Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 14:51:39 -0500 From: "Tom Albanese" Subject: Re: boast or confession? (Popper)
Glenn Weiser wrote(snip):
<out there, IMO. I'll remind folks here that Jon Parales in a New York Times review described his playing as "dizzying runs that go up and down the scale and end nowhere," and that it "seems to be a contest to pack as many notes into a measure as possible.">>
I used to be in the camp that agreed with the critic that Glenn quotes above, but I'm slowly (and a little grudgingly) swaying over to being more open minded about Popper. Yeah, some of his blazingly fast stuff doesn't seem to be going anywhere, but then again, some of it sounds pretty impressive. A friend at work loaned me the new BT cd, "Bridge". I have to admit there's some very interesting harp playing on this disk. Different, original (he's always been that), and yes, even tasteful. A lot of what Popper does as background, just-playin'-in-the-band harp work on this cd is IMO, tasty and surprisingly subtle. He still relies on those note packed signature runs a lot, but so do many players of all instruments, especially when improvising (Garcia and Coltrane come to mind). That said, I am definitely a member of the less is more school when it comes to music. But I also believe that musical boundaries exist only in the mind. That may be a contradiction, but life is full of contradictions.
