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Arts and Entertainment, Brooklyn Heights

Theater 2020 to Present Candide

January 26, 2014

Theater 2020, Brooklyn Heights’ own professional theater company, will present a fortieth anniversary revival of the Hal Prince version of Leonard Bernstein’s (photo) musical comedy Candide, based on the novel by the same title by Voltaire. The show will run for four successive weekends: February 14, 15, and 16; 21, 22, and 23; 28, March 1, and 2; and 7, 8, and 9.. Friday and Saturday performances will start at 8:00 p.m.; Sunday’s performances will begin at 3:00 p.m. The venue is St. Charles Borromeo Church, 19 Sidney Place. From Theater 2020′s press release:

The 18th Century author Voltaire wrote a fanciful story about a young man, Candide, whose journey of improbable misadventures leads him ultimately to love, manhood and the meaning of Life. War, natural disasters, unnatural assignations, torture, pirates and disease are among the many obstacles Candide overcomes, in a paradoxically comedic satire, with the help of his mentor Dr. Pangloss, his love Cunegonde and the omnipotent presence of Voltaire himself. Leonard Bernstein’s musical adaptation, with a book by Lillian Hellman, and lyrics by Richard Wilbur, John LaTouche and Dorothy Parker, first appeared on Broadway in 1956. In 1973, Hal Prince got Hugh Wheeler to write a new book and this pared down version, with additional lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, was presented in Brooklyn at the Chelsea Theatre Center (now BAM). Theater 2020 is delighted to bring this version back to Brooklyn, in a site-specific production at St. Charles Borromeo Church. Relying heavily on its outstanding ensemble, the costume design of New York Innovative Theater Award Nominee Viviane Galloway and the piano virtuosity of Music Director Ming Aldrich-Gan, this production brings a classically contemporary take to the musical, in which extreme optimism is lampooned in favor of a more pragmatic approach to life. The characters are archetypes, the tale is episodic and picaresque, the style is guerilla theater meets morality play — and the music is glorious! Hal Prince wrote of his 1973 production: “Candide owes its origins to medieval theater, to the Globe, to commedia dell’arte. It is street theater. It is not about film. It is about live actors and a live audience.” When a 21st century audience meets skilled singer-story tellers, it’s “The Best of All Possible Worlds.”

Your correspondent is amused that among the contributors to the original version of the musical Candide were Lillian Hellman and Dorothy Parker, whose mutual loathing is perhaps best summed up in this anecdote:

Hellman (holding door open as Parker approaches): “Age before beauty.”
Parker (swooping by): “Pearls before swine.”

Admission to Candide is $18.00. You can make reservations and buy tickets here or at the Theater 2020 website, or you may reserve seats by e-mailing theater2020@gmail.com and pay cash (no cards or checks) at the door.

Leonard Bernstein photo: Wikimedia Commons.


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/65292

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News

Brooklyn Bridge Park Receives Award for Excellence in Urban Design

January 23, 2014

Brooklyn Bridge Park announced today that it has been named winner of the 2014 National Planning Excellence Award for Urban Design by the American Planning Association. The APA’s statement announcing the award says:

Brooklyn Bridge Park has successfully integrated the Brooklyn waterfront into the fabric of the neighborhood by creating urban nodes at the park’s main entrances and improving access with a new pedestrian bridge. The park was planned with several goals guiding its development, including returning the waterfront edge to the public; creating a multi-use civic space; and connecting with the adjacent neighborhoods.

The statement goes on to say that the Park “has had a transformative impact on the community.”

The Park’s press release includes this statement from Brooklyn Heights Association President Alexandra Bowie:

Since 2009, we have watched a stretch of abandoned piers and uplands below Brooklyn Heights become a world-class park. Visitors can now walk a shade-dappled path through native plants, picnic on a grass lawn with a view of the Brooklyn Bridge, and take in a performance or lecture sitting on the granite steps facing lower Manhattan.

