Travels - Downbeat

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Darcy James ArgueA Fable Growsin BrooklynBy Brad FarbermanThe best way to burrow insideBrooklyn Babylon (New Amsterdam), thesecond CD from composer-conductor DarcyJames Argue’s 18-piece big band SecretSociety, is to listen to it. The second bestroute is to hear out Argue on what’s missingfrom music today. “When someone callsa blues at a jam session,” he said, “it’s notlikely to be a deep, emotional experiencefor everyone.” With his writing for Babylon,Argue tried to “create a sense of audibleunity, which is weirdly something thathas been out of favor in classical music.”Emotion and “audible unity” are things thatBabylon has to spare, making the albumhonest, intimate and larger-than-life. If youwant something done right, do it yourself.1Or, to be more precise, do it with one other person whom you admire and trust.Though all of the music for Babylon was composed by Argue, the project was a true collaborationbetween the Secret Society leader and graphic novelist Danijel Zezelj, whocreated the visuals that accompanied its 2011 live premiere at the Brooklyn Academy ofMusic (BAM) and conceptualized the fictional story it tells. Despite being completelyinstrumental, Babylon communicates the tale of carpenter Lev Bezdomni, who has beenasked to construct a carousel at the top of a proposed Tower of Brooklyn. Once built, thestructure would be the tallest on Earth.“We talked about, in very broad strokes, what kind of story we might want to tell,”Argue recalled about his first meeting with Zezelj in 2009. “Some kind of story aboutBrooklyn. Some kind of story that combined past, present and future. That had somekind of resonance. And then the next time I met with him, he had come up with thisdetailed urban fable about this carpenter, Lev Bezdomni, and his granddaughter, Mara,and Lev’s carousel-building workshop, and this invitation from the mayor to build thecarousel that will crown the tallest tower in the world. It was all there. I saw this synopsisof what the story might be like [and] I was like, ‘This is amazing. There’s so much musicalpotential built into the motifs that he’s laid out here.’”Of course, Argue, who was born and raised in Vancouver but has lived in Brooklynsince 2003, was interested in more than Zezelj’s narrative ideas. The visual artist’s dark,bold images struck a chord with Argue right away.“Immediately, what attracted me to the art was the design sense,” said Argue. “All ofhis panels are framed really beautifully in and of themselves. And they convey story andmotion and energy and all of the things you need in order to flow from panel to panel.Sometimes people compose beautiful images but there’s no dynamism to it. But he wasable to do both, which is so rare in graphic-novel storytelling. It’s the same skill as agreat cinematographer. That degree of dynamism plus design appealed to me and resonatedwith what I want to do musically. But also the fact that [Zezelj] is able to combineso many influences from differentperiods: medieval woodcuts,Soviet-era propaganda posters,243
(1) Darcy James Argue’sSecret Society performingBrooklyn Babylon in 2011.(2) Composer, conductorand ringleader Argue.(3) Danijel Zezelj’s artworkis projected on a screenbehind the musicians.(4) Argue (far right)leading the 18 musicians.(Photos 1–4 by JamesMatthew Daniel. Portraitof Argue on page 41 byLindsay Beyerstein.)
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