on the tables with copies of coming attractions? This reviewer had a list, but the patrons didn't and that would have been a nice touch.\nBut these are minor quibbles. It was a well-matched group. The band's rapport was great and the band members seemed to complement each other in all the right places.\nOne watcher, a tall blond fellow, put it well as he stood in the cool of the evening after it had just finished raining.\n"She smoked it"
(09/14/00 5:41am)
Recent IU graduate and jazz violinist Sara Caswell will perform selections from her debut album today at Bear's Place, 1316 E. Third St., at 5:30 p.m. She will be accompanied by her sister, Rachel Caswell, on vocals, Jack Helsey on bass and Pat Harbison on trumpet. Admission is $5 at the door.\nCaswell released her first CD, First Song, on Double Time Records in July. It features arrangements of songs by such legends as Thelonius Monk ("Bemsha Swing") and Kurt Weill ("Speak Low"), as well as several tunes written by Caswell herself. A past crowd pleaser written by Caswell is "Anna's Song," a tribute to her late cat, which died of a brain tumor. \nCaswell has been studying the violin since she was a child and has played with such luminaries as Johnny Frigo and Claude Williams. A regular teacher at a summer fiddle camp in Tennessee, she is working on getting an Artist's Diploma from the IU School of Music. \nCaswell will be joined by a veteran group. Harbison, an associate professor, is a veteran of numerous concerts and recording sessions, and a regular at Bear's Jazz Fables. Helsey has appeared in recent concerts, including "Cool Jazz, Hot Summer Nights" series last July. He is also a member of the jazz fusion group Beeblebrox. \nRachel Caswell is an IU alumna, has a Master's degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, and has also won several singing competitions. She is particularly good at matching her voice to her sister's violin playing.\nSpeaking just before her debut concert at the John Waldron Arts Center this past summer, Sara Caswell said, "I love my sister's voice because of the instrumental quality." She said she and her sister have a chemistry that allows them to synchronize their voices, what she terms "a sibling thing."\nRachel Caswell, who also studied the cello at IU, has been influenced by her study of instruments in addition to voice. Last July, preparing for her concert at the IU Art Museum, Rachel said, "A lot of the really good improvisers, like Louie Armstrong or Bobby McFerran have come from a tradition where they played another instrument because they know the theory behind it. I try to take a little bit from everyone, not just singers"
(09/04/00 6:02am)
People strolled along Fourth Street Saturday and Sunday, between Dunn and Lincoln streets, jostling and gawking at the wares spread out in the booths lining both sides of the street. It was a timeless scene, one replayed in every marketplace since the beginning of trade among humankind. During the past 24 years, the Fourth Street Festival of the Arts and Crafts has been a cornucopia of arts and crafts which heralds the end of summer in Bloomington.\nDennis Conway, husband of potter Ruth Conway, said there were unofficially about 18,000 people a day. "Of course," he said, "The big thing is, do you count the people walking by, or the people who buy?" \nThe weather was hot and muggy, but that wasn't all bad, said George Zajicek, a glass worker. "The heat slowed things down," said Zajicek. "But for the people people who did come out, it gave them more time to peruse the art. They spend more time looking and taking cards and maybe buy at a later time."\nLorraine Farrell, president of the Fourth Street Festival Committee, also commented on the weather.\n"This weather sure beats rain." said Farrell. "In 24 years, we've been fortunate enough not to have rain to speak of. Hopefully that will be true on the 25th."\nFarrell, a native Hoosier, studied fine arts at IU, then went to the Sir John Cass School of Art in London, England, an experience she termed "revitalizing."\nIn addition to festival artists such as Farrell, a jeweler, were a potter who makes both teapots and bird houses; a glass worker who makes brightly colored plates and bowls; a stained glass artist who makes fish, dragonflies and musical motifs; and a painter who does part of his work on the computer and part with traditional paint.