This is the time of the year for “best of” lists, and if you care about adult contemporary music (i.e. adult alternative, singer-songwriter, world music), you will want to check out the end year best of list from KCRW’s DJs Novena Carmel and Anthony Valadez who co-host that station’s signature music program Morning Becomes Eclectic. […]
Could the best Al Green album in decades, perhaps the best album this year, actually be a decade old release? That’s the mystery I found myself in. Let me explain:I”ve been known to bounce from streaming music service to streaming music service having done my time with Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music to name a few […]
“I know it’s an unusual picture because there are not many made this way. I think it’s what we need today. New looking fresh pictures of a very beautiful world.” â David Hockney.Late November-Early December has gotten cold, damp, and grey in most places, even in our paradise of Santa Monica, and Venice, California. Fear […]
Several years ago, in 2017, I found myself at Tsinandali in the Republic of Georgia for the launch of their music festival. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta was performing. They were joined by Khatia Buniatishvili, a dark-haired Georgian pianist who interpreted Schumann with great finesse and other selections dramatically with great gusto. […]
Louis Armstrong is an artist whose musical genius, expressed with his trumpet, his voice and his personality, rarely fails to bring a smile to whoever is listening. However, as Sacha Jenkins” new documentary, Louis Armstrong’s Black and Blues (available on Apple Tv+) makes clear, Armstrong’s persona at times was seen as cringe-worthy by younger Black […]
Read More… from Louis Armstrong: Black and Blues, A Very Human Genius
Tonight in New York, Christie’s will hold their 20th Century Evening Sale at Rockefeller Center.Among the works being offered for sale are two works on paper by Early 20th Century Austrian Expressionist artist Egon Schiele, from the collection of Viennese film and cabaret star Fitz Grünbaum. Grünbaum was not unlike Joel Grey in Cabaret, famous […]
David may have played a secret chord that pleased the Lord, but when it comes to a sound that pleases me deep in my own soul it comes from sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell who perform as Larkin Poe (reportedly the name of one of their great-greats).They have a new album Blood Harmony that is […]
Chris Burch, the mega-successful investor, and brand guru was a poor student in school, as he would be the first to tell you. But he has been a great student of life and of people.Burch has seeded, launched, and invested in many successful businesses including Guggenheim Partners, Upstack, Rappi, and BaubleBar; products such as Jawbone, […]
“It’s hard to be a Jew” is a Yiddish expression popularized by writer Sholom Aleichem as the title of his comic play that premiered at New York’s Yiddish Art Theater on October 1, 1920.It could also be an alternative title for Suzanne Levy’s one woman show, Dress British, Think Yiddish, directed by Stacie Chaiken, that […]
Read More… from The Joys And Oys Of Being A British Jew – One-Woman Show Comes To Santa Monica
Netflix recently started streaming a new German-made production of “All Quiet On the Western Front,” based on Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 Anti-War novel. This is the third filmed production, with a 1979 TV version adapted by Delbert Mann, and the original Academy Award winning 1930 version. It is worth recalling the impact of the original […]
In early October, I drove down to Costa Mesa, a drive of around an hour from Los Angeles (traffic dependent), for a preview of the newly opened Orange Country Museum of Art (OCMA).OCMA is located on the campus of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, and is right off the 405 at Bristol Avenue. The […]
You shake my nerves and you rattle my brainToo much love drives a man insaneYou broke my willBut what a thrillGoodness gracious, great balls of fire!Jerry Lee Lewis, the enfant terrible of Rock “n Roll, one of Sun Records million dollar quarter, the rocker whose career was momentarily cancelled when it was revealed his third […]