I frequently dine around Manhattan while checking out the latest shows, jazz, and classical music venues. Friends recently reminded me that unique, excellent restaurants and sites could be found minutes away in Jersey City.
I’ve often enjoyed Pershing Square Café’s wonderful breakfast specials and especially their legendary pancakes. After enjoying an early evening of swinging jazz across town at Birdland Jazz Club, I walked east from 8th Ave through Times Square on 42nd Street, past Bryant Park and Grand Central towards peaceful Tudor City. Nestled next to Grand Central where Park Avenue intersects 42nd Street is the Pershing Square Café. Tonight, it looked like the perfect quiet place for a post-jazz bite.
Swinging big band music was hot in Manhattan! From the moment the Tony Kadleck Big Band began their set at the Birdland Jazz Club, we tapped our toes and jumped to a tasteful, tight, polished sound, solid rhythm section, cats burnin’ solos, and sophisticated superb arrangements by trumpeter and band leader Kadleck.
Tonight’s concert was entitled Organ and Orchestra by the American Symphony Orchestra! St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church on Park Ave in New York City was the apposite venue for Maestro Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra. They performed two works incorporating the rich sounds of the marvelous Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ with organist Paolo Bordignon, the Bard Festival Chorale directed by James Bagwell, and vocal soloists Soprano Anya Matanovič, Mezzo-soprano Eve Gigliotti, Tenor Joshua Blue, and Bass Adam Lau.
Existentialism seemed to dominate undertones dealing with the passage of time, mechanically repeating the practices of our predecessors, and our insignificance in the vastness of the universe and history.
Raconteur and narrator Louis Mofsie (Hopi/Winnebago) guided us through the majestic proclamations of dances, storytelling, and music representing the magnificence and provenance of these rich cultures. The coruscating colors and movements portrayed themes associated with rituals, reverence, and prayers to a Creator for blessings, health and thanksgiving, gladness for the life-giving forces of animals and rain, community pride, and honor to their warriors who protect them.
Brine honored the music of The Smiths through an auto-biographical perspective revealing universal human needs like love, friendship, and realized ambitions. We discovered Brine’s Bible Belt roots in North Carolina and the paths leading him to New York City. The exceedingly talented Brine danced, sang, and spoke in ways that evoked uncontrollable laughter, empathy, or sublime wistful affection.
This is a sad tale of the tragic nature of Russia’s brutal conflagration with Ukraine, as explicated by actor, writer, and director Stephan Morrow in a complex “kaleidoscope” of ideas and themes supporting the story. After the final bows, Morrow returned to articulate his goal to bring the plight of Ukraine to the forefront of American consciousness through theater, to provide theater that is relevant, and “to make work in theater that addresses issues that seem significant.”
Today was a splendid example of the expressive power of visual and auditory art articulated with a fine orchestra, magnificent art exhibit, and stimulating repartee. Be sure to visit the Tudor exhibit that runs through January 8, 2023, and see the links below to exciting and equally stimulating and entertaining adventures through the arts by the nonpareil Maestro Leon Botstein and The Orchestra Now.
A Tomato Can’t Grow in the Bronx is a heartfelt, sentimental look at old-world family dynamics that many of us saw evaporate after the shifts from cities to suburbs that accelerated in the late 60s.
