pt at large

Satchmo Summerfest: Sunday, August 7, 2016, PT volunteers

South entrance to Jackson Square Park

Saturday afternoon, August 6, 2016

"Would you take a minute to take a survey with me?" asks a smiling fellow as I sit on a bench in the shade of the trees in Jackson Square Park. Clipboard in hand, Richard Eglé from Lafayette now lives in New Orleans, is associated with the French Quarter Festival Board of Directors, and makes it easy

"Why don't you volunteer tomorrow, we can always use the help," he says after we compare notes about the lively music scene in Lafayette. He is so good at it that I want to take him up on the offer. Besides, I loved the fabulous blue volunteer T shirt he wore and figured this was a good a way to snag one (an admittedly lame reason for volunteering).

1 PM Sunday, August 7, 2016

I arrive at the volunteer tent, offer to take surveys and am greeted with a cheer from the women at the desk.  A fellow named Tucker Mendoza hands me a clipboard, explains the survey sheet, and dispatches me into the park. But not before handing me a bright blue "Volunteer" T shirt, identifying me as a bona fide volunteer.

In the outside world, approaching a perfect stranger and asking for their time to do a survey, or actually anything, has a high rate of refusal (trust me, I've refused to talk to strangers who ask me to do this kind of stuff myself).

But here, in the confines of this lovely park with fabulous music and singing echoing in the background and the gregarious spirit of Louis Armstrong as strong as the sunshine overhead, people are much more receptive.

After a few tries, I develop my own introductory patter. “Good Afternoon. I wonder if you'd mind taking three or four minutes to take a survey that will help the organizers of this event make it even better next year and convince the people who are sponsors that it will be worth their while if they continue sponsoring next year.” I was an official volunteer, who could refuse such an entreaty?

No one declines. The next two hours are a blast. I survey 20 people, young and old, black and white, local and from afar. My first is with a woman that went so well that daughter asks to take a survey too. I’m on a roll. I spot her sponsor tag, she works for Chevron. They ask me to take their photo. I'm out of the gate and rarin' to go.

On a day like this, finding candidates cooling off in the shade is a breeze.

Hmmm, there's a young woman relaxing on a bench in the shade - thus begins a survey with one of the most important people at the festival, the professional piano tuner who keeps every piano just the way the performers want them to sound.

“I get up early to tune the pianos in the morning. The keys go sharp because of the humidity, 85% today, and I tune pianos several times a day.” Kimberly Gratton came here from the Florida Keys via Atlanta five years ago, doing what she called, “a rebuild of my life… and what a better place to do it!” www.Kimberleykey.com

The six degrees of separation story of the day: a woman with her daughter, relaxing in the shade, agree to take a survey. Marta and her daughter are scouting colleges.

“Ah, you’re Italian!” she says as she spots my name tag. “We are from Rome!”

Marta and her daughter Elena (my mother’s name!) have been on a major road trip, driving “on the shoestring,” she says. Elena, 16, is applying next year to Harvard, a few miles from my hometown. They’ve been on the road from Miami to Cambridge and were heading back but, after 4000 miles of listening to music on radio, they veered off to listen to the real thing in New Orleans.

“This is like a dream!” Marta says.

Marta listens to popular music in Rome. “You can’t listen to radio without hearing Louis Armstrong at least twice a day,” she says. “I grew up with this music and had a piano in house that continually needed 'a doctor' to tune it and was costly!” Harvard could be even more costly.

We trade addresses. I’m on the lookout for a place that covers Satchmo's catalog and know some great places to hear music in Cambridge. If Elena is accepted to Harvard, we'll all be singing, "What A Wonderful World"!

All you need to know about Satchmo Summerfest

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Satchmo Summerfest Sunday, August 7, 2016 Comes to a Close

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Leroy Jones, a veteran horn player, New Orleans ambassador, and man who’s good at connecting the dots in this historic city. "Give Me a Kiss That I Can Dream on"

“This is the kind of song that played a part in our rebuilding efforts after Katrina,” he says as an intro to this well-worn song. “Lots of the songs in the Armstrong catalog were made before we were born!”

“Paradise on Earth For Me,” a love song to the city Jones was born in, written by The Helsinki Connection, with local references to Donna’s Bar, and Creole food that tastes so good. Jones sang and played trumpet on this catchy number. originally recorded in New Orleans in the 1920s, and must have been known to Armstrong  - Leroy Jones has plenty of respect for this song written in 1914.

This year, he’s the recipient of the Harrelson trumpet presentation, a handmade trumpet by the famous   instrument maker Marcy Schramm (French Quartet Festivals, Inc) is one of the presenters (photo to follow)

Wendell Brunious  Chop Suey Stage NO PHOTO

There are many trumpet princes in this town, Brunious is one of them, with a deep sense of New Orleans culture, history, and the legacy of Louis Armstrong. This isn’t a cursory acknowledgment, it’s coming right from the man’s heart. He knows how damn hard this city is for poor people and Louis was one of them, grew up the streets, was sent to reform school, found finding food in garbage cans. The whole story is improbable and true. And incredibly unlikely. No one on any stage today, including Brunios, will reach the status of a Louis Armstrong.

Brunious is still amazed that Armstrong was invited to play in Copenhagen in 1932. “Imagine that…being invited to travel and play that far away in that day and age!”

"That was Armstrong - What else can you say? My God!"

Ironically, Louis was derided at the end of his career, berated for being an Uncle Tom in the decade of the activist 1960s. Being an entertainer who could mesmerize an audience with his impromptu patter, inventive scat singing, saying paragraphs with the contortions of his eyes face and mouth, camaraderie with guests and his musicians. This is not to say he didn’t experience racism, see it, hear it, feel it. Listen to his song, “Shine.”

Red Beans and Rice Stage Last act of the day, James Andrews and the Baby Dolls and a bunch of all stars who’ve graced the stages all weekend long.

