The return of Rodney King
Mar
12
2017
Roger Guenveur Smith’s one-man show, RODNEY KING, features history, poetry, catastrophe and culture — in a theatrical take on a citizen of unsought notoriety. It concerns our fellow Angeleno Rodney King. He who was caught in the national spotlight as the victim of police brutality that ignited the 1992 LA riots. He whose brutal beating ...
Singer/swinger Jennifer Keith’s winning act at Vibrato Grill 1
Mar
12
2017
Styling retro-singer Jennifer Keith doesn’t just look the part — although she really looks the part! With her full-skirted, fifties dress, flowers in her hair like Billie Holiday, she echos the vintage ‘girl’ singer of the big band and swing era. But she delivers too. Keith and her boys, a swinging sextet under the leadership ...
Hendrix gives free concert @ The Grammy Museum
In the photo, the great Jimi Hendrix performs a free concert in the Panhandle, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, June 1967. This seminal image is among sixty now on view as the GRAMMY Museum celebrates one of the most pivotal years in music — and the photographer who captured it, in Jim Marshall’s 1967. Jim ...
Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood,’ still harrowing fifty years later
Mar
9
2017
In Cold Blood, the film version of Truman Capote’s immensely popular true crime novel, was nominated for four top Oscars in 1967. Richard Brooks received two nominations, for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, and the film was also nominated for Conrad Hall’s striking cinematography and Quincy Jones’ memorable score. In his best-selling book, Capote ...
Myron Hunt’s Wattles mansion to host interior design expo
Mar
7
2017
Wattles Mansion, built in 1908, was the original home of Gurdon Wattles, a Nebraska banker who bankrolled much of early Hollywood. The classic Mission Revival masterpiece was designed by Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey, who also designed the Huntington Library, the Rose Bowl and the Ambassador Hotel, which sadly met its maker via the wrecking ...
In memorium: Robert Osborne (1932-2017)
Mar
6
2017
A life well lived, and a great contributor to our culture. It was my honor to have been interviewed by him, to converse with him at TCM Fest and on the TCM Cruise. And naturally, to spend countless evenings in his company watching movies on Turner Classic Movies. It is a great loss that I ...
Ratmansky’s frothy ‘Whipped Cream’ casts @ Segerstrom
Mar
2
2017
There are all kinds of considerations to weigh — and this is great fun for balletomanes — in selecting a ballet performance. The focus of this tough decision is the big world premiere at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Orange County of Alexei Ratmansky’s new full-evening ballet, “Whipped Cream.” The superb Pacific Symphony will ...
Who was Horace Tapscott?
Horace Tapscott (1934–99) was an important but underappreciated jazz musician and community activist blacklisted in the 1960s because of his political affiliations. A poetic new film HORACE TAPSCOTT: MUSICAL GRIOT is a meditation on Black music, art, and activism and the history of Los Angeles. According to the film, during the Watts Rebellion of 1965 ...
California arts leader Craig Watson appreciated
Mar
1
2017
We recently received notice that Craig Watson will step down from his role as director of the California Arts Council effective April 2017. In his position as the Council’s Director since August 2011, Watson has been responsible for the substantial growth and renewal of California’s state arts agency. He has shepherded the agency’s resurgence, overseeing ...
REVIEW: Lionel Popkin’s ‘Inflatable Trio’ at the Skirball 1
Do you sense that things are changing in ways that make you uneasy? That even our most familiar modes of operating—what political pundits call “norms,” for example public civility—are in upheaval? Choreographer Lionel Popkin has made a dance about this. His charming and successful “Inflatable Trio,” a fun hour-long pageant for three dancers, premiered at ...