Michael Jackson 1958-2009

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BURNING QUESTIONS: To the short list of humanity-binding questions, we can now add “where were you when you realized this was now a post-Michael Jackson world?” By odd coincidence, I was in the mini-market in Los Olivos in the early afternoon as the news was breaking, and breaking massively. Above the merchandise, televisions set to CNN were blaring the news, in fervent tones and capital letters: “MICHAEL JACKSON IS DEAD.”

This did not compute. The King of Pop was poised to regain his throne, or at least some semblance of it. Suddenly, poof, a life ended—by whatever chemical cocktails or misdeeds—at 50. Kurt Weill died at 50, too. In Los Olivos that day, the store clerk shook his head, guessing that stress did the King in, and mentioning that Jackson had often stopped in at the store—Jackson’s community market, after all. Los Olivos was Jackson’s de facto hometown for many years, before the 2005 circus trial sent him reeling and fleeing.

In a real way, Jackson’s globally ubiquitous story has strong roots in Santa Barbara County. Jackson was, in some literal way, a local artist for a long spell, a gentleman fantasy rancher breathing county air and building his dream house in Neverland. Forget his birthplace of Gary, Indiana, the Jackson compound in Encino, or other swanky temp housing: The Santa Ynez Valley was to be his ultimate arrival point and escape from the rapacious world. But, alas, along came DA Tom Sneddon (a rare public figure with the dubious distinction of being immortalized and mocked, as “Dom Sheldon,” in Jackson’s song “D.S.”). Plans changed radically after the showdown in Santa Maria (see Matt Kettmann's first-hand account in last week's Independent or at independent.com/mj).

What remains is a lingering sense of shame, a compelling and probably unsolvable set of mysteries, and, most importantly, a staggeringly fine and important cultural legacy—of which the widespread recent public parade of his music has reminded us. Tabloid fever and a general fear of eccentric behavior has mistreated Jackson’s reputation, but as with Pablo Picasso, Richard Wagner, and any number of artists with skewed personal lives and values along with great artistic vision, Jackson should ultimately be judged by his moves—musically, dance-wise, and in racial line-crossing.

In other news … isn’t it a no-brainer that Neverland Ranch should be funded and enabled as a public monument to this monumental cultural icon, à la Graceland or San Simeon? The King has left the mortal building, but it seems that, more than ever, he is the world.

Henry Brant

NOTIONS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY: Composer Henry Brant, who passed away last year at age 94, was one of our more illustrious adopted Santa Barbarans, and one of classical music’s more undersung maverick heroes, despite the late-inning Pulitzer award in 2002 (for his fabulous Ice Field, with the San Francisco Symphony). It appears that Brant’s posthumous prospects for credit due are already beginning; witness the performance of his piece Orbits—for spatially-distributed instruments, including 80 trombones—at the Guggenheim Museum in N.Y.C. on Summer Solstice. It was the climactic, keynote event of the “Make Music New York” project—with multiple performances spatially distributed around the boroughs.

Santa Barbarans who appreciated Brant’s work and his individualist brain may sense a warm, fuzzy feeling of artistic justice mixed with civic pride. Amid what could be a broad Brant rediscovery, we might also start imagining more programming possibilities (armchair programming is always tempting and easy, when it’s of the free daydream variety). How about a revival, for example, of Brant’s evocative Rainforest, staged and performed in and around the Lobero Theatre in the late ’80s? Better yet, how about if the contemporary-minded Ojai Music Festival gave a spotlight to Brant’s music, or performed his famed orchestration of Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata? We were reminded of how well Ives works in Ojai, through Jeremy Denk’s memorable performance of Ives’s First Piano Sonata a few weeks ago. Perchance to dream …

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