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Journal Friday, September 05, 2008

  • Randy Newman
    Monday, August 25, 2008
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    NY Times: Randy Newman's Blend of Humor, Politics in Song a Rarity

    Randy Newman helped open this week's Democratic National Convention in Denver yesterday, performing for delegates at a pre-Convention kick-off event. The New York Times says of Randy: "He prefers to wield a lyrical scalpel rather than a hammer, and he blends humor and politics in ways few songwriters would dare." The Knoxville News Sentinel calls him "one of modern music's true treasures" and credits him with having written "some of the most viciously hilarious and biting songs of the past 100 years."

  • Steve Reich - color
    Friday, September 5, 2008
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    Nonesuch Events for the Weekend of September 5–7

    John Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony receives its Scandinavian premiere in Finland ... Laurie Anderson's Homeland plays Sao Paolo, Brazil ... The Black Keys make two stops in Wisconsin ... Bill Frisell continues his two-week Village Vanguard run with Paul Motian, Joe Lovano ... Youssou N'Dour celebrates Toronto Film Fest screening with free concert ... Nicholas Payton joins Christian McBride, Mark Whitfield at NYC's Jazz Standard ... Sam Phillips begins two-week tour with two nights at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music ... Punch Brothers tour the Midwest ... Steve Reich's music featured in Detroit's music marathon Strange New Music II and Klangspuren 08 festival in Schwaz, Austria ... Wilco members take time for solo projects ... and more ...

  • Nicholas Payton
    Wednesday, September 3, 2008
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    Nicholas Payton Joins Christian McBride, Mark Whitfield at NYC's Jazz Standard

    Nicholas Payton joins bassist Christian McBride and guitarist Mark Whitfield at New York's Jazz Standard for 12 sets over five nights, beginning tonight. JamBase compares the trumpeter to Miles Davis and John Coltrane, but asserts that, on his Nonesuch debut, Into the Blue, "ultimately Payton has a style and mood all his own." Jazz.com sees the album as evidence of "an ample comfort zone with a trumpet continuum spanning Armstrong to Don Cherry, at the service of a conceptual sensibility that embraces the Hot Five and Weather Report in equal measure."

  • Mandy Patinkin 2
    Wednesday, September 3, 2008
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    Mandy Patinkin Performs as Prospero in Classic Stage Co. Production of "The Tempest"

    Mandy Patinkin opens the Classic Stage Company's 2008–09 season tonight, starring as Prospero in William Shakespeare's The Tempest. The company's artistic director, Brian Kulick, directs the production, which will run for a limited engagement, through October 12. Patinkin spoke with the Poughkeepsie Journal about the role and some of the other memorable ones from his career, naming as two favorites Inigo Montoya from the film The Princess Bride and Georges Seurat in Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George.

  • John Adams: Hallelujah Junction [book]
    Tuesday, September 2, 2008
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    Publishers Weekly: Adams Memoir Reveals "Brilliant Musical Mind," "Incisive Exploration of Creative Process"

    "Adams's searingly introspective autobiography reveals the workings of a brilliant musical mind responsible for some of contemporary America's most inventive and original music." So says Publishers Weekly in its recommendation of John Adams's forthcoming memoir, Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life. The Philadelphia Inquirer asserts that Adams's newest opera, The Flowering Tree, due out on Nonesuch this month, "commands attention musically and dramatically as handily as Verdi," part of minimalism's having "found a range of expression undreamed-of 30 years ago."