Category: AJBlogs

Strong opinions, weakly held
The yelling and pointing in our current civic environment keeps me going back to futurist Paul Saffo and his mantra: “strong opinions, weakly held.” In his extensive work exploring the present and divining the future, … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2018-06-25

Monday Recommendation: The Story Of A Keyboard Pioneer
Milt Buckner: The Life and Music of a Unique Jazz Pianist and Organist (Woodward)
Willard “Woody” Woodard writes a straightforward account of the career of the keyboard artist who pioneered the Hammond B3 organ in jazz. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-06-25

California to Colorado on the Zephyr: Train Art and Culture
On June 12, I boarded the train for a 34 hour scheduled ride to Denver, on my way to the annual convention of Americans for the Arts. My assignment to myself was to write … read more
AJBlog: The Bright Ride Published 2018-06-24

Second chances
Now that Mrs. T is awaiting a double lung transplant, I’ve cut down on my out-of-town reviewing … The catch is that I last visited Smalltown, U.S.A., the place where I grew up and where my brother and sister-in-law still live, in 2015, and I’ve been longing to go back. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2018-06-25

Weekend Listening With Jim Wilke

Now and then, Rifftides alerts readers to Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest, the program in which the veteran broadcaster presents his recordings of the region’s jazz artists. Jim’s long-running Sunday series has become … read more

Antiquities Ambiguities: Parsing the Legal Arguments in the Battle of the Getty Bronze
Italian Judge Giacomo Gasparini‘s June 8 decision giving the laurel wreath to Team Italy in the Olympian legal contest over the Getty Bronze seems to me persuasively well-reasoned … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-06-21

When Grant Green Got Funky
Grant Green, From Paris To Antibes (1969-1970) (Resonance)
Grant Green, Slick! Live At Oil Can Harry’s, (Resonance)
Two previously unissued Grant Green albums are giving the guitarist’s music something of a comeback. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-06-21

Two-Phase Engagement
Community engagement practitioners are frequently asked to justify their work using traditional arts marketing/development metrics: ticket sales and donations. Don’t get ahead of me. This is not a touchy-feely objection to practical outcomes. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2018-06-19

The Crossing’s Month of Moderns : A masterwork is born
The great but tragic American poet Hart Crane (1899-1932) can’t help but exert a magnetic attraction to composers with his fusion of lyricism, modernism and mad, extravagant fantasy.  Of course, … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2018-06-19

Verdi v Shakespeare? Falstaff‘s no contest
Verdi’s Falstaff seems a modern piece to me; despite its première being 1893, it feels as musically up-to-date as say, Puccini’s 1926 Turandot. Verdi knew what was up in music. … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2018-06-19

El Paso, Kurt Weill, and Tornillo’s Tent City
Readers of this blog may remember my last filing from El Paso – a “Kurt Weill’s America” festival, part of the NEH-supported “Music Unwound” consortium I direct, that ignited a week of discussion and … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered Question Published 2018-06-19

Propwatch: the blender in Julie
The talk around us was all about the dishwashers. ‘Look, there’s two of them,’ murmured the woman in front of us. ‘Three dishwashers,’ gasped a guy in the row behind. By the end, … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2018-06-18

Visconti’s Four-Hour Ludwig — A Momentous Wagnerian Film
The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s current Luchino Visconti retrospective climaxes with more than a week of screenings (June 16 and 22-28) featuring the restored, four-hour version of Ludwig (1973) — a rare opportunity to properly encounter a magnificent Wagnerian film. … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered Question Published 2018-06-16

Monday Surprise: Seeing Bix
For many aficionados of Bix Beiderbecke the surprise is not that there is so little film of the great cornetist, but that there is any. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-06-18

Meeting Jamie Shew

Having heard an advance CD by Jamie Shew, a singer new to me, I asked the trumpeter Bobby Shew if she is related to him. He followed his answer—No— with a question … read more

When Language Is Incorrect
Mokusatsu
Asked what he’d do first if called upon to rule a nation, Confucius replied,
“I’d correct language. If language isn’t correct
Then what is said is not what’s meant
And what ought to be … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2018-06-13

Never-Ending Saga of “The Getty Bronze”: Italian Criminal Judge Rules It Belongs to Italy
In the latest development in a tangled legal dispute that will probably outlive us all, the J. Paul Getty Trust announced that it plans to file an appeal with Italy’s Court of Cassation … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-06-12

Refreshing an Old Story
American Ballet Theatre premieres Alexei Ratmansky’s remounting of Harlequinade. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2018-06-10

Infernal “Heavenly Bodies”: How the Directorless Metropolitan Museum Went Astray
Where’s Max Hollein when we really need him? Several “what-were-they-thinking?” moments jolted me recently at the Metropolitan Museum, reaffirming my belief in a bedrock principle of museum management: … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-06-11

Lorraine Gordon, RIP
Lorraine Gordon, who inherited the Village Vanguard after her husband Max died in 1989, remained its proprietor and no-nonsense guiding spirit until her death yesterday in New York. She was 95. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-06-10

The Sacred Art of John August Swanson
Even as a lifetime religious skeptic, I’ve long been fascinated by artists, writers and other culture-makers who bring religion, spirituality, and related matters into their work. … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2018-06-11

Speaking of Hans Magnus Enzenberger . . .

His poem “last will and testament” begins: “get your flag out of my face, it tickles!” Jerome Rothenberg’s appealing translation from the German continues:Hans Magnus Enzensberger and get that tinny wreath off my chest, it’s … read more

AJBlog: Straight|UpPublished 2018-06-10

Propwatch: the flowers in Creation (Pictures for Dorian)

Beauty. Beautiful. Beautifully. It’s justpossible I overuse these words. A quick search through my dropbox suggests that in the past year I’ve applied them to: Alina Cojocaru’s acting in Giselle;the final image … read more

AJBlog: Performance MonkeyPublished 2018-06-08

F*** the Tonys? Well…maybe!

The latest episode of Three on the Aisle, the twice-monthly podcast in which Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I talk about theater in America, is now available on line for listening or downloading. In this … read more