2023’s Riffs, Beats, & Codas Raves and Faves!
23 years into the 21st century concerns about the potential, and dangers, of Artificial Intelligence, the pervasiveness of women led singer-songwriter pop, the potency of unions, and the Barbie and Oppenheimer fueled resurgence of interest in movie theatres ranked among the most common topics in popular culture. I do my best to make sense of it through my annual Raves & Faves surveying the best in books, music, and film. This year I had numerous opportunities to travel and have added concerts and museum exhibits to the categories for variety. As much as I enjoy mass produced media popular culture’s experiential dimension is just as vital as what we can experience collectively and in person.
Books
Non-Fiction:
Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions (Francesca T. Royster)
A highly readable and insightful study of Black musicians’ and audience’s complex relationships to folk and country music traditions. Highlights include her intimate portraits of Charley Pride, Our Native Daughters, Darius Rucker, and Linda Martell. Royster’s engaging approach dissolves boundaries between cultural criticism, scholarly analysis, and autobiography seamlessly.
Why Mariah Carey Matters (Andrew Chan)
Though numerous rock critics dismissed Mariah Carey for years, other cultural critics and scholars, such as Danyel Smith, have paid closer attention to her talent and legacy. Journalist Andrews Chan’s focus on Carey for the University of Texas Press’s “Why…. Matters” series is a valuable study written with the insider knowledge of a fan and the attention to detail of a critic. Carey’s unusual voice and songwriting acumen, the rhetoric over her racial identity, and her evolving yet underrated critical reputation inform Chan’s adroit analysis.
It’s Not TV: The Spectacular, Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO (Felix Gillette and John Koblin)
Veteran journalists Gillette and Koblin chronicle HBO’s ascent from a fledgling cable channel to a paragon of “quality television.” They illustrate how a mix of enterprise, ambition, and experimentation helped the channel distinguish itself from rivals. From scheduling live sporting events to airing more risqué programming to embracing on-demand television services the channel’s innovations emerge as do its increasingly precarious place in an industry contending with greater competition, an evolving technological landscape, and more prominent advocacy from industry creatives.
Autobiography/Memoir:
Marry Me a Little: A graphic memoir (Rob Kirby)
Rob Kirby provides a candid and resonant look at he and his husband’s complex ambivalence about the prospect of marrying. Kirby employs their personal experience to explore the broader communal tension between the transformative aspirations of the queer liberation movement and the assimilationist elements of the contemporary gay rights movement symbolized by institutions like marriage and open military service. In the tradition of Harold Cruse and Alison Bechdel, Kirby uses the creative elasticity of the medium to illuminate the nuances of queer American life.
My Name is Barbra (Barbra Streisand)
Legendary multi-hyphenate Streisand makes her life and epic career highly readable despite being nearly 1,000 pages thanks to a conversational tone and a rhythmic acumen that keeps things moving. She is candid, funny, a little kooky, and occasionally oblivious, but always interesting in her storytelling approach. Her conviction as a creative, a philanthropist, and a citizen, comes through.
Fiction:
Best novel read in 2023: Day: A Novel (Michael Cunningham)
Michael Cunningham has a unique ear and eye for depicting the buried desires, lingering frustrations, and inner turmoil of characters seeking clarity and freedom in their lives and unsure of how to proceed. In his best work, including A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, and The Hours, we often spend time with characters—sons, mothers, lovers, friends, etc.—living in unsatisfying families, biological, romantic, and/or chosen, struggling to make their next move. Death, divorce, moving, traveling, and other forms of transition frequently force characters to reassess their place in the world which inevitably reverberates within their established echo systems. In his work stasis is rarely an option. Day lets us into the world of a highly layered family navigating a series of interlocking dynamics on April 5th of 2019, 2020, and 2021 in New York. In essence it centers their lives before, during and after the global Coronavirus pandemic. Cunningham’s pointed structural choice is intimate by design and raises thorny questions about who we are and how we are when we face a crisis and how traumas and disruptions land differently for each of us. Maybe, the novel suggests, we cannot change entirely, but the unpredictable circumstances mean we all must reconfigure to persist.
The family is comprised of Robbie, a single gay man who lives in the attic of his sister Isabel and her husband Dan’s apartment, temporarily. Isabel, a photo editor, Dan, a house husband who was formerly an aspiring rocker, are parents to the budding adolescent Nathan and the highly curious Violet. Dan’s brother Garth is a sculptor professionally, and is also the biological father of Odin whose mother Chess, was Garth’s college friend and works as an adjunct professor.
