Thanksgiving with Lydia the Tattooed Lady 1
Our holiday pick: The Brothers Marx in their ode to the much-marked Lydia the Tattooed Lady. In Thanksgiving gratitude for Yip Harburg‘s brilliant lyric, “And a torso even moreso!” Kermit loves her too. Guitarist Gary Lucas plucks the polyphony – and poetry – in Groucho Marx’s torch song to the scribbled dame.
‘Disappearing guitars’ of Bill Frisell & Julian Lage @ CAP UCLA
Guitarist Bill Frisell has proven himself as one of the most interesting conceptualizers of the past twenty years or so in jazz. His albums are a continual source of delight and amazement, as he takes his audience down one musical rabbit hole or another. Whether he’s playing his own original scores to Buster Keaton’s silent ...
Music in the key of joy: bossa nova with Sergio Mendes @ CAP UCLA 1
Sergio Mendes, Bebel Gilberto, Royce Hall Nov 16 In 1966, rock and soul dominated American pop music charts. But there was room for the infectiously swinging “Mas Que Nada”—the first international hit song in Portuguese. If Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto opened the door with “The Girl From Ipanema,” Sergio Mendes put an authentic Brazilian ...
post sponsored by The Soraya
Farruquito, flamenco master, brings troupe to The Soraya
Juan Manuel Fernandez Montoya, aka Farruquito Ed. note: This article was commissioned and first published by The Soraya for Farruquito’s November 9, 2019 performance there. It is reprinted on artsmeme with permission. The brilliance was there from the start. At age 11, Juan Manuel Fernández Montoya, the reigning superstar of flamenco who performs under the ...
Jazz gladiator Joshua Redman brings it to Royce Hall
Ever since he came to national attention at the beginning of the 1990s, tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman has defied the narrative of the wunderkind who bears prodigious talent, then declines. He’s taken on ambitious formats, often in the company of seasoned jazz gladiators, and Redman has more than held his mud. In the face of ...
Straight outta Ukraine: authentic klezmer music in documentary film
Oct
13
2019
Leopold Kozlowski, subject of ‘The Last Klezmer’ You want Ukraine? We’ll give you Ukraine! But the good stuff, music, not the gnarly political-football stuff. A documentary, The Last Klezmer, that celebrates the infectious Jewish soul music, written and directed by artsmeme friend Yale Strom, is having a 25th anniversary screening at Laemmle Ahyra Fine Arts ...
post sponsored by The Soraya
Tango Revolution: Quinteto Astor Piazzolla at The Soraya
Ed note: This story by Kirk Silsbee was originally written for The Younes & Soraya Nazarian Performing Arts Center and is reprinted on artsmeme with permission. When Astor Piazzolla, Argentina’s paramount composer and bandoneon player, introduced his revolutionary quintet of the 1960s, tango adherents didn’t embrace his innovation. Fistfights, even death threats, were not uncommon. ...
As the clock ticks, time well spent on ‘The Day’
Who can resist the alluring image, above, from a new theatrical production, THE DAY, presented at CAP UCLA and featuring two strong women of the performing arts, former New York City Ballet dancer Wendy Whelan (she is now associate director of the company) and cellist Maya Beiser, described as “a force of nature” by The ...
Diva in concert: Darlene Love at Pepperdine
A recent hot theater ticket in San Diego was the trial run of the historic rock musical, “House of Dreams,” that told the story of Hollywood’s fabled Gold Star Studio. Over a hundred hit songs were recorded there in the 1960s — from “Rockin’ Robin” to “Good Vibrations” to “Cherry Bomb.” Owner/engineer and sound innovator ...
Central-Cali cloister to catapult country-creatives
Bring dancing boots. Beer mugs provided — with beer inside. Top young-gen country music stars to perform. That is the gist of the invitation to attend the touring country-music show Boots & Brews Country Music Festival as it nestles at the Madonna Inn, a cloister of high-kitsch in California’s Central Coast town of San Luis ...