Wendy Moten ascended to the Birdland stage with a smile and charm that lit up the room. From her first words and the comfortable swing tempo of her first song, All of Me, Moten emerged as a poised, expressive, and consummate artist. She conveyed her passionate insights with a beautiful, clear voice and through her ability to command any genre she desired.
Love Online was a delightful journey enhanced by some of the finest songs ever written and performed by two enchanting, empathetic, and erudite individuals who understand life, heartache, and love. Love and Nickerson take your hand and heart and share their times, world, and lives. It was storytelling at its best.
Trombonist/composer Conrad Herwig and the Latin side all-stars ascended the stage to deliver their first musical offering. Splendid charts, extended improvisation, artistic interaction, virtuoso performances, a tight horn section, and a solid rhythm section immediately lit the room. A powerhouse of Latin rhythmic fire by drummer Robby Ameen and percussionist Mauricio Herrera on congas ignited an astounding sojourn.
The Beauty & Essex restaurant located in Manhattan’s Lower East Sde serves tasty food and sells vintage jewelry and musical instruments.
She’s charming, self-deprecating, and pulled out all the stops tonight to celebrate and honor a career and life on stage. She proved she could both reminisce on her teenage stardom and deliver the American songbook to us.
With a marvelous coterie of young dancer gymnasts, Soomi Kim’s The Body Through Which the Dream Flows uses a multi-dimensional visual and aural landscape to provide insights into the complex relations of coaches and their proteges while opening a window into the inside world of children training for Olympic stardom.
Misrahi is a boyish, lovable character who is bawdy, irreverent, clever, and entertaining with repartee and humor as delightful as his singing. His selection of songs seems to spring from biographical sentiment, and while he can sing to be funny, he can also touch hearts with the intense pathos, sadness, and beauty he expresses in songs like Sondheim’s “One More Kiss” from Follies. The song ended with a whisper, silence, and thunderous applause.
Tonight was an entertaining concert by influential, gifted, and driven artists. We shall be hearing from them more and more as their sparkling careers continue to evolve. The band was solid, the sound balance was excellent, and the musicians seamlessly shifted through the demands and diverse styles of the songs.
Many people dismiss graffiti art as vandalism or the work of gangs marking their territory. But in Hit the Wall, we discover that there is a coterie of serious graffiti artists striving to create their magnum opus.
Tonight was not just a show; it was an authentic jam session of virtuoso artists guiding their listeners through time and continental travel, gospel, blues, jazz, cool, fusion, bossa, and funk.
