If the first event of the 2nd Annual NX35 Conferette is any indication as to what’s to come, then you’d best find a good parking spot as soon as possible.

The first of several planned day panels kicked off today at 1 p.m. at Banter, a delightful coffeehouse and restaurant on Oak Street, just off the square in Denton. The place was buzzing both inside and out with local musicians, fans, lookey-lu’s and even a Denton City Councilman.

The impressive panel included moderator Lyndsay Knecht Milne (NBCDFW.com), Michael Seman (research associate, Institute of Urban Studies, UTA), Sarah Jane Semrad (president of Art Conspiracy; co-founder of La Reunion), Kevin Roden (Host of Drink and Think; Historic Landmark Commission of Denton), Robert Milnes (dean of the College of Visual Arts and Design, UNT) and Vicki Meek (manager of the South Dallas Cultural Center). The panel focused on how the DFW region faces the challenges that accompany growth, as well as medium collaborations, bringing leaders and communities together to help create awareness and what artists and venue can do to encourage new ways of thinking and living.

Unfortunately, due to the venue’s microphone issues, a car alarm that continued to blare every five minutes and the whizzing and whirling of the espresso machine left me with audio that’s nothing less than highly annoying.

However, Lyndsay filmed a similar round table with most of the same panel at the Texas Theater, which you can enjoy by watching the above video.

UPDATE: Just a few interesting points discussed during this roundtable that, I think, evoke a lot more conversation:

Kevin Roden: It’s not so specific to the DFW region, but if you consider the great amount of problems that face out nation today, when you think the economy, when you think of the environment, when you think of sustainability issues, when you think of homelessness, poverty, all these issues that confront our culture as a whole, what typically does our culture or society look to as the answers to those problems, at least contemporarily? It typically is, math and science. That’s going to be the saviour to all our problems, and so you see our educational system really focusing in on those two things in terms of their standards, for example you see the Secretary of Education promoting these things as late as yesterday. I think it’s important to think back about the history of science and history of math and think about the renaissance for instance, some of the greatest scientists and some of the greatest mathematicians of our western culture, were also some of the greatest painters, some of the greatest musicians, some of the greatest poets, some of the greatest writers, and they grew up in an environment that was essentially interdisciplinary. Even the old professors of today, I think, your old science professors, your old biology/physics professors are as equipped in Shakespeare as they are in music. So I think it’s important to realize that as we focus on math and science to help solve these problems which are essentially necessary for the problems that we face, but they are not necessarily sufficient to solve the problems. As we promote math and science, I think it’s important to realize the importance of humanity in the arts in order to give us a sense of awe, a sense of wonder, so that when we promote these questions and when we seek solutions to these questions, we have a real sense of creativity that’s required for that…so I think that when we look to promote math and science as the saviour to our future, I think we need to realize that those people need to be equipped with what the arts can give them, in order to have a real large vision…

Vicki Meek spoke about the importance of arts education in schools and community centers and the students whose lives were, quite literally self-proclaimed, saved by such programs and community support.

A huge part of this discussion was centered around the importance of a grassroots effort to individually educate our neighbors, our families, our co-workers and our friends on the exciting arts, music and cultural community that flourishes in Dallas, Denton, Fort Worth and North Texas.

Successful examples of projects such as Art Conspiracy and La Reunion were mentioned several times to illustrate the potential future for more successful collaborations that feature art, music, dance and other mediums, that will not only bring together a more racially and culturally diverse fan-base, but also booster multi-community support and interest.

As I type, the second day panel is going on. “Where We Hear Local Music” is a panel discussion as to where local media critics, radio hosts, music editors and television reporters find the music they play, promote or write about, and how best to catch their attention. Again, it’s a pretty packed house, and the panel discussion is equally as interesting and lively as the first one. This panel included moderator Nico Martini (host of American Highway on CBS radio’s The Indie-Verse), Andy Chandler (music reporter, TXA 21), Sarah Crisman (music editor, Pegasus News), Pete Freedman (music editor for the Dallas Observer), Eric Landrum (program director for CBS radio’s The Indie-Verse) and Mark Schetman (host of the Local Show on 102.1 the Edge).

UPDATE: Bottom line, these panelists shared a common theme throughout this roundtable. If you are an artist, musician or band, don’t be shy about sending them your CD’s, or your MySpace pages, or walking right up to them at shows and shaking hands. The entire panel offered up the fact that they are open, welcoming and excited to find great new bands and great new music. The sky’s the limit in this day and age of Internet options, recording options and the oh-so-strategic social networking.

