Jazz thrives in Milwaukee’s “music alley” a.k.a. Center Street

 

 

Baritone saxophonist Anders Svanoe

ASTRO (Anders Svanoe’s Teleporting Rhythmic Orchestra), Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts, 926 E. Center St., 7 p.m. tonight, May 17, ($10)

The Ethan Philion Quartet, 8-10:30 p.m., May 24, Bar Centro,  ($10)

The Tlalok Rodriguez Quartet. Bar Centro, 8-10:30 p.m. , May 25 (free)

Donna Woodall, Bar Centro, 8-10:30 p.m., May 30

The Anthony Deutsch Trio with Juli Wood, 8-10:30 p.m., Bar Centro, May 31 ($25)

“Since the 1980s, Riverwest has moved like the river it borders—a place of restless culture and commingling social currents.”

That’s how I described my neighborhood for a Shepherd Express survey of distinctive Milwaukee neighborhoods in 2022. Nothing epitomizes that vitality more than E. Center Street, perhaps the commercial heart of Riverwest and pretty close to the geographic center of Milwaukee.

The next few weeks will demonstrate the jazz side of Milwaukee’s “Music Alley.” Center Street boasts at least six music venues, active to varying degrees.

There are comparable weeks of activity at any given time, but I decided that attention must be paid as “Up Jumped Spring,” as jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard might’ve put it. Such artistic buoyancy is important because, after all, “Spring can really hang you up the most,” as another memorable jazz standard puts it.

The space with by far the longest jazz-performance pedigree is The Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts, 926 E. Center, located just one block west of the beginning of Center Street, which is North Humboldt Blvd.

It’s storied history is primarily “centered” on its first incarnation as the Milwaukee Jazz Gallery, which ran from 1978 to 1984, as a bastion of both national and local talent that a Milwaukee venue the size of an intimate nightclub has rarely equaled.

The venue’s new incarnation, the JGCA has endured financial ups and downs as did its namesake and has survived in recent years largely thanks to being a non-profit and its well-marketed art exhibits. But tomorrow night will exemplify the type of cutting-edge jazz and improv-oriented music the center now exemplifies.

A relatively new Madison-based ensemble called ASTRO will perform Friday, May 17 in support of their new album Eclipse, the ensemble is conceptually and somewhat nominally inspired by avant-bandleader and musical visionary Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra, and is led by baritone saxophonist and composer Anders Svanoe (the band’s name is an acronym for Anders Svanoe’s Teleporting Rhythmic Orchestra, which soars to the spirit of the outrageously and blissfully transcendent Sun Ra, whose band was always ably ballasted by powerful if pliant and fleet baritone saxophonists, including Pat Patrick and Danny Thompson for many years.

Eclipse is subtitled State of the Baritone, Volume 6, a concept nominally and somewhat aesthetically derived from the late saxophone giant Joe Henderson’s acclaimed two-volume live recordings State of the Tenor. However, those were magisterial and somewhat summative statements from a restlessly creative artist nearing his autumnal years. Svanoe, by contrast is a substantially younger musician, though clearly in his prime. And he’s absolutely dedicated to advancing the artistry and visibility of his primary axe.

Thus, Svanoe has now produced the sixth volume of albums that strive to define the aesthetics of the still underexposed and appreciated baritone saxophone for the present and future. He does so with all the authority of bop and post-bop masters like Pepper Adams, Nick Brignola, Gary Smulyan, and James Carter, and pathfinders like Ra’s bari travelers, Roscoe Mitchell (with whom he still performs), and fusion pioneer John Surman.

Eclipse opens fearlessly and auspiciously with “Klokka Er Fem,” a brief, flat-out free-jazz kaleidoscope, followed by the funky and propulsive “Whistle Stop,” evoking a bustling train loaded with musicians, like what you’d imagine a traveling swing orchestra might sound like jamming on the rails while on a cross-country concert tour of venues both grungy and glorified. Geoff Brady’s vibes riffing give this driving urgency, while Svanoe’s baritone lends it the sort of hard-driving swiftness that makes such time fly by.

