Former UNL student
brings jazz to NETV
Josh Nichols
Staff writer
Get a taste of French culture on
local television, compliments of a for
mer heartland act
Tonight at 8 p.m., the Nebraska
Showcase will feature Karrin Allyson
and the French Connection on the
Nebraska ETV Network.
The concert, filmed in May at the
Brownville Concert Hall in Brownville,
provides a “magical blend of melody,
nostalgia and romance.”
Allyson, a nationally renowned jazz
musician, combines her talents with
guitarist Rod Fleeman and accordionist
Pat Bunch to bring a blend of Edith Piaf,
Jacques Brel, Cole Porter and the
Beatles to the Brownville Concert Hall.
Singing mostly in French, Allyson
and the French Connection perform
songs such as “Les Guilles Mortes” and
“Hymne L’Amour.”
The Brownville Concert Hall is one
stop of many on Allyson’s touring
schedule.
Although she currently resides in
the Kansas City area, Allyson has been
touring nationally and internationally to
promote her latest of seven compact
discs, collage.
She has played such venues as
Chicago’s Green Mill, Blues Alley in
Washington, D.C., and New York’s
Birdland.
Before she hit the big stage,
Allyson, an Omaha native, started her
musical studies at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln in the late ’80s. She
studied classical piano but also had an
interest in folk music.
She played a gig at die Zoo Bar with
an all-girl rock band while in college,
said Zoo Bar owner Larry Boehmer.
While in college, she discovered
jazz music and has been performing it
ever since.
Boehmer said more recently
Allyson played a jazz concert at his club
and the annual July Jam in downtown
Lincoln.
Allyson has received rave reviews
from publications across the nation.
The New York Times described her
as “die young jazz singer with a classi
cal foundation who is building a nation
al reputation from her Kansas City
base... a blonde Edith Piaf with swing
and sunshine in her voice.”
The Chicago Tribune called her
“spell-binding with flawless rhythm
and a cool, savvy musical insight.”
Troika Ranch to perform
at Omaha’s Lied Center
When the dancers of Troika
Ranch held an impromptu perfor
mance on the Staten Island Ferry,
their efforts were cut short by threats
of police action.
But that hasn’t stopped this innov
ative dance-theater company from
regularly taking over public sites to
perform.
These spontaneous performances,
which the company calls RAIDS, are
indicative of Troika Ranch’s experi
mental approach to dance.
They want to see all the various
places the art can take them.
Saturday, Troika Ranch raids
Creighton University’s Lied
Education Center for the Arts with the
Midwest premiere of “Vera’s Body.”
The piece combines dance,
music, theater and interactive tech
nology.
In one section, a dancer performs
with a miniature, wireless video cam
era, projecting her face and body onto
a back wall.
In another section, a dancer
moves through floor to ceiling laser
beams, triggering musical notes. The
effect has been compared to a gui
tarist plucking his guitar strings.
Troika Ranch performs in Omaha
Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Lied Center,
24th and Cass streets. Tickets are $10
for the general public and $8 for stu
dents. For more information, call
(402)280-1448.
r
Sunday, September 5,1999
6:00 p.m.
zoot suit review
high energy jump swing
■ ■ ■
kai
asian R8<B group • B.E.T
■ ■■
various vibes
reggae rap
The Shadow
1516 Jones St. Old Market
Omaha
portion of proceeds go to benefit m.m.m.b.c.
A Star Jamm Event
Revamped LI hits Knickerbockers stage
L7 from page 14 _
employs singing rather than whining,
and “Freeway,” a song that actually
has a crummy hip hop beat layered
into the groovy tune.
All in all, it seems the ladies are
ready to mount a comeback despite
never having left According to the lat
est issue of Rolling Stone magazine,
Issue 821, Sept. 16, L7 crashed the
party of two of this summer’s biggest
concert tours. During the Dixie
Chicks’ set at the Lilith Fair, an air
plane flew over followed by a banner
that read: “Bored? Tired? Try L7.”
Another banner flew over the Warped
Tour that said “Warped Needs More
Beaver...Love, L7.”
Nice touch, ladies.
Last Wednesday, L7 finished a
tour supporting Ministry. Tonight’s
show marks their second outing as the
headlining band for this tour.
Supporting L7 tonight is Honky and
Lincoln’s own M80.
Concert Preview
Hums ■mHF
Who:L7
Where: Knickerbockers, 9010 St.
When: Tonight at 6 p.m.
