california guitar trio: hideyo moriya, paul richards, bert lams.
Spent a most enjoyable half-hour on the phone this afternoon with Paul Richards of the California Guitar Trio. Our chat will surface in the form of a column piece later this month that will tie into the CGT’s performances here at Natasha’s (on Feb. 26) and in Frankfort at the Kentucky Coffeetree Café (on Feb. 27).
The CGT is one of these artists that I feel it’s almost my duty to tell people about. Their repertoire is so wildly vast (classical to original to prog to surf and beyond), their technical command so dazzling and their performance persona so refreshingly unassuming that I feel I can recommend their shows to most anyone. I find the trio to be one of those rare acts (Lyle Lovett is one of the few others that spring to mind) that are next to impossible not to be charmed by.
The gist of my talk with Richards this afternoon was classical music. That’s mostly because the CGT’s newest album, Masterworks, revisits much of their classical repertoire (Bach, Beethoven, Barber, Vivaldi, Rossini, Schubert and even the modernist Arvo Part) of the last two decades. But such a discussion also helped trigger my first memory of seeing the trio.
It was during the summer of 1995 at a very un-air conditioned Taft Theatre in Cincinnati where the trio was opening for King Crimson. Hearing three acoustic guitarists play Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor was astounding in and of itself. The piece has been a favorite since childhood, mostly because every cut-rate, Gothic-infused horror movie from the ‘60s I soaked up in my youth co-opted it as soundtrack music. Trust me, you know it whether you know it or not.
Back then, however, the music was always played on a pipe organ the size of a city block. The CGT, however, opted for a simpler acoustic drama. But hearing it amped up through King Crimson’s mighty PA? Now that’s what you call an introduction. It screamed “hello” in a huge way.
Richards has some fun recollections of that Cincy performance, as well. But we will save those for when our piece runs closer to the CGT’s Central Kentucky dates, when Bach will likely sit next to music by Pink Floyd, The Ventures, Ennio Morricone and the trio’s remarkable original works. Fine times are in store.
No brown skins. (Hispanic Americans and the 1986 Immigration Reform Act)
The Economist (US) February 3, 1990 No brown skins SAN FRANCISCO HISPANIC Americans were against the 1986 Immigration Reform Act; they feared it would give employers an excuse not to hire people who looked or sounded Hispanic. They were right, it seems. The California Fair Employment and Housing Commission reports that the law, which is supposed to deter illegal immigration, has created “a widespread pattern and practice of discrimination” against legal immigrants.
The law fines or imprisons those employers who are caught hiring illegal immigrants. Nervous employers are playing safe by brushing aside official work permits and declining to hire people with brown skins and Latin names and accents. The law, which was supposed to protect people against this happening, created a special counsel to hear complaints and to act on them. But there is just one special-counsel office, and that is in Washington, DC. Few immigrants even learn of its existence, let alone approach it with complaints.
In addition, reports the Californian commission (an independent agency established 30 years ago to protect civil rights in jobs and housing), the Immigration and Nationalisation Service (INS) issues such a variety of different immigrant classifications that employers cannot be familiar with what is official and what is not. The confusion is compounded by the amnesty that the law gave to illegal immigrants who could prove that they had lived in the United States since 1981, plus the special rules for agricultural workers. The sorting-out of all this leaves the immigration service snowed under with forms and letters of work-approval. go to site illegal immigration statistics
Although the INS claims to have spent $2m on educational material explaining the law, the explanation, the commission says sternly, is “inadequate…incomplete and confusing”. As remedy, the commission proposes a temporary moratorium on employer sanctions until the backlog of appeals for work authorisation is cleared, the educational material is rewritten and special counsel offices are opened around the country.
The California report is important since about half the immigrants who come to the United States seeking work authorisation come to California. But it is only one in a series of reports on the effect of the 1986 law. A New York task force is due to report to Governor Mario Cuomo soon. And in a month or two, the General Accounting Office (GAO), which was officially charged to monitor the consequences of the immigration controls, will be issuing its findings. Last year the GAO reported that about 16% of some 3.3m employers who were aware of the new rules did discriminate against foreign-looking applicants. The report called for a more co-ordinated effort to educate the public but, unlike the California commission, it did not declare that a “pattern” of discrimination had resulted from the act. web site illegal immigration statistics
If the GAO now finds such a pattern, it would trigger changes in the law. Congress would have 30 days to consider lifting sanctions against employers. But if the GAO reports that it has found no serious discrimination, the provisions in the law that are supposed to protect workers against bias would be removed. In any event, the GAO report will set off a fiery debate in Congress.
Part of the debate is whether the law’s strictness has in fact cut down illegal immigration. Statistics from the INS suggest that it has. In 1986 1.6m people were caught trying to enter from Mexico; in 1989, with more border guards, the total had shrunk to 850,000 people. Either they are getting cleverer at evading the guards, or the law, despite its unfair side-effects, is working.
I am a native Kentuckian and freelance journalist who has been writing about contemporary music for the Lexington Herald-Leader since 1980. I have not a lick of honest musical talent myself, just a pair of appreciative ears for jazz, folk, blues, bluegrass, Americana, soul, Celtic, Cajun, chamber, worldbeat, nearly every form of rock 'n' roll imaginable and, when pressed, the occasional tango and polka.