Hi folks,

In case you missed it, here is our first, "Book Lunch"!  

More on the new series from Mitch:  

"In this,  I believe my very fist “Book Lunch”, I discuss the door stop sized biography of Andy Warhol (just under 1000 pages!) by art critic and journalist Blake Gopnik.  

I will have some additional comments on the hit Netflix series based on the Warhol Diaries as were edited by Pat Hackett.

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New England Conservatory #music #jazz #composing #humanities #podcasts #audible #anchorfm #film #theatre #philosophy #filmtheory #filmarchives #spirituality #jazz #composition #literature #poetry #soundart #soundtracks #playwrighting #theatre #arts #travel #augustwilson #legacy #writing #philisophy #artsbroadcasting #books #audiobooks #creativity #artists #folkart #artisans #creation #spiritual #meditation #academics #filmarchives #travel #travelwriting #music#Warhol #BlakeGopnik #PatHackett #Netflix

On this Funky Friday at 5, which we feature every month on ourshow Facebook page here:https://www.facebook.com/journeyofanaesthetepodcast  

Your host, Mitch Hampton , talked with returning guest Tyler Bejoian on his newest album, The Bullfrog's Lamentation by Tyler & the Names!  

Please visit our You Tube channel and like share and subscribe, here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo5E339P1a54S1aivKPysWw/videos

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New England Conservatory #music #jazz #composing #humanities #podcasts #audible #anchorfm #film #theatre #philosophy #filmtheory #filmarchives #spirituality #jazz #composition #literature #poetry #soundart #soundtracks #playwrighting #theatre #arts #travel #augustwilson #legacy #writing #philisophy #artsbroadcasting #books #audiobooks #creativity #artists #folkart #artisans #creation #spiritual #meditation #academics #filmarchives #travel #travelwriting #music

I believe it was Jon Jost, our very first guest on this podcast who first put me in touch with Beth Levin. 

I am most happy he did because Levin is an ideal guest if you want to hear about the world of the piano as instrument and classical music more generally.

Many decades ago - in the middle 1980s to be exact - I was exciting a period in which I was strictly trained in what is called the Classical field and decisively entering the jazz and popular field.

I learned so much through my classical training and, though part of me did love it, my greatest wish and dream was to do original music rather than that written boy others - even if those others were the best composers of all time. 

A major theme in this podcast is that of artistic choice and every artist needs to decide what choice best reflects who they are. I feel that in having Beth Levin on the show, as corny or highfalutin as the following might sound, is a something like a living link to the world of Beethoven - and much more. 

Beth Levin is that good and also that deeply rooted in that particular musical tradition. I can't think of a more exciting or pleasing episode for your your pianist-host and my only hope is that our enthusiasm for the piano is communicated thoroughly as you listen to our episode. 

Bio 

Brooklyn-based pianist Beth Levin is celebrated as a bold interpreter of challenging works, from the Romantic canon to leading modernist composers. 

The New York Times praised her “fire and originality,” while The New Yorker called her playing “revelatory.” Fanfare described Levin’s artistry as “fierce in its power,” with “a huge range of colors.” 

Debuting as a child prodigy with the Philadelphia Orchestra at age twelve, Levin was subsequently taught and guided by legendary pianists such as Rudolf Serkin, Leonard Sure and Dorothy Taubman. Another of her teachers, Paul Badura- Skoda, praised Levin as “a pianist of rare qualities and the highest professional caliber.” Her deep well of experience allows an intuitive connection to the great pianistic traditions, to Bach, to Mozart, to Beethoven. 

Critics hail the immediacy of her performances. “Levin plays with a rare percussive audacity, making notes and phrases that usually rush by in the background stand out in high relief,” writes Richard Brody in The New Yorker. 

Website: https://www.bethlevinpiano.com/ Social Links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ beth.levin.music/ Link’d In: linkedin.com/in/beth- levin-30909332 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ bethlevinpiano/ Twitter:https://twitter.com/op109 

Links to Beth’s beautiful piano works: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7phxpwTfe2OtH043hJ4nfO https://soundcloud.com/bethlevin1/ravel-gaspard-de-la-nuit- no1-ondine https://soundcloud.com/wkcr/beth-levin-on-wkcr https://soundcloud.com/bethlevin1/dante-sonata https://open.spotify.com/artist/7phxpwTfe2OtH043hJ4nfO Excellent article about Marian Filar by Mark AInley of the Piano FIles: https://www.thepianofiles.com/the-magnificent-marian- filar/ Beethoven 3rd concerto of mine/ 2017, Germany https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awd_h_XwFos 

Links to Beth’s written works: Over the years I've written articles for: lafolia.com https://www.lafolia.com/a-look-at-schuberts-sechs- moments-musicaux-op-94-d780/ https://www.lafolia.com/?s=beth+levin **** https://soundcloud.com/bethlevin1/dante-sonata

This particular episode started, as so many of our episodes do, with a particular work of art or singular human instance of the aesthetic.

