Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 58

Tempo 2 Section 5 Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, May 31, 2000 Case study Peter Case, formerly of the West Coast rock band the Plimsouls and acclaimed solo artist, plays FitzGerald's Thursday, in support of his latest release, "Flying Saucer Blues." 708-788-2118. Horn section CSO trombonist Charles Vernon will teach a class at North Central College on Monday. To enroll, call 630-637-5560. On-line reviews For Chicago Tribune critics' recent reviews of pop, rock, dance, theater and jazz performances, go to metromix.comreviews. Ms Watch .7 M' i iiim i a ir it iiiii I HI .1 ii.i.i 'Love Talk' won't shut up Cliched characters have nothing new to say No ceiling for Young on1 TYl7 Republic By Chris Jones Special to the Tribune Yju could argue that the descriptive "Love Talk" is an apt summary of most of the popular works of dramatic literature, from "Romeo and Juliet" to "Ally McBeal." But with the outside temperature beginning to rise, the Chicago Theatre Company has decided to offer a different kind of "Love Talk" to its loyal fans.

Based on a series of poems by By Howard Reich Tribune Arts Critic ven if Chicago trumpeter David Young weren't just 20 years old, listeners would be struck by his ac i Y- If 1) A 1 complishments as soloist, 2 Michelle McKinney Hammond, this premiere adaptation is partly an excuse for some seasonal sensual sizzle and partly a Theater review composer and bandleader. But to see this poised and gifted "young man seduce an audience as he did over the Memorial Day weekend was to witness the emergence I of a potentially Photo for the Tribune by Kevin Tanaka David Young, a trumpeter, songwriter and bandleader, performs with New Republic at Hecky's Jazz Club in Evanston on Friday. Jazz review major jazz artist. Not since a teenage Nicholas Payton began shaking up New Orleans a decade ago has a young trumpeter shown 1 the promise of Young. Soon to be a senior in Northwest- University's School of Music, primer on how to snag an unsuspecting mate for life.

And in the course of just under two hours, this troubling show manages to resurrect and celebrate so many gender-driven cliches that it makes Dr. Laura seem subtle. Compared to this amazingly traditionalist fare, even Rob Becker's "Defending the Caveman" looks like a progressive work of art. Given our beloved Chicago Theatre Company's unparalleled reputation for boundary-stretching theater (not to mention the talents of the superb directoradapter Ilesa Lisa Duncan), you have to wonder what on earth everyone here was thinking. McKinney Hammond is the author of several books, including "Secrets of an Irresistible Woman" and "If Men Are Like Buses: Then How Do I Catch One." "Love-Talk," she writes, is her offering "to assist those who are searching for the truth about themselves and their desire to love." It follows two attractive heterosexual couples on their search for intimacy.

A character named (believe it or not) Love plays percussion. The point, basically, is that men watch sports on television, don't know how to express their feelings and have trouble learning to commit. Women, conversely, emote constantly, need to learn how to make a man comfortable and must accept their all-consuming desire for a mate as their perfectly natural destiny. Success, one of the female characters declares, is meaningless without a man to share it with. There is no appreciation of the fact that some folks step outside of these cliches and still manage to keep a lover or a spouse.

Even if you can get beyond the portentous show's seemingly anti-feminist positions and paradoxical determination to preach freedom of sexual longing in a gender-unequal setting, there are still whopping servings of self-help psychobabble on display. And although Duncan does her best to infuse the poems with some interesting movement and staging, the show still lacks both a viable dramatic structure and the stylistic quality of truly great choreopoems like those by Ntozake instrument. This was evident when Young played jazz standards, bringing a melancholy timbre and idiosyncratic phrasing to tunes such as "You Don't Know What Love Is" and "Stella by Starlight." But the greatest compliment to Young's work may have come from members of his band. Most are older and more experienced than their leader, but each gave Young everything he had, with exceptional work from keyboardist Glad Di-mano, reedist Dennis Winslett, bassist Percy White and drummer Ko-bie Watkins. Of course.

Young still has much to learn about composing in longer forms, bringing more spontaneity to solos and other facets of the jazz musician's art. But all of it is within his reach. The new venue, a makeshift space in Hecky's City Hall banquet facility, is operated by Hecky's Barbecue owner Hecky Powell. If Powell keeps booking acts of this caliber, his new jazz club may get hotter than his barbecue sauce. David Young's New Republic plays at 8 p.m.

