HubArts.com

Bill Janovitz penned a gem. About Prince's solo.

I don't know why "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" keeps coming up. You may remember my long rant back in 2008 about Eric Clapton's autobiography, a book which, to my amazement, scants the one thing I wanted to read about most: the music. His lame passage on "WMGGW," George Harrison's Beatles classic on which Clapton played lead guitar, was the focus of my ire, and that rant was probably the last time I said much about music writing. So here comes the song - and the topic - again. Odd.

Anyway...I must have stopped in at Boston rocker Bill Janovitz's "Cover A Week" project at some point since he started it in late 2008. I'd write more about it, but you should really check it out for yourself, and anyway it's Janovitz the writer I'm here to praise. One of my Facebook or Twitter pals reminded me of the covers project again recently, so I stopped by again to scarf down Janovitz's  versions of a few '70s faves. "Rocket Man" and "The Losing End" for starters.

Harrison's "Isn't It A Pity" was also on offer, as the November 27, 2009, selection, so I clicked to take that too, and WTF ... Janovitz's post about the song starts with a YouTube video of a 2004 memorial Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame performance of "WMGGW," featuring Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood and Dhani Harrison and...wait, is that Prince?

I started reading Janovitz's 1,900-WORD DECONSTRUCTION OF THIS SIX MINUTE VIDEO and couldn't stop. (Yes, I pasted the text into Word and did a count.) For those of us who still care about such things, it's a closely observed and loving and caustic examination of the all-star ensemble's perfectly serviceable version of the late Beatle's song, which morphs into something else entirely when Prince steps forward and unleashes a brilliant shitstorm of a guitar solo that goes on and on and clearly delights Dhani while Petty et al remain stonefaced.

I could embed the video here, but screw that. I want you to go read the piece.

I knew Janovitz is a good writer - I asked for his "33 1/3" series book about "Exile on Main Street" a few Christmases ago. There is in fact a ton o' good writing involved in the covers project. And maybe I'm just sick to death of my own prose by this point in the week. But this piece seems to say more about Prince, and about the rock hall, and about what makes good music, that anything else I've read lately. And it does so mainly by listening and looking. I really, really hope someone will have the good sense to nominate this for the Best Music Writing 2009 collection. In fact I just may go see how to do that, as soon as I finish downloading "Isn't It A Pity."

Update: Here's where you can nominate. I'm doing it now. But I may be too late.

Weather so crazy

We lost power for a few hours last night in the eerie, really really loud wind-and-rain storm. Our bedroom is on the third floor, has lots of big windows and faces east. The bed was shaking. This am we got up to find 15 feet of fence behind our building down and our trash can three doors uphill. Even though it had stuff in it. Bonus: We got a new welcome mat delivered to us unbidden. One friend tweets Facebooks about gusts of 87 at Gloucester and 90 on the Isles of Shoals. I believe it. Here it had to be well above 50. There are trees down all over and shoreline flooding. Needless to say I haven't gotten much work done. Here's a quick vid I took at Plum Island this am at high tide:

Video artist Fast honored by his old school

Berlin-based video artist Omer Fast will be the honoree May 1 at the 15th Annual Medal Award Gala of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Previous honoree at the fundraising gala include big names like Alex Katz, Julian Schnabel, Nan Goldin and Ellsworth Kelly. Fast, 37, graduated from the SMFA and Tufts in 1995. Tix to the gala at the MFA, which helps fund student scholarships, are $250 and available at the web site.

Image: Omer Fast, Nostalgia III (still), 2009. 16mm Film, 32 minutes. Commissioned by South London Gallery, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Production still by Thierry Bal.

Beantown Jazz Fest gets NEA grant

The Nation Endowment for the Arts has bestowed a $17,500 Access to Artistic Excellence grant on Berklee College of Music and JazzBoston Inc. to help fund this year's Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival, Sept. 15-25. The 10th annual BeanTown  will celebrate the music of New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, on the five year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. "Our goal is to throw a party for the city of Boston that would make New Orleans proud," said festival artistic director Terri Lyne Carrington. Of course, that will only fund a couple of measures of the budget. Last year's fest cost more than $400,000 to put on, but its big outdoor day drew a diverse crowd estimated at 80,000 to Columbus Ave.

Morning reading etc., on toast

A reminder, the New England Americana Festival starts tonight. Tonight's headliner is Kingsley Flood. ... I was surprised to see Sebastian Smee's piece on the Whitney Biennial on page one of the Globe, until I started reading. He's hating on it. ... Greg Cook reports on yet another museum with money troubles, this time the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. Who knew. ... I also caught up kinda belatedly with Cook's Phoenix piece on photography of the Combat Zone. (Slide show here.) WBUR has a page on the same exhibit, complete with audio from the photographers and a lively comments section.

Jazz at the Wilbur, that's Wright

Behind-the-scenes Boston jazz legend Fred Taylor (Sculler's, Paul's Mall, the Jazz Workshop) will be booking Jazz At The Wilbur, an ongoing performance series featuring jazz, world music, Latin, blues and the like. The shows are set for the longtime comedy and theater venue, the Wilbur Theatre, recently renovated and reconfigured by Boston promoter Bill Blumenreich Presents. (The press release includes a couple of grafs about all the classic stage shows that have played the 1914 venue at Tremont and Stuart streets; they had me at Marlon Brando in "Streetcar.")

