Our Funny President, chief White House resident, you have us in stitches

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Copacetic to the end: Cohen-Rutkowski Project opens JK stage to a pair of guests

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Rich Cohen: saxophonic mass and energy from a former physics teacher "Copacetic" is one of those faux-fancy words that entered the language about the start of the Jazz Age (1919). Like jazz itself, its origin is unknown (says the dictionary), and its meaning ("very satisfactory") can also apply to countless jazz performances by adept practitioners of the music.  It was thus quite fitting that a piece of that title concluded a long Sunday night set by the Cohen-Rutkowski Project at the Jazz Kitchen. Like all of this band's book, it was composed by Chris Rutkowski, the pianist who co-leads the band with saxophonist Rich Cohen. And the peppy finale also got a little extra heat as one guest star (tenor saxophonist Rob Dixon) was joined by another (trombonist Freddie Mendoza) to make for a formidable front line. Opening with an infectious riff and settling into a Crescent City groove, "Copacetic" featured ripe solos by the two guests. It provided roomy acc...
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Actors Theatre Indiana romps through a farce — unusually, without a founder in the cast

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"Don't you love farce?" runs a memorable rhetorical question in Stephen Sondheim's "Send In the Clowns." There's lots to watch on the screen for characters in "Unnecessary Farce." Desiree's bitter song points to the conditions that underlie farce: Misunderstandings, false assumptions, confused or deceptive identities, upsets, personal disasters. None of that is any fun when you're  living it. If relatively minor, the conditions of farce may seem risible shortly after the dust has settled. If more serious, they will be permanently unsettling. As a literary or dramatic genre, however, most people do indeed love farce. But, frankly, the whole bag may seem unnecessary —  and not just as part of the pun in the last line of Paul Slade Smith's "Unnecessary Farce."  Actors Theatre Indiana opened the show Wednesday night in the Studio Theater at the Center for the Performing Arts . The premise is a police sting operatio...
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Going down to St. James Infirmary: Mourning as self-assertion

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Spent a lovely evening at the Jazz Kitchen as the Tuesday night shrimp boil resumed its place on the schedule. A neo-trad band dubbed the Red Hot Whiskey Sippers provided the music, and I enjoyed sinking into the environment of "St. James Infirmary Blues" in particular. For bands that feel comfortable accessing this music, the song invites adherence to Lester Young's advice to soloists: "Tell me a story." That's what trombonist Rich Dole and guitarist Bill Lancton did especially well in their solos. The melody seems to imply a narrative, though the story the words tell (some singers still do the piece, but not on this occasion) is oblique and somewhat mysterious. Another odd thing is that while the tune is blues-saturated, it's not really a blues at all. It's in four-line stanzas in the shape of a ballad, so it seems to call up its own world, through which runs a narrative thread. The version that brought the song its popularity was recorded ...
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