Archives for 2018

Blind Faith plays “Can’t Find My Way Home,” a song by Steve Winwood, in concert in London in 1969. The band consisted of Winwood on keyboards and vocals, Eric Clapton on guitar, Ginger Baker on drums, and Ric Grech on bass:

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

“Hatreds are the cinders of affection.”

Walter Raleigh, letter to Robert Cecil (May 10, 1593)

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town 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.

BROADWAY:
• Angels in America (two-part drama, R, alternating in repertory, closes July 15, reviewed here)
• The Band’s Visit (musical, PG-13, nearly all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Dear Evan Hansen (musical, PG-13, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• The Iceman Cometh (drama, PG-13, most shows sold out last week, closes July 1, reviewed here)
• My Fair Lady (musical, G, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Symphonie Fantastique (abstract underwater puppet show, G, closes July 15, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:
• Three Tall Women (drama, PG-13, all shows sold out last week, closes June 24, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN CHICAGO:
• Macbeth (Shakespeare, PG-13, remounting of Two River Theater Company production, closes June 24, original production reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN EAST HADDAM, CONN.:
• The Will Rogers Follies (musical, G, closes June 21, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:
• Travesties (serious comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Our Lady of 121st Street (serious comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

“And at last he had time for what he privately called educating himself. He had discovered the Victorian novelists but had decided that not all were divine. Or at least not divine all the time. But the minor ones like Surtees could make him laugh and as one grew into stoical disillusion laughter was an essential medicine.”

William Haggard, The Vendettists

Count Basie plays “I Don’t Know,” accompanied by Freddie Green on guitar, Norman Keenan on bass, and Sonny Payne on drums. This performance opened “Count Basie Reminisces,” an episode of Ralph J. Gleason’s Jazz Casual, originally telecast by KQED-TV on August 21, 1968:

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

“He’s the final arbiter of how to play two notes. The distance and volume between two notes is always perfect.”

Carla Bley (quoted by Ethan Iverson in “A Lifetime of Carla Bley,” The New Yorker, May 13, 2018)

From 2004, immediately after hearing Bob Brookmeyer and his New Art Orchestra perform at the Village Vanguard:

I also wanted to post a few lines tonight, while I’m still bubbling over with the excitement that comes from having heard the kind of performance that reminds us critics of why we do what we do. And no matter how well my column turns out, it won’t be any more to the point than the one-line note scribbled on a cocktail napkin that a musician friend passed to me midway through the first set: “Colors are flooding down the walls.”…

Read the whole thing here.

“A good writer sets wet wood afire and makes a meal of gravel and sand.”

Patrick Kurp, “An Oyster-Like Insensibility” (here, May 11, 2018)