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Friday, May 18, 2007
Inwood Coffeehouse
 A few weeks ago my music partner (cellist Fred Lieder) and I performed at a Wheaton, MD venue called the Inwood Coffeehouse. Fred had performed there before, and he explained to me that it was a residential facility for people with mental and physical disabilities. The format was supposed to be a first half with a professional "feature act," followed by a second half that would be performances by both residents and other members of the community. I assumed that this second half was either going to be something like an Open Mic or a jam session, and I was hoping to find a way to make a polite exit after my half was done.
Fortunately, that's not what ended up happening. Shortly before the show was to start, Fred had not yet arrived. It's not like Fred to be that late so I phoned him to find out where he was. It turned out that I had given him the wrong date, and he thought we were on the following night. He hurriedly hung up and jumped into his car and sped over to the venue. As 8:00 pm arrived, he was not yet in sight, and I thought, well, this is awkward, but no problem, maybe this open mic or jam thing can go first, and Fred and I can perform second. When I asked Steve Choy, the organizer, if this would be okay, he adamantly refused. We had to go first, and if necessary, I would have to go on alone. I thought, okay, another uptight folkie bureaucrat, but what can you do. When in Rome.....
 (Steve Choy, pictured) To my great relief, Fred arrived just at the stroke of eight, cello in hand, looking charmingly tousled and very handsome in a black suit that he had probably snatched up out of his laundry hamper as he jumped up out of his man chair in front of the tv following my call. Sometimes unforeseen events or emergencies can have a positive effect on a performance, since they throw the musicians off guard and out of their safety zones of tried and true material and interpretations. This proved true for us. The terror I had felt while waiting for Fred was channeled into energy and spontaneity on stage, and maybe because I felt so guilty about the time mixup, I had a sudden injection of humility and a desire to make people happy rather than worrying about mistakes or how many CDs I was selling.  Before the concert, I had asked Steven and Lesley if they had any advice on how to perform for an audience like this, which included people with physical and mental disabilities as well as people from outside who were were not disabled. Lesley was very clear that I was to change nothing about my act, and in particular she did not want me to treat the audience like children. Her purpose in bringing music groups into Inwood was to expose the residents to good art, and that bringing the arts to them was a lot easier than taking them on a trip to the Kennedy Center. Maybe sensing that I was feeling unsure of myself, Steve helped me immensely by confessing that when he first started performing here, he had felt 'very uncomfortable.' That instantly reassured me, because it made me feel like it was okay to feel uncomfortable myself, that it didn't make me a bad person and so I could stop trying to pretend that I was A-okay. Following our part of the show, I decided that it would be a good idea not to leave but to stick around as a gesture of respect, since I had screwed up so badly with the time mixup. But while I thought I was showing support for the residents by staying around in the audience, the residents and the Choys gave me much more than that by completely turning inside out my notions of art, beauty, performing, and the reasons why we create. The next show is Friday, June 8, and the feature act is jazz flutist Arch "AT" Thompson. | Perma
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Inwood Coffeehouse part ii
The Show
The second half of the show was nothing like what I had expected. Rather than an open mic or some kind of free-for all, there was instead a house band composed mostly of outside musicians, who performed sophisticated, fully scored arrangements of songs chosen by the evening's performers at least a month earlier. The instrumentation included Lesley Choy on accordion, Steve on guitar, along with electric guitar, double bass and what Lesley described as "remedial jazz basson."  The arrangements and the instrumentation gave the band an otherworldly, cabaret society-meets-Tom Waits 3:00 o'clock in the morning feel. In addition to songs there were also poetry readings, which were accompanied by music as well. One performer named Russell (pictured below) read an original poem about a bird while the band played an instrumental version of the English ballad "The Three Ravens," with Lesley on accordion playing the lead.    Elizabeth (pictured, right)who has Down's syndrome sang the Barbra Streisand hit, "Evergreen." When I heard the band break into the opening phrases I was astonished, since the melody is full of hairpin turns, strange intervals and really high notes. But Elizabeth nailed all the intervals with seeming ease, and while she didn't quite make some of the high notes, it didn't really matter because her performance was passionate and quite moving. I felt my world shifting. Elizabeth's dad (pictured below) also sang. In his rich baritone he delivered a rendition of "The Greatest Love of All" that was rhythmically loose but which had a sort of recitative quality that made me listen to the words for the first time.  I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows. If I fail, if I succeed at least I'll live as I believe. No matter what they take from me They can't take away my dignity. Because the greatest love of all Is happening to me I found the greatest love of all Inside of me. A born diva, Phyllis several times expressed a desire to take on the popular American Idol contestant Antonella Barba. Phyllis had a commanding stage presence and held everyone spellbound with her rendition of "Sidewalks of New York"
Things have changed since those times,
Some are up in "G,"
Others, they are wand'rers,
But they all feel just like me;
They'd part with all they've got,
Could they but once more walk,
With their best girl and have a twirl
On the Sidewalks of New York.
East side, west side,
All around the town,
The tots sang "Ring-a-Rosie,"
"London Bridge is Falling Down."
Boys and girls together,
Me and Mamie O'Rourke,
Tripped the light fantastic,
On the sidewalks of New York.
I found out after the show that Steven and Lesley volunteer hours each month, meeting four or five times a week with residents to help them with their performances. I was struck by the contrast between this coffeehouse, with its emphasis on rehearsing and artistic quality for people who, because of their disabilities are never going to be perfectly in tune or in rhythm, with some of the really bad art I've experienced at folk clubs and open mics where there is no quality control whatsoever because it's not considered egalitarian or accepting to expect musicians to work on their act before subjecting others to it.
I had a feeling that there was a story behind this, so I decided to interview Lesley and Steven about the coffeehouse, their lives, and their approach to music.
Next: The Interview
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