The term “crossover artist” wasn’t used much in jazz until after the fusion era (the jazz/rock explosion from the late ’60s to mid-’70s), and was coined when some jazz singers and musicians added pop and R&B elements to keep or increase their popularity. But 79-year-old pianist Ramsey Lewis has always proven ahead of his time. He even pre-dated fusion with his trio's … [Read more...]
Archives for December 2014
‘Top Five’ leaves room amid chaotic comedy for wisdom
Chris Rock’s Top Five isn’t one of the best movies of the year, but it’s undoubtedly the coolest. It’s the movie I’d most want to hang out with, as a fly on the wall of its hyper-realistically detailed locations: under the unforgiving lights of a comedy club, in the nihilistic privacy of a luxury hotel, in the Cristal-popping velvet booths of a strip club — even in a jail … [Read more...]
Escher Quartet plays Haydn, Beethoven with warmth, dazzle
Of the many string quartets that have visited Palm Beach in the past 10 years, the Escher String Quartet has accolades a-plenty: the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, artists-in-residence at the BBC and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Close on 10 years old as a group, they take their name from the celebrated Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher. This very … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Pops readies return to local concert life
When Palm Beach Pops founder Bob Lappin died suddenly at age 78 in August 2013, the orchestra he had founded 22 years earlier went silent. There were those who argued that the last thing in the world Lappin would have wanted for his orchestra was for it to go out of existence, but the orchestra’s new executive director, Charlotte Laurent-Ottomane, said the organization was in … [Read more...]
The View From Home 65: Antonioni’s ramble, Malle’s anarchic comedy, another Korean shocker
L’Avventura: It is one of filmdom’s great synchronicities that Michelangelo Antonioni unveiled L’Avventura (Criterion, $27.59 Blu-ray, $26.96 DVD) the same year Alfred Hitchcock unleashed Psycho. These films, released in 1960, challenged cinematic conventions in similar ways by dispatching their ostensible protagonists within the first third of the movie, causing narrative … [Read more...]
A refined Chopin from Anievas at PB Symphony
The stage at the Society of the Four Arts for Wednesday’s Palm Beach Symphony concert had but a few chairs and a concert grand piano on display. “No percussion, no brass, no winds,’’ said the young couple behind me, sotto voce, before the concert began. Their keen observation spoke volumes. Ramón Tebar, after five years at the helm of the orchestra, has cleverly matched his … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 5-7
Theater: You’ve already seen Fiddler on the Roof more times than you can recall, right? And if you’re like me, you love the show, but wish that its original director-choreographer, the late Jerome Robbins, would loosen the reins and allow other stagings. If so, then the Maltz Jupiter Theatre has a production you should not miss. Marcia Milgrom Dodge, whose Hello, Dolly! and The … [Read more...]
Norton’s 500 years of prints a true master’s course
To the large crowd that attended his recent talk while still holding their magnifying glasses, Norton Museum curator Jerry Dobrick said the museum was incredibly lucky. And he was not talking about a large monetary donation. Dobrick, the museum’s curatorial associate for European art, was referring to the 43 works by old and modern masters that make up Master Prints: Dürer to … [Read more...]
Funny, searing ‘Bad Jews’ features powerhouse lead performance
There are many ways to be a bad Jew. You could sneak a cookie during Passover. You could dishonor your grandfather by going on a skiing trip as he takes to his deathbed. Or you could propose to your shiksa girlfriend, with a gold charm that grandpa risked his life to retain during the Holocaust. In fact, a character in Joshua Harmon’s corrosive, and corrosively funny, play — … [Read more...]
Health care too focused on repair, not happiness, physician says
Modern medicine excels at treating illness while it mostly sidesteps patients’ end-of-life fears and hopes, which is the theme of Being Mortal, a thoughtful new book by Harvard University surgeon and author Atul Gawande. “I learned a lot of things in medical school, but mortality wasn’t one of them,” Gawande writes. “Our textbooks had almost nothing on aging or frailty or … [Read more...]