BYOB: Diavolo brings bowl to the Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl’s historic band shell, the object of community affection as well as architectural dispute over the years, gets an ultimate homage when Diavolo Dance Theater installs its own version, a huge fiberglass replication, on the huge stage. It’s part of the September 5 world premiere of “Fluid Infinities,” performed by the architectural movement ...
Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” gets classical spin @ Levitt Pavilion
Aug
19
2013
Music writer Chris J. Walker contributes this story to arts·meme: In terms of power, influence and sales from a rock perspective, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon has only one rival—The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band. Both were concept records, with loosely connected songs delving into self-reflection, alienation and life’s meaning. Most ...
Mark Christian Miller by turns suave, touching at the Gardenia
“It’s really a downer!” admitted cabaret singer Mark Christian Miller, in genial patter during his tight set of jazz standards and high 1970s pop at Hollywood’s Gardenia Restaurant & Lounge Saturday night. “Is there anybody else here? It’s cold and I’m so lonely,” runs the plaintive lyric of Harry Nilsson’s “Life Line,” a jewel of ...
At Santa Fe Opera, not “Oscar”-worthy 2
Ascending the hallowed hilltop upon which Santa Fe Opera roosts is a treasured journey — even for the initiated. The massive parking lot is sprinkled with “tailgaters,” their fold-out picnic tables draped in linen, wine bottles atilt in ice buckets. It’s the first visual hint of a wonderful evening in store. Outdoor “lobbies” that encircle ...
Herb Alpert, son of Los Angeles, honored with National Medal of Arts
Jul
8
2013
On July 10, 2013, President Barack Obama will recognize Herb Alpert for lifetime contribution to the arts with one of the 12 Medal of Arts bestowed annually by the White House. Herb Alpert is a music legend, as a performing artist in both jazz and popular realms, and as an industry producer. He is an ...
Double Grammy whammy @ Levitt Pavilion 1
Jul
1
2013
You already live in paradise*, so why leave Los Angeles on Fourth of July weekend? For stay-in-towners Friday July 5 has a great offering at the Levitt Pavilion Los Angeles, right on the westward edge of downtown. It’s a live (and free) performance by Karla Bonoff and Wendy Waldman, both Grammy-winning singer/song writers. Bonoff has ...
Herb Alpert, Los Angeles bus driver, puts on the Ritz 1
Choreography by Tabitha and Napoleon … with a nod to Irving Berlin (1929), Fred Astaire (1946) Like this? Read more: Herb & Lani at Vibrato A royal Hollywood evening with Fred Astaire, John Travolta Paula Abdul, Choreographer’s Carnival honoree
Awakened by the blast of two mighty big bands 1
Jun
24
2013
There’s a resurgence of big-band jazz and that’s a good thing. We enjoyed two recent forays into the reemergence of this distinctly American art form. On Saturday June 1, Grammy-nominated Kim Richmond Concert Jazz Orchestra blasted the rafters off Upstairs at Vitello’s, the chic second-floor jazz outlet in Studio City. The occasion was the celebration ...
Bliss revisited: Jacaranda’s summer garden party @ Villa Aurora
Jun
17
2013
It’s summer in southern California and that translates, for music lovers, to the annual afternoon garden party of Jacaranda — celebrating ten years of adventurous chamber music performance. The smart music series commissions works by top living composers, and mixes that repertoire with challenging bits of the historic classical canon. To apply the group’s own ...
Back-up singers to the fore in “Twenty Feet From Stardom” 1
Providing a spectacular opening event of the second season of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science’s “Oscars Outdoors” series: “Twenty Feet from Stardom.” The badly titled but otherwise smashing new documentary concerns a great subject: the art of the pop music back-up singer. Directed by Morgan Neville, it’s a must-see movie about American ...