TODAY I have a story in the LA Times on the actor Roger Guenveur Smith, who has acted in a number of Spike Lee movies and chronicled American -- and especially California -- history through his solo theater pieces.One of them, Juan and John -- about a fight between Dodger John Roseboro and Giant Juan Marichal -- comes to the Kirk Douglas Theatre this week. I'm traveling this week, so have to be … [Read more...]
New History of Jazz
WEST Coast culture vultures know the name Ted Gioia for his fabulous West Coast Jazz, which looked at the scenes in LA and San Francisco starting with Dexter Gordon on Central Avenue and moving through the cool school and Dave Brubeck. Not only is the book a great read, it provoked a reconsideration of what was then a criminally overlooked time and place. Gioia -- who has since written a very … [Read more...]
The Misread City at Festival of Books
THIS weekend your humble blogger will be around the LA Times Festival of Books at USC... That is, if I don't accidentally end up at UCLA.I'll be there both days, and on Sunday at 3 p.m. will moderate a panel on authors with backgrounds in music. The panel -- I don't name these things, folks, is called "A New Chord: From Stage to Page."My three panelist:Nathan Larson was lead guitarist for Shudder … [Read more...]
Composer Peter Lieberson, RIP
IT"S easy to recall the rude good health with which Peter Lieberson, a serene and gracious Santa Fe-based composer who was in town for a new piece with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, greeted me in 2005.Peter Lieberson, 1946-2011We spoke about the poetry of Neruda -- the inspiration for his latest piece -- his range of classical influences, the music of jazz pianist Bill Evans, his interest in … [Read more...]
Conference for Aspiring Musicians
NEXT week ASCAP will hold a conference dedicated to beginning and mid-career musicians and songwriters: The I Create Music Expo, held at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel, will school them in the business side of things and in staying afloat during a very tough time in the industry. It's an especially tough time for aesthetes and introverts: The current climate requires a strong degree of … [Read more...]
Sofia Coppola’s "Somewhere" on DVD
EVERYTHING was nicely lined up -- and then the sky started falling. “The week before the filming was about to start,” Sofia Coppola recounts, “the studio changed the deal, and it fell through. And my dad came to the rescue; our French distributor got involved… But it was really nerve-wracking. It’s stressful enough, already, making your first film.” Who needs a funding disaster on top of … [Read more...]
Novelist Jonathan Kellerman
AFTER many years as a child psychologist, and more than a decade of rejection slips for his literary endeavors, Jonathan Kellerman discovered a Ross MacDonald novel at a going-out-of-business sale.Photo by Blake LittleThat was about 30 years ago, and this week, Kellerman publishes the latest in his series of Alex Delaware crime thrillers. This one, Mystery, starts with the leveling of an old hotel … [Read more...]
Remembering Jazz Guitarist Lenny Breau
COULD one of the most inventive and technically gifted jazz guitarist of the last half century be an obscure Canadian raised by country musicians? That's what I often think listening to the mighty Lenny Breau. Readers of this blog know that we try to uncover West Coast culture overlooked by the rest of the nation's media and critical establishment, and Breau was an overlooked West Coast artist par … [Read more...]
LA Band Spain, and a Celebrity Fan
THE other night I was lucky enough to catch a short, hypnotic set by Spain, the Los Angeles "slowcore" band that's now back together and starting to appear in low-key shows around town. (The last time I saw them they played at tiny but wonderful Origami Vinyl in Echo Park.)In any case, the show itself was both completely gripping and without any surprising jolts: Mellow songs with a brooding … [Read more...]
Eric Puchner and the California Dream
HERE at The Misread City, we try to capture what makes Los Angeles and the West Coast distinct, and aim to look at the way the existing clichés – sun, vapidity, bottomless riches -- both inform and distort our lives here. I can’t think of a better example of this kind of thing than the new essay by Eric Puchner, an Angeleno short story writer and novelis. His new piece in the March GQ, “Schemes of … [Read more...]