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Contents
JULY 2015
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
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CROSBY, STILLS, NASH AND YOUNG | 22
CSNY last played as one unit in 2013 for Young’s Bridge School Benefit Concert in Mountain View, CA, more than seven years since their previous united outing on its 2006 Freedom of Speech tour. This doesn’t mean that CSNY don’t speak to each other. Hell, they scream at each other all the time.
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GOING HARD | 24 Sometimes a fine wine just doesn’t do the trick.
Detail of a chair by Wharton Esherick.
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THE SUMMER OF BEATLEMANIA | 28
If Autumn 2015 is the prime time to celebrate the Beatles’ legacy with Ringo Starr gigs and Ron Howard’s long-rumored documentary, summer was for John and Paul with the release of a Lennon vinyl box set and Paul McCartney’s victorious Out There tour hitting Philly’s Wells Fargo Center just days after “the cute Beatle” turned 73.
EDITORIAL Executive Editor Trina McKenna
DESIGN
COLUMNS 5 | CITY BEAT 5 | VALLEY BEAT 40 | JIM DELPINO
ART Detail of puzzle by John Sloan.
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6 | Bluestone Fine Art Gallery
E-Moderne Gallerie Artsbridge 7 | Departure 8 | Wharton Esherick 10 | John Sloan
FILM 12 | CINEMATTERS
The Overnight 14 | KERESMAN ON FILM “The Overnight”
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Ex Machina 16 | BAD MOVIE
Aloha 18 | REEL NEWS
Clouds of Sils Maria Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem Slow West Second Best Marigold Hotel
32 | SINGER / SONGWRITER
Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard Eilen Jewell Amy Black Beale Street Saturday Night Corinne West 34 | JAZZ LIBRARY
J. J. Johnson 35 | NICK’S PICKS
Donald Vega Maria Schneider Orchestra Boney James Joe Locke Jerry Bergonzi
DINING 36 | V Street 39 | Brian’s
ETCETERA 42 | L. A. TIMES CROSSWORD 43 | AGENDA
20 | FILM ROUNDUP
“Ex Machina”
28
Amy Burying the Ex Eden The End of the Tour
CITY BEAT Thom Nickels / thomnickels1@aol.com VALLEY BEAT Geoff Gehman / geoffgehman@verizon.net FINE ARTS Edward Higgins Burton Wasserman MUSIC Nick Bewsey / nickbewsey@gmail.com Mark Keresman / shemp@hotmail.com Bob Perkins / bjazz5@aol.com Tom Wilk / tomwilk@rocketmail.com FOOD Robert Gordon / rgordon33@verizon.net
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS A. D. Amorosi / divaland@aol.com Robert Beck / robert@robertbeck.net Jack Byer / jackbyer@verizon.net Peter Croatto / petecroatto@yahoo.com James P. Delpino / JDelpino@aol.com Sally Friedman / pinegander@aol.com Geoff Gehman / geoffgehman@verizon.net George O.Miller / gomiller@travelsdujour.com R. Kurt Osenlund / rkurtosenlund@gmail.com Keith Uhlich / KeithUhlich@gmail.com
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ENTERTAINMENT 26 | THE LIST
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MUSIC 30 | KERESMAN ON DISC
Paul McCartney.
Designer Lauren Fiori Assistant Designer Kaitlyn Reed-Baker
Solitaire Miles Ryley Walker Bessie (Music From the HBO Film) Milford Graves/Bill Laswell Last Exit Ustad Dildar Hussain Khan/Abrar Hussain
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ON THE COVER: “Halloween Puzzle,” John Sloan (1871–1951). Delaware Art Museum. Page 10
Copyright 2015 Prime Time Publishing Co., Inc.
City Beat
THOM NICKELS
ThomNickels1@aol.com
The decades long career of jazz music radio host and journalist Bob Perkins has been captured in an eight-minute video by videographer Jason Fifield. Perkins has been nominated for the Making a Difference Award by the Jazz Journalists Association—and it’s easy to see why. Watching the video, we learn how he started out as a writer in the 1970s and ‘80s for The New Observer, how he worked as an editorial and news writer for WDAS radio, and how he contacted WHYY on a whim to see if they needed “any help.” Perkins’ inquiry led to his doing a show for WHYY every Saturday for the next 20 years. His current jazz show airs evenings at WRTI 90.1 Monday through Thursday and on Sunday mornings until 1:00p.m. When Fifield asked him what he thinks about the future of jazz, Perkins said he thinks it lies with young people. “Young people have so many other pursuits,” he said. “You have to pitch radio and jazz to get to them and past all the other electronics.” The beginning of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead at The Wilma recalled The Three Stooges at their slapstick best. The play starts with a heads or tails coin game between R & G that goes on too long but had some in the audience falling on the floor in paroxysms of laughter. Was there something funny happening on stage we didn’t notice? How did we miss the hilarity? The forced laughter had a “canned” feeling which made us wonder if there were Wilma “plants” loosening up the audience. The evening ended on a spectacular note once the Stooges phase was over. We enjoyed Keith Conallen as Rosencrantz, Adam Kerbel as Alfred, and Jered Mclenigan as Guildenstern, and Krista Apple-Hodge was delightful as always. We met David Acosta, Malcolm Lazin, and Philadelphia History Museum Executive Director & CEO, Charles Croce and his wife Ann at the preview party for Speaking Out for Equality at the Constitution Center. The tasteful, informative exhibit avoids playing up the usual activists highlighted at lesser exhibits, but sticks to essentials like the ondisplay dress that Barbara Gittings (insured for $1,000, we heard) wore at one Annual Reminder demonstration in front of Independence Hall. The dress is positioned majestically at the exhibition’s heart like a myrrh-streaming Russian icon. Reception banter included an odd exchange with a lesbian legal advisor who, after we told her what we “did” for a living, said we were playing the “my penis is bigger than yours” game. A concurrent (equally stunning) exhibit, Creating Camelot: The Kennedy Photography of Jacques Lowe, includes 70 photographs from the JFK years beginning in 1958. Of special note is the photo of an exhausted Jacqueline Kennedy resting in a chair at an airport during the 1960 campaign. The news of City Council’s initial approval for yet another prison in the Holmesburg neighborhood inspired us to rewrite that famous Emma Lazarus line: “Give me your tired, your poor, your johns and prostitutes. Give me your weed, Oxycontin and Percocet peddlers, and all deadbeat dads. Give me also the wretched refuse of the littered streets—the hard drug dealers, parole violators, obstructers of sidewalks and traffic ticket non-payers. Send even the homeless to the Tower of Philadelphia, so they can lift their lamp beside more prison cells.” To the politicians who want yet another prison in the city: Is this not the most Machiavellian of backroom deals, perhaps complete with cigar smoke, poker chips and thuggish guards carrying loaded .45 revolvers? End of season whodunit musical comedies like Philadelphia Theatre Company’s Murder for Two, directed by Scott Schwartz and starring Ian Loew and Kyle Branzel, cannot be called real theater. These juxtaposition-intense Fringe Festival-like compilations always wind up sounding like every other Broadway show: speak out of the side of your mouth, wink, pretend you’re from Brooklyn. Murder for Two should be called “Tower of Babel Unleashed” despite occasional flashes of brilliance. Many in the audience just wanted the show to be over. What we did love was the onstage performance and diverse talents of Kyle Branzel, who sang, danced, and somersaulted into the air. It was not Branzel’s or his able cohort Ian Lowe’s fault that the script they were handed had us wishing we were in Camden. ■ Thom Nickels is the author of Philadelphia Architecture, Tropic of Libra, Out in History and Spore, and the recipient of the 2005 Philadelphia AIA Lewis Mumford Architecture Journalism Award.
Valley Beat
GEOFF GEHMAN
geoffgehman@verizon.net.
The 12th SouthSide Film Festival opened with a documentary made by two Russian women about a Bethlehem man’s mission to brew a rare, royal 19th-century British beer with American hops, English barley and Canadian water gathered from the Arctic Circle after a long, strange motorcycle trip. Sounds like a mouthful, right? Actually, Arctic Alchemy, which premiered for a packed house in Bethlehem, is a charmingly low-key, gradually engaging portrait of a quixotic quest, my preferred brand of adventure. The 2010 expedition was led by Christopher Bowen, a beer brewer/historian who traveled with friends to Canada’s Hudson Bay to recreate, on the shore, an ale ordered by Queen Victoria to lubricate a disappointing 1852 Royal Navy investigation of a disastrous 1845 Royal Navy search for an Arctic route. The filmmakers followed Bowen and his crew members as they weathered bad weather, mechanical failures and the early exit of the oldest, crankiest teammate. Frustrations became fulfillment as they brewed 100 gallons of Arctic Alchemy, which would win gold medals in American and world beer championships. Arctic Alchemy is funny and touching, practical and transcendental. It’s easy to get under these men’s skins, especially when they’re getting under each other’s skins. Bowen emerges as a stoic, bemused captain, sensitive enough to bond with a Cree fisherman, loony enough to imitate Darth Vader with a pet toy crow. The alchemy continued during a Q&A attended by Bowen, crew members, family members and the owner of a bottle of the 19th-century ale, once offered on eBay for $500,000. Bowen revealed that Dick, the crew member who jumped ship, motorcycled back home in a remarkably quick two days, and that he will brew over a fire during the July 18-19 Blueberry Festival at the Burnside Plantation in Bethlehem. He also hopes to place bottles of Arctic Alchemy in the White House and Buckingham Palace, both of which have desks made with beams from Queen Victoria’s most successful beer ship. I caught the last three hours and the final two acts of the eighth edition of Blues, Brews & Barbecue, downtown Allentown’s bubbling melting pot. Hamilton Street percolated louder and happier thanks to new indoor-outdoor restaurants. I sat on a PPL Plaza bench, chowing down on a pulled-pork sandwich from Babygotque, the best-named of the BBQ joints. I was entertained by kids dancing a spastic ballet in and around spurting water jets and by a smoking, soul-scraping trio led by guitaristvocalist Edward David Anderson. They put a funky spin on the Beatles’ “Blackbird” and a gentle hurting on “Oye Como Va,” one of Santana’s early hits. A trio led by guitarist-vocalist Joe Louis Walker followed with sweet, steamy blues presented as five-course feasts. “Sugar Coated Love,” a slow-rolled, crackling boogie, was accompanied by a lovely scene. A woman in a dress danced blissfully. A skull-capped man on a bicycle bopped jazzily. Children rubbed the remarkably shaggy hair of a remarkably tolerant dog with paws crossed with a lion’s grace. It all felt like a one-day Musikfest. Even better, it felt like a one-day Celebration, the ’80s street festival that first made downtown Allentown a bubbling melting pot. Easton is the Valley’s per-capita enterprise capital. You never know when a gas station will become a restaurant or a garden center will sprout from an alley backyard. The latest pleasant arrival is Brick + Mortar, a gallery and design studio in an old bank building on Center Square. Owners Tom D’Angelo and Chaz Hampton, natives of nearby New Jersey, removed walls and opened windows to create refreshingly airy, inviting spaces seemingly imported from Soho in Manhattan or London. The conversion meant a great deal to D’Angelo, whose great-grandfather tended bar in the next-door Circlon, a long-dead restaurant/nightclub popular with Lafayette College graduates like me. The gallery’s rear room was christened by Chris Rush’s slightly stormy, magnetically mysterious paintings and prints of everything from a horse skeleton to a dude with a blue Mohawk. The front room was christened by a group show of bricks painted and ornamented with a dizzying range of mortars—everything from baseball to reggae, Abstract Expressionism to film noir. On May 29 I enjoyed a very packed evening at SteelStacks, the lively entertainment complex on the site of Bethlehem Steel’s dead plant. I heard Marshall Crenshaw play power pop, watched the film Five Flights Up, met friends who heard Dr. John perform voodoo blues, toasted jazz pianist Eric Mintel’s trio with a Yuengling Black & Tan, and planned to tour a newly renovated elevated walkway along the towering blast furnaces— Bethlehem’s version of Manhattan’s High Line. ■ Geoff Gehman is the author of the memoir The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the Long-Lost Hamptons (SUNY Press).
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Exhibitions
Roger Smith, Winter Melody.
Artsbridge 21st Annual Juried Show Prallsville Mills Route 29, Stockton, NJ www.ArtsbridgeOnline.com July 11–August 2, Fri.-Sun. 1-5 Opening Reception: July 11, 6-9
How Long is Now #5
The Ever Present Moment Paintings by Michael Babyak Bluestone Fine Art Gallery 142 N 2nd Street, Philadelphia (856) 979-7588 www.bluestone-gallery.com Through July 24, 2015 First Friday Reception July 3, 5 – 8 p.m. “At some point, a few decades ago, I began a painting but never completed it. I rolled it up and left it for another day. This happened many times through the years, leaving me with many rolls of almost finished paintings. The rolls began to add up. What to do with them? Occasionally I would unroll a group of these paintings, look at them and promptly reroll and reshelf. They took me backward—I could see the value of my past efforts but had moved on. One day last year I walked into my studio and felt a strong inclination to move those rolled up paintings of the past into the present. Intuition led me through this process of transformation. The resulting works are a beautiful symphony of transformation, 25 years in the making. They exhibit and offer a vibrant balance of immediacy and depth, raw sophistication and refinement.”