Check out the rest of the upcoming panels and make plans to attend! I’m off to the Music Mixer at Dan’s Silverleaf, check back here later for more.

Last year, 2,200 people attended NX35. But it’s difficult to tell what kind of economic impact they had on Denton.

That’s largely because most of those people either were already from Denton or just passed through the city without staying says Kim Phillips of the Denton Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“The passing through still makes an impact, but how do you measure it? They buy gas, they might buy a couple of drinks? But it’s very hard to measure unless it creates for a business a dramatic impact over a typical Saturday night,” she says.

This year could be different, though. Festival organizers say it’s tough to guess how many people might show up for Saturday’s Flaming Lips/Midlake show since the event is free and you don’t need a ticket to get in. But you can bet it will attract way more people than last year’s entire event drew. NX35 organizers say as many as 30,000 people could show up.

And at least some of those people are going to stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, etc. That’s when economic impact can begin to be measured.

“I think this year we’re going to break that boundary and be able to put a little clearer economic impact on it,” Phillips says.

In related news, be careful if you’re planning on driving to the free show on Saturday. The city is concerned that the area around the North Texas State Fairgrounds can’t handle all the traffic. Especially since it’s hard to tell how many people are coming to the show.

“With it being a free concert, we don’t know if we’re going to have 7,000 or 15,000 or more,” says Janie McLeod of the Denton Parks and Recreation department. “It’s just not a predictable thing at this point.”

To that end, the NX35 Web site has provided some helpful tips on getting in and out of the show.

Salim Nourallah and his wife, Jayme, know how to make working together work for their marriage. The couple built side-by-side studios at their home. To your right, Pleasantry Lane Recording studio. Fifty feet to the left is Jamye’s studio for her child photography business, as well as a space for her to create her artwork.

Salim and his partner, Rip Rowan, have produced records for the likes of the Deathray Davies, Chris Holt, The Cut*Off, Buttercup, Elkhart and the Old 97’s, just to name a few. Pleasantry Lane Recording studio was designed by Bob Suffolk, owner of Suffolk Studio Design. He created a 60s-70s influenced look that’s both sleek and mod while still providing a very relaxed and warm atmosphere.

Recently Salim invited Art&Seek for a tour of his studio and a look back at the beginnings of Pleasantry Lane.

Be sure to tune in to KXT 91.7 Friday afternoon for his in-studio performance. And visit our Artist Spaces section to see where a slew of North Texas artists (including Jayme Nourallah) get creative.

Photos: IHOBF

Guest Blogger Tina Aguilar teaches Humanities and Cultural Studies at Brookhaven College School of the Arts.

This week, I made a trip to the House of Blues to hear about the International House of Blues Foundation’s (IHOFB) Action for the Arts Initiative, called “Music and Imagination.” It’s a collaborative project with local artists and area schools. I had a soulful visit with Nazanin Fatemian, IHOFB’s Dallas Program Manager, and lead artist Emmanuel Gillespie.

Tina Aguilar: Tell me about the IHOFB and this new project.

Nazanin Fatemian.: The IHOBF is dedicated to bringing the arts to schools and communities through programs that promote cultural understanding and encourage creative expression. IHOBF’s Action for the Arts Initiative raises awareness about the importance of the arts, presents youth artistic works and accomplishments and increases access to and provides support for arts programs. We utilize our venue in the areas of visual arts, recitals and music history programming.

T.A.: How did you start the process for the Music and Imagination Project?

N. F.: This is the first collaborative community project. We had a start-up workshop for 3^rd to 12^th grade visual arts students and teachers, and other artists that became the core group of participants. At first, the group was pretty large. Emmanuel presented the overall project vision at the House of Blues and organized a series of meetings along with a guest musician who discussed music and imagination.

Emmanuel Gillespie: After I shared my concept, all five groups were left with broad instructions and allowed to create their own narrative for imagination and music. Each group was encouraged to consider the meaning of imagination. Each school program, teachers and students, took the lead of how to come up with meaning for their panels.

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RAISING THE ‘ROOF’: Local ears perked up when they heard that multi-Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein would join the national tour of Fiddler on the Roof, currently taking up residence at Bass Hall. And the local reviews would suggest his addition is a welcome one. “Fierstein’s singing is a raspy croak and he can’t dance,” writes Punch Shaw in his dfw.com review. But don’t let that distract you. “He acts the part exceptionally well, often drawing a laugh with just a perfectly timed gesture or expression.” Cathy O’Neal agrees. “Fierstein’s performance is genuine and endearing and never over the top, even when mining the humor,” she writes in her theaterjones.com review. The show is in town through Sunday.

