Border Crossing

by Bob Pomeroy

It’s hard making the adjustment back to Florida after even a short visit to Amsterdam. A city like Tampa was not laid out with people in mind. The city serves the needs of automobiles. The sprawl is horrible and absolutely nothing is within walking distance. If you don’t have a car, then getting around town is almost impossible. In contrast, Amsterdam is entirely human scale. The entire city center is packed into a half ring of circular canals. Practically everything you’d care to do is located within the canal belt. Walking at a

leisurely pace, it took me 45 minutes to get from the outer canal to Central Station. I think that’s wonderful! Add to that the proliferation of small shops, funky coffee shops, music venues and red lights and you’ve got a city it’s easy to fall in love with.

I didn’t plan my trip to coincide with Border Crossing Festival, but I

should have. Border Crossing is a three day event that pulls together music, literature, film and spoken word performers. The Festival purposely blurs the distinctions between the arts and emphasizes the commonalities. Films, poets, writers and musicians shared the same stages and the same audiences. Musical acts covered the spectrum from Emmylou Harris to Asian Dub Foundation and a lot of ground in between. Unlike events like South By Southwest, Border Crossing was

all about the artists and not industry hipsters. That was pretty refreshing.

There were two moments that symbolized the spirit of Border Crossing for me. The first was when The Posies literally shared the stage with Said El Haji. The Posies soundcheck drew enough of a crowd that the band began their set early; before their opening act had a chance to read. So the Posies played a few unscheduled songs, then yielded the stage to El Haji. Said read an excerpt from his latest novel. I couldn’t understand a word of what he said (it was

all in Dutch) but I laughed anyway. You don’t always need to know what is being said when the delivery is over the top. The German fellow sitting next to me explained that Said’s book in about a young man experiencing conflict over his Dutch/Muslim identity. The passage he read was about this guy hallucinating that Allah was telling him to sacrifice a goat, and the Dutch farmer who wouldn’t let him walk away with said animal. After reprising the best bit of his reading for

a Dutch TV crew, Said yielded the stage back to the Posies for their scheduled set.

The Dutch band DeKift personified the spirit of the festival. Their

performance incorporated film, spoken word performance, acting and, of course, music. Their hour-long set featured films projected on screens behind the band, but the narrative shifted frequently from scenes playing out on screen to scenes played out on stage to pieces where the live action and films each carried part of the story. DeKift displayed an amazing versatility not only in dealing with the shifting narrative frame, but in playing music that ranged from beer hall sing-along to punk rock to jazz. My only problem with DeKift’s amazing performance (and this is really self criticism) is that I had trouble following the story which was performed entirely in Dutch.

The spirit of Border Crossing seemed to permeate Amsterdam. The day before the festival, I attended a concert by Sylvie Couvoisier at the Bimhuis. Couvoisier is a Swiss composer and pianist who was performing with a New York-based quartet featuring cellist Eric Friedlander. Couvoisier’s songs combine techniques from jazz and experimental music. Her piano style reminds me of Fred Van Hove, who also uses the extremes of the keyboard and directly manipulated the strings and soundboards inside the instrument. The quartet Couvoisier

brought to the Bimhuis were adept at following her excursions through jazz and classical timbers. Friedlander is one of a handful of cellists at home in a free environment. Trumpeter Coung Vu’s style touched on Don Cherry melodic flourishes and Jon Hasselleque electronic manipulations. Sylvie Couvoisier demonstrated conclusively that she is not content to live within narrowly defined borders.

Another form of Border Crossing is found on the new CD from Terrie Ex and Ab Barrs. Terrie Ex is one of the guitarists in the anarcho-punk band, the Ex. Ab Barrs has played with the Ex but is better known as one of Holland’s more aggressive jazz tenor players. On Hef the pair square off in a series of duets that liner notes’ author John Corbett compares to Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master films. Like the martial arts master in the Chan film, the music made by Ab and Terrie sometimes sounds like it’s staggering out of control only to deliver killer blows that are right on target.

Now I’m back in Tampa contemplating dimpled chad, two presidential

candidates who don’t know the meaning of compromise and lamenting urban sprawl. At least I have the prospect of Dave Douglas coming down to Florida to look forward to.

Links:
<a href=www.bimhuis.nl>www.bimhuis.nl</a>

<a href=www.dekift.nl>www.dekift.nl</a>

<a href=www.regart.ch/sylviecourvoisier>www.regart.ch/sylviecourvoisier</a>