If you’re wildly successful at age six, what do you do next? Eddie Brigati had a string of hit records with the Young Rascals – Good Lovin’, Groovin’, Lonely Too Long – all before 1970. OK, he wasn’t six but he wasn’t near retirement age either. So what did he do with the ensuing 50 … Continue reading »
Category Archives: Music
Episode 242: Joan La Barbara and Morton Subotnick
She’s a composer and vocalist who’s performed with pretty much every orchestra on earth. He’s a composer best known for his electronic music, especially an early work, Silver Apples of the Moon. “Lawyer and Other Lawyer to Wed,” runs pretty much every NY Times wedding announcement. How did it omit theirs? Continue reading »
Episode 231: Sam Reider
This accordion virtuoso has brought American roots music across the globe. He sees the accordion as a symbol of immigrant triumph – Zydeco! Tex-Mex! – and as the instrument of 19th century colonialism. Paradox and polkas. And no darn Lawrence Welk. PERSON: David Amram PLACE:a synagogue in Azerbaijan THING:his accordion RANDY’S THING: The Impossible … Continue reading »
Episode 220: Martin Hayes, Howard Wolfson
Is a musical performance akin to a political speech? Yes. And no. Two friends, an Irish fiddle player and an American political strategist, consider the question at the Irish Arts Center. With music from, well yes, of course, Martin Hayes. We’re not boneheads. Photo by Anthony Mulcahy. PERSON: Hillary Clinton PLACE: Lake Shore Drive … Continue reading »
Episode 215: Randy Weston
This great jazz pianist has been making modern music for most of his 92 years, but he denies it, quoting Duke Ellington: “There’s no such thing as modern music.” He reconciled this paradox in our conversation at the piano at the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center. We spoke, he played, and then: birthday cake! … Continue reading »
Episode 195: Loudon Wainwright III
It is the best work that lasts, says this fine musician who’s created plenty, and history determines what that is: “Time will tell,” he says. I demur: “Time won’t tell.” It may be that only good work endures, but just a tiny portion of it will be enjoyed 100 years from now, and that selection … Continue reading »
Episode 193: Jack Kleinsinger
During his 45 years producing the concert series Highlights in Jazz, he has gotten to know many brilliant musicians. Dizzy Gillespie once came by the house and played for his cat. But is jazz, if not dead then relegated to a museum piece? The future of an art form: at BMCC-Tribeca Performing Arts Center … Continue reading »
Episode 183: Tierney Sutton
A performer has obligations to her audience, of course, but jazz singer Tierney Sutton believes that the audience also has obligations to the performer: to be alert, to be present, to listen acutely. “And if I can’t be in that state,” she says, “I don’t go.” For her, music is a spiritual act, an … Continue reading »
Episode 177: Paul Shaffer
For 33 years, he was David Letterman’s music director and comic sideman, a career that began in Canada with the Toronto production of Godspell, as did those of Gilda Radner, Martin Short, and Andrea Martin. Some production! Some careers! And now what? What do you do when your job ends after three decades? Savvy … Continue reading »
Episode 172: Kenny Vance
DJ Alan Freed, who might have coined the term “rock’n’roll,” was destroyed in the payola scandals of the fifties, but he was no more corrupt than his colleagues, says Kenny Vance. And Freed staged some of the first integrated rock shows. Does this mitigate his conduct? Sharp ideas about radio, rock, and the invention … Continue reading »
Episode 163: Kevin Locke
This Lakota musician is a universalist, alert to the commonalities among religions, nations, people. In our conversation at the New York Baha’i Center, he notes that nearly every culture has some kind of flute and some form of fasting. Is the latter a protest against the former? Certainly not. He himself is a flute player … Continue reading »
Episode 157: Peter Yarrow
Best known for his work with Peter, Paul and Mary, he has much to say about music as a political force, but his most surprising comment was this: even when writing songs, he thinks visually, in shapes not sounds. And he has great stories about “the most feared person in Greenwich Village” and Mary … Continue reading »