In the 2019 section Cunningham lays bare their tensions: Robbie is in a liminal state; professionally, he is settling for an unsatisfying teaching job because he was not ready to attend med school. Personally, though he is beloved by his sister and her children, and has a close friendship with Dan he needs to find his own apartment. He also is haunted by his past relationships with flaky musicians. Isobel loves her children but is tired of being the primary breadwinner and the go-to parent, and is mindful of her precarious professional role in the dying specialty magazine market. Dan is a middle aged, recovering addict, whose only respite ate the songs he writes in his studio and hopes Robbie and Isobel will like though he is unlikely to rekindle his tentative career. Chess is content for Garth to babysit Odin and have some role in their life but is firm about her self-understanding as a single parent which Garth refuses to understand. He is a fledgling sculptor who, like Dan, was renowned in his younger days for his good looks and charm, but unlike Dan, has a brazen cockiness that immunizes him from self-awareness.
By 2020 Robbie has relocated, the domestic frustrations of Dan and Isobel have turned inward with Dan more musically prolific than ever and Isobel on the verge of madness and the kids have grown more idiosyncratic. Similarly, tensions between Chess’s desire to protect her child at the height of the pandemic and Garth’s desperate need to connect at a time when its is dangerous to do so inspire unsatisfying compromises. In the final third of the book 2021 finds the collective shattered by a loss. In the process of mourning they must confront uncertain futures by gathering the best parts of themselves, however fragmented, and repositioning them to make sense of new realities.
Rather than writing an anthemic novel for the tragic COVID-19 era, in the manner of an earnest songwriter, Cunningham has crafted an intimate, accessible, and engaging song of sorts. His intimate approach pulls you in because the macro-level impact of the pandemic amplified the profundity buried within everyday textures of our lives. The era his characters inhabit spurred many people to clarify who matters in their lives, what they need from relationships, and to confront what is essential at home, work, and in society to exist. And this melody lingers on today.
Albums
LaVette! (Bettye LaVette)
The highly regarded singer interprets the songs of veteran songwriter and musician Randall Bramlett with such intelligence and flair that each song feels it was written for her. Her incisive interpretive approach is complemented by contributions from many distinguished musicians including percussionist and singer Pedrito Martinez, soul singer Anthony Hamilton, and the eclectic Jon Batiste, among others. Since 2005’s critical revival of interest in her work she’s regularly made notable albums and this ranks among her best.
Lean In (Gretchen Parlato and Lionel Loueke)
Parlato is one of the most daring and singular vocalists in jazz, and Loueke is well regarded for his fluid guitar playing and singing. Though they have collaborated before it all comes together beautifully here on a range of voice and guitar duets that generate considerable atmosphere. Two highlights include their take on 1980s Klymaxx ballad “I Miss You” another ace R&B interpretation to add to Parlato’s budding canon, and the rhythmic adventurousness of the original “If I Knew.”
The Returner (Allison Russell)
Who says so-called “Americana” or “roots” music must confine itself to folk clichés? Russell, who has been very open about her past struggles with abuse and racial esteem, translates a range of profoundly personal themes into a more groove-oriented setting. Essentially inviting us to dance our cares away it juxtaposes incisive lyrics with enticing rhythms best exemplified by the pulsating life affirming anthem “Stay Right Here,” the brilliant trauma themed call-and-response song “Demons,” and the fierce take down of racism “Eve Was Black.”
Guts (Olivia Rodrigo)
On her second album musician and actress Rodrigo pumps up the volume calling out exploitation (“vampire”), seeking revenge (“get him back”), and addressing unique social pressures on women (“all american bitch”) with meaty choruses, crunchy guitars, and throbbing drums. These are complemented by several contemplative piano ballads mostly of the “bad ex-boyfriend/over” variety. Angry, funny, shady, and thoughtful she brings the chutzpah of rockers like Joan Jett and Pat Benatar to singer-songwriter pop.
Television
The 2023 SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes highlighted the struggle for actors and creatives to get their fair share in the entertainment industry. Fortunately, their respective strikes were successful and garnered more favorable terms despite the impending threats of AI and deepening corporate greed. While it will be months before many beloved original series will return with new episodes there was no shortage of excellent series this past year.
MVP of 2023 TV: The Bear (second season)
In season two the creative team behind The Bear boldly pivoted from the tense, claustrophobic atmosphere of season one into a quieter and more intimate look at individual characters. Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and his team, co-led by the endearingly more confident Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), decide to rebrand the restaurant into a more upscale dining experience called The Bear. The series takes its time building toward the opening with stellar character development arcs seen through Marcus studying baking in Copenhagen, Tina taking a culinary course, and Richie apprenticing in an elite restaurant, among others. In episode seven “Fishes” we get the backstory of Carmy’s family through a star-studded profoundly tragicomic Christmas episode that nearly combusts form nervous energy and unspoken tensions. By the season finale we are deeply invested and feel as anxious, nervous, and excited as the staff for The Bear’s soft opening. I had to pause the episode at various intervals to take it all in from minor mishaps to major moments that threaten to derail the evening. The Bear transcends genre in its teetering between comedy, drama, farce, and thriller.
