More on Mahanthappa

Okay, so we’re a little late. At this point, if you don’t already have tickets, you’re not going to be able to see the Rudresh Mahanthappa Quartet’s concert in the Tapestry Room tonight, because we’re completely, utterly beyond sold out. But, if you’re the plan-ahead type and you do have those tickets already in hand, we thought you might enjoy a couple interviews with Rudresh that came out in the past week, in the Boston Globe and Boston Phoenix. A few quotes are probably in order:

He’s a self-described egghead, a numbers nut who could have become a mathematician or economist. He’s a science-fiction fan who loves William Gibson’s “Neuromancer” and is liable to zone out to sci-fi reruns on TV. But when Rudresh Mahanthappa takes the stage, it’s with an alto saxophone, not chalk and blackboard, that he burrows into theorems and explores alternate planes, in a musical language so vivid and complex that hard-bitten jazz arbiters have dared to compare him to Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane. (Read more from Globe writer Siddhartha Mitter.)

“If you look at what a lot of composers in the 20th century did — Bartók, Schoenberg, Webern — what I’m doing on Codebook is not particularly groundbreaking.” But Mahanthappa is drawn to his puzzle problems as a way of thinking outside the box at the same time that he delves into material that really interests him. And he’s drawn — like earlier modern composers — to creating his own self-contained systems. “Say you decide that the piece is always going to go minor third, half step, major third, in any direction. Some really amazing music can come out of that because each note carries more weight — whether to go up or down becomes much more serious than in another circumstance.” (Read more from Phoenix editor Jon Garelick.)

But don’t take our word for it. After the concert tonight, ask Rudresh your questions about his music yourself. He’ll be signing CD’s downstairs in the museum’s Spanish Cloister after the performance, starting at about 8:30. Whether or not you were able to track down one of those elusive concert tickets, you can catch a glimpse of Mahanthappa and his quartet there, and maybe even talk string theory over a cocktail or two. Free gallery talks, a funky new self-guided tour focused on cross-cultural exchange in the Gardner collection, and some awesome fusion food in the cafe will keep you busy enough until then.

Mrs. Gardner Abroad

Mrs. Gardner compiled 27 scrapbooks during her extensive world travels which included, in part, journeys to Europe, Turkey, Japan and Cuba and each experience was carefully recorded. In some scrapbooks, her observations are made in the style of an anthropologist taking field notes, as she sketched and defined hieroglyphics and illustrated monuments or jotted down excerpts from local myths. In others she included photographs purchased at local photographer’s shops, which catered to the tourist industry. Mrs. Gardner dedicated Sundays to her scrap booking, pasting photographs, pressed flowers and other ephemera into her books. The scrapbooks illustrate the link between her early travels and the later construction of her museum.