Friday at Hecky's Jazz Club in Hecky's City Hall, 1638 Simpson Evanston. Phone So when Young unspooled "Parker's Pocket," one of his most appealing originals, listeners had no hope of resisting. If its lush harmonies and chromatic melody lines appealed to the highbrows, its seductive backbeats and deep-blue sensibility reached everyone else. Still more striking was Young's "Ancient Mystery," which carries a lyric that's every bit as refined and poetic as the haunting melody to which it's set. When he picks up his trumpet, Young shows uncommon taste and restraint for someone his age.

He has plenty of technique and lung power but shows no interest in flaunting it. Only in particular passages, when Young produces a flurry of notes or a clarion horn-call, can one perceive the sheer physical power he holds in reserve. As for Young's sound, it is pure and golden at some junctures, smeared and gritty at others, depending on the score at hand. His vibrato tends to be slow, sweet and expressive, showing the influence of Wynton Marsalis. Even so, there's no question that Young is in the midst of developing a signature sound and style on his Young has been playing various jazz and classical dates around Chill cago, including a stint with the formidable Ensemble Stop-Time.

But on Friday night Young outdid him-Iself, leading his quintet New Republic in a new Evanston jazz room. I Though his audience on this occasion included a lively group of teenagers celebrating a surprise birthday party, Young quickly tamed the crowd. By the time Young's set was fully under way, everyone from adolescents to senior citizens seemed to hang on every I note. A great deal of Young's appeal has to do with the music he writes. Having studied jazz and classical forms at NU, as well as rap and pop music on his own time, Young has learned to pen compositions that embrace a broad range of musical languages.

Thus his tunes prove at once intellectual yet accessible, sophisticated yet danceable. Coco Elyssas (clockwise from top), Brian Waddington, Sonya T. Evans, Yvonne Huff and -Sharif Atkins make up the cast of "Love Talk," now at Chicago Theatre Company. Shange. The one scene that really clicked was a semistaged poetry slam in the style of the movie "Love Jones." Here, at least, was a little humor and drama.

The cast of five (the immensely talented Yvonne Huff is a standout) does its best with characters designed not as real people but as vehicles for an authorial point of view, with which you must have much sympathy tp enjoy this show. "Love Talk" runs through June26at the Chicago Theatre Company, 500 E. 67th Chicago. Phone (mmmmmmr Harps gain popularity for the sick By Christine Clarridge Seattle Times I pHIL VETTEL, I CHICAGO TBBUNE EATTLE The old woman had been a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a nurse and a widow over the course of her 76 years. Now 'The sun was setting on the one side, and the moon was rising on the other.

She picked a perfect moment to Jeri Howe 1w a 3Swhsh mm CI The ALLAN SHERMAN Musical JEFF NOMINATED! I "Comic brilliance! Deliciously retro!" Chicago Tribune Ingenious, terrific, crowd-pleasing! Hello Muddah takes the crown!" Chicago Sun-Times I 1 school In Montana that calls itself the Chalice of Repose Project, and she knew, though it would take her several years to get there, that she had to attend. Plouff was working as a caregiver for the terminally ill in Eugene when he, too, read about the Chalice Project. Originally from Massachusetts, where he'd played the church organ as a young man, he had moved tp New York in the 1980s, during the emotional height of the AIDS epidemic, to study photography at New York University. He got his degree and, as a result of the crisis, also became deeply involved in care-taking and healing techniques. "I knew that I was called to helj people in need, to work with the djr ing.

I ended up in Eugene, wording as a caregiver but not realljj knowing why I was there," he said "Then I read an article about thS Chalice Project, and it called to deeply." Unlike Howe, he had not played the harp before he arrived at thg school. The moment he did, thoughj he said, "Where have you been all my life?" Along with their classmates in' the two-year program, Howe and Plouff studied epic literature, mu sic, medicine, pharmacology, anatj omy social work and voice. They did research and wrote papers about ancient rituals surrounding death and dying. They practiced and played until callouses formed on the tips of their fingers. Howe commuted from Montana to Seattle to see her husband and her little girls during her tenure aj the school, and she returned home upon graduation in 1996.

