PERFORMANCE

92nd Street Y
Kings of Stride: Eubie, Fats, and The Lion

We saw so much talent this evening.

Great jazz, wonderful musicians, intimate venue.  It could not have been better.

"Nothing swings like stride piano, and nobody played it better than Eubie Blake, Willie the Lion and Fats Waller."

"From “I’m Just Wild About Harry” to “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” these giants coupled a sweet delivery with dazzling technique. Now they live in the flying fingers of pianists Bill Charlap, Ted Rosenthal and Rossano Sportiello, plus the dynamic Anat Cohen on clarinet."

"There is nothing quite like the excitement, swing and purely American sound of stride piano. The strict yet swinging time, the leaps between the bass note and chord in the left hand, and the syncopated instrumental figures in the right hand make this a cornerstone of the jazz piano aesthetic, akin to an entire orchestra at the pianist’s fingertips. On Tuesday, July 26 – the opening of our second week of Jazz in July – we’ll focus primarily on the music of three stride piano giants who each contributed in a substantial way to the body of American piano music and popular song – Thomas “Fats” Waller, Willie “The Lion Smith” and Eubie Blake.

Stride is an outgrowth of ragtime, music that defined the sound of jazz at the turn of the century and came to its apex in the hands of the king of ragtime, Scott Joplin. Pieces like Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer gave birth to the innovations of Jelly Roll Morton who expanded on the style both harmonically and rhythmically, and who in turn, influenced the father of stride piano, James P. Johnson, the composer of the landmark composition Carolina Shout and such iconic songs as “Charleston” and “Old Fashioned Love.”

Thomas “Fats” Waller was a student of James P. Johnson. His incredible virtuosity brought stride piano to its zenith, with compositions such as Handful of Keys, Viper’s Drag and Jitterbug Waltz. He was perhaps even more famous for his charismatic performances while singing at the piano; he was a natural entertainer with a brilliant stage persona. In addition to being an American piano giant, Waller was a major songwriter, whose many unique and enduring songs include “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now” and “I’ve Got a Feeling I’m Falling.”

Willie “The Lion” Smith was the Hollywood picture of a ragtime stride pianist whose swagger and cultivated flamboyance incorporated a derby hat and a big cigar. The Lion invented all kinds of ingenious figures in the left hand to propel his music, which expanded on the basic characteristics of stride while keeping the rhythmic impetus of the music intact. His singular compositions, including Echoes of Spring and Morning Air were highly influential on the piano artistry and compositions of Duke Ellington. The Lion holds a profoundly original place in the history of jazz piano.

Eubie Blake was born in 1883 and lived to be 100 years old. He used to say, “If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.” From the vantage point of his long life he was able to view a huge range of the history of American music. Blake wrote the quintessential Charleston Rag at the turn of the century, and he went on to write some of the greatest popular songs such as “Memories of You” and “You’re Lucky to Me.” With Noble Sissle as lyricist, Blake wrote the score for the Broadway musical Shuffle Along, which boosted the careers of Josephine Baker, Adelaide Hall and Paul Robeson and contained such songs as “Love Will Find a Way” and “I’m Just Wild About Harry” – and which is being reenvisioned on Broadway this spring with Audra McDonald and others.

Along with me, this concert will feature two of today’s major jazz pianists. Hailing from Italy, Rossano Sportiello has carved out a special place in the world of jazz piano. He has an uncommon soul, a beautiful touch, a remarkable lyricism, and when he turns on his stride piano chops, he brings down the house! Ted Rosenthal has one of the most wide-ranging perspectives on jazz piano playing today. He is equally at home with bebop, popular songs, and the full scope of piano history from James P. Johnson up to the present day.

We’ll all be playing solos and duets with a superb rhythm section that consists of the exceptional David Wong at the bass and the outstanding drumming of Aaron Kimmel, making his Jazz in July debut. We’ll also be joined by the distinctive talents of clarinetist Anat Cohen, whose expressive virtuosity always elevates every musical event that she is a part of.

Our stride piano celebration of Eubie, Fats and The Lion will be a one-of-a-kind happening that is sure to be filled with extraordinary music, entertainment and electricity!