When a New Orleans band leader says, “Are you ready to sing?” it’s is a rhetorical question – you join a few thousand others and chime in on “Happy Birthday” to Louis Armstrong (a ten foot tall white birthday cake has been on stage all day) and “Ooo Pa Pa Do” and a score of other songs I've heard all weekend long.

Music is it participatory Sport here. Kid Merve, Yoshio Tamaya, a few trumpeters from Tremé Brass Band and between all of them they sing and play the most delightfully disjointed rendition of “Happy Birthday” you've ever heard.

My goodness, there's Yoshio Toyama, who just performed with James Andrews, walking from the Red Beans and Rice stage after the finale. I ask a spectator to take photo, priceless memento.

 Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr and one friendly stranger

Satchmo Summerfest: Saturday August 6, 2016, Sun and Song

Out of the archives, written last year and never posted. I'm here again on August 2, 2017 for this year's edition of Satchmo Summerfest!

16th Annual Satchmo Summerfest

Walk to Jackson Square in the heat of the day. Upper 90s feels like 100F, this is New Orleans in August, baby! Here's a sampling of today's music.

1:45 PM Catherine Russell, Red Beans and Ricely Yours Stage
http://www.metrolyrics.com/catherine-russell-lyrics.html

"Give Me a Kiss That I Can Dream On" wafts over the lush grass in Jackson Park. Great day to begin a Satchmo Fest. More of Russell’s songs like "Everybody loves my baby (but my baby don't love nobody but me)" get the afternoon off with just the right calibration.

3:45 PM Red Beans and Ricely Yours Stage
Yoshio Toyama and wife Keiko and the New Orleans Jazz stars. Toshio and Keiko discovered and fell in love  with New Orleans jazz while they were studying music in New Orleans in 1963. They werevbefriended   by their neighbors, learned to enjoy Creole food and were invited to return by then owner of The Preservation Hall Jazz Hall, Alan Jaffe, to return and get deep into it. The story is the stuff of legends and certainly a documentary film. Their Wondeful World Foundation has been gifting instruments to New Orleans high school bands since post Katrina 2003.
Toshio has known some of the band members for 30 years. Clarinet player Mr. Fischer brings his band to Japan every year.

Yoshio does a great job of mimicking Satchmo's gravelly voice and incredible trumpet style with "Wonderful World" followed by "When the Saints Go Marching In," two Armstrong covers he sings to an appreciative crowd every year.

Yoshio, trumpet, Keiko piano and banjo, Mr. Fisher, clarinet

Incredible how many versions of the songs are played today, each one a blend of the spirit of Louis Armstrong and the imprint of the New Orleans artist covering it. I have heard versions of some of the songs a dozen times and each one has the spirit of Louis and the style of the artist. Louis did the same thing himself – put his own stamp on songs written before him but with a style and delivery no one had ever heard before.

In the midst of all this, I meet  Richard Eglé, who asks me if I will volunteer to do a survey tomorrow.

4:45 PM Chop Suey Stage Topsy Chapman and Soul Harmony

“Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams,” This was one of Louis’s favorites,” she says. Then a quick march to check out the Pinettes Brass Band.

 
5:30 PM Red Beans and Ricely Yours Stage The Original Pinettes Brass Band
http://www.nola.com/jazzfest/index.ssf/2009/05/pinette_brass_band_puts_female.html

"We’re Gonna Rock Tonight, Everything Is Going to Be All Right" followed by a cover of Amy Winehouse “Be My Baby” which they call renamed "Baby." http://www.metrolyrics.com/be-my-baby-lyrics-amy-winehouse.html
Now,we're talkini'! Like Louis, New Orleans bands find material that appeals to them, reshape and remold it into something familiar yet decidedly different. I've heard it all day long and that's why I keep coming back. If you’re turning the dial on your radio, you’ll recognize one of these songs by its distinct New Orleans flavor and stop right there. Amy would love the sassy upbeat New Orleans treatment by this band of young funksters.

"We're going to change it up on you again!" says the bandleader and they romp through a bunch of samples of their songs. I don't know the names of the songs but I know they're playing with an incredible amount of energy skill and talent and the audience is eating it up like grits and gravy. Today we’ve got one guy playing triangle/symbol and snare drum player has symbol strapped to his chest.

6:30 PM Chop Suey Stage Charmaine Neville
The woman sings vocals and plays the percussion rack at her place in front of the stage. She does an amazing version of Satchmo's voice – when I was walking to the tent, I thought one of the men and her band was singing "What a Wonderful World." Next surprise, Charmaine sings "Somewhere over the Rainbow" that ends up with a few funky verses that celebrates Louis Armstrong's powers of interpretation.

"Louis Armstrong brought music all over the world," she says, "It's important that people keep it alive all over the city.” It's no secret that New Orleans is a troubled city. Tourism is ramping up after Katrina but crime rates are also up, education is in flux, politics is messy and most politicians are not held in high regard. The black communities relationship to the police is tenuous. The recent wave of gentrification is leading to displacement of close-knit neighborhoods and the culture and history of generations.

Music remains the lighthouse, the beacon people gravitate to keep steady over troubled waters. Musicians, mostly black, are at the core of what makes this city so special, so unique and performers like Charmaine make sure we remember it.

"Little Liza Jane,"with Charmaine doing a great river on percussion and inviting dancing James whose birthday was August 6, to dance on stage. to the stage. She rolls on with "Mac the Knife," "Gangster Freeze," "This Is a Man's World,” and somehow,"Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead, " upbeat with an ending that has a touch of Broadway in it.
Charmaine signs off, "It doesn't hurt to be kind to each other, Just be nice," then rolls into a rendition of "Altogether Right Now," and leaves the stage saying "God loves you… Peace!" And thanks for volunteers, the police, the organizers, and us in the audience.

