Eisa Davis in the spotlight at Jack in Brooklyn on April 23, 2014.. (Photos © 2014, Steven P. Marsh)
The magnificent Eisa Davis, who you’ve probably seen somewhere on TV if you didn’t meet her, like I did, through “Passing Strange,” is not just a singer and actress, but an accomplished playwright as well.
Posted in Concerts, Music, Off-Broadway, Pop and Rock, Theater, Uncategorized
Tagged Eisa Davis, Jack, Passing Strange, Rebecca Naomi Jones
Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs at NYC”s Mercury Lounge on April 21, 2014. (Photos © 2014, Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)
The first time I listened to the latest album from Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs, All Her Fault, I was left wanting more Holly and less Brokeoffs. There was something about Golightly’s albums from her early days as a solo artist (post-Thee Headcoatees) in the 1990s that really touched me.
Maybe it was her damaged, smoky vocals or her equally damaged-sounding persona. Or maybe I simply liked her voice.
But all that seems buried in her latest release. I wanted more Holly.
But maybe that’s exactly the idea — to leave the listener wanting more. It takes a bit of active listening to get to that, but the eureka moment is well worth the effort. Itstrikes me as more personal and less superficially accessible than those that came before. But it winds up being a brilliant, honky-tonk-inflected personal statement of a pretty together couple. Continue reading
Some of my readers may recognize the main headline of this post as a quote from the musical play “Passing Strange.”
It’s Mr. Franklin, the church choir director talking, sitting in a VW Bug with some of his musical charges, holding a “prayer circle” whose sacramental ritual involved smoking weed.
It was hardly the only touching moment in the 2008 Tony-winning musical, but it was one of the more memorable.
I often say, jokingly, that everything in my life somehow connects to “Passing Strange.” When I look at the artists and performances that have inspired me over the years since I first encountered the show in a developmental form then known as “Travelogue,” back around 2004, many of them are somehow connected to the existential musical play.
Later this month, three key members of the “Passing Strange” family — Stew, who wrote the book and lyrics and co-wrote the music with Heidi Rodewald, and actors from the original production Colman Domingo and Eisa Davis — and a slew of other notable writers and performers will be involved in the New York Live Arts “Live Ideas Festival: James Baldwin, This Time!” (Tap or click here for schedule and ticket options.)
Posted in Dance, Free, Uncategorized
Tagged Carl Hancock Rux, Colman Domingo, Eisa Davis, James Baldwin, New York Live Arts, Passing Strange, Stew
Pianist Vladimir Feltsman
Pianist Vladimir Feltsman arrived in the United States a quarter century ago after spending eight years as essentially a nonperson in the Soviet Union, his homeland. After finally being permitted to emigrate to the West, the former refusenik has tried hard to stop talking about those dark days.
After years of playing many concerts every year, he’s settled into a schedule of a smaller number of carefully selected appearances, always performing superbly, but always on the hunt for the sweet spot. As he tells me in a conversation for lohud.com/The Journal News: “On some good days — it’s not always happening — but when it’s happening, it feels great. There’s like an exchange of energy, which is very much real and tangible, between public and artist. So when that happens it feels really good.”
I spoke with Feltsman in advance of his concert Wednesday evening at Bedford Chamber Concerts (St. Matthews Episcopal Church Fellowship Hall, 382 Cantitoe St., Bedford, NY; 914-522-5150).
Posted in Classical, Concerts, Interview, Music
Tagged Bedford Chamber Concerts, lohud.com, Russia, The Americans, The Journal News, Vladimir Feltsman
A dangerous man: Tony Torn as Pere Ubu at Joe’s Pub on March 25, 2014. (Photos © 2014, Steven P. Marsh/willyoumissme.com)
About midway through the show on March 25, the flabby, shirtless man on stage at Joe’s Pub — his face still bearing the image of the Polish eagle albeit runny with sweat — stepped out of character as Pere Ubu, the king of Poland.
It’s at this point in the show that I’d be introducing my special guest, said actor Tony Torn But I can’t, he added.
So he invited the audience to join him in a chant:
“Stew has flu. Stew has flu. Stew has flu….”
After chanting that a few times, any disappointment I might have been feeling about the absence of Stew, Tony Award-winning creator of “Passing Strange” and leader of the rock band The Negro Problem, vanished as Torn returned to character and carried on with the set.
Sure, it would have been nice to see Stew sit in with this talented band of actors and musicians. But he deserved to stay home and nurse his illness. And Torn and company managed to provide an extraordinarily entertaining evening without their announced special guest.
I had wondered how Stew fit into this mad plan of creating a band to cover Pere Ubu songs in character from from the Alfred Jarry’s 1896 French play “Ubu Roi.”
Torn, happily, answered the question from stage.
This show, “Ubu Sings Ubu,” wouldn’t have materialized at all if, some years ago, Stew hadn’t let Torn sing what he called “one of his crazy punk rock songs.”
He didn’t explain exactly when or how that occurred, so I can only guess it was in a workshop of some sort. Continue reading
Posted in Concerts, Music, News, Off-Broadway, Review, Theater
Tagged Passing Strange, Pere Ubu, Stew, The Negro Problem, Tony Torn, Ubu Sings Ubu
Kaki King opens her new concept show at BRIC House in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, on March 6, 2014. (Photo © 2014, Steven P. Marsh)
Guitar wizard Kaki King tweeted a sonogram image on Sunday afternoon bearing the name of her wife, Jessica Templin King.
Just gonna leave this here. Thank you for helping me have a career that allowed us to do this. pic.twitter.com/K0u1huW6rA
— Kaki King (@KakiKing) April 6, 2014
Looks like congratulations are in order — to the happy couple and to the fans who made it possible.
Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone? 