Dan Baraszu
Friday Jazz at the High Museum of Art in Midtown Atlanta will host a jazz quartet starring guitarist Dan Baraszu.
This evening, from 5 to 10 p.m., guests are invited to listen to the band and tour the museum.
The quartet will play mainstream jazz, funk and Latin tunes. Band members include Marlon Patton, drums; David Ellington, keyboards; and Joseph Patrick Moore, bass.
A guitar player for more than 25 years, Baraszu started out playing classical, rock, and blues. Upon hearing the music of guitarist Wes Montgomery, he devoted his studies to jazz. His music is also influenced by that of Bill Evans, Horace Silver, Sonny Rollins, and Charlie Parker.
Baraszu is a graduate of the Berkelee College of Music, where he majored in jazz composition and arranging. He later obtained a master’s degree in music from the University of Miami.
Ellington, a pianist and organist, also graduated from the Berkelee College of Music. He later studied with Ellis Marsalis at the University of New Orleans.
Starting at age 1, Patton began playing the drums. He graduated from the University of Georgia’s school of music with a bachelor’s degree in music performance. He plays with the Ken Watters Group and the Mace Hibbard Quartet. He also produces and records two other bands: Grogus, a Latin jazz band, and Heavy Mojo, a hip-hop group.
Baraszu teaches guitar privately and plays solo gigs Thursdays through Saturdays at the St. Regis Hotel in Buckhead. He also plays at private events and at jazz clubs around town.
He has recorded two albums: “Christmas Time is Here” and “Nightfall.”
From 5:30 to 10 p.m. the museum will also host a Single Mingle event, which will feature an ice-breaker game at 7:30.
Jazz at the High is free with museum admission, $18, and free to members. The Single Mingle event is $5 for members and $20 for nonmembers.
Top L to R: Stubblefield, Green. Bottom L to R: Freeman, Powell and Khan. Photos: Vincent Tseng
A gun sticks out from the top of the pants of a short, pale, bald man. He looks about age 35. He is standing on the corner of a secluded street in front of a blues bar I’ve never been to but am about to enter in Midtown West Atlanta. If he makes a quick move for that gun, or pumps one more rep at the gym, he just might burst out of that tight, yellow polo shirt he’s wearing.
As I walk closer I see emblazoned on the shirt a logo with the word “Police.” That makes me feel safer, and I exhale a sigh of relief as I walk inside a dark, cloudy club filled with people smoking, drinking and playing pool. I don’t go to bars, and my head begs me to go outside to escape the smoke that surrounds the room.
But Grant Green Jr., the son of one of my all-time favorite jazz guitarists–next to Charlie Christian–is playing inside. I have to hear him.
I sit on a stool at a tall table, next to a pool table with a few people in their 20s talking loudly and smacking balls around as the band plays. Within minutes a couple drinking beer decides to stand just feet in front of me, partially blocking my view.
On stage, Green is playing guitar while a cigarette dangles from his mouth. He is playing in a trio with a drummer and an organ player, like his daddy often did. But this trio is playing the blues. There is Vic Stafford on drums and headliner Ike Stubblefield on a Hammond B-3 organ, which looks like a big, wooden clunky piece of furniture from the 1930s.
I don’t listen to the blues much, but I like what I hear. The band’s got soul and rhythm, and I sway and groove to the music on my stool. It’s blues, blues-rock, blues-funk, and blues-jazz. The band plays one standard jazz tune where Green plays and sings just like George Benson. He swings on guitar.
Stubblefield is headlining, but I have never heard of him. I remember listening to Mike Bloomfield in the ’70s. I don’t remember listening to Ike Stubblefield. But I bet I did. Aside from working with Quincy Jones and Phil Spector, Stubblefield has played with some of the biggest names in the music business, including B.B. King, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, and Rod Stewart.
For the band’s first set, the trio’s set includes some standards: B.B. King’s “The Thrill is Gone,” The Temptation’s “Just My Imagination” and the Spencer Davis Group’s “I’m a Man.” These three are solid–tight!–and the crowd is moving to the music.
It’s the second set, a jam session, that pulls dancers, drunk and sober alike, to the floor and makes the night.
First up: Sasha Swetlowski (harmonica), Justin Powell (bass) and Scott Freeman (slide guitar and vocals) wailing the blues.
Impressive on harmonica and still in his 20s, Swetlowski blares soulful sounds reminiscent of the Delta blues and blues-rock bands like J. Geils. Swetlowski is a member of an Atlanta blues-funk band, Soulhound, where he also plays keyboards.
