Jay Harvey Upstage

In recent releases linked to the consequential sleuthing of Zev Feldman, a fuller picture of pianist Kenny Barron,  often in collaborative roles, has emerged. He is accountable for many of the successful aspects of Yusef Lateef's "Alight Upon the Lake" (Resonance) part of a vast trove of recordings made at Chicago's Jazz Showcase and unearthed by Feldman. The new "Live in Brecon: So Many Lovely Things" ( Elemental Music)  finds him in charge at the high noon of his career, heading a trio before a receptive audience in Brecon, Wales, in August 1995. His simpatico trio mates are two stars of their instruments who have since passed away: bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Ben Riley .  The two-disc set, recorded with revealing detail and care, shows off Kenny Barron: Mastery in a lovely setting the trio in a wealth of repertoire drawn mostly from standards freshly interpreted, plus a few originals and three jazz chestnuts by Freddie Hubbard and Thelonious Monk....

Ex-Marine's impulsive act arouses silhouettes. Two recent news events confirm the timeliness of a documentary-style new production by American Lives Theatre: Barney Frank died the other day, remembered mainly for his witty, progressive service in the U.S. Senate and his stature as the first openly gay national political figure. The other current event is among the Trump-initiated proposals for physical changes to Washington, D.C., a triumphal arch near the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery, a gesture of vaunting personal glory from a noted disparager of military sacrifice. Andrew Kramer's "Arlington, or Your Forgotten American Hero" opened Thursday in spectacular but far from superficial fashion in the Russell Theatre, the main stage at the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre. The story is steeped in the irony of American heroism, distorted by political agendas, bias, and cultural fashion. Chris Saunders' direction allows the cast to probe the wide range of beha...

  Mozart death mask, 1791 A nobleman's vanity generated the mystery surrounding Mozart's Requiem from its origins in the final, frantic phase of Wolfgang Mozart's career. The Austrian master scrambled to complete promised works and was bedeviled by health problms that were to kill him on December 5, 1791. The scholarly consensus is that an attack of acute rheumatic fever caused his premature death.  The commission to set the Latin Mass for the Dead was attended with secrecy because of an aristocrat's habit of presenting new music in his court as if he had written it. The "ghostwriting" assignment came to be associated with Mozart's declining health and the composer's unfounded suspicion that he was being poisoned.  Such a mixture of fact and fancy shadowed his final weeks and eventually led posthumously to a hit play and movie called "Amadeus," linking  Antonio Salieri to his artistic superior's demise in his mid-30s out of the court comp...

Derrick Gardner's sidelong glance There is a cornucopia of legacy for capable admirers to contribute to a musical celebration of Miles Davis, so my report on the first set of a May 15 tribute is bound to be inadequate. Just over an hour of music the immortal trumpeter-bandleader (1926-1991) made famous offers the merest sampling of his noteworthy achievements. Of course, how can you represent the lengthy discography, often gathered in multi-disc packages during the "electric phase" of his career, starting with the landmark "Bitches Brew"? Two sets might have given this account more balance, so it could be argued I should have stayed till the bar closed at the Jazz Kitchen and two trumpeters, two drummers, a saxophonist, a pianist, and a bassist had left the stage. There were some puzzles in the often excellent set. The climax of the performance was announced as "John McLaughlin," a Davis original from the "Bitches Brew" era. But unless I ha...

An early adopter of Islam among black jazzmen was Yusef Lateef (1920-2013), who went his own way musically as well, sounding slightly exotic even while offering ample evidence of rootedness in the mainstream: playing jazz oboe from time to time helped with suggestions of inspiration from afar.  A 1975 date of his quartet at the time has been unearthed by jazz archaeologist Zev Feldman under the title "Alight Upon the Lake" ( Resonance Records ). As an LP set it was a significant feature on Record Store Day last month; I received the two-CD version for review. The subtitle is "Live at the Jazz Showcase," making it a laudable project issuing tapes the proprietor, Joe Segal, made over the years of the musicians he presented at his Chicago club. Lateef was admired as a musical and lifestyle mentor by younger musicians, such  as Bennie Maupin, who's quoted to that effect in the expansive booklet accompanying the release. As near as I can tell, however, he was rarely ...

