Live it, with Elaine Stritch

Music
Merry Christmas, Elaine. We’re still here too.

Seeking Jack Cole at the Rainbow Room

Architecture & Design · Dance · Music
It was a lovely holiday event, a swellegant affair. First Republic Bank of New York, generous supporters of myriad arts organizations, threw a reception at the Rainbow Room high atop Rockefeller Center. Rocking the Room were the Fat Afro Latin Jazz Cats, whose youthful big-band sound boomed beneath the clatter of cocktailers while the crazy ...

Chita Rivera conquers Carnegie Hall

Dance · Music · Reviews · Theater
Holding court in her Carnegie Hall debut Monday evening, Broadway legend Chita Rivera gave gobs of pleasure and a pre-election-day boost to a very well-sold house. Prior to the show, a good many attendees swarmed the 57th Street sidewalk in anticipation of a special evening. In a solo showcase that got by with a little ...

No need for thank-you note

Music

Terence Donovan, British photog who chronicled sixties

Fashion · Film · Music · Visual arts
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Photographer David Bailey (born 1938) is said to have given us a visual vocabulary with which we remember Swinging Sixties London. But he didn’t do it alone. Though not as celebrated, Terence Donovan (1936-1996) and Brian Duffy (1933-2010) did groundbreaking work in their own right. All three triangulated fashion photography with movies and pop culture ...

Jazz for angels and others at Angel City Jazz Festival 1

Music
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It’s been nine years but the Angel City Jazz Festival, the Los Angeles music conflagration built on bringing cutting-edge sounds to the Southland, has not only survived, it has flourished. Impresario Rocco Somazzi, well regarded for the adventurous booking policy of his Rocco Ristorante in Bel Air, embarked on a week-long series of concerts for ...

The brilliant business of Miles Davis

Music
A hillside Los Angeles home. Awesome acoustics. The stylized sound the trumpet master was famous for. Repertory standards and originals. All on tap at Jazz at the A-Frame‘s upcoming “Unfinished Business” tribute to Miles Davis Sunday November 6 at a private home. In the house: Kenny Dennis (drums), John Campbell (piano), John B. Williams (bass), ...

It’s cool. You’re cool. So go. AfterParty @ The Wallis.

Ideas & Opinion · Music · Theater
As everyone in Los Angeles knows, it’s not the event. It’s the after party. That’s why a cool new theater package offered by the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Arts stands a good chance of attracting a younger demographic into its cozy theater smack in the center of Beverly Hills. It’s AfterParty @ The Wallis, ...

Eden Ahbez: the wild, the innocent & the Vine Street shuffle

Music
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[ed. note: author Kirk Silsbee’s story was originally published, in slightly different form, in the L.A.Weekly] Some people only have one hit record in them. History’s one-hit wonders make up a long, sometimes colorful and often tragic legion. Eden Ahbez was lucky. He had a compelling song, with an unusual melody and a gentle message ...

Michael Vlatkovich’s unpredictable musical universe @ the Hammer

Music
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Michael Vlatkovich’s idiosyncratic music balances the meticulous writer with the laissez faire bandleader. The trombonist/composer has the uncommon luxury of convening seven pieces at the Hammer Museum’s free JazzPOP series this coming Thursday night. Drummer Chris Garcia, who has played with Vlatkovich since 1991, recalls a tour. “We had a new bass player,” Garcia says. ...