Then Svanoe’s honors another truly historic Madison jazz musician who recently passed away, bassist Richard Davis. The small ensemble blending angular cubism and spacious pointillism with Bobby Hutcherson-esque vibes evokes two classic mid- ’60s modern jazz masterpieces, Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch! and Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure. and Svanoe hardly eases up on meaty free full ensemble interludes. Bassist Davis played on both of these ever-engaging and challenging Blue Note albums, and always proved supportive yet as artful and provocative as any of his co-players.

“Long Road” seems to gaze down to the horizon with an eloquently anthemic theme and highly musical horn riffing keyed by Svanoe’s improvised through-playing and a piquant guitar solo by Louka Patenaude. It lights the way with a reflectively lyrical theme, a piece that’s an album highlight. “Images” is free-playing again and seems to honor saxophonist Albert Ayler, who often used metaphysical beings in his titles, with big heart-bursting tenor sax playing from Pawan Benjamin. The players then seem to wander through the sonic haze, searching for, or perhaps embodying, ghosts of a genuinely spooky sort.

This leads to “Ghosts,” another sumptuous and regally outward-bound theme, promenading through fulsome whole notes, al a Sun Ra at his most magisterial. The processional closing harmonies are astringent yet spacious, almost hallowed.

The album ends, in utter irreverence, with a rock ‘n’ roll riff groove called “Memories” and Svanoe quickly drives it into a burn-out-the gears heat. Trumpeter Jon Ailabouni almost evokes a crazed-elephant trombone bleating in comic grotesquery, as does tenor sax player Benjamin. Guitarist Patenaude adds saber-slashes of crunching power chords, before the sax-heavy front line band brings it home breathlessly.

This should be great stuff live even if the Milwaukee band will be smaller than the album’s medium-sized big band.

Chicago bassist Ethan Philion (background) will lead a quartet including trumpeter Russ Johnson (foreground) next Friday at Bar Centro.

A week from Friday on May 24th, Center Street other leading jazz venue, Bar Centro,, now the area’s premiere place for straight-ahead modern jazz, will present The Ethan Philion Quartet. His name may still not ring bells with many Milwaukee area jazz fans, even if I’ve done my modest part to hop Quasimodo-like onto those resounding ropes.

I was deeply impressed by the Chicago-area bassist-bandleader’s dedication album to a great musical hero. And, for sure, it had been so long since I’d heard great new music in the letter and spirit of mighty Charles Mingus — that I did feel some of Quasimodo’s astonished gratification, when he says of Esmerelda, “She gave me water!”

In fact, I was so struck that I chose Philion’s Meditations on Mingus as the best album of the year in the NPR jazz critics poll bthat year, which I can’t say much more for, especially for a musician I hadn’t heard of before. Here’s my review: https://kevernacular.com/?p=14938

Meditations was recorded with a ten-piece band. Centro will present The Ethan Philion Quartet, featuring Greg Ward on alto saxophone, Russ Johnson on trumpet), and Dana Hall on drums. Their debut album, Gnosis, was released on October 6th on Sunnyside Records and drew praise from DownBeat Magazine, Chicago Jazz Magazine, JAZZIZ and more. Critic Larry Applebaum praised the ensemble’s “deep listening and open-ended solos” in his four-star review of Gnosis in DownBeat.

This should be a heavyweight group that floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. For my money, Chicagoan Ward and Milwaukeean Johnson are currently the best soloists on their respective instruments in the upper Midwest, yes, alto sax and trumpet. As for Philion the player, he was the winner of the 2019 International Society of Bassists Jazz Competition.

If Philion is still mining Mingus, the instrumentation suggests one of the bassist’s greatest small bands, with Eric Dolphy on alto sax and Ted Curson on trumpet, renowned for the 1960 Candid label album Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus.

The ten-spot cover charge might be a steal.

Philion also leads an acoustic trio featuring arrangements of jazz standards in the Nat King Cole Trio style.

*****

Bar Centro will present Tlalok Rodriguez Quartet on Saturday May 25. The bassist-bandleader is a bilingual singer / songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in Milwaukee. I don’t know him but Centro explains “Originally a Chicago native, he comes from a long line of musicians dating back to his great-grandfather who was a composer from Vicente Guerreo, Mexico.  A century later he keeps the family tradition alive through boleros, bossa novas, and vibrant performances channeling the passion of his ancestors.”

