We’re forced to concede that we’ll slip now and then and use the utterly exhausted epithet “legend” once in a while in our columns. Most writers know better, and really, we do, too. In music writing, the term has long ago been overused and drained of any substantive critical import.

And, besides, it makes you sound like a wrestling promoter.

But on this occasion we’ll kind of succumb to the seduction of the obvious and suggest that Boulder audiences have the rare opportunity to place themselves in the presence of two… legends… in one week. Both are bringing guitars.

John McLaughlin is one of the founding fathers of the jazz-fusion movement of the late ’60s and early ’70s, and one of the past century’s most fundamental guitarists. After a variety of sideman gigs and Brit jazz trio outings, McLaughlin brought a restless spirit and very heavy chops to Miles Davis’ late-’60s ensembles, playing a central role in Bitches Brew and In A Silent Way. Contemporaneously, he and Miles’ drummer Tony Williams were working a jazzer’s power trio on the side called Lifetime. McLaughlin drew from the raw power of the latter with the slippery instrumentation interplay of the former to create the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

An audacious blending of Western and Indian harmonics, neck-snapping time signatures and — most notoriously onstage — excruciatingly loud post-Hendrixian performances, Mahavishnu was built around the guitar, and thus, despite its harmonic angularities, probably appealed most directly to the rock guitar crowd than any decibel-tolerant trad jazzers trying the fusion thing on for size. The band’s influence continues to reverberate through fusion’s great-grandprogeny, and metal, to this day.

Post Mahavishnu, McLaughlin focused the greater part of his career on the gentler subtleties of acoustic music, to mixed effect — the Indian band Shakti, trios and solo albums, even a ballet and a symphony composed around his acoustic. But last year’s Industrial Zen found McLaughlin offering a healthy sampling of electro-acoustic guitar intermixed with futuristic samples and a stout, rhythmic band setting. Most longtime fans were relieved to hear McLaughlin back on the turf where they felt they knew him best — playing fast, complex, Eastern-flavored jazz fusion guitar — even if others felt he had taken a disappointing step backward.

You can’t please everyone, and at 65, McLaughlin doesn’t need to. He is still a singular talent on the guitar and, when he’s on, a breathtaking presence live.

In some ways, Richard Thompson’s shadow has lengthened much more gradually, at least in the States, where neither British folk in general, nor Fairport Convention specifically (the band he co-founded 40 years ago) ever had much commercial traction.

Thompson’s first proper introduction to the American scene was as one half of Richard and Linda Thompson. Their last studio album, Shoot Out The Lights, was an unexpected semi-hit on album rock radio in the early ’80s, and the couple, at the far end of a bitterly frayed and irreparable marriage, famously toured the States to support the album in a brittle and tensely charged environment that, according to reports, produced some exceptional musical performances (and uncomfortable personal ones) from both.

Thompson’s solo career enjoyed a steady climb on Capital Records, notably spiking with the notoriously toxic songwriting and serrated, mesmerizing guitar playing of Rumor and Sigh, a KBCO staple when it was released in 1991. A handful of albums — Mirror Blue, You, Me, Us? and The Old Kit Bag — followed, as well as a flurry of retrospectives from Thompson’s astonishingly prolific past.

Thompson’s path hasn’t been a straight one, either. We found him fiddling about with Fred Frith and Henry Kaiser in the late ’80s, compiling 1000 Years Of Popular Music (recording medieval lute, Stephen Foster and Britney Spears music side by side) in 2002, and scoring Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man in late 2004.

Thompson has told us that Boulder is one of his favorite gigs, nearly two decades after KBCO jock Richard Ray tirelessly championed his music into regular rotation, and he returns to the Fox stage promoting Sweet Warrior, his first electric recording in nearly five years. The CD is a stinging collection of typically incisive Thompson songs, headlined by “Dad’s Gonna Kill Me,”  Thompson’s unabashedly anti-Iraq war single. Thompson brings out the electric only periodically anymore, and with a critically acclaimed new album behind him, as well as four decades of incomparable history and his feet upon a favored stage, his show at the Fox is an absolute must.

 

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Susan Polis Schutz is known both locally and nationwide for her poetry and for Blue Mountain Arts, the company she and her husband founded here in Boulder in 1971. But these days she’s making waves as a documentary filmmaker.

