Though I didn’t go to any plays last weekend or this week, I managed to keep busy. Here’s some of what I’ve been up to:
– On Thursday I went to Birdland to hear Roger Kellaway and Bill Charlap play two-piano jazz. Both of
them have figured prominently on this blog in recent months, so I won’t sing their individual praises. What I will say is that the set I caught last night was the best live two-piano jazz performance I’ve heard in my life–including a concert that Tommy Flanagan and Hank Jones gave together in Kansas City back when the world was young. Their version of “Blue in Green” suggested an off-the-cuff collaboration between Bill Evans and Maurice Ravel, while the ferociously competitive up-tempo “Strike Up the Band” with which they set the proceedings in motion sounded like two guys shooting Roman candles at each other in a locked room. (“Lotta black notes on that page,” Charlap said to me afterward, grinning slyly.) As if all this hadn’t been more than sufficiently awe-inspiring, the remarkable young classical violinist Yue, about whom more another day, sat in on “Nuages” and “In a Sentimental Mood” and made an equally strong impression.
Words to the wise: Kellaway, Charlap, and Yue will be at Birdland through Saturday. Do not miss this gig.
– I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at the Metropolitan Opera House, watching the first two nights of Lincoln Center Festival’s Ashton Celebration, a two-week-long minifestival of the ballets of Sir Frederick Ashton, England’s greatest choreographer. Both performances were mixed bills danced by the Joffrey Ballet, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, and K-Ballet, a Japanese troupe. I plan to write at length about what I saw over the coming weekend. For now, take a look at Seeing Things, the artsjournal.com blog for which dance critic Tobi Tobias is covering the Ashton Celebration. I don’t agree with everything Tobi says, but she’s damned smart and always to be taken very seriously.
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