Time to head home

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Satchmo Summerfest: Jackson Square, Friday, August 5, 2016

Getting ready for this year's Satchmo Summerfest with posts from the archives, written in 2016 but for some reason, never posted!

Satchmo Summerfest: Jackson Square, Friday, August 5, 2016

With the reconstruction going on at the former U.S. Mint, home of the previous Satchmo Summerfest, the French Quarter Festivals Inc. had to get creative and fit the whole shebang into Jackson Square.

16th Annual Satchmo Summerfest

12 PM Friday, August 5, 2016
Red Beans and Rice Stage, the Preservation Hall Brass Band.
This is the most widely known and popular traditional jazz band in New Orleans. As with brass bands, the rumble of the bass drum and the oomph of the tuba laid a foundation for the harmony of the trombone, trumpet, clarinet, banjo, and saxophone.

The 2016 Satchmo Summerfest has officially begun. Every band today will play songs made popular by Louis Armstrong. The last song of the Preservation Hall Brass Band is a salute to the legacy of Louis Armstrong with the unique flavor, often imitated but never quite matched - quite the same way as it is played in the bars, parks, and dancehalls from Frenchmen Street two out-of-the-way places all over town.

1 PM Chop Suey Stage: Miss Sophie Lee, popular singer at The Spotted Cat on Frenchman Street accompanied by piano, guitar, piano and bass serves up a wonderfully tapas of traditional songs.

"That's When The Heartache Begins," slow tempo; "Blue
Skies," up-tempo, with a great guitar solo, remind me that the guitar and banjo have status in traditional New Orleans music. The whole set features the usual tight New Orleans arrangement.

"Why Must You Be Mean to Me," slow swing. Sophie introduces the band. During the entire day I cannot write fast enough to remember the names and instruments of musicians.
"I Will Love You" followed by "I'm Just Found" followed by an upbeat "A-Tisket A-Tasket". By the time she gets to an upbeat "When You're Smiling,” we are all smiling and sweating and feeling the Louis Armstrong vibe.

Next, an upbeat "It Don't Mean a Thing.” No drum set on the stage, the standup bass, deep and resonant, sustains the beat. The sound system for this act and all similar bands is just the right volume, no need for your plugs and the standup bass and guitar do a great job of pulsing the beat.

A taped announcement by trumpeter Leroy Jones acknowledges a long list of sponsors, takes two minutes to read. The weekend is supported by organizations of all stripes all over town.

About 26,000 attended from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon.
http://www.nola.com/festivals/index.ssf/2016/08/satchmo_summerfest_2016_attend.html

1:45 PM Red Beans and Rice Stage, Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

When you get near New Orleans brass bands you don't just hear them, you feel them right down to the marrow in your bones. I could feel The Dirty Dozen Brass Band all the way across Jackson Square as I entered the park. Trumpets are king down here but those big ass bass and snare drums and tubas are alpha instruments. Trumpets feed off them. Brass bands down here don't feel they're doing their job unless they see you dancing.

"Get up, you're in New Orleans!" The leader says to the crowd, many of whom are sitting on the grass or in camp chairs, as he peers from the stage. It's 90°F and the humidity is so high that when you walk if feels like you're wading through a bathtub. No matter, this guy wants us to get up and shake our booties. All of a sudden, we are in a call and response mode and for all the world we could be testifying at a Sunday morning church service.

"Say Satchmo," he shouts over the ratatatat of the drums and pealsof trumpets. "This is New Orleans! We make music in the hot! We make food in the hot! We make you know what in the hot!" Not long after that the music inexplicably stops – there's a call for a doctor, a musician has collapsed. Later, the leader says, “Kurt has been with us since he was 16, it's 100° out there, make sure you all drink water.”

2:45 PM Chop Suey Stage, The Tornado Brass Band

“The Rebirth Brass Band can blow the shingles off of a house, “ says the leader with chuckle. "We call this the quiet band," he says as a way of introduction.

Their songs included smooth versions of “Wonderful World,” “You Are My Sunshine.”
When it comes to "When the Saints Go Marching In" this band is not so quiet. The repartee between the band members between numbers is hilarious sometimes even during the songs. This kind of banter is one of the endearing things about music in this town, at least between traditional bands like the Tornados.

3 PM Bill Summers and the JazzSalsa Band, Red Beans and Ricely Yours Stage

An Afro- Caribbean Latin funk band switches genres with great elan. They finish with "Caravan" and Carlos Santana’s "Jingoloba." The African call and response chants incorporated into the music gave the performance a resonance that must have been familiar to many in the audience.

4:45 PM The Shotgun Jazz Band at the Chop Suey Stage. OOPS NO PHOTOS!

If Odetta Sang is kind of music she might sound like band leader Marla Dixon. In a city with hundreds of female singers, Dixon has a style all her own. Dixon on trumpet is accompanied by trombone, clarinet, banjo, bass. “Breathe,” easy swing tempo; "I'll Take You Home Cathleen" an old Irish reel that has been around a long time and this kind of genre jumping is one of the reasons Dixon is in a league of her own.

“How about some blues?” Dixon asks rhetorically, “I think it was by Tampa Red,” and indeed it was. Old time lyrics, it swings low and hard and Dixon’s got the lip to torch these songs into embers. If this did not get your hips moving you might be dead. I can probably say that for most of the music I heard today. There is no linear set list, Dixon glances down at a list then takes a stab.

Along comes ‘In the Gloaming” Stand up bass player Tyler Thompson sings "My Old Kentucky Home." “We might be running a little late, I think it will be OK, they probably already cut the check."