Thursday May 30 Centro will feature perhaps Milwaukee’s leading female jazz singer, Donna Woodall, who probably needs less introduction than any live performer in this column. She won the 2023 WAMI for best female vocalist. Period.

Pianist-vocalist Anthony Deutsch

Then on the following Friday May 31st, The Anthony Deutsch Trio with saxophonist-vocalist Juli Wood will play Bar Centro. Deutsch, now based in Viroqua in the Driftless region in Western Wisconsin,  developed in Milwaukee as a sophisticated jazz pianist who also has a powerful streak of nature-loving folk artist in him, in his original songwriting and singing, in the the guise of Father Sky. So expect some sort of vocals from him, but here probably jazzier than folkier. Wood is a versatile and popular performer best known for her long association with singer-bandleader Paul Cebar.

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Dave Bayles Trio reveals fruits of a long residency at the Uptowner Bar on new album

I am re-posting this review because at the time posted it received very minimal traffic for problematic reasons. So the album is still available

The Dave Bayles Trio will have a CD release party at The Uptowner Bar, 1032 E. Center St, from 7-11 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9.

This album is the fortuitous result of superb veteran musicians working together as a trio almost weekly for two years at the Uptowner Bar in Riverwest. You hear a superb sense of musical dialogue among the three players, though naturally the star is trumpeter Russ Johnson, along with bassist Clay Schaub and drummer-bandleader Dave Bayles. The recording underscores my feelings that Johnson is arguably the most resourceful and supple horn virtuoso in Wisconsin (He also leads a quartet on an excellent new recording, Reveal, on the same label).

There’s no loss in the comparative spareness of instrumentation. Schaub’s opener, “Fitzroy,” quickly engages with a lyrical, playful melody, an almost samba-like groove with Bayles riding the tricky tempo perfectly. Johnson’s trumpet sings and floats, frolicking like a bird in a warm, spiraling breeze. After a melodic bass solo, Bayles delivers a dancing Billy Higgins-like solo. “Third Birthday (this many)” is an affable Ornette Coleman-ish melody. Johnson is a joy to follow through the trickier changes over Bayles’s marvelously sensitive accompaniment.

The Dave Bayles Trio (L-R) — Clay Schaub, bass, Dave Bayles, drums; Russ Johnson, trumpet — perform at the Uptowner Bar. Photo by Kevin Lynch

“Sundogs” sounds like a slow waltz, another well-crafted melody with a deliberate walking bass vamp and more lyrical utterances from Johnson. By contrast, “The Illusionist’s Sister” is up-tempo with Johnson delivering swift but lucid ideas and a bravura closing restatement of the theme. Thelonious Monk’s “Shuffle Boil” is a quirky, staccato theme that fits this band’s aesthetics like a glove. And “Comanche” reveals Schaub’s imaginative composing. A languid, forlorn mood seems to evoke a Native American brave, alone out on a scouting mission, but half lost in his thoughts. Finally, “Waking Hour” captures the sunrise of consciousness from slumber, the pre-caffeine aura, the finally getting-to-it.

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Stream or download Live at the Uptowner on Amazon here.

This review was originally published in The Shepherd Express, here: Live at the Uptowner by Dave Bayles Trio – Shepherd Express

Trumpeting Riverwest’s first Jazz Fest

Except during the swing era, jazz has almost always had to play the survivor’s game. The seminal American art form migrates, like small, hungry herds of mammalian musical genius – and, of course, at least one genius “Bird” — incessantly wandering urban savannahs for watering amenable holes that usually lubricate patrons with at least coffee drinks as they dig the sounds.

Milwaukee’s no different. Accordingly, three self-consciously hip neighborhoods in this city have sustained the music to varying degrees, along with a smattering of venues in the near-north side Harambee and Bronzeville neighborhoods.

However, the East Side’s long-standing Jazz Estate has largely abdicated it’s nominal attraction, leaving that neighborhood a relatively arid region for live jazz — ironically given the Estate new identity as “specialty drink bar.”

The most conspicuous jazzy neighborhood, in terms of an organized presence, has been the southside’s Bay View which annually hosts the large, one-day Bay View Jazz Festival. This successful endeavor is built along the festival’s backbone, Kinnickinnick Avenue, a promenade of quirky and fascinating storefronts, galleries, bars and music spaces.

