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On Sex Mob
My review of Sex Mob’s Dec. 4 show at Johnny Brenda’s — part of an Ars Nova Workshop triple bill — in today’s Inquirer.
On the radio
I’ll be a guest panelist on J. Michael Harrison’s The Bridge, WRTI 90.1 FM Philadelphia, on Friday, December 7 at 10pm EST. We’ll be spinning recent tracks and talking about why we like ’em. I believe you can stream the program live, info here.
Six Picks: December 2007
My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in All About Jazz-New York, December 2007: Harry Allen, Hits By Brits (Challenge) Martin Bejerano, Evolution/Revolution (Reservoir) Michael Blake Sextet, Amor de Cosmos (Songlines) Peter Evans, The Peter Evans Quartet (Firehouse 12) His Name Is Alive, Sweet Earth Flower: A Tribute to Marion Brown (High Two)Henning Sieverts, Symmetry (Pirouet)
A fair question
Darcy James Argue, quite unwittingly, has tied together my two previous posts in an interesting and morally serious way: He asks why Dudamel is getting heat from some for not forcefully opposing Chávez, while Gergiev (whose work I just happened to praise unreservedly) gets a free pass on his close ties to, and explicit political support for, the odious Vladimir
Amid noise, clarity
I can’t let Alex Ross’s refreshing anti-Chávez comments in the The New Yorker of Dec. 3 go without praise here. Writing about Gustavo Dudamel’s recent New York appearance with the Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, Ross reflects on the celebratory atmosphere during the encores: The players don jackets with the Venezuelan national colors and swivel around, marching-band style. Delirium
The conquering Kirov
At long last, the concert I’d been waiting for since I heard the Philadelphia Orchestra play The Rite of Spring in September. Valery Gergiev (pictured left) conducted the Kirov Orchestra last night at the Kimmel Center in Philly, in a special one-off Stravinsky program. First they played the complete Firebird, then the Rite. I’d been looking forward to the Rite
Goodbye, Tom
Word is spreading that Tom Terrell, one of the most versatile of music journalists and an all-around great guy, has died of cancer, much much too young. I didn’t know Tom well, but ever since our first brief introduction earlier this decade, he would hug me every time we crossed paths. Last September 11 there was a benefit in Tribeca
The real Giuliani
I saw this footage when it first aired years ago on NY-1, and I felt that it spoke volumes about Rudy Giuliani’s character. Now that he’s campaigning, if questions are raised about, say, his dealings with Bernard Kerik, it won’t be so easy for him to bully his way out. I shudder to think of this man with runaway executive