The work in question happens to be a photograph that Deborah Turbeville took for Vogue Magazine in 1975. Indeed I was so taken with it enough to acquire one signed by Turbeville.

A couple of years later, as I find myself with a podcast, I had many ideas as to one or more episodes connected with that photograph.

Perhaps a show on Deborah Turbeville, on modeling itself?

It seemed that a single photograph opened up more than I could have realized when first I discovered Turbeville's work.

I want to say that this is entirely in keeping with the nature of the artistic expression in all of its forms.

It is utterly mysterious and things that seem on first blush or glance to be quite remote and disconnected only later, upon deepest examination to be as connected as to form a symbiotic unity.

It could be a single photograph as much as a singular life.

Sunny Redmond, our extraordinary guest on this particular episode, appears have so many experiences within this single and singular lifetime.

Here was me wanting to discuss modeling, and the 70s and fashion and glamour and it turns out upon a little research that we would have to also discuss Hopi culture, traditional healing, the Grand Canyon and much more.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

I love the eloquence and directness of Sunny's discussion of her remarkable life. It seems rare to me for one person to have done all that she has.

I can hear her voice most likely saying to me now that "it was the most natural thing in the world" and I am glad that it is.

I was only too happy that she created the time and space to be on our show and I hope the listener might be inspired too to take a look at this thing we, for lack of a better word, call spirituality.”

For the arts and spirit are intimately connected and Sunny Redmond knows a lot about both.

Links to Sunny’s beautiful works:

Website: https://sunnyredmond.wordpress.com

Article:  https://sunnyredmond.wordpress.com https://www.taosnews.com/la-vida/sunny-redmonds- wholistic-approach-to-healing/article_67ff17a0- bd7c-5f7a-8d58-9bd369505de7.html

Bio: For an extended look at Sunny's biography & journey, please visit her website & our show Facebook page: 

"I assist individuals seeking their essential self. By reading the energy bodies and assessing where energy is held resulting in symptoms, the body gives me a map to proceed.  With sensitivity, experience and technique I support the restoring innate wholeness and ease.  The Mastery level work is long lasting, non-invasive and life altering in a deeply missed and longed for way. My truest connection to spirit is through serving exquisitely and humbly with respect. 25 years of experience, wise counsel with a Specialty in Trauma."

“Robert Pippin is one of the precious few thinkers, writers and teachers who stands out in the worlds of philosophy and the humanities for his devotion and attention to the arts most broadly construed. 

While others in his field might want to write on Hegel alone (about whom Pippin writes better anybody - see his Hegel's Prac- tical Philosophy - for but one example) Pippin has been pro- lific in writing on some of the major arts and artists of our modern and contem- porary periods, including Hollywood Westerns, Proust, Henry James, Douglas Sirk , crime and Film Noir movies, Coatzee novels, and paintings from all periods and eras. 

Even better it was revealed to me that he is deep in the footage of a book on the great Robert Bresson. 

In short, he writes on a lot of things and on those things very well. 

I must admit that my initial familiarity with him was back in the 1990s and due to my ongoing intense interest in Hegel, a philosophy who is experiencing a resurgence of interest at the moment, and even though I take Hegel to be for all ages and who though found to be difficult (an adjective that itself came up more than once in our episode) by many people I feel to be simply indispensable in the "canon" of the great philosophers. 

I found Robert Pippin to be in general very open and helpful in clarifying what can often be miscon- strued as obscure in certain quarters. 

Like the episodes with Elizabeth Anderson and George Kateb, this is one of those episodes where I was able to go into the weeds al little more than is usual and indulge my love for philosophy. 

I can only hope that some of this love is infectious and is as interesting for the listener as it was for us to conduct the episode.”