How Long is Now #3
Circle Tree
Perception Illusion (An Eastern Journey) Paintings by Edward Evans E-Moderne Gallerie 116 Arch Street, Philadelphia 267-927-2123 e-modernegallerie.com Opens Friday, July 10, 2015 “...The degree of illusion [Evans] achieves through his mastery of airbrush techniques is unlike anything I have seen. Airbrush has always been sneered at by fine artists as being a tool for lowly illustration. Score one for Evans for using it to invent a style both lush and stark. His subject is Chinese text. He writes about his mental processes involved in the art making...and creates optically baffling renderings of the texts seemingly inscribed into fluttering or crumpled tablets, papers or cloth. He invents the imagery purely from his imagination. Conceptually, it is most intriguing that he is not at all interested in calligraphy. The characters are copied from the rigid mechanical fonts of his translation program. These ironies create layers of contradicting ingenuity that adds up to more than meets the eye.” — Christopher Chambers, NY Arts Magazine
Light Vigil-Friend, 21 x 19, acrylic on linen
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The Artsbridge 21st Annual Juried Show will be held at the Prallsville Mills from July 11 through August 2. Visit the exhibition Friday through Sunday, 1- 5 p.m. to view and purchase paintings, watercolors, works on paper, mixed media, photography and sculpture by the region’s finest artists. The award-winning jurors, Natalie Italiano and Martha Madigan, chose works from hundreds of entries. Natalie Italiano, educated at PAFA, teaches at Studio Incamminati and Repenning Art Center. Artist and photographer Martha Madigan is a professor at Tyler School of Art at Temple University. At the opening reception on Saturday, July 11 from 6-9 PM, approximately $3,000 in prizes will be awarded. That evening, Lucinda Chou will be given the Artsbridge Artist Laurel in recognition of her valuable contribution to the arts community.
Frankie Balek, Cordial Cherries.
A Thousand Words
STORY AND PAINTING BY ROBERT BECK
Departure I’M LEAVING SOON ON my annual trip to Jonesport, Maine to teach a painting class for the locals, do some writing and painting of my own, and generally decompress. The subjects of my work will be the people and the lives they lead—the long hours, the water, the weather, and the just-keep-at-it attitude that propels them through long days. Life there is fishing—and everything revolves around that. There is a pace, a common understanding, and a heritage that courses along the coast south of Canada like it does in West Virginia coal towns and Kansas farm communities. The proximity to nature—the beauty and the harsh reality that comes with it—dictates what’s important. Tourist amenities drop off significantly once you head north from Ellsworth and Bar Harbor on Route 1. Gone with them are the constant enticements, seductions, and demands. It’s wise to keep an eye on your gas gauge and know where you are going to spend the night. There are hours of woods and craggy blueberry fields with isolated houses, businesses, and abandoned buildings. Small towns located out of sight on the vast coastline are often just a handful of structures near a cove or small harbor. I stop at a gas station in Columbia Falls—the last one that has premium—and pick up some food at the market before I turn off the highway, cross Indian River, and head toward Moosabec Reach. Indian River Road runs down the peninsula past the road to Addison and Porcupine Hill. The bleached asphalt is edged with sand and grasses and a few narrow dirt lanes that disappear into the brush. A timeless landscape unfolds where bridges take me over tidal inlets rushing in or out at the moon’s behest, and on the chance I pass another car the driver’s hand lifts from the wheel with a gesture of connection. Just past the stop sign is the bridge to Beals Island at the Coast Guard Station, then Jonesport. The town has a few businesses intermixed with houses and working wharves. At the north end is the cemetery and the road that heads up the other side of the peninsula along Mason’s Bay, back to US1.
Robert Beck maintains a gallery in Lambertville, NJ. robert@robertbeck.net. You can follow his paintings and
comments from Maine on Facebook at robert.beck.52
A natural compliance exists in the placement of side roads and buildings along the harbor, taking a lead from the land itself. The houses sit where they make the most sense given how the people in them live. Each scrubby property runs into the next with sandy lanes winding free-form between. There may be a dozen lobster traps, or a hundred, stacked next to a house, and a pile of buoys and lines in front of the garage. You see flaked paint, an abandoned barbeque or two, a mower half-covered by a tarp, and a boat on stands awaiting repairs that might or might not come. There is less concern for appearance than is found in American suburbia. This is a community centered on work, not image, and people are either doing what they must or what they can. There are also well-tended homes, cheerfully colored with lobster silhouettes cut out of the shutters or small round gardens with lighthouse centerpieces, reflecting personality rather than ostentation. Every yard has a well cared-for pickup truck and everybody you meet is dressed for the job at hand. Jonesport lives with the windows open in the summer. The air feels good on your skin. It can be raw and damp but it carries a scent of the sea that appeals to some ancient memory. Like the tides, it puts me in touch with things larger, things to be respected. It puts me in place—a grounding felt in the heart. Each visit comes with apprehension of what the future has in store. Many places were like this once. Our world is diversifying and homogenizing. Values are changing. In many respects we are better off for it. But when I compare a society where productive knowledge and skill gets passed directly from parent to child, against one where change comes so fast that generations barely understand each other's language, I’m drawn to the humanity rather than the technology. Sometimes I wake at three in the morning to the thrumming of a lobster boat coming alive in the harbor—the soundtrack of life lived in concert with the earth, the sea, and the heavens. A tiny red light moves through the dark along the reach into the bay, trailing a glistening wake eastward toward the Atlantic dawn. ■ W W W. FA C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W. I C O N D V . C O M ■ J U LY 2 0 1 5 ■ I C O N ■ 7
Art
BURTON WASSERMAN
Wharton Esherick IN THE WORLD OF fine, handmade furniture design, the late Wharton Esherick, was a brilliant example of the ultimate aesthetic pluralist. On the one hand, he was a trained, traditionally oriented artist, as tried and tested as any other graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. On the other hand, he was a gifted artisan in the area of woodcraft, adept at using tools to work the fiber and the grain of material he treated with infinite know-how and sincere respect. In other words, he was a keen and critically imaginative workman with a rare talent for transforming his medium, fresh from the lumberyard, into furnishings inventively conceived and soundly functional, for very sophisticated connoisseurs who wanted to live with home accessories that were artistically elegant and alive with aesthetic integrity. At the present time, the Moderne Gallery is offering visitors a golden opportunity to see a wonderful overview of furniture, sculpture and original woodcuts made by Esherick and collected by Rose and Nathan Rubinson of Merion, with additional items from other private collections. The installation is set to run through September 6, 2015. The show includes his well known music stand, pared down to bare essentials of structure and form and introduced to the world at the Brussels International Exposition of 1958. Altogether, there are some 40 selections on view, most of them priced between $7,500 and $100,000 and the woodcuts starting at $1,200. Some of the most distinguished of contemporary craft
studio designers such as David Ebner, Wendell Castle and Sam Maloof were all deeply influenced by Esherick’s original breakthrough approach. This also explains why he received such highly respected awards as the Gold Medal (1971) of the American Institute of Architects and why many examples of his work are included among the permanent collections of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Renwick Collection of the Smithsonian Museum in the nation’s capital. Born in 1877 and raised in Philadelphia, Esherick attended Manual Training High School where he learned the rudiments of wood and metal working. In addition, he also studied drawing and graphic printmaking at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art and painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. This year, the Moderne Gallery is celebrating its 31st anniversary. Initially, the founding director, Robert Aibel, supplemented his modest teaching income with funds earned by showing and selling the superbly handcrafted furniture of George Nakashima, whose studio was located in New Hope. The Moderne Gallery also buys and sells exceptional selections of work by distinguished ceramacists Peter Voulkos and Toshiko Takaezu, and Israeli designers Geva/Goldner. In addition, Aibel is a board member and past president of Collab, the organization of design professionals who support the modern design collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Besides the show currently on view at the Gallery, visi-
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tors may also enjoy a trip to The Wharton Esherick Museum to experience a setting in which excellent examples of his work may be carefully studied, as well as the home he lived in and the studio in which he brought his beautiful accomplishments to realization. Designed by his friend, the esteemed architect, Louis Kahn, and constructed by Esherick himself, the Museum is located along the crest of Valley Forge Mountain in Paoli. It is, without doubt, one of the most unique buildings in the country and has been declared a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. government. Both the interior and the exterior are a soundly unified totality of wooden architectural forms and furnishings, executed with the spirit of a work of sincerely expressive sculpture. An exceptionally gifted individual, Esherick was one of the first American artists to embrace an entirely new approach to a nontraditional grammar of organic form. His conceptual motivation was not so much based on clever ornamentation applied to the surface of a useful object, as much as to integrating a harmonious unity between form and structure in objects intended to meet utilitarian purposes. Invariably, they are also graced with an economy of approach to fabrication and are rather easy to maintain, without undue strain or effort. ■ Moderne Gallery, 111 North 3rd St., Philadelphia. (215) 923-8536. www.modernegallery.com Dr. Wasserman is a professor emeritus of Art at Rowan U. and a serious artist of long standing.
a Wharton Esherick (1887-1970). Photo: Emil C. Luks, c. 1940. Wharton Esherick Museum
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What Are the Wild Waves Saying?, 07/22/1900. Commercial printing process, 22 9/16” × 18”. Delaware Art Museum, Gift of Helen Farr Sloan, 2000. © Delaware Art Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Art
EDWARD HIGGINS
The Snake Charmer Puzzle, May 5, 1901 John Sloan (1871–1951) Delaware Art Museum, Gift of Helen Farr Sloan, 2000 © Delaware Art Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The Puzzling World of
Sloan himself would develop a darker pallette and focus on slice-of-life scenes from the urban alleys he roamed. His direction was toward realism and his political views were to the left. Even so, there is no sign of a political message in his puzzles. When he was associated with The Masses magazine, the editors demanded that he insert more partisan politics into his art; he not only quit the magazine, but the Socialist Party as well. Because of the artistic decoration that hid the puzzles in plain sight, readers had to employ some wit to figure them out. They were sometimes called upon to fold, bend, cut out elements, or hold the page in a certain way to read upside down and backward. Sloan admitted to all sorts of influences in his work. It’s clear that Japanese prints, which seemed to impact many American painters, had the same impact on him. One of the major influences in American art at the time was Art Nouveau, and that also shows up in the work. He was a meticulous worker, if not downright slow. Robert Henri said famously that Sloan was “the past tense of slow.” Still, he managed to keep pace with the seasons and special events that would interest a reader. The move to New York was important to Sloan as he established himself there as an artist, taught at the Art Students League, gained fame as a member of The Eight, dipped into electoral politics, and made new friends, including Irish poet John Yeats. Having been a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Sloan valued art education and spent 22 years at the League teaching such artists as Alexander Calder, David Smith, Reginald Marsh, and Barnett Newman. Despite later successes, Sloan’s art—and that of many other American artists—was doomed by the 1913 Armory show that brought modernism to the United States. Later in life Sloan summered in New Mexico and his pallette lightened appreciably. His health eventually ended those summers and he died in 1951 in Hanover, New Hampshire. ■
John Sloan JOHN FRENCH SLOAN, KNOWN to posterity as a painter of realistic urban scenes, was a socialist by inclination and an entrenched member of the New York art world. In the early 20th century, he was caught up in Philadelphia’s newspaper wars. Between 1900 and 1910, Sloan worked for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Press as an illustrator. Part of his job was to create weekly picture puzzles which readers were invited to solve for a $10 prize. By adding a few twirls, fringes, curlicues and other ornamentation, Sloan created an interesting image for a lively Sunday newspaper. As part of its continuing careful stewardship of the Sloan estate, the Delaware Art Museum is presenting The Puzzling World of John Sloan, an exhibition that demonstrates the talent and wit that Sloan brought to the task. The show includes some 25 newspaper tear sheets of the puzzles—out of 112 that the Museum owns—and one of his original paintings (the rest were destroyed in the printing process). His work shows the unjustified line between illustration and fine art. Much of Sloan’s art appears to be heavily influenced by the PreRaphaelite Brotherhood whose works are one of the foundations of the Museum. Sloan’s fellow newsmen included William Glackens, Everett Shinn, and George Luks. One by one they would all drift to New York, with Robert Henri, a friend and artist, among them. Together, these five joined with with three other artists who were shunned by the politically correct art world—Maurice Prendergast, Ernest Lawson, and Alfred Davies—and formed an exhibiting group that became known as “The Eight” or the “Ashcan School.” The eight artists were grouped together by the art world, even though they had differing styles.
Edward Higgins is a member of The Association Internationale Des Critiques d’Art.
Through September 6, 2015. Delaware Art Museum, 2301 Kentmere Parkway, Wilmington, Delaware. 302-571-9590. www.delart.org
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Cinematters
T
HE DEFINING QUALITY OF The Overnight, a touching, funny, and enlightening little gem, is its sweetness. That may sound unusual for a movie featuring copious nudity, a near orgy, and a latenight visit to a massage parlor, but director-writer Patrick Brice uses the bacchanalia to explore an awkward aspect of adulthood, not to mock it. Alex and Emily (Parks and Recreation’s Adam Scott and Orange is the New Black’s Taylor Schilling) are newcomers to Los Angeles, so recent, in fact, that their apartment is full of unlabeled boxes. They can’t find shorts for their son, RJ, so Alex cuts the legs off the kid’s pants before they take off. The outing isn’t just for the kid. The playground is a good place for an adult meet-and-greet, though Alex is reluctant to go alone. Thankfully, Emily, fresh from work, shows up with gummy worms for RJ. Another boy approaches. Then, a young man joins the burgeoning play date—and makes his way toward the stunned adult couple. The father of RJ’s new buddy, dressed in a dark suit jacket and wide hat, looks more like Bob Dylan’s Amish fan than a playground dad. After jokingly admonishing Alex and Emily for the gummy worms, Kurt (Jason Schwartzman) introduces himself. He is gregarious and funny, but he’s too eager, like a young sales rep trying to close his first account. Still, Alex and Emily accept his dinner invitation. They need to meet people, and the self-described mayor of the neighborhood is a good start.
