Archives for July 2006

I made my will last week. Not to worry–I’m as healthy as a middle-aged horse–but in light of my recent illness, it seemed prudent to ensure that my worldly goods, such as they are, will be properly distributed should my cardiologist turn out to have been wrong about my future prospects.

Making a will is an uncomplicated affair for those who, like me, are neither rich nor overly endowed with possessions. I do, however, own forty works of art (not counting my cel set-up from The Cat Concerto), and at one point I considered leaving them en bloc to some small regional museum whose permanent collection is weak on the American moderns. In the end, though, I decided it would be more appropriate for me to share some of the vast pleasure I’ve derived from living with art. I’m leaving two of my most treasured objects, Milton Avery’s March at a Table
and John Marin’s Downtown. The El, to the Phillips Collection as a gesture of gratitude to my favorite museum. The rest will go to friends and family members.

It took me two days to figure out who was to get what. By the time I was done, I felt so ceremonial that I started drawing up a list of music to be played at my funeral. At that point my sense of humor finally kicked in, and I found myself recalling this passage from Boswell’s Life of Johnson:

I have known him at times exceedingly diverted at what seemed to others a very small sport. He now laughed immoderately, without any reason that we could perceive, at our friend’s making his will; called him the TESTATOR, and added, “I dare say, he thinks he has done a mighty thing. He won’t stay till he gets home to his seat in the country, to produce this wonderful deed: he’ll call up the landlord of the first inn on the road; and, after a suitable preface upon mortality and the uncertainty of life, will tell him that he should not delay making his will; and here, Sir, will he say, is my will, which I have just made, with the assistance of one of the ablest lawyers in the kingdom; and he will read it to him (laughing all the time). He believes he has made this will; but he did not make it: you, Chambers, made it for him. I trust you have had more conscience than to make him say,

“I believe that the great painters, with their intellect as master, have attempted to force this unwilling medium of paint and canvas into a record of their emotions. I find any digression from this large aim leads me to boredom.”

Edward Hopper, “Notes on Painting”

Jazz singer Julia Dollison is in town for a one-nighter this Tuesday at Sweet Rhythm. I wrote the liner notes for her debut CD, Observatory, and what I said then still goes:

“There’s this singer I want you to meet. She’s really, really good.” I must hear at least three variations per month on that tired old theme, but when Maria Schneider spoke those words to me five years ago, I took them seriously. What kind of jazz singer, I asked myself, would be interesting enough to catch the ear of the outstanding big-band composer of her generation?

Here’s the answer.

It starts with the voice: warm, airy, dappled with summer sunshine, technically bulletproof from top to bottom. (Check out those honking low notes in “Your Mind Is on Vacation.”) Such voices are born, not made, and Julia Dollison has one. Yet she never coasts on her chops. Instead, she sings like a horn player in love with lyrics, the way Lester Young knew all the words to every ballad he played. Her solos are pointed and meaningful, little musical stories that take you to places you’ve never been.

Then comes the style, an alchemical blend of jazz and pop that makes Harold Arlen and Rufus Wainwright sound not like strange bedfellows but the oldest of friends. Don’t call it “fusion,” though: that might smack of calculation, and there’s nothing calculated about Julia’s singing. She grew up listening to all kinds of music, and now she just sings what she hears, naturally and unselfconsciously.

Did I mention the arrangements? Actually, that’s not quite the right word for her root-and-branch deconstructions of standards. They pass through her mind like light through a prism, emerging refracted and transformed. “In a Mellotone” is nudged into a joltingly ironic minor key, while “Night and Day” is superimposed atop a Coltrane-like harmonic steeplechase. “All the Things You Are” becomes a spacious, Latin-flavored soundscape decorated with the pastel washes of overdubbed vocals that are Julia’s trademark….

The band includes Geoff Keezer on piano, Ben Monder on guitar, Ted Poor on bass, and Matt Clohesy on drums–remarkable players all.

For more information, go here.

I’m under the radar but not entirely inactive. Check out the Top Five and Out of the Past, in the right-hand sidebar, for a couple of brand-new picks from me. And wander over to the Lit Blog Co-op, where sometime today I’ll be posting more on my nomination for this season, Edie Meidav’s Crawl Space. I’ll contribute something more robust to this blog after work, though I won’t be helped by a sprained, swollen left ring finger. Ah, the joys of learning to skate. I’m down a knee and a finger and I haven’t even picked up a hockey stick yet.

Lauren and I went to the Empire State Building observatory today, an undertaking that entails standing in line for at least an hour (unless you pay extra for an “express” ticket, a newfangled piece of cash-and-carry privilege that sticks in my craw). The long line is set up in such a way that you spend much of your time shuffling forward, thus creating the illusion of progress. Most of the people waiting to board the elevators to the eighty-sixth floor were teenagers, and though they came from all over the world, most of them were dressed identically.

I hadn’t been to the Empire State Building for a number of years, and I’d all but forgotten how charming it is. It opened its doors in 1930, and the streamlined décor is as redolent of the Thirties as a Pullman sleeper or a Jimmy Cagney movie. The observatory itself is wonderfully tacky—the only thing missing is a dirty-water hot-dog cart—and the view is as spectacular as advertised. I talked Lauren’s ear off, pointing out every landmark I could think of: Central Park, Radio City Music Hall, Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, the UN, Macy’s, even the dear old Flatiron Building. I also showed her the hole in the skyline that was created by the destruction of the World Trade Center. It’s easy to miss, so much so that you wouldn’t know where the twin towers once stood if you didn’t know where to look. I overheard a father pointing out Ground Zero to his son, and remembered the night I brought Lauren’s parents to Windows on the World for a drink, long before the sunny morning when the face of New York was changed utterly by the hand of evil.

