[contextly_auto_sidebar] RAISED at a time when Europe was still the center of the art world, and coming of age as New York was beginning to replace it, the sculptor Alexander Calder can seem about as "East Coast" as a strand of ivy on a stone chimney. But he spent three crucial early years in Pasadena, CA, where his parents ran with the artists of the Arroyo scene and others in Los Angeles. … [Read more...]
Archives for October 2018
Rachael Worby and MUSE/IQUE
[contextly_auto_sidebar] OVER the years I've attended several musical events put on by Rachael Worby, a human dynamo who has operated several series in and around Pasadena. Worby -- who was once, I think, the First Lady of West Virginia -- seems interested in something both populist and unorthodox, and the new season of her series MUSE/IQUE launches this weekend. What follows is our recent … [Read more...]
The Belated Emergence of Billy Strayhorn
[contextly_auto_sidebar] ONE of the great hidden figures in musical history is Billy Strayhorn, who seems to be a bit less invisible every year. When I was getting hard into jazz in the early '90s, haunting record stores and hoarding Coltrane and Mingus records right after college, Joe Henderson's Lush Life album came out and electrified the jazz world: One of the greatest saxophonists of the … [Read more...]