Photo: C. Scales


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/65219

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Arts and Entertainment, Brooklyn Heights, Events, Music

The Impressions Rock Plymouth

January 12, 2014

The Impressions’ gospel-rooted rhythm ‘n’ blues, prominent on the pop charts during the struggle to end Jim Crow’s dominion, has been called the soundtrack of the civil rights movement. They have a rich history. Founded in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1958–Sam Gooden, at left in the photo above, was a founding member–they later moved to Chicago and added Jerry “The Ice Man” Butler and Curtis Mayfield. Fred Cash, at right in the photo, joined in 1960. Butler left in 1962. Mayfield, who wrote many of the group’s best loved songs, stayed until 1970. After launching his solo career, Mayfield maintained a close relationship with the Impressions, continuing to write material for and produce them. He died on Boxing Day, 1999. After many changes in personnel, Mayfield’s position as lead singer is now ably–in my estimation–filled by Reggie Torrian, at center in the photo. In July of 2013 The Impresssions released a single, the Mayfield penned “Rhythm,” on Brooklyn’s Daptone Records.

The Impressions were the headline act for Saturday night’s “Free the Slaves” concert at Plymouth Church. Before the music began, The Rev. Al Bunis, Plymouth’s Interim Senior Minister, introduced Maurice I. Middleberg, Executive Director of Free the Slaves, an organization devoted to ending slavery in the contemporary world.

The Inspirational Voices of Abyssinian began the concert, opening with a spirited rendition of “Freedom’s Way,” and finishing their set with a rousing South African song that had the audeince clapping, shouting, and singing along.

Next up were Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens. They opened with the classic “One More River to Cross,” followed it with Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” and finished with an intense “What have You Done?” Ms. Shelton’s vocal dynamics were enthralling.

Before the Impressions took the stage, there was a lively instrumental interlude performed by Daptone records’ The Dap-Kings, featuring Binky Griptite on guitar. The Dap-Kings remained on stage to serve as the Impressions’ becking band, with the addition of Fred Cash’s son on bass.

The Impressions started their set with “We’re a Winner,” a 1967 hit that was an inspiration to me during my first year of law school. Next came the 1963 classic “It’s All Right”, followed by “Keep On Pushing,” then by what is their signature song, the soul anthem “People Get Ready.” Just before the song’s conclusion, after the words “You don’t need a ticket,” Reggie Torrian stopped the music and delivered a brief sermon that would have done The Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts proud, ending with the song’s final words, “Thank the Lord.”

Their next song, “Choice of Color”, waa released in 1969, a time when racial tensions were high. They were slated to appear on a late night talk show, The Joey Bishop Show, but before they went on they were told that ABC management had decided they should not do this song. They told Mr. Bishop, who said they should go ahead and sing it. “Choice of Color” was followed by a rousing “This Is My Country”.

After “My Country,” the Impressions left the stage, and Binky Griptite summoned Naomi Shelton back up for another song. The Impressions then returned and sang “Mighty Mighty (Spade & Whitey)”. The concluding song of their set, “Move On Up”, brought the audience to its feet:

Called back for an encore, they closed the show with the romantic ballad “I’m So Proud”, which showcased Mr. Torrian’s soaring tenor.


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/65048

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Arts and Entertainment

Phil Everly, 1939-2014

January 5, 2014

Phil Everly, the younger of the Everly Brothers (at left in photo) died Friday, less than a month shy of his 75th birthday.

My introduction to the Everlys was in 1957, when I was in sixth grade at Eglin Air Force Base Elementary School, in the piney woods of the Florida Panhandle. Each Wednesday afternoon we’d leave our classroom and go to the “cafetorium,” where the folding tables and benches had been moved against the wall, leaving a row of seats on each side of the room and a dance floor between. One of the younger school staffers served as DJ, playing 45 RPM  records on a portable player. This was our weekly “social dancing,” meant to prepare us for the teenage world we were about to enter. It was in fact an introduction to the loss of innocence, mine included.

