SFP: A Disappointing Close to the Season

Pekka Kuusisto and Gabriel Kahane (from the SFP event page for last night’s performance)

Last night San Francisco Performances (SFP) wrapped up its 2023–24 season with a disappointing conclusion. The final offering was taken by Council, the duo of Pekka Kuusisto and Gabriel Kahane, both of whom are vocalists and multi-instrumentalists. Their page in the program book cited: “The program will be announced from the stage.” There was a fair amount of babble, but much of it came across as if they were more interested in talking to each other than addressing the audience.

The twentieth century was a rich period when it came to musicians making fun of what they did in front of an audience. My favorite was the duo of Jonathan and Darlene Edwards. Darlene could not hit a note on pitch if her life depended on it. (Some readers may recall that I cited her to express my disappointment with a vocal album released by Radha Thomas.) Jonathan was best represented by an album jacket showing three hands at a keyboard, suggesting that none of them could find the right notes. These were, of course, “stage names” for two major contributors to the pop scene, pianist and arrange Paul Weston and vocalist Jo Stafford. (Stafford also took on “Temptation,” singing “Tim-Tayshun” under the name Cinderella G. Stump with Red Ingle and his Hillbilly Band. Every vowel that she delivered had spine-cringing impact.)

The thing about those days was that those of us that knew about music knew how to laugh with Stafford and Weston. Last night it was hard to decided whether or not to laugh at Kuusisto and Kahane or simply to endure the experience in polite silence. My upbringing taught me that the latter was a preferred option, and I confined any groaning to the deeper recesses of my imagination. Nevertheless, I still have to wonder how it came to be that two individuals, who seemed to have little to offer other than self-indulgence, have achieved representation by serious promotional organizations.

As Kurt Vonnegut liked to say, “So it goes!”