The Night After Night Archives

"Love Songs: A Creation Story in Four Acts and Four Voices"

John Zorn (Photograph courtesy National Sawdust)

"Love Songs: A Creation Story in Four Acts and Four Voices"
National Sawdust
Sept. 8, 2023

"We prefer pieces that play with the style and format of traditional profiles," the kind folks at National Sawdust told me when I agreed to write a preview story ahead of Love Songs, the new off-Broadway music-styled show by John Zorn and Jesse Harris that has its premiere performances at the Brooklyn venue on Saturday, Sept. 16, and Sunday, Sept. 17.

Challenge accepted.

Love Songs is a delicious piece, with gorgeous music by Zorn and stylish lyrics and book by Harris, and it'll be deliciously performed by singer Petra Haden with pianist Brian Marsella, bassist Jorge Roeder, and percussionist Ches Smith. I look forward to seeing the fully cast and staged version due for production at The New School sometime in 2024.

This current engagement is part of an ongoing year-long global celebration of Zorn's 70th birthday, which also includes further events at Roulette and Miller Theatre, and in Boston and Minneapolis. You'll find links in my preview, in the paragraph that starts "The setting is National Sawdust…"

And don't miss the interview Rebecca Slaman conducted with Jesse and Petra, also on the National Sawdust website. Beauty and chaos, indeed.

Gothamist: Jonathon Heyward interview, Aug. 3, 2023.

Jonathon Heyward (Photograph: Laura Thiesbrummel)

"Conductor Jonathon Heyward is poised to make history in NYC and Baltimore"
Gothamist, Aug. 3, 2023

My final contribution to Gothamist is this extended version of an interview with conductor Jonathon Heyward – the new music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the newly announced music director of whatever the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra will be called when it returns next summer – which I scripted and Tiffany Hanssen conducted. The slightly shorter version of the interview that aired on WNYC last weekend is embedded in this story, too.

Heyward is conducting the orchestra on Friday and Saturday nights, Aug. 4 and 5, at David Geffen Hall; details here.

WNYC: Weekend Arts Planner, July 29, 2023.

Endea Owens (Photograph courtesy Jazz at Lincoln Center and Bryant Park)

The latest Weekend Arts Planner segment for WNYC, which aired on Weekend Edition on Saturday, July 29, covered items selected from a Gothamist story published on Thursday: "25 free things to do in NYC this August."

David Furst and I talked about Free Shakespeare in the Park, happening now in Central Park; Beach Session Dance Series, coming up Aug. 26 on Rockaway Beach; and Live After Dark, a new concert series debuting Aug. 1 at Bryant Park. We closed with a quick mention of a 45th anniversary celebration for Roulette, featuring Immanuel Wilkins, 75 Dollar Bill, and Ka Baird, at Bryant Park on Aug. 26.

First up in that last series is fast-rising bassist, composer, and bandleader Endea Owens, who also plays a free Jazz at Lincoln Center showcase outdoors in Times Square on Aug. 31, part of the TSQ Live series. And a Gothamist reader quickly let me know I'd missed one more free gig featuring Owens, on Saturday, Aug. 26, at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, on day two of the annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival.

Listen above, and read more here.

Gothamist: 7 Picks a Week, July 28, 2023.

Endea Owens (Photograph courtesy of the artist)

My contributions to "7 Picks a Week," the weekly Gothamist guide of arts and culture events and happenings in and around New York City. The complete article can be found here.

Check out fast-rising bassist Endea Owens for free

Detroit bassist, composer and bandleader Endea Owens is making a big noise lately on the New York City jazz scene, and here's where you can find out why: On Tuesday, Owens and her soulful combo, The Cookout, will inaugurate "Live After Dark," a new weekly series at Bryant Park. It's not happening on the sprawling lawn, but instead on the more intimate L'OR Porch on the park's south side. The show starts at 8 p.m., and it's free. And if you can't catch Owens & Co. here, you'll get another chance on Aug. 31, when Jazz at Lincoln Center hosts the band smack-dab in the middle of Times Square; details here.

Encounter a Sondheim hit in a whole new way.