Now, the third hip neighborhood, Riverwest, is trumpeting its “look-at-me” moment. Three music venues on Center Street are teaming up for the first Riverwest Jazz Fest, this Friday night at The Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts, Bar Centro, and Company Brewing.

The fest lineup (below) is colorfully diverse and headlined by two-time Grammy-winning trumpeter Brian Lynch. Another notable act is the fast-rising band Heirloom.

Heirloom

The venue with the most auspicious history is the Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts, located in the same space originally occupied by the Milwaukee Jazz Gallery which presented “a dazzling lineup of many of the most significant musicians in jazz history,” notes one of the fest’s organizers, trumpeter-bandleader-recording artist Jamie Breiwick. “With great respect for these pioneers of jazz, contemporary jazz isn’t an art form that recycles the past, but a dynamic evolving collaboration of inventive musicians that mirrors the present while creating the new future.” He invites patrons to “be a part of this new future with the first ever Riverwest Jazz Fest.”

The new fulcrum among the three venues that’s now offering jazz most consistently is the stylishly intimate Bar Centro, located kitty corner from the larger Company Brewing space.

All three venues are on Center Street within a couple blocks of each other, so there’s no excuse to not make the rounds, and support all three. The festival is free admission, but donations will be welcome as will be offerings to tip jars for the performing groups.

Here’s the Riverwest Jazz Fest lineup:

5:30 PM – New Orleans-style March with the Big Style Brass Band from Jazz Gallery to Company Brewing

Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts (926 E Center St)

6 PM – Jazz Flux

8 PM – The Erotic Adventures of the Static Chicken

Bar Centro (804 E Center St)

6 PM – Heirloom

8 PM – Tael Estremera Quartet

Company Brewing (735 E Center St)

9:30 PM – Eric Jacobson Quartet

11 PM – Brian Lynch Quartet

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This article was originally published in The Shepherd Express, here: https://shepherdexpress.com/music/local-music/trumpeting-riverwests-jazz-fest/

 

Thelonious Monk a life saver? Well, yes. And maybe you can hear why Friday.

Jazz guitarist Isaiah Kitts

The music of Thelonious Monk by the Isaiah Kitts Quintet. Bar Centro, 808 E. Center St. Milwaukee. 8-10-30 p.m. Friday July 28

 

Thelonious Monk saved my life. Well, yes, that’s a trick, since he died in 1982 and I’ll not overplay the Monk ghost hand, though it’s inevitable figuratively, in my case. And if I were young enough, a Monk ghost costume for Halloween would be grand and get plenty of sweet loot from boomer door greeters at least. Think of Monk’s “Friday the 13th” being a recorded loop in my costume. And it was Friday the 13th! Last Friday the 13th of January.

Fate was nipping at my nose mischievously, and knocking on the door of my chest, ominously. But, to reference another classic jazz title, this was “Fate in a Pleasant Mood,” by Sun Ra. So, I’ll give Mister Ra (or, as he aptly called himself, “Mystery”) a nod too for my survival, as well.

Now that I think of it, the only times I’ve wondered about ghosts enough to write about them was when a piano music box that I’d hadn’t played more than once, started playing on my dining room and looming right over the piano was Monk, in the visage of his unforgettable cover portrait on TIME magazine.

Here’s the photo and caption I write when I first reported on my mysterious little music box:  I took this photograph shortly after the small tin piano-shaped music box on top of the buffet shelf began playing its song, after several years of sitting silently. The music box formerly belonged to my deceased mother (who happens to be pictured beside the piano with my late father).

The music box started up inexplicably a couple of times and I was a bit spooked. I wondered if my impish late first wife Kathy Naab, who had died at age 47, was doing some metaphysical messing with me. I had also been in touch with her only sister at the time. Though Kris is a very rational scientist-type, she conceded such impish “ghost” behavior was the sort of thing Kathy, a parlor piano player herself, would do.

But I digress. I was on my way to the nightclub Blu in downtown Milwaukee to see trumpeter Jamie Breiwick’s Monk repertory band Dreamland, which had proved expert at the material. As it’s always a popular nightclub I was hurrying to get a decent seat, which meant jogging or at least walking extremely fast for about four blocks in wintry weather.