Links:

Website: voices.uchicago.edu/rbp1

Books: https:// press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/author/P/R/ au5252783.html

Bio 

For Mr. Pippin's extended biography, visit us here:https://www.facebook.com/journeyofanaesthetepodca

He is the author of several books on modern German philosophy, including Kant’s Theory of Form; Hegel’s Ideal- is: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness; Modernism as a Philosophical Problem; Hegel’s Practical Philosophy; After the Beautiful: Hegel and the Philoso- phy of Pictorial Modernism, and Hegel’s Realm of Shadows: Logic as Metaphysics in The Science of Logic; a book on philosophy and literature, Henry James and Modern Moral Life; and five books on film.

His last two books are Filmed Thought: Cinema as Re- flective Form, and Philosophy by Other Means: The Arts in Philosophy and Philosophy in the Arts, both published by University of Chicago Press.

He is a past winner of the Mellon Distinguished Achievement Award in the Humanities, is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the Ameri- can Philosophical Society, and of the German National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina.

“I could never fail to marvel at guests like our current one in February Anastasia Rose.

Like some or many of our guests she exhibits enormous talent and ability not only in more than one endeavor but seems to do so while possessed of integrity, an engaging temperament, and thus an ideal guest for our podcast as well as inspiration to others.Like me she is both a musician and neurodivergent but quite unlike me she has chosen to do everything in music from playing wind instruments, teaching and leading band, playing guitar as a singer-songwriter, playing in a punk band all in addition to being a pianist (and I am sure some other things I can't think of at the moment).

Moreover, she is also a music therapist and has her own business helping people of the most diverse psychological needs and backgrounds.

I feel something of her spirit, in its commitment to her practice and eclecticism in styles, bodes well for our future more generally and I certainly enjoyed hearing her discuss her journey.”

Bio

NURODIVERGENT, MUSICIAN, POET, ARTIST & MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCATE 

Originally hailing from Texas, Anastasia Rose has found a new home in the greater Denver metropolitan area. Her music combines multiple genres to encompass a nostalgic yet nouveau style with influence from Florence + The Machine, Elliott Smith, Death Cab For Cutie, Regina Spektor, and Ingrid Michaelson. Anastasia recently released her first solo single, Cosmic Love, a three song album which was written, performed, and produced by her.

From a young age, Anastasia took to music performance, composition, and education in a virtuosically natural fashion. She was singing before she was talking and playing the piano before she knew how to make friends. Music was always there for her and thus it was bound to become her passion and career as an adult.She is the CEO and primary therapist for Creative Remedies, LLC -- a therapy and lesson business aiming to offer therapeutic music experiences and education to all who seek it across the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability, neurology, socioeconomic class, religion, and more. Anastasia's music career is eclectic. 

She has performed with ensembles such as the Crossmen Drum and Bugle Corps and Boston Crusaders Drum and Bugle Corps which showcased and competed in front of upwards of 20,000 people at venues like the Lucas Oil Stadium (home of the Indianapolis Colts), Sports Authority Field (home of the Denver Broncos), and MetLife Stadium (home of the New York Giants and New York Jets).

Anastasia has also performed for various venues and festivals around the Denver metro area such as Herman's Hideaway, Your Mom's House, the People's Fair, Swallow Hill Music, and the Broomfield Summer Concert Series. She has also been part of ensembles that have opened for artists and bands across genres such as Emma Back, Younger Than Neil, and Write Minded.

For the extended bio, visit us here: https://www.facebook.com/journeyofanaesthetepodcast

Links: Performance/composer side: https://anastasiarosemusic.com

Therapist/music teacher side: https://www.creativeremediesllc.com

Sampling of her new tracks: https://anastasiarosemusic.com/music

“ I came upon the guests in this particular episode, Reza and Luke Nasserbakht of The Hop, custom shirt makers , in much the same way as I have come across people in my daily life: responding to my immediate environment in the moment with as little prior prejudice or planning as is possible. Much as I found our producer, Laurie Strickland simply by the ritual of getting a coffee in a coffee shop, Think Coffee to be exact, I was struck by a storefront on Elizabeth Street in Lower Manhattan. 

The beauty and design of it which led me into that environment, couple of course with my open-minded curiosity as much as my love of beauty. At that time I had very few shirts bespoke, resorting mainly to made to measure and the very best ready to wear. If you fast forward to today in 2021 their business has changed location: they are in a much tonier address uptown on Madison Avenue in a vicinity of New York City known for the better menswear and custom tailoring more generally. To me, of course it is very much the same family, and the very best level of craft and, dare I say, art. I thought it would be interesting given that my physical body has changed, like so many around the world at this time, to start from scratch and with a single shirt, to offer one simple example of what someone like Reza does and to include this episode as part of a larger series on clothing which inaugurated with Avery Lucas. 