Comedies:
Abbott Elementary (ABC)
Big Mouth (Netflix)
Jury Duty (Amazon Prime)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
The Other Two (HBO)
Reservation Dogs (Hulu)
The Righteous Gemstones (HBO)
Somewhere Somebody (HBO)
Survival of the Thickest (Netflix)
Unprisoned (Hulu)
The Upshaws (Netflix)
The Wonder Years (ABC)
Dramedy:
The Bear (Hulu)
Drama:
Beef (Netflix)
Black Cake (Hulu)
Comedy Specials:
John Early: Now More than Ever (HBO)
John Mulaney: Baby J (Netflix)
Wanda Sykes: I’m an Entertainer (Netflix)
Non-fiction/documentary:
1619 Project (Hulu)
“Classic” series now streamable:
Moonlighting (Hulu; especially Seasons 1-3)
*Film
:
Best Film viewed in 2023: American Fiction (directed by Cord Jefferson)
Director and screenwriter Cord Jefferson’s brilliant adaptation of Percival Everett’s incisive satirical novel Erasure deftly employs the biased racial scripts of the literary world to depict and expose a national mindset. At the center of the film is author Thelonious Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) otherwise known as Monk. Tired of suffering commercially and financially because his novels are insufficiently “Black” Monk turns this stereotype on its head writing an over-the-top parody of urban Black trauma porn novels under an alias as a joke…until his skeptical agent Arthur (John Ortiz) tells him it has inspired a bidding war and he stands to earn millions, including a potential film adaptation. As the novel gains publicity, he’s also attending to the needs of his aging mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams) which means reconnecting with his siblings. His sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross), a physician and Monk’s confidante, has taken care of their mother for years whereas his brother Clifford (Sterling K. Brown) is more aloof and sporadic for a variety of reasons. Monk also begins a promising relationship with a recent divorcee Coraline (Erika Alexander) a public defender who enjoys his writing.
Through a series of well-staged scenes, including one where characters from Monk’s parody come alive and critique his writing, cringe worthy conversations with desperate publishing staff and an unctuous film director (Adrien Brody), and Monk’s role as a judge for a prestigious literary award, we experience the frustration of navigating a society that attempts to contains and confine you because of the dominant culture’s fears about its own status.
American Fiction balances social commentary and genuine drama with humor, intelligence, and nuance. Each actor inhabits their roles fully led by Wright whose wry sensibility and irascibility are softened by Alexander’s smart but tough performance as Coraline, and the organic familial intimacy Monk has with his family. Ross radiates the tensions between being highly competent and exhausted by its burdens; Brown conveys the vulnerable and endearing qualities of Clifford who is experiencing numerous life changes; and Uggams, conveys the fragmented yet still vital personality of a mature person in declining neurological health.
Standout films:
Rustin (directed by George C. Wolfe)
A stirring look at how Rustin—a forward thinking progressive ambassador of non-violence who mentored Martin Luther King Jr.—steered 1963’s March on Washington for Freedom. Despite contending with irascible Civil Rights leaders, leery of his violations of “respectability,” and growing tensions with a generation of younger more militant activists his acumen as an organizer works. In between the scenes set in the 1960s we see flashbacks to his struggles with racial and homophobic violence, and get access to his complex intimate life. Actor Colman Domingo embodies Rustin’s passion for justice while making him vividly human. He radiates Rustin’s fierce intelligence, puckish sense of humor, and erotic energy. No longer a hidden figure confined to documentaries and history books he emerges as one of the great characters of the Civil Rights Movement.
Shortcomings (directed by Randall Park)
Randall Park’s directorial film debut adapts Adrian Tomine’s well-regarded graphic novel centered on an outspoken and often abrasive Ben (Justin H. Min) Japanese American man whose insecurities threaten to sabotage his intimate relationships. Set in the Bay Area initially, and eventually shifting to New York, it conveys a nuanced insider’s perspective on aspects of Asian American, queer, hipster, performance art and film cultures. In the spirit of the best late 1990s indie films it is an intimate character driven film anchored by often spiky dialogue and subtle changes in mood and tone.
Rye Lane (directed by Raine Allen-Miller)
This deceptively breezy British romantic comedy finds two Black British twentysomethings, Dom (David Jonsson) and Yas (Vivian Oparah) embarking on a carefree day long adventure. Their various pit stops, including one where they pretend to be lovers and a comical “break-in” to retrieve an album, give us glimpses into their personalities and reveal their complex relationships with former lovers.
