Review

Concert Review: The 2022 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival — The Blessed Return of Musical Serendipity

May 29, 2022
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We’d returned to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. We’d ridden a paddle-wheeler on the Mississippi River. It was good to be back, and why we’ll go back every chance we get: to life.

Film Review: “Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story” — Close to an Infomercial

May 29, 2022
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If the filmmakers are going to delve into the Jazz Fest vaults, how is it possible to show only a few seconds of Professor Longhair and nothing of James Booker, the Meters, the Neville Brothers? Not good.

Album Review: William Bolcom’s Complete Rags — Fantastically Inventive and Rigorous

May 28, 2022
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This is the definitive recording of William Bolcom’s rags, complete or excerpted: a triumph for the pianist and the composer – as well as a grandly spirited, accessible, inventive journey for any who care to join them on it.

Book Review: Humanizing Our Youth — “Gen Z, Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age”

May 28, 2022
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Throughout, Gen Z, Explained does its best to help readers relate to its protagonists by placing them in Gen Z’s shoes.

Album Review: Keb’ Mo’s “Good to Be…” — Too Contented

May 27, 2022
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At his best — and there are indeed moments of that here — Keb’ Mo’ is a genre-bender who brings new listeners to blues, folk, and smooth soul music.

Visual Arts Review: Color on Plaster – Frescoes from Pompeii in New York

May 26, 2022
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If you are in New York this week there is plenty of art to see. Just a short walk from the Metropolitan Museum is a show that you will probably never see again. You can visit it for free. It closes this weekend.

Listening During Covid, Part 11: Making Classical Music New in All Kinds of Ways

May 26, 2022
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Two exquisite sopranos bring us refreshing songs, arias, and cantatas; and a noted Broadway composer and a remarkable Black librettist offer a searing opera about police brutality.

Pop Album Review: Florence + The Machine’s “Dance Fever” – Inside the Artist’s Mind

May 26, 2022
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Dance Fever is one of the few pandemic-themed artworks that doesn’t feel contrived — it is specific about the value of music to the individual and by extension to the community.

Film Commentary: Three Amazing Movies Turn 50

May 24, 2022
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A terrifically significant, and eccentric, trio of films are turning 50 this year: Marjoe, Pink Flamingos, and Silent Running.

Film Commentary: “Inland Empire” — The Dreamer Who Dreams

May 24, 2022
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David Lynch’s Inland Empire is a provocative challenge to filmmaking as a medium of visual storytelling that’s largely gone unmatched in the sixteen years since its initial release.

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