Category: AJBlogs

The arts, effective altruism, and data
The Seattle Times reports “With millennial philanthropy money flowing, arts groups miss out” … Read the whole thing, as they say, but I think there is a fair bit of confusion in the piece, and the place of the arts in effective altruism, and the role of data. … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2015-12-29

Expanding Our Art Horizons
In recent years, some museums have begun a push to build their collections in Latin American art and to show more of it in special exhibitions, too. Much of the emphasis has been on modern … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-12-29

Sad face
Several family shows I’ve seen this month are happy to dance with the dark. … Each may send you out sadder but wiser. Growing up is full of fear. Sometimes people leave you. Nature may not survive our greed. Happy holidays! … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2015-12-29

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Performing arts and cities and (again) the creative class
A new study just published in the academic journal Economic Development Quarterly looks at the links between big (budget over $2 million) performing arts organizations and the change in the proportion of the metro workforce … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2015-12-27

Monday Recommendation: Mette Henriette
The mystery, melancholy and minimalist magic of Mette Henriette Martedatter Rølvåg’s music stems in part from her family origins in the Sámi, the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-28

The Year in CultureGrrl, 2015 Edition
2015 was, for me, a high point of my CultureGrrl “career” – the only year when my dogged blogging was generously compensated, thanks to the munificent Art Writers Grant from Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation. This windfall … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-12-27

Shared Birthday: Crow, Budwig, Scofield & Dickerson
December 26th is the birth date of several notable musicians including Bill Crow (b. 1927), John Scofield (b. 1951) and Dwight Dickerson (b 1944). We wish them a happy birthday and remember Monty Budwig (1929-1992). … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-27

Immodest me, in Steve Cerra’s Jazz Profiles
Howard Mandel, photo by Salvatore Corso Thanks to Steve Cerra of Jazz Profiles for asking me a few questions by email, and letting me go on and on. Of course my answers are far from … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2015-12-26

Smyth: Early, Late, and Best
I’ve found what I think is the best available music by Ethel Smyth: this recording of her Serenade in D (1890) and Double Concerto for Violin and Horn (1927). (Pardon the generic suffragette image on … read more
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2015-12-23

Puerto Rican/European: Francisco Oller’s Hybrid Paintings at the Brooklyn Museum
Like the works of Archibald Motley, now featured at the Whitney Museum, the art of Puerto Rican painter Francisco Oller, subject of a concurrent retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum (to Jan. 3), inhabits two separate … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-12-23

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David Amram at 85: Distilling his multiple personalities
He doesn’t look much older than when he was 60. But he’s showing his age in a way that true artists do. His 2014 piece, Greenwich Village Portraits, is one of his very best. … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2015-12-22

The creative class won’t save your arts organizations
Let’s talk about Hartford. I’ve never been to Connecticut, but in the past week I have read two stories about Hartford, and it is interesting to think about the links, if any.  … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2015-12-22

Museum World: Five To Applaud
It’s tough being a critic, especially a blogging one. No matter one’s natural tendencies to want to like something, you also tend to see the flaws and the disappointments, then end up coming off as a scold. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-12-22

Solstice beyond jazz, unruly mashup to meditative rhythm
Saxophonist Mars Williams and band ecstatically wed holiday songs and Albert Ayler anthems at the Hungry Brain in Chicago past 12 pm December 20  — the deepest, darkest, longest night of the year … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2015-12-22

In Praise of Nuci’s Space
Much of the time, it’s hard to know who the good guys are. Other times, essential things become clear. A few weeks ago I attended an event for the Athens, GA, musicians resource called … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2015-12-22

Other Places: Evans Not A Secret Anymore
On his Jazz Profiles blog, Steve Cerra is featuring pianist Bill Evans’s The Secret Sessions collection recorded at New York’s Village Vanguard. A fan named Mike Harris, taped Evans and his trio at the club … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-22

Dancing Down to the Bone
It’s November, 2006, and I’m sitting on one of the highest carpeted risers in St. Mark’s Church watching Luciana Achugar’s Exhausting Love. Suddenly one of the performers (Hilary Clark) works her way toward me and my companion and wedges herself between us. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2015-12-22

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Not Who We Were
You know, continuing the thought from last post, my generation of composers (Downtowners at least) was the “no guilty pleasures” generation. … read more
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2015-12-21

Motley & Oller (Part I): Whitney & Brooklyn Museums Embrace Black & Latino Cultural Forebears
Notwithstanding the latest spike of interest in diversifying museums’ displays and personnel, the problem of stimulating greater inclusiveness is nothing new: It has been a source of periodic discussion and sporadic action for decades. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-12-21

