The Worst Dilemma in Human History: Keen or Toussaint? Or Whitehead?

 August 19, 2010

By last count, there are over 300 days in a year! Give or take 40.

What are the odds, then, that two massively important events would randomly occur on the same day?

You don't need to be Alfred North Whitehead to know the answer that: why, it's 26,221-to-three.

And yet …

Against those very odds, this is precisely what has happened!

Two people named Alfred North Whitehead were born on the same day!

Just kidding. (What kind of name is "Whitehead," anyway, and who gives their kid a middle name that's a compass point? No wonder the little weirdo went into arcane mathematics and actually titled his books in Latin. LOSER!)

But!

What I'm really talking about is that, somehow, on November 13 of this year, two spectacular concerts will take place in our neighborhood — and that really pisses me off because I can't be at both of them.

The Garde Arts Center in New London hosts a triple-headed lineup with Allen Toussaint, Nicholas Payton, and the Joe Krown Trio. If you wanted to boil down the essence of all New Orleans music into one show, and you could only use three artists to try to pull it off, this lineup covers a lot of the bases.

Toussaint alone is a God and, more poignantly, a bit of a performing recluse, so this is a huge opportunity. And Payton — along with Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard and even Kermit Ruffins — is a legitmate heir to the legacy of Satchmo. To hear Krown play the organ is almost like James Booker incarnate — without the eccentricities like throwing up in the behind-the-bar ice bin of whatever club he was playing.

Simultaneously, over in Westerly at the very nice Knickerbocker Café, singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen will be onstage. Why Keen is not mentioned in the same awed critical context with his pals Steve Earle and Lyle Lovett is beyond me. He's a terrific entertainer and a brilliant songwriter, certainly a lot better than the more successful Pat Green — who in my opinion is a complete and inferior Keen rip-off. Even if "Gringo Honeymoon"  was the only song REK had ever written, he would still be immortal. But his catalog is stuffed with similarly brilliant tunes.

What's it gonna be, Koster? Keen or Toussaint? Toussaint or Keen? Maybe Whitehead has a formula that will help me figure it out.

Until then, I hate the cruelties of the world.

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