[0] comments

January was old-timers month for me. What I mean by that is that all my great aesthetic experiences involved artists who were at least 60 years old. Because we live in an ageist culture that tends to discard anyone over thirty, this seems like something worth talking about.

The passing of Artie Shaw on December 30, 2004, hardly qualifies as a great aesthetic experience -- I was very sorry to see him go -- but it certainly got me thinking about a certain kind of beauty. Exene Cervenka once made a wonderful observation about the big band era, which spawned a handful of certified geniuses, one of whom was surely Artie Shaw. "Think about big bands just for a second," said Cervenka. "Think about a 30-piece orchestra playing flawlessly live, and being super-creative, and everyone being a virtuoso, and then think about trying to find something like that now." This highly particular form of perfection is part of what we've lost with the passing of Shaw's generation, and having spent much of last month listening to Shaw's music, it strikes me as no small thing to lose.

A few days after I attended Shaw's funeral (yes, I knew the great man), I was invited to a private concert at Capitol Records to celebrate Merle Haggard's return to the label, and the release of his new album, Unforgettable. (Generally speaking, I would advise against a career in journalism, but occasionally it does have its advantages). This mini-concert took place in the Capitol studio where Frank Sinatra, the Beach Boys, Dean Martin and a host of others made history, and standing in those hallowed halls you could really feel all that fantastic history hanging in the air. Haggard is 68 now, but he's in astonishingly good form. He seemed considerably happier than he was when I interviewed him 25 years ago, and when he sang the first note of the title track from his new album, my friend Tom and I just looked at each other and smiled. My god, that voice! So burnished and rich and absolutely unique! Merle sailed through a set that included several of his hits, an anecdote about Lefty Frizzell, a few standards (he did a charmingly muffed version of "As Time Goes By"), and a bit of bluegrass and jazz. Every genre he dipped into was performed flawlessly and with no apparent effort. What a pro! Merle's band was something to see, too. Country music folk straight from central casting, these grizzled old dudes appear to have hit the road shortly after leaving the womb, and at this point there's nothing they haven't seen, no chord change they can't swing with. It was a privilege to watch a group pf musicians so at ease with themselves and what they've come to stand for.

On the other side of town, in West Los Angeles, I visited an exhibition of work by 62-year-old artist James Turrell at Griffin Contemporary. For those of you who don't prowl the outer fringes of the art world, Turrell makes sculpture out of light, and four of these marvelous pieces are on view at the gallery. Turrell is also close to completing one of the most ambitious art projects in history. In 1977 he purchased an extinct Arizona volcano (it was only $64,000!) and he's spent the last 28 years, and millions of dollars, transforming it into a kind of cosmic observatory. Located 50 miles northeast of Flagstaff, Rodan Crater accommodates just four people at a time, and visitors are encouraged to spend no less than 24 hours at the site in order to witness at least one cycle of celestial events. The bowl of Rodan Crater has been shaped to accentuate celestial vaulting (a perceptual phenomena that makes the sky appear to form a domed ceiling overhead), and several chambers, attuned to specific astronomical occurrences, have been carved into the banked walls of the volcano. The Eastern Space, for instance, is geared toward sunrises, while the Southern Space is shot with sun in the afternoons. Other chambers function like pinhole cameras, causing images of planetary alignments to appear on the wall, and once every 18.6 years, the moon will be perfectly aligned with the opening of the main tunnel into the Crater. This is heavier than anything you're likely to see at Lollapalooza, so lets hear it for the old guys.

Subscribe to Feed