PETE CROATTO
The Overnight This smells like an ambush. Alex is apprehensive, even more so when they approach Kurt’s gigantic house. (He starts scratching the label off their bottle of Two-Buck Chuck.) Kurt and his bubbly wife, Charlotte (Judith Godrèche), a prototypical French beauty, are lovely, funny, and disarming. Alex toasts the hosts, admitting that his apprehension is gone. Everyone is having such a blast that Charlotte and Kurt push for the adults to continue their visit while the kids sleep. When Kurt serenades the drowsy tykes with some sweet keyboard noodling, friendship is all but sealed. Then the evening takes a turn. Charlotte mentions her past as an actress. Alex and Emily ask if she’s been in anything. That’s when a proud Kurt screens his wife’s best work: a tutorial for breast pumps. A bong gets passed around. Booze emerges. Skinny-dipping takes place, which immerse Alex and Emily into a tumult of suburban exploration they can’t escape. Brice doesn’t favor a good time over his characters, whom he clearly loves. The outlandish events that unfold at Charlotte and Kurt’s abode only heighten the movie’s emotional authenticity. Alex and Emily are united in their uncertainty: Is this all part of being at the cool kids’ table? Don’t they deserve to have a good time? Brice, like a great baseball pitcher, keeps changing speeds. As Alex becomes liberated, Emily grows more concerned—Schilling’s facial expressions and Scott’s wide-eyed enthusiasm fuel their dynamic—and she has good reason. Why are Charlotte
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and Kurt, two glittery spirits, courting them? We understand why Alex and Emily stay. Curiosity is part of it—hell, I’d stay on the chance of using the gorgeous in-ground pool—but their hosts are fascinating and never quite lecherous. Schwartzman, so good here, has expertly played a series of unctuous, pompous characters. Every time, he reveals their soul, whether it’s Max Fischer in Rushmore or the flaming narcissist in Listen Up Philip. This time around, Schwartzman has Kurt believe what he’s saying. There’s no guile to him, even though every conversation he starts sounds like a prelude to a seduction. As the night continues, and the layers come off—literally and metaphorically—the enthusiastic approach remains. He knows no other way. And Charlotte, played with a refreshing mixture of compassion and allure by Godrèche, crumples under the weight of her own exotic sweetness. When she talks to Emily about having her own bedroom, the sexy musings about freedom can’t hide the hurt. At the center of The Overnight are two couples from two different backgrounds learning how to be grown-ups and, more importantly, how to find allies in that fight. It’s nice to see a movie that doesn’t give us answers, but admits to—and laughs at—the confusion we all face. ■ An ICON contributor since 2006, Pete Croatto has also written for The New York Times, Grantland, Broadway.com, the A.V. Club, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @PeteCroatto.
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Keresman on Film
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HE CREATION OF life has long been a subject of fascination and exploration in cinema and literature. From the legend of the Golem to Frankenstein (the novel and assorted films) to Bladerunner, smartie-pants humans have been obsessed with creating life— or a semblance of it. With the rise and subsequent advances of computer technology, the idea of artificial intelligence (AI), a machine that can “think” or at least independently interact with humans, is not so far-fetched. Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), a computer whiz at an Internet company, is “chosen” to spend a week at the house of reclusive genius and multimillionaire eccentric Nathan (Oscar Isaac). Caleb is tasked with determining the pseudo-humanity of Ava (Swedish actress Alicia Vikander), Nathan’s android creation, who believes she may be a sentient being. Most of the movie is Ava and Caleb verbally dancing around each other, testing each other…seducing each other. Is Ava manipulating Caleb? Are Caleb and Ava being manipulated by Nathan? Ex Machina is an intelligent science fiction film in
MARK KERESMAN
Ex Machina which there are no easy answers, and lots of questions. Is Nathan an emotionally healthy genius or an intelligent psychopath? Is Ava truly sentient—and if she is, can she feel emotions as most of us understand what emotions are? Is Caleb falling in love with Ava or is he, too, another of the walking wounded, an emotional cripple who relates to a pretty robot more than he can relate to a human woman? The focus here is on the characters rather than geewhiz special effects—though the ways in which Ava simultaneously resembles a pretty woman and an attractive, feminine machine, are inspired…and disturbing. Isaac plays Nathan alternately as Mr. Mellow Computer Geek and Spoiled, Manipulative Creep with a God complex. Gleeson’s Caleb is charmingly vulnerable. Vikander’s Ava alternately projects childlike innocence and allure. The acting is mostly fine, though at times a bit too understated—or perhaps the parts are a bit underwritten. Caleb seems a little too trusting of Nathan and Ava, and Nathan, an alleged genius, does some really stupid stuff. Like some of the best episodes of The Outer Limits
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series, Ex Machina poses the consequences of scientific advances and science-gone-awry. It’s essentially a threecharacter story at an unhurried pace, that takes place in Nathan’s super-high-tech estate. With that less-is-more aspect, Ex Machina is very creepy and discomforting. Are these characters what they seem? Do they have hidden agendas? If so, are the agendas relatively benign or do these characters regard each other as (ultimately) expendable? There are no easy answers—this is a movie loaded with ambiguities. Ex Machina has its flaws to be sure (there are indeed a couple of huge plot holes), but it’s a very compelling film. It relies not on big-screen effects, but settings, lighting, saturated colors, soft-spoken dialogue, subtle eroticism, and dread to tell its tale. That makes it worth your movie dollar. ■
Mark Keresman also writes for SF Weekly, East Bay Express, Pittsburgh City Paper, Paste, Jazz Review, downBeat, and the Manhattan Resident.
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Bad Movie
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MANY PEOPLE LIKE CAMERON Crowe’s films (Almost Famous, Say Anything, and Jerry Maguire), as well they should. (Truth be told, I couldn’t finish Vanilla Sky.) But Aloha finds Crowe devolving into M. Night Shyamalan, a once-promising filmmaker who’s lost his mojo. Aloha has a tired premise—good-looking, former hotshot guy is torn between two women. In this case, guy is Bradley Cooper, the gals are Emma Stone and Rachel McAdams. We guys should have his problems. Cooper is Brian, a maverick-type defense contractor (that’s right, he’s a rebel and he’ll never be any good) who’s been through some bad stuff in Afghanistan. (Yet we never see or “experience” what led Brian to where he needs some sort of redemption or pick-me-up.) He’s in Hawaii to negotiate land with locals for a satellite launch…this satellite will be a plot point later. McAdams is Tracy, his ex, with two adorably Hollywoodish children, and Emma Stone is Allison Ng, a one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Hawaiian Air Force pilot and liason who’s also a variation on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. (The latter is the irrepressibly spirited, adorably quirky, and sweet-as-blueberry-pie-with-tofutti-whip-on-top gal-type whose purpose in movies is to instill or rekindle the joie de vive that’s sorely missing in the leading man’s life.) Never mind that Stone looks Asian as much as Rosie O’Donnell. You think James Bond is the
MARK KERESMAN
Aloha perfect guy/polymath? Ms. Ng is a Dreamland gal right out of two or more screenwriters’ minds: At one point the ambitious Air Force officer Ng is snapping salutes (the military stickler routine) while a little later she's mellow and chilling with her acoustic guitar, singing a traditional folk ditty with the locals. (Why, she’s just plain folks after all… and ethnic, too.) The few locals, by the way, are the stereotype of Wise Hawaiian Native People, the types that look to the skies admiring the glory of Nature while the White People scurry about, driven by ambition, lust, greed, and prickly heat. And even though this is set in the 50th state (where Caucasians are something of a minority), the Pacific island setting appears white as any episode of Friends. Adams is pretty much there as eye candy. Alex Baldwin has a small part as a general that dominates the screen—which is good, because no one else in the cast seems up to it. Crowe usually gives us memorable characters and that’s where he trips up here. The characters aren’t fleshed-out—they’re your usual two-dimensional characters. Cooper under-acts, as if his Silver Linings Playbook character had too much Benadryl and chamomile tea, and Stone overacts as Captain Spunky McHawaiian. Bill Murray appears as a slight variation on (you guessed it) Bill Murray as a billionaire who wants to put a satellite in
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orbit. But don’t worry, since he’s played by Murray and says the satellite won’t be used for anything objectionable, we and the characters don’t have to worry about any…sinister applications. Or do we? The pacing drags. The awkward dialogue seems to have been written by someone that got notions of modern romance from watching romantic comedies. As is standard operating procedure in Hollywood cinematic romances, Our Loving Couple must have a quarrel so their reunification will seem so much more poignant and potentially lasting. Ever the guy who can’t play by the rules, Brian insults Allison’s ethnic heritage one too many times—obviously the audience needs to be reminded of her, you know, ethnicity—giving our heroine the opportunity to refer to our anti-hero as cynical, mean, and not as nice as he could be. Will she forgive her individualist man? Will he learn to be nicer and less cynical? What do you think? But hey, Crowe, as befitting a former writer for Rolling Stone, includes lots of aw, gee-moment rock songs on the soundtrack. Incidentally, Crowe has publically apologized since the movie’s release for casting the vanilla, lily-white Stone (who is otherwise a good actress) in the role of an Asian-American. Now if N. Night would just apologize for The Happening…. ■
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Reel News
GEORGE OXFORD MILLER / REVIEWS OF RECENTLY RELEASED DVDS
Clouds of Sils Maria
★=SKIP IT; ★★=MEDIOCRE; ★★★=GOOD; ★★★★=EXCELLENT; ★★★★★=CLASSIC
Clouds of Sils Maria (2015) ★★★★ Cast: Kristen Stewart, Juliette Binoche, Chole Grace Moretz Genre: Drama Rated R Runtime 124 minutes. Set in the ageless beauty of the Swiss Alps, this philosophical drama focuses on the aging beauty of a great French actress Maria (Binoche) and her young, vivacious personal assistant Valentine (Stewart). Maria catapulted to fame by playing the role of a young woman who manipulates an older woman to her own advantage. Now, in a twist of fate—or destiny—she’s asked to play the older woman in a remake opposite a rogue actress, Jo-Ann Ellis (Moretz), looking to launch her career. Still hanging on to her illusion of youth, Maria considers the role a slap in the face; Valentine tries to convince her that it’s an honor that will keep her middle-aged career on track. The rich dialogue and intense relationship between the younger and older women becomes a mirror within a metaphor for their friendship, the ironies of aging, and the illusions we all cling to about ourselves.
Gett: the Trial of Viviane Amsalem ★★★★ Cast: Ronit Elkabetz, Simon Abkarian Genre: Drama Unrated Runtime 115 minutes Israel’s 2015 Oscar entry for Best Foreignlanguage Film. In Hebrew, French, and Arabic with English subtitles. In Israel, where rabbinic law rules, a wife must get her husband’s permission to receive a “gett” (divorce decree). After decades of abusive marriage, Viviane (Elkabetz) petitions the court for a divorce, even though her husband Elisha (Abkarian) denies permission. The hearings proceed over a period of years but Viviane’s resolve never falters. The rabbis take copious notes, Elisha smirks with pious indignation, and Viviane bleeds emotion. The tension builds as each character witness presents a biased version of the truth. The arguments encompass human rights, right and wrong, gender roles, family responsibilities, and the role of society, religion, and state in matters of love. Every word, every glance, every gesture stokes the tension in the courtroom as the rabbis favor tradition over justice.
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Slow West (2015) ★★★ Cast: Michael Fassbender, Kodi SmitMcPhee, Caren Pistorius Genre: Offbeat western Rated R Runtime 84 minutes. This genre-twisting tale of the Old West captures the rambunctious spirit of a coming-of-age, lost-soul romance. Scottish rich-boy Jay (Smit-McPhee) falls in love with working-class Rose (Pistorius), but destiny doesn’t smile. When Rose and her father flee Scotland for America with a $2,000 bounty on their heads, lovelorn Jay follows to the wilds of the lawless frontier. He hires a guide, Silas (Fassbender), a bounty hunter who seeks the girl for more utilitarian reasons. Along the way they encounter a plethora of offbeat adversaries from Congolese immigrants and a German anthropologist to other bloodthirsty bounty hunters. Played poker-face straight, the sight gags, taciturn comments, and surrealistic experiences keep the pace rollicking toward the ultimate bloody showdown when everyone converges on the not-so-innocent girlfriend’s farm.