I had a crush on a girl named Jamie. Unfortunately for me, she was “going steady”–a status evidenced by a ring hanging from a chain she wore around her neck–with Ronnie, the biggest boy in our class. During social dancing Ronnie and Jamie would gather with several other steady couples–I thought of them as the “Cosmopolitan Set”–on what ipso facto became the power side of the cafetorium. I would be with hoi polloi on the other side. Whenever the DJ would start a slow number, often the Everlys’ “Maybe Tomorrow”, which was the “B” side of their second big hit, “Wake Up Little Susie” but got a fair amount of play because the DJ liked to mix fast and slow songs, a sweet girl named Karen would manage to be standing in front of me. I would take hold of her and fox trot her over to where the Cosmopolitans were dancing. We had been taught the convention that a boy, and only a boy, could compel an exchange of partners by tapping another boy on the shoulder. Jamie and Ronnie were always protected by a phalanx of lesser Cosmos, so getting to Jamie involved several partner exchanges until I got to reach up and tap Ronnie, who would release Jamie with obvious distaste. I would get to hold her close and shuffle my feet for a few blissful seconds until Ronnie’s knuckles rapped my shoulder and the partner swaps would unwind until I got back to Karen. That Karen put up with this over a number of dancing sessions, and that I was willing to make her put up with it, retrospectively amazes and appalls me. Karen, wherever you are, I hope you’ve had a very good life.

In 1958 my dad retired from the Air Force and we moved to Tampa. On our first visit to Britton Plaza–a 1956 vintage shopping center that I still visit whenever I’m in Tampa because it’s home to the Tapper Pub–we went into Neisner’s, what was then called a “five and dime,” and I heard “Bird Dog” (video above) for the first time over the store’s P.A. system. After that, the Everlys continued to be part of the soundtrack of my pre-teen, teenage, and early adult life. Their close harmony lent itself to romantic ballads like “All I Have To Do Is Dream”, an anthem for hopeless lovers (something I’ve been more often than I should have; Jamie was just the first of many), but they also could do edgy songs like “Bird Dog” and like “Poor Jenny” (video below), which became a favorite of mine for its catchy, frenetic tune and its hysterically implausible lyrics:

I’ve always thought of the Everlys as Kentuckians, but as the Times obit says, while the family’s roots and older brother Don’s birthplace are there in Muhlenberg County, eulogized in John Prine’s “Paradise”, they moved to Chicago before Phil was born. After that they moved to Shenandoah, Iowa, where the brothers grew up and began their singing careers on their father’s local radio show.

Goodbye, Phil. You were one of the last of the surviving pioneers who built rock and roll from country and blues roots. I’ll miss you.

Update: Thanks to FB/BHB friend Arthur Boehm, here’s an audio clip, with still of the record label, of Phil singing “The Air That I Breathe” solo, arranged by Warren Zevon, before the Hollies made it a hit:


Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tzVM/~3/fWO2lL2BGlA/phil-everly-1939-2014.html

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Brooklyn Heights, Events, Kids, Music

The Impressions Head the Bill for Free the Slaves Concert at Plymouth

December 31, 2013

Plymouth Church is known for its pre-eminent role, under the leadership of Henry Ward Beecher, in the anti-slavery movement before the Civil War. While the Emancipation Proclamation declared the slaves free, and the Thirteenth Amendment abolished the “peculiar institution,” slavery still exists in the United States, and, on a larger scale, elsewhere in the world. Human trafficking for the sex trade is the best known aspect, but there is also slavery of the sort common in the antebellum South–men and women forced to do field or factory or domestic labor without pay and while held in bondage–in almost all parts of the world. Indeed, it is estimated that today there are more people held in slavery than ever in history.

The Brooklyn Historical society, Plymouth Church, and Free the Slaves, an organization that is combating slavery of all kinds throughout the world, are presenting two events, a roundtable discussion at BHS on Friday, january 10, and a concert at Plymouth on Saturday, January 11, featuring the Impressions (video above), the Inspirational Voices of Abyssinian Baptist Church, Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens, and members of the Dap-Kings. The roundtable discussion begins at 7:00 p.m. Friday, but the BHS doors will open at 6:00 to allow you a sneak peek at the new exhibit “Brooklyn Abolitionists in Pursuit of Freedom.” Admission to this event is free, but you must reserve tickets here. The concert, which is a benefit for Free the Slaves, starts at 8:00 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $25 or, for VIP seating, $150, and may be purchased here.

There is more information here.


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/64685

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Music

Yusef Lateef, 1920-2013.

