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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for October 18, 2016

Ten years after: is music sexy?

October 18, 2016 by Terry Teachout

LOOKBACKFrom 2006:

Love-hungry bachelors of the Fifties and early Sixties were notorious for using jazz and romantic ballads to grease the skids. Frank Sinatra, I’m told, was their artist of choice, though I’ve also been assured by a number of senior citizens in a position to know that Getz/Gilberto was similarly effective. Blake Edwards notwithstanding, I’ve never met anyone who did it to Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet or Ravel’s Boléro, at least not more than once.

As for me, I’ve never been one to play music in intimate situations. Perhaps because I am, or used to be, a musician, I find it distracting. And I suppose it says something significant about me that while music is one of the most important things in my life–perhaps the most important thing–I don’t find it sexy, and never have….

Read the whole thing here.

Almanac: Burt Kennedy on how to write a western screenplay

October 18, 2016 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“My theory has always been to write a real small story against a big background.”

Burt Kennedy (quoted in The Guardian, February 16, 2001)

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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