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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for August 10, 2015

Non-stop

August 10, 2015 by Terry Teachout

Mrs. T and I returned from our vacation in Maine (which was great, thanks) last Tuesday. We spent a night in Connecticut, drove to New York on Wednesday to see Hamilton, then drove to Lenox on Thursday (pausing briefly in Connecticut along the way) for the Shakespeare & Company premiere of Jane Anderson’s Mother of the Maid. On Saturday we went back to New York to see Penn and Teller on Broadway (about which I’ll have more to say in this space next week) and Cymbeline in Central Park.

4ab97b92e077dbd1171ff480b0a1b8a6What next? As you read these words, I’m flying from New York to Portland, Oregon. I’ll drive from there to Eugene, spend a night, then proceed to Ashland, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, on Tuesday morning. I’ll be seeing three shows and writing two Wall Street Journal columns this coming week. I return to New York on Sunday, driving directly from the airport to Connecticut and Mrs. T.

If you think this is all a bit too much…well, so do I. But it’s my life, and I don’t feel like trading it in on anybody else’s life, so I’ll say only that you shouldn’t expect to find much of anything in this space beyond the regular daily postings until I get back home, unpack my bag, and settle down again. Even I have my limits. At least I think I do.

* * *

Count Basie’s orchestra performs Charlie Christian’s “Air Mail Special” in 1941, with Don Byas on tenor saxophone and Harry Edison on trumpet. Jimmy Rushing, the band’s vocalist, can be seen on the dance floor:

Just because: Miles Davis improvises a film score

August 10, 2015 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAMiles Davis improvises the musical score to Louis Malle’s Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, originally released in 1958, while simultaneously watching the film projected in a recording studio. Midway throught the clip, Malle is interviewed in French about the session:

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

Almanac: Oscar Wilde on journalism

August 10, 2015 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. By carefully chronicling the current events of contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance such events really are. By invariably discussing the unnecessary, it makes us understand what things are requisite for culture, and what are not.”

Oscar Wilde, “The Critic as Artist”

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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