December 26, 2013

My introduction to the music of Yusef Lateef, who died Monday at 93, came in 1967, when I was a first year law student. My dorm neighbor, Bob Bell, was a jazz aficionado. I knew next to nothing about jazz. I’m not sure how it came about: I may have been talking with Bob about music, or I may have heard something wafting from his dorm room–Jazz on flute? That’s odd–but I ended up borrowing his copy of Lateef’s album Psychicemotus, which sounded like nothing I had ever heard before.

Lateef’s music was eclectic and syncretic. His roots were in big band swing and be-bop, but he later incorporated musical styles from other parts of the world, including Africa and Asia, as well as European art music, into his works. He also used instruments not often or ever before found in jazz; not only flute but oboe, as in the video clip above, and styles not common to jazz, such as the bowed, instead of plucked. bass viol in the same clip. He didn’t like to call his music “jazz”; instead he called it “autophysiopsychic music.” In the video, he’s accompanied by Kenneth Barron on piano, Bob Cunningham on bass, and probably– he’s not identified on the video, but was on all of Lateef’s recordings around the time (1972) the video was made–Albert “Tootie” Heath on drums.

Lateef was a teacher as well as performer. He held a doctorate in music education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and taught there, and at Amherst College, until near the end of his life.

I must add a footnote about Bob Bell: at the time I knew him, he had the distinction of having his name in the Constitutional Law casebook. He was the named appellant in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Bell v. Maryland, which vacated and remanded his and several others’ convictions for criminal trespass arising from their participation in a sit-in demonstration at a Baltimore restaurant. In a delicious bit of irony, Bob later became Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals, the same court that had affirmed his conviction before it was appealed to the Supreme Court.


Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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Arts and Entertainment, Bloggers

Gram and Emmylou; Emmylou, Dolly, and Linda

December 21, 2013

When I go for walks, I usually take my iPod set in the “shuffle” mode. Because of my eclectic interests in music, this sometimes leads to odd concatenations, as on a recent walk during which the Sinfonia from Verdi’s Nabucco was followed immediately by the Holy Modal Rounders’ version of “Flop-Eared Mule”. Sometimes these conjunctions are serendipitously pleasant, as on one walk several years ago when the first, allegro movement from J.S. Bach’s Second Brandenberg Concerto was followed by a lively Cajun song.

A few days ago I started out with the iPod playing Gram Parsons’ haunting, autobiographical “In My Hour of Darkness,” with Emmylou Harris on harmony vocal, from Gram’s posthumously released album Grievous Angel (audio clip with still of album cover above); next came “My Dear Companion” from the Trio album by Dolly Parton, Emmylou, and Linda Ronstadt (live performance video below). It’s easy for me to speculate that “My Dear Companion,” on which Emmylou takes the lead vocal, was chosen by her as a tribute to Gram, her late musical companion and friend.
 

I never met Gram Parsons, but I knew of him before he became famous. While I was a student at the University of South Florida I became friends with several students who had known him in his home town, Winter Haven. They told me about this brilliant, talented guy who was a folk singer, and who performed with his group, the Shilohs, at the Derry Down, a night club for teenagers that was owned by his stepfather. I heard that he was at Harvard, and, later, that he had dropped out and started a group called the International Submarine Band along with fellow Havenite Jon Corneal. I was thrilled when, in my second year of  law school, I read that he had joined my favorite rock group, the Byrds. I bought their newest album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, which includes what has become his signature song, “Hickory Wind”. I followed his career as he left the Byrds and, along with another former Byrd, Chris Hillman, formed the Flying Burrito Brothers, then had a solo album, GP, which introduced to a wide audience the voice of Emmylou Harris. His death from a drug overdose in 1973 saddened me enormously.


Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tzVM/~3/a1-tEuAtKOs/gram-and-emmylou-emmylou-dolly-and-linda.html

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Brooklyn Heights, Food, News

Chocolate Works Coming to Montague, Jeweler Leaving

November 7, 2013

According to the Eagle, “[a] real-life Willie Wonka is moving to Montague Street.” The Chocolate Works will be taking the space previously occupied by Radio Shack at 110 Montague Street, between Henry and Hicks. The store will sell a variety of chocolate specialties, along with other candies, and will be available for “kids’ parties and bachelorette bashes.” The Eagle story quotes owner Joe Whaley as saying he hopes to have the store open by Valentine’s Day.

