Featured Articles
Fuse Music Review: The Yellowjackets — A Jazz Journey Across Decades and Styles
Jazz buffs know about the Yellowjackets. This is a Grammy-winning band that writes and performs complicated, intricate compositions that cross countless boundaries and thus make them difficult to pigeon-hole.
Fuse DVD/Blu-Ray Review: “A Hard Day’s Night” — Still Fun After Five Decades
A Hard Day’s Night stands as a landmark in rock history because it exemplifies the Beatles’s joyously innocent starting point — today it delivers an irresistible sonic joy that comes from listening to songs that still rock after fifty years.
Fuse CD Review: Shabazz Palaces’ “Lese Majesty” — Out-of-This-World Hip-Hop
Some listeners are undoubtedly going to dismiss Lese Majesty as a collection of vignettes or motifs, formless for all intents and purposes. That would be a shame.
Fuse Coming Attractions: What Will Light Your Fire This Week
Arts Fuse critics select the best in music, film, theater, visual arts, author readings, and dance that’s coming up in the next week.
Fuse Music Commentary: The Mess at the Met
What’s clear is that something needs to give and, after nearly thirty-five years of labor-management harmony, it’s apparent that the Met’s problems start at the top.
Fuse Book Review: An Evocative Biography of Zionist Agitator and Writer Vladmir Jabotinsky
There’s room to wonder if Vladmir Jabotinsky would have accepted Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu as his legitimate Zionist heirs.
Coming Attractions in Jazz: Midsummer Festival Update 2014
Cambridge and Springfield have launched promising new festivals even as some others have dropped by the wayside. Meanwhile, festivals in Northampton, Cambridge (again), Lawrence, and Newton have announced their schedules..
Precision and obvious competence were only part of the story. What made this concert from The Young Artists Orchestra so special was the joy conveyed by these fledgling musicians.
In Brief
- Fuse Coming Attractions: What Will Light Your Fire This Week
Arts Fuse critics select the best in music, film, theater, visual arts, author readings, and dance that’s coming up in the next week.
- From the Editor’s Desk: Save the A.R.T.’s Tinker Bell — Clap Your Hands If You Believe in Cash
A major regional theater is turning itself into a launching pad for Broadway/Las Vegas blockbusters, with Hollywood pouring cash and advice into the pipeline. .
- Fuse Remembrance: Otto Piene, Pioneer Environmental Artist and Former Director of MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies
The late Otto Piene was a world-class artist. He created large scale and elegant environmental art pieces that seamlessly combined art, participation, and technology.
- Fuse Visual Arts Feature: Tadao Ando at the Clark — More than Meets the Eye in Williamstown
Tadao Ando’s new Clark, minimalist in its materials and understated presence, is more Zen than a billboard for its disparate architectural elements, more harmony than postmodern dissonance.
Music
Fuse Music Review: The Yellowjackets — A Jazz Journey Across Decades and Styles
Jazz buffs know about the Yellowjackets. This is a Grammy-winning band that writes and performs complicated, intricate compositions that cross countless boundaries and thus make them difficult to pigeon-hole.
Theater
Charles Morey’s new comedy focuses on the trials and tribulations of aging writers. Most of its humor revolves around the past, while its plot hinges on the present and future.
Film
Fuse DVD/Blu-Ray Review: “A Hard Day’s Night” — Still Fun After Five Decades
A Hard Day’s Night stands as a landmark in rock history because it exemplifies the Beatles’s joyously innocent starting point — today it delivers an irresistible sonic joy that comes from listening to songs that still rock after fifty years.
Literature
Fuse Book Review: An Evocative Biography of Zionist Agitator and Writer Vladmir Jabotinsky
There’s room to wonder if Vladmir Jabotinsky would have accepted Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu as his legitimate Zionist heirs.
Visual Arts
Fuse Visual Arts Review: “Turner & the Sea” at the Peabody Essex Museum — A Grand Performance
Some of J.M.W. Turner’s most personal, experimental, and enigmatic works have been selected for this show. They are also among the most fragile and least often shown.
Dance
Fuse Dance Feature: Wonder X 2
In red gloves and dark glasses, popping and locking, the Wondertwins are both imposing humans and robotic objects, organic and mechanical reproduction.
Television
Television Review: “Louie” at Season Four — Art House TV
Louie is a difficult show to advertise because it is the only example of art-television at the moment.
Food
Fuse Food Review: At Sam LaGrassa’s — Corned Beef, The Essence of Jewish Goodness
The best corned beef in the Boston area by far is, get this, at an Italian lunch joint in Downtown Crossing, Sam LaGrassa’s.
Video Games
Fuse Video Game Commentary: The Ideology of “Angry Birds” — Back to “Animal Farm”
The mega-popular video game Angry Birds is nothing if not hypocritical. A story of political and moral resistance is packaged to fill corporate coffers.
Judicial Review
REVISED: Judicial Review #11: “The Great Gatsby” — A Great Opera?
This Judicial Review deals with the Boston premiere of John Harbison’s opera version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. Read the reactions and join the conversation.
Commentary
Precision and obvious competence were only part of the story. What made this concert from The Young Artists Orchestra so special was the joy conveyed by these fledgling musicians.
Interview
Fuse Music Feature: At the Lowell Folk Festival — “Da Butt” is no joke for EU
Sugar Bear and his legendary go-go band are coming to the Lowell Folk Festival.
Preview
Fuse Coming Attractions: What Will Light Your Fire This Week
Arts Fuse critics select the best in music, film, theater, visual arts, author readings, and dance that’s coming up in the next week.
Review
Fuse Music Review: The Yellowjackets — A Jazz Journey Across Decades and Styles
Jazz buffs know about the Yellowjackets. This is a Grammy-winning band that writes and performs complicated, intricate compositions that cross countless boundaries and thus make them difficult to pigeon-hole.
2014 Summer Fundraiser
Fuse Fundraiser: July 2013-July 2014 — The Year That Was For The Arts Fuse
We have lots of plans to expand our readership and reach, to build new ways for our readers to read our online arts magazine. But we need some more resources and support to make this happen.
The Arts Fuse Thanks:
Join the Discussion!