Next, an awesome sax solo (I wish I could remember the song), the bass player and the banjo player hold the baseline and underpin the beat. Next, "Shake It and Break It," the original version, Dixon says. She directs solos and signals the end with a wave of her hand. Next, "Whenever You're Lonesome, Telephone Me." With that, she concludes by thanking Louis Armstrong, the sponsors, and us in the audience. She’s the bomb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34VJzHT9nuk

5:30 PM The Soul Rebels, Red Beans and Ricely Yours Stage

 

Cross a New Orleans traditional brass band with a side of funk and you get the Soul rebels. By now we’re bathing in a blanket of humidity at about the same temperature as our own bodies. All day long people have found respite in the shade and one of the positive assets so Jackson Square is that there are plenty of trees under which to get it. A given in New Orleans is you just never hear them complaining about the heat.

Spectators fan themselves the old fashioned way As they stand around the stage or sit in the ubiquitous camp chairs or spread out on blankets all over the park. My hands are so wet with perspiration that ink is smeared all over my notebook.

Can you imagine a brass band like The Soul Rebels can sing a song like "sweet dreams are made of this" and that by the end of the song, the bandleader as us all singing along. It is beyond me how the band can switch gears and tempo and play as tight as they do – brass, reeds, percussion– The bandleader flashes his hand with different number of fingers, sort of like a quarterback, and a band sees what he wants and who is going to solo and when the song is going to end.

6:45 PM Chop Suey Stage, The Original Tuxedo Jazz Band


Talk about making a homage to Louis, "Muskrat Ramble," "is a peach of a rendition.

Who are these guys? Here comes "Down the Mississippi to New Orleans" in four-time?
Yolanda Winter begins to solo, totally awesome. She introduces "Shine," the lyrics are important, the bandleader said it was one of Lewis favorite songs. Louis was ahead of his time with this not so subtle song about his skin color, one that he certainly felt and certainly lived.

This band is having fun, they joke around when they mess up an introduction, The leader says "We haven't worked together for a week. It's a good thing you can't hear what we're saying appear off mic!”
Bandleader says they're going to play a Louis Armstrong classic but with a different groove and play "What a Wonderful World" with a Rumba beat…really fetching.
“The next song is one of my favorites, my grandfather wrote it,” says the leader and here comes "Why Don't You Go down to New Orleans" upbeat almost with a waltz beat.

Wonders never cease around here.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Satchmo Summerfest August 3 - 8, 2016: A Look Back

Out of the archives, written last year and never posted. I'm here again on August 2, 2017 for this year's edition of Satchmo Summerfest!

Satchmo Summerfest August 3 - 8, 2016:
A Look Back, August 20, 2016

It shouldn't surprise you that I'm heading there again in a few days...

August 20, 2016
Louis Armstrong is as much a presence in this city as the live oaks that line St. Charles Street and the tip jars that are plopped alongside of every busker in the French Quarter. He was born in one of the poorest most abject parts of New Orleans yet left a legacy that is priceless. The annual Satchmo Summerfest is a huge thank you note to the first important soloist who changed the course of jazz in America.

Every band in Jackson Square from Friday through Sunday, each in its own way, paid homage to Louis (August 4, 1901-July 6, 1971). Along with traditional Dixieland and New Orleans jazz, I can’t tell you how many times I heard songs like “Shine”, “Give Me A Kiss That I Can Dream On”. “What A Wonderful World”, check notes for more were played and sung.

What I can tell you is that the songs were interpreted differently and sounded glorious every single time. My weekend favorite was The Tuxedo Brass Band playing  “What A Wonderful World” to a rumba beat.

The range of voices and instrumentals/band was fabulous. Men and women sang and played their hearts out. All of them, from traditional jazz bands to kick ass brass bands, took time to say what an effect Armstrong’s style and creativity had on them. Louis broke the mold in the 1920s by playing trumpet solos the likes of which had never been heard before – and have become standards since.

Armstrong’s influence is the amniotic fluid in which these musicians were born. The beauty of New Orleans music is that it is informed and inspired by the past but always sounds fresh. These musicians are no copycats. Each is driven to put his/her own stamp on the music. Jackson Square became a petri dish for celebratory creativity.

No nation of musicians can get a crowd going like these in New Orleans. When they shout, “Stand up and shake your butts!” people stand up. When they shout, “You know the words, sing ‘em with us!” Damn if everyone doesn’t sing along, and with gusto. You could probably make a case that Louis Armstrong had something to do with this since his connection to his audiences was filled with humor and a sense of playfulness. Each and every one of the 40 bands who played at two stages in Jackson Square proved that hour after hour.

This was fry an egg on the hood of a car temperatures with humidity suited for hot house tomatoes. In fact, on Sunday, one of the members of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band collapsed on stage from heat exhaustion.

Normal summer. Every patch of shade was occupied but hundreds brought their camp chairs, spread out on blankets, or just sprawled in the grass in the midst of the square. Music alternated between two stages. The Jackson Square is small enough so if you camped out in the middle, you could easily hear the bands all day long. At $5.00, it is the best music value in Louisiana.

No outdoor festivity here goes without food. Vendors from the city’s famous food emporiums sold po boys, red beans and rice and collard greens, jambalaya, fried catfish, and more. Ice cream, snow cones…yep… one of my favorite – a banana and nutella crepes. And cooling alcoholic beverages from beer to margaritas, rum and daiquiris. If you weren’t prudent in this heat, you might have snoozed and missed a bunch of music after a couple of pops.

The people of New Orleans, at music events and beyond, are a sub culture to themselves. I have struck up conversations on a street car, at a bar, in a diner, at a music hall, a park bench and after five minutes know where they live, their favorite foods or places to eat or listen to music, an explanation of a cultural or historic or social custom, and tip about the best way to get where I’m going and possibly where to stop off on the way.

On the way to the Louis Armstrong International Airport on Monday, I’m in the front seat talking to the Airport Shuttle driver. She says people keep in touch after such random meetings, still keep in touch because they trade cell numbers. Or that locals invite visitors over for a barbeque on the spot and stay in touch after that. She says that Kermit Ruffins and Jeremy Davenport, two of the best known trumpeters in town, are good friends, that sometimes after a show at Kermit’s place, the former Ernie K Doe Club on St. Claude, he will say, “Come on everybody, let's go over to The Ritz and listen to Jeremy Davenport!” But I digress.