MUSIC BITS: The Wall Street Journal devotes a portion of its front page to Bucks Burnett’s eight-track tape collection. Art&Seek was there when Bucks showed the collection in November …  Preston Jones spends the day in Denton ahead of NX35 and concludes: it’s awesome. (dfw.com) … Rolling Stone asks Midlake frontman Tim Smith about his transformation from jazz head to rock star. (rollingstone.com) … Aledo pop quintet J. Walkers discuss the very difficult life of being heartthrobs. (fwweekly.com) … Neon Indian has a free mp3 download. (DC9 at Night) … Some guy at KERA reports on Denton bass player Ryan Williams, who’ll play not three, not four, not six, but FIVE shows at NX35. If you’ve seen the Baptist Generals, Dust Congress, the Boxcar Bandits or Sabra Leval, you’ve taken in his fine work. (artandseek.org)

QUOTABLE: “It’s like having vitamins in your milk. But if you ask me what kind of milk, I’ll say it’s like multi-colored vomit milk that has been shot out of some woman’s breast. The fact that it’s shot out of a breast makes it better than what comes from a factory. So yeah, I’d say the Flaming Lips are that.”

- Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne, explaining (?) that the band’s stage antics only work because of the solid musicianship going on at the same time. Find out what that means on Saturday when the band plays a free show with Midlake at NX35. And read more of Hunter Hauk’s interview with Coyne at quickdfw.com.

STOP SITTING ON YOUR HANDS: When to applaud? Theatergoers freely clap when a star first walks onstage, at the end of acts or even after musical numbers. And people at pop music concerts are free to hoot and holler whenever the spirit moves them. But classical music concerts are a whole different affair. And Alex Ross things we should change that. Writing in The Guardian, Ross says that classical’s arcane rules for when to applaud and when not to are in a small way responsible for the public’s dwindling interest. “This explains why newcomers exhibit anxiety on the subject; it even appears that fear of incorrect applause can inhibit people from attending concerts, although they may be merely inventing excuses. … The underlying message of the protocol is, in essence: ‘Curb your enthusiasm. Don’t get too excited.’ Should we be surprised that people aren’t as excited about classical music as they used to be?” Put me in the Ross camp.

MUSIC BITS: For once, John Mayer let the music do the talking at his American Airlines Center show Tuesday night. (dfw.com) … The Pointer Sisters showed that they’ve still got it 25 years after their hey day in a nearly sold-out show at the Winspear. (dallasnews.com) … Ahead of his trip to Denton this weekend to play NX35, Wayne Coyne talks about his upcoming film project. (billboard.com) … The Dallas City Council is looking into bringing the music back to Memorial Auditorium. (dallasobserver.com). … Rolling Stone is giving away trips to see Stone Temple Pilots next weekend at SXSW. (rollingstone.com)

MONEY WOES: The Arts of Collin County has been the main coordinator of the future arts complex planned for 100 acres central to Allen, Frisco, Plano and McKinney. But the difficulty in building a complex for four cities is that all four cities have to be on board. And after a Monday city council meeting, there are questions about Frisco’s involvement. The Frisco City Council declined to put a measure on the ballots in May that would ask voters for a bond package to fund the project. That puts more pressure on Arts of Collin County to raise private funding. “If they vote that they can’t sell the bonds, my job just got bigger and harder, and I’ll have to find more money,” Arts of Collin County Executive Director Mike Simpson tells dallasnews.com.

Guest blogger Walton Muyumba is a University of North Texas professor who teaches classes on blues, jazz and American literature. He is the author of The Shadow and the Act: Black Intellectual Practice, Jazz Improvisation and Philosophical Pragmatism.

Displaying the roots and logic for the band’s presence, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra opened its Friday evening show with a set of Basie Orchestra standards. As Wynton Marsalis intimated they would, the band perpetrated the act of swinging through numbers, with the horn sections blowing muscularly over the rhythm unit and lead trumpeter Ryan Kisor hitting home run high notes. Marsalis divided the set between “Old” and “New” testament Basie, including numbers like“Sleep Walker’s Serenade” and “Mutt and Jeff.”

On “Magic,” reedman Sherman Irby offered an inspired, hiccupping alto sax solo that sounded as if he were humming/scat singing through the horn. In taut “call and response” sections, each of the band’s units – trumpets, trombones, reeds and rhythm – urged Irby through the chord changes and gave him buckets of pointed riffs for him to hammer into his ragged, rousing improvisation.