In due course we descended to Fifth Avenue, rejoined the mere mortals, and took a cab to Tibor de Nagy Gallery, where we looked with great pleasure at a show of sweetly naïve urban landscapes by Rudy Burckhardt. Tiffany’s is across the street from the gallery, so we stopped by afterward to ogle the merchandise. (Memo to the folks back in Smalltown, U.S.A.: no purchases were made.)

Later on we went to Broadway to see The Wedding Singer, a show I liked far more than most of my colleagues. I’d been wondering whether I’d like it as much the second time around, so I’m happy to report that I continue to stand firmly and wholeheartedly by my Wall Street Journal review, in which I ranked it

among the most ingenious and amusing musical adaptations of a Hollywood film ever to reach Broadway….No, we’re not talking Adam Guettel, but The Wedding Singer is smart, handsomely designed by Scott Pask and sparklingly staged by John Rando, the director of Urinetown, who has an uncanny knack for underlining the comic nuances of a script. The Wedding Singer delivers what it promises, no more and no less, and if you long to laugh yourself silly, it’ll do the trick.

It’s a good thing I haven’t changed my mind, since quotes from that review are plastered all over the front of the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. Like most of us, I have my little vanities, one of which is that my name occasionally appears in smallish type (“A KNOCKOUT AND A WOW!”—Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal) on the signs and posters hung in front of Broadway theaters for the purpose of wooing passers-by. Not often, for even my most enthusiastic reviews tend not to lend themselves to such treatment, but every once in a while I swing for the fences, and sometimes a publicist takes note of the fact. I’ve been a drama critic for three years now, so you’d think I’d be used to seeing my name on the Great White Way, but the truth is that I get a huge kick out of it, and probably always will. Tonight my pleasure was enhanced by the presence of my niece, who took a snapshot of me standing next to one of the Wedding Singer posters that bears my name.

Enough already. As soon as I inflate Lauren’s bed, which is set up in the middle of the Teachout Museum, I’m going to crawl into my loft, put out the light, and sleep deeply. Friday is her last full day in New York, and I’m sure it’ll be a hectic one. I have nothing planned for the weekend—and that includes answering the phone.

See you Monday, maybe.

UPDATE: Another blogger says that the preceding post “turned my stomach.” Here’s why:

I know critics play a vital role in a Broadway play’s success…or failure. But they’re not involved in any of the creative, directorial, financial, human resource related aspects of the play/musical. And yet credit is given to them. It’s like showing up at your grandmother’s for the Thanksgiving meal and being hailed the conquering hero for eating.

Except for the stomach-turning part, I don’t disagree with anything he says, all of which is worth reading. Nevertheless, I do think he’s coming it a teeny bit high! The kick I get out of seeing my name under a marquee is not to be confused—nor do I ever confuse it—with the justifiable pride a playwright or actor or director or producer takes in his work. It’s simply the forgivable (I hope) vanity of a small-town boy turned big-city critic who never imagined that such things would happen to him, and it’s a far cry from the vulturine posings of, say, Addison DeWitt. What’s more, I do take credit for having helped keep a number of worthy shows from closing, which obviously isn’t the same as having written them but is still better than nothing.

Might I suggest that my colleague’s sense of humor is in need of a slight adjustment?

Today’s Wall Street Journal drama column contains the first fruits of my recent trip out west, a review of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival:

In Idaho the license plates say “Famous Potatoes,” and the nickname of Boise, the state capitol, is “City of Trees.” Both statements are true as far as they go: Boise is as green as Dublin, while Idaho’s chief cash crop is so esteemed around these parts that you can even buy a tuber-shaped candy bar called the Idaho Spud. But Boise is also known, or should be, for the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, whose theater is an outdoor pavilion across the street from the foothills of the Rockies, which supply a spectacular backdrop for the five plays performed there each summer. The productions are unfailingly fresh and engaging, and the casual atmosphere is perfect for art-starved tourists.

Boise is a smallish city (pop. 190,117) with a low-rise skyline, a pedestrian-friendly downtown and amiable residents who make a point of saying hello to startled strangers. Its companionable air is mirrored in the dress-as-you-please code of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, where flip-flops, insect repellent and well-stocked coolers are all standard equipment. Most of the local playgoers pack a meal or buy one on site, and dining is encouraged during the shows. You can either eat at your seat or book a box equipped with a picnic table. Each performance is given to the bucolic accompaniment of chirping birds and croaking frogs, with occasional guest appearances by a skunk who lives beneath the stage. (Not to worry–if you leave him alone, he’ll leave you alone.)

Don’t let the informality fool you: Idaho Shakespeare is both artistically serious and theatrically adventurous, and the anything-goes production style does much to enliven the straightforward bill of fare….

No link. You know what you can do, and you know what you should do. So do it.

In my next “Sightings” column, to be published in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, I hail the reprinting by Princeton University Press of Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s Notes of a Pianist, which I use as an occasion to discuss some of my favorite non-literary artists who write–and, nowadays, blog–on the side.

What can we learn from “practitioner criticism” and the autobiographies of working artists? For the answer, pick up a copy of tomorrow’s Journal, where you’ll find my column in the “Pursuits” section.

“There is a school of painting called abstractionist or non objective which is derived largely from the work of Paul C