Polis Schutz’s debut film, Anyone and Everyone, takes an in-depth and compassionate look at the experiences of parents whose children are gay or lesbian, featuring interviews with people from a diverse range of cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds. As the mother of a gay son — Jared Polis, entrepreneur and 2nd Congressional District candidate — Polis Schutz says she was inspired to make the film after her son came out.

Completed a few months ago, the documentary has already been picked up by Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and is slated to run on stations across the country, as well as on Denver’s two PBS stations — KBDI and KRMA. But locals also have the option of attending the film’s premiere on Saturday, Sept. 15, in the Boulder Public Library Auditorium. The free event starts with a reception and the opportunity to meet Polis Schutz. It will be followed by a Q&A period with Polis Schutz and a panel of interviewees from the film.

Boulder Weekly caught up with Polis Schutz in California to hear more about the film.

 

Boulder Weekly: Where did you get the idea to make this documentary?

 

Susan Polis Schutz: Right after Jared had graduated from college, he told me and my husband that he was gay. But we couldn’t tell anybody. I watched Jared suffer greatly, and also a lot of his friends suffer greatly, because they weren’t out and they felt really alone and confused. It was just a terrible time. When he finally came out, that’s when I decided to try to make a film [showing] that anyone and everyone can have a gay child. I interviewed people from all walks of life, a lot of different ethnicities, a lot of different careers, and I just wanted to show that a friend or relative or neighbor or the viewer can have a gay child and so no one should be judgmental. I wanted people to understand and respect homosexuality and [to show] that it’s normal and suffering is needless. So that’s what made me want to do the film.

 

BW: That’s a pretty bold statement to make in this day and age when gay issues are so politicized and polarizing.

 

SPS: It is.

 

BW: Have you faced any obstacles with people when you’ve tried to promote or discuss the film?

 

SPS: In making the film, a lot of people didn’t want to be in it because either their child wasn’t out to everybody or they were embarrassed. Believe it or not, people were really embarrassed. In the film, there’s an East Indian couple. They think they’re the only people who have a gay child. I had to black them out because they didn’t want anybody in their community to know it was them. So there are still a lot of people who don’t want to talk about it and don’t want to face it.

 

BW: You mentioned the fact that young people who are gay suffer so terribly. They’re more likely to commit suicide than heterosexual teens. Does the film go into this?

 

SPS: We do talk about it. A lot of the kids we interviewed talk about the torture that they went through. But there’s definitely a high percentage of gay kids who commit suicide. It’s terrible. Churches and communities ostracize them. They’re terrified to admit that they’re gay.

 

BW: As a parent who watched your own son cope with this — obviously he had your support — it must just be heartbreaking.

 

SPS: It’s awful. My husband and I both suffered alongside Jared. I couldn’t push him to come out. I think he was conflicted himself. We had to wait until he was ready.

 

BW: How is it for you now that he’s out?

 

SPS: Oh, he’s so comfortable now. He doesn’t have to make believe. Everybody would ask him, “Do you have a girlfriend?” It’s just normal chitchat, but it was very uncomfortable. Now they don’t do that any longer. He’s a completely different person. It’s just wonderful.

 

BW: What has your son’s response been to your taking on this project?

 

SPS: He loves it. He thinks it really will help people and that it will show the compassion and feelings that people have. He’s really proud of it.

 

BW: It comes at an interesting time for him, given that he’s getting ready for a Congressional race.

 

SPS: I know. I started making it two and a half years ago, long before he announced his bid for Congress. It’s just coincidental. It’s probably good timing, but it wasn’t planned this way. The timing is an accident.

 

BW: You’ve gained critical acclaim for your film already and the support of PBS.

 

SPS: I never expected the reaction I’ve received. I made it, and I had no idea about distribution — none whatsoever. I sent it to someone at KPBS in California, and they fell in love with it, and they’re the ones who submitted it to the national [PBS office.] And it just happened so quickly. It was just unbelievable.

 

BW: Making the film must have been a very different thing for you because you’re a writer.

 

SPS: That’s right. But it’s a similar process; it’s just a more visual process. It’s very similar to writing a book because you picture the whole concept and you fill in the chapters… The families I interviewed were just phenomenal. They were just incredible. They were so eloquent. There’s a Boulder family in it. Rabbi Tirzah Firestone and her husband are in the film because they have a gay son.

 

BW: What kind of advice do you have for parents who might be grappling with this issue right now where they suspect their child is gay, and they see their child suffering?

 

SPS: You have to address it. When it’s a secret, that’s when it’s hardest for everyone — it’s certainly hardest for the kids.