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National Review asked me (among others) to make some Christmas gift recommendations. To find out what I suggested, go here and scroll down.
Posted November 28, 2011 8:34 AM
ABOUT "ABOUT LAST NIGHT" AND ITS AUTHORS ABOUT TERRY'S BOOKS MORE ABOUT "POPS" ABOUT TERRY'S PLAY AND OPERA LIBRETTI Terry collaborated with Paul Moravec on Danse Russe, a backstage comedy about the making of The Rite of Spring that was premiered by Philadelphia's Center City Opera Theater on April 28, 2011. To read more about Danse Russe, go here and here. To view excerpts from the opera and see Paul and Terry talk about its creation, go here. Terry previously collaborated with Paul on The Letter, an operatic version of Somerset Maugham's 1927 play that was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera in 2006 and opened there on July 25, 2009. To see excerpts from the opera, go here. To read Terry's reports on the writing, production, premiere, and reception of The Letter, click on the link.
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A list of new things we've liked (subject to unexpected and wildly capricious updating). BOOK GALLERY CD PLAY BOOK
Not new, but still worth a look or listen (and no less subject to change without notice).
SCRIPT NOVEL
This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout, Laura Demanski (otherwise known as Our Girl in Chicago, or "OGIC" for short), and Carrie Frye (who signs her postings "CAAF"). Terry, who lives in New York, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the chief culture critic of Commentary. His Wikipedia entry is here.
Terry's latest book is Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the U.S., JR Books in England, Larousse in Brazil, and United Press/Alpina in Russia. He is currently at work on Mood Indigo: A Life of Duke Ellington. He wrote the introductions to William Bailey on Canvas and the paperback editions of Richard Stark's Flashfire and Firebreak and Elaine Dundy's The Dud Avocado. One of his essays is included in Robert Gottlieb's Reading Dance, and he contributed notes on recordings by Louis Armstrong, Gene Krupa, and Oscar Peterson to Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology.
To read reviews of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, watch TV interviews and listen to radio interviews and podcasts about the book, and find out the answers to frequently asked questions about Armstrong and Pops, click on the link.
Terry's first play, Satchmo at the Waldorf, was premiered on September 15, 2011, at Orlando Shakespeare's Mandell Theatre in Orlando, Florida. To read more about Satchmo at the Waldorf, go here. To read an excerpt, go here.
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TOP FIVE
Sabine Feisst, Schoenberg's New World: The American Years (Oxford, $35). A satisfyingly thorough and probing study of Arnold Schoenberg's life in America, to which he emigrated in 1933. Even if, like me, you don't care much for his music, you'll find it absorbing to read about how this most European of composers came to grips with the strange new world of southern California, which he liked far more than is generally realized. Though Feisst's prose style is decidedly academic, Schoenberg's New World tells a story so interesting that--for once--the quality of the writing doesn't matter (TT).
Jane Wilson: New Paintings (DC Moore, 535 W. 22, up Nov. 17-Dec. 23). New work by the not-quite-abstract artist whose canvas-filling horizontal bands of color and Constable-like storm clouds inhabit that intriguing middle ground between abstract expressionism and representation that is the most critically underrated painterly idiom of the postwar era (TT).
Pat Metheny, What's It All About (Nonesuch). A lovely sequel to One Quiet Night, Metheny's 2009 album of acoustic-guitar solos. This time around the fare consists of pop standards, some likely ("Alfie"), others joltingly unexpected ("Betcha by Golly, Wow"), and all played with luminescent sensitivity. Ideal for wee-small-hours listening (TT).
Dancing at Lughnasa (Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 W. 22, extended through Jan. 15). Brian Friel's 1990 masterpiece, a tragicomic memory play about the coming of modernity to Ireland, has been revived to piercingly enthralling effect by my favorite off-Broadway company. Absolutely not to be missed under any circumstances whatsoever (TT).
Clark Terry, Clark: The Autobiography of Clark Terry (University of California, $34.95). A pungent, unusually plain-spoken memoir by the celebrated jazz trumpeter and educator. Though Terry, one of the few remaining musicians to have played with both Count Basie and Duke Ellington, is speaking through a ghostwriter (his second wife), Clark sounds like a real person swapping stories after hours, and the results are hugely readable (TT).
Out of the Past
Horton Foote, Horton Foote's Three Trips to Bountiful: Teleplay, Stageplay, and Screenplay. Originally written for live TV in 1953, The Trip to Bountiful, the poignant story of an old woman trapped in Houston who longs to visit her rural home one last time, was adapted by Foote for the stage and, in 1983, the screen. This invaluable 1993 volume, published by Southern Methodist University Press, contains all three scripts, accompanied by interviews with Foote and his various collaborators. I can't think of a better way to study the differences between the three media--or to deepen your familiarity with a once-obscure play that is now rightly regarded as an American classic (TT).
V.S. Naipaul, The Mimic Men. Now that the uproar over Sir Vidia's nastiness has started to subside, it's worth recalling why we cared about him in the first place. Start with this bracingly astringent 1967 novel about a Caribbean politician whose uneasy embrace of Western manners and mores leaves him doubly estranged from the two worlds that he straddles. To my mind, it's the best of Naipaul's books--and the wisest (TT).
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