\nConway was perhaps the only artist with a ceramic nameplate. Petite and proper in a very British way, yet quite friendly, she said teapots present a special challenge. \n"It has to be comfortable when you pour it, but it also has to look right." Conway also makes birdhouses for wrens. The little brown pieces of pottery are a little bigger than a soup bowl, with a small hole in them. They are, said Conway, just right. \n"They are the right size, four inches by six inches, and the hole is small enough that a sparrow can't get in and throw the wren out."\nEast of Conway's booth on the same side of Fourth Street was the booth of George and Phyllis Zajicek. Set out on the table were plates in a plethora of colors, brightly colored spots of paint locked inside the glass. Next to them were rippled dishes of clear glass with smoky streaks of dark gray running through the glass. A woman picked out one of the brightly colored plates to buy. George Zajicek thanked her, "That's a beautiful piece; thank you for appreciating it." \nDifferent from the glass works of the Zajiceks is the stained glass artistry of Jacques Bachelier. At Bachelier's booth, a couple contemplated the purchase of a stained glass dragonfly, deciding on one with bright blue eyes. The dragonfly was about 18 inches long with a similar wingspan. \nAll around his booth hung creations displaying a prism of colors. Bachelier said, "As artists, we want to do something new for people to see." Commenting on his display, he said, "It makes people smile. It looks like a beautiful garden."\nAcross Fourth Street, just west of Bachelier's booth, Ken Graning mopped sweat off his brow with a towel and gestured to a painting in progress of a butte out in the western desert. "That's Sedona, Arizona, between Phoenix and Flagstaff." In his painting, the earth was a rich brown and the sky was beginning to turn red, what many people call a "western sunset."\nGraning was an illustrator for more than 35 years, then "about 10 years ago, I began to paint for myself," he said.\nHe has since progressed to scanning his paintings into a scanner and then outputting them onto different types of textured surfaces. "It's a mixed media, a traditional/electronic painting technique." Graning said. "It's a bridge between traditional and electronic imaging."\nWith its wide variety of arts and crafts, the Festival was a show not to be missed, but there is always next year. Said Farrell, "We want to do some very special things for next year"
(09/04/00 3:47am)
Jacques Bachelier lives in Nashville, Ind., and like many Nashville residents, he grew up in a serene countryside where stone was quarried. But no, it wasn't South Central Indiana. Bachelier actually grew up in Tours, France; a town in the Loire Valley. Bachelier, a stained glass artist, wears a tan beret that looks like burlap. \nWith the beret, he might be mistaken for a French painter, a career path he once considered. How did he become a stained glass artist? Following him from his boyhood in the Loire Valley, to engineering school to life as an a artist, it becomes apparent that his early exposure to both ornate cathedrals and engineering have left him with a unique ability to use engineering to achieve beautiful art. \nThe city of Tours is not far from the more famous city of Orleans, site of the death of Joan of Arc. Tours, in certain contexts, means "towers" in French; and the city of Tours is noted for some of its ornate stonework on the local cathedrals. \nThe cathedrals are built from a stone that is "somewhere between limestone and sandstone," Bachelier said. It is easy to carve and that is why the stonework is so ornate. But, there is one disadvantage to the stone, Bachelier said. "Because the stone is so soft, the cathedrals are always being repaired."\nBachelier studied engineering at College Gramont in Tours. While studying, he looked at the engineers in their white lab coats and thought of painters in white smocks. But there was a difference between the two: "Anybody can do engineering, but they lack imagination," he said, recalling his impression of engineers. At this point, he began to consider art.\nIt took him a while to find out just what kind of art. "At first, I wanted to be a painter. I'm French; that's what we do." Gesturing at his stained glass creations, he said, "Finally, I realized that this is what I wanted to do."\nBachelier is very creative in his approach, using a lot of common items people might not notice at first. For instance, the eyes of the stained glass fish are actually discarded lenses from the School of Optometry. The tail fins of the fish are created by tracing the thumb and fingers of his hand and then cutting the glass in that shape.