Also happening at Lincoln Center on Wednesday is a new production of the Stephen Sondheim musical "Company," presented in collaboration with Deaf Broadway and performed by deaf actors in American Sign Language. The show is directed by James Caverly ("Only Murders in the Building") and stars Garrett Zuercher ("Law & Order: Criminal Intent") as Bobby, with a 2011 concert recording, featuring Neil Patrick Harris and Patti LuPone with the New York Philharmonic, serving as an auditory soundtrack. The show starts at 8 p.m. in Damrosch Park; learn more here.

WNYC: Weekend Arts Planner, July 22, 2023.

John-Andrew Morrison (L) and Allen Gilmore (R) in "Malvolio," staged by Classical Theatre of Harlem at Marcus Garvey Park. (Photograph courtesy Classical Theatre of Harlem)

The latest Weekend Arts Planner segment for WNYC, which aired on Weekend Edition on Saturday, July 22, covered a series of Shakespeare-related plays happening in New York City parks – including Betty Shamieh's ingenious Malvolio, which closes this coming Sunday – plus the latest and last Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra season, and a couple of big concerts featuring Kool & the Gang and DJ Rekha in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Listen above, and read more here.

Gothamist: 7 Picks a Week, July 21, 2023.

Conductor Louis Langrée starts his final series as music director of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra on Saturday. (Photograph: Sachyn Mital)

My contributions to "7 Picks a Week," the weekly Gothamist guide of arts and culture events and happenings in and around New York City. The complete article can be found here.

Celebrate summer music in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park

It’s been 50 years since Kool & the Gang scored their first hit with “Jungle Boogie,” but the group has even more history: as Jersey City teenagers, its members first hooked up as the Jazziacs in 1964. Two of those founders, bassist Robert “Kool” Bell and drummer-turned-keyboardist George Brown, are still in the band, which just dropped a new album, “People Just Wanna Have Fun,” and Brown has just published a memoir, “Too Hot: Kool & The Gang & Me.” The band is headlining a free City Parks SummerStage show at Flushing Meadows Corona Park on Saturday night; get your groove on with songs like “Ladies Night,” “Too Hot” and “Celebration,” and then come back Sunday evening for a “Bhangra Bacchanal” hosted by Basement Bhangra founder DJ Rekha featuring legendary Punjabi vocalist Malkit Singh.

Visit a cemetery for a taste of New York City on film

Rooftop Films has kept NYC film fans busy with free outdoor screenings of action flicks, family fare and documentaries all summer long. Now, this weekend, they're hosting one of their signature events, and while it's not free, you'll get a lot of value for under $20. "New York Non-Fiction," invitingly described as "Eight million stories, five short films, one night," opens with live music from Mediterranean surf-rock stylists Habbina Habbina, followed by five short films covering such NYC topics as artistic genius, delivery workers and the dollar slice. It's all happening at Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery on Saturday at around 8 p.m., and you can order tickets here.

Mark the end of an era with Mostly Mozart

The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra is back in action during the weeks ahead — and it's a farewell engagement in more ways than one. The talented French conductor Louis Langrée has served as music director of the festival and its band since 2003. During his 20-year tenure, he revitalized the orchestra and helped to turn the festival from a sleepy summer series into a must-see proposition. This summer's series is his last, and he'll start with a free concert in Damrosch Park on Saturday night. After that, the orchestra returns to David Geffen Hall for the first time since 2019, presenting a series of choose-what-you=pay concerts. The program on Tuesday and Wednesday demonstrates Langrée's knack for forging meaningful connections between the classical tradition and the wider world, pairing Mozart's Mass in C minor with a world premiere by Amir ElSaffar, an improvising trumpeter of Iraqi-American descent. A sense of farewell also extends to the orchestra, which will return next summer with a new name and a new music director, Jonathon Heyward, who you can see in action Aug. 4 and 5. Check out details for the entire series here.

7 Picks a Week, Nov. 25, 2022.

Raphael Payare (Photograph courtesy Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal)

My contributions to the latest installment of 7 picks a week, the arts and culture guide I compile weekly for Gothamist.