JLCO closed the first half with “Seventh Avenue Express,” a tune arranged for rapid-fire, round robin blues soloing. Marsalis has the unenviable job of choosing pieces and building sets that will allow all his top-shelf band mates the chance to solo. On “Seventh Avenue Express,” Walter Blanding (tenor sax), Sean Jones (trumpet) and Eliot Mason (trombone) each wore the conductor’s hat, urging the group down more intriguing routes with each turn. Ali Jackson kept the song’s engine boiling hot, thumping the bass-pedal and snapping the toms and snare skins with high-speed, locomotive hands.

On Friday and Saturday nights, the show’s second sets were devoted to Portrait in Seven Shades Ted Nash’s musical essay on swing, modern visual art and improvisation. Nash, a reedman and flutist, lead the band through seven intricate, often elegant, movements reflecting the wonders of Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Vincent Van Gogh, Marc Chagall and Jackson Pollack.

From movement to movement, an interesting contingency emerged in my listening: the band was playing avant-garde music. During the movements for Picasso, Dali and Pollock, I realized that Basie’s music was context-establishing, preparing the audience for Nash’s composed, acute integration of swing time with bebop changes, Gil Evans-type coloring, hard and harmon muted, Ornette Coleman-like harmonics (or harmolodics), and group play as imagined by both Charles Mingus and the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Nash chopped and screwed flamenco and cubism together in “Picasso,” a swinging tune in 4/4 time, based on four-part chords, harmonies and melodic runs.  Marsalis’ masterful solo, geometric segmented and angled sharply against the composition, was all blues and bullfighting.

“Dali,” signed in 13/8 time, featured Victor Goins setting the melody, Vincent Gardner bellowing on trombone, Marcus Printup and Nash in duet, melting time with blazing, whining, wheezing notes, and Jackson alarm-tocking an assortment of cowbells. Against Carlos Henriquez’s bass plucking, Dan Nimmer’s cycle of keyboard runs and Jackson’s bass-drum bombs, the band ended the song stomping feet, clapping hands in differing rhythmic pattern, and spinning the audience’s heads.

On Friday evening, the show closed with “Pollock,” Nash’s most abstract, outsider movement. The piece shifted between bright, darting tonalities and moody, mid-century modernism. The arrangement was set for Kisor and the rhythm section to intermittently dive out of the piece into a tuneful, swinging expression of Clifford Brown/Max Roach bebopisms. But Irby punctuated these exits, soloing with purposeful wildness across the band’s rhythmically placed, sonic gestures, razor lining the musical canvas, bleeding it to give it life.

Marsalis is a generous director; he must be with all the talent in his troupe. Besides calling numbers for individual soloists, Marsalis also creates set lists around charts written by the composers in the group. For instance, Saturday’s show opened with Chris Chrenshaw’s lovely, complex piece, “The Block,” his reflection on the paintings of Romare Bearden. The jazz was of the highest order; the musicians soloed with soul, intelligence and a general sense of energy and fun.

As I was turning through my notes on the concerts, I was struck by a stupendous sentence in Preston Jones’ recent profile of Ornette Coleman on dfw.com:

“[Coleman] has not performed in Fort Worth since the 1983 grand opening of now-shuttered jazz club Caravan of Dreams. Coleman says he would love to return and perform in his hometown, but there is nothing scheduled.”

I hope someone with real power in the North Texas arts communities read this profile and made some calls to arrange a date for Coleman’s return to the area, thus blessing him with the birthday gift of return and us with the gift of certified musical genius. Coleman is 80 years old, why wait until he is dead to honor him?

UNT’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference has announced the slate for this year’s chat-and-chew in July.

The high points? Mary Karr (left), author of The Liars’ Club and her latest recovering-from-alcoholism memoir, Lit, will be the keynote speaker the opening evening — this year, to be held at the Austin Ranch, a dude facility in Grapevine. The other two keynote speakers will be Mark Bowden, best known as the author of Black Hawk Down, and Gary Smith, the senior writer for Sports Illustrated. Jack Shafer, Slate’s editor-at-large and a noted media critic, will hold forth in a “plenary session,” as will NPR’s Mandalit del Barco. Bryan Burrough, best known hereabouts as the author of a new history of Texas oil (The Big Rich), is also a contributing writer for Vanity Fair, which is what he’ll be talking about. Hampton Sides, who’s visited the Mayborn before (with his Kit Carson book, Blood and Thunder), is back with a new book about the manhunt for Martin Luther King assassin James Earl Ray (Hellhound on His Trail).

