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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for September 7, 2006

TT: What are you doing on Sunday night?

September 7, 2006 by Terry Teachout

If you have no plans for this Sunday night–and maybe even if you do–I strongly recommend that you attend the all-star jazz concert that Dan Levinson and Randy Sandke have put together to benefit Dick Sudhalter, about whose plight I recently blogged. The bill includes (among others) Harry Allen, Dan Barrett, Eddie Bert, Bill Crow, Jim Ferguson, Dave Frishberg, Wycliffe Gordon, Marty Grosz, Becky Kilgore, Bill Kirchner, Steve Kuhn, Dan Levinson, Marian McPartland, Joe Muranyi, David Ostwald, Nicki Parrott, Bucky Pizzarelli, Scott Robinson, Randy Sandke, Daryl Sherman, and the Loren Schoenberg Big Band.


The concert will take place at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in New York. The address is 619 Lexington Avenue at 54th Street and the music starts at seven o’clock sharp. Admission is $40, plus whatever else you care to chip in.


I’ll be there. You come, too.

TT: Calling an audible

September 7, 2006 by Terry Teachout

Are there any songs that you really, really like in spite of their lyrics, whether in whole or part? Here’s my list:


– Swing Out Sister, “Breakout”

– Joan Armatrading, “Call Me Names”

– Tori Amos, “Crucify”

– Joni Mitchell, “Black Crow”

– Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry”

– Rosanne Cash, “I Want a Cure”

– The Police, “King of Pain”

– Billy Strayhorn, “Lush Life”


Incidentally, it only works one way for me: if I don’t like the music of a song, it doesn’t matter how good the words are. I suspect the same thing is true for most people, which says something interesting about the nature of songwriting.

TT: So you want to see a show?

September 7, 2006 by Terry Teachout

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway and off-Broadway shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows strongly favorable reviews in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.


Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.


BROADWAY:

– Avenue Q* (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

– The Drowsy Chaperone* (musical, G/PG-13, mild sexual content and a profusion of double entendres, reviewed here)

– The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee* (musical, PG-13, mostly family-friendly but contains a smattering of strong language and a production number about an unwanted erection, reviewed here)

– The Wedding Singer (musical, PG-13, some sexual content, reviewed here)


OFF BROADWAY:

– The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children old enough to enjoy a love story, reviewed here)

– Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living In Paris (musical revue, R, adult subject matter and sexual content, reviewed here)

– Slava’s Snowshow (performance art, G, child-friendly, reviewed here)

TT: Almanac

September 7, 2006 by Terry Teachout

“Wisdom is truth that consoles. There is truth without wisdom, as we know from the many mad scientists who are running loose in our world. And there is consolation without truth, as we know from the history of religion. Whatever its defects, my life has enabled me to find comfort in uncomfortable truths.”


Roger Scruton, Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life (courtesy of Anecdotal Evidence)

TT: Words to the wise

September 7, 2006 by Terry Teachout

Sonny Rollins, one of the greatest tenor saxophonists in the history of jazz, turns seventy-six today. To celebrate the occasion, his Web site, which is one year old, has posted rare video footage of nine Rollins performances, including two from the Fifties and three from the Sixties.


“Nine Lives of Sonny Rollins” will be viewable at sonnyrollins.com for one week from today. To watch it, go here.

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...]

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