By the time I got to the front door of the Pfister Hotel, which Blu tops off on its 23rd floor, I suddenly felt a tightness in my chest that I had never really experienced before. It gave me pause for a second or two, and I made a very definite mental note, even though it wasn’t really painful. I also suspected it was my asthma, which acts up when I expert myself in cold weather.

Dreamland did Monk cock-eyed, rollicking justice as expected, though too often I was distracted by a chatty family at the same with I was sitting in. And sure enough, when they played Monk’s “Friday the 13th” to honor the very day itself, the tune lingered with its blend of affability and ominousness.
Bad luck day, or not? I didn’t give the chest tightness much thought but somehow during my next doctor’s checkup I recalled that and mentioned it to him. He was immediately interested and ordered a stress test. I thought I did well on the stress test but it turns out that I had an abnormal or irregular heartbeat.

So next came an MRI and as it turned out I had a main heart artery severely restricted by plaque buildup. This stunned me because I’ve never been particularly overweight but I would later learn one’s weight doesn’t preclude a person from falling victim to such circumstance. I was scheduled to have a stent surgically implanted, a procedure in which the interventionist worms a device all the way up an artery from your wrist to your heart, to place the stent which widens the constricted artery.

I was awake for the procedure and saw the artery – amid the other ones surrounding the heart – pulsing like an electrocuted spider, on a live television monitor and it was startling how much smaller it was than the others. This meant I was a candidate for thirty-six visits to cardio rehabilitation which I just recently completed, and it has done wonders for my health.

Thelonious Monk performs in London in 1970.

NPR

So, had I not gone downtown and rushed to hear the Monk Dreamland band, I might’ve carried on who knows how long unsuspecting of what was probably just going to get worse until possibly I actually had a heart attack. As it turned out I was very fortunate because the chest tightness did no damage to my actual heart. So, I can say that Monk (and Breiwick’s group) helped save my life.

All of which is to prelude notice of Monk’s music being played live again by the Isaiah Kitts Quartet this Friday evening at Bar Centro in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood. I can’t honestly get into how authentically or authoritative guitarist Kitts’ band handles Monk’s material. having never heard them. I even struggled to find much of anything online about Kitts, only to say they’ve been working on Monk, due to previous gigs. I can only speak with any measure of knowledge about the group’s saxophonist Jamill Shaw, who is one of the most promising young reed players Milwaukee jazz has had in too long. The band is rounded out by Josh Koch, Juan Camacho, and Connor Dugan.

Accordingly, any opportunity to hear Monk’s peculiar infectious and structurally subversive music should be seriously considered by anyone who enjoys catchy music and certainly any modern jazz fan. I’ll be there, intrigued and curious and, yes, grateful to Mr. Monk, so grateful I’m inclined to go back into time and share with you my obituary essay on Monk upon his death. I wrote this for The Milwaukee Journal (pre-merger) in 1982 and it was very well received then, so I figured it might stand the test of time to some degree. You can be the judge of that.

(For a more readable version of this clipping, open its image in a new tab (or save the image to a new file)

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Milwaukee’s premiere trumpeter-composer Russ Johnson to play Chicago Jazz Festival September 2

  • Trumpeter-bandleader Russ Johnson. Courtesy Chicago Reader
  • Let’s give it up for Milwaukee trumpeter (Shorewood resident) Russ Johnson, who may be the finest jazz trumpeter living in the upper Midwest. He will be leading a quartet at Chicago Jazz Festival on at 1:50 p.m., Saturday, September 2 at the Von Freeman Pavilion, named for legendary Chicago saxophonist.
  • You can catch Russ in town regularly, as he plays most Tuesday evenings in the Dave Bayles Trio at the uptown or Tavern, at the corner of Humboldt and center Street, in Riverwest.
  • The Russ Johnson Quartet will do a warm-up for the Chicago fest at The Sugar Maple, 441 E. Lincoln Ave, at 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 27 in Bay View. The quartet includes Johnson, violinist Mark Feldman, bassist Ethan Philion and drummer Tim Daisy.
  • Mark Feldman. Courtesy Soapbox Gallery
  • Feldman is a vastly experienced musician as a symphony orchestra player and has played with country stars, and a wide array of jazz and avant-garde musicians. including recording with Michael Brecker, Lee Konitz, Joe Lovano, and Chris Potter.
  • Though I haven’t heard Philion, he’s notable as the leader of a new Sunnyside recording Meditations on Mingus, leading a ten-piece band in a sequence of substantial Charles Mingus compositions. Johnson is a trumpeter on that recording,
  • Johnson says his festival quartet is also recording this fall, and that a prominent European label has already expressed interest.
  • Don’t miss the quartet in Milwaukee, if you can’t make it for the big Chicago event.
  • The Chicago Jazz Festival, sponsored by the city and others, is still a free event, though you need tickets to some events.
  • At bottom is one more recommendation for the fest, and a link to the fest schedule, ticketing and website.
  • (FWIW, here’s my review of Johnson’s 2014 album Meeting Point) :

