Night After Night

"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.

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.

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)

Weekend Arts Planner, Oct. 15, 2022.

Wendell Pierce and Sharon D. Clarke in 'Death of a Salesman' (Photograph: Joan Marcus)

The latest episode of Weekend Arts Planner, my weekly chat with Weekend Edition host David Furst that airs every Saturday morning on WNYC, covers noteworthy doings presented by the Hudson Theatre and The Greene Space. (Full disclosure: the latter is a venue owned and operated by my employer, New York Public Radio).

Have a listen, or just read the text and follow the links, here.