Metro Pulse/Music/Eye on the Scene

A Rare Night

Two or three generations of musicians came out Saturday night to pay their respects to the late Terry Hill, the South Knoxville songwriter/guitarist/ vocalist/producer/teacher/provocateur/friend who died at 48 on Nov. 1. Nearly 200 attended the Wake at the Unitarian Church, which included performances by recording artists who have shared stages with Hill, like R.B. Morris, Hector Qirko, and Brian Waldschlager, interspersed with slides and performance films of Hill, and an audio tape of Hill's conversation with psychic Bobby Drinnon, who confirmed for the record what the rest of us always suspected, that Terry wasn't one of us mortals. However, the guitarist's girlfriend, Jenny Arthur, stole the show with an affecting spoken memoir of Hill, emphasizing his manifold eccentricities, sparing no detail of his passions for cauliflower hearts and radio knobs. It was the kind of memorial service we'd all like to get, but won't.

Afterward, the Wake continued downtown at the Preservation Pub, the former site of the Mercury Theatre, the lively music club with which Hill was familiar as both performer and patron. Performances from Morris, Qirko, and Waldschlager as well as Shannon Stanfield, Todd Steed, Jacqui Alexander, "Smokin" Dave Nichols, Leslie Woods, drummer Doug Klein, and others evoked Hill's memory before a near-capacity crowd. As many musicians as were on stage, we've never before seen so many additional musicians standing in an audience. Representing a countless number of 30-plus years' worth of Knoxville bands and musical associations, all of whom felt they owed something to Terry Hill, they included old heavy-metalites and country-rockers from the '70s, blues and a few jazz-fusion types from the same era, reggae and hardcore and postpunk and gonzo-rock representatives from the '80s and '90s, and some kids who just picked up the guitar last year and had to show ID for a beer. It's safe to say we'll never see all these folks in the same room again. The man had some range.

Beg Your Pardon?

The Actors Co-op readings of humorist David Sedaris' short stories that this writer was so looking forward to didn't go so well on Saturday night. The prospect of combining low-key theater with goat cheese pizza appealed to me tremendously, so I called Tomato Head to see exactly how that would work.

"We'll be seating throughout," the kind man on the phone told me. That seemed to me a bit odd, but I figured the Headers knew what they were doing.

Well, turns out they didn't, really. Or more precisely, Tomato Head didn't know what Actors Co-op was doing, and vice versa. My dining companion and I arrived at 7:30 p.m. and got on the 30-minute waiting list. Now, that part's entirely our fault—we should've anticipated a wait. Anyhow, we got our seats about 10 minutes after 8, and sheepishly sat down to belatedly begin listening.

Except, we couldn't. The noise of our fellow diners created an overpowering din that ran away with the reader's voice, much like dingos snatching a baby in the night. The poor thespian shouted and railed, gesticulated and put on silly voices, but his words were only appreciated by six people at the table adjacent to his podium. Sitting in the second-closest proximity to the reader of all the parties in the restaurant, we couldn't manage to understand a single sentence.

As we mumbled to each other, the scene got even more surreal. The first of two readings concluded, the ringleader of a 30-person, 60th birthday party began to loudly thank her friends. At the same time, the Co-op's Kara Kemp attempted to communicate with her patrons, wherever they were. "If you're here for the readings, we encourage you to grab a table near the reader," she shouted, competing with the birthday lady in a bizarre contest of will and resilience. Sedaris would have loved it.

Kemp soon realized the situation was beyond hope, though, and asked theater-lovers to attend performances at either Borders Books (Dec. 3 and 10, 8 p.m.) or Yee-Haw Industries (Dec. 13, 6 p.m.) With a little love and understanding, those shows should be audible and entertaining. The Tomato Head used to be one of the more intimate places in town to see a show, but they've shied away from it of late. Let's hope this bad audio experience doesn't deter them from trying again (albeit with more structure). Here's to giving it one more try.

Knoxville Jazz Orchestra
a year in the life of the band... (Shade Street)

A year in the life is the CD we've been waiting for from the KJO. Last year's One for the Team! may've been sorta fun, what with its sporty themes, but it can't hold a candle to the performances here.

Culled from a 2001 European tour and local recording dates, the tunes herein are full of diversity and verve, from the contemporary opening cut, "Angst," through to the Dixieland-like last, "Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries."

On KJO Director Vance Thompson's original "Angst," the band flies dangerously low, driving the tune's insistent yet shifty arc. In addition to Jimmy Mann's fine solo on tenor, check out Bill Swann (piano) and Keith Brown (drums) tangling, giving no quarter. "Man, What a Beautiful Day," an infectious Thompson melody, follows as a welcome contrast, granting manageable pace and introspective solos from Mark Tucker on soprano sax and Thompson on flugelhorn.

Added to the Euro tour tunes are some wonderful locally recorded cuts, including Donald Brown on his original "Scenes from Knoxville" and irrepressible Dan Trudell (Hammond B-3 organ) on "Dig Uncle Will," where the mutual affinity of the band for the Hammond and vice versa is palpable.

Not content, the CD closes with the uncontainably swinging "Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries," with Larry Vincent doing his Johnny St. Cyr best on banjo and Eric Seay on tuba. From the driving crescendo that opens this CD to the last banjo chord on the final cut, this one's all gristle.

The KJO will perform at Pollard Auditorium in Oak Ridge, Friday, Dec. 6, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $5 ($3 for students).

—Emma "I'll see you in the ones I love" Poptart, with Jack Neely, Tamar Wilner, and Jonathan B. Frey