Month: September 2020

Book Review: “Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong” — The King of All Kings

September 30, 2020
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He may be extreme as a polemicist, but Ricky Riccardi shines when he sticks to jazz’s history. 

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Television Review: “Filthy Rich” — Crass Warfare

September 30, 2020
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For fans of novellas, Filthy Rich will be a trashy guilty pleasure.

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Jazz Concert Review: The Lloyd-Hussain-Lage Trio — Live from Healdsburg

September 30, 2020
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Charles Lloyd and Julian Lage and Zakir Hussain served a loose, flowing 65-minute set with complementary facility that belied the novel circumstances.

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Theater Review: Penny Arcade — Provincetown, Puritans, and the Pandemic

September 29, 2020
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I’ve hated enough people,” Penny Arcade confessed, “I can’t hate anyone new until 2022.”

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Short Fuse Podcast #29 — A Birthday Show, Recorded Before 2020 Really Sucked

September 29, 2020
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No matter where our lives were at just nine months ago, most of us are now longing for those pre-pandemic days. Jump into this week’s jukebox of an episode for a trip back in time.

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Poetry Remembrance: John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” — Forever Young at 200

September 29, 2020
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Keats is comfortable in that ambiguous space between reality and the imagination, and you will find no finer example of Romantic poetry when he fuses them in the language of an erotic dream.

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Concert Review: Farm Aid 2020 — The Promise of the Real

September 29, 2020
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When Willie dove into “On the Road Again” to close the set, singing of “making music with my friends,” one could envision the same hopes for Farm Aid to resume its annual trek to an amphitheater somewhere in America and stoke the communal cause.

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Opera Album Review: A Terrific Recording of a Handel Pathbreaker — Powered by a Rock-Star Mezzo-Soprano

September 28, 2020
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Agrippina (1709), an enormous hit at the Met this past season, proves, by turns, gripping, sardonic, and exquisite.

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Film Review: “Cuties” — Girls Just Wanna Have Smartphones

September 26, 2020
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The real problem is the obsessive engagement with social media platforms that encourages attention-seeking behavior, and rewards it.

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Jazz Remembrance: Ira Sullivan

September 26, 2020
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In no way was the recognition that Ira Sullivan received commensurate with his skill.

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