The Holdovers (directed by Alexander Payne)
Three outsiders at an elite boy’s school in New England—a grumpy humanities teacher, a kitchen manager grieving her son, and a contrarian teenager with a host of personal challenges—have to find a way co-exist in the cold and isolation of the Christmas season. Alexander Payne’s writing and direction, and uniformly inspired performances by Paul Giamatti, Da’ Vine Joy Randolph, and newcomer Dominic Sessa, endear us to this motley crew whose lives are grounded in a complex array of subtexts.
May December (directed by Todd Haynes)
Todd Haynes uses the curiosity of an ambitious actress Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) conducting character research to illuminate the tricky dynamics of a married couple Gracie and Joe (Julianne Moore and Charles Melton) whose storied past—Gracie is an older married woman who was caught having sex with teen-aged Joe, and served time—haunts their present. Elizabeth’s presence reignites dormant tensions within the local community, including Grace’s first family, and raises new questions about the couple’s ability to survive.
Individual Performances:
America Ferrera (Barbie)
Annette Benning (Nyad)
Willem Dafoe (Poor Things)
Colman Domingo (Rustin)
Jodie Foster (Nyad)
Ryan Gosling (Barbie)
Carey Mulligan (Maestro)
Emma Stone (Poor Things)
Ensemble Performances:
Air cast
American Fiction cast
The Holdovers cast
May December cast
*As of this writing I have not seen several of the season’s prestige films including All of Us Strangers, Anatomy of a Fall, Color Purple, Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer, Origin, Past Lives, and Saltburn, so I reserve judgement until I have the opportunity to view them. Stay tuned for an early 2024 post!
Classic Film:
Zoot Suit (1981) at the Aero Theatre, Santa Monica, California
In July 2023 I had the pleasure of viewing a remastered screening of this classic musical at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, California. An innovative re-imagining of figures from the Zoot Suit riots that occurred in Los Angeles in the 1940s the film, adapted from a theatrical piece, employs original music, dazzling choreography, and gorgeous costumes and production design to examine the Latino community’s tensions with the racist establishment of the time. Anchored by the provocative narration of Edward James Olmos, and powerful performances by Daniel Valdez and Tyne Daly, the film has an innovative meta-consciousness and narrative ambiguity underappreciated at the time. In 2019 the film was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry. Additionally, during the screening Olmos attended and graciously shared stories about his life and the making of the film.
Concerts:
Nnenna Freelon @ Artists for Humanity EpiCenter, Boston, MA
March 10, 2023: One of her first concerts since releasing 2021’s brilliant Time Traveler, Freelon and her bandmates including her pianist and violinist Chelsey Green, delivered genuinely improvisatory performance of a wide range material from Duke Ellington’s to The Stylistics. Freelon was warm and personable, dissolving the distance between herself and the audience letting us into her world through patter and opportunities for call-and-response.
Photo by the author.
Everybody Rise! A Celebration of Sondheim @ Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood, CA
July 30, 2023: A stellar cast of first-rate singing actors including Brian Stokes Mitchell, Patti LuPone, Sutton Foster, and Norm Lewis interpreted the composer’s best from such musical theatre classics, Company, Sunday in the Park with George, and Sweeney Todd. The combination of creative arrangements, an energized crowd and the beautiful outdoor setting made for a most memorable evening of song.
Allison Russell and the Rainbow Coalition @ The Sinclair, Cambridge, MA
December 7, 2023: After Russell’s bandmates, informally referred to as the Rainbow Coalition, warmed up the SRO audience (there are no seats at the venue) Russell performed various songs from her 2021 and 2023 solo albums, Outside Child and The Returner, and 2019’s Songs of Our Native Daughters with a masterful command of the space. Blending personal reflections with nearly effortless musicianship the experience was more akin to a spiritual revival than the playing of tunes.
Museum Experiences
Photo by the author,
Petersen Automotive Museum (Los Angeles)
Photo by the author,
New Orleans Sculpture Garden and Museum of Art (New Orleans)
Lourdes Portillo: Una vida de directora exhibit at the Academy Museum (Los Angeles)
The Art of Jean LaMarr exhibit at Institute of American Indian Arts (Santa Fe, New Meixco)
Notable Musicians Lost in 2023
Burt Bacharach
Jeff Beck
Harry Belafonte
Tony Bennett
Carla Bley
Jimmy Buffett
Bobby Caldwell
David Crosby
Astrud Gilberto
Steve Harwell
Rudolph Isley
Chuck Jackson
Ahmad Jamal
Linda Lewis
Gordon Lightfoot
David Lindley
Randy Meisner
Sinead O’Connor
Robbie Robertson
Sixto Rodriguez
Ryuichi Sakamoto
Wayne Shorter
Huey “Piano” Smith
Barrett Strong
Tina Turner
Cynthia Weil
Gary Wright
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