I recorded some short audio interviews with both the father and his son Luke at their new space in Manhattan. The other thing that was clear to me is the validity of my snapshot theory of art applies here too. One thing that should be immediately clear concerning this particular episode is the extraordinary steadfastness and commitment to quality of craft, both over the longest period of time, as well as the greatest expanse of global geography. I met this family at a certain period of time and location of the years 2010 and 2011.  Yet from their point of view what matters most is the very real progress involved in their move uptown. 

There is a palpable sense of pride in this move as best reflecting what they are all about. In a sense that is their current "snapshot." And we see two opposites: on the one hand there is the sometimes great changes in the cut or silhouette of clothing in popular fashions seem to sweep the decisions of everybody, both in the initial construction of all clothing as well as the habits of those who will wear it. 

Yet on the other hand we see the absolute consistency of both measurements which are objective as well as quality of craft which always applies, no matter the garment in question, and how this commitment to such quality is passed on though generations and eras so that it can be enjoyed in the world, notwithstanding the vagaries of where any of us happen to find ourselves. 

For me what Reza and his son practice is as important as anything in art and culture." 

Reza, Luke and The Hop's Bio

A FAMILY CUSTOM

OUR FAMILY HAS BEEN MAKING CUSTOM SHIRTS FOR OVER 100 YEARS. WE LEARNED HOW TO MAKE SHIRTS FROM OUR FATHER WHO LEARNED HOW TO MAKE SHIRTS FROM HIS FATHER. IN OUR FAMILY, WE BELIEVE IN THE VALUE OF EXPERTLY CRAFTED GOODS. IN QUALITY OVER SPEED. OUR SHIRTS ARE MADE WITH THE FINEST QUALITY MATERIALS AND AN EXPERIENCED HAND. 

Links to Reza & The Hop’s beautiful work

Website: https://thehopnyc.com 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehopny  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ thehopnyc/

This particular episode is unlike any of the previous ones to date as far as I am aware. 

Of course every guest is unique and special but what stands our on this one is the response of the host - me. Lou Beach cracks me up so much and you can certainly hear more laughter coming from me than is usual on this podcast. 

I am talking rolling, falling off a chair laughter. (Which I almost did a couple of times). 

Of course part of this is the good sense of humor and charm of Lou Beach , elements that certainly make their way into his work. I should add that it is very hard to get me to laugh out loud at anything, an admittedly sore spot of my many friends and acquaintances who like to kid around and tell jokes. 

I first became aware of him through record album covers, first the Liquid Love album from Freddie Hubbard and then the great Weather Report album covers (also on Columbia) in the 70s. 

Only later did I realize there was so much more to Lou Beach. 

As I have said before on other occasions and I believe during our conversation on this episode, I don't really believe in or abide by the ordinary boundaries and demarcations of styles of art. For me these physically reproduced popular album covers are as valid and valuable as the un-reproduced fine oil paintings. 

Of course the meaning and intention is very different but the qualities I admire in Lou Beach's work - the radical whimsy, fearlessness, graphic surfeit of color, and the juxtaposition of disparate pop emblems and figures - are qualities that you can only really get with his style and the world of illustration itself. 

Collage too is till very valid; I often have though of the spirit and impulse of collage, though it does date as far back as the Germany of the 1920s, to be always relevant and in its own way most realistic. 

The content and figures in it are ones that are all a part of our daily lives, for better and for worse. Beach's work too, like the politically oriented ones in that Germany of the 20s, has a most serious dimension along side the popular and he is one of those few visual artists whose work refuses to be coy and always to be remembered. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did. 

Links to Lou's Beautiful Works : loubeach.com

Lou Beach's Bio: For the extended version of Lou's Bio, visit our show Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/journeyofanaesthetepodcast

Lou Beach (né Andrzej Jerzy Lubicz-Ledwochowski) was born in Göttingen, Germany in 1947, the son of Polish parents displaced by the Second World War. 

The family emigrated to Rochester, NY in 1951 where Lou attended public schools and junior college. He travelled to California in 1968 where he began his artistic career by making assemblage art and studying the Surrealists, visiting galleries and museums, and creating collages from pictures cut from old Life magazines. He worked during this time in bookstores, as a delivery man, moved furniture, and ran a punch press and forklift. A road trip across country, ostensibly to travel on to Europe from the East Coast, brought him to Boston where he lived from 1972 until 1979, much of the time as the sexton at the famous Arlington St. Church. 

There he created collages in earnest and had his first one man show at the newly established Boston Center For The Arts, as well as being hired for several illustration assignments.

