Recent Listening: Dave McKenna In Madison

AJBlogs Posted: January 9, 2019 11:55 am

Dave McKenna In Madison (Arbors)
McKenna (1930-2008) breathes life into this album, recorded in the early 1990s at Farley’s House of Pianos in Madison, Wisconsin and only recently released. — Doug Ramsey

Trump’s Sermon on the Mount
His practiced pose make him look positively beatific, doncha think? Here he is at the Pentagon pushing the notion of building a wall in space with missile-defense technology that has ... [read more]
AJBlog: Straight|UpPublished 2019-01-18
Don’t believe everything you read
My Wall Street Journal review of the Broadway transfer of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Choir Boy is now on line. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Careerwise, Tarell Alvin McCraney is as ... [read more]
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2019-01-18
Replay: Michael Parkinson interviews Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire is interviewed by Michael Parkinson in 1976. This clip is an excerpt from an episode of Parkinson, originally telecast by the BBC on February 14, 1976: (This ... [read more]
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2019-01-18
Almanac: Cesare Pavese on patience
“Waiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.” Cesare Pavese, This Business of Living ... [read more]
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2019-01-18
“Exciting Future”? Monitoring the Uncertain Condition of the Embattled National Academy
Without no permanent director and no home in which to display highlights from its 7,700-object collection of American art, the shuttered National Academy of Design (NAD), New York, is extricating ... [read more]
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2019-01-17
The woman who knew everybody
In my new Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column, which I resume this week after a hiatus caused by Mrs. T’s recent illness, I write about the reissue of The Kindness of ... [read more]
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2019-01-17
Almanac: Cesare Pavese on the meaning of suffering
“But the real, tremendous truth is this: suffering serves no purpose whatever.” Cesare Pavese, This Business of Living ... [read more]
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2019-01-17
Increasingly, Indigenous Art Is Getting Its Due
That headline may not sound like news, but it is, in one sense. Many occurrences in the world of indigenous art that may not, on their own, make international headlines ... [read more]
AJBlog: Real Clear ArtsPublished 2019-01-16
Snapshot: John Hartford sings “California Earthquake”
John Hartford is interviewed by Hugh Hefner, then performs “California Earthquake.” This clip was taped on November 10, 1968, for an episode of Playboy After Dark, Hefner’s syndicated TV series: ... [read more]
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2019-01-16
Almanac: Charles Stross on privacy
“Privacy is a peculiarly twentieth-century concept, an artifact of the Western urban middle classes: Before then, only the super rich could afford it, and since the invention of e-mail and ... [read more]
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2019-01-16
Response to Listen vs. Tell
In Listen vs. Tell I spoke of the necessary switch from telling people about our work to listening to them as a pre-requisite for effective communication. As happens not infrequently, Carter Gilles ... [read more]
AJBlog: Engaging MattersPublished 2019-01-15
Lookback: a (darkly) nostalgic visit to Kansas City
From 2009: I went to Kansas City to spend a day communing with myself when young, wondering whether I’d know where to look for him. I drove toward what ... [read more]
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2019-01-15
Almanac: Phyllis McGinley on tolerance
Those wearing Tolerance for a labelCall other views intolerable. Phyllis McGinley, “In Praise of Diversity” ... [read more]
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2019-01-15
Monday Recommendation: Thelonious Monk’s Works In Full
Kimbrough, Robinson, Reid, Drummond: Monk’s Dreams (Sunnyside)The subtitle of this invaluable 6-CD set is The Complete Compositions Of Thelonious Sphere Monk. By complete, Sunnyside means that the box contains six ... [read more]
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2019-01-14
Music Makes Art Magic: Atelier des Lumières
Instead of relaxing into the New Year and creating the annual column about the favorite things of the last 12 months, we went to Paris. Yes, we saw a lot ... [read more]
AJBlog: The Bright RidePublished 2019-01-14
I got through all of last year…
Most of the time I can’t quite grasp the undeniable fact that I’m sixty-two, going on sixty-three. Rarely if ever do I feel that old, and I know I don’t ... [read more]
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2019-01-14
Gauguin. Spirituality and Max Hollein
Most Paul Gauguin exhibitions show him off as a self-described “savage,” that sensualist who abandoned his family in France to canoodle with young Tahitian girls. He did behave badly a ... [read more]
AJBlog: Real Clear ArtsPublished 2019-01-07
How San Antonio Got a Free Scholar’s Rock
One day in December, Katherine Luber, director of the San Antonio Museum of Art, two curators and a museum trustee wandered around a rock yard China that looked more like ... [read more]
AJBlog: Real Clear ArtsPublished 2018-12-28