\nBachelier's eyes sparkled as he told the story. For him, art is part and parcel with living. "You have to have fun with your work if you want to produce good quality work." Bachelier said. "And I do have fun. I love what I do."\nThe biggest piece of art work hanging in his booth is a kind of mobile called "Satourne 6," approximately three feet in diameter. It is five circular rings of brightly colored glass surrounding a center circle of glass. They all move and turn smoothly within each other. The title is both a play on the rings around the planet Saturn and a pun in French. In French, ca tourne means, "it turns." \nHe estimated that he spent 200 hours creating the piece before he finally decided against a seventh ring. Bachelier feels he can push the artistic envelope and create a mobile with seven rings, because "round shapes are the strongest shapes."\nAnother fascinating piece is his "See Major #3." There is a pun in the word "see," because he has again used lenses from the School of Optometry to serve as musical notes. A real (though rather dented) trumpet is built into the middle of the piece. Glass piano keys are at the top and a glass saxophone is at the bottom of the piece. Bachelier said, "It's a jazz piece." \nIt's the third such piece he has produced, one with a real saxophone and one with a real clarinet. He drew inspiration when he lived in Paris and saw Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bishop play until the wee hours of the morning in little bistros with checkered tablecloths.\nFrom a city of cathedrals to the night life of Paris, Bachelier has traversed a great deal. But he is back in stone country and loving it. "The people of this area have been very good to me"
(08/28/00 6:20am)
Every year, returning students and incoming freshmen shop for furniture, rugs and items for decorating their apartments and dorm rooms. One place to start this decorative search is the 24th-annual Fourth Street Festival of the Arts and Crafts.\nThe free festival takes place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday . The information booth will be centrally located at the intersection of Fourth and Grant streets. With about 100 different booths, many different mediums will be represented: clay pottery, jewelry, photography, painting, woodwork, metal work, basketry, leather, sculpture, print making, drawing, glass work, paper, fiber and mixed media.\nLorraine Farrell, a jeweler who has exhibited in the past and the current president of the Fourth Street Festival Committee, put the festival in context.\n"It's important to make a distinction between an open festival and a juried festival," she said. \nFarrell explained that not just anyone can exhibit their wares. Only the best can come and the very best are given awards. The festival's first, second and third place prizes are awarded by a six-juror committee with confidential ballots. George Zajicek, past president of the Fourth Street Festival Committee, added that the jury is "six different people every year."\nGetting six new artists a year is not hard, he said, considering the festival was created by artists and is artist-centered. \n"Our goal is to provide an outdoor art show of high quality that will be mutually beneficial to both the exhibitors and the community," Farrell said. \nBoth Farrell and Zajicek noted the festival is rated as one of the top festivals by Sunshine Artists Magazine.\nAlthough it is very artist-centered and not strictly commercial, Zajicek said to be forewarned is to be forearmed. If one goes, be prepared for a crowd. The very high quality of the festival, he said, has traditionally pulled in huge crowds. Farrell estimated that it will have 30,000 visitors in two days. Zajicek said in 1995, police estimated the crowd size to be 25,000. And it has only gotten bigger. Local musicians, actors, jugglers and other groups will be performing in designated areas complete with seats for spectators.\n"We'll even have belly dancers and barbershop quartets." Farrell said.\nIt is this mix of art, craft and entertainment that Zajicek said makes the festival so successful. \nFarrell, Zajicek and Conway all have slightly different approaches to their art, but they are all conscious of the history and future of the festival. \n"It started as a very small fair, but always with the idea of excellence," Conway said. \nFarrell stressed that its very integrity is what has made it so popular with the people of Bloomington, year after year. \n"It's remained at a grass roots level since 1976," she said. \n"The show is one the greatest in the country for both the patron and participating artist," Zajicek said. "Don't miss it, because it's great"