Plouff who had no lasting ties to Eugene moved to Seattle that year as Requests for their services come from social workers, spouses, doc tors, daughters and chaplains. Thg charge for an hour-long session is flexible, depending on the means of the dying and their loved ones. Thg two have never denied a request for 1 service and often have gone unpaid. Though it's not a lucrative calC ing Plouff works a second job takj ing care of an elderly couple itt rewards are profound. At Lynnwood Manor, Sara Han1 sen brushed tears from her eyes a ter Howe and Plouff played "Garten Mother's Lullaby" and "Jesu Dufc cis" for her.

She talked about her lit1 tie boy, David Eugene Hansen, who died of cancer when he was 4. She gave Howe and Plouff a hug before they left. "I wish I had something to you," she whispered. But she alf jady had. Witty, biting, 1 Chicago Reader io vriMING she lay in a metal bed in a nursing home, as a cancer patient, and accepted the gift of harp music brought by two strangers.

At first, she fidgeted and moved to get up. A lifetime habit of offering lemonade to guests was hard to break. But as she submitted to the music, her arm fell across her chest, her hand rested against her neck, her eyes turned to the window where purple paper flowers were glued to the pane, where green leaves brushed the glass outside. The music, beautiful and soothing, let her reflect on a full life an Alabama childhood, a long and happy marriage, the death of her son, the birth and bloom of her daughter. "Oh, it's so sad sometimes.

But that's how life is and I have had a good life." The use of music to comfort the sick and the dying is ancient and its benefits well-documented. Physicians say the heart rate slows, breathing clears and rest comes when calming music is played to the ill. The Greeks knew it. The Celts knew it, and medieval monks knew it, using chants to bring what they called a blessed death. But the practice was nearly forgotten in modern times as societies became disconnected from the spiritual significance of death.

Now, musical medicine is experiencing a renaissance. Though not yet mainstream, the practice of playing harps for the ailing has been revived, with numerous schools and training workshops opening around the country. Jeri Howe, 45, and Gary Plouff, 48, met in 1994 when they became part of the second graduating class of one such school in Montana. Over the past few years, they have together and separately played hundreds of vigils. They carry their harps down the darkened hallways of hospices, trauma centers and nursing rooms to the bedsides of the dying, where they play and sing.

They give comfort and reassurance. They gain enlightenment. "We've learned that life is holy," said Howe. "That life is fragile and precious and temporary. And we've learned that there is something more, something sacred and eternal, too.

exuberance that JULY 1 crackles across the nwc 1 "Our culture hides death away, and you can live your whole life without seeing someone die. But to see it, to witness it and to know that it doesn't have to be scary, to know that there is transcendence, is an honor." Plouff remembers an elderly woman in a hospice in Montana. He and another harpist were with her in her room. He knelt down by her bed. He held her hand, stroked her cheek and sang.

As she died, he felt her spirit pass out through the window, into a meadow of wildflowers and the world beyond. Plouff remembers playing in a room filled with people who were saying goodbye to a 17-year-old boy. As Plouff played, they embraced and prayed and cried together, and the love that they had for the boy, who was dying of leukemia, moved Plouff. Howe remembers a woman about her own age who was dying of breast cancer. As Howe plucked her harp in the woman's West Seattle home, the woman died.

Her mother and sisters surrounded her. "It was beautiful and peaceful. The sun was setting on the one side, and the moon was rising on the other. She picked a perfect moment to die." Howe was a stay-at-home mother with a toddler and a newborn, a husband and a house in Shoreline when she bought her first harp to play lullabies to the baby She was already an accomplished pianist and took to the harp naturally "It's so beautiful and fun to play and it feels so good when you wrap your arms around it," she said. In 1991, she was asked by her church, the United Methodist Church, to play at a retreat for people with AIDS.

"Their bodies were wasting away to nothing, and they could hardly walk. But they would come and lie down by the harp to receive the music. I could see the need and the thirst. I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew that it was something." Shortly after, she read aboilt the iH The New York Times WEEKS Associated Press PdA it lav ..1 LM ft i Wed 2 A 8pm Thu-Frt 8pm Sat 5:30 A Sun 3 A 7pm XMU UJUi APOLLO THEATER 773-935-61 00 2540 LINCOLN 2 blocks nortbof Fullerton Valet-assisted Parking Groups 15 or rAofe 312-461 -9292 TIcketMaster 31 2-902-1 500 Also available at Carson Pirte Scott, Domlnlckli Records.