Lauridsen’s ‘Lux Aeterna’ centerpiece of rich Master Chorale program
Editor’s note: A guest author on the blog today, Patrick Scott, who shares his observations of Thursday’s performance of the Los Angeles Master Chorale. ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ Twenty years ago Morten Lauridsen‘s “Lux Aeterna” became an enormous game changer for American choral music. Last night the Los Angeles Master Chorale, hosting the annual Chorus ...
Weird scenes inside the goldmine: L.A.’s 1967 rock venues 1
Jun
21
2017
by kirk silsbee
editor’s note: Harvey Kubernik’s new coffeetable tome, 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love (Sterling), is a both a scholarly examination and a sensuous immersion into the pivotal year in 1960s youth culture through a mosaic of voices. Kirk Silsbee’s sidebars from his essay in the book, excerpted and condensed here, ...
‘Summer of Love’ in pop-up film-fest
As a nod to recurring “Summer of Love” fever, the American Cinematheque presents a pop-up 1960s mini film fest. Martin Lewis curated the fondly-recalled “Mods ‘n Rockers” series at the Egyptian Theatre, and he’s chosen a handful of titles to be screened at Santa Monica’s Aero Theatre this weekend. “Mods ‘n Rockers” was great fun ...
Herb Alpert to be honored with prestigious UCLA Medal
Jun
13
2017
National Medal of Arts recipient and nine-time Grammy winner Herb Alpert will be awarded the UCLA Medal, the campus’s highest honor, on June 16 at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music’s inaugural commencement ceremony. This is recognition for one of our community’s foremost artists, arts producers, arts philanthropist. If anyone embodies the super-cool nature ...
Bob Dylan’s latest dream: Nobel Laureate speech
excerpted: Achilles tells Odysseus, it was all a mistake. I just died, that’s all. There was no honor, no immortality and if he could he would choose to go back and go back and be a lowly a slave to tenant farmer on earth rather than be what he is, a king in the land ...
Ella at 100: virtuosity, joy and swing 5
arts·meme jazz critic Kirk Silsbee excerpts his liner notes to the new four-CD set, Ella Fitzgerald: 100 Songs For a Centennial (Verve 2016-00957) At first blush, one hundred songs from any artist seem like overkill. In the case of Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996), whose recordings number in the thousands, one hundred is just about enough to ...
Martha Graham Dance Company to live music from Wild Up
She was in her fifties during the forties — maybe that’s why this by-then mature artist was creating a litany of masterworks, nearly all to commissioned scores that got live delivery in performance. In an honoring of that dance history, the Graham Company will perform a fully loaded program of three Graham ballets — you ...
Death of a dancer: Gary Bates 9
In this image from the Los Angeles dance troupe, Eyes Wide Open Dance Theater, Fred Strickler (top) and Gary Bates (bottom) appear in “Don Quixote,” choreographed by Bates to the music of Steve Reich. Bates, who was a cornerstone member of the Los Angeles dance community, passed away on April 15, 2017. Bates’ contribution to ...
Greek tragedy in Alphabet City: the death of Lee Morgan
Trumpeters have the most tragic lineage of any instrument in jazz history. Car accidents, mental illness, congenital defects, drugs and alcohol have claimed some of the greatest players. But the murder of trumpeter Lee Morgan in 1972 was a laceration on the music that never healed. That a great but floundering musician regained his footing ...
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 ...