Category: AJBlogs

Communities of Necessity
As part of the community engagement planning process virtually every arts organization has to make choices about which communities they want to seek out as partners. (We are talking here about new communities. Current stakeholders … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2018-04-24

Duke Ellington, 1899-1974
Forty-nine years ago this evening at the White House in Washington, DC, the president of the United States hosted a party honoring Duke Ellington on his 70th birthday and presenting him with … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-04-24

Coming to grips
One objection to Kendrick Lamar winning the Pulitzer Prize went like this (from Twitter) … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2018-04-24

The Shock of the Not Quite New: La Pittura dopo il Postmodernismo alla Reggia Caserta
I’ve just come back from Naples, following a few days at Caserta, to see a variant of an exhibition we saw in Brussels in September, 2016, under the title “Painting After Post-Modernism” … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2018-04-24

 

Monday Recommendation: McNeely & The Frankfurtians
Jim McNeely, The Frankfurt Radio Big Band, Barefoot Dances and Other Visions (Planet Arts)
McNeely fortifies his position in the upper echelon of jazz arrangers in this set of new pieces for … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-04-23

Brio and Blossom
This week, the Cassatt String Quartet is having its annual Cassatt in the Basin residency, through which they bring the abiding principles of chamber music – effective communication, responsibility to the group, mutual respect, and intimate musical expression … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2018-04-23

Catching Up
When albums come out of the mailbox in batches of five, six, eight a day – or more – it is possible to overlook, set aside or misplace some that are worthy of mention. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-04-22

 

La Salle Art Museum’s Promo Video Highlights Deaccessioned Works
“Wander through six permanentgalleries [emphasis added],” the caption for the video walk-through on the La Salle University Art Museum’s homepage exhorts potential visitors. But while the galleries may be “permanent,” the installation shown on … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2018-04-20

‘For Sure Verboten’
U.S. cities with the fastest-growing wealth gaps. Monster Nor’easter The first day of spring a blinding white curtain kidnapped the cit​y. It was a true blast of winter. We solemn jurors braved the … read more
AJBlog: Straight|UpPublished 2018-04-20

Replay: the Benny Goodman Trio plays Gershwin
Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, and Gene Krupa, the original members of the Benny Goodman Trio, play George Gershwin’s “Nice Work if You Can Get It” in an unidentified 1960 video clip: (This is the … read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2018-04-20

Armstrong And Ellington: Azalea
Until the past couple of days, spring around here was a date on the calendar and a rumor. But now there are tulips in front of the house. And magnolia blossoms 15 feet … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2018-04-19

Breasting the Wave
The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company Celebrates its 50th Anniversary Season Lar Lubovitch’s Something About Night. (L to R): Barton Cowperthwaite, Brett Perry, Nicole Marie Corea, Tobin Del Cuore, and Belinda McGuire. Photo: Nan Melville Once … read more
AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2018-04-19

Breasting the Wave
The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company Celebrates its 50th Anniversary Season … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2018-04-19

Deaccession Dejection: La Salle’s Sales Slide at Christie’s
This is an I-told-you-so post. Some six of 16 old masters deaccessioned by the La Salle University Art Museum were left stranded on the auction block at Christie’s this afternoon. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-04-19

A shock from the wider world
About Kendrick Lamar winning the Pulitzer Prize – of course it’s a great moment for the evolution of music as an art. Or rather for the recognition of how music long ago evolved. But then there are … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2018-04-19

 

The Future of Orchestras – Part Five: Kurt Weill, El Paso, and the National Mood
“Wherever I found decency and humanity in the world, it reminded me of America.” Kurt Weill wrote those words after returning from a visit to Germany in 1947. I read them aloud at least a dozen times during the Kurt Weill festival in El Paso last week. Every time I invited my listeners to consider whether or not they still apply. … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered Question Published 2018-04-18

La Salle Sales Shortfall: Two of Five 19th-Century Offerings Fail to Sell
Today’s auction at Christie’s of the first five of 46 deaccessions from the La Salle University Art Museum got off to an inauspicious start … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-04-18

Propwatch: the plastic bags in Macbeth
Rufus Norris’s bereft, survivalist production of Macbeth was the show that launched a thousand thinkpieces about his regime at the National Theatre. The reviews were overwhelmingly hostile, and this apparently misfired Shakespeare followed on … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2018-04-18

 