See mysticism and melancholy through a world-famous painter's eyes

"Exodus," an exhibition of recent works by the German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer, is so big one coast couldn't contain it. Part of the show is on view at Gagosian's space at 555 West 24th Street in Chelsea; the other part is housed at Gagosian at Marciano Art Foundation, in Los Angeles. Evoking themes from ancient mythology, the Book of Exodus and the writings of E.T.A. Hoffmann and Paul Celan, Kiefer conjures old gods, monuments and ruins in his characteristically haunting manner. Gagosian, through Friday, Dec. 23; gagosian.com

Be astonished by a jazz quartet's fiery flights

If you've ever had the experience of feeling so overwhelmed by the intensity of a group's cooperation that all you could do was smile and laugh in dumbstruck awe, you've got a good idea of what to anticipate in an encounter with John Zorn's New Masada Quartet. Playing material from Zorn's Masada songbooks – part Jewish theme, part free-jazz steam – the iconoclastic saxophonist's group with guitarist Julian Lage, bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Kenny Wollesen is among the most joyous outfits he's ever led, and that joy is contagious. Roulette, Sunday, Nov. 27 at 8 p.m.; roulette.org

See a rising-star conductor lead the New York Philharmonic for the first time

Conductor Rafael Payare, like his world-famous colleague Gustavo Dudamel, came up through the fabled Venezuelan training program El Sistema, and sprang from the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra to a globe-spanning career. At age 42, he is music director of two outstanding ensembles, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, and should make an electrifying first impression on New York Philharmonic audience members with Shostakovich's Symphony No. 12, subtitled "The Year 1917." David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center, Thursday, Dec. 1 – Saturday, Dec. 3, times vary; nyphil.org

7 Picks a Week, Nov. 18, 2022.

Jason Moran and The Bandwagon (Photograph courtesy of the artists)

My contributions to the latest installment of 7 picks a week, the arts and culture guide I compile weekly for Gothamist.

See how the Great Migration inspired a cellist to make a move

Already known as one of the finest young cellists of his generation, Seth Parker Woods reveals himself to be considerably more in this original multidisciplinary performance piece. Taking the Great Migration as his theme, Woods serves as soloist, narrator, and motion artist in a program comprised of poetry by Amiri Baraka and Dudley Randall, choreography by dancer Roderick George, film and contemporary pieces created by a wide variety of composers — including, in this newest iteration, new music by Ted Hearne and Devonté Hynes (a.k.a. Blood Orange). And if you can’t attend in person, livestream tickets are available. Saturday, Nov. 19 at 7:30 p.m.; 92ny.org

View new films from around the world without leaving your sofa

Whether you're eager to revisit the bounty of global cinema screened at this year's 12th annual Queens World Film Festival earlier this month or you missed the entire thing, you've got a second chance to see a slate of films from across the country and around the world during a virtual encore festival that starts this Sunday. Sign up for a smorgasbord of shorts or a single feature for $10, or indulge in an all-you-can-watch festival pass covering more than 100 offerings for $50. Sunday, Nov. 20 – Sunday, Dec. 4; FilmFestivalFlix.com

Jump on the Bandwagon at the world's most storied jazz club

Befitting his status as a MacArthur Fellow, Jason Moran is an impressively multi-hyphenate creative: pianist, composer, educator, curator, record-label impresario, visual artist and collaborator to formidable fellow artists like Joan Jonas, Glenn Ligon, Ragnar Kjartansson and Kara Walker. But every year (pandemic willing), in what's become a Thanksgiving-week ritual as welcome as pumpkin pie and the big parade, Moran brings it all back home to the Village Vanguard for a stint with The Bandwagon, his tight-knit trio with bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits. Tuesday, Nov. 22 – Sunday, Nov. 27 at 8 & 10 p.m.; villagevanguard.com

Swing by a Greenwich Village gallery for jazz-infused art

Speaking of jazz artists who also engage in visual media, “The Art of Counterpoint: 8 Musicians Make Art” features works by creators better known as jazz performers. The show, just opened at Zürcher Gallery, on Bleecker Street in the heart of Greenwich Village, includes works by historic icons Marion Brown, Bill Dixon, and Ted Joans, as well as living innovators Douglas R. Ewart, Oliver Lake, Matana Roberts, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and Wadada Leo Smith. You can view the catalog in advance here. Through Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023; galeriezurcher.com

7 Picks a Week, Nov. 11, 2022.

Nina Chanel Abney exhibition (Photograph courtesy Pace Prints)

Here are my contributions to the latest installment of 7 picks a week, the arts and culture guide I compile weekly for Gothamist.