Of particular interest to me: book reviewers/book editors Steve Weinberg, Ed Nawotka (Bloomberg News) and Mike Merschel (Dallas Morning News) will hold forth on a panel about getting famous and getting rich writing about books.

They’re being bitter and ironic.

You can see the entire schedule here.

A DEPARTURE IN FORT WORTH: Just six months into the job, the director of artistic planning and communications for the Van Cliburn Foundation has left her post. Janice Mayer tells the Fort-Worth Star Telegram, “I can’t talk anymore about it as I’m seeking legal counsel, and I don’t want to compromise myself.” The Cliburn Foundation says the two parties parted ways amicably. Stay tuned.

STRINGS ATTACHED: Hansel & Gretel is a tale tailor-made for puppetry. After all, there are a few semi-scary bits in there, and puppets can come off a little less frightening than people. That’s the approach that the Dallas Children’s Theater is taking, partnering with Kathy Burks Theatre of Puppetry Arts for its current staging. And the decision is paying off. Mark Lowry calls it, “a marvelous 55-minutes of expert puppetry work, terrific singing and the magic of live theater,” in his theaterjones.com review. Nancy Churnin observes that, “the preschoolers … did seem to laugh as much as they gasped,” in her writeup. The show continues through March 21.

THE RICH GET RICHER: It seems like a couple times a year, we hear about the University of Texas getting its hands on some treasure trove of fascinating material. Last year, the school acquired Robert De Niro’s archives. Last month, it learned it will get to display (courtesy of Michael Dell) a photo collection valued at $100 million. And today we learn that the Harry Ransom Center will be the new home for the papers of the late David Foster Wallace. The papers will be available for researchers in the fall. As a UT grad, all I have to add is: hook ‘em.

Guest blogger Gail Sachson owns Ask Me About Art, offering tours, lectures and program planning. She is Vice-Chair of the Cultural Affairs Commission and a member of the Public Art Committee.

I never knew what I’d answer Barbara Walters. Now I know. I’d want Peter Guber, Bob Balaban and Brett Ratner at my fantasy dinner party!  Witty, wise, charming and creative,  these three successful Hollywood movers and shakers beguiled an adoring audience at the Winspear on Thursday night as the Brinker series presented “The Creative Process,” a panel discussion moderated by CNN’s Campbell Brown. These raconteurs seemed to enjoy themselves as much as the audience, as they shared personal anecdotes, reminiscences, cautionary tales and advice about filmmaking. It was as if we were all at the dinner table together mesmerized by their stories. But we were also listening for secrets. What secrets could be gleaned from these three accomplished Hollywood VIPs? Why did they succeed when so many others fail?

No magic potions or formulas for success were revealed, but it was easy to see the common denominators among these three winners: curiosity, drive, attitude, resiliency and a tenacious and never-giving up hold on their dreams.

Balaban

Bob Balaban – Actor, writer, director (remember him Midnight Cowboy?) claims his success is genetic. People are born storytellers. When he finds a story he loves, he doesn’t give up. He sticks with his dream until he can excite someone to buy into it. Having moved him, he knows that story would be better than anything the studio marketing department could invent.

Brett Ratner – The producer and director (Rush Hour), who also thinks he was born to entertain, agrees with Balaban. “Never let that dream die. Don’t ever accept ‘N’ for an answer. Show some bravado … lots of bravado!”

Guber

Most impressive was Peter Guber – Producer, director, studio head (Gorillas in the Mist, Superman, Rain Man etc.). Guber was born to ask questions. His curiosity won’t let him sleep. He has no need for sleep, for he dreams during the day.

He was also born to be in front of an audience, but in the courtroom, not on film. He’s a lawyer, a business school graduate, a college professor, an author, talk show host and  popular motivational speaker. Even accomplished, multi-talented Balaban, after watching a film tribute to Guber, said, “I’ve been sleeping for 30 years!”

Guber, who has headed several studios, including Sony and Mandalay, introduced a pragmatic view into the conversation. “Remember, it’s a business,” he said.  “It’s called  show business, not show show. … We have to be fiscally responsible. Some wonderful dreams and top-notch scripts don’t sell tickets, and they invested to recoup their investment. If it doesn’t cover expenses, the movie is a failure, no matter how many Oscars it may win.”