I'm not exactly sure why, but I received a Google Alert the other day with a link to an article published in 1999. (Way to keep things timely, Google.) I didn't notice the publishing date until I'd read the whole thing and gotten super excited about learning something new about how the Mostly Mozart Festival came into play at the Lincoln Center. Lack of timeliness aside, I'm going to share with you the highlight of my Google Alert "news."
We all know that the Mostly Mozart Festival takes place in the summer at the Lincoln Center in New York City. And if you didn't know, shame on you (!!!) for not checking out one of Festival Preview's favorite new 2.0 features, the festival profile page. Anyway, according to reporter Howard Kissel, back in the day (mid-1960s) Ol' Blue Eyes had written a check out for $25,000 to the Lincoln Center with a little love note attached saying he'd like to perform there sometime in the summer. (By today's standards, that would be analogous to writing a check for $250k.) This was during the time when Frankie, known as a saloon singer, was accused of having Mafia associations. The management at the Lincoln Center, gearing toward keeping the venue classical music only, decided not to bring Sinatra and his pop music to what was then called Philharmonic Hall, lest Sinatra's bad boy reputation harm the classy reputation of the Center. Read more »
Entering its second year at a new site in Oak HIll NY, Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival released the beginning of a lineup as an inducement for holiday ticket purchases. Through December 31, full festival admission and camping is available at a discounted $135. The first performers named to the 2009 lineup are perennial festival hosts Dry Branch Fire Squad pllus Del McCoury Band, Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band, The Steeldrivers, Crooked Still, Red Stick Ramblers and Farewell Drifters. That's a solid foundation, but we'll reserve judgment untill we see more names. FP festival page.
When it comes to jazz festivals that last only one day — or, in this case, only 10 hours — it’s hard to beat the NYC Winter Jazzfest for ambition or star power.
The 2009 edition of this one-night bash, as in past years, is timed to coincide with the annual Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference. The conference, which draws presenters, promoters, talent buyers, educators, and musicians from around the word, runs from Jan. 9-13 in Manhattan. The Jazzfest, designed as a showcase for underexposed (if not necessarily unknown) jazz and experimental musicians, runs from 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. on the night of Jan. 10.
Since it began in 2005, the festival has been held at the Knitting Factory in TriBeCa. The Knitting Factory is moving to Brooklyn, but the festival is not following. Rather, it is moving from TriBeCa a few blocks north to Greenwich Village and expanding from one venue to three, all within easy walking distance: Le Poisson Rouge (the site of the old Village Gate, once one of the city’s top jazz rooms), Kenny’s Castaways and Sullivan Hall.
The good news is that there will be a four-day festival in New York this month devoted to the music of Thelonious Monk. The less than entirely good news is that it’s being presented by Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Lincoln Center’s jazz operation, under the unquestionably ambitious artistic direction of Wynton Marsalis, has been controversial from the beginning. As much praise as it has garnered for raising the music’s profile and treating it with the respect it deserves, it has attracted an equal amount of criticism for hewing to an overly conservative agenda. Still, while Jazz at Lincoln Center’s focus on the old at the expense of the new has been a legitimate source of carping, I have never heard anyone suggest that its devotion to major figures like Monk and Duke Ellington is a mistake. The issue is how that devotion is expressed. Read more »