Sincerely,
Bill Charlap
Artistic Director, Jazz in July

Bill Charlap, artistic director & piano

One of the world’s premier jazz pianists, Bill Charlap has performed with many leading artists of our time, ranging from Phil Woods and Tony Bennett to Gerry Mulligan and Wynton Marsalis. He is known for his interpretations of American popular songs and has recorded albums featuring the music of Hoagy Carmichael, Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Duke Ellington. Mr. Charlap’s recording with Tony Bennett, The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern, on the RPM/Columbia label, won the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. It features Mr. Charlap and Bennett together and in collaboration with Charlap’s Trio and duo piano performances with Renee Rosnes.

The Bill Charlap Trio was formed in 1997 with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington and is now recognized as one of the leading groups in jazz. The trio has received two Grammy Award nominations: for Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein, and for The Bill Charlap Trio: Live at the Village Vanguard, both on the Blue Note label. Mr. Charlap now records for the Impulse!/Verve record label. His new trio recording, Notes from New York,released this past April, received a 5-star review in the May issue of DownBeat. The Bill Charlap Trio tours all over the world, and their New York engagements include regular appearances at Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Village Vanguard.

This summer Bill Charlap celebrates his 12th year as artistic director of 92nd Street Y’s Jazz in July summer festival. He has also produced concerts for Jazz at Lincoln Center, New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), the JVC Jazz Festival and the Hollywood Bowl. Mr. Charlap is currently Director of Jazz Studies at William Paterson University, in Wayne, New Jersey. Founded in 1973, the program is one of the longest running and most respected jazz programs in the country.

Born in New York City, Mr. Charlap began playing the piano at age three. His father was Broadway composer Moose Charlap, whose credits include Peter Pan, and his mother is singer Sandy Stewart, who toured with Benny Goodman, appeared on the Ed Sullivan and Perry Como shows and earned a Grammy Award nomination for her recording of “My Coloring Book.” Mr. Charlap is married to renowned jazz pianist Renee Rosnes, The couple released their highly acclaimed two-piano album Double Portrait on Blue Note in 2010. Mr. Charlap’s website is billcharlap.com.


Ted Rosenthal, piano

Last October Ted Rosenthal gave an acclaimed performance in the original band arrangement of Gershwin's Concerto in F and Rhapsody in Blue for 92Y’s Opening Night Concert. He has been a featured soloist with several major American orchestras, and he has released 15 CDs as a leader. His latest, Rhapsody in Gershwin, features his arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue for jazz trio and reached No. 1 in jazz album sales at iTunes and Amazon. Winner of the 1988 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition, Mr. Rosenthal has played worldwide with many jazz greats. He composes music ranging from jazz tunes to ballet scores, and he has received three NEA grants. He is artistic director of Jazz at the Riverdale Y and is a faculty member at Manhattan School of Music and The Juilliard School. His website is tedrosenthal.com.


Rossano Sportiello, piano

Born in Vigevano, Italy, Rossano Sportiello began studying classical piano at age nine; at 16 he was playing jazz in Milan and two years later joined one of Europe’s best-known jazz bands, the Milano Jazz Gang. He now performs at leading venues and jazz festivals in the US and around the world; this Sunday he will appear at the Newport Jazz Festival. Since 2008, Mr. Sportiello has performed regularly with the Harry Allen Quartet, recording the songbooks of Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Burke. His award-winning discography also includes four solo piano albums, two duet albums with bassist/singer Nicki Parrott and three jazz CDs featuring classical music of Chopin, Liszt and Schubert. He is also an active educator: he has served as “professor in residence” at St. John’s College, Cambridge University. His website is rossanosportiello.com..


Anat Cohen, clarinet

Clarinetist/saxophonist Anat Cohen has been voted Clarinetist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association nine years in a row, and she has topped both the Critics and Readers Polls in the clarinet category in DownBeat magazine every year since 2011. Ms. Cohen has toured the world with her quartet and now with her new tentet, headlining at the Newport, Umbria, SF Jazz and North Sea jazz festivals as well as at such clubs as New York’s Village Vanguard—she was the first native Israeli to headline there. She also collaborates regularly with one of her heroes, Paquito D’Rivera. In May Anzic Records released Alegria Da Casa,with Ms. Cohen and Trio Brasileiro; it follows Luminosa, her seventh album as a bandleader, released in March 2015. Her website is anatcohen.com.


