• Home
  • About
    • About Last Night
    • Terry Teachout
    • Contact
  • AJBlogCentral
  • ArtsJournal

About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

TT: Words to the wise

August 26, 2004 by Terry Teachout

I almost forgot to mention that Karrin Allyson, one of my very favorite jazz singers, is appearing through September 5 at Le Jazz au Bar, New York’s newest high-end nightclub. She’s touring in support of her latest CD, Wild for You, which contains subtly reworked jazz interpretations of 13 songs by Elton John, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Carly Simon, and Cat Stevens–the AM-radio music Allyson grew up on in the days before she discovered and embraced jazz. Like everything she does, it’s purest pleasure.


Here’s part of what I wrote in the Washington Post about her last album, In Blue:

Outside of moving from Kansas City to Manhattan a couple of years ago, Allyson (whose first name is pronounced KAH-rin) has consistently refused to play by The Rules. Yes, she’s good-looking, but she doesn’t glam up for gigs or pretend to be fresh out of college. She’s a fully grown woman who has been making records her way for a decade now, singing what she likes and working with players she knows, shimmying up the greasy pole of renown inch by inch. The two Grammy nominations she received for last year’s “Ballads: Remembering John Coltrane” suggest that the rest of the world is finally starting to catch up with her–and about time, too.


Allyson has a slender, smallish voice, precisely focused and pleasingly rough around the edges, whose distinctive timbre is at once plaintive and engaging. You can tell she knows all about life’s ups and downs, and this album is more about the latter than the former. Don’t be misled by the title, though, for “In Blue” isn’t an all-blues program. As always, Allyson has cast her net far more widely and imaginatively, choosing 13 songs that range in tone from the sophisticated sorrow of Bobby Troup’s “The Meaning of the Blues” to the no-nonsense earthiness of “Evil Gal Blues,” an old Dinah Washington specialty (“I’ll burn you like a candle, honey, I’m gonna burn you at both ends”). In between these two stylistic bookends is plenty of room for every other imaginable shade of blue, including a pair of dark-hued standards, “How Long Has This Been Going On?” and “Angel Eyes,” that fit the prevailing mood perfectly.

Go–and if you’re there on Saturday, look for me.

Filed Under: main

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on E-mail

@Terryteachout1

Tweets by TerryTeachout1

Archives

August 2004
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  
« Jul   Sep »

An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Stumbling down memory lane
  • Replay: Ginette Neveu plays Chausson’s Poème
  • Almanac: Mary Renault on love and hate
  • Almanac: Flannery O’Connor on mixed feelings
  • Snapshot: Rudyard Kipling speaks about writing and truth

Copyright © 2021 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in