Celebrate a hard-working jazz trio's 10th anniversary

Serendipity had a hand in the formation of Thumbscrew, when bassist Michael Formanek filled in as a substitute player in a band that featured guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. A decade later, the well-traveled working trio celebrates 10 years of uncommon chemistry and sly, nimble music, as heard on "Multicolored Midnight," its recently released seventh album. The Jazz Gallery, Friday, Nov. 11 and Saturday, Nov. 12 at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.; jazzgallery.org (Steve Smith)

Gawk at the real trappings of royalty between episodes of "The Crown"

If you plan to queue up for a blockbuster exhibition this fall, “The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England” is the one to choose. The show covers a historic span from the ascent of Henry VII in 1485 to the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, a time of creative fecundity and promiscuous patronage. The show includes more than 100 works – paintings, armor, manuscripts, and more – by gifted artists and craftsmen from throughout Europe, while also chronicling the emergence of a nascent British style. Metropolitan Museum of Art, through Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023; metmuseum.org (Steve Smith)

Hear dreamy music in the building Anna Delvey couldn't buy

Known as an adventurous cellist and founder of the American Chamber Music Ensemble, Clarice Jensen increasingly has turned her hand lately to writing mesmerizing solo and chamber compositions. She'll be joined by ACME colleagues this week to play music from her vivid, varied new album, "Esthesis," in the elegant building at 281 Park Ave South, made famous by the Netflix film "Inventing Anna." Fotografiska New York, Thursday, Nov. 17 at 7 p.m.; fotografiska.com (Steve Smith)

7 Picks a Week, Nov. 4, 2022.

David Lynch (Photograph: Josh Telles)

On Friday, Nov. 4, we rebooted the web post previously called Weekend Arts Planner. We moved it up to Friday, in hopes that it could serve to actually help folks plan their weekends and not just the days beyond. And we opened it up to more voices and perspectives from throughout the WNYC newssoom, as well as friends from WQXR and All of It.

I'm very happy with the overall mix. The following are my own contributions…

Get creeped out by David Lynch’s visual art

If you’re a fan of the idiosyncratic filmmaker David Lynch, then you’ve got a strong idea of what to anticipate in “Big Bongo Night,” his first exhibition since signing with Pace Gallery. The show includes mixed-media sculptures, paintings, and a work on paper, all infused with the same qualities of creeping dread and disorientation that saturate his cinematic oeuvre. Pace Gallery, through Dec. 17; pacegallery.com (Steve Smith)

Hear elemental sounds from a band featuring two MacArthur geniuses

Jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader Myra Melford has been assembling impressive bands for decades now — but her newest ensemble is a head-turner all the same. The group, called Fire and Water, features two recent recipients of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship (a.k.a. “Genius Grant”), guitarist Mary Halvorson and cellist Tomeka Reid. Saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Lesley Mok complete the lineup when the band comes to Roulette in Brooklyn to celebrate its debut CD, “For the Love of Fire and Water.” Roulette, Monday, Nov. 7 at 8 p.m.; roulette.org (Steve Smith)

Check out the first-ever solo museum show by Theaster Gates

It’s hard to believe that “Young Lords and Their Traces” is the first-ever solo museum survey devoted to the art of Theaster Gates, so widespread and pervasive are the Chicago artist’s work and influence. Active in the fields of sculpture, installation art and collaborative performance, Gates elevates the thinkers who shaped society, in his hometown and in the U.S., through paintings, sculptures, videos, and performances. New Museum, Thursday, Nov. 10–Feb. 5, 2023; newmuseum.org (Steve Smith)