Archives for November 2009

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway and off-Broadway shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) 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:

• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, suitable for bright children, closes Jan. 10, reviewed here)

• Finian’s Rainbow (musical, G, suitable for children, dramatically inert but musically sumptuous, reviewed here)

• God of Carnage * (serious comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 3, reviewed here)

• Oleanna (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, violence, reviewed here)

• South Pacific (musical, G/PG-13, some sexual content, brilliantly staged but unsuitable for viewers acutely allergic to preachiness, reviewed here)

• A Steady Rain * (drama, R, totally unsuitable for children, closes Dec. 6, reviewed here)

• Superior Donuts (dark comedy, PG-13, violence, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

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

• The Emperor Jones (drama, PG-13, contains racially sensitive language, extended through Dec. 6, reviewed here)

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

• Our Town (drama, G, suitable for mature children, reviewed here)

• The Understudy (farce, PG-13, closes Jan. 3, reviewed here)

Over the weekend I read an interview with an eighty-nine-year-old trumpet-playing World War II fighter pilot named Jack Tueller. In 1939 he played for Louis Armstrong, who gave him the following piece of professional advice:

Always play the melody, man. Look at them, see their age group, play their love songs, and you’ll carry all the money to the bank.

I wish I’d been able to put that quote into Pops!

“Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.”
Benjamin Disraeli, Contarini Fleming

William Schuman’s “When Jesus Wept,” the second movement of New England Triptych, performed by Thomas Lee and the 2008 5A Texas All-State Symphonic Band. The tune is by William Billings:

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)

“What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world.”
Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, Dec. 25, 1862

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong is now available for immediate online purchase and shipping from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
If you haven’t bought any Christmas presents yet, you know what to do.

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong is reviewed in the December issue of The Atlantic:

Teachout, an estimable critic, biographer, and former jazzbo, draws on newly available recordings and writings to limn the fullest portrait to date of the most popular and beloved figure in 20th-century music. This volume candidly explores the intersection of messy life events (drug use, marital strife, embouchure woes, and a public, segregation-prompted lambasting of President Eisenhower), personal paradoxes (a moody, profane, passive disposition at odds with the signature smile and deeply charismatic persona), and great art. It also offers shrewd analyses of many Armstrong compositions, including the chart-topping yet critically dismissed later works….

Read the whole thing here.