Second Best Marigold Hotel (2015) ★★★ Cast: Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel Genre: Comedy Rated PG This second-best sequel defines a character-driven movie. With a trite, predictable plot, the story is all about the characters and the humor, love of life, and at times the pathos, that surround their remaining years. The elderly tribe encamped at the Best Marigold Hotel and their young, vivacious leader, Sonny (Patel), approach an American hotel chain about investing in a second Marigold Hotel that caters to retirees wanting a goal-line rush for the last quarter of their game. With misunderstandings creating both humor and tension, the whole wacky bunch charges full steam ahead, damn the torpedoes, in search of new love, fearless adventures, and daring challenges. By the end, common sense turns absurd fiascos into good fortune and everyone lives to see a better day. This refreshing movie brings the best actors in the English-speaking world together to celebrate the indomitable human spirit that lives life to the hilt until the last gasp. ■
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Film Roundup
KEITH UHLICH
The End of the Tour
★=SKIP IT; ★★=MEDIOCRE; ★★★=GOOD; ★★★★=EXCELLENT; ★★★★★=CLASSIC
Amy (Dir. Asif Kapadia). Documentary. Many music documentaries, especially those that deal with brilliant talents who burned out early, rely on wistful talking heads and whitewashing pronouncements in which the artist’s genius transcends the tragedy of their lives. Asif Kapadia’s documentary about English singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse (who died of alcohol poisoning at the age of 28) goes a different route. It limits the retrospective interviews to audio recordings that occasionally play over a two-hours-plus, and very well edited, compilation of archive footage of the Back to Black singer over her too-short life. The images come from many sources—family archives, official documentaries, paparazzi recordings (the most upsetting of the bunch)—tying up Winehouse’s triumphs, tragedies and other states of being to such an insightful and penetrating degree that you come away feeling like you’ve borne witness to a human being in all their complexity rather than a Teflon saint to be unthinkingly exalted. [R] ★★★★ Burying the Ex (Dir: Joe Dante). Starring: Anton Yelchin, Ashley Greene, Alexandra
Daddario. It’s a terrible thing when your heroes disappoint you, but that’s exactly what happens with the latest film from Gremlins and Looney Tunes: Back in Action director Joe Dante, Hollywood’s resident anarchist, and a too-often marginalized talent. If anything, this zombie romcom (written by first-timer Alan Trezza) is infected with the bitterness of an artist who has been dismissed one too many times. It stars Anton Yelchin as Max, a skittish horror memorabilia store employee in a whipped relationship with his nightmare of a vegan-Greenpeace girlfriend (Ashley Greene). Fortunately, she’s run over by a bus. Unfortunately, she rises from the dead, which puts a crimp in his plans to romance the movie-obsessed new girl (Alexandra Daddario) who owns a local ice cream shop. The director’s wit is occasionally evident (a moving company van is named “Romero and Sons” after undead cinema maestro George A. Romero). But mostly this is a cheap-looking and relentlessly cruel movie almost entirely lacking in the sharp-edged satire that marks Dante at his best. [R] ★1/2 Eden (Dir. Mia Hansen-Løve). Starring:
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Félix de Givry, Pauline Etienne, Vincent Macaigne, Greta Gerwig. Working with her former record-spinning brother Sven, director Mia Hansen-Løve has crafted a lovingly intimate and expansive portrait of a French DJ, Paul (Félix de Givry), coming of age during the rise of house-music. The film follows Paul from his early days as a music-obsessed teen through to his minor young adult success and ultimate descent into middle-age obscurity. As in her wonderful romantic drama Goodbye, First Love, the characters don’t outwardly age, yet life still weighs on them in the most profound and piercing of ways. This isn’t the history of a musical movement so much as one character’s experience of it: For all the artists who make a success out of their youthful passions (the two electronic music aficionados who would go on to front Daft Punk are supporting characters), Hansen-Løve’s film is equally, empathetically concerned with those who weren’t able to leave a lasting mark. [R] ★★★★1/2 The End of the Tour (Dir: James Ponsoldt). Starring: Jesse Eisenbeg, Jason Segel. It seemed like a bad idea when it was announced: A film based on a book by writer
David Lipsky in which he chronicles several days spent with author David Foster Wallace during the tour for the latter’s much-lauded postmodern novel Infinite Jest. (Lipsky’s reminiscence was published soon after Wallace killed himself in 2008.) As it turns out, James Ponsoldt’s drama isn’t as ghoulishly exploitative as one might fear. Both Jesse Eisenberg, as Lipsky, and Jason Segel, as Wallace, drum up a naturally conversational and occasionally antagonistic rapport that keeps the film engrossing for its entire running time. Yet there’s still something off about it all, especially when one reflects on the fact that the real Wallace often decried portraits-ofthe-artist of this sort that deal with a creative person’s complications via superficial and sentimental means. There’s more of the former than the latter here (mostly relating to the skin-deep rivalry that develops between the two lead characters), but the best one can say, in the end, is that the film is respectfully disrespectful of Wallace’s legacy. [R] ★★1/2 ■ Keith Uhlich is a critic and writer based in New York. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle.
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Interview
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
A. D. AMOROSI
CROSBY, STILLS, NASH AND Young last played as one unit in 2013 for Young’s Bridge School Benefit Concert in Mountain View, CA, more than seven years since their previous united outing on its 2006 Freedom of Speech tour. This doesn’t mean that CSNY don’t speak to each other. Hell, they scream at each other all the time. Like when David Crosby recently called Neil Young’s new girlfriend, Daryl Hannah, horrible names after Young’s longtime marriage broke up and Young said he’d never speak nor work with Crosby again because of it (Crosby just apologized for that matter back in June, saying that he hadn’t the right to judge or speak). That incident between Crosby and Young would hardly be the first time CSNY’s membership has groused at one another. The entire backstory to last year’s live box set release of CSNY 1974 is rife with feuding. “And, yes I am very bored of having to play referee between them, now that you ask,” says Graham Nash, matter of factly. “I’m tired of it. We’re not school children anymore. I think we’re all grown men and that if we’re going to get the job done—whether we are together or apart— each of us should just stay in our lane and do it properly. We want to play this game of playing rock n’ roll music. Well, let’s get on with it then.” Nash—ever the political watchdog—must be fonder then of Young’s recent rant against Donald Trump for having used “Rockin’ in the Free World” (without permission) during the so-called billionaire’s announcement of his candidacy. There was also a photo of Young standing next to Trump that was circulated in conjunction with the announcement, but that, too, was disavowed by the songwriter. The shot was taken during a meeting when Young was trying to raise funds for Pono, his online high-resolution music service. This caused Young dismay. As a Canadian citizen, he doesn’t vote here, though he clearly supports Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. “Music is a universal language, so I am glad that so many people with varying beliefs get enjoyment from my music, even if they don’t share my beliefs,” Young said in a statement at the time. “I think America is a place where everyone speaks their mind,” says Nash, “perhaps now everyone even more so.” I bring up all this CSNY business because between July 4 and mid-August, all four members of pop’s most politicized, harmonic quartet will play in the area. David Crosby performs solo on July 5 at Bethlehem’s Musikfest Cafe at ArtsQuest Center. Stephen Stills plays July 9 at Glenside’s Keswick Theatre. Graham Nash plays that same venue on August 8 (as well as an August 9 gig at Wilmington’s Grand Opera House). Finally, Neil Young—currently touring with Willie Nelson’s sons in Promise of the Real with whom Young recorded The Monsanto Years—will play new songs and old in both acoustic and electric sets, at Camden’s Susquehanna Bank Center on July 16. For guitarist/singing songwriter Lukas Nelson, bassist Corey McCormick, percussionist Tato Melgar, drummer Anthony LoGerfo—Promise of the Real—and Micah Nelson (an occasional collaborator who has his own musical projects, Insects vs. Robots and Particle Man), teaming with Young was as natural as breathing. Young is pretty much how and why the band got together in the first place as Nelson and LoGerfo met at a 2008 Neil Young concert in Los Angeles, the only two “headbanging, raging Neil heads in the crowd,” says LoGerfo with a laugh. “We met at that show and bonded over Neil stuff, and after the gig we just hung out, surfed and smoked on Seal Beach,” says Lukas Nelson. “The beers were under the pier. He had weed at his house and when we got back there, I pulled out my guitar, Anthony pulled out his bongos and that was the start of a great friendship and pretty much the band.” As for Lucas’ younger brother Micah, he was busy making videos for his father’s various projects (including those from Willie’s new duet album with Merle Haggard, Django and Jimmie) on an iPhone for a “digital DIY, raw, improvisational look just perfect for my dad’s style,” says Micah. The younger brother Nelson also played with Promise of the Real—live-action painting while the band performed on stage—and like his brother, played music with his father. “It’s a fun collaboration capturing my dad at this point in his life,” says Micah.
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Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1974) Photo: Joel Bernstein
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Foodie Feature
Going Hard
A. D. AMOROSI
Entrance at Fette Sau.
Sometimes a fine wine just doesn’t do the trick
Wood-grilled Lamb Sirloin at Brigantessa.
Sazerac Sour.
Selection of Meats and Sides at Fette Sau.
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THE FOOD AND SPIRTS combination event—often executed with wine and a fine specific vintner or craft beers now that Pennsylvania is nu-brewer central —is a joyous thing. In Philadelphia, some of the best wine pairing dinners have occurred at Il Pittore (2025 Sansom Street) with its rustic Italian fare prepared by co-owner/chef Chris Painter teamed with rich deep reds, and Paradiso (1627 East Passyunk Avenue) with Lynn Renaldi’s Abruzze and Calabrese cuisine. Jeremy Nolen’s Brauhaus Schmitz (718 South Street) and his German fare. Always good for a great, dynamic beer pairing, and, on more than more occasion, Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto has opened his doors at 723 Chestnut Street for saké soirees. Yet, there’s something about a hard, strong cocktail when paired with hard, smoked food for a decadent pairing. It’s a different animal—literally; something sensually primal. One of the best events occurred when Stephen Starr’s Fette Sau—the home of dry-rubbed meat smoked in-house at 1208 Frankford Avenue—held a party with Kentucky’s Buffalo Trace Distillery and its magic elixir, the Sazerac. This is the American classic, a deceptively simple but headily potent cocktail served neat, cognac and rye whiskey with .25 ounce of Absinthe and one sugar cube. If you’re feeling brave, no sugar cube; if you’re feeling salty, Peychaud’s Bitters; if you have to sub for cognac, go for bourbon or Herbsaint. Anyone who knows cocktails knows its origins: The Sazerac de Forge et Fils brand of Cognac brandy (once used as its original main ingredient), was in its time THE heavy pour of pre-Civil War New Orleans, thus earning its reputation as America’s first true cocktail. Anyone who knows this writer knows that I will travel far and wide for a good Sazerac. I found my finest with drinking partner Marianne Faithfull in a New York City bar, Milk & Honey, and ever since have used the making of a good-to-great Sazerac—the right amount of heat and headiness—as the mark of how reputable a cocktail establishment is and how noble a bartender I have standing before me. You need a powerfully heady meat or fish concoction to stand up to the woozy symmetry of Sazerac, and Fette Sau did so handily by offering smoky, vinegary Flintstone-ian pork brisket with mustard greens and fennel, a dense whiskey-mustard smoked duck terrine and a tangy smoked trout with butter lettuce and chives. Those dishes, when paired with tasty boozy morsels such as a Sazerac Sour, Sazerac Milk Punch and stiff, bittersweet Sazerac with local maple syrup and muddled rosemary, were simply exquisite, as richly rustic as it was elegant. With that, I’m thinking of great, strong-drink-and-food pairings coming in July, such as that of 1520 East Passyunk Avenue’s forneria Brigantessa. There, chef Joe Cicalla serves pillowy pasta, doughy wood-oven-baked pizzas and decadent meat selection and its digestivi (apertif) Amaro flights: Amaro del Capo from Calabria, with herbs, quinine, cola nut and citrus; Amaro Nonino from Friuli, a grappabased amaro with saffron, gentian and chinchona; Branca from Lombardia, dry, with menthol, eucalyptus, myrrh and rhubarb). Plus, Fette Sau has already partnered up with its newest neighbor, La Colombe Distillery, on one event… and the summer’s young. ■ All photos on this page ©Reese Amorosi
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The List : JULY 3 Buddy Guy (Keswick) When Guy releases Born to Play Guitar at the end of July, it will be one more notch in the belt of the blues icon who received a 2015 Grammy Lifetime Achievement
7 Raekwon & Ghostface Killah (TLA) Two of the Wu Tang Clan’s most vividly imaginative lyricist/rappers take command of the South Street stage. Ghostface in particular has something to crow about as he’s got a new album with spacey producer Adrian Younge – Twelve Reasons to Die II – which just happens to feature RZA and Raekwon. 7 Lloyd Cole (World Café Live) Britain’s latter day, post-punk answer to Lou Reed, put aside his acoustic guitar and is touring around and performing a new electric set of Standards with one-time Reed drummer Fred Maher, American power-pop godhead Matthew Sweet and Joan (As Police Woman) Wasser as his band. That group alone is worth the ticket.
Award, a Kennedy Center Honor, a Billboard Music Awards’ Century Award, a Presidential National Medal of Arts, and an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Plus, the guy plays one deeply expressive axe. 3 Pure Hell (Boot & Saddle) Arguably the first all-black punk act of the mid-70s, Philly’s Pure Hell make up for lost time (I don’t think they’ve played their hometown in over a decade) with variations of their first single "These Boots were Made for Walking," and more.
9 Mudhoney/Pissed Jeans (Union Transfer) Muddled grunge, noisy drones and caustic lyrics, past and present, 10 Death Grips (Union Transfer) Rap-rock’s evilest new friends went from major label to label, playing out constantly then retiring. Who knows? 11 Julianne Hough and Derek Hough – Move Live on Tour (Susquehanna Bank Center) The brother and sister
A. D. AMOROSI
A curated look at the month’s arts, entertainment, food and pop cultural events talized on the whole sultry R&B rap duo thing. They sold a couple of million albums, broke up, became stars in their own right (Ambrosius in particular makes some nasty soul music) and now see eye to eye again.
24-26 XPONENTIAL Fest (Camden Festival Park/Susquehanna Center) It’s a little bit country (Florida Georgia Line) a whole lot of rock n’ roll (My Morning Jacket, St. Vincent) with some soul and reggae on the side (Grace Potter & George Ezra with The Wailers 25 Whitesnake (Taj Mahal) David Coverdale’s hair metal band pays tribute to the band that made him famous first: Deep Purple. 25 Jesse Malin (Boot & Saddle) Malin has been the great white dope for punk rock for some time. Sounds like fans are finally catching on.
