Sometime in 1990, I leaned against the bar at the Rendezvous
and paid for my drink with a $10 bill. The bartender disliked the young
punks (or were we “thugs”?) who sometimes dared to appear in what was
then a dive bar filled with cigarette smoke. The rumpled, hard-living
regulars didn’t give a shit about my two-foot tsunami of fried,
purple-blond-blue hair.
I took my drink and my change. From the stack of bills, I
left a buck, a good tip for a two-dollar drink. Call it a surcharge for
atmosphere. I jabbed the bills back in my wallet and saw my triumph: a
fiver and four ones! A free drink! While glaring at me, while hating
me, the bartender had miscounted my change. His mistake—like me,
he too was drunk—not only absolved my humiliating minutes spent
waiting to drink, but jolted me. Somewhere else.
There, I learned how to look and listen at a bar, to spot
festering dramas, and to soak in conversation simultaneously
with background music.
I haven’t attempted to see Seattle School’s monthly Strikethrough series at the Rendezvous, which was
lovingly remodeled several years ago and remains one of my favorite
bars.
“NO ONE ADMITTED” and the rest of Strikethrough‘s
motto, “No Public. No Press. No Family. No Friends.” doesn’t
repel me and shouldn’t repel you either. Those ostensibly hostile
prohibitions actually describe the early, empty, and lonely state
occupied by beginning artists and those who still struggle to create.
Don’t most artists play to empty or near-empty rooms
anyway?
Strikethrough is more than a snide dare or vacuous
denial of activity. It doesn’t lance the traditional notion of
performance. The slated performer, C. Davida Ingram, is a performance
artist who graced Seattle School’s Motel event at the Bridge
Motel last fall. For Motel, Ingram printed business cards and
placed an ad on Craigslist, “Black woman willing to make your favorite
meal.” I imagine she will continue to be bold and brazen in her piece
“What a Body Can Do.”
Strikethrough inverts the carnival atmosphere of Motel, a gift to those who did not arrive early and refused
to brave the long queues that snaked out of rooms, down the stairs, and
into the parking lot.
For all of us, Strikethrough stakes out an unbounded
space to imagine what might be happening, what should happen, and what
will never happen behind those (presumably) locked doors at the
Rendezvous Jewelbox Theater.
“There is no such thing as music,” writes Christopher Small
in his book Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening.
“Music is not a thing at all but an activity, something that people do.
The apparent thing ‘music’ is a figment, an abstraction of the action,
whose reality vanishes as soon as we examine it at all closely.” Go to
the Rendezvous, drink at the bar, and imagine. In Strikethrough,
the performer is you. 
Speculate on Strikethrough Mon April 28, the
Rendezvous Jewelbox Theater, 2318 Second Ave, 441-5823, 8 pm, no one
admitted.
Thurs 4/24
THE WAYNE HORVITZ TRIO
The keyboardist and eclectic composer—his oratorio with
improvisers, Joe Hill, should be out on New World Records any
day now—performs a rare trio gig with drummer Eric Eagle and
bassist Geoff Harper. Seattle City Hall, 600 Fourth Ave, 684-7171,
noon—1 pm, free.
CYTOSOUL
I can’t parse the name, but I like how this jazz quartet borrows a
bit of gentle minimalism from Steve Reich for wistful, tango-infused
ballads and midtempo numbers. Egan’s Ballard Jam House, 1707 NW
Market St, 789-1621,
7 pm, $7.
BALLARD JAZZ FESTIVAL
This multi-night festival continues with tonight’s Brotherhood of
the Drum with Ben Thomas, Garfield Jazz alum D’Vonne Lewis, and Origin
Records honcho John Bishop. On Friday, the Ballard Jazz Walk presents
over a dozen acts within a five-block radius in Ballard as well as
tenor saxophonist Hadley Caliman. The legendary saxophonist Lee Konitz
performs Saturday; the festival concludes with a jazz brunch at 11 am
on Sunday. Various venues, see ballardjazzfestival.com for
details, 219-3649, 8 pm, $10—$30.
Fri 4/25
SEATTLE CHAMBER PLAYERS
The SCP stages a two-day festival, “The Asian Muse.” Composer Chen
Yi curates the first night with Toru Takemitsu’s Rain Tree Sketch and “Lied” by Toshio Hosokawa, a Japanese
composer who welcomes quiet sounds. Pieces by Mukai Kohei, Xi
Wang, Kotoka Suzuki, Hu Xiao-ou, and Chen Yi (the Chinese Ancient
Dances) round out the program. On Sun April 27 at Town
Hall, pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama gives a 6 pm recital of Sommer
Reisen, a combination of Schubert’s Impromptu,
improvisation, and field recordings from five Japanese cities. The rest
of the evening is devoted to Heiner Goebbels, Mahler (a chamber version
of “Der Abschied” arranged by Schoenberg and Ranier Riehn), Zhou Long,
and Dutch aggro-minimalist Louis Andriessen. Fourth-floor Chapel
Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside Ave N,
286-5052, 7:30 pm, $8—$12.
DAVE BRUBECK AND RAMSEY LEWIS
Brubeck and Lewis belong in the elect company of jazz pianists who
scored mainstream hits in the 1960s: “Take Five” and “The ‘In’ Crowd.”
Since then, both have explored fusion, orchestral music, and other
projects, yet here they play the straight-ahead repertory fans expect.
Paramount Theater, 911 Pine St, 292-2787, 8 pm, $43—$56
(includes $10.50 in service charges).
Sat 4/26
NORTHWEST SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Conductor Anthony Spain leads the band in the Return to Misty
Magic Land by electronic music pioneer Allen Strange (who died
in February) and Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an
Exhibition. Eric Rynes, chiefly known as a champion of
experimental solo violin music, is the soloist in Beethoven’s
Violin Concerto. Highline Performing Arts Center, 401 S
152nd St, Burien, 292-2787, 8 pm, $10—$14.
ULLMANN/SWELL 4
The astounding German reedman Ullmann returns with an all-star
quartet featuring trombonist Steve Swell, renowned drummer Barry
Altschul, and Hilliard Greene on bass. Expect a decidedly avant take on
classic jazz ballads and rowdy, skronky textures leavened with
attentive silence. Seattle Asian Art Museum, 1400 E Prospect St,
Volunteer Park, 547-6763, 8 pm, $13/$15.
