MUSIC

The Oscar Peterson Quartet A Time for Love Live in Helsinki, 1987 Mack Avenue

The final gig of a long international tour that began with four concerts in Brazil, this date was the 14th of a European tour that took the quartet all over mainland Europe and Scandinavia. Anyone with any knowledge of jazz knows that the magic of consistent performing only makes the synergy and empathy of an ensemble—both substances this quartet has in mindblowing quantity—better and better. That always dwarfs the fatigue factor, and sometimes results in sheer magic on a different plane. That’s clearly what happened during this spectacular concert. As Kelly Peterson says: “Performing with joy and vivacity, they determined to make every concert better than the previous one. This night in Helsinki is a glorious example of that”—and a stunning addition to the continuing legacy of this beloved master of music.

Christian McBride Live at the Village Vanguard Mack Avenue

Christian McBride—versatile doible-bassist—describes this sizzling live recording, made at the famed Village Vanguard club, as “noholds-barred swinging” and it’s hard to disagree. His taut, springy playing is set here within his Inside Straight band, with saxophonist Steve Wilson, vibraphonist Warren Wolf, pianist Peter Martin and Carl Allen on drums. They hit the ground running with the opening “Sweet Bread” and rarely let up, although “Ms Angelou” is Wilson’s persuasively lyrical ballad for the late, celebrated poet and activist. A real show-stopper is “Gang Gang,” book-ended by Wilson’s clarion alto, with vibes and drums swirling intensely. “Uncle James” is a mellower affair, swinging easily to sashaying brushes and brightly cascading keyboard before vibes and soprano sax saunter in to have their say, while McBride himself cuts loose big-time, sparring gleefully with Allen in the closing “Stick & Move.”

Neil Young & Crazy Horse Barn Reprise

Barn’s ten songs encompass all that Neil Young with Crazy Horse are known for: beautiful romantic acoustic ballads; powerhouse electric rockers and insightful rollicking tunes that stick with you. The album was recorded in a remote, restored, 19th century log barn. Niko Bolas was parked adjacent to the barn, in an exquisite analog mobile recording truck, Le Mobile ready to capture and mix the album on the spot.

King Crimson Music Is Our Friend: Live In Washington D.c. & Albany Dgm Named for the tour from which the performances were taken, Music Is Our Friend is an official bootleg featuring King Crimson's final North American appearance in Washington, DC in September, 2021. This 2-CD set is completed with four pieces taken from the first concert of the tour’s 2nd leg in Albany. The DC performance highlights a band in ferocious form, with a powerful, energetic set with some arrangements reworked and differing from previous tours. Featuring a restored middle section of “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part One” that had not been played since 1973, substantial keyboard arrangements, Tony Levin on upright bass during “Neurotica,” giving the piece extra swing, there’s an emotional set closer, “Starless,” and and immensely powerful “21st Century Schizoid Man” as an encore.

Blake Shelton Body Language Warner Nashville

Body Language has already yielded Platinum-certified No. 1 smash “Happy Anywhere” with Gwen Stefani. The deluxe edition also features brand new single “Come Back As A Country Boy.” The anthem boasts a “muscular lead voice... driving rhythm and gritty melody” (Billboard) as it extolls the virtues of living the country lifestyle, rooted deep within the Oklahoma native.

Manuel de Falla Various artists Warner Classics

Manuel de Falla is regarded as the greatest Spanish composer of the 20th century. Established in Paris from 1907 to 1914, he met Debussy, Ravel and Dukas and steeped himself in their works. Exploring and capturing Hispanic musical idioms he invented scores for lavish ballets, colour-saturated orchestras, splashy voices, refined pianos, thus contributed greatly to universal modernism. Setting his main works in their diverse context, this edition invites exploration and discovery. It spans almost a century of recording history, encompassing a host of great instrumentalists, singers, conductors and orchestras, many of them from Spain and France. And among legendary sessions from which he gained fame is Falla himself at the piano, still astonishing today.

Hall & Oates Live at The Troubadour BMG

Recorded in May 2008, Live at the Troubadour sees Daryl Hall and John Oates return to the legendary Los Angeles venue they first played as a support act in the 70s. Reissued on double CD and released for the first time on triple LP, the set sees the duo delve into their extensive back catalogue, delighting fans with nearly two hours of hits reimagined in a stripped back format, laying bare the beauty of their classic songwriting and mastery of their craft as live performers. The recording includes incredible live performances of “Maneater,” “Out of Touch,” “You Make My Dreams (Come True),” and many more. n

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that, it now turns out, will be made (it wasn’t a sure thing), so these many fine actors can be wasted that much more. [PG-13] HH House of Gucci (Dir. Ridley Scott). Starring: Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jared Leto. The ham isn’t just sliced but the pig slaughtered by most of the performers in Ridley Scott’s true crime retelling of the murder of fashion world scion Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), ordered killed by his estranged wife Patrizia (Lady Gaga). Imagine the characters from the Super Mario Bros. series trying their hand at Shakespearean tragedy and you’ll have an idea of the over-

all tone. Jeremy Irons and Jared Leto (as father and son Rodolfo and Paolo Gucci) try to outdo each other in the bad, broad accent department, while Gaga and Driver rather dully commit to the Eye-Talian bit, and Al Pacino— playing patriarch Aldo Gucci—gets only a single scene to cut loose in his incomparable Pacino way. Sad that this isn’t in any way the camp classic it should have been. Scott’s patented gloom-and-doom direction unfortu-

Lady Gaga in House of Gucci.