17 The Eagles (Boardwalk Hall) I recommend this only in passing; the height of 70s Californian cool and cranky country rock. 20 Dustbowl Revival/Thom McCarthy (World Café Live) Goodtime-y acoustic rural bluegrass and Dixieland meets Philadelphia’s boot stomping answer to Van Dyke Parks. This should be a good time. 23 Ryn Weaver (TLA) Blue eyed soul’s
28 Iron & Wine and Ben Bridwell (Union Transfer) Fascinating modern folkies take on new wave classics. Certainly way more interesting than their original songs. 29 Shuggie Otis (Ardmore Music Hall) The psychedelic soul scion of R&B honker Johnny Otis plays a mean guitar and has the sweetest voice o the planet. 29 Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (TLA) Wait, these guys have the sweetest voices on the planet, only they’re crooning on the creamy hip hop tip. 31 Deen Ween Group (Union Transfer) While his one-time Ween partner Aaron
4 The Roots Welcome America (Benjamin Franklin Parkway) Barely a month after The Roots Picnic, these hometown hip hop heroes offer up less collaborators than usual for this July 4 holiday jam (R$B singer Miguel, country crooner Jennifer Nettles), but, perhaps
newest queen doesn’t have a hit single yet but that’s your fault.
act from ABC’s Dancing with the Stars express themselves without the benefit of a camera. 15 Stanard Ridgeway (World Café Live) No one does film noir detective new wave like one-time Wall of Voodoo singer Stan Ridgeway. Then again, nobody else does that sound, period. this means an extended mix of Questlove, Black Thought and Co.
17 Floetry (TLA) Back in the late 90s, two Brit girls moved to Philly—Marsha Ambrosius and Natalie Stewart—and capi-
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23 Primus with Dinosaur Jr. and The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger (Fest Pier) Oh man, this is one choice gathering of complex prog-punks and angry, weird nu-psychedelia. 24 NRBQ (Ardmore Music Hall) The notoriously eccentric boogie-blues ensemble returns. 24 Tony Bennett/Lady Gaga (Borgata) The standard bearer of Tin Pan Alley song and his new pal Gaga hit the boards.
“Gene Ween” Freeman runs around doing Billy Joel and Rod McKuen songs, Mickey M attacks New Hope’s greatest weirdest tunes. 31 Boz Scaggs (Borgata) This legendarily throaty blue eyed soul vocalist knows his way around Philly International sounds, and gritty Memphis blues.
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Music
A. D. AMOROSI
The Summer of
BEATLEMANIA IF AUTUMN 2015 IS THE prime time to celebrate the Beatles’ legacy with Ringo Starr gigs and Ron Howard’s long-rumored documentary, summer was for John and Paul with the release of a Lennon vinyl box set and Paul McCartney’s victorious Out There tour hitting Philly’s Wells Fargo Center just days after “the cute Beatle” turned 73. Clocking in at nearly three hours, McCartney’s insistently energized set and voice never faltered. From show’s start—handsomely chugging, jovially jangling Beatles tunes “Eight Days a Week” and “Another Girl”—to its encore Abbey Road rhapsody (the epic troika of “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight,” “The End”) with a solo acoustic “Yesterday,” a cheery “Can’t Buy Me Love,” and a ferocious “Helter Skelter,” the Philadelphia show was Beatlemania-to-the-Max. That’s especially true considering that McCartney still can hit a younger man’s registers and that his crack, innovative band (guitarist Rusty Anderson, bassist/guitarist Brian Ray, drummer Abe Laboriel Jr., keyboardist Wix) lent gorgeously soulful harmonies. Along with tackling a handful of additional Beatles surprises—an unusually uptempo “Hey Jude”; a lonely “Eleanor Rigby”; a ringing power pop double shot of “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and “We Can Work It Out”; psychedelicized takes on “All Together Now,” “Lovely Rita,” and “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”—McCartney pulled out the stops on shockers from his Wings catalog, such as a riff-rocking “Hi, Hi, Hi,” a chipper “Another Day,” and a raucous R&B-ish “Let Me Roll It” with Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” as its coda. Doubly impressive was how much life he gave songs from his most recent album New (e.g. the title track) and rare oddities such as the soulfully robotic “Temporary Secretary” from (1980’s McCartney II) and a James Bond-theme-like tune, “Hope,” penned for the Destiny video game. Charming and playful, McCartney made— and I know this’ll sound corny—every audience member feel like family. The John Lennon Lennon nine-LP vinyl collection has much the same effect on its audience as a three-hour McCartney gig, only here Lennon is more corrosive than charming, more angry than avuncular. Every note is potent and powerful, relentlessly so, once taken in full, unfettered measure. From the politicized primal scream of
John Lennon at Tittenhurst Park home on terrace. Photo by Peter Fordham ©Yoko Ono - Associated album IMAGINE
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Keresman on Disc
MARK KERESMAN ★=SKIP IT; ★★=MEDIOCRE; ★★★=GOOD; ★★★★=EXCELLENT; ★★★★★=CLASSIC
Solitaire Miles ★★★★★ Susie Blue and the Lonesome Fellas Seraphic In the 1930s and ‘40s, Western swing thrived, though perhaps more in the western USA. Western swing was (and remains) a fusion of country music and jazz, of country fiddle tunes, Western ballads, and swing. Except for the team-ups of Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson, there has not been much cross-pollination be-
tween jazz and country music in the last decade or so. Chicago jazz singer Solitaire Miles thinks that needs to change—as do I, a fan of both genres. Susie Blue… is Ms. Miles’ alter ego, in which she applies her luscious, slightly smoky humdinger of a voice—imagine a cross between the young Billie Holiday and the mature Patsy Cline, or a down-home Peggy Lee—to some classic country tunes (we’re talking pre-1965 country, folks) with a combo that includes jazz cats (Eric Schneider), country guys T.C. Furlong, and Stuart Rosenberg, who’s conversant with both. Miles has an approach that’s delightfully old-school without any cheesy retro accoutrements (remember that neoswing/Lounge Nation trend in the ‘90s?), singing with the right blend of soulfulness and laid-back, hick cool. If you can dig both George Jones and Count Basie, Merle Haggard and Jane Monheit, hear this. (12 tracks, 38 min.) susiebluelonesomefellas.com shemp@hotmail.com
Ryley Walker ★★★★★ Primrose Green Dead Oceans Once upon a time the borders between folk singer/songwriters and jazz were not nearly so wide. Tim Hardin’s Bird On the Wire featured the cream of 1970s jazz talent, including Ralph Towner and Joe Zawinul; the vocal styles of Tim Buckley, Van Morrison, and John Martyn were definitely jazz-influenced and often had jazz musicians in their bands, and Dave Van Ronk sang traditional folk and pre-bebop jazz and blues songs. Who’s carrying on since most of these gents are no longer with us? Illinois’ Ryley Walker, for one—his second platter Primrose Green finds him very much in the shadow of Tim Buckley, and that’s not a negative comment. Everyone needs to start someplace, and Green shows that RW absorbed Buckley’s expansive, elongating-words vocal approach— using his voice more like an instrument at times—without being overtly imitative of it. His songs interlace the traditions of storytelling via song and flexible-form jazz-oriented accompaniment (Walker’s backed by killer Chicago jazz talent), and there are also overtones of traditional British Isles and American folk strains throughout. Unlike Buckley, Walker has a bit of rock insouciance to him—listening to “On The Banks of the Old Kishwaukee” one can imagine what the Grateful Dead and the Velvet Underground might’ve sounded like had they buried the hatchet and played together. Walker’s songs don’t have immediatelygrab-you melodies—it’s more the flowing tapestries of sound that draw you in after a few listens. (Another touchstone: Traffic— their classic John Barleycorn Must Die mixed folk and jazz styles, too.) Primrose Green is not “just” an album of songs—it’s Walker and company fashioning a timeless sound-verse of their own, belonging to all time and no time at all. (10 tracks, 46 min.) deadoceans.com Bessie: Music From the HBO Film ★★★★ Legacy Recordings Singer Bessie Smith (1894-1937) was a pivotal figure in American music. She was the highest paid African-American performer of her time, influenced Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin, and country music/Western swing icon Bob Wills rode 50 miles on horseback to see her perform. While Smith was a blues singer through and through, she was one of the “bridges” between the coarseness of blues and sophisticated swing of jazz—her records featured some of the greatest jazz players of
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the 1920s and ‘30s: Coleman Hawkins, Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson, and James P. Johnson. Bessie is a film biography starring Queen Latifah as Bessie Smith and musically it’s a fine tribute to her and the milieu in which she lived. Latifah conveys the full-bodied gutsiness and assured swagger (note the excellent “Preachin’ Blues”) of Smith but doesn’t quite capture her raw, raunchy side. The rest of the soundtrack is aces: Hot jazz by Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong, New Orleans jazz by Kid Ory, and some modernday renditions of that era by Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks (heard and seen on the HBO series Boardwalk Empire) and Cécile McLorin Salvant. Both fans of and novices to pre-1940 jazz and blues: This platter is a must. (17 tracks, 51 min.) legacyrecordings.com Milford Graves/Bill Laswell ★★★1/2 Space/Time – Redemption TUM Last Exit ★★★★★ Iron Path ESP-Disk Milford Graves is one of the first free jazz drummers—he dispensed with “the beat” but not rhythm; Bill Laswell is a mega-eclectic ace bassist and producer of everyone from Motorhead to Herbie Hancock. Laswell’s bass ripples and bubbles, combining the hard point of funk with the seemingly abstract pulse of dub reggae; Graves is all over the drum kit but his method is both exacting and intuitive. Expecting conventional melodies as basis for improvisation? Not here, but these guys (both brilliant players) create their own musical universe and invite you to get lost therein. (5 tracks, 61 minutes) tumrecords.com Long out of print, Iron Path (originally on Venture/Virgin, 1988) is the only studio album by the collective Last Exit. Last Exit was Laswell, German free jazz sax icon Peter Brotzmann, guitarist Sonny Sharrock, perhaps the first guitarist to apply John Coltrane’s late-period ecstatic approach to his instrument, and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. (The latter two gents have since passed from this mortal coil, sadly.) This band combined two seemingly different approaches—unfettered free jazz blowouts and heavy metal. “Cut and Run” is a surf-flavored onslaught and “Devil’s Rain” is driven by a keening slide guitar riff and smoldering, scorched-earth rhythm. Peter B is a bit more restrained than on his own releases (yet still cathartic), Jackson is a force of nature, and Sharrock is a bracing
Bill Laswell.
revelation. If you can imagine Jimi Hendrix and Albert Ayler were in the same band, if King Crimson had embraced free jazz, and/or the music Hendrix might’ve made had he lived, Iron Path is THE album. (10 tracks, 37 min.) espdisk.com Ustad Dildar Hussain Khan & Abrar Hussain ★★★1/2 Sur Sangeet KSK Qawwali is the devotional music of the Sufis of the Indian subcontinent. Its most famous exponent is the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, who was better known in America via his collaborations with Eddie Vedder (songs in the film Dead Man Walking), Peter Gabriel, and Michael Brook. For those less familiar, Qawwali is marked by the sinuous, accordion-like squeezings of a harmonium, powerful, churning rhythmic tabla drumming, and ecstatic vocal wails. Sur Sangeet is a collaboration of Ustad Khan, who played with Nustat Khan for over two decades and singer Abrar Hussain, who carries on in the N.F.A. Khan tradition. It’s a wonderfully heady brew—the buoyant tabla beats hit in the gut, and if one is in the mood, the vocalizing can be both entrancing and restorative. It’s perhaps not the best starting point for novices, but for those smitten, Sur Sangeet is well worth your entertainment dollar. (8 tracks, 77 min.) systemkrush.com ■
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Singer / Songwriter Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard ★★★1/2 Django and Jimmie Legacy Recordings “You can’t turn back time or put more sand in the glass,” Willie Nelson observes on the title track of Django and Jimmie, the new album he recorded with Merle Haggard. At 82 and 78, respectively, Nelson
and Haggard are more cognizant of their mortality, but the longtime friends haven’t lost the ability to make memorable music. Django and Jimmie is named for the earliest musical influences—guitarist Django Reinhardt and country music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers—and features a diverse range of music. “Missing Old Johnny Cash” is an affectionate remembrance of the Man in Black, recorded with an instrumental backing that echoes the spirit of Cash’s hits on Sun Records in the 1950s. The rollicking “It’s All Going to Pot” serves as a double-edged commentary on contemporary society and Nelson’s well-known fondness for marijuana. “Alice in Hululand” is a Hawaiian-influenced ballad, while “It’s Only Money” is a cautionary tale that veers into country-rock territory. The two singers mine each other’s back catalogue for songs. Nelson delivers a heartfelt rendering of Haggard’s “Somewhere Between,” capturing the melancholy mood of a couple who have grown apart. Haggard is equally at home on “Family Bible,” a song long associated with Nelson. Django and Jimmie is a testament to the power of music and enduring friendship. 14 songs, 47 minutes.
tomwilk@rocketmail.com
Eilen Jewell ★★★1/2 Sundown Over Ghost Town Signature Sounds Eilen Jewell built her reputation as a first-rate singer/songwriter with Sea of Tears and Queen of the Minor Key, in 2009 and 2011, respectively. Sundown Over Ghost Town builds on those strengths with a collection of songs written after returning to her native Idaho that feature her intimate, smoky vocals. “Worried Mind” opens the album with a jangly, country tune that is a reaffirmation of her roots. “Down the Road” is a winning blend of impressionistic lyrics against an ambient backdrop that recalls Bob Dylan’s approach on Oh, Mercy. “My Hometown” finds Jewell venturing into jazz with a languid groove provided by Jerry Miller on guitar and Steve Fulton on organ. “If sweetness had a sound/It would sound like my hometown,” she sings, almost caress-
ing the words. On “Here with Me,” Jewell sounds like a torch singer in describing the feeling of missing someone. Jewell expands her sound with forays into Tex-Mex territory with “Rio Grande,” enlivened by Jack Gardner’s Mariachi-style trumpet, and “Some Things Weren’t Meant to Be,” which has the feel of a classic soul ballad. 12 songs, 37 minutes. Amy Black ★★★1/2 The Muscle Shoals Sessions Reuben Records On The Muscle Shoals Sessions, Amy Black pays tribute to the soul, rock, and blues music that sprang from the Alabama city. Black puts her own spin on the classic tunes while sprinkling in a few original compositions.