The last time I initiated a conversation on a Boston trolley, the person next to me put his earbuds back on to signal he wasn’t interested.

Altos de Chavón School of Design: Creative Summer Thunder In A Micro-Climate

Altos de Chavón School of Design

Daily temperatures in La Romana hover around 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

Two minutes after entering the lush grounds in which classrooms are located, the air immediately became more moist and smelled like a giant green house under a giant bell jar. Gentle humidity clung to the skin in an embrace. Visually, it appeared like a well maintained jungle dotted with small cement white washed buildings with terracotta roofs and surrounded by shade trees.

 

 

While tourists posed for photos in the village in which the stones soak up the sun, participants in the summer intensive classes enjoy the benefits of a micro climate a few hundred yards away.

 

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Altos de Chavón School of Design: Creative Summer Thunder, Part 2

July 10 - July 14, 2017

Altos de Chavón School of Design, Altos de Chavón, La Romama, Dominican Republic

Summer school heats up with five intensive one week classes from July 10 - July 14, 2017. "Introduction to Museum Studies," taught by Katherine Jones, Director of the Graduate Program in Museum Studies at Harvard Extension School, marked the first collaboration between Jones and Arlene Alvarez, Director of the Altos de Chavón Regional Archeological Museum on the grounds here.

 

Here we go...Monday, 9 AM in a classroom in the student village.

 
Jones distilled aspects of her extensive experience including collections manager, media specialist, board member, museum registrar and administrator into one week!

 

  

A week of classes began Monday, July 10, 2017...the next four days were filled with focused engagement, sharing of information and two field trips. Jones introduced concepts detailed in The American Alliance of Museums and The International Council of Museums.

The range of museums in the American Alliance of Museums covers every type of museum in which participants are affiliated, helps develop standards, best practices and shares ethical, aesthetic, scientific and technological knowledge. The International Council of Museums covers subjects from ethics to a handbook of museum standards and terminology.

Participants asked questions about how to maintain databases, collect data about their visitors, involve visitors interactively, compose mission statements and reassess them over time, how to preserve dolls, dresses or similar items in the humid Caribbean climate, increase the diversity of their audiences, license items they sell in their gift shops, how to loan objects to another museum. even how to make plans to prepare for hurricanes and contingency plans if they strike.

 

Director of the Regional Archeological Museum at Altos de Chavón, Arlene Alvarez, explains the museum's effective methods of engaging students with materials from the museum's collection. With a combination of design and intuition, their methods mirror subjects Jones had earlier explained about Howard Gardner's work about multiple intelligences and George Hein's ideas about making meaning about what visitors see by starting with their own experiences. Powerful stuff!

 

 

Museum teacher Lenin Paulino explains the museum's two educational outreach programs, in-house and traveling programs. For visits to the museum, public school teachers and students are given materials to prepare their students. The materials provide scaffolding so students can better absorb what they are about to experience. Alvarez and Paulino take traveling exhibits, called "Museum in a Box" to schools in rural areas and send ahead the same kind of previews.

Visual learning and thinking strategies are an essential part of their approach. "What do you see?" "What do you think this is for? "Have you ever seen anything like it?" These are the kinds of questions they ask as they pull out items in boxes during their traveling museum classes. The questions do not require prior knowledge, perfect for kids in rural areas. There are no wrong answers, they can respond based on their own knowledge.

Jones reviewed the theories of Howard Gardner and George Hein during the week. The museum outreach programs are knee deep in practices described by these authorities. George Hein has said that the viewer plus the museum equals a new experience, what you see, what you feel, leads to a deeper understanding. Based on their approach, Paulino and Alvarez are on that wave length.

The major goal of the program is to give children a sense of pride and ownership of their culture. One good example: Students are shown a mortar and pestle - "There's one in our kitchen!"  they say. Then they will learn how their forbears made them, learned to use them, how old they are, and that they've been part of their culture for eons. Arlene Alvarez says the treasures in our past help us know ourselves better and this  is a prime example.

Different colored boxes represent different topics. One box, used in both museum visits and visits to schools, contains a map of migration to the Caribbean. Questions in each box are open to interpretation. Children speculate, talk about sea travel, learn how different cultures have arrived and thrived (or not) in the Dominican Republic. 

Alvarez and Paulino say that this kind of teaching is different from public schools where students may be able to read but have no tools to interpret critically - compare, contrast, and synthesize. Paulino says that he does two or three concepts at a time so as not to overwhelm students with information.

As the lessons conclude, Paulino and Alvarez divide the students into teams to present what they have learned. Everyone on the team participates, every kid has a role. Students may role play, use puppets, artwork, dance, sing, and read. They own the show. Jean Piaget, George Hein, John Dewey, and Howard Gardner are somewhere in the wings applauding.

One of the program's weaknesses is that the school teachers often do not follow up and reinforce what has been learned. (In truth, this can happen in American schools as well.)

Arlene Alvarez says that colleges and universities preparing teachers are now incorporating Gardner’s concepts about multiple intelligences in their curriculum so the new teachers will use the concepts as they begin their careers. We're talking about using "best practices," leading edge stuff. Alvarez and Paulino should make a video of how they teach these traveling classes and make them required viewing in teacher education school.

 

One day was dedicated to learning about exhibition design from the ground up.

Santo Domingo architect Alex Martinez Suarez, former student of Katherine Jones, is currently in charge of redesigning and reconstructing of the Museo Fernando Peña DeFilló, a museum he constructed several years ago in Santo Domingo. He cites the importance of  constructing additions that respect the original architecture and design. He had the tiles in the original museum reproduced to match the floors of the museum's new rooms he is designing.

