This week in Havana: Gary Lucas accompanies Antonioni films
If you are down Havana way this weekend, be sure to drop in on the Gaia Arts Center in Old Havana. There, the infinitely gifted guitarist Gary Lucas will provide live accompaniment to screenings of director Michelangelo Antonioni‘s “Red Desert” and “Zabriskie Point.” The rooftop events, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, are part of a ...
Carole Bayer Sager’s splendid nosherai @ William Turner Gallery
When the baseball stadium vendor cried out “peanuts, popcorn, cracker jacks,” little Carole Bayer Sager, as a kid, took that sing-song offering seriously. The prodigious lyricist/songwriter is also proud creator of a fun and poppy collection of super-sized snacks in serious, searing colors. The show’s early November opening at William Turner Gallery in Santa Monica ...
Cocktails, canapes & Esa-Pekka chitchat to benefit Hear Now Music Festival
Nov
27
2012
Can there be a more beautiful invitation [click on it for detail] than to hang around a cool Culver City designer home, with smart music lovers, just breathing in the exceptionally artistic vibe of our great Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor laureate, the composer Esa-Pekka Salonen? The event will benefit the Hear Now Music Festival, a ...
His Royal Greatness. Michael Jackson in “Another Part of Me,” Wembley Stadium, July 1988 1
Like this? Read more: MJ dances — a dance critic’s manifesto to Michael Jackson
Thanksgiving with MJ
By any stretch of a writer’s imagination, a good day this Thanksgiving Day. My advance piece about Trey McIntyre Project got front-page Calendar section placement in the L.A Times. But sharing the page with my writing, an even more exciting dance story (sorry, Trey!). It concerns tonight’s ABC-television broadcast of Spike Lee’s documentary “Michael Jackson: ...
Review: Streisand, refridgerated
Warming the nippy November night with her presence, Barbra Streisand captivated the Hollywood Bowl — an outdoor amphitheater, a house of 18,000 seats — in a wonderful concert. She looked gorgeous and her voice was gorgeous, often silken and surprising. A powerful, beautiful woman dressed sharp in a black sequined pant-ensemble, Streisand commanded the Bowl’s ...
Stones still rolling fifty years later, on HBO 1
When the great blues-steeped rock band, The Rolling Stones, launched in 1962, I was seven years old — and already an budding arts journalist. Their marking a half century of existence is the magical stuff of a generation. Last night we previewed Crossfire Hurricane, the 100-minute tour de force of fascinating original footage knitted together ...
Groovin’ with Grusin & his huge jazz orchestra 1
Nov
7
2012
The 67-piece Symphonic Jazz Orchestra, the only ensemble of its kind in the country, will celebrate its tenth anniversary with a special concert featuring Academy and Grammy Award winning composer, arranger and pianist, Dave Grusin this Friday evening. Grusin has composed for such films as Fabulous Baker Boys, Havana, On Golden Pond, Tootsie, Milagro Beanfield ...
Classical Underground looks above ground — and it’s a mess! 1
As part of its holistic approach to the arts (“In Art We Trust,” its tagline), the informal classical music showcase, Classical Underground, now in its sixth season, features the work of visual artists. November’s concert highlights a neo-realist painting that resonates — much as we wish it didn’t. The work, Among The Ruins by New ...
Musical message from Moscow … 1
Oct
30
2012
… will be hand delivered when the members of the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble performs in a free concert at UCLA’s Popper Theater. The program will focus on recent works by living Russian composers Galina Ustvolskaya, Edison Denisov, Leonid Desyatnikov, Pavel Karmanov, Sofia Gubaidulina,and UCLA music professor David S Lefkowitz’s “Berceuse” for violin, clarinet, and ...