Why Max Hollein Was Inevitable as Met’s Director
Put yourself in the position of a member of the Metropolitan Museum’s search committee: Despite all the pressure to choose anyone but another white male – somewhat wrong-headed pressure, imho – I think you’d have picked Max Hollein … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2018-04-16

Let’s move before they change the parking rate
No, I cannot quit writing about economic-impact-of-the-arts reports. Let’s try something a little more focused, and talk about … parking. Parking is part of the cost of attending a show, if it takes place in … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2018-04-15

Fixing the Actual “Glass Ceiling” at the Metropolitan Museum: My Q&A with Keith Christiansen
With all the recent pushback against the supposed “glass ceiling” at the Metropolitan Museum (occasioned by the naming of an eminently qualified male, Max Hollein, to assume its directorship), let’s take a look at another glass-ceiling problem there, which is unambiguous and needs immediate remediation: … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-04-16

West Side Story and Leonard Bernstein at 100
CultureCrash’s guest columnist, Lawrence Christon, remembers the Broadway roots of the film West Side Story, and has this to say about the forces that made it all possible. … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2018-04-16

Music by the Second
Sometimes I’m amazed when I realize the number of clocks I encounter every day:  on the wall, on the stove, on the phone, on the screen I’m typing on now. …  Unlike the clocks I grew up with – clocks with faces and arms and reference points around a circle – the clocks that surround me now designate only the moment I am in, without context, without motion. … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2018-04-16

Monday Book Recommendation: Lilian Terry’s Jazz Friends
Lilian Terry, Dizzy Duke Brother Ray And Friends (Illinois)
Lilian Terry’s book is full of anecdotes about her friendships with the musicians mentioned in the title – and dozens of others. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-04-16

 

Filthy Rotten T.S. Eliot
When my staff of thousands sent me this book cover, APRIL IS A MOTHERFUCKER, by none other than T.S. Eliot, it put me in mind of Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917,which includes … read more
AJBlog: Straight|UpPublished 2018-04-15

Martha Graham: Sacred and Profane
The Martha Graham Dance Company at New York City Center, April 11 through 14 Martha Graham’s Embattled Garden.Left: Lorenzo Pagano; right: Anne O’Donnell and Lloyd Knight. Photo: Melissa Sherwood I assume that Isamu Noguchi … read more
AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2018-04-13

Replay: the Rolling Stones on The Mike Douglas Show
The Rolling Stones meet three young fans and perform Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” on The Mike Douglas Showin 1964: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in … read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2018-04-13

Recent Listening In Brief (short…capsulesque…itty-bitty…not long)
Danny GreenTrio Plus Strings, One Day It Will (OA2) Pianist Green’s earlier album Altered Narratives put strings with his trio on three tracks. The melding with a string quartet worked nicely. One Day … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2018-04-12

Fear and loathing in the Renaissance church: Stile Antico sings Victoria’s Holy Week music
Sacred music began tumbling from heaven to earth in the late 16th century, when the words it was sung to became something more than liturgical reference points. It took on more qualities of human speech … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to MusicPublished 2018-04-12

Fear and loathing in the Renaissance church: Stile Antico sings Victoria’s Holy Week music
Sacred music began tumbling from heaven to earth in the late 16th century, when the words it was sung to became something more than liturgical reference points. It took on more qualities of human speech … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2018-04-12

What Obstacles Will Max Hollein Need to Surmount as Metropolitan Museum’s New Director?
Max Hollein will have two strikes against him — one insignificant, one potentially serious — when he walks in the door this summer as the Metropolitan Museum’s new director. The first liability is irremediable, unless he’s planning a sex-change: … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-04-12

Recent Listening In Brief (short…capsulesque…itty-bitty…not long)
Danny Green Trio Plus Strings, One Day It Will (OA2)
Jeremy Pelt, Noir en Rouge Live In Paris (High Note)
Kairos Sextet, Transition (Dafnison Music)
The Three Sounds, Groovin’ Hard, Live At The Penthouse 1964-1968 (Resonance) … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-04-12

 

Berkshire Blurbs: Lucas Museum Buys “Shuffleton’s”; Sotheby’s Lowers Some Estimates
No surprise here: The planned Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles, which broke ground last month, today announced its acquisition of Norman Rockwell’s Shuffleton’s Barbershop from the Berkshire Museum (price undisclosed). This means that … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-04-11