    Trumpeter Russ Johnson opens new vistas in jazz conversation

  • September 2 Chicago Jazz Festival 
  • Von Freeman Pavilion (North Promenade)
  • 11:30am-12:25pm – Regina Harris Baiocchi (Jazz Institute of Chicago’s New Works, Fresh Voices)
  • 12:40-1:35pm – Arman Sangalang Quartet
  • 1:50-2:45pm – Russ Johnson Quartet
  • 3:00-4:00pm  – Adam O’Farrill’s Stranger Days

Here’s a YouTube of a set of the quartet, recorded live in March:

  • Milwaukee trumpeter Russ Johnson at the Uptowner Tavern with the Dave Bayles Trio (above and below) Photos by Kevin Lynch
  • Another recommendation for the Chicago Jazz Festival is the alto saxophonist-composer Miguel Zenon who’s riding his new superb recording Musica De Las Americas.
  • He performs at 8 p.m. in Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph St., on Sunday, September 3.
  • Miguel Zenon. Courtesy Wikipedia
  • The album further deepens his creative resourcing of his Puerto Rican music roots, this time with all originals rather than doing historic reclamation of underexposed Puerto Rican composers as he’s done several times in recent years.
  • His work amounts to a profound excavation and bridging of the Latin connection in music of the Americas.
  • Plus, Zenon has as dynamically charged and cohesive a quartet, including Luis Perdomo one of my favorite pianists, as you’ll hear in jazz. Musica De Las Americas is augmented by the percussion and vocal quartet Los Pleneros De La Cresta.
  • Zenon’s new music is pensive, probing, lyrical and exhilarating, by turns. It raises and musically waves a rippling flag of identity while conveying that identity’s universality as a musical language.
  • Here’s a link to the festival info: Chicago Jazz Festival 2022

 

Milwaukee’s Riverwest is Restless and Alive

Linneman's

Riverwest: a place with its own face, of curious and wondrous facets, and a couple of perfect strangers

I have lived in a number of neighborhoods in my lifetime in Milwaukee and Madison, most of them quite congenial: A south side family bungalow right north of a Mitchell Field take-off strip where giant jets shook my youthful body and imagination with sonic booms. In Madison’s Nakoma neighborhood, a house influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright’s prairie style, and engulfed in tall pines, and a few blocks away from the city’s splendid Arboretum.

But there is only one neighborhood that I have returned to reside in, for a second time by choice, and that is Milwaukee’s Riverwest. I originally moved here when I bought a duplex with my sister Nancy In the 1980s, which she still lives in. It was a period of great cultural and political vitality, and an ideal location, as much of my journalistic work then was covering music at the original Milwaukee Jazz Gallery, right in the neighborhood, for The Milwaukee Journal.

So, when I moved back to Milwaukee from Madison in 2008, I knew I wanted to return to this unpredictably diverse, slightly funky and always vital region. The following photo essay comprises images compiled on a walk the full-length of Riverwest on the street that I live on, which ended on the North Avenue water reservoir overlooking downtown.
I’m sure any number of other photo portraits could be made by taking different routes around this consistently vibrant neighborhood. But this is mine, from a walk taken the last day of February as the smallest buds began to claim their place and space to grow into.