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bench, playing the organ since 1989, Peter Richard Conte, will jam out on the sacred and the secular.

Jen Childs’ 1812 Productions—America’s only all-comedy all-the-time theater troupe— usually hosts the Saturday Night Live meets Carol Burnett Show meets Last Week Tonight-like This is the Week That Was live, musical news revue this time of year. Covid, however, is still kind-of, sort-of a thing, so 1812’s producing artistic director is holding tight and playing well within the virtual realm with a new comedy cabaret co-starring and cowritten with her fellow thespian and husband, Scott Greer, on the autobiographical Two Outta Three, as well as a retro-fit take on her self-penned staged comedy, The Carols. Check 1812productions.org for dates, times, and ducats.

A Philadelphia New Year’s Eve tradition as explosive as midnight’s fireworks—and twice as dynamic if you’re dropping MDA and munching down on edibles—is the annual year-end celebration from one-time University of Pennsylvania students Jon Gutwillig, Marc Brownstein, and Aron Magner—with Allen Aucoin, representing the totality of The Disco Biscuits. They always fashioned an inventive brand of electronic music, loosely-knit, jamband rock and prog-jazz into one tight, danceable, improvisational mélange and they just dropped a psychedelic-looking NFT (buy it here https://yh.io/.) that allows you access to bootleg recorded shows in mysterious warehouses as well as VIP tix to NYE gigs and beyond. They’re taking up residency for two days, December 30 and 31, at The Fillmore Philadelphia, The Disco Biscuits’ unofficial clubhouse. Enjoy. n

nately carries the day. This isn’t Blade Runner, Ridley. Have some fun, man. [R] H1/2

Licorice Pizza (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson). Starring: Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Bradley Cooper. Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest is a warm bath of a film, a romantic period piece based in part on his own memories of growing up in the San Fernando Valley. Musician Alana Haim and newcomer Cooper Hoffman (son of the late Philip Seymour) play prospective lovers Alana Kane and Gary Valentine, ten years apart in age, but clearly (to almost everyone except themselves) perfect for each other. The whole movie is a waiting game for the inevitable, though the loose, vignette-heavy structure plays to Anderson’s strengths. Sean Penn and Bradley Cooper cameo as a pair of raging Hollywood a-holes, the latter playing actual Hollywood a-hole, and one-time Barbra Streisand boyfriend, Jon Peters. There’s not a single scene that’s less than enjoyable, though the overall wistful aura is suspect, as if Anderson can’t quite see past the bubble of his own nostalgia. [R] HHH1/2 n < 10 THE LIST - VALLEY

gathered around the altar in a rough triangle, a soft trinity formation. Guest artist John Arnold soloed in Vivaldi’s Guitar Concerto in D Major, massaging the gently prancing, lulling second movement that hooked me when I first heard it plucked by a camp-fire kid in “The Cowboys,” the rare Western where John Wayne dies. Smart summaries and commentaries were supplied by retiring conductor/artistic director Greg Funfgeld, who over 39 years has shepherded the choir into an innovative international powerhouse. One of his favorite fans is James Bridges, a retired Social Security employee who has attended every Bach at Noon performance— 117 gigs in all. (73 W. Church Street by Main Street; bach.org)

Museums are for musing; the Frank Lloyd Wright Library at the Allentown Art Museum is for meditating. For five decades I’ve been

tuning out bad vibrations and tuning in healthier wavelengths in a Midwestern Japanese sanctuary lit by rectangular lanterns and rectangular leaded windows with skyline impressions. Wright designed the library as a reception area for a house in Wayzata, Minn.; the windows are unusually clear for a Wright home because the client wanted clear views of Lake Minnetonka. When a buyer couldn’t be found in the early 1970s, the building was bought in pieces by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which turned the living room into a permanent exhibit and sold the library to an Allentown Art Museum patron. The local installation was designed by architect Edgar Tafel, who as an apprentice helped Wright conceive Fallingwater, the cantilevered residence jutting wondrously over a waterfall in Mill Run, Pa. Tafel drafted plans, supervised construction sites, and played Bach on the piano for Wright, the J.S. Bach of architects. (31 N. 5th St., between Linden and Hamilton streets; 610-432-4333; allentownartmuseum.org) n