Freeman, a former writer and editor for Atlanta Magazine and Creative Loafing, literally wrote the book on the blues. He has written books on the Allman Brothers and on Otis Redding, as well as two other books. He is working on a new book about his own life as a musician.
Since being laid off from his newspaper job, he, along with Powell, now plays full-time with his step-brother’s country-rock band, Bill Gentry & The 35 Cent Rodeo. Playing in bands since his high school days, Freeman wrings out as much emotion from the guitar he plays as he does from the stories he writes. He plays slide guitar and sings with the band, but what really knocked me off my feet was the passionate phrases he typed up and down the fret board while just warming up.
After Freeman, a young talented singer-songwriter, Zaib Khan, joins the band for a couple of tunes. Khan, who cites Elvis Presley as a big influence, has the king’s star good looks and plays guitar and sings in his own original style. Khan plays clubs regularly throughout metro Atlanta and North Georgia.
Green moved to Atlanta from New York City three years ago. I look forward to hearing him again in a jazz setting!
- Sarah Turner and Justin McGough as Edie and Joe Kennedy Jr.
No stranger to scandal and controversy, Jacqueline (Bouvier) Kennedy Onassis’s family is in the midst of it all in “Grey Gardens,” now playing at Atlanta’s Actor’s Express. But the connection to the Kennedys and the Bouviers is only part of what makes this a piquant, juicy musical. The story features sabotage, betrayal and divorce, while Edith Bouvier Beale spends improvidently, causing her and her co-dependent daughter to slide from high society to wretched squalor.
Socialites Edith Bouvier Beale—Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s aunt—and beautiful Edie live in an opulent 28-room mansion with servants in East Hampton on Long Island. Mr. Beale, a conservative, absentee, hypercritical father, resides in Manhattan and ultimately divorces Edith. George Gould Strong lives off the Beales at their home, known as Grey Gardens, where he plays piano and accompanies Edith, an amateur singer who performs at her house parties. At age 24, on the verge of obtaining her dream of leaving Grey Gardens and her eccentric mother, Edie prepares to wed Joe Kennedy Jr. But Edith has other plans. read more…
See my post from yesterday to see the review of his one-man show “MacHomer,” Miller’s interpretation of “Macbeth” as performed by Matt Groening’s “The Simpsons.”
Rick Miller
You may not have heard of, “MacHomer” or its creator, but you probably will one day. One of the greatest entertainers of our day, Rick Miller, performs his own twisted, truncated version of “Macbeth,” incorporating 50 characters of Matt Groening’s “The Simpsons,” as well as Sean Connery, O.J. Simpson, and well-known cartoon characters.
Although I couldn’t understand what the play was about, even with the synopsis in the program, I can tell you this: Rick Miller is the most talented, entertaining performer I’ve ever seen. When he becomes a character, it’s as if instantaneously its spirit jumps inside him and erupts from his face, body, and voice. While I’ve seen live performances from the best in my lifetime from the likes of Lily Tomlin, Whoopie Goldberg, Dick Van Dyke, to my all-time favorite, Sid Caesar, Rick Miller has bested them all.
Dressed in a kilt, long sleeve top, vest, waist purse, and army boots, he performs the script he wrote, based upon Shakespeare’s Macbeth and popular TV characters, mainly those from “The Simpsons.” A nearly bare stage features only a TV console from the ‘50s, which doubles as a cauldron, a prop he uses when he’s playing one of three witches.
“Macbeth” and “MacHomer” both begin with the appearance of three witches. In “Macbeth,” the characters Macbeth and Banquo have defeated two separate invading armies—one led by the rebel Macdonald, and they encounter the witches as they cross a moor. In “MacHomer,” MacHomer and Banquo run into the three witches, who declare that MacHomer will soon become king.
Instead of a Shakespeare “play-within-a-play,” “MacHomer” brings viewers a genius-within-a-genius: Miller doing Shakespeare. This younger genius, like Shakespeare before him, brings comedy and irony to his script. While embodying the physicality of nearly 80 characters during the entire show, Miller’s acting and singing are superb.
For an encore, Miller performs Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the style of 25 characters, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Barry White, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and Neil Diamond.
Miller has hosted ABC’s primetime series “Just for Laughs,” and has performed on stage in five languages on five continents. He is the creator of “MacHomer,” and co-creator of “Bigger Than Jesus,” “Hardsell,” and “Lipsynch,” all touring internationally. He also created and performed the solo shows “Art?” and “Slightly Bent,” which features 150 characters in 65 minutes.
