Vibrato Grill to groove April 30 – Intl Jazz Day monster jam session
Apr
18
2012
It’s the first annual International Jazz Day this coming April 30. To celebrate, Herb Alpert’s swank and intimate jazz bar and restaurant, Vibrato Grill, presents an evening of continuous jamming with Pat Senatore – featuring some of LA’s top jazz musicians. A way-cool roster of top players is on tap for the bandstand. In Paris ...
Midori, humble page turner 2
Apr
11
2012
[click photo to find Midori] The bohemian-style classical music series, Classical Underground, offered a rich roster of Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Piazzolla and Mozart Monday evening at the funky-junky art atelier of Alexey Steele and Olga Vlasova. The two music mavens, soon to be the parents of twins, host the five-year-running series at their marvelous artist digs, ...
Donizetti doubled up at the Met
Mar
31
2012
From our Maine correspondent, the Colby College history professor Paul Josephson, who sends breaking opera news on this grey Saturday afternoon in Los Angeles — While listening to Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore,” on “Live at the Met” [broadcast] today, and after “Una furtive lagrima,” to wild applause some one screamed out, “Encore!” and Juan Diego Florez ...
Review: Keith Jarrett travels over the rainbow @ Disney Hall 2
Jazz legend Keith Jarrett opened his solo concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall Tuesday night by plucking on his Steinway’s strings — avant-garde style. Fast forward to his evening closer, a love letter to Los Angeles: Somewhere Over the Rainbow, by composer Harold Arlen. A parade of music, not quite jazz, instead, unidentified art songs, ...
Julie Andrews granted “Gypsy” award by Professional Dancers Society 2
An amazing line up of talent on view at the Professional Dancers Society 25th anniversary gala luncheon honoring Julie Andrews on March 18, 2012. Previous PDS honorees Carl Reiner, Dick Van Dyke, Marge Champion, Mitzi Gaynor, Carol Burnett, Joni Berry (Chairman of PDS), Rita Moreno and Florence Henderson, join Julie Andrews on stage as she ...
Strom’s socialist singspiel soothes Sunday’s squally storms 1
Mar
26
2012
No better way to pass a rainy Sunday afternoon than a concert at the Workman’s Circle/Arbeter Ring of Los Angeles. There, the cultural anthropologist and klezmer guy, Yale Strom, his string bass player Mark Dresser, and the sultry songstress Elizabeth Schwartz presented a program of socialist-themed Yiddish music. Strom, a torrid fiddler, is deeply steeped ...
A horse is a good clean animal, says Betty Grable 2
Check out Betty Grable in “Meet Me After the Show” (1951): Dancing in silhouette, on the platform: Jack Cole, who staged the number. Paired with Cole for a dance-y horse race is the choreographer’s muse and assistant Gwen Verdon. This we learn from the horse’s mouth … er… from Academy of Dance on Film founder ...
Stephen Colbert placidoes Domingo
Mar
6
2012
The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Placido Domingo www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive
Ahmad Jamal, child pianist, photographed by “Teenie” Harris
He’s propped up on a trumpet case! It’s the young Ahmad Jamal (born Frederick Russell ‘Fritz’ Jones), a Pittsburgh native whose photo by renegade photog, Charles “Teenie” Harris, is featured in an exhibit at the city’s Carnegie Museum of Art. Jamal’s is only one of 80,000 photographs Harris snapped of daily African-American life in the ...
Meeting Art Laboe, L.A.’s pioneering rock ‘n roll deejay
We enjoyed meeting the amazing Los Angeles radio legend, Art Laboe, Wednesday night at the Grammy Museum downtown. Laboe’s a pioneer in many ways — issuing the first-ever record compilations and coining the expression “Oldies But Goodies.” The deejay is very much alive and kicking; though in his eighties, he was in great shape cruising ...