Catch fresh, new musicals as they emerge … at “Musi-Cal”
Did you ever have the feeling you got dropped into a world that’s really rich and interesting — and as an extreme outsider, your brain is racing to keep up? You’re in a mild state of shock, i.e., where have I been while all of this has been going on? That was much how I ...
Let ’em dance: Bobby Fuller Four recalled
The Hollywood Renaissance of the 1960s didn’t need the Bobby Fuller Four. That unique conflagration of bands, managers, impresarios, producers, studios, engineers, session players, record labels and executives, radio stations, deejays, and TV shows incubated the Byrds, Sonny & Cher, the Mamas and Papas, Love, the Mothers of Invention, Paul Revere & the Raiders, the ...
Thelonious Monk, dancer
Just as James P. Johnson, George Gershwin, Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington took musical inspiration from New York City, it’s impossible to divorce pianist/composer Thelonious Monk’s music from Gotham. In Monk, the erotic and the athletic intertwine at the Savoy Ballroom, subways vibrate with propulsive rhythms, congregational choirs shake church foundations, young girls skip rope ...
Killing us softly: Roberta Flack in concert @ Pepperdine
Jan
17
2015
Songstress Roberta Flack, who forged such a striking presence in seventies pop music as a songwriter/performer, will grace the cozy Smothers Theatre stage at Pepperdine University next month in an evening of concert music. She is the first artist to win Grammy Awards in two consecutive years, for “The First Time Ever I Saw Your ...
Farewell, puppet man …
Sad news to hear that puppeteer Bob Baker (1924-2014) died today at 90 of natural causes. Baker, along with his partner Alton Wood, founded the Los Angeles-based Bob Baker Marionette Theater in 1963, the oldest and longest running children’s theater company. In June 2009, the theater was designated as a Los Angeles Historical-Cultural Monument. Baker’s puppetry was ...
Classical music meets Burmese art courtesy of Jacaranda
A beautiful fundraiser had an unusual focus when Jacaranda, the decade-old Los Angeles contemporary classical music series, hosted an exquisite program of chamber music in a super-cool private home on a recent autumnal Sunday. Rarely viewed works of contemporary Burmese art lent visual, cultural, even political, impact to the event. Jacaranda board chairman Thomas Aujero ...
High culture at the movies, courtesy of Laemmle Theatres
At the other end of the civilization spectrum from AFI Fest’s recent pepper-spray incident (ironic, isn’t it, that fisticuffs broke out at a screening of a new bio-pic about British painter William Turner), is the marvelous roll-out, now in its third month, of Laemmle Theatre’s “Culture Vulture Mondays.” The series is just one way that ...
Pharrell Williams “happy” to jam with Herbie Hancock
A highlight of last Sunday’s 2014 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition was pianist Herbie Hancock kicking it with Pharrell Williams, the massively popular young r&b vocalist and music producer. The duo reworked Williams’ percolating hit song “Happy” as a jazz arrangement. Williams won my approval with his cool fashion, his trademark chapeau by model-turned-hat-designer Nick ...
Bill Clinton, jazz guy
Nov
10
2014
First, an incredible “pick-up band” comprising Jimmy Heath, Joshua Redman and Wayne Shorter (saxophones), Stefon Harris (vibes), Jon Faddis (trumpet), Herbie Hancock (piano), James Genus (bass), TS Monk (drum) performed “Flying Home” in his honor. [It was played at his first inaugural ball.] Then Kevin Spacey imitated him, razor sharp. [“I love jazz,” drawled Spacey ...
JazzAntiqua lives, with live music @ Nate Holden Center Nov 15
If there’s anything I’m a bigger fan of than live jazz accompanying dance, it’s a great dance photograph … artistic director Pat Taylor has both on tap in promoting the premiere of “Song in a Strange Land,” a new work for her JazzAntiqua Dance Ensemble. Founded in 1993, the award-winning JazzAntiqua honors the jazz tradition ...