2001 Arts Odyssey, cont'd [ BY THE EDITORS ]

Photography by Blaine Stiger

Curator:
Karl Mullen

I've seen Karl Mullen perform countless times in the last 20 years, and I've never been disappointed. Whatever the vehicle, his passion has always poured forth, and his vision has never become stale. Mullen, a native of Dublin, moved to the States as an illegal alien in the late '70s and soon became an integral part of Pittsburgh's emerging punk music scene with Carsickness, putting out one of the first DIY releases, a vinyl 45.

"The stuff still sounds good. I got an e-mail from a Japanese collector who's collecting all U.S. punk-rock singles that he can find. It's kind of funny, 20 years later, that some guy is Japan is still interested."

Mullen's angry songwriting and accusative, spitting vocal delivery spewed forth in such a manner that it seemed that fire was coming out of his mouth. Seeing Carsickness could be exciting and unsettling, exhilarating and exhausting. Mullen's artistic nature, channeled via this electronic vehicle, was expressing real life via the rock format. It was not nice; it was real.

In the 1980s Carsickness mutated -- with some players leaving the band and others joining -- into Ploughman's Lunch, moving away from a punk sound to more of a reggae-influenced jam band.

"We broke up when we reached the zenith of obscurity. And that was validated when last year Spin Magazine rated the 100 most-obscure bands of all time, and Carsickness was No. 100.

"And on that list," he laughs, "it means you're No. 1."

The new name acknowledged Mullen's Irish roots and a change in direction with a sound that was more organic and hippie, more of a ska jam band and less angry. The audience became less black leather and more tie-die cotton, more Grateful Dead and less Killing Joke. But Mullen, who admits there was never a grand plan, says that the change was attributed more to keyboardist/flutist Steve Sciulli's decision to pack up the synthesizer and start playing the tin whistle on stage.

"That really brought the Irish-ness into it more than me. I've always sang and played guitar the same kind of way." But later on, Mullen says the Celtic sound was a decision to turn back to his roots.

Through the years, Mullen has taken time to mentor young acts, giving them exposure and advice in the often frustrating, confounding music business. He's helped many local and out-of-town bands, offering opening gigs, booking them at clubs like Rosebud, the BBT and the Club CafŽ, and offering them a place to stay while traveling through town. "I've always felt to it was important to help, even in the Electric Banana days. I've never felt it was my stage; it was to be shared. Maybe it came from not having family here."

Always a prolific writer, Mullen has released countless albums during his career. His latest, "Mercy Me With Curses," is one of his best yet. It's been released under Karl Mullen, but he insists that the collaborative nature of his previous bands continues with the musicians he works with today, including Brownie Mary guitarist Rich Jacques. "Mercy Me With Curses" showcases a singer-songwriter at the top of his game. It's his most pop release, which he attributes to fellow Irishman U2 producer Kevin Moloney, and his new optimistic attitude about his life and the future of Pittsburgh's music scene.

"Kevin Moloney thought that Pittsburgh is going to be the next San Francisco. Guys working on the Richard Gere film ["Mothman Prophecies"] were blown away. All these outside guys are saying to us there's a great scene going on here. I think finally we're starting to go, 'I guess there is, isn't there?'"

And there's Mullen still in the middle of it. His soft-spoken presence today is a stark contrast to his late-'70s anger and his roots in the early punk scene. With Carsickness (along with bands like the Five, the Puke and Cardboards), Mullen helped to start an original, do-it-yourself music scene that continues to this day.

-- Philip Harris

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Theater:
Tony Ferrieri

It's the details that count. The dead rat in a trap near the garbage can in "Blues in the Night." The stash of unused wedding presents in the apartment in "Sideman."

In intimate spaces like the City Theatre, where Tony Ferrieri has worked for 21 years, some audience members may actually notice these touches of verisimilitude; most people are simply aware of a full, well-defined picture that transports them into the world of the play. More to the point, "it makes the actors feel they're where they ought to be," explains Ferrieri.

He wears many hats -- resident scenery and properties designer, technical director and production manager for City Theatre; resident properties designer and coordinator for the Pittsburgh Opera (16 years); plus work for many other professional and college companies. And we can't list the more than 200 shows he's designed.

While the minutely detailed, super-realistic set is something Ferrieri is justifiably well-known and respected for, his repertoire also includes the clean, spare lines of a show like Pavilion. "To make that so detailed would have been against the grain of the piece," notes Ferrieri of last season's City opener, a local premiere of a high school reunion, set on a single night with a three-person cast.