Showing how he arranges artwork and manages flow through the museum is one key to keeping giving visitors a positive experience. The slides gives participants a chance to ask questions about their own floor plans and ask questions about managing flow and arranging artifacts and art in their own museums.

 

Martinez translates for two participants. Alvarez translates for Jones when necessary.

 

 

 

Alvarez does not distribute mountains of materials. Participants need to take notes, ask questions, relate their own experiences to what is being taught.

Everyone's paying attention.

 

Participants ask questions, gather information.

 

Guest lecturer Luisa Peña, Director of the Memorial Museum of Dominican Resistance in Santo Domingo. The museum, opened in 2011, is  "An unflinching manifestation of the darkest corners of national memory, the Memorial Museum of Dominican Resistance honors the men and women who fought the dictatorial regime of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo and continued to push for change during the chaotic years of political transition under Trujillo’s successor Joaquin Balaguer."

Between 1930 and 1961, the Dominican Republic was under the ruthless thumb of Rafael Trujillo. The country today bears no resemblance to the barbarity that snuffed out the lives of more than 50,000 Dominicans during his reign of terror.

 

 

Classes moved to the library on Thursday and Friday.

Thursday afternoon...here comes the final project assignment cooked up by Jones and Alvarez: Present a concept for a museum using everything the class had learned about all aspects of a museum from the programmatic side and the operations side.  Alvarez divided the group the classic "count off by twos" method. The "uno"  programmatic (creative) team had to determine the theme and coordinate with the "dos"  Operations team to formulate a vision… and present it at the end of the last day of class Friday...tomorrow!

The two teams came up with a brilliant choice...

Museo de la Gastronomía Dominicana!

 

Their museum concept showed a deep command of what they had absorbed all week...

 

and they had a ton of fun presenting what their two teams worked on all night...

followed by graduation, complete with certificates of participation.

Altos de Chavón School of Design: Creative Summer Thunder, Part 1

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

Altos de Chavón School of Design: Creative Summer Thunder, Part 1

Altos de Chavón School of Design: Creative Summer Thunder
July 10 - July 14, 2017

Take the summer off?  Not at the internationally acclaimed School of Design at Altos de Chavón in La Romana, D.R. An ambitious program of five intensive workshops and classes took place from July 10 to July 14 and more are slated right into August. 

Arlene Alvarez, Director, Altos de Chavón Regional Archeological Museum and Carmen Lorente, Director of Special Programs organized the summer intensive classes. Both could function well in a small Fortune 500 company.

Students from all over the Dominican Republic signed up for July’s classes taught by teachers from Santo Domingo, Spain, New York City, and Boston.

• Commercial Photography led by Diana Baldera of Santo Domingo
• Introduction to Music Videos led by Pablo Lozano of Santo Domingo
• Anatomical Drawing led by Anna Wakitch of NYC Academy of Drawing
• Travel and Adventure Photography led by Juan Carlos Vélaz of Spain
• Introduction to Museum Studies led by Katherine Jones of Boston, MA

With skilled focus and pace, Katherine Jones, Director of the Graduate Program in Museum Studies at Harvard Extension School, distilled aspects of her extensive career experience including collections management, media specialist, board member, registrar and museum administrator into one week! As an invited guest, I realized how much more there is to the museum experience aside from looking at the artwork on the walls or on pedestals.

Many in the class were affiliated with Dominican museums in administration or operations or sometimes both. Others enrolled to get a deeper grasp organizational structures that would support their work. Topics they wanted to learn about included use of technology and social media to widen their audiences, techniques for fund raising, developing earned income from gift shops and rental of space, matters of governance regarding board development and staffing policies.

The class was a perfect fit.

The first day was a doozy: an overview of all a museum’s functional areas: Administration, Collections Care, Exhibitions, Education, Fundraising and Membership, Governance, Communications and Marketing, and Operations (Technology, Facilities), and Collections Care. 

As the week progressed, her Power Point slides were translated into Spanish. Jones spoke in English. Most of the participants were bilingual. Arlene Alvarez translated for two who were less fluent and for Jones when necessary. 

A Power Point presentation has no impact unless it is backed up by cogent, appropriate information and active engagement with an audience. Jones’s was all of that. Her students ate it up.

The creative energy was as thick in the classroom as the tropical heat and humidity outside their walls. We’re in the heart of the Caribbean but make no mistake - their curiosity and thirst for knowledge began to thrive in those first six hours under the terracotta tile roof of the classroom.

“How would you define a museum?”  Jones’ first question gave her a sense of her audience and set the tone for a week of engagement. Rich responses ranged from educating via online museums, pop up museums, traveling museums, brick and mortar museums and reasons each contribute to enhancing or maintaining culture and history.

When Jones noted that a museum’s mission must be clearly understood by everyone from board members to the greeter at the door, a woman who administers a museum in Higuey said that the cleaning lady had the best grasp of the mission of anyone she surveyed, including the higher up administrators! That’s a big aha moment for an administrator of a museum of any size.

The two complementary components of a museum are programmatic (mission driven) and operations (sustainability driven).  The programmatic includes collections and their care, research, exhibitions, programs including tours, school groups, lectures, and courses. The operations component includes fund raising, marketing, technology, janitorial and security.

Each has a range of employees who, except for docents, volunteers, security, and gift shop workers, are not often encountered by the typical museum-goer. Flow charts showing the differences between staffing of large, medium and small sized museums set the stage for participants to assess and refine their organizations. 

Jones's first morning overview got conversations going right out of the gate. Questions about security and theft, a museum’s values, how to preserve objects in the humid Caribbean climate, how to make a museum’s audience more diverse, how to measure success, preparing children and teachers for a museum visit, what makes a museum financially sustainable, contingency plans in the event of a hurricane - all this in the first 6 hours!

