Jazz Singer Cecile McLorin Salvant
orR some reasons, I typically have trouble with jazz singers after, oh, Sarah Vaughan or Abbey Lincoln. There may have been some great ones over the last two decades, but most of the time … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2017-08-24
Agnès C. Poirier: “Jerry Lewis was always a subject of a deep trans-Atlantic misunderstanding, one that triggered sarcasm in the United States, and bewilderment in France. While some Americans felt embarrassed by this contortionist comic, the French embraced Mr. Lewis’s humor as both an abstract art and social satire of American life. Americans mocked the French for falling for this crass clown, while the French couldn’t understand why Mr. Lewis’s genius was not obvious to his compatriots.”
They’re ceramic tiles (who knew?), designed and produced in Spain in 1954, and titled, collectively, La Suite Catalane.
Laura Collins-Hughes travels to western North Dakota to see The Medora Musical, “a spangled summertime revue performed in an amphitheater carved into the side of a butte, with the Badlands as its backdrop. Part country music jamboree, part variety show, it’s a wholesome cousin to the loosely scripted entertainment you find at theme parks … The crowds have been coming since 1965, and when this season wraps up on Sept. 9, the producers expect attendance for 2017 to have passed 116,000.”
Alexis Soloski: “Though [Denzel] Washington’s first Broadway outing, as Brutus in Julius Caesar, generated tepid reviews, he has since become a heavy hitter, winning a Tony for Fences in 2010 and warm notices for A Raisin in the Sun in 2014. But some celebrities haven’t gained the same applause. Here are ten Hollywood luminaries and pop sensations who made lesser appearances on the Great White Way.”
Michael Cooper sees Peter Gelb lunching with William Kentridge, Riccardo Muti at a reception for his new vinyl LP (yes, in 2017), the classical chief for Apple Music listening to Daniil Trifonov play, and Anna Netrebko on the front page of the newspapers (even the tabloids).
The International Foundation for Art Research has identified four forgeries that were alleged to have come from the estate of an American collector who apparently never existed. “This scam is not aimed at the super-rich in major art centers. It targets modest collectors and so far is unfolding in the Mountain States and along the East Coast.”
“Mr. Liggett’s idiosyncratic scrap-metal gallery – conceived, shaped and welded in his shop nearby – stood on farmland in tiny Mullinville [Kansas], where a stiff prairie wind kept the whirligigs spinning, lending kinetic energy to his hodgepodge of installations. His clownish, abstract, cartoonish and grotesque works reflected his bent for provocation.”
“Abercrombie was a confident but unassuming artist, whose abundant gifts did not include the knack for self-promotion. He emerged in the immediate wake of electric-guitar trailblazers like Sonny Sharrock and John McLaughlin but, at least temperamentally, he belonged more to the generation a decade or so his junior: cheerful omnivores like Pat Metheny, John Scofield and Bill Frisell.”
“She has friends. She goes out. She has a sense of humor. What she’s not? ‘Totally depressed and anorexic,’ said the filmmaker Valérie Müller, who, with her husband, the choreographer Angelin Preljocaj, directed the film Polina.”