David Wong, bass

A native of New York City, bassist David Wong graduated from The Juilliard School. He is a member of Roy Haynes’s Fountain of Youth Band, The Heath Brothers Quartet, The Benny Green Trio and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. He can also regularly be seen with Steve Kuhn, Brian Lynch's Unsung Heroes Project, Ralph Lalama’s Bop Juice, and the trios of Jeb Patton, Dan Nimmer and Aaron Diehl. Mr. Wong was the last bass member of Hank Jones's Great Jazz Trio and is featured on the piano master's last recording. He has also worked with such stars as Benny Green, Frank Wess, Kenny Burrell, Wynton Marsalis and Andy Bey. He serves on the faculties of Temple University, The New School and Queens College, and he teaches at jazz programs across the country.

LINCOLN CENTER

Mostly Mozart Festival
The Illuminated Heart: Selections from Mozart's Operas

“One of the most interesting innovators in classical music.”—New York Times on Netia Jones
“A beacon of brilliance”—New York magazine on Christine Goerke

"Visionary opera director and video artist Netia Jones transforms Mozart’s most beloved arias and ensembles into an enchanting operatic fantasy featuring a stunning installation and video projections. With a full cast of vocal luminaries that includes the glorious soprano Christine Goerke and “Mozartean of choice” Peter Mattei (Opera News), this shimmering production is a testament to the enduring influence of Mozart’s genius."

It was 90 minutes of fast-paced, highest quality run of Mozart Opera.  It was a treat!

We heard an aria that neither of us have heard before.  It was beautiful!

Ruhe sanft, mein holdes Leben - Do yourself a favor and listen...

I did learn much that I've never known about Lorenzo Da Ponte, the librettist for 3 of Mozart's favorite operas; Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, and Cosi Fan Tutte.  I strongly recommend you go to the following site, read, and be amazed about this man who is associated with masterpieces of our Western Civilization.  He was born a Jew in Italy, converted to Christianity, became a priest, lived in Paris at the time of Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution, moved to London, came to America and live in middle Pennsylvania where he ran a grocery store, then finally moved to New York City where he became the first teacher of Italian literature at Columbia University, because a US citizen, and started what later became the Metropolitan Opera.  There's even more that is amazing information.

Read about Lorenzo Da Ponte...

THEATER

Peter Jay Sharp Theater
Men on Boats

I have been fortunate in going down the full route of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, Lee's Ferry through Lava Falls, twice in my life.  My reading group has read the history and geology of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River.

This play was about Powell's exploratory, first trip down the Green River and the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.  There were virtually no props other than 4 partial boat bows used to indicate the boats.

The play was historically accurate and it was funny!  Really creative.

"The cast of this play recreates an 1869 expedition down the Green and Colorado Rivers at the Wild Project in the East Village."
Richard Termine for The New York Times

"Ten explorers. Four boats. One Grand Canyon. Men On Boats is the true(ish) history of an 1869 expedition, when a one-armed captain and a crew of insane yet loyal volunteers set out to chart the course of the Colorado River. This thrilling and widely acclaimed new play by Jaclyn Backhaus returns this summer for a limited engagement at Playwrights Horizons."

“You will surely want to spend time with the hearty title characters of Men on Boats. …A rollicking history pageant…Backhaus’s lively script…brought to infectiously vivid life [by] Will Davis’s highly ingenious direction … The cast, the director and the design team…delightfully recreate the rhythms, rush and terror of life on the water…Rendered in a carefully exaggerated style that both teases and cozies up to the clichés of the archetypal hero adventurer.”
CRITIC’S PICK! – Ben Brantley, The New York Times

Review: ‘Men on Boats’ Blurs Genders in Recalling John Wesley Powell’s Expedition

If summer has you hankering for fitness-testing excursions through the dangerous outdoors, you will surely want to spend time with the hearty title characters of “Men on Boats,” who are churning up bright clouds of testosterone hovering over the Wild Project in the East Village.

The inhabitants of this rollicking history pageant by Jaclyn Backhaus, which opened on Monday night as the final offering of Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks festival of new plays, are fellows who are always up for shooting the rapids, the breeze and edible wildlife. They hail from the United States of the mid-19th century, when assertive, unquestioning masculinity was something that stood tall and unchallenged.

Oh, and just so you know, there isn’t a man in the 10-member cast of “Men on Boats,” at least not according to the strict anatomical definition. On the other hand, as we have plenty of reason to think these days, gender can be as much matter of perception as of chromosomes.

