Archives for June 16, 2006

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday digging in the Garden of Satchmo, and came home bearing riches galore.

On Tuesday I drove to the Institute of Jazz Studies in Newark, New Jersey, a city in which there appears to be no parking at all. In order to stow my Zipcar, I had to drive all the way up to the roof of a dinky little garage reachable only by ascending a corkscrew ramp located inside a silo. Once I finally got where I was going, though, Dan Morgenstern, a distinguished critic who knew Louis Armstrong when young and now runs the most important jazz library in the world in between writing thoughtful essays about the music he loves, filled my lap with goodies. Among them were the unedited typescript of Armstrong’s autobiography and a thick stack of his letters–real letters, mind you, not photocopies.

Of course I’d seen original Armstrong manuscripts before, but I’d never handled one, much less a king-sized batch of Satch. I got so excited that I worked for six hours straight without bothering to eat lunch or check my messages. That was a medium-sized mistake, as I discovered when I returned home and learned that three editors from The Wall Street Journal had been trying to call me all day. By early evening they were on the verge of jumping to the not-unreasonable conclusion (given my recent medical history) that I’d dropped dead. One of them actually went so far as to call Our Girl in Chicago to find out what hospital I was in, which didn’t do anything for her peace of mind.

On Wednesday I went back to the Louis Armstrong Archives to finish going through Armstrong’s Thirties scrapbooks, after which I listened to a half-dozen of the private tape recordings he made after hours. As the Armstrong Archives Web site explains, “Louis Armstrong’s personal tape collection comprises 650 reels of audiotape. When he was hanging out with fans backstage or with friends in a hotel room or with Lucille at home, he loved to set his tape deck to

Friday again, and today’s Wall Street Journal drama column reflects my sharply mixed feelings about Spring Awakening, the very explicit new musical version of Frank Wedekind’s famous 1891 play about teenage sexuality:

Steven Sater has compressed Wedekind’s three-act play into a tight two-act book that is surprisingly faithful to the original, though Mr. Sater’s adaptation is far more sentimental and (fortunately) rather less didactic. The action is set in provincial Germany circa 1890, but the songs are contemporary in style–often unprintably so–and the performers whip wireless mikes out of their pockets and are bathed in neon light whenever they start to sing. The point, I gather, is that nothing much has changed since 1890, and when it comes to puberty, that’s doubtless true enough. “Spring Awakening” is full of self-centered, solipsistic kids who think they’re both unique and misunderstood. I know I felt that way when I was 14.

Is “Spring Awakening” for you? Only if you warm to the idea of spending a whole evening wallowing in teen angst. It also depends on your tolerance for the kind of singer-songwriter pop that runs to languishing tunes and sensitive piano arpeggios. I find it cloying, but I’ll be the first to admit that Mr. Sater (who also wrote the lyrics) has used Duncan Sheik’s music to savvy dramatic effect, greatly aided by the fast-paced direction of Michael Mayer and the sharp performances of the ensemble cast….

My feelings about Neil LaBute’s Some Girl(s) were considerably more clear-cut:

I wanting to admire Neil LaBute, but he keeps writing plays like “Some Girl(s).” Mr. LaBute’s favorite subject is the way men mistreat women, and while he handles it with virtuosity–I can’t think of a more technically adroit playwright–his slickness almost always does him in….

No link, so get thee to a newsstand and pony up a dollar for today’s Journal, or be big and brave and go here to subscribe to the Online Journal, which will give you on-the-spot access to the full text of my review, plus many other worthy stories about art and its ancillary activites. (You can also read about money if so inclined.)

“I have not carried out experiments to prove it, but may I suggest that people in the theater and the cinema do not sit in the same way? The theater requires attentiveness, and people must sit up alertly to see what is often a small area of concentration. Whereas in the cinema, the screen looms above us, and many people sink into reclining positions to watch. Some luxurious movie houses have seats that slide back to allow this posture. In the cinema we sometimes put our feet on the back of the row in front, loll across two seats, and damage the upholstery. Would this happen with a lively and commanding presence on the stage, or is it the result of a sort of loneliness in cinemas?”

David Thomson, America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture

Look in the right-hand column immediately below the Top Fives and you’ll see that “About Last Night” has just rolled out a fresh feature. In “Out of the Past” we apply the Top Five idea to art that isn’t new. Starting today, you’ll find capsule commentaries on books, movies, records, and other old favorites that we think you might like.

Like the Top Fives, our “Out of the Past” picks will change frequently and without warning, so keep an eye peeled for the latest postings.

UPDATE: The Top Fives are all new, too!

Posted for no reason at all, and valid only until I change my mind:

– BEST COMEBACK “Sir, you MAY wonder.”

– BEST MOVIE SCORE Jerry Goldsmith, Chinatown

– BEST PAINTING I’VE SEEN THIS YEAR Arnold Friedman, Landscape

– BEST LOUIS ARMSTRONG RECORD I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues (scroll down to listen)

– BEST P.G. WODEHOUSE NOVEL The Mating Season

– BEST EDUCATIONAL FILM Powers of Ten (thank you, dear OGIC, for introducing me to this miniature masterpiece)

– BEST SLOW MOVEMENT Beethoven, Cavatina from Quartet No. 13, Op. 130

– BEST PIECE OF WAR REPORTING Ernie Pyle, The Death of Captain Waskow

– BEST FIRST LINE “The bishop was feeling rather sea-sick.”

– BEST LAST LINE “He passed on unsuspected and deadly, like a pest in the street full of men.”