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TOM WILK ★=SKIP IT; ★★=MEDIOCRE; ★★★=GOOD; ★★★★=EXCELLENT; ★★★★★=CLASSIC
Black isn’t afraid to alter the arrangements, adding a horn section to Sam Cooke’s “Bring It on Home to Me.” Her version is shortened to “Bring It on Home” but it etains the gospel fervor of the original while honoring the spirit of Lou Rawls’ rendition. “You Better Move On,” featuring
veteran keyboardist Spooner Oldham, features a gender reversal from Arthur Alexander’s 1962 hit version. For “Uptight, Good Man,” written by Oldham and Dan Penn, she evokes the pleading version recorded by Laura Lee and includes a recitation by Black on the need for good love that recalls a preacher’s exhortations. Black explores the gospel/blues side of Muscle Shoals with “You Gotta Move,” a song popularized by Mississippi Fred McDowell and recorded by the Rolling Stones in Alabama. Black’s own compositions held their own with the older material. The blistering “Woman on Fire” featuring backing vocals by Ann and Regina McCrary, sounds like a lost track by LaBelle. The sultry “Get to Me” calls to mind the romantic ballads of Dusty Springfield. 12 songs, 43 minutes.
Beale Street Saturday Night ★★★ Produced by James Luther Dickinson Omnivore Recordings Beale Street was the center of the African-American music scene in Memphis, influencing and helping to develop a wide range of artists from W.C. Handy and B.B. King to Johnny Ace and Elvis Presley. Originally released on vinyl in 1979 and now making its debut on CD, Beale Street Sat-
urday Night serves as an oral history of the thoroughfare, using songs and interviews. James Luther Dickinson spearheaded the effort, bringing in both well-known and obscure artists. Legendary bluesman Furry Lewis provides rough-and-tumble versions of “Furry’s Blues,” his signature song, and the philosophical “Chicken Ain’t Nothin’ but a Bird.” Grandma Dixie Davis is a revelation on “Beale Street Blues” and “Roll on, Mississippi.” The latter is part song, part monologue inspired by the mighty river. Thomas Pinkston, who played in Handy’s orchestra, shares his memories of the influential bandleader and Beale Street’s heyday on “Mr. Handy Told Me 50 Years Ago.” Fred Ford’s ‘Hernando Moon” and Sleepy John Estes’ “Big Fat Mama/Liquor Store” provide a taste the jazz and blues that would have been heard on Beale Street in its prime. Sid Selvidge’s “Walking Down Beale Street” offers a look back at the allure of the street that was declared “Home of the Blues” by an act of Congress in 1977. Selvidge and Dickinson, both members of the cult band Mud Boy & the Neutrons, deliver a joyful romp through the classic blues “On the Road Again.” 14 songs, 35 minutes. Corinne West ★★★ Starlight Highway MAKE Records With Starlight Highway, Corinne West has created a warm, intimate album that plays to her strengths as a songwriter and performer. The folk-styled “Trouble No More” opens the album and serves as a showcase for her soothing vocals, while “Audrey Turn the Moon” has the feel of a traditional folk song. The up-tempo title track is a sprightly played on-the-road song that spotlights Henry Saliva’s organ work and Mike Marshall’s propulsive mandolin. “Cry of the Echo Drifter” plays off West’s country influences. West and guitarist Kelly Joe Phelps previously collaborated on Magnetic Skyline, a six-song EP released in 2010. He teams up again with West on Starlight Highway, playing and singing on seven songs they co-wrote together. Highlights of their collaboration include “Gypsy Harbor” featuring a liquid style of guitar playing by Phelps and “Give Our Ships Away” with the duo trading verses against a backdrop of layered guitars and mandolins. 10 songs, 44 minutes. ■
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Jazz Library
BOB PERKINS
J.J. Johnson (trombone), Miles Davis (trumpet) and Hank Mobley (sax).
While touring with Jacquet, Johnson decided to form his own group. The personnel changed over time, but some of his sidemen included Max Roach, Sonny Stitt and Bud Powell. Johnson also got the chance to play with Charlie Parker in 1947. In 1951, Johnson toured military camps in Japan and Korea. Upon his return to the states, work was slow and he took a day job as a blueprint inspector at the SperryRand Corporation. In 1954, Savoy Records contacted Johnson about the possibility of setting up a combo with fellow trombonist Kai Winding. The two men had different styles, but both said yes to the offer. The blending of the horns proved to be just right, and the group “J&K” was born. The association lasted two years. The parting was by mutual consent and amicable, and they reunited again in 1958 for an overseas tour, and a few more recording sessions. The early 1980s would be the last time for a friendly locking of horns, as Johnson and Winding toured Japan for a series of jazz festivals. Winding passed away in 1983, shortly after the tour. Quincy Jones convinced Johnson to move from New York to Hollywood and seek work writing for cinema and television. The move resulted in Johnson writing for films like The Top of the Heap, Cleopatra Jones, and Across 100 and 10th Street. For television, he wrote for Starsky and Hutch, Mike Hammer, and The Six Million Dollar Man. During this period, Johnson made few personal appearances and recorded very little. He felt that—given his abilities as a top musician, arranger and composer—he should have received more “quality” work in Hollywood. He quit performing on a couple of occasions because of the way jazz musicians—especially African-American musicians— were treated by the recording industry, and now he had the same bone to pick with Hollywood. Following his stay on the West Coast, Johnson returned to recording and fronting small groups. In 1988, while on tour in Japan, his wife Vivian suffered a stroke. Johnson stopped working and cared for her until her death in 1991. Upon his return to work, he dedicated an album to her. Over the next five years, he married, recorded several more albums, began to accept club and concert offers, and received several Grammy nominations. Johnson retired in 1996, preferring to stay at home, composing and arranging music on his computer. He was diagnosed with prostate HE COULD PLAY THE trombone as pretty as you please, but people wondered how he was able to make the slide cancer in the late 1990s, and on February 4, 2001, at age trombone rip off so many notes on up-tempo songs. No one before him had displayed such pace, dexterity and fluidity 77, James Louis Johnson—for whatever reason or reaon the instrument. Only the valve trombone players were supposed to be able to do this stuff, but even they couldn’t sons—took his life with a handgun. keep up with him in knock-down, drag-out jam sessions. Johnson won a number of Down Beat “Trombonist of Someone dubbed J. J. Johnson “the Charlie Parker of the trombone,” because he could execute on the trombone as the Year” awards, and in 1995 was voted into the Down Parker had on the alto saxophone. He was one of the first to play so-called bebop on the trombone. When Dizzy GilleBeat Hall of Fame. spie heard him, he commented, “Man, I’ve always known the trombone could be played different, and that somebody’d Steve Turre, one of the modern-day trombonists influcatch on one of these days. Man, you’re elected.” enced by Johnson, said, “All of us wouldn’t be playing the Born January 2, 1924, in Indianapolis, Johnson took piano lessons at an early age. In his late teens, he launched his way we’re playing today, if it wasn’t for what [Johnson] career by playing in a number of big bands, most notably that of Benny Carter, where he began in 1942, and where he did.” remained for three years. A one-year stint with Count Basie’s band followed, and then a year with Illinois Jacquet. Two suggestions for your music library: Johnson and Stan Getz at the Opera House and Johnson and Joe Pass Bob Perkins is a writer and host of an all-jazz radio program that airs on WRTI-FM 90.1, Mon-Thurs. 6 to 9pm & Sun., 9am–1pm. on We’ll Be Together Again. ■
J. J. Johnson
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Nick’’s Picks
NICK BEWSEY
★=SKIP IT; ★★=MEDIOCRE; ★★★=GOOD; ★★★★=EXCELLENT; ★★★★★=CLASSIC
Donald Vega ★★★★ With Respect To Monty Resonance A member of the esteemed Ron Carter Trio, Donald Vega is a contemporary pianist in the tradition of Oscar Peterson whose pleasurable, rhythmic style is perfectly matched to the melodic tunes of Monty Alexander. On Vega’s swinging tribute With Respect To Monty, he’s flush with first-rate collaborators, guitarist Anthony Wilson, bassist Hassan Shakur and drummer Lewis Nash, and digs into Alexander’s deeply felt and uplifting compositions with equal fervor. Despite the album’s absence of a recognizable standard tune, Vega wears his passion on his sleeve and gives songs like the sweetly rendered ballad “Consider” and the Jamaican-tinged “Slippery” instant appeal. The interplay between Wilson and Vega is consistently rewarding, particularly on “You Can See,” a dazzler that juggles New Orleans percussion and crisp guitar lines with Vega’s soulful playing style. (10 tracks; 63 minutes) Maria Schneider Orchestra ★★★★★ The Thompson Fields ArtistShare The most harmonious and beautiful jazz orchestral music of the year comes from Maria Schneider, an emotionally affecting composer, arranger, and bandleader, whose work is astonishing in its capacity to emotionally connect with this listener. The Thompson Fields, her first recorded work in eight years, reunites her with an exemplary 18-piece ensemble, with triumphant solo turns by saxophonists Donny McCaslin (“Arbiters of Evolution”), pianist Frank Kimbrough, guitarist Lage Lund (the title track), and Gary Versace on accordion (“A Potter’s Song”). The album’s title comes from a family farm in southwest Minnesota in an area where Schneider grew up and returns to for inspiration. The music evokes those amber waves of grain —soft, modulated brass passages, acoustic guitar fills (Lage Lund) and, without a string section, there’s a satisfying fullness with bassist Jay Anderson’s solos. Schneider’s writing encompasses a spectrum of moods and feeling—lyrical, melodic, turbulent, touching—and she reNick Bewsey has been writing about jazz for ICON since 2004 and is a member of The Jazz Journalists Assoc. He also paticipates in DownBeat’s Annual International Critics Poll. www.countingbeats.com Email: nickbewsey@gmail.com
lies on the improvisational prowess of her soloists to promote her stories. “Nimbus” named for the clouds that stretch to the horizon over flat farmland, highlighted by alto player Steve Wilson whose solo captures the intensity of a breaking storm. Lead baritone Scott Robinson is breathtaking on the serene tone poem, “Walking By Flashlight,” and trombonist Marshall
(“Far From Home”) cement James’ reputation in the pop instrumental arena. The title track was co-written by Dwele and James, a crossover collaboration that delivers the goods. Nipping at James’ heels on the charts are current records by Najee, Kirk Whalum and an assertively hip album by David Sanborn (Time And The River, Okeh). futuresoul is the smooth jam of the hour and it’s James for the win. (10 tracks; 41 minutes)
Photo: Jimmy and Dena Katz.