The topic citing the importance of having in place a clearly stated policy of accession (accepting a piece of art) was a hot issue. Several participants reported that donors were upset when their offers to donate an item were politely refused. If they had a specific policy in place that explained the reason they could not accept the gift, they maintained good relationships; if not, they risked offending important supporters or donors to their museums.

On subsequent days, hands-on experience and field trips were illuminating experiences. Jones demonstrated how to use archival paper to wrap items in the museum’s collection and showed a tool for making cradles for delicate objects using EthaFoam.  

The five day course was enriched by offers from the participants who invited the class to visit museums with which they are affiliated. The class piled into vans to take a field trip to the Museo Altagracia operated by a participant and visit the amazing basilica it represents in Higuey.

After class another afternoon, a participant invited the class to tour a small museum incorporated into a jewelry store operated by her family. Located in the heart of the Altos de Chavón village, it features jewelry made with Larimar, a semi-precious stone found only in the Dominican Republic. It's a satellite museum of the original museum in Santo Domingo.

Alex Martinez Suarez, a Santo Domingo architect and former student of Jones, engaged students with the story of how he oversaw construction of the Fernando Peña DeFilló Museum in the Colonial Zone in Santo Domingo, and described his experience of designing and constructing an addition to this museum. His  slides illustrated best practices in exhibition planning, design, ways visitors flow through a museum's exhibits and examples of how to hang art in the exhibitions.

Monday’s homework - Jones asked participants to tell about their most memorable museum exhibit.  One student talked about The Museum of Impossible Conversations, an exhibit that imagined a conversation between a current and past fashion designer.

Thursday’s homework assignment was a brilliant way to evaluate how much information the students had absorbed and how to apply it - present a concept for a museum using what they had learned about all aspects of a museum from the programmatic side and the operations side.  The programmatic (creative) side had to determine the theme and coordinate with the Operations team to formulate a vision… and present it at the end of the last day of class Friday.

Archeological Museum Director Arlene Alvarez made two teams using the good ‘ol count off by twos method and they went to work. They must have worked on it all night because they came up with a beaut. Museo de la Gastronomía Dominicana!

A one-week intensive course at the world-class School of Design was perfect for working professionals. By the time the week ended, participants got deep into the weeds of what makes a museum click and found ways to apply them to their own organizations or businesses.

Altos de Chavón School of Design: Creative Summer Thunder, Part 2

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Books, Records, Food: Something for Everyone at The Westport MA Friends 55th Annual Used Book Fair: The VIDEO

The Westport Friends 55th Annual Used Book Fair

The yellow and white striped tents that are erected the first week of July in front of the Westport Friends Meeting House on Main Road in Westport, MA, signify one thing: the annual Westport Friends Used Book Fair is about to take place as usual, the second Saturday of July. Around dawn on Saturday, volunteers load thousands of used books on tables under the tents. At 11 AM sharp, the colorful pennants that surround the tents are dropped, hundreds of book lovers swarm inside.

Bargains, camaraderie, home made goodies abound. Here's a peek at noon, one hour after the first wave of shoppers have loaded up.

The book fair continues for over a week. During the final days, shoppers pick out what they want, leave dough in a collection can. The white Meeting House as a backdrop, this is a New England scene in full.

For the whole story - http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2017/07/books-records-food-something-for-everyone-at-the-westport-ma-friends-55th-annual-used-book-fair.html

The 56th Westport Friends Used Book Fair will be on Saturday, July 8, 2017

 Video by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Books, Records, Food: Something for Everyone at The Westport MA Friends 55th Annual Used Book Fair

Let this recap of the fabulous book fair last summer serve as a reminder for the Westport Friends 56th Annual Used Book Fair Saturday, July 8, 2017! This will be the first one I'll miss in over ten years!

VIDEO

Westport Friends (Quaker) 55th Annual Used Book Fair
938 Main Road
Westport, MA


July 9, 2016

Spirits and expectations were sky high. Thousands of books were so close you could smell their musty odor after months of being packed away in the book shed next to the Macomber Community House. Collectors and beach readers, they're here in force.

"Have you ever read Nelson DeMille?" asks one man to another as they wait behind the colorful pennants surrounding the tents, itching to move in the moment the opening whistle blows at precisely 11 AM. "I've read nearly all of his books and am looking for more."

Book Fair Clerk Greg Marsello prepares for the countdown. He's unflappable, organized, and the main cog in the book sorting process. Just about every book on the tables has had to pass through his hands - thousands that do not pass muster are recycled or passed along to other book sellers. Want to volunteer to help during the year-long process?

Bargains galore await eager book lovers. Prices? Ridiculously affordable...some at 6 for $1.00, gorgeous coffee table books at the high end for $5.00 and the vast majority at one tenth their original cost. The book fair has come a long way since its inception 55 years ago. The parsonage needed a new roof, the parson suggested organizing a book fair to pay for it. It was such a success, the Friends decided to repeat it...the rest, as they say, is history.

For a moment, the scene resembled a "Door Buster" sale at WalMart. A record-sized crowd surged into the Macomber Community House for a record collection bonanza! 2,000 records, LPs and 45s were recently donated by the estate of a local record collector - and another 1000 from other donors. Records pressed on vinyl have been making a comeback - many collectors knew exactly what they wanted and still have the equipment to play the records on.

By the end of the first two hours, thousands of paperbacks, hard covers, albums, records and DVDs had found new homes, at least till next summer. This is easy to imagine since a staggering 20,000 books were stacked on tables and cartons underneath them, ready to surface as soon as the first books had been carted away. For the first year, credit cards are accepted!

"The Book Fair raises about 32% of our yearly operating costs," Greg Marsello says. "The money is allocated for property upkeep expenses, religious education, and a Helping Fund, which supports In-Need members of the community."