Miller, who now lives in Toronto, holds a master’s degree in architecture. (He created the artwork of all the characters shown on the screen as he performs.) He studied acting and singing in college in his hometown of Montreal. He has performed in five separate Shakespeare productions and began working on “MacHomer” when he had a bit part in one of them. “MacHomer” continues each evening through Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at Georgia Shakespeare.
Click Here to See MacHomer Video
J.C. Long and Natasha Drena
A delightful production of “Kiss Me, Kate” has opened at the Aurora Theatre in Lawrenceville. It’s just a 45-minute drive from Atlanta, and worth it to see a great show in a beautiful theater.
Borrowing from Shakespeare’s play-within-a-play theme, “Kiss Me, Kate” revolves around two actors, Lilli (Natasha Drena) and Fred (J.C. Long), who once were married to each other, and are now starring together in the revival of Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.” Their relationship mirrors that of their characters, Kate and Petrucchio, who play the cat-and-mouse game of come close, go away.
When Lilli learns of Fred’s newest girlfriend, read more…
Gilda Sue Rosenstern
Oy, vey! Last night I saw “Gilda Sue Rosenstern” host a cabaret act at The Red Light Café.
The Southern hostess and character actress “Gilda Sue,” as she likes to be known on and off stage, trills words and sounds a lot like the waitress “Flo” from the ‘70s TV show “Alice.” She bills herself as “the gabbiest half-Jewish talk-show hostess on her never-ending quest for fame, cosmic truth, a handsome half-Jewish boyfriend, and a real, real rockin’ cocktail.”
After quite a bit of talking about her life as a half-Jew growing up in the South, she introduced her first guest of the evening, “Enzo,” (Vincent Tortorici) a Vaudevillian comic and trickster, who juggled cardboard bricks, tin plates, sticks, and his hat. (See my earlier post on him, June 11, 2009.) Even in the midst of his juggling act, Enzo kept one eye on the audience, and jibed the way of the wind. When attendees entered the club late in the midst of his act, to get them up to speed, he performed all his previous tricks again, in super fast motion.
Gilda Sue next presented folk-pop singer Nathan Beaver, a local singer-songwriter-guitarist, read more…
Les Brown
People didn’t expect much from the poor, “retarded” boy who flunked fifth and eight grades and never went to college. But motivational speaker Les Brown has since earned more than $55 million.
When Brown contacted the National Black Arts Festival about presenting a talk on the art of inspiration, program director Leatrice Ellzy told the audience all he asked for was a hotel room and airline tickets. The man we had seen give motivational talks on PBS for many years was once again a big-time philanthropist, just like he was when he “gave away” all those books and cassette tapes when callers donated money to the station.
Brown spoke at the Rich Auditorium at the Woodruff Arts Center Saturday, and introduced his family members in the audience: a sister, one daughter who was filming him, another who was there as his manager, a sister, and at least two other children. And, he said, he had two children who live here in Atlanta.
Brown’s messages are similar to other motivational speakers. Basically it is this: Work toward your goal, and put your best foot forward in all that you do to get the most out of life. He said if you have ever lost a job, you were supposed to move ahead in life. It was losing his job as a DJ in Ohio that spurred him on to become a public speaker, which, he said, has earned him $55 million. read more…
Lizz Wright, Simone, Joi Gilliam, Dianne Reeves
In last night’s National Black Arts Festival’s tribute to Nina Simone, four singers took the stage separately to remember one of the most recognized voices of jazz and soul.
Because Nina Simone’s voice was so unique (you know that voice within the first bar, if not the first two notes), it seemed to be with the highest regard to her that none of the singers—including her daughter—tried to emulate her sound. read more…
Robert Townsend
When a young black girl in Robert Townsend’s fifth grade class was called on to read “Oedipus Rex” aloud, probably no one outside of the west side of Chicago would have understood her abstruse Ebonics dialect. It was the 1960s, in a tough neighborhood in Chicago, and the only white person in the class was the teacher. When he called on Townsend to read Shakespeare, he was awestruck by this kid who sounded like he had been trained by the Royal Shakespeare Company. That’s because Townsend had trained with the Royal Shakespeare Company, sort of.
Townsend, who was interviewed by Spelman College history professor Jelani Cobb at the Woodruff Arts Center’s Rich Auditorium at the National Black Arts Festival last evening, said he wasn’t fond of reading Sophocles or Shakespeare, so he’d snatch albums from school and listen to the recordings of their plays performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London.
He had been doing impressions of movie and TV stars since he had been a tyke, and his impressions were near spot on. He loved portraying characters and would imitate their sounds and movements. Years later, he noticed he was mainly portraying white performers, because they played the major roles. Blacks in film were few and they only had bit parts, usually as the bad guy or the ignoramus. read more…
