Three Evenings in the El Dorado Ballroom: A Comprehensive Review
by Annie Yang, Laura Walton, & Reenua JonesOn the weekend of October 10th, students at the Bass Lab attended all three evenings of the El Dorado Ballroom series at the LA Philharmonic.
El Dorado Ballroom, named after a Houston, Texas' Third Ward banquet hall utilized for African American showcases, serves as an evolving platform for Black full-spectrum performance and artistry, which cannot be narrowed in genres or defined outside attendance. This event series curated by Solange Knowles is an initiation to The West's high-art scene of the tallness, breadth, and fullness of L.A.'s experimentalists: parallel to the previous edition held in 2023 at The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).
Day One: On Dissonance
by Annie Yang
The concert hall performers are illuminated in complex light.
On Thursday, October 10, 2024, Saint Heron and the Los Angeles Philharmonic presented "On Dissonance" at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. This performance featured a night of classical, symphonic, and opera works curated by Solange Knowles, a Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and visual artist. "On Dissonance" paid tribute to Black women composers in classical and opera music.
With a full symphonic orchestra, the evening began with Sinfonia, composed by Grammy-nominated Patrice Rushen. Then, Jeri Lynne Johnson, the conductor, led the group into the next piece, Stabat Mater, by the late composer and educator Julia Perry. This performance featured mezzo-soprano vocalist Zoie Reams, who was accompanied by the strings. This 20-minute song included lyrics in Latin, which were translated and projected onto the upper balcony by the organ.
Following a brief intermission, Solange made her U.S. compositional debut with the premiere of "Not Necessarily in Arms Reach," a duet featuring two tubas. Javan Carter and Desmond Provost stood before the symphony and played the piece on sousaphones. According to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, "this work draws inspiration from repetition, gospel vocal arrangements, sonic minimalism, and Black Southern marching bands" (Saint Heron). After, the percussion section showcased Homunculus C.F., a 5-minute song by Perry. The evening was wrapped up with a short piece for orchestra by Perry, which featured the entire symphony. The performers received a warm standing ovation along with flowers from the Concert Hall. As someone who grew up playing music, I felt inspired and moved by the music, and my favorite piece was Homunculus C.F. And, of course, seeing Beyoncé in the crowd with my own two eyes left me a little starstruck.
Day Two: Contrapuntal Counterpoints
by Laura Walton 
Jeri Lynne Johnson expertly conducts the orchestra.
Our evening began with an introduction to the genius of 21st-century creative freedom. Liv.E, acclaimed new wave artist and pioneer, wielding technicolor assets and vision while shrouding the venue with seriousness — her lyrics woven throughout hypnotic Bass addressed the fight for individuality, recognition, and evolutions in womanhood. The audience tethered between sways and urgent attention amidst recognizing new renditions of popular hits Wild Animals, HowTheyLikeMe! and her latest album, Girl In The Half Pearl. Emerging from the Deep South, it takes great courage and vision to transcribe the musings of your heart while transforming a historic concert hall into a fresh listening base. Liv. E's performance was a perfect beginning to the evening, as we all became witness in Walt Disney Concert Hall to genius counterpoints in perfect attunement — foreboding change not restricted to this year but in the foundation of Artists and Black intellectuals attuning us to methods that will shape our century.
L.A. duo J*Davey, originators of the Myspace-underground release method, stepped to their instruments and declared boldly, "We were not in our usual venues, a smoky House of Blues, but we are going to bring in a conceptual fog and give ourselves permission to be swept away." The ensuing ballads, then bangers, prompted reminisce about the early days of the World Wide Web, emphasizing to the audience that we cannot substitute genuine songwriting. With extreme delight and a nod to the winding stardom path with the help of Los Angeles as home base, another Bassist, Thundercat, joined them on-stage mid-performance to immediate recognition of the audience. If one cannot attend all performances, the best gift from our attendance on the Funk, Soul, and Jazz night is that what we witnessed cannot be replicated as it was divinely, experimentally orchestrated for this viewing alone.
As we neared the finale, the Music Hall was enlivened with camaraderie and glances of familiarity as the audience adapted, relaxing into this newfound expectation — that we could not predict anything. If Liv.E was the new artistry with an old Soul and J*Davey was proven artistry that emerged at a new time, then the final performance featuring Bilal, Cooper Moore, William Parker, and Micheal Wimberley was the past deviating through divination from the past. Each figure took their respective seats on three stage corners, wielding instruments from different families — percussion (drums), woodwind (flute), and strings (banjo). Our elders had their tools.
Following, each musician played a unique freestyle ballad before a rift and then attempted to merge with another — we will never know what was rehearsed, but we know it was crafted for this performance. Concluding the evening with experts displayed levels of skill and familiarity that can only come with time, relationship to the instrument, and their expert ability to find cohesion with another tune. The gospel moment came when Bilal entered the stage, shrouded in all black with black sunglasses, immediately grabbed the microphone, and called out at a high pitch. The musicians did not move to replicate or encapsulate his note but continued with their hymns, reverberating pain and protest.
The performance was a conviction of protest, the right to express pain — the only comfort was sitting next to another person, knowing they, too, were witnessing this tug at transcendence due to Bilal's vocals. We were whisked to a reflective space, armed in a fight for collective release while knowing that we were born by (the river), from (our mothers) to (a nation in disarray). Still, in this venue, we are moving through it tied to another, so the culmination of his roars layered with ancient instruments facilitated a break. Contrapuntal Counterpoints (Experiments in Funk Soul and Jazz) was an effective portal, counteracting the audience from merely observing to participating and transcending alongside the performers.
The evening enveloped three dynamic performances, onset by southern-originated artist Liv.E. Walt Disney Concert Hall transformed through an inferno-palette of lights, pulsating with Liv. E's vocals, creating waves in perfect cadence to her computerized performance. The stage production guided the audience in anticipation of her tenacious performance, complemented by her expertly stacked vocals.
Day Three: Glory to Glory
by Reenua Jones
Zoie Reams is applauded for her concert performance.