Long before Chastity Bono became a guy named Chaz and Bruce Jenner transformed into Caitlyn, stage performers were regularly changing their sexes, demonstrating the fluidness of the boundaries between male and female. Taboo-flouting drag shows have been a naughty staple of downtown New York theater for many a decade.

But “Men on Boats” is no antic drag show, though it definitely has its antic side. Nor is it a work of sexual politics, in any obvious sense. Ms. Backhaus’s lively script and Will Davis’s highly ingenious direction leave no room for nudging references to any gender gap between cast and characters.

Yet it’s hard to imagine this 90-minute account of a pioneering journey through virgin Western territory in 1869 being nearly as effective, or entertaining, with an ensemble of men. Based on the journals of John Wesley Powell, who led a geological expedition down the Green and Colorado Rivers into the (then) great unknown called the Grand Canyon, “Men on Boats” makes canny use of the obvious distance between performers and their roles to help bridge the distance between then and now.

You see, imagining life in another, distant time always requires a leap of faith. The past has its own language, customs and sense of the human place in the world. Whenever screen and stage artists try to summon what life must have been like long ago, we’re too often conscious of jarring inconsistencies, of the anachronisms that are allowed to slip in.

“Men on Boats” starts from the realization that we can never recreate exactly how it was. This play’s perspective is that of a contemporary reader filtering accounts of another age through her own latter-day sensibility. (It’s not unlike what Lin-Manuel Miranda is doing in his splendid hip-hop musical, “Hamilton,” which opens on Broadway in August.)

That women — embodying 19th-century mores while speaking in a 21st-century vernacular — are portraying men here weaves this point of view into the very fabric of the performance. And I have the feeling that it may be easier for them than it would be for male actors to grasp the artificial constructs of masculinity from Powell’s time.

(For the record, not all the ensemble members identity as belonging to a single gender; so excuse any hedging use of pronouns.)

Not that you’ll be thinking in such meta-theatrical terms while you’re watching “Men on Boats,” once you’ve grown accustomed to its style. The tone is comic, but never cute or camp. And ultimately, you feel, the play respects its bold if fallible pioneers, in all their natural bravery and fearfulness.

The story stays close to “The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons,” Powell’s published record of the historic journey he organized for the United States government. We follow Powell (a crisp Kelly McAndrew), a stately one-armed army major, and his expedition crew as they wend their way through perilous waters to create the first official map of the region.

Along the way, they bond, scrap, joke, reminisce and argue about directions, rather like any group traveling together. The stakes, though, are mortal. Several of the team come close to death when boats capsize. Food rations and surveyor’s instruments are lost to the river. The play begins with 10 men in four boats. By the end, that ratio is six to three.
Continue reading the main story

How this occurs is brought to infectiously vivid life. You could even call “Men on Boats” an action play in the sense that the 1994 Meryl Streep vehicle, “The River Wild,” was an action movie (well, sort of). The men, after all, spend most of their waking hours on the coursing rivers.

And the cast, the director and the design team — which includes Arnulfo Maldonado (sets), Ásta Bennie Hostetter (costumes), Solomon Weisbard (lighting) and Jane Shaw (whose sound design makes room for sweeping cinematic epic music) — delightfully recreate the rhythms, rush and terror of life on the water. This is achieved with four portable prows (standing in for full-bodied boats), some rope and wittily synchronized body movements.

And then there are the men themselves, rendered in a carefully exaggerated style that both teases and cozies up to the clichés of the archetypal hero adventurer. They include the officious Dunn (Kristen Sieh), who not so secretly feels he should be the team leader; Sumner (a marvelously forthright Donnetta Lavinia Grays), a Civil War veteran who dreams of finding a tree to climb and sleep in for days; and Old Shady (Jess Barbagallo, hilarious in a Walter Brennan-esque performance), Powell’s slightly simple-minded brother.

The cast is rounded out by Becca Blackwell, Hannah Cabell, Danielle Davenport, Danaya Esperanza, Birgit Huppuch and Layla Khoshnoudi, and they’re all good company. And while the stage they inhabit is as small as most studio apartments, they are improbably able to make us believe they are indeed roaming wide-open spaces where it’s all too easy for a man, of any persuasion, to get lost forever.

PERFORMANCE

92nd Street Y
Summertime, Swing Time

Bill Charlap - piano
Harry Allen - tenor sax
Jon-Erik Kellso - trumpet
Gary Smulyan - baritone sax
Chuck Wilson - alto sax
Joe Cohn - guitar
Todd Coolman - bass
Dennis Mackrel - drums

After 4 years in NYC we are finally going to a performance at the 92nd Street Y.  It's a well known venue and producer of fine events.