Upcoming shows in the series include:

• John Pizzarelli and The Swing Seven this Sunday ...at 4:00 p.m.(?). They joined by jazz accordionist Cory Pesaturo and his trio. Tickets: $40; $30.
• Tower of Power, March 24 at 7:30 p.m., with original members including saxophonist Emilio Castrillo Tickets:  $45.
• Lizz Wright (pictured) April 8 at 7:30 p.m. The Yoko Miwa Trio will open for the hot jazz singer-songwriter.  Tickets: $38, $30.

Tix (UPDATE: on sale Friday) at Ticketmaster, at the Wilbur Theatre Box Office, at www.ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000.  For more information: www.thewilburtheatre.com.

Haiti benefit at the Western Front

Western Front owner Marvin Gilmore and New England Conservatory violinist Helen Sherrah-Davies have organized an eclectic benefit for Haitian relief next Sunday at the Cambridge club. The 7 p.m. show draws from both the NEC and Berklee talent pools, including: Sherrah-Davies' group  J-Way  “the fast and curvy string quartet…”; Japanese singer-songwriter Aika Hirahara with Nicholas Farmakalidis; the Merrick Family's Dakota Sioux songs and drumming; and the4 Zappa-friendly jazz group Leah Gough-Cooper’s “Human Equivalent." Minimum donation at the door is $15, and the money goes to Medicins Sans Frontieres, one of the groups providing much needed relief services in the aftermath of the earthquake disaster.

Morning reading, week from hell

OK, I haven't been posting much, my apologies. This is day four of a streak of mostly minor heinousness in our life, featuring such phrases as "pit bull" "come in, officer" "shoulder ligaments" "$100 vet bill" "overflowed coffeepot" "water-soaked tax documents" "ripped paycheck" "cat puke in the stereo" and "flip the breaker." None of them as serious as "heart attack" or "shooting spree," and in fact the permanent damage is so far minimal. But still, add in freelance deadlines and I've been a little preoccupied. I've gone from In Box Zero to 114, many of which are press releases that bear reading. But I can't promise any of them will be addressed today.

Other people, damn them, keep writing. If you haven't seen it already, the day's must-read is Geoff's page-one Globe feature on the hanging of the first painting in the MFA's new wing - it's a giant thing. The picture, I mean. (There's video, too.)

In a somewhat related post, Big Red and Shiny offers a peek at construction at the Gardner Museum.

Further inside the Globe, you'll find my theater column, ironically enough on "boom" at the New Rep, which features a timpani-playing docent of the future.

Greg Cook has a typically smart look at the new Golden Books exhibit at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst. Sweet.

Sebastian Smee's take on Roni Horn at the ICA - the opening was something else that got cut from my schedule this week - is worth reading for the lede alone. I think the Shepard Fairey exhibit with its accompanying "bad boy antics" is perhaps the exception that proves Smee's point.

One of the press releases I didn't deal with was the announcement of the Boston Pops' 125th season, embargoed for this morning. The highlight is a Kennedy tribute that was supposed to be narrated by Teddy but will instead honor him as well. The Herald has a rundown.

Docents run amok at Peabody Essex

Seems to be Docent Week here at HubArts HQ. My piece in tomorrow's Globe features the word prominently - I'll post a link here soon as it's online - and now the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem has announced a special event that will see the volunteer guides taking over. Tour Fest Weekend at PEM, March 13-14,  docents will lead nine distinct 45-minute tours offering different perspectives on the Museum’s collections and encourage new ways of looking at art. These include everything from "Triumph and Tragedy on the High Seas" to love stories and a look at what the museum's collection has to say about " power, rebellion and political agendas." It's all free with museum admission ($15 adults). Info: 866-745-1876 or www.pem.org.

Haiti benefit at Berklee

Musicians from all over the Berklee College of Music will play at the Berklee Concert for Haiti on Feb. 23. The lineup includes the Berklee Reggae Ensemble, directed by Matt Jenson; Pitch Slapped, Berklee’s only co-ed a cappella group; Women of the World, a group of women from Japan, Pakistan, Italy, Greece, and more; and Berklee faculty members, including folk-rocker Livingston Taylor, jazz/R&B singer Donna McElroy, and pianist George Russell. There will also be a group representing Haiti’s neighbor the Dominican Republic, directed by Arturo Pena.

A centerpiece of the evening will be a segment devoted to Open Access to Music for Children (OAMEC), which provides free music education to the children of 100 Haitian families. The concert will feature OAMEC Ensemble a group of approximately 18 violinists from the organization (above). This group has been working with Berklee faculty member Ron Reid to bring a Haitian flavor to the night, accompanied by a Berklee group. And OAMEC representative Geralde Babeau will speak about the way this organization is serving the Haitian community in this time of need - and how you can help.

The concert is set for at 8:15 p.m. at the Berklee Performance Center. Tix are just $10 and benefit several organizations including Mercy Corps. They're available at the Berklee Performance Center box office. Call 617-747-2261 or visit berkleebpc.com.