Rachelle Garniez opened Gone to Glory by biting off a big piece of “Killed by Death” (Motörhead: Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister, Würzel (Michael Richard Burston), Peter Gill, Philip Campbell). For the past five years, Garniez and Pangea have celebrated the legacies of recently-passed recording artists; it started in 2016 with the losses of David Bowie and Prince. […]
July turns out to be the perfect month for Feinstein’s/54 Below to book Blaine Alden Krauss in From the Soul. The fireworks started even before he hit the stage, and they did not stop until he had the crowd literally dancing in the aisles during his encore. I didn’t notice anyone actually up on a […]
Repertoire for the Once and Future American Songbook Article # 16 in this ongoing series. There are auspicious recording debuts, and then there is More Than a New Discovery, an album by singer/songwriter Laura Nyro (1947-’97), recorded in 1966 and released on the Verve Folkways label the following year. The album contains compositions that would […]
Singer/curator Ben Cassara chose the perfect singer to open his Pangea Hot Summer Night Jazz Series when he chose Sheila Jordan. There is a special sense of excitement and a bit of awe when one goes to see one of the legends, and still performing at the top of her game, when one gets to […]
Tony-nominated Derrick Baskin has already made a name for himself in the worlds of theatre and music with appearances on Broadway in Memphis, The 25th Annual Spelling Bee, The Little Mermaid and, currently, Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations. His film and TV credits include Difficult People, Annie, Marshall, and Law & Order: SVU. He has […]
Fully Vaccinated tackles all the themes of the pandemic with original music (with one exception) by Darnell White, who is also the pianist, a singer, and one half of the romantic and musical duo that makes up David LaMarr and Darnell White. White is a talented player, moving from jazz to pop and theatrical easily, and he […]
It seems like drag is everywhere these days thanks in large part to RuPaul and her show and her knockoffs. But it’s a different kind of drag, a more meta, self-referential kind of drag; it seems to come from watching other drag queens. It is akin to the newer breed of directors whose entire frame […]
(Article #1 in a limited series on “Return Engagements.”) John Lloyd Young is ready to boogie on down. (Then again, who isn’t?) The Tony-winning singer-actor, who starred as Frankie Valli of the Four Seasons in both the Broadway and film versions of Jersey Boys, has worked diligently to remain engaged with his career and to stay […]
Leanne Borghesi’s first major outing since the pandemic, Borghesi’s Back!, landed at Don’t Tell Mama with a big bang and a million belly laughs. This mostly fictitious pandemic memoir/travelogue still allows Borghesi to bare her heart (in character) about missing and loving what she was obviously born to do. She had a busy 2020 planned, with engagements […]
Singer Rebecca Angel’s debut recording, Love Life Choices, is in some ways, the perfect summer album, particularly for Summer 2021. Her smooth, silky, yet surprisingly resilient voice, coupled with pulsing, insinuating music, is like a cooling breeze on a sweltering day. In this case, however, that breeze contains embers of the fear, concern and pain of Covid-19. […]