“As I have said probably too many times in these posts our guests include people I have met personally and those whom I have never met not really only the artworks that are their creations in the widest sense of both art and creation.

I knew Skip Elsheimer because he was a man that traveled with 16 millimeter cans of ephemeral type movies to do live shows of such material. Back in the early 00s I attended some of midnight shows in Boston and a whole history of filmmaking was opened up to me.

Thanks to Skip this was really my first time seeing these type of movies in so concentrated and certainly curated fashion. Like a lot of us, of course some of these films had seen as a child in schools since educational films are a large portion of these films. But it encompasses much more: movies made by churches and religious groups, educational television and movies made by manufacturing corporations, NASA, government agencies even bureaucratic safety files.

Skip is one of the experts on such material.

Not only does he collect them and share his treasures with the world, he does so in both the most articulate and engaging a fashion with an enthusiasm that is infectious as well as integrity and civility, these last two features in short supply these days in too much of our culture.

Much like my own definition of art itself - which aims to call into question the boundaries between works made for mere utility, or entertainment as well as those made for the most idiosyncratic and self expressive of reasons - Skip's project gets us to look at the films he has collected in a genuinely original way, in an historical and, I would add, aesthetic way.

When we see one of these films from 1972 or 1952 we are seeing aspects of our history. Some of this material is best described as dubious, especially political, business and corporate and government propaganda. Other material has legitimate artistic value. Still other material is interesting as an historical aesthetic document of how people lived appeared and even dressed in a particular moment. To me all of it is most interesting but I am also aware that not everybody might get as excited as do I by these films.

Whether you are a fan or not of this incredibly large part of film history, Skip is among its most eloquent and informed spokespeople and as such it was a joy for me to have him as guest on our show.

During this episode Skip and I have discussion of one film in particular: Malakapalakadoo, Skip Two.

Like its title, which I can't seem to pronounce, it is to me anyway the strangest thing ever committed to film or video, though that is one man's opinion.

It was made for children evidently and by Encyclopedia Britannica, no less. Skip's wife dislikes it; I love it.

But that is in the nature of artistic evaluation."

Links to Skip's beautiful work:

Website: https://avgeeks.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV78nuSmJxTtHaD4wnzPJkA

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AVGeeks?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV_mrBMLxKQ&t=214s

“I am sure it would come as little surprise to know that of all the variety of musical styles the one that has had the most influence on my own musicianship is what has gone by the name of jazz. Still, even within the majestic mansion that is African-American classical and popular music there are so many rooms and hallways.

One of the most important is the contribution of Latin and Afro-Cuban and Brazilian musicianship, particularly in the art of percussion.

Our guest in this episode, Frank Colon is one of the leading masters in this field. I know him more for his stint in the Tania Maria band since I have been an avid fan of her starting in the 1980s. I suppose you could say that when I watched her perform I hadn't the slightest notion that I would one day have any kind of show where I could discuss the life and career of any of the musicians with whom she has worked. Back then there were no podcasts.

So it was with great delight that Frank Colon responded to a message I left on one of his videos on his channel.

It is a mysterious thing really why any of us in music gravitate towards the music we love.

On this episode you will hear me asking about a lot of pianists who might not be household names or famous, like the late, great Jorge Dalto, Frank Colon has played with these and many more. 

I think from time to time it is good to mention these cats. Who knows; maybe they and their music will find more or newer listeners in the future?

But the love of the music is the important thing and, additionally like many guests on our show, Frank Colon is multi talented in seemingly depart fields, even becoming a master at martial arts.

Someone so multi talented and accomplished makes, of course, for a most exciting episode and I hope you enjoy hearing about his journey as much as we enjoyed exploring it in this episode.”

Frank's Bio:

Frank Colón’s music will move your body and soothe your soul.  His sophisticated, hot, and soulful music raises consciousness, brings people together, and promotes peace!

Frank is a specialist in Latin-Caribbean, Brazilian, and Asian percussion instruments, including congas, bongos, timbales, bata drums, shekere, cuica, berimbau, and tabla drums, among others.

The Frank Colón Band consists of (1) a Quartet (piano/keyboards, bass, drums, percussion) or (2) Quintet (piano/keyboards, bass, sax/trumpet, drums, percussion) performing songs from his CDs.

Frank is also available for motivational percussion clinics as well as recording work.

Links to Frank’s beautiful work: 

www.frankcolonpercussion.com 

https://youtu.be/S0inko59oTw