John Lewis For Christmas
As promised in early December, the Rifftides staff will not load these pages with jazz takes on Christmas music, traditional or otherwise. We noted that there would be exceptions. Today’s exception is “England’s Carol,” … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-20

Misreading
Please don’t read this unless you read me regularly. I had gotten my blog readership down to about 150, 200 hits a day, and the commenters are almost all regulars, and I’m comfortable with that, … read more
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2015-12-20

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Bringing the World’s Most Difficult Quartet to Life

Broad Expectations: Exceeded
The other day the Broad Museum announced attendance since its opening on Sept. 20: it admitted 177,264 visitors in its first 12 weeks; by the end of this month, it expects more than  … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-12-17

$3.75m Cash Severance: Patrick McClymont, Sotheby’s CFO, Steps Down Suddenly
In the latest Sotheby’s shocker, the auction house has just announced that its chief financial officer, Patrick McClymont, is precipitously stepping down. He will resign, effective Dec. 31, to pursue the proverbial “other opportunities.” … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-12-17

Herman And Hefti, “Let It Snow”
“The birdbath looks like a coconut cake,” my wife said. In addition to beauty, the sight offered two benefits. 1. It was a reliable indicator of how much snow we had last night on the … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-17

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About that University of Kentucky mural
At the University of Kentucky a 1930’s WPA-funded mural by Ann Rice O’Hanlon has been temporarily covered while the university administration, faculty and students deliberate on the presentation of the work and its depiction of African-Americans. … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2015-12-16

The Sun Shines (not so) Bright on My Old Kentucky Home
When I was a kid in Lexington, KY, the town was known for two things: being the centre of the Bluegrass thoroughbred horse-breeding industry, and the University of Kentucky. When I was born in 1941 it was a small college town with a population of 45,000. … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2015-12-16

Bach at the Armory with gongs, noise-canceling headphones and deck chairs
Igor Levit and Marina Abramovic Every concert should be like this. Bach’s Goldberg Variations was heard in a piece created by the famous performance artist Marina Abramovic that was a marriage made in – well, the drill hall of the Park Avenue Armory in New York. … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2015-12-15

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Transformative Engagement
In Artcentric Engagement I discussed a kind of engagement in which an arts organization is attempting to bring people to it. As I said there, nothing is wrong with that; it’s simply not the goal … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-12-15

Bach at the Armory with gongs, noise-canceling headphones and deck chairs
Every concert should be like this. Bach’s Goldberg Variations was heard in a piece created by the famous performance artist Marina Abramovic that was a marriage made in…well, the … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2015-12-15

Quality is job one
So the Declassified show at the National Symphony a week ago didn’t strike me as a success. Declassified, as I said in my last post, is a series that the orchestra and its parent … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-12-15

Monday Recommendation: Halie Loren
I know – I’m posting the Monday Recommendation on Tuesday. Some Mondays are like that. With a subdued manner and undercurrents of strong feeling, the Oregon singer ranges across  … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-15

Branford Marsalis and Kurt Elling in New Orleans, ready for recording
Saxophonist Branford Marsalis’s quartet and singer Kurt Elling prepared for their upcoming recording in a … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2015-12-15

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Art Spaces as Places for Community Engagement
Over the course of our time together in the National Arts Strategies, Chief Executive Program: Community and Culture, a key point that emerged again and again was the disconnect between arts organizations and the wider, urgent questions being asked across society. … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-12-13

A Q&A on the Beauty Class with Students from the SAIC
Recently, I received an email from a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, preparing for a seminar on Arts Organizations in Society. She asked if I would be willing to Skype into the seminar to answer a few questions about the beauty class … read more
AJBlog: Jumper Published 2015-12-14

What To Put On the Wall, Along With the Art
The perennially quotidian but important issue of museum labels has cropped up into several conversations I’ve had lately. That put me, for the most part, in mind of some quotes from an artist, none other than that conceptual artist and sometime prankster John Baldessari. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-12-13

A New Christmas Classic?
New Christmas songs of quality are rare. Musician, composer, producer and lead sheet maven Don Sickler suggests that he has found one. The song began life with a title that hardly suggested Christmas. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-13

Sotheby’s to Cut Some 80 Positions; Charles Moffett, Its Former Executive VP, Dies
In an amendment filed today to its Nov. 13 8-K filing with the SEC, financially challenged Sotheby’s revealed that its planned staff buyouts will result in a net headcount reduction of about 80 staffers. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-12-14

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Pound Has Been Sung
I’ve built up quite a backlog of unheard music, and now after a long dry spell it’s beginning to flow public-ward again. On December 7 Michelle McIntire sang a pre-premiere of most of my Ezra… … read more
AJBlog: PostClassicPublished 2015-12-13

Brion Gysin: ‘Poets Don’t Own No Words’