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In a fiesty, crabby profile that appears in today’s issue of The New York Sun, aggrieved stage director Jonathan Miller says of the Anthony Minghella Madama Butterfly currently onstage at the Metropolitan Opera, "It was like receiving a maple syrup enema." That’s not the worst Dr. Miller has to say in the piece, but it’s…
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Just in from the third night of ErstQuake 3, a four-night festival of electroacoustic improvisation mounted by two of the genre’s most noteworthy labels, Erstwhile and Quakebasket, at Tonic. It’s a sign of the changes in my professional life that I didn’t clear the calendar in order to attend every night of this series, as…
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A fascinating discovery this afternoon, via Anne-Carolyn: Mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham has a blog, Singin’rin. It’s not at all new, but I’d never come upon it before. Shaham is currently appearing in Carmen at New York City Opera through October 22 (the dishy photo at left shows her singing the role in Montreal, June 2005). And…
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Warning: What follows these first few paragraphs is quite possibly the most self-indulgent concert review I have ever written, and you are more than welcome to skip it. The reason it’s here is because today, I received a copy of a newly released Derek Bailey CD, To Play: The Blemish Sessions, just out on David…
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Posting about Monday night’s circus maximus at the Metropolitan Opera at this point seems so…redundant? Pointless? Self-indulgent? I mean, really, it’s a sign of Peter Gelb’s initial success that the first reports were hitting the wires and the web while the primary cast members were taking their second curtain calls out on the Grand Tier…
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Boz Burrell would probably be appalled to hear it, but ever since I learned of the former King Crimson and Bad Company bass player’s death earlier this afternoon, the song that’s been stuck in my head is "Islands," the title track from King Crimson’s fourth studio album. Issued in 1971, it’s hardly the band’s best…
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I never had a chance to sound off about last week’s Celtic Frost reunion tour stop at B.B. King’s on Thursday night…and wasn’t sure how much I ought to say, anyway, given that thanks to a miscommunication, I only caught roughly the last half of the show. Thankfully, pretty much everything I might have wanted…
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Ensemble XX. Jahrhundert at the Austrian Cultural ForumThe New York Times, September 20, 2006
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Dr. L.P. admires her newly bedazzled digit, Sunday, Sept. 17 in Richmond, VA. (Ring designed and created by Adel Chefridi.)
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I held out for as long as I could. The riches now available on YouTube are truly, truly staggering, as absolutely everyone knows…which means that I never felt compelled to embed a video on this blog, because anyone can go to the site and dig up all manner of unimaginable treasures. I resisted posting, for…
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Rhys Chatham at Issue Project RoomThe New York Times, September 13, 2006 You can hear a recording of Rhys Chatham’s Guitar Trio on his MySpace page. It provides a sense of the piece’s architecture, but absolutely no clue as to how loud, dense and vibrant the music is in a live setting. Metal chairs vibrated…
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David Cote, Time Out New York‘s stylish, perceptive theater editor and critic (and a regular face on the New York 1 network), has joined the culture blogosphere with Histriomastix. I’ve always wished that I attended more live theater, and David has a knack for making me feel even more guilty about the lack. Welcome to…
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(Associated Press photograph from 2002.)
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New York City Opera – La bohèmeThe Shanghai Quartet at BargemusicThe New York Times, September 11, 2006
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Although I had to leave early for an evening assignment, I managed to catch the first few hours of Jen Stock’s ambitious, impressive Sound Art happening in Washington Square Park yesterday. Three movements of Carl Stone’s typically delicious Acid Bop, a skittering, juddering blast of jazz timbres gone all wacky, got things off to a…
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Ethan Iverson reflects on the results of his "Great Jazz Records 1973-1990" invitational. Pat Donaher provides a nicely executed (and beautifully titled) summary of the results — don’t skip out before his comments at the very end. I’m thrilled to see all this activity — and revisiting so many of my yesteryear favorites has definitely…
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A press release just received from Jazz Promo Services, which I’m sharing for obvious reasons: Nine Lives of Sonny Rollins Theodore Walter Rollins, aka Sonny, turns 76 today. To celebrate the birthday of the Saxophone Colossus, and the first anniversary of his website, nine rare video performances are posted on www.sonnyrollins.com for one week. Featured…
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As of tonight, I have a new theory as to why John Scofield makes his best intense-guitarist faces not during his own solos, but during those of his bandmates. Granted, it’s not based on a lot of empirical data, but the grimaces, startled looks and other choice expressions that played across Scofield’s face as he…
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That was the original title of my article about violinist-composer Jenny Scheinman in TONY a couple of weeks ago, on the occasion of her weekend hit at the Jazz Standard with Jason Moran and Paul Motian. As a fan of all three musicians, I had no idea how they might sound together; when I talked…
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Looking over Ethan Iverson’s gargantuan catalog of great jazz records issued between 1973 and 1990, I’m overwhelmed both by the sheer wealth of great music that was made during this critically neglected era, and also by the depth of passion and insight Ethan (and his bandmates) were demonstrating toward jazz at such an early stage…
Night After Night 