Everyone remembers the one spate of really bad winter weather we had in January. Whether or Natalie Debikey Scanio, Ronen guest not you have wiped away that snowy spell from your memory, Ronen Chamber Ensemble is making up for interruption in what has turned out to be its season-ender. "Brilliant Winds" came to fruition Monday and Tuesday at the Jewish Community Center and Indiana History Center , respectively. Two-thirds of Ronen's artistic leadership, Jennifer Christen and Alistair Howlett, play wind instruments in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, so it was fitting that once this season's Ronen showcase for music activated by breath had to be postponed because of inclement weather, it would be rescheduled for a couple of cool, seasonable spring evenings.  The crowning achievement came with Francis Poulenc's droll, sparkling Sextet for wind quintet and piano, which I heard Monday evening in the JCC's Laikin Auditorium. The performance had the sheen of fu...

Another joke, perhaps? A way to signal the misdirections the play itself cultivates repeatedly? Probably a simple mistake, insofar as the printed programs for "Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson, Apt. 2B" tell us that the production, which opened Friday night, runs "March 8-24,  2026."  We are probably all somewhat date-challenged in an era whose broad, dire scope has us wishing for its conclusion. In the real world of local performing arts, the public has until May 24 to see the Summit Performance Indianapolis show at the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre. Believe you me, it has an all-star cast and a production team operating at their best. Holmes in a moment of endless sleuthing Kate Hamill 's script is loaded with quotations from and allusions to high and low culture as it sends up the icon of fictional sleuthing. Shirley, sometimes Sherlock, Holmes (Frankie Jo Bolda) is shadowed by the trappings of female marginalization, personified by both title characters and neg...

 The glory of brass instruments fits well into an expansive definition of Eastertide, so Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra and the Second Presbyterian Church Sanctuary Choir joined forces Sunday afternoon for "O Radiant Dawn," a program of sacred music by J.S. Bach and Jan Dismas Zelenka. Three trumpets for Bach, four for Zelenka helped make sure there would be plenty of splendor in movements of both works where glory was being proclaimed. Michelle Louer, director of music and fine arts at Second Presbyterian, conducted the concert in the church's spacious sanctuary, which is acoustically sumptuous as well. The Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra revealed its historically informed performing acumen with Ingrid Matthews, a professor at Indiana University, as guest concertmaster. The spotlight turned on her to fine effect in the alto aria "Benedictus" of Zelenka's "Missa Paschalis," which revealed soprano soloist Madeline Apple Healey at her best level of t...

Though some of opera's loftiest achievements fit under the genre of tragedy, the art form had to escape the 18th-century strictures of opera seria   and set aside ancient gods for sad, stately operas to attract the public's esteem. It's more than sentimentality that reinforces our love for happy endings; it's also the perennial gift of music to raise our spirits uniquely.  Mozart is chief among the examples of comic genius in music, and "The Marriage of Figaro" stands at the summit, partly for skill at illuminating the emotions of real people without overstatement.  Indianapolis Opera opened a production worthy of this masterpiece Friday evening in the Tobias Theater at Newfields. Resourcefully put together from an original production at Northern Lights Music Festival  with stage direction here by Jessica Burton, the show has the special advantage of guest conductor Bernard McDonald. Director of Opera at Florida State University, McDonald brings a vast resum é...

 Influential as composer and pianist from his early eminence on the Prestige label, Mal Waldron (1925- Mal Waldron's career had a mental-health break.  2002) came through a nervous breakdown in the 1960s to launch a successful second phase of his career, gaining a sustained reputation internationally.  On the path to his late harvest he appeared with a trio at Chicago's Jazz Showcase. From the archives of club owner Joe Segal, the eminent "jazz detective" Zev Feldman has made a recording of Waldron's appearance in 1979 publicly available under the title "Stardust & Starlight at the Jazz Showcase" (Resonance Records ). It's part of an '"open sesame" effect Feldman's friendship with the late Joe Segal and his son Wayne is having, yielding more results for Resonance. Waldron's playing, supported by bassist Steve Rodby and drummer Wilbur Campbell, has the depth and careful consideration of the songs, most of them standards, tha...