One of the reasons the City Theatre has such a solid reputation is its basic, solid stagecraft. Richly detailed, but not overwhelming. An almost obsessive attention to detail. And there are few that Ferrieri hasn't been involved with over the past 21 years.

Solid? How about "Having Our Say" (1997), whose rotating stage featured working plumbing, not to mention a parlor jammed with real photos of the real family members of the real Delaney sisters being portrayed? Meticulous?

For the season-closing Red Herring, Ferrieri researched how an unknown "John Doe" body would be treated and what the actual crematory ashes would look like (white, thus you can't use gray cigarette ash). But the needs of the play always take precedence. Ferrieri found that police investigators, in collecting evidence, really use paper bags, never plastic (which could affect the chemical composition), but the audience needed to see the evidence, so dramatic license prevailed.

If a scene needs a newspaper, Tony's crew prints one up, featuring what would be realistic headlines. Props? Ferrieri regularly scours house sales and flea markets, often paying out of his own pocket for promising-looking items to stash into the City's 4,000 square-foot storage space. "Probably about two-thirds of the City Theatre's stock is mine," he figures.

And he's a famous borrower. "It's always a joke with people: 'Tony's been in your house and he'll make a list in his head of everything you have,'" he says. "I have been known to call people to ask to use things for a show now and then."

It's the reality of life in the arts world, where whatever the budget is, it's not enough. But Tony makes it work. For that and many other skills, he praises his teacher, Henry Heymann, who now has a theater named for him at the University of Pittsburgh. Start with reading and rereading the play; make a ground plan and "give the actors and the director as many options as possible."

And, in the end, "make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

-- Michelle Pilecki

Jazz:
Walt Harper

"Pittsburgh has been really good to me. I am one of the few who have made it staying here," says Walt Harper. One of Pittsburgh's most enduring and beloved jazz artists -- not to mention recording artist and nightclub entrepreneur -- has roots in music here that go back almost half a century.

Growing up in a musical family in Schenley Heights, pianist Walt Harper was influenced early in life by his youngest brother, tenor sax man Nate Harper, and eldest brother Ernie Harper, pianist and vocalist. Walt and his quintet did its first gig at Fifth Avenue High School's prom in the mid-1950s. They did Schenley High's the following year, and soon began performing for fraternity and sorority parties at local colleges and universities.

The popularity of the Walt Harper Quintet spread to area clubs, and then to places like Boston and New York. By the 1960s, Harper recalls, the band had built a "hell of a reputation."

The Walt Harper sound has always featured two horns, usually two tenor saxophones. He just likes the melodic sound of two horns and feels quite comfortable writing parts and passages for saxes.

For a guy who has basically remained in Pittsburgh all of his life, Harper can boast of a "Who's Who" list of jazz superstars with whom he has interacted. He has known fellow Pittsburgh-born artists bassist Ray Brown and the late sax great Stanley Turrentine and his brother Tommy Turrentine. Add to the list vocalist Carmen McCrae, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie and Duke Ellington. He's worked with Nat King Cole and even became friends with his daughter, Natalie Cole.

Harper's label, Birmingham Records, has released four nationally acclaimed CDs, most recently "West Coast On Line" (April 2000), arranged by John Clayton and produced by Walt's friend bassist Ray Brown. This team also created the 1998 CD, "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You," recorded at Capitol Studios. In 1995, Walt Harper and All That Jazz released "In Very Good Company," which featured special guests Turrentine, Brown and drummer Cecil Brooks III. Harper's quintet performs frequently at James Street and at Foster's (for the Pittsburgh Jazz Society), not to mention concerts in the Mellon Jazz Festival and at the Westmoreland Museum of Art.

Along with his musical talent, Harper showed his entrepreneurial skills as owner of the very popular Walt Harper's Attic from 1969 to 1976 and later Harper's, which hosted many excellent jazz musicians from 1982 through 1988. His clubs brought stars here such as Joe Williams, Mel Torme, Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Wynton Marsalis, Dave Brubeck and Nancy Wilson.

Harper's musical diversity is evident in his jazz dance piece, Metamorphosis, which premiered in 1989 with the Pittsburgh Dance Alloy before three sold-out audiences at Chatham College's Eddy Theatre. He wrote the score for "Hoppin' With Harper" (in 1990), a larger concert piece for eight musicians and the Dance Alloy. This year's Harry Award winner in jazz also received the 2001 Mellon Jazz Community Award for his contributions to the local jazz community.

However, Walt Harper is not resting on his laurels. Already he is contemplating his next CD project, "East Coast On Line." He expects to select the producer, arranger, musicians, musical and studio later this year and hopes to record in New York in May.

-- Tim Stevens