For Parties, There’s Tomorrow

What if Sonic Youth gave a party and nobody came? UCLA’s Royce Hall was about a third full on Thursday for the first show of All Tomorrow’s Parties, an eclectic, four-day music festival curated by the New York art-rock band. Though the rest of the weekend promised bigger draws, from Eddie Vedder to Sonic Youth itself, ATP opened with an often tedious five-hour show featuring spoken-word artists and free-jazz luminary Cecil Taylor.

Highlighted by veteran underground poet Lydia Lunch’s political anger and radical icon John Sinclair’s jazz love letters, the program of mostly short sets was thematically consistent with the festival’s purpose, delivering a wide range of respected, obscure-to-renowned artists. Most were somehow connected to a musical style or scene, and all were worth learning more about, even if their presentations didn’t necessarily convey that.

Food for thought? The black-clad Lunch offered a feast of righteous vitriol, starting with a diatribe against the war on terrorism and blazing ever more furiously. She charged purposefully through a dizzying number of related points about American hypocrisy, religion, freedom, prison and the greed of politicians.

For her efforts she earned props from Sinclair, the ‘60s-era White Panther Party leader, who dedicated his “Full Circle” to Lunch and noted its relevance in light of “recent U.S. activities.” He brought along trumpeter Charles Moore and reed player Ralph Jones to enhance his kinetic recitation style, and, along with such other political bits as the atomic-bomb-referencing “Fat Boy,” offered paeans to John Coltrane and Taylor that reflected his lifelong love and understanding of jazz.

And you might have needed a PhD’s worth of musical insights to get Taylor, a veteran maverick who spent more than an hour blending rhythmic poetry interludes with dynamic, percussive piano improvisation that bubbled from sweet, almost conventional melodies into frenetic, throbbing treatises on worlds both microscopic and cosmic.

At least you wanted to figure out what Taylor was up to, which wasn’t the case with the droning, wrist-slittingly dull turn by lo-fi singer-songwriter-guitarist Smog (a.k.a. Bill Callahan).

The cavernous hall tended to swallow the less dynamic performers. Poet Nathaniel Mackey might have been more compelling in a smaller space, as his works inspired by Taylor and other jazzmen intriguingly intertwined verbal interpretations of the music with thoughts on language and black travails through history. Likewise, Warhol-associated poet Gerard Malanga’s reading dragged, although his ruminations on William Burroughs’ end days and a poignant piece titled “Leaving New York” were affectingly reflective.

Veteran photographer, poet and wanderer Ira Cohen, associated with the Beat poets but not one of them, was more theatrical, flashing often fascinatingly surreal images of various far-off lands. Wisely providing background on some of his inspirations, he also fulfilled another of the festival’s objectives: giving those not in the know some tidbits for further exploration.

All Tomorrow’s Parties, today at various UCLA venues, 3:30 p.m.; Sunday at Ackerman Grand Ballroom, 4 p.m. $35 and $50. (310) 825-2101.