rw reflection

This image characterizes the interface of the urban and natural surroundings – an old, weathered Riverwest sidewalk and a crystal-clear puddle, revealing the tree overhead in which you can just sense the tiny buds emerging from its tips, reaching out to the sky’s fleeting blues. I’d also call this a Katrin Talbot photo, because she consistently gets highly observant shots of small or even grand beauties often standing right under our distracted noses, or toeses (Yes, I’m talking to “smart phone”-addled pedestrians.) Katrin is a gifted Madison photographer, poet, and symphony musician whose Facebook page I recommend you check out.

rw sign

Here’s a block of houses that perfectly reflects the architectural characterization of Riverwest residences as depicted in the neighborhood  signs recently placed all around our neck of the woods. The sign also suggests the way Riverwest overlooks downtown, especially from its high point, the North Avenue water reservoir.
It’s an absolutely big sky view of downtown, perhaps the best that a pedestrian can find. Though I did walk to the top of the reservoir on this day, I did not include that city skyline view, because the subject here is Riverwest.

rw marine

If the iconic image of the new Riverwest signs captures the neighborhood reasonably well, the next two images help dispel some of the stereotypes about who lives here. And I didn’t have to go far to find these – they were actually the first two photographs I took. In this one above, the apparent residence of a United States Marine proudly displays his or her service flag. And yet, this resident resolutely keeps this blue sign out front,  long after the intensely contentious and politically transformative 2011 recall effort to remove Gov. Scott Walker.

The neighbor’s long-standing statement of dissent might not seem typical of a highly disciplined military person, nor such a person’s typical politics. But it reflects a well-trained person who understands the role of a true citizen and patriot. I see it as an excellent example of the independent thinking one finds in this neighborhood, even if a majority of residents probably lean from the center to the left.

rw mary

Here’s another charming Riverwest stereotype refutation, and a close neighbor of the Walker-protesting Marine above. Clearly not everyone in the neighborhood is a lefty secular humanist, agnostic or atheist. The number of venerable, still-active churches in the neighborhood testifies to that, even if their attendance tends lower than it was a few decades ago. But these Riverwest neighbors put their love of Jesus Christ’s mother Mary out front for everyone to see, along with the rather mischievous-looking elves scampering around to behind her.

rw sailboats

There is certainly a profusion of artistic types in our neighborhood and here’s a delightful example. This painted metal relief sculpture gives you an idea where this resident might be if not at home – out on the waves amid sun, the clouds, the birds and aquatic sea life. It alludes to how close we are to Lake Michigan, just across the nearby Milwaukee River for which we are named, and yonder, though Shorewood.

rw books 2

The literacy of Riverwest residents is somewhat of a given, but our valuing of the written word is something we share with our community. On my walk down my neighborhood street alone, I counted four “LittleFreeLibraries” such as this one. There’s some predictable titles, such as one by mega-selling Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown on the left. But also discover, if you look closely, a copy of the last book that the late, great John Cheever wrote, a slim novella titled Oh What a Paradise it Seems, a characteristically bittersweet observation, published shortly before his death of cancer in 1982. Also note, on  the far right, a novel by the great Polish-American novelist Joseph Conrad, author of Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Nostromo and The Secret Agent. This slightly less well-known Conrad novel is Victory published in 1915, a psychological thriller set on an Indonesian island, and which draws from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and The Tempest.

I stopped by Riverwest’s storefront radio station WXRW-104.1 FM, but it wasn’t on the air and so there was little to see. But it’s a very interesting station you can check out here:

http://tunein.com/radio/Riverwest-Radio-1041-s258641/

So, I went next door to the Fuel Cafe for a newspaper, and a quintessential Riverwest moment occured. Several people were eating late lunches and, as I walked out, one man stood up with a tray laden with a scattering of tortilla chips. “Hey, anyone want the rest of these chips?” he called out. “Otherwise I’m gonna throw ’em out.”