Cost: $12
The Skinny: The reserved ladies of L7 get
“Slap-Happy* in Lincoln
‘Butter lady* fashions dairy Last Supper
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - With a
5-pound glob of butter in one hand and
the thumb of Jesus in the other, Norma
Lyon laments over how the main figure
in her Last Supper keeps getting in die
way.
“I’ve knocked three fingers off of
him today,” Lyon said, her graying head
swaying from side to side as she reat
tached the thumb. “Maybe we should
have saved him for last, but we thought
he was too important.”
Norma Lyon, 70, is called “Dully”
by her friends but is known to most
Iowans as “the butter lady.”
She has been sculpting a life-sized,
600-pound butter cow at die Iowa State
Fair each year since 1959.
And she hasn’t missed a year. She
carved her first cow when she was preg
nant with her seventh child, and she
carved other cows when she was either
pregnant or recovering from giving
birth to her eighth and ninth children.
“I live for it all year long,” Lyon said
as she snuggled in a pumpkin-colored
jacket to warm up after hours in a 40
degree refrigerated showcase.
Each day of the fair, from dawn to
dusk, scores of people line up to see the
display in the Agriculture Building,
stamping Lyon’s work as a crowd
66
It s one of the most popular things at the
fair. You wouldn't want to do away with the
butter cow, ever ”
Kathy Swift
Iowa State Fair spokesperson
favorite.
This year was no exception.
“My gosh, there are lines 20 feet
deep. People are clamoring to see the
Last Supper out of butter,” said Kathy
Swift, fair spokeswoman.
Visitors this year included Vice
President A1 Gore, a bevy of Republican
presidential candidates who had their
photos taken with Lyons and her work
and an observer from Yale University’s
art library, who viewed Lyon’s sculpture
as an example of folk art.
“It’s one of the most popular things
at the fair,” Swift said. “You wouldn’t
want to do away with the butter cow,
ever.”
Carving a butter cow was not Lyon’s
idea. The state fair has featured one
every year since 1911 as a promotion
for dairy products, Swift said. Before
Lyon, there was J.E. Wallace, who died
in 1956. Earl Dutt, the sculptor who
took over for Wallace, didn’t impress
Lyon.
“I saw a picture and thought, ‘I
could do better than that,”’ said Lyon, a
self-described housewife.
This year, as a celebration of her
40th anniversary at the fair, she decided
to take on her most ambitious butter
sculpting project to date - a 1,700
pound butter sculpture of the Last
Supper.
Asked if some might find her Last
Supper butter sculpture offensive, Lyon,
cleaning the butter off her hands with
paper napkins, replies like a hue artist.
“It’s a statue, and that’s my medi- *
um,” she said.
Research counters theory on classical music, smarts
(AP) -Two studies published today
in the journal Nature challenge earlier
research and the popular belief about
the effect of music on intelligence.
The results call into question 1993
research that showed college students
temporarily gained up to nine IQ points
after listening to a Mozart piano sonata.
The widely reported findings spawned
an industry of supposedly mind
enhancing recordings.
South Dakota, Georgia and
Tennessee, as well as the National
Academy of Recording Arts &
Sciences, give away classical CDs to
new mothers. Several “Mozart Effect”
CDs have been on the Billboard classi
cal charts since January 1998.
However, researchers found that
any IQ improvements from listening to
Mozart were not statistically signifi
cant.
“Listening to classical music is
probably good for kids — good for rea
sons other than it’s going to make them
smarter,” said Harvard Medical School
researcher Christopher Chabris, who
analyzed 16 previous studies and pub
lished his findings in today’s issue of the
journal Nature.
In an accompanying study, other
researchers reported they tried to repro
duce the 1993 results and failed.
The authors of the previous research
said if s too early to play a requiem for
the Mozart effect. The latest studies
tried to find evidence of improvement in
overall intelligence, while the original
results were more limited, they said.
“In every talk that I give, I make it
very clear that there is no scientific evi
dence that listening to music will make
you smarter,” said Fran Rauscher, lead
researcher of the 1993 study and a psy
chology professor at the University of
Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
She said her test subjects showed
the greatest improvement in spatial
thinking skills, which are useful in
doing math or playing chess.
But Chabris’ analysis, involving
714 people, found no significant
improvement in either broader abstract
reasoning or spatial thinking.
“The bottom-line message is that
there is either no Mozart effect or a very
small Mozart effect,” Chabris said.
male dance revue
Sat. Aug. 28
$10 gen., $15 VIP
Doors at 8, Show at 9 pm
19+ admitted
The Royal ©rove
340 W. Comhusker Hwn. 474-2332 I