NEW THIS WEEK
UNDISCOVERED SHAKESPEARE
TWO WEBINARS from Santa Cruz Shakespeare remain: September 2 and 9, 6:30pm. For details and registration, click HERE
MARIAM ADAM MASTERCLASS
INTERNATIONAL touring clarinetist and alumna of Youth Music Monterey provides YMM students with techniques to improve their skills—part of the 2020-21 Fresh Perspectives series, available for public online viewing. Click HERE
OUR VIRTUAL CALENDAR
SANTA CRUZ BAROQUE FESTIVAL’S Online Concert Hall comes back again on September 5, 6. The King of Instruments in the Age of Bach (part 2) with John Schneiderman, lute. THE TANNERY WORLD DANCE & CULTURAL CENTER presents “A Dancer’s Journey,” CELLIST JONAH KIM plays a live recital from St Ignatius Church in San Francisco. FOR DETAILS AND LINKS CLICK HERE
CLASSICAL EARTHQUAKE
LEGENDARY Columbia Artists Management (formerly CAMI), classical artist rep since 1930, with 100 conductors and numerous solo artists, has gone into receivership. Click HERE
VINYL RECORDS ROARING BACK
THE CD first appeared 40 years ago and sent vinyl into the trash heap. Guess who’s having the last laugh. Click HERE
HOW JOSHUA KOSMAN BECAME KINDER
RESPECTED music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle was shocked to learn a ‘critical’ lesson about his craft. Click HERE
LETTERS
PAMB HAS ALWAYS covered the performing arts activities in our area with reviews and feature stories. In this new stay-at-home world PAMB is providing valuable information about the growing phenomenon of virtual performing arts. It’s great to see how arts organizations are adapting and producing vital content online. Loved your article on the tromba marina. By the way, tromba marina is Spanish for waterspout. ~Roger Emanuels, Santa Cruz. (For another regional source of online concerts at Stanford University, click HERE)
CHRISTOPHER ROUSE’S GREATEST WORK
ACCLAIMED LATE AMERICAN COMPOSER and Pulitzer winner considered his Requiem his best. It was inspired by the events of September 11, 2001 and premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the late baritone soloist Sanford Sylvan and the LA Master Chorale in 2002. To date, the 90-minute piece has not been commercially recorded. To hear a complete audio of it (on YouTube) by the New York Philharmonic, baritone Jacques Imbrailo, Brooklyn Youth Chorus and Westminster Symphonic Choir from the 2014 New York premiere at Carnegie Hall, Alan Gilbert conducting, click HERE
CHARLIE “BIRD” PARKER TURNS 100
HE PIONEERED bebop and died in 1955 at 34, a worn-out old man.
THE HYPERTRAGIC NOTCH
THIS IS A GREAT CD! Yellowbird features the sensational tuba virtuoso Aaron Tindall in an album that defies categorization. His latest includes jazz pianist Shelly Berg on the ballad The Peacocks; Claude Bolling’s Suite for Cello & Jazz Trio in Tindall’s breathtaking transcription for tuba; and a swinging rock band accompaniment to Fred Tackett’s The Yellow Bird. Like the (French) horn, the tuba blends well with wind instruments, especially in its middle and upper ranges. At least Tindall’s instruments achieve that. The Peacocks of 1975 is a classic ballad composed by Jimmy Rowles (1918-1996), an eminent jazz master pianist who was sought out by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee and many more. The work straddles classical and jazz in form and features a haunting melody. Bolling, b. 1930, wrote his cello suite for Yo-Yo Ma, and it too avails both classical (Baroque suite) and jazz. The composer has a preternatural instinct for smooth flowing themes, beguiling harmonies and sudden shifts of character. But, make no mistake, his music is extremely challenging for performers. Joining Tindall and Berg are bassist Chuck Bergeron and drummer Svet Stoyanov. Tindall’s mastery of trills, vibrato and high-speed coloratura is breathtaking; here and there he gets solo cadenzas that really show off his chops. Tackett’s The Yellow Bird of 1972 is described in the notes as a “jazz-rock concerto” for tuba and rhythm section, written for Roger Bobo, long-time principal tuba of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and very much a solo virtuoso in his own right. Bobo showed the score to Tindall and suggested performing a ‘more modern’ version of it. In fact the 15-minute gem is more concertante than concerto because the material is divided among all the musicians, with Bergeron now on electric bass and Brian Russell on electric guitar. (The tuba sometimes isn’t heard at all.) The piece introduces a first theme that gets the juices flowing, then about four minutes in, a second highly melodic theme takes hold and is refreshed through various moods right to the end. While there’s nothing especially avant-garde about it—indeed and the whole album—it offers an exciting and highly satisfying experience. SM
LOUIS ARMSTRONG AND DANNY KAYE
YOU’LL NEVER SEE anything like this again
THEATER REVIEW
PHILIP PEARCE reviews Howard Burnham’s online performance of His Shoes Were Far Too Tight. Click HERE
CHEERS
CLIFF CLAVIN, “I’m the first Clavin to go without a beard.” Carla Tortelli, “You’re the first Clavin to go without a tail.”
GARY PORTNOY’S ORIGINAL DEMO
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Scott MacClelland, editor; Rebecca CR Brooks, associate editor