Gilkes’ elongated shouts and murmurs artfully capture nature’s mystery on “The Monarch and The Milkweed.” Don’t pass up the physical CD—it’s as sumptuously packaged as a hardbound book, fully annotated by Schneider and illustrated with spectacular photographs taken by Brienne Lermitte at the Thompson farm. The prizeworthy book design is by Cheri Dorr. Schneider’s hybrid of jazz and classical form is genuinely moving. Having had the privilege of seeing her perform this music with her orchestra at NYC’s Birdland in June and later absorbing its nuances on record, leaves no doubt that Schneider is among the most significant composers of the 21st century. (8 tracks; 77 minutes) Boney James ★★★★ futuresoul Concord Music Saxophonist James has mastered the formula for creating bestselling smooth jazz records, despite the disdain from jazz traditionalists and purists. futuresoul is the summer of 2015’s urban hang suite, an icecool tonic of bedroom-voiced saxophone, swaggering synths, unshakeable beats and state-of-the-art rhythmic flow. Vocals by Stokley (Mint Condition) and contributions from rising trumpet star Marquis Hill
Joe Locke Love Is A Pendulum Motema 4.5 stars Jazz vibraphone has come a long way since the glory days of Lionel Hampton, Milt Jackson and Bobby Hutcherson, pioneers of bebop and post bop styles respectively. Joe Locke, an individualist who
bridges the divide between the past and future perfect, has always pushed the envelope, but here he’s happily landed at the intersection of head and heart. His best recording to date, Love Is A Pendulum, is anchored by a five-part suite of songs of exquisite creativity and gives listeners a re-
freshing twist on the lush vamps and harmonics one’s used to hearing. Locke’s affection for strong romantic melodies gives the album its unsinkable musicality. He’s got a swoon-worthy band with juggernaut percussion by drummer Terreon Gully (the record’s co-producer), and exceptional work by pianist Robert Rodriguez and bassist Ricky Rodriguez. Also invited to play is vocalist Theo Bleckmann who scores with a shimmering “Love Is A Planchette,” and Victor Provost on steel pans that, when played in tandem with the vibes, pull you deeper into Locke’s soulkissed arrangements. Locke’s masterwork heaves and flows with a modern beat that’s consistently appealing. The current generation of players like Stefon Harris, Warren Wolf and the jazz master Gary Burton continue to push forward as progressive, modern jazz players, but Joe Locke’s particular vision on Love Is A Pendulum is going to give other musicians a reason to catch up. (9 tracks; 66 minutes) Jerry Bergonzi ★★★★1/2 Rigamaroll Savant Tenor saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi muscles his way through Rigamaroll, his tenth recording for the Savant label, with an improvisational surge that’s sonically thrilling. This is a superlative straight-ahead hard bop recording intended for modern listeners—Bergonzi’s all original set swings intensely with trumpeter Phil Grenadier on the two-horn frontline and a fiercely responsive rhythm team of pianist Bruce Barth, bassist Dave Santoro, and drummer Andrea Michelutti. The opening track, “Awake,” sets the mood with an acoustic ferocity, unpredictable though easy to follow, and illustrates the near magical cohesion of the quintet. Bergonzi’s bold, beefy tenor blended with Grenadier’s feathery trumpet keeps the band roaring ahead as if hopped up on adrenaline, zipping through the tunes with a smooth harmonic confidence and exhilarating resolve. At 67, Bergonzi’s creativity is at its peak. He’s maintained that high level of expression throughout his Savant dates. Whether dipping into noir-ish ballads like “Rise Up” or shifting through high-speed changes on the percussive “A Hankering”, Bergonzi’s chestthumping quintet will have you believing in the redemptive power of swing at first listen. (8 tracks; 63 minutes) ■
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Dining
ROBERT GORDON
r.gordon33@verizon.net
V STREET NEVER A DOUBT! AT least not for me. When super-chefs Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby were set to open V Street, I heard rumblings that—well, there simply isn’t enough “stretch” in vegan cuisine to show us anything new. Some cynics said that V Street would be at best a Vedge retread, simply a Vedge II. But since Rich and Kate promised a different take on vegan cuisine, I had no doubts they’d deliver. They’ve made a career of wowing me. I first reviewed Team Landau-Jacoby years ago when they opened Horizons in a nondescript strip mall in Willow Grove. Horizons was wildly successful and it took only one visit to understand why. Landau’s pioneering prestidigitations with seitan, tempeh, and tofu were marvelous mimicries of traditional carnivorous standards and favorites. His faux-meat dishes, like scrumptious seitan chicken wings, defied detection as being ersatz. Horizon’s fare was groundbreaking, a seeming incongruity in a locale as improbable as Willow Grove. Horizons relocated to the city’s Queen Village. Not long afterward, Horizons became the city’s vegan flagship,
earning three bells on a first review from the Inquirer’s Craig Laban. The rating was impressive, if not shocking, for an unheralded, unconnected newcomer to the city. But the achievement is astonishing given that the chef has to work, or rather, chooses to work with a limited pantry and freezer compared to his non-vegan peers. After a successful run at Horizons, Team Landau-Jacoby shut it down. They debuted Vedge a few years ago at 1221 Locust in hallowed terrain once occupied by Fritz Blank’s iconic Deux Cheminées. Vedge was a departure from Horizons. Landau dropped the meat mimicry. Instead, he went full-throttle to explore and exploit every nuance from vegetables. Hence the name Vedge. How’d it all work out? Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single ranking of Philadelphia restaurants that does not include Vedge. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single national ranking of vegetarian or vegan restaurants where Vedge didn’t occupy an exalted spot. In 2013, GQ chose Vedge as one of the top 12 restaurants in the nation. That’s one of the top 12 restaurants, not vegan restaurants. Eater.com’s roaming critic Bill Addison recently named Vedge one of America’s 38 essential restaurants. At V Street, Rich and Kate have put together a globe-trotting, yet coherent menu of a dozen or so items that gives popular street foods around the globe a makeover as a vegan dish. Most dishes are characterized by spunky, tasty, and tasteful spicing that taps mostly Asian and Mideast traditions. For instance, zhoug, a fragrant, hot and spicy herb that originated in Yemen, bestows Za’atar Grilled Corn with rare irresistible complexity, while sriracha ignites Korean Fried Tempeh Reuben. V Street’s own special sauce dials up the tang in BBQ Seitan Tacos. And yes, if you’re sensing a bit of a return to some key ingredients in the Horizons days, the latter two dishes affirm the chef ’s mastery of tempeh or seitan have not diminished. Among the many menu marvels I could mention are Mushroom Dan Noodles with spicy sesame and shaved zucchini and Langos, a Hungarian potato-dough pancake capped with dill-sauerkraut remoulade and spiced beets. V Street’s desserts excel. I’ll recommend the Waffle, which transforms ganache, banana, miso caramel, and peanuts into a harmonious explosion of flavors. That dessert alone merits a trip to V Street, where global street fare undergoes a most elegant vegan makeover. ■ V Street, 126 S. 19th Street, Philadelphia. (215) 278-7943. vstreetfood.com
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S WA N
HOTEL Modern Cuisine h Classic Comfort Corner of Swan & Main Lambertville, NJ 609-397-3552
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Advertising Sales If you’ve sold print advertising, are motivated, can get started in the morning on your own, work from your home independently, have an outgoing personality, good organizational skills, and a go get ‘em attitude, we’d like to speak with you. ICON is the only magazine of its kind in the Delaware Valley—a cultural magazine without pretension, focused on fine and performing arts, music, film, dining and exclusive interviews, and a place to find out who or what’s playing where all month long. There are lots of publications out there, but none like ours. We’ve been publishing since 1992, and have built a rock solid reputation for superior writing and design. It’s a publication you will be proud to represent. We’re expanding territories and are looking to fill part-time positions in print advertising sales. Requirements • Previous advertising sales experience at another publication or media buying experience • A warm, engaging problem solving and professional personality • Ability to form and maintain business relationships • Proven track record of closing new business and maintaining current accounts • Able to work from home with little supervision • Able to develop a new territory from scratch This is a part-time position ideal for a recent college grad, undergrad, or person wanting to get back to work and set their own hours. Please include a cover letter telling us why we absolutely must hire you, include your resume and enter ADVERTISING SALES in the subject line of your email. Send to trina@icondv.com
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22 / CROSBY, STILLS, NASH AND YOUNG
Lukas and Anthony, however, stayed focused on the rootsrocking Promise of the Real and its eclectic-but-decidedly-NeilYoungish sound and its storytelling lyrics on several albums such as 2012’s aptly-titled Wasted as well as disparate recordings like the band’s just-started Realer Bootlegs Vol. 1 series, including one song by Nelson’s electronic side group, Lazers of God. “Promise of the Real is real loose,” says LoGerfo. “Lukas throws ideas at us. We throw ideas at him. We can go in any direction at any time. Nothing’s rigid.” That’s probably made Promise of the Real with Micah Nelson on board (piano, percussion, etc.) just perfect for a union with Young, one instigated by the veteran rocker after he’d seen both Nelson brothers’ bands at several of their dad’s Farm Aid benefits. “Rather than staying in his trailer, we would spy him watching us on the side of the stage every time we played,” says Lukas. “One time, one of our crew overhead my dad telling Neil, ‘You know, you’re partially responsible for this.’” Micah says that Young has been a part of their family’s lives since they were kids. “It’s not like he was around our house or that we went barbecuing with him, but he and my dad email each other when they’re not hooking up at Farm Aid or his Bridge School benefits,” says Micah. “The first time I had a conversation with him was three years ago. He told me he dug what he did, which was mind blowing.” In 2014, Young emailed the Nelson brothers & Co after the Keystone Pipeline extension protest in Nebraska; an event where the rocker asked Promise of the Real Plus to play a set of his classics. “I think Neil was surprised that we were better than he expected,” says Lukas. “Even his crew was jazzed; they had never seen him look so pleased with something so impromptu.” Next thing you know, Micah was reading a story in Rolling Stone where Young said that he was doing an album based on the despicable corporate crimes and GMO policies of Monsanto Inc. and that he was doing it with the Nelson brothers. “Holy heck, I guess we’re making an album with Neil Young,” says Micah. Graham Nash knows what’s it like to make records with Neil Young—not counting that aforementioned live box, CSNY recorded four albums together—as well as he does working with The Hollies, the Two Teens. the Levins and the Fourtones. Had Nash— a known diplomat and peacemaker—always played the role of arbiter? Indeed, he has.
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“I think It comes from me being English and having been a baby during World War II, “says Nash. “You didn’t know who was going to be around at the end of the day, so I watched my mother take charge and make sure every was OK. It was very much ‘let’s get the job done the best way we can.’ The intensity of that situation certainly heightened things, maybe steeled me a bit.” Though he had pop hits with the Hollies (Bus Stop), Nash also began to write with the political rhetoric that would make him famous—penning songs about apartheid, housing, and population control. That feeling for socially conscious lyrics that would find its full flower first with CSN (he met Stills and Crosby during a Hollies tour of the United States in 1966) then Y. “I did try to express myself socially and politically in the Hollies,” says Nash, mentioning that while some serious moments were slipped through the Hollies system, other tunes such as Marrakesh Express and Teach Your Children—both recorded by CSNY—were rejected by the Hollies. “I did feel freer though when I got to America. I think I’ve always been this person—socially minded—it just exploded when I got the States.” Yes, America liberated him as an artist. No, he’s not crazy about how so many of his ‘60s brethren sell their songs for crass commercialism (“then again, I don’t believe that the music is ours to begin with, especially when I see those beautiful Victoria’s Secret ads with Bob Dylan”). And yes, indeed, he continues to write new songs that mean something. Though he’s not a man to lean toward a love song, he doesn’t eschew the form (“I’m far more direct than that”). Besides, all one has to do is wake up and start the computer and you’re hit with any number of subjects to delve into. “I’m working on a song about Michael Brown and the problems in Ferguson [and] a song about the struggles of the Tibetan people. I write about love when I see something good. The idea of communicating and who we communicate with is crucial.” As an American citizen for over 30 years, Nash is always bowled over by the mean ways in which we treat each other, pointing out that it all must be an “absolute hellish job trying to run this country— and sad.” As a man who also paints and takes documentarian-style photographs, all roads lead to capturing that which is before him daily. “Good or bad, life is a incredible journey—full of energy,” says Nash. “It’s just a matter of where you want to be and what you want to look at today.” ■
28 / BEATLEMANIA
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970); the spare and ruminative Imagine (1971); the smartly strained looks at new-found American existence Some Time in New York City (1972) and Mind Games (1973); the wifty Walls and Bridges (1974); the return to his greaser roots Rock ‘n’ Roll (1975), to the happy (unhappy, it turned out) domesticity of Double Fantasy (1980) and Milk and Honey (1984) no Lennon stone is unturned. Heard in utmost 180-gram clarity through the Lennon box, all these things are boldly upfront in the mix: the nasal sting of Lennon’s anxious ravaged voice (so unlike his Beatles-ish vocals), the sneer of his literati look at things unjust and unjustified, his embrace of love and its deep and tenuous complications (from his mother to Yoko Ono), the brace of top-tier instrumentalists making his work ring out—all these things are palpable and vivid in the vinyl collection. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ■ Paul McCartney at the Wells Fargo Center. Photo: MJ Kim.
If A.D. Amorosi can’t be found writing features for ICON, the Philadelphia Inquirer or doing Icepacks, Icecubes and other stories for Philadelphia’s City Paper, he’s probably hitting restaurants like Stephen Starr’s or running his greyhound.