"Kick off Jazz in July at a party bursting with swing-era hits, from “Moonglow” to “Four Brothers.” With four ace horns led by Harry Allen on tenor sax, plus a jumpin’ rhythm section, this is a band you have to hear. Get ready to move your feet!"

A great, new-to-us, venue with a full scope of offerings.

The musicians ae all local and are wonderful!  So much talent.

LECTURE

One Day University
Hamilton vs. Jefferson: The Rivalry That Shaped America

"Hamilton is experiencing a well-deserved revival. Often forced to take a back seat to other Founding Fathers, his vision of America as an economic powerhouse with a dynamic and aggressive government as its engine has found many followers. Hamilton helped get the Constitution ratified, helped found the Federalist Party, and served as the first Secretary of the Treasury. An orphan born in the West Indies, he was like a son to George Washington and perhaps should have been like a brother to Thomas Jefferson."

"But Jefferson fought bitterly against the Federalists and his election as president ushered in the "revolution of 1800." Ironically, it would be Hamilton who helped assure Jefferson's triumph over Aaron Burr. Jefferson articulated a different vision from Hamilton's, promoting an agrarian democracy built upon geographic expansion—an "empire of liberty," he called it. In 1793, he would resign as Secretary of State to protest Hamilton's policies. In retirement, Jefferson would reflect on the differences between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans and express fear for the future of the new nation."

Louis Masur / Rutgers University
Louis Masur is a Distinguished Professor of American Studies and History at Rutgers University. He received outstanding teaching awards from Trinity College and the City College of New York, and won the Clive Prize for Excellence in Teaching from Harvard University. He is the author of many books including "Lincoln's Last Speech," which was inspired by a talk he presented at One Day University. His essays and articles have appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, and Chicago Tribune. He is an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society and serves on the Historians' Council of the Gettysburg Foundation.

LINCOLN CENTER

David Geffen Hall
Goran Bregović - Wedding and Funeral Orchestra

We ran into a Balkan Buzz Saw!  The crowd, adults and all, became frenzied.  And they did it in Geffen Hall where we hear the New York Philharmonic.  It was very ethnic and emotional for the adults there.

Listen! 

“Bregović is both the catalyst and ringmaster for a musical spectacle unlike anything else on North American stages. ”

—San Francisco Chronicle

For two nights only, David Geffen Hall will reverberate with the ecstatic energy of an Eastern European brass band, accented with soulful invocations and new world rhythms. Bregović, the most famous rock star of the former Yugoslavia, gained international renown for his colorful scores to the award-winning movies of Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica.

Performing as a group since 1998, the Wedding and Funeral Orchestra creates a party atmosphere wherever it goes, bringing together Gypsy brass players, Bulgarian vocalists, and conservatory-trained string players. While the music has a serious side—Bregović has said that it arises from “a terrible frontier” where Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Muslims, and Gypsies have coexisted fitfully for centuries—an infectious joy trumps any underlying sorrow.

About Goran Bregovic ́

Making his New York debut at Lincoln Center Festival in 2006, Goran Bregović returned to the festival two years later for two more sold-out concerts. Through his songs and performances, the music of the Balkans has reached a wider audience, and he has become well-known for his collaborations with other performers as well as for being an eloquent spokesman for the Gypsy culture of Eastern Europe. His Wedding and Funeral Orchestra—which, for nearly two decades, has roamed every continent on an unending tour totaling some 1,500 shows to date—performs concerts which mix Gypsy musicians on wind instruments with percussion, Bulgarian polyphonies, and a choir of male voices.

Born in Sarajevo, Bregović studied violin at a music conservatory, but quit at age 16 to form the rock group White Button (Bijelo Dugme), which toured for 15 years and became a household name throughout the Balkans until its final recording in 1989.

TOUR

Municipal Art Society of New York
The Bowery

The MAS Tours have proven to be exceptionally good.  The speakers are informed, the groups are small, and the information is really interesting.

Our tour of the Bowery was no exception.  Rather than show pictures and try to remember all we heard, please, visit the Wikipedia site.  It's worth it.

Click to site... Lots and lots going on in the Bowery.

AS a teaser I'm including several videos of a young boy placing in a subway station for the F Train at Delancey Street.