“I’ll take ’em!” another dude piped up, and the not-so-secret sharer delivered them to him. At what other restaurant would you see such an open act of sharing between perfect strangers, regardless of conventional decorum? That’s Riverwest, for you.

rw wp 1

At the “fork” in one intersection, I took the path more traveled for me, which has often made all the difference. That led me to Woodland Pattern Book Center, on Locust Street, which may be the intellectual and perhaps, despite all the churches, the spiritual heart of neighborhood.

rw wp 2

The long, white facade of the building announces it’s utterly unique nature. The facade changes from time to time, with varying names, quotations and imagery usually signifying human life, intellect and expression in relation to the grand natural environment we share.

rw wp 3

Woodland Pattern specializes in small press publications, and it may be the largest such collection in a bookstore between the coasts. You will especially find a vast array of poetry in full book form, and in numerous chapbooks on the card rack-like display in the photo above on the left, and even more of an eccentric collection of chapbooks in the file cabinets in the foreground.
The center, co-founded by artist Anne Kingsbury, regularly presents a stimulating panoply of cultural events – author readings, regular art exhibits in its far third room, and concerts of exploratory and avant-garde music, often improvisational in nature.
For all of this, Woodland Pattern sustains its highly non-commercial offerings by having established itself as a valuable state cultural resource.

So it gets a fair share of grants and government funding but also relies on the membership of its patrons. I renewed my membership on this visit, and picked up a small book by the great nature writer Barry Lopez called The Rediscovery of North America, which was actually a Thomas D. Clarke lecture Lopez gave in 1990, a sort of meditation on Christopher Columbus and the history of rampant exploitation of The New World’s astonishing natural bounty and indigenous peoples. The Spaniards began the cruel plunder, which continues as a large part of our capitalistic mentality and political culture. But Lopez also posits hope and evidence that we are “rediscovering” our own continent with a newfound caring, partly by listening to what our indigenous peoples and species have to tell us.

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Before leaving Woodland Pattern, it’s worth noting the distinct and timely political consciousness that the store conveys, as evidenced by the sign in the middle of this photograph, taken from outside on the street.

I would’ve like to have stopped into another neighborhood institution, the Falcon Bowl Hall, on the corner of Clarke and Fratney Sts., but they were closed and, as a neighbor told me, they open maybe at five or seven but it’s very unpredictable. The Falcon bar has a bowling alley in his basement, a true working-class, middle-America past time that again goes against the grain of typical perceptions of this neighborhood. It will also host the Riverwest Follies at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 25.

Another closed place I bypassed this afternoon was the Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts on Center St., which continues the storied tradition of the original Milwaukee Jazz Gallery in its own way, as a multi-arts center, which I’ve written about quite a bit on this blog.

But another local bar did beckon me, shortly after 3 PM, with open doors, and typically alluring artwork.rw art bar 1rw art bar window

The Art Bar on Burleigh St. is my favorite tavern in Riverwest, and probably in Milwaukee, the city of taverns. That’s mainly because I’m more of an art lover than an alcohol imbiber. Besides the artwork in regular changing exhibits, the place also has a pool table and a dartboard, both which get regular use. Ah, but the art! Look above in another front-window shot, peeping in on the vividly colorful work on display, a  group show of portrait painters.

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Among the current Art Bar exhibitors, Elias Zananiri (top) shows personages with deeply radiant ethnic ornamentation and expressivity.  Les Leffingwell (above) meanwhile provides a personal inlet into the troubled but resilient souls of blues musicians.

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Mike Judy shows that an eccentric and humorous portraiture style can figuratively capture humanity with its pants down while allowing them a measure of personal dignity.art bar 2

“Everyday Portraits” by Jody Reid includes this affectionate, virtuosic and insightful portrait of a guy named “Brad.” It’s worth zooming in for some of the detail of the oil canvas.

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Further on down the street, I got to Fratney Street School, a highly-regarded bi-lingual elementary school, with some very small kids shooting a multi-colored basketball (top) and a very exclusive conference of two – make that three – young girls on this ingeniously engaging jungle gym.rw truck

Riverwest also expresses itself in its vehicles. Like an almost-forgotten beauty queen contestant, this bizarre four-wheeled contraption was just waiting for its picture to be taken, and to be discovered.

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We began our little Riverwest tour with a home making a political statement and we end with another home doing the same. Like the die-hard “Recall Walker” dissenter, this ingeniously homemade HIllARY Clinton sign, made out of painted tree branches and wire – which blazes in the night with Christmas tree lights – remains proudly and defiantly up, in this very strange Age of Trump. We all know who the people’s choice was in this election.

T’was a relatively serene midweek afternoon walk, with not a lot of people out, but plenty of life still abounded in our good, old neighborhood.