To sort out my positive response to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra' s April 24 concert, let me bring to the forefront two aspects of Jun Märkl's leadership that deserve more consideration: his uncanny insight into accompaniment and his rapport with the audience. The music director has the orchestra in ready-responsive shape, to start with. If there's something subordinate to a soloist worth bringing out, he knows how to do it.  When the violas dig into their prominent line in the first movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor and the tempo increases, everyone is instantly on board. I had wondered at first if the "Allegro moderato" tempo was too moderate to start with, but very soon it was evident the launch was just right.  Near the end of that movement, there are some tender cello phrases that the ISO section produced with unanimity. In the second movement, with its prominent clarinet, nothing seemed incidental. When first-chair players...

Belle reflects on rising tide of deceased "cousins." The fascination of murderous behavior, centered on one person over time, seems to have entertainment value, especially when the victims are numerous and mystery surrounds their deaths, as well as the perpetrator's. In journalistic terms, it's a story with legs (some of them dismembered from the bodies they belonged to). When you walk into the Shelton Auditorium to attend Southbank Theatre Company 's "Hell's Belle," carnival posters greet you, flashing into view the media frenzy that fed this public fascination before the broadcast era.  The backdrop of the thrust stage, behind a few pieces of substantial farmhouse furniture, becomes from time to time a place to display historical photos and verbal messages. Amalia Howard's play carries into the production a concern for the reality of what Belle Gunness was up to in LaPorte, Indiana, in the first decade of the 20th century. The grim business of ...

 Joe Henderson came out of Lima, Ohio, with an evident curiosity and receptivity to anything he could do on his tenor saxophone. He went from the northwestern Ohio city to the regional jazz mecca of Detroit, where he studied music at Wayne State University and began honing his professional associations. He never drew in the artistic boundaries close to what he was used to. There was always some new way of reaching out beyond his hard-bop roots. Joe Henderson in the '70s In one of producer Zev Feldman' s most illuminating presentations of live club dates by modern masters of the music, we get an extended exposure to what Henderson was like in the welcoming environment of Chicago's Jazz Showcase. The engagement came in February 1978 with a bassist (Steve Rodby) and drummer (Danny Spencer) well known in the venue. The quartet was boosted by the burgeoning eminence by a rising star at the piano, Joanne Brackeen.  "Consonance" is the two-disc set available to the worl...

More evidence came forward this weekend of Jun Märkl's knack for programming, though more wasn't required. The music director's long view of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's classical season rests on the firm support of each program's integrity and balance. In macro and micro terms alike, he's got a fine track record.  The newly popular late-afternoon time of each weekend's concluding concert is proving popular, as I found out firsthand Saturday when the orchestra played music by Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saens and Fauré. Three of the five works allowed four principals to speak musically with a French accent. Märkl thus underlined his sensitivity to French distinctiveness with the same insight and radiance that he has long lent to the Austro-German mainstream. Painter in sound: Claude Debussy Especially revelatory was the sole piece after intermission, Debussy's  suite "Images," which slowly cohered from separate tone pictures that illustrate ...

New staging: Vamp and title character in 'An American in Paris' Rediscovery of the alchemical result of dance and live music together is especially welcome in the fourth collaboration of Dance Kaleidoscope and the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra . Opening night of "American Sound" Friday certified the partnership's strength once again at Schrott Center for the Arts. The national theme includes a couple of pieces set to American music with the signature styles of the current DK artistic director, Joshua Blake Carter, and his predecessor, David Hochoy, making welcome returns in the company's schedule. The difference is the animating presence of the ICO, conducted with sparkle and precision by its music director, Matthew Kraemer. Yet the real treat was to get further acquaintance with DK rehearsal director  Sean Aaron Carmon  in his new work, "City on Fire." The piece takes its title and the theme behind its movement from the ensemble number signaling ...