The Eagle story also reports that Montague Jewelers, a fixture at 212 Montague, between Clinton and Court, since 1988 is going out of business. An owner, Alan Cabasso, said increases in the cost of gold have been a major problem for the business. Being hidden under a sidewalk bridge for some time can’t have helped, either. There is as of yet no new tenant for the space.


Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/63724

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Around Brooklyn, Bloggers

Update on Lou Reed: his Grace Church connection (thanks to Binky Philips).

November 2, 2013

I damn near vandalized my briefs when I read the first sentence of Binky Philips’ Huff Po piece:

I first met Lou Reed at the Holiday Fundraiser Fair at Grace Church in Brooklyn Heights, the day after Thanksgiving, 1967.

Lou at the Grace Church Fair? My wife has been a stalwart Fair worker for maybe the last thirteen years or so. Of course, 1967 was well before our time here in the Heights. I was starting my first year of law school in Cambridge, Massachusetts and she was a sixth grader at a Catholic school in Lynn, a few miles away. Had we been introduced at the time, and told that we would someday be married, we would both have been very surprised, perhaps even (at least in her case) horrified. (I would probably have thought: “Well, she’s not the upper middle class WASP princess of my dreams, but she is pretty.” She might have thought: “What an pretentious, pseudo-intellectual twit.”)

Anyway, Lou was not present in person at the ’67 Fair. Mr. Philips, fourteen at the time, “met” him in the form of a stack of the first Velvet Underground LPs (you can always get some really good stuff at the Grace Church Fair; trust me), one of which he bought, took home, played, and didn’t like. He described Lou’s vocal delivery as “Bob Dylan with a Brooklyn hitter accent.” Two years later, stoned, and with a friend, he pulled the album out, played it, and SHA-ZAM! He was converted.

Later, Mr. Philips had several in person encounters with Lou, almost all of them in music stores. In one of these, he did manage a brief, inconsequential conversational exchange about a guitar. I was once (apart from the Detroit concert) in Lou’s presence. This was at a party, sometime around the ’70s-’80s cusp, in the then edgy (now touristy) Meat Packing District. My friend Charlie (not to be confused with Binky’s friend Charlie) pointed him out to me, standing maybe twenty feet away. I resisted the temptation to introduce myself, knowing I was not cool enough to merit his attention.

Mr. Philips writes that he was in the Grace Church Choir (by which he presumably means the Youth Choir) for three years. Among his choir mates at that time likely would have been Harry Chapin and Robert Lamm, later keyboardist, vocalist, and songwriter for Chicago.


Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tzVM/~3/FYMWtoJnaRs/update-on-lou-reed-his-grace-church.html

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Music

Brooklyn Born Lou Reed, Rock Legend Dies at 71

October 27, 2013

This past June I posted the good news
that Lou Reed had undergone what appeared to be a successful liver transplant. Today the news turned bad; he died at 71.

Lou was a terrific guitarist, but it was his vocal performances that for me are most memorable. Delivered in, as Ben Ratliff’s New York Times obituary puts it, “his Brooklyn-Queens drawl”, lacking any soaring dynamics, they could be sardonic, scathing, or sweet. Sometimes they were mixtures of all three almost at once. “Coney Island Baby,” the song he does in the video clip above, emphasizes the sweetness, but without being mawkish.

I saw him in live performance once, at the State Theater in Detroit during the 1980s. I was there for a meeting with several friends and colleagues from New York. One of them was a nun living in the secular world who ran a consulting business to fund her charitable ventures, which included serving Thanksgiving dinner to hundreds of homeless people on the streets of Harlem. She enjoyed the concert very much, although she found “Sex with Your Parents” a bit perplexing

In January of 1987 Lou and his former Velvet Underground bandmate John Cale appeared together in concert in my neighborhood. They performed the complete contents of their album Songs for Drella, made as a memorial to their artistic patron and friend Andy Warhol. I somehow missed this; fortunately, my Brooklyn Heights Blog colleague “Homer Fink” was there, and today published this recollection of the event, as well as his appreciation of Lou.


Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tzVM/~3/nleWuNiSXDM/lou-reed.html

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