Review

Jazz Album Reviews: Cal Tjader’s Quintet and Wes Montgomery with the Wynton Kelly Trio in the Mid-’60s

November 15, 2023
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Two upcoming releases of restored radio broadcasts offer so much good listening and so much deeply satisfying jazz that they deserve to share the spotlight. One of them is destined to be seen as a landmark document in jazz history.

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Jazz Album Review: “Seven Skies Orchestra” — Ramping Up the Musical Possibilities

November 13, 2023
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Tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman’s work is customarily full of subtle surprises, akimbo with shifts and side-trips. This new recording, with a sextet, is no exception.

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Concert Review: Sir András Schiff — A Night to Remember

November 13, 2023
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The pianist provided a 150-minute long procession of anecdotes, thoughts, and absolutely first-class playing for his adoring, thoroughly attentive audience, who happily bought tickets to hear whatever Sir András Schiff chose to play.

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Classical Album Review: World-Premiere Recording of Kurt Weill’s “Prophets” and Thomas Hampson in Weill’s “Whitman Songs”

November 12, 2023
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A world-premiere recording of Kurt Weill’s “Prophets” — originally intended as the last act of “The Eternal Road” — with excellent singers, plus Thomas Hampson in Weill’s Walt Whitman Songs.

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Classical Album Reviews: Emerson String Quartet’s “Infinite Voyage” and Robert Trevino conducts Respighi

November 12, 2023
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The Emerson String Quartet concludes its recorded legacy pretty much the way it began it — in musical glory. Robert Trevino and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI’s Respighi has plenty of spirit and heart.

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Television Review: “The Curse” — Inept White Saviors

November 11, 2023
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The series’s fierce satiric take down of America’s enlightened white elite is brilliant.

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Book Review: Anna Biller’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” — Imprisoned by Toxic Masculinity

November 10, 2023
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“Bluebeard’s Castle” is a sexy but subversive romance novel steeped in Gothic imagery.

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Doc Talk: Outspoken and Proud at the Wicked Queer Doc Fest

November 10, 2023
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As these two films at the Wicked Queer Doc Fest indicate, being non-hetero-normative in a patriarchal society is unavoidably a political statement.

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Visual Arts Commentary: “Fashioned by Sargent” — The Elephant in the Room

November 9, 2023
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The MFA’s Fashioned by Sargent alludes — only at whisper level — to the fact that many of John Singer Sargent’s clients represent questionable ideals.

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Book Review: “The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch” — Jane Austen, Bedeviled

November 9, 2023
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Melinda Taub’s thoroughly enjoyable new novel joins other notable pastiches of Jane Austen’s classic story.

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