THE BEAT

Michael Gizzi, Suzzy Roche, Ladies Auxiliary Ukulele Orchestra

by Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Oct. 16, 1997)

Michael Gizzi: Muscular wordplay

Quotations from Bob Dylan and Frank Sinatra preface Michael Gizzi's spectacular new book of poetry, "No Both" (Hard Press/The Figures, West Stockbridge). Without exaggerating its significance, the choice of Dylan and Sinatra is telling. For while the Lenox poet's work goes far deeper and beyond what either Dylan or Sinatra attempt in their popular art, as representatives of their particular culture, era and outlooks, Dylan and Sinatra are apt bookends for the world that Gizzi portrays in his poetry.

Gizzi's Beat-derived rhythms and imagery share with Dylan's most poetic, oracular work of the '60s a love of tensile wordplay. And in the same fashion that Sinatra "wrote" swaggering, confident lines with his boisterous vocal phrasing, so does Gizzi throw around words with a dizzying muscularity.

A veritable athlete of language art, Gizzi bounces turns of phrase off of familiar expressions like so many three-pointers, as in this example from "No Both":

"I'm back kneeling on bitter rice in the coldstone circus church of misbehaving bent youth, slurring three-square Marys, faking a good Act of Conniption flush in front of the Light-a-Candle Concession, a terraced altar of carmine-colored jellyglasses flickering their translucent booboos of Jesus."

Or, in other example, "`A beating a day keeps the titters away' peel the Bells of Saint Scary."

While Sinatra is old enough to be Gizzi's grandfather, for much of their lives both of them were steeped heavily in an immigrant milieu, as was Dylan -- it is a quotation from Dylan's "I Pity the Poor Immigrant" that kicks off "No Both." Both Dylan and Sinatra used their status as immigrant-outsiders to their artistic advantage throughout their careers -- indeed, Dylan's new album, "Time Out of Mind," can be read in its entirety as a commentary on alienation and rejection.

Gizzi plies similar terrain in "No Both," mining the experience of the American outsider who, in Dylan's words, "wishes he would've stayed home," in order to come up with a truer vision of just we mean when we talk about the "American experience." Or rather, he gives voice to a very different American experience than the one usually conjured by the phrase.

In "No Both," Michael Gizzi does for his Italian Catholic background what Allen Ginsberg did for his family's particular immigrant experience 40 years ago in the monumental work, "Kaddish." Perhaps 40 years hence, the two books will be read in tandem, as equivalent statements of suggestive power and resonance.

Gizzi and Merrill Gilfillan of Boulder, Colo., will read from their new works on Sunday, Oct. 19, at 5 at the Geoffrey Young Gallery at 40 Railroad St. in Great Barrington. Gilfillan's new volume of poetic essays, "Burnt House to Paw Paw: Appalachian Notes," is part of Hard Press's Profile Series. An award-winning short-story writer and author of seven volumes of poetry, Gilfillan won the first PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Non-fiction in 1989, for his first collection of essays, "Magpie Rising: Sketches from the Great Plains."

The reading at the gallery, which is free and open to the public, will take place on the final day of an exhibition of silver gelatin photographs by Tom Zetterstrom of Canaan, Conn., and oil paintings by Joan Linder of New York City.

Suzzy's solo sentiments

What is perhaps most striking about Suzzy Roche's new, debut solo album, "Holy Smokes" (Red House), is how serious it is. The youngest of the three singing sisters known as the Roches, Suzzy Roche always seemed to be the silliest sister. Yet "Holy Smokes" takes a mature, seasoned look at life and relationships. It bears passing resemblance to efforts by the Roches, it focuses on issues of family life, and sister Maggie is on hand to help out, but "Holy Smokes" is Suzzy's determined debut as a solo voice. Alternately tough and wistful, it will undoubtedly delight fans of the Roches with its deep explorations of romantic life in the '90s. Roche is at the Spencertown (N.Y.) Academy tomorrow night (Fri., Oct. 17) at 8. Local singer-songwriter Meg Hutchinson, fast gaining acclaim for her own singular voice, will warm up the crowd for Roche. For ticket info call 518-392-3693.

Ukulele ladies: Tiny Tim, not

Suffice it to say that you've never seen or heard anything else like them. Nor perhaps would you want to. Not because they are no good -- in fact, one of the most charming things about the Ladies Auxiliary Ukulele Orchestra is that they just don't know how good they really are. No, the startling thing about the ukulele ladies is how what must have begun as a lark -- three grown women playing pop songs on ukuleles? -- has grown into a semi-serious endeavor, only hobbled by the fact that one of three lives in England, making it hard for the band to rehearse. Alternately sassy, sexy and smart, always in tune and with a repertoire ranging from Pachelbel to Andrews Sisters to Led Zeppelin, the Berkshire-based trio of Bernice Lewis, Amy Rose and Cathy Schane-Lydon plays in Dodd House at Williams College next Tuesday, Oct. 21, at 8. Call 458-4639 for more info.

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Oct. 16, 1997. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1997. All rights reserved.]

Seth Rogovoy
rogovoy@berkshire.net
music news, interviews, reviews, et al.

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