Posts

Jazz CD Review / Appreciation: Jane Ira Bloom’s “Sixteen Sunsets” – Jazz Mastery, Undiluted

January 14, 2014
Posted in , , ,

In nearly 78 minutes of intensely concentrated playing, Jane Ira Bloom’s album offers some of the greatest ballad performances I have ever heard.

Read More

Rock Album Review: Bruce Springsteen’s “High Hopes”

January 14, 2014
Posted in , , ,

Bruce Springsteen’s “High Hopes” is a collection of covers, reinventions, and new recordings of odds and ends that have been kicking around for the past decade-plus.

Read More

CriticIsm Commentary: The Welcome Buccaneers of Arts Criticism

January 13, 2014
Posted in ,

“Criticism will always have the force of the child in the story about the emperor’s new clothes, because there will always be naked emperors who everybody says are wearing today’s Crown Jewels.” — Eric Bentley

Read More

Concert Review: The Boston Celtic Music Festival — A Rousing Break From Winter

January 13, 2014
Posted in , ,

The music was loud, the dancers laughing and sweating and clearly happy to be liberated from their cabin-fever inducing confines to let loose and have some fun.

Read More

Concert Review: “La Pasión según San Marco” at Symphony Hall

January 13, 2014
Posted in , ,

There’s much in “La Pasión” to like. Composer Osvaldo Golijov’s use of Latin and South American musical forms has been well documented: the piece offers a striking compendium of idioms covering a huge geographical range.

Read More

Fuse Theater Review: The Musical “Once” — Music as Healing and Community

January 12, 2014
Posted in , ,

John Tiffany’s Tony-winning direction of “Once,” restaged for the current tour, is a miracle of judicious rhythmic choices and deft transitions.

Read More

Poetry Commentary: Thoughts on Reading a New Translation of The Iliad

January 12, 2014
Posted in , ,

Powell, the translator, a respected classicist, is noted for promulgating the theory that the Greek alphabet was designed precisely in order to capture epic poetry, provide some approximation of its sounds.

Read More

Book Review: “Back to Back” — A Powerful Portrait of East German Trauma, Personal and Political

January 11, 2014
Posted in , , ,

Using her family’s history as a springboard, Julia Franck has created exemplary figures forced to navigate the treacherous shoals of her country’s history.

Read More

Concert Review: Leon Russell and Hot Tuna — Aging Gracefully on the Margins

January 11, 2014
Posted in , ,

This week’s show found both acts — Leon Russell and Hot Tuna — kicking—with huskier voices and slower tempos, to be sure.

Read More

Theater Review: “Venus in Fur” — No S & M Please, We’re American

January 10, 2014
Posted in , ,

“Venus in Fur” could be best described as cheeky rather than kinky, more of a talky intellectual exercise than a zesty exploration of the allure of sexual domination and submission.

Read More

Recent Posts

Popular Posts

Categories

Archives