Tag: 02.23.04

Making It In The Jazz Club Biz

“Parisian jazz clubs have had historical and sentimental—and temporary—relevance since Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Bud Powell and the others played in those dank, smoky Left Bank caves not because it was romantic but because it was their only option. They deserved to be playing in Salle Pleyel. It’s much better for the deserving in the jazz business now, so it is ironic that more musicians with the clout to play prestigious halls are choosing to go back to multiple performances in smaller, more intimate clubs instead.”

A Perfect Order

New York City Ballet’s production of Sleeping Beauty is an example of the structures and hierarchies of classical ballet. “Classical ballet itself, in its training methodology and in the operation of the institutions that make it possible at its highest level of evolution, depends upon hierarchy—upon systematic development and the ordering of greater and lesser into a strong, self-confident whole. Today’s audiences finds the neophytes—the bevy of diminutive Garland Dance girls in their floppy pink skirts—irresistibly cute, and indeed they are.  I just wish the same viewers would take a moment to think about what these very young children represent—how poignant their commitment to their goal is in a world that now scorns the restrictions necessary to hierarchal order, how fragile and unpredictable the artistic future of each child is, and how necessary they all are to the continuity of their art form.”

Keeping Cuba Out Of The USA

“Over the past few months, the State Department has cracked down on Cuban visitors – specifically artists – seeking to enter the United States. Since November, every Cuban musician who applied for a visa — 151 in all — has been turned down, including the five Grammy nominees invited to the recent awards’ ceremony. The State Department denies a specific policy against musicians, although officials appear to have raised the bar for performers who want to tour the United States.”

A Critic’s Place…(Hmnnn…)

“Like it or not, and most critics don’t, people turn to theater critics more for consumer advice than for wit, wisdom, perspective, or any of the other lofty reasons that are taught in Criticism 101. As time and money become more scrunched, readers are less interested in how Samuel Beckett may have influenced David Mamet or whether August Wilson ever read Eugene O’Neill than whether they should shell out up to a hundred bucks for a theater ticket.”

The Writer’s Ego Revealed (Thanks To Amazon)

Amazon’s technical glitch that revealed the real names of reviewers on the website last week confirmed the behavior of ego-driven writers. “Those less inclined to fume about unethical behaviour point to the long history of literary fakery, which takes in everything from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the Hitler Diaries. In the rabidly competitive and cliquey world of American publishing, they say, Amazon is not just a website that sells books – it is a well known battleground of the backbiting literati.”

Iraqi Museum Workers Come To US

A group of Iraqi museum prefessionals will be coming to the US to study conservation and restoration techniques. “Scholars at the Smithsonian have been discussing for months how to assist their colleagues, especially those at the Iraq National Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad, which was ransacked after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship last April. ‘The best way is through a practicum, where we can help establish practical methods of conservation, registration and preservation’.”