Category: Article

Calling Mina Agossi a jazz singer is like calling Michael Jordan a basketball player; it’s technically true but woefully understated. Like the best singers, Agossi makes it abundantly clear that her voice is an instrument, whether she’s working with her own compositions, Ella Fitzgerald standards, or Jimi Hendrix covers (which she renders complete with raucous vocal “guitar” solos). The chanteuse’s majestic voice contrasts with a cool, funny stage presence that is perfect for the intimate Dakota. Her banter between songs can be downright hilarious. At her last Dakota appearance, she asked the audience in her gorgeous French lilt: “What is this Minnesotan dish … the casserole?” Best see her now before she jumps to larger venues. 1010 Nicollet Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-332-1010; www.dakotacooks.com

In an age of drum beats looped ad nauseam, of recycled and often misused samples, of really shameful overproduction, the modest melodies laid out by this Swedish trio feel almost revolutionary. Peter Bjorn and John have been together since 1999, but were little-known stateside until their 2005 release Falling Out, which won them substantial critical acclaim and a devoted indie following. With their latest album, Writer’s Block, they have landed a mainstream audience, propelled by two songs, “Amsterdam” and “Young Folks.” These tunes are catchy but not infectious—they strike that rare balance of introspection and optimism that compels any casual listener to hum along. Lyrically intricate, musically simple, their style is at once retro and progressive—a ’60s pop feeling, underscored by contemporary crises. 612-332-1775; www.first-avenue.com

The second program in the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s 2007–2008 season features the highly anticipated performance of the Violin Concerto, Concentric Paths by the vibrant twenty-first century composer Thomas Adès, who has been revered and reviled for his often choppy and creatively versatile pieces, including the orchestral work Asyla and the operas Powder Her Face and The Tempest.

Concentric Paths is regarded as relatively restrained and moody (think Shostakovich), and will feature violinist Anthony Marwood, who played the concerto at both its world and U.S. premieres in ’05 and ’06. Also on the bill is Beethoven’s Sixth, or Pastoral Symphony, a beautifully flowing ode to nature that was overshadowed when it premiered alongside the composer’s booming Fifth Symphony. Having been a pacifist, the renowned twentieth-century British composer Benjamin Britten probably preferred the Pastoral to the Fifth; his Sinfonietta will open the performance. Douglas Boyd conducts. 651-291-1144; www.thespco.org

Red House Records owner Bob Feldman was a fire hydrant of fun and positive energy before he died, a year ago January, at the age of fifty-six. With a folk-music show on tiny KFAI that was strictly a labor of love, Feldman cherished music enough to achieve a remarkably high batting average on the quality of music released on his label. Thanks to Feldman’s remarkable ability to recognize and attract talent, Red House Records is now home to some of the finest acoustic singer/songwriters in the country.

Now many of those folks whom he patronized—Greg Brown (the first and still the best Red House artist), Eliza Gilkyson, Dave Moore, Peter Ostroushko, and many, many others—will pay tribute to his memory at an overstuffed gig that should produce a memorable confluence of combos and pairings, passionately offbeat covers, funny and tear-jerking anecdotes, and a rousing, poignant finale on a very crowded stage. 651-290-1221; www.fitzgeraldtheater.publicradio.org

Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin are rugged men investigating the murder of a veteran who had just returned home from Iraq. The new Coen brothers’ film? No, that’s the eagerly-anticipated No Country for Old Men, which also stars this pair. Elah, on the other hand, is the first vehicle from director/screenwriter Paul Haggis since Crash. Haggis seems to have his hands in about four movies a year, either as a writer, producer, or director. So will Elah be overwrought garbage like the Best Picture-stealing Crash? Will it be exciting but ultimately ponderous popcorn fare like Casino Royale, on which he served as screenwriter? Or a heartfelt and often unsparing examination of the trials and tribulations returning soldiers face when coming home, as witnessed in Flags of Our Fathers?

Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht may never have had it so good. G. W. Pabst, who brought Louise Brooks to fame in his silent (and seductive) 1929 masterpiece Pandora’s Box, this time took to sound production and dirtied up the silver screen like never before. The Threepenny Opera tells the story of Mackie Messer (a.k.a. Mack the Knife) and the beautiful Polly Peachum. It’s is a feast for the eyes, ears, and the soul, wallowing in the underworld and bringing the original’s characters to life as if they had wandered onscreen straight from the gutter. It will be interesting to see how or if Criterion can clean up this film, however, since the original 1931 prints were destroyed by the Nazis. Notwithstanding potentially scratchy images, Threepenny is perhaps the greatest study of poverty and corruption ever filmed, and, like Pabst’s other films, a delicious romp as well.

Let’s call this a hybrid of the fictional Brazilian exposé City of God and Errol Morris’s police procedure doc The Thin Blue Line—both tremendous entertainment. Manda Bala (Send A Bullet)is a bizarre documentary detailing the rise of corruption in Brazilian culture as well as the country’s kidnapping epidemic. “Men will steal with a gun or a pen,” says one talking head. The film boasts garish cinematography, a dynamite score, and perhaps best of all, a fearless director who can get even the worst, most hardened criminals to open up. Stories include money laundering through a frog farm, images of the booming plastic surgery trade (all the ears cut from kidnap victims need replacing), and kidnappers philosophizing about the meaning of life. 612-825-6006; www.landmarktheatres.com

Megan Rye’s brother supervised the regional detention facility in Fallujah and transported Iraqi detainees within the Sunni Triangle. He took more than two thousand photographs during his tour of duty. As a painter, his sister is the real deal; she used these images to make huge paintings that are for keeps. These paintings are part of her current exhibition, I Will Follow You Into the Dark.

War Mediated, the concurrent group show, is less concerned with combat than with how stories get disseminated on the home front. It includes Megan Vossler’s drawings of bands of tiny refugees filing through great blank fields of white, Camille Gage’s paintings of flag-draped coffins with blacked-out “censored” areas, and Justin Newhall’s photos of World War II battle re-enactments—works that inflect our fears and desires in interesting ways. 612-870-3131; www.artsmia.org

This somewhat mysterious exhibition, curated by Elizabeth Grady of the Whitney Museum, seeks to use the Soap Factory itself as subject and object. The grandeur and melancholy of the Factory, not to mention the deeply ingrained scent of soap and labor with which the place is imbued, have long been the best aspect of shows here; in fact, sometimes the art suffers next to the rich, dark aura of this venue. But Grady intends to use these charms in putting together this exhibition. There are other purposes stated in the prospectus (interactivity, thoughts about the power of spaces to foster interaction), but the bulk of the show, it seems, will be an improvisation with the space. 518 2nd St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-623-9176; www.soapfactory.org

This young (got his BFA from MCAD in 2005) and fast-rising (fellowships from Jerome, McKnight, Bush, and Skowhegan) Minneapolis artist works in the mode of the moment: a combinatoire of painting, assemblage, ragpicking, and video. These are fragmented times we live in, and it’s artists like Bryant who pull together the pieces of exploding cultures in unaccustomed ways. High-art references like the Mona Lisa meet with drawn lines that have the deftness of a tagger who studied with Rembrandt. These elements snuggle up to camouflage fabric and the occasional “identity” reference. This is Bryant’s first-ever solo exhibition; count on lots of interested parties angling to get a look. 1021 E. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-872-7494; www.franklinartworks.org