The Children's' section of the tent behind the refreshment tables opened for kids exclusively at 10:45 AM. When every kid seems to have an iPhone or iPad, it's refreshing to see them poring over titles and filling their arms with books in all categories.

11:01 A.M. the tents are jammed...

 

The jovial intensity of shoppers is unmatched. If you could bottle it, you'd achieve Peace on Earth. Here's an entire community focused on acquiring books to read for pleasure and  the serendipitous prospect of finding books that open their horizons or complete their collections.  There are serious book collectors here who search for and usually find books for their inventory.

Says one collector: "My main interest is in 20th century literature and history. I have a Masters degree in literature so I know the canon. After 12 years I have a feel for what will sell and do business online."

Joe Gracia on the prowl for Clive Custler books. Joe has list supplied by his wife, a fan of Custler's. Joe says the author actually has a staff that helps him churn out books. His wife buys 300 to 400 books a year at yard sales and fairs. They sell books at the American Legion. Indeed, there's something for everyone here.

A new wrinkle this year: thousands of vinyl albums from donated from a collector's estate.

Bookfair coordinator Kevin Lee: "The announcement about a collectors trove of LPs and 45s drew many collectors. One fellow appeared at the community house at 8:45 AM to ask when the doors opened. He returned at 9:20 AM to be the first in the door that opened at 11 AM. The collectors handled albums very carefully, examining for scratches, and holding them at the edges."

Three generations of music fans peruse...

A shopper proudly displays a Brenda Lee album, tells me that her 4'9" height earned her the nickname "Little Miss Dynamite." Lee stormed the charts with her rockabilly and country songs, had 47 US chart hits during the 1960s.

 "I worked hard today," says a collector. He was looking for originals, not reissues, sells on Amazon, looks for albums from the Norman Luboff choir, Tom Petty, Brenda Lee and albums on vinyl which he says are coming back in popularity, some for nostalgia and others because artists are beginning to record on vinyl again after years of forsaking for CDs. He has a 98% approval rating on Amazon.

 Some of the best stories aren't in books but are the ones I hear from the shoppers themselves...

 

Tom Maguire: "I've come here because I read about the albums for sale by reading your blog. My mom was born in 1910, she used to sing to me all the time. She always had a happy smile and was fun to be around. People tell me I smile a lot because of her. She used to sing some of the songs in this big bag of records I just bought. They bring back happy memories of her. I'm not a kid anymore so I really enjoy these memories from the LPs."

"Look at this album of quadrille songs. When she was younger my mom loved that dance. When she was 89 years old and got around with two canes she went to listen to a quadrille dance. A fellow took her hand and she was sitting down and danced quadrille moves with her. Can you imagine that?"

"And look at this album by the Irish Rovers. During the war a bunch of us went into a Vietnamese bar and a song on this album called 'The Black Velvet Band' was on a jukebox and we must of sung that song 20 times one right after another!"

A collector from Dartmouth, MA."I love this book fair. I've been coming here for the past five years after my daughter told me about it. When I bring books home every year there is no late fee, it's almost like I'm renting them for a year. If I don't keep them, I re-donate them or give them to friends."

"This is my favorite book fair in this region," says Luke Wallin, says retired University of Massachusetts Dartmouth professor.  "Literature used to be my favorite category now it's mostly about painting which I've taken up after retirement. My daughter's favorite is the book fair in Little Compton, Rhode Island. She checks for book fairs online, we often go together. The Little Compton Rhode Island library has its used book sale on August 6 this year."

  
Longtime (really!) readers from Dartmouth,MA, examining their haul: Woman says, ”I remember coming to the very first book fair with my mother who was a ferocious reader. We bring books back or give them to friends. I'm 80 years old now so I've been coming here for 55 years! It appears that there is something about the Westport weather that's good for you!"
Man says, “We read aloud to each other on Horseneck Beach."

"On a cross-country trip a long time ago my girlfriend and I read the book 'The Wind in the Willows' to each other, says I. The man smiles.  "My second wife wouldn't marry me until I read that book  to her out loud. I guess I passed because we did get married."

Beginning readers try out a spelling game photo R.

 
Bring your kids!
 

This family's third time around.

 

Satisfy your book cravings for a good long time.

The steps of the Friends Meeting House were a perfect place to read, eat lunch, and compare notes. For this day only, the Meeting House was packed with paperbacks priced at 25 cents and 6 for $1.00 and opened for business at 10 AM. At dusk, the remaining books were set up under the tents. The weekly Sunday service begins at 10 AM. The only books in sight will be hymnals.

Photo R: "We saw a flyer advertising this book fair at the campsite were staying at on Horseneck Road," says the dad of the two girls intent on their books.

The flow of the first days predictable," says Kevin Lee, event coordinator and photographer, who can be counted on to add humor to the day's proceedings. "There is quite a rush for the first two hours then a lull till late in the afternoon when the crowd picks up again. Most of the crowd today are casual shoppers with a variety of tastes and interests. We do have collectors to our very specific in their shopping."

Food tent: Says one volunteer: "Today being cool, we sold lots of hot coffee and hot dogs first. We usually make one earn of coffee for the day, today we were on fourth pot by 2 PM. Our fabulous tabouli was a hit as it is annually."

The outreach coordinator, who happened to be working at the food tent, said that they used social media and other methods of outreach this year and attracted people from as far away as Cape Cod. She also noted a more diverse crowd, hungry too since they cleaned out the entire table of home made baked goods - mouth watering cookies, brownies, cupcakes, pies, scones, pumpkin bread.

Here's a tip:  Ask for Deana’s apple pie: wow not sure of kind of apples probably macintosh, plus  australian ginger which she bought in chunks and ground up into small bits, cinnamon, cranberry juice, sugar, and tapioca. The pies is so good  an admirer paid her to drive to her house to show her how to make the pies herself!

The book fair ended on Sunday, July 17, 2016.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.