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Dining
ROBERT GORDON
r.gordon33@verizon.net
BRIAN’S IN THE MIDST OF checking out several ballyhooed newcomers to Philly’s restaurant community, I circled back to Lambertville. I wanted to check Brian’s and see how it stacked up against the current Philly foodie frenzy. Philly’s dining constellation has never shone so bright—and deservedly so. A seemingly never-ending group of neophytes keep generating hype and earning recognition on a national scale. The current Philadelphia restaurant scene cannot be humbled by any city in the nation. So, I wondered, how does Brian’s measure up? Brian’s is the eponymous eatery of Chef-owner Brian Held, whom I’ve ranked in Bucks’ highest echelon of fine chefs for years—first at Juliana Rose, then at Newtown’s Rouget—where he received three bells from Craig Laban— and now at Brian’s. And now, even in Philly’s finest hour, for exquisite cuisine at reasonable (actually low) prices, Held’s tiny, tuckedaway BYOB has few peers. The Savory Crab Cheesecake I dove into on my first return visit is the tastiest appetizer I’ve
had this year. This cream cheese and Gruyère mix, laced with fresh crab cooked to flawless perfection with mustardbased remoulade, is delicious. I had recently tried similar versions at two (deservedly) heralded Philly restaurants. Brian’s version is superior. Wild Mushroom Soup is made from an array of different local mushrooms gathered by mushroom guru Chris Darrah who supplies mushrooms to an assortment of regional restaurants. A woodsy garnish of sautéed morrels and truffles add flourish and finish to soup that balances earthiness with silky texture. Vegans can enjoy it, too, as it’s made without any animal products. Buttery rich Sea Bass with Lemon, Capers, Brown Butter and Croutons sports colorful appeal. Asparagus and carrots crown a mammoth tumble of crispy browned croutons that smother the sea bass. A hefty chunk of halibut and braised leeks perches on a bed of sautéed spinach centered in a recessed plate with tangerine sauce. Poached asparagus is piled alongside the halibut and delicious carrot purée swirls in front. Desserts like White Chocolate Bread Pudding with Amaretto Sauce and Roasted Pineapple in Vanilla Bean Butter with Coconut Ice Cream offer delectable testament to a chef with unparalleled attention to detail. As for Brian’s iconic Bananas Foster over Brioche French Toast, the entirety of his extensive fan club would erupt if he dared remove it from the menu. Brian’s open kitchen wafts mouth-watering scents throughout the dining room, which is cozy and classy without being pretentious. Brian’s is a cash-only BYOB, but if you don’t want to tote your libations, Welsh’s Liquor Store is only a stone’s throw away. Brian’s offers a dynamic, fussed-over $46 Prix fixe menu ($50 from Friday to Sunday) with something of appeal for a variety of different tastes. The CIA grad’s experimental, cutting-edge style fills an essential niche in New Hope-Lambertville dining, which, as I’ve expressed before, would be too staid without Brian’s. And a lot of recent restaurant crawling around Philly convinces me that Brian’s doesn’t just fill that niche. He crushes it. ■ Brian’s, 9 Kline’s Court, Lambertville, NJ (609) 460-4148. brianslambertville.com
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About Life
JAMES P. DELPINO, MSS,MLSP,LCSW,BCD
Is it ADD? IT OFTEN MAY SEEM that the whole world has ADD or ADHD. However, while the diagnosis is very common, it is not always correct. Other issues can manifest with similar symptoms and the attention deficit disorders are a too easy way to explain poor school grades or behavioral issues. Easy explanations are not necessarily correct explanations or diagnoses. Because there is some confusion about these diagnoses and their sub-types—inattentive vs. hyperactive for example—it’s important to get the facts straight. The first and most important fact is that this is a physiological condition in the brain that is 96 percent genetic, the other four percent fall into head injuries and perhaps environmental toxins. The definition of ADD/ADHD is “reduced neuroelectric activity and reduced blood flow to the frontal lobe.” The frontal lobe is located right behind the forehead and its job is focus/attention and judgment. A pronounced lack of focus and attention are hallmarks of this condition. Judgment is clinically defined as “the ability to project consequences of words or actions into the future before speaking or acting.” Inattention often looks like distraction. Forgetting homework, losing time, losing keys frequently, not tuning into conversations, appearing distracted, are examples of impaired attention. Because ADD/ADHD can be mild, moderate or severe, lack of attention can vary. Poor judgment is often reflected in impulsive speech, decision-making, and behaviors. Impulsivity is the central symptom to all the other subtypes of ADD/ADHD. When someone has impaired judgment, there are many signs to track to demonstrate that impulsivity is at hand. Everything from impulse buys, to high-risk behaviors and hasty decisions, to poor planning reflect the inability to think through actions before doing them. Impulsive speech leads to all sorts of conPablo Picasso, “Blue Nude.” flicts and disagreements. The two most common concomitants are: ODD and low esteem/depression. ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) is almost always present as a symptom in these diagnoses. Being oppositional is easy to spot as an overall pattern of disagreement, defiance of rules, responsibilities and refusal to cooperate. The defiance often increases when confronted. Because there are plenty of reasons people of ages might appear defiant, ODD by itself does not always mean there is also ADD or ADHD. However, when there is a correct diagnosis of ADD or ADHD, the prevalence of ODD is significant. Low esteem/depression are also common with ADD and ADHD. A history of failures in school, social situations, career, and in the home affect the self of the person. Words and behaviors associated with ADD and ADHD invite negative feedback, criti40 ■ I C O N ■ J U L Y 2 0 1 5 ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V
cism and conflict with friends, family, teachers and employers. Because of the stream of negativity experienced, many individuals feel they’re not smart or good enough. ADD and ADHD can be easily over-diagnosed and confused with other diagnoses. There is no single test or measure for accurate diagnosis. Several assessments of different kinds should be made in order to be clinically accurate in the diagnostic process. Because genetics play a central role there should be evidence of early age onset of symptoms. There should be a thorough extended family history taken and there should be examples of other family members with symptoms of ADD/ADHD. There could be a relative who struggled to hold jobs, or never did well in school, or cultivated a lifestyle well out of the norm. There may be a history of illicit behavior. A relative that is eccentric or spacey could be another clue. Because alcohol is the substance most likely to abused by people with an ADD/ADHD diagnosis, alcoholics in the family may also be evidence to consider. The value of psycho-educational testing, along with report cards and teacher observations, are also significant points of information. A history of struggles at home and non-compliance with family rules and expectations is very common. Trouble with authority figures are typical. Putting off chores, homework and responsibilities, and struggling with staying on task or following directions are frequently present. Because this is a physiological condition in the brain there should also be a psychiatric evaluation performed. All symptoms, tests, histories, assessments and evaluations should consistently point to ADD/ADHD to be definitive in the diagnosis. Once a correct diagnosis is established, the treatment process is relatively straightforward. There are medications that can help with the symptoms of ADD and ADHD, as well as increasing self-esteem and reducing impulsivity. The other vital component in effective treatment is to teach and develop skills in the area of organization, for example. Developing and maintaining structure in the person’s lifestyle is a must for improvement. This is where it’s helpful to have family and friends assist in the treatment process. Learning to write notes or putting reminders into a smart phone are key strategies in helping to maintain organization and focus. Overall, some combination of therapy and medication prove to be the most sucessful approaches in treating ADD/ADHD. ■
Jim Delpino is a psychotherapist in private practice for over 33 years. jdelpino@aol.com Phone: (215) 364-0139.
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The Los Angeles Times SUNDAY CROSSWORD PUZZLE
ALL TOGETHER NOW By Mark Bickham Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
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Agenda CALL FOR ENTRIES Philadelphia Sketch Club 235 Camac Str., Philadelphia PHOTOgraphy Exhibition 2015 Entry Deadline: Sun., 7/6 at midnight. Exhibition Dates: 7/24-8/15 Works Eligible: Up to two pieces utilizing any photographic process, traditional or digital, black & white or color. All submitted work must be offered for sale during the exhibition. No transparencies will be accepted. Maximum framed size 30”x40.” All work must be framed with glass or Plexiglas, wired and ready for hanging. No clip frames. Improperly framed pieces will be rejected. Entry Fee: Active PSC members: $1 for first piece, $10 add’l works. Non-Members: $20 for first piece, $10 add’l works. Online Entry Assistance: 7/6, 1-5 at PSC. Delivery of Accepted Work: 7/1718, 1-5 PM at PSC. Notification of acceptance: Email or check sketchclub.org July 9 after 1 PM. Pickup: 8/9 and 12, 1-5 PM at PSC. Prospectus: sketchclub.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Photo-Exhibition-Prospectus-2015.pdf Entry online at: sketchclub.org/pscofficial-online-submission-site
ART EXHIBITS THRU 7/11 2015 Art Show to benefit The Philadelphia Urban Creators. Reception 6/21, 2–4pm. Philadelphia Sketch Club, Main Gallery, 235 S. Camac Street, Philadelphia. 215-545-9298. Wed, Fri, Sat & Sun 1–5pm. sketchclub.org Check website for Workshops, Flash Salons, Exhibitions. THRU 7/12 Kate Breakey: Small Deaths. 30 extraordinary images of birds, flowers, and insects that are memorialized in carefully posed portraits. Michener Art Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown. 215-3409800. MichenerArtMuseum.org THRU 7/24 Michael Babyak, The Ever Present Moment. Bluestone Fine Art Gallery, 142 No. 2nd St., Philadelphia. 856-979-7588. bluestonegallery.com THRU 7/26 J. Philip Peterson, “Pure Color”. Opening reception 6/13, 2pm. The Quiet Life Gallery, 17 So. Main St., Lambertville, NJ. 609-397-0880. Quietlifegallery.com
THRU 7/30 Joint PSC Member Exhibit: Exhibition of Works by Steve Flom & Rosa Paik. Reception 7/26, 2-4. Stewart Gallery. Philadelphia Sketch Club, 235 S. Camac St, Philadelphia. America’s oldest club for artists. 215-545-9298 sketchclub.org THRU 7/31 Karen Ives. A curated look into the handmade world. Paperboat and Bird Art Shoppe, 21 Risler Street (Rte 29), Stockton, NJ. 609-397 2121. paperboatandbird.com THRU 7/31 The Art of the Miniature XXIII. The Twenty-Third Invitational Exhibition of Fine Art Miniatures from Around the World. Unsold artwork will be available for limited time. View available works on the website. The Snow Goose Gallery, 470 Main St., Bethlehem. 610-9749099. Thesnowgoosegallery.com THRU 8/2 Soaring: Eye Sees, Hand Moves, Spirit Sings. Two of the area’s most distinguished artists- Helen Mirkil and Brian H. Peterson. Santa Bannon/Fine Art, ArtsQuest Banana Factory, 25 W. 3rd. St., Suite 93, Bethlehem. 610-9975453. SantaFineArt.com. Facebook.com/SantaBannonFineArt THRU 8/23 William Baziotes, Surrealist Watercolors. Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown, PA. 610-432-4333. AllentownArtMuseum.org THRU 10/11 Woven Welcome. Lend a hand. A community-based art project that utilizes the woven rug as a statement of the interconnectedness of individuals. Allentown Art Museum, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown. 610-432-4333. AllentownArtMuseum.org
Bucks County and New England. Places like Monhegan Island, Maine, Gloucester, and Cape Cod will be featured, honoring the history of the Bucks County/New England connection and also includes paintings associated with the Cape Cod & Boston Schools. Patricia Hutton Galleries, 47 West State Street, 215-348-1728. PatriciaHuttonGalleries.com 7/4-9/7 New Hope Arts Photo Contest in association with PNC Arts Alive Outdoor Sculpture Project. sculptureproject.org and facebook.com/ newhopesculptureproject for info and updates on new sculpture installations and select photos from the Photo Contest. 7/10-8/8 Characterization. Artwork by Edward Evans, international abstract illusionist painter. E-Moderne Gallerie, 116 Arch St., Phila. 267-9272123. e-moderngallerie.com 7/11-8/2 Artsbridge 21st Annual Juried Show at the Prallsville Mills in Stockton, NJ. Paintings, watercolors, works on paper, mixed media, photography and sculpture. Fri.Sun., 1-5. Reception: 7/11, 6-9. ArtsbridgeOnline.com 7/19 William Baziotes: Surrealist Watercolors. Distinguished Lecturer Robert Mattison introduces this important contributor to Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism. Allentown Art Museum, 31 N. 5th St., Allentown. 610-432-4333. AllentownArtMuseum.org 7/24-8/15 PHOTOgraphy 2015 Exhibition. Main Gallery. Reception 7/26, 2-4. Philadelphia Sketch Club, 235 S. Camac St, Philadelphia. America’s oldest club for artists. 215-5459298 sketchclub.org
THRU 10/11 Above Zero: Photographs from the Polar Regions. On 6/14, photographer Sam Krisch reveals how journeys to Antarctica and elsewhere have impacted his photographic practice. Krisch is known for his digital images and iPhone artwork. Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley, 31 N. Fifth St, Allentown. AllentownArtMuseum.org
7/31-8/31 Summer Show. Beginning at 6pm, marking our one year anniversary at the gallery. Bethlehem House Contemporary Art Gallery specializes in both emerging and established regional artists. 459 Main St., Bethlehem. 610-419-6262. BethlehemHouseGallery.com
7/1-31 A New England Summer. Paintings by ten award-winning artists from
THRU 7/25 Grimm. Fairytale adventures, created by Doppelskope. Free 45-
THEATER
minute storytelling workshop following show. Wed.- Fri., 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m. Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre, 2400 Chew Street, Allentown. 484-6643333. muhlenberg.edu/smt 7/8-7/26 Hello Dolly. by Jerry Herman. Wed.- Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 2 p.m. Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre, 2400 Chew St., Allentown. 484-664-3333. muhlenberg. edu/smt. 7/24-8/2 Charlotte’s Web. E.B. White's classic story of friendship, adapted by Joseph Robinette. Allentown Public Theatre, St. Luke's Lutheran Church, Fellowship Hall, 417 N. 7th St., Allentown. 888-895-5645. AllentownPublicTheatre.com
8/14 8/15 8/16
KESWICK THEATRE 291 N Keswick Ave, Glenside, PA (215) 572-7650 keswicktheatre.com 7/3 7/9 7/11
7/19 7/31 8/8 8/14
DINNER & MUSIC Thursday nights, Community Stage with John Beacher, 8-midnight. Karla’s, 5 W. Mechanic St., New Hope. 215-862-2612. Karlasnewhope.comnewhope.com
Darius Rucker Snoop Dogg Alice in Chains
8/15 8/18 8/27
Buddy Guy + Quinn Sullivan - 8:00pm Stephen Stills - 8:00pm The Princess Bride: An Inconceivable Evening with Cary Elwes - 7:30pm Jonny Lang + The Danielle Nicole Band - 7:30pm Gordon Lightfoot 8:00pm Graham Nash - 8:00pm Jefferson Starship + Jazz is Dead and Quicksilver “Happy Trails” Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Grateful Dead and “the San Francisco Sound” 8:00pm The Psychedelic Furs & The Church - 8:00pm Miranda Sings - 7:00pm Jake Shimabukuro 8:00pm
FESTIVALS / EVENTS Thurs.-Sat., Dinner and a Show at SteelStacks, Bethlehem. 5-10:00, table service and valet parking. For more information, menus and upcoming events visit artsquest.org
CONCERTS 7/19 & 8/16 Valley Vivaldi. Chamber music by Vivaldi, J. S. Bach, Leclair, Telemann and C. P. E. Bach. 7:30 pm. Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra, Wesley Church, 2540 Center St. (Route 512), Bethlehem. 610-4347811 PASinfonia.org
MUSIKFEST CAFÉ 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem, PA 610-332-1300. Artsquest.org 7/5 7/10 7/12 7/12 7/13 7/17 8/1 8/3 8/6 8/7 8/8 8/9 8/10 8/11 8/12 8/13
David Crosby The Machine / Pink Floyd Tribute Taylor Dayne CAKE Fastball & the Rembrandts Guster Preservation Hall Jazz Band Happy Together Tour 2015 Duran Duran The Flaming Lips Culture Club O.A.R. Jerry Seinfeld Reba ZZ Top 3 Doors Down with Collective Soul
7/11 17th Annual Bastille Day. Swinging jazz of Michael Arenella & His Dreamland Orchestra, Petanque Tournament, special sales offered by the many shops and galleries throughout Frenchtown, food, raffles, stilt walker, mime, puppet show, treasure hunt, face painting infront of Sunbeam Toys, Madame DeFarge knitting from 12-5 in front of The Spinnery, Marie Antoinette, hand painted iconic Paris monuments, plein air artists, movie under the stars and so much more for the entire family to enjoy. Visit Frenchtown, NJ and enjoy the many planned activities from noon-night. Full schedule available at Frenchtownnj.org. 8/8 & 8/9 See 500 antique and classic cars and help fund cancer research. The 2015 New Hope Automobile Show, New Hope-Solebury High School, New Hope, PA. See up to 250 different cars each day at one of the oldest vintage car shows in the country. The show has funded student scholarships at New HopeSolebury High School as well as local community organizations and charities. Once again the show will be teaming up with Fox Chase Cancer Center to fund cancer research. 9-4 each day. For information, NewHopeAutoShow.com
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