Gossip Central

Patti Smith’s Benediction for Graduates: What to Say at Commencement

Advice for graduating seniors is de rigueur at commencement. Rocker/ poet/ memoirist Patti Smith had much to advise the School of Visual Arts graduating class last week, having composed her speech the day before in a dentist’s chair. Resist the temptation toward materialism, was one thought, as were words from William S. Burroughs: Keep your name clean, when she asked the Naked Lunch author for his wisdom. Mainly she said, follow your vision without compromise.

Abel Ferrara Rocks Out at MoMA

Photo: Regina Weinreich

Celebrating a retrospective at MoMA, cult filmmaker Abel Ferrara showed his music chops. The museum lobby, its platform facing the garden became a stage for Ferrara’s long time friends and collaborators Paul Hipp and Joe Delia, and some surprise vocalists Willem Dafoe, Gretchen Mol among them. Mol’s duet with Ferrara on guitar for “Bebopalula” and “Walk on the Wild Side,” homage to the late great Lou Reed, sent chills through the downtown art crowd including Debbie Harry, Julian Schnabel and Louise Kugelberg, Marla Hanson; many have worked with Ferrara. This wild party, hosted by producers Annie and Ed Pressman, was most certainly a throwback to headier times.

Joel Grey Takes the Stage at Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish

Oy! The Cossacks are coming! In the essential viewing Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish at Stage 42, as we know, the Jews in the fictional town of Anatekva are threatened by pogroms. Eventually the lives of Tevye and Golde, their five daughters, and all town-folk are disrupted; they are forced to take refuge elsewhere. Could the creators of this marvelous 1964 play, Joseph Stein’s book, Jerry Bock’s music, Sheldon Harnick’s lyrics, have realized the extraordinary resonance of this story? Director Joel Grey’s genius, rendering it in the dying language of Yiddish, -- (even the actors don’t know it)-- is to make audiences consider this a blueprint of exile: perhaps, a “heimish” combination of old world sound in sepia tones against a threatening, violent outside world, one’s own family history. And no matter where you were born, it is.

Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything at the Jewish Museum: A Way to Say Goodbye

The Jewish Museum opens a dynamic homage to Canadian poet/ songman/ novelist/ cultural icon Leonard Cohen this week, focused on his art, and work from others inspired by his life and oeuvre. Staring up at an image of myself reclined comfortably, I experienced his “Famous Blue Raincoat” with words projected on the walls as well as images inspired by the song. This was Ari Folman’s contribution, “Depression Chamber,” an installation, like a therapy session, that must be experienced one person at a time. I anticipate lines, even with a timed reservation. It is just one piece from artists such as Christophe Chassol and Tacita Dean occupying three floors of the museum. Taryn Simon’s “New York Times, Friday, November 11, 2016,” the newspaper displayed in plexiglass illustrates the timing of Cohen’s death just a few days before our current president’s election to office. There is some symbolism there, especially in the juxtaposition of Obama and Trump’s first meeting, and an advertisement for Bernie Sanders’ book, Our Revolution.

Aretha Franklin at 29 Stars in Amazing Grace: “She Turned Your Ears into Eyes”

At the New York premiere of the documentary Amazing Grace, the recording session for Aretha Franklin’s historic 1972 gospel album, Clive Davis told an audience of many who knew the iconic singer, she invited him to dinner 40 years ago and asked, Could she be a hit?

From this auspicious beginning, at a screening room near the Freedom Tower, Dr. Amos C. Brown, pastor of the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, provided a context for the church concert, backed by the Southern California Community Choir led by Anthony Hamilton, with James Cleveland accompanying Franklin at the apex of her singing chops: “People escaping lynching in Mississippi, at the height of despair, got the gift of music from Aretha Franklin.”

Beetlejuice: The Musical on Broadway, At Last

If you tell Alex Brightman, the star of Beetlejuice on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theater that he was born to play this exuberant, over-the-top part, he says, Oh sure! I was born to play this dead, Jewish, crazed, demon from the Netherworld! As if to say mockingly, that’s no compliment! When, in fact, it is! Brightman brings the fast-talking giddy mania that he played so well in School of Rock, as if it had been a dress rehearsal for Beetlejuice, adding of course the black & white Escher-like optics. For the opening preview this week, fans of all ages mobbed B-way and 50^th street, dressing up for the occasion. The composer of the historic “Day-O,” Irving Burgie, wouldn’t miss it. At 94, he exuded, “The song always turns them out.”

Mary Wilson Reigns Supreme at the Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations Opening Night

Of course the story of the Temptations, the R&B group topping the charts with hits like “My Girl,” and yes, “Ain’t Too Proud,” would have to acknowledge the girl groups of the era. As the Temps rose to fame, so too did The Supremes, and in the glorious musical Ain’t Too Proud at Broadway's Imperial Theater, they do get their cameo singing a medley of their hits. Rivals and perhaps romantic interests, the Supremes had their own dramatic story, limned by the hit musical Dreamgirls, but here they round out the men’s tale of collaboration, friendship, beautiful sound, and the business of making music for black men in America. As part of Dominique’s book, Mary Wilson gets a bit more than a shout out, and there she was in the audience on opening night, not minding a bit that the history is tweaked. On that, Mary Wilson “ain’t too proud.”

Tierney Sutton’s Homage to Alan and Marilyn Bergman at the Café Carlyle

Photo: David Andrako

From the very first jazzy note, you can tell she loves them. Tierney Sutton’s residency at the Café Carlyle is a tribute to the songwriting couple, Marilyn and Alan Bergman is an awe-fest to their music, and to them as a couple. Sutton goes through their romance and collaboration: to this day, after 61 years of marriage, they mostly occupy the same room, and when they call, they both call, speaking on extensions, inviting her to dinner or to test out a new tune. And as Sutton goes through this history, through their work with composers Michel Legrand, Dave Grusin, Marvin Hamlisch, John Williams and more, you realize, they’ve written the lyrics to songs you know and love, such as “Nice and Easy,” for Frank Sinatra, his first album’s title track, and “The Way We Were,” with Marvin Hamlisch, best known for the movie with Barbra Streisand.

My Fair Lady: Transformation in our Trans-Age

Even if Lerner & Loewe’s My Fair Lady were not one of the most crowd-pleasing musicals, the revival at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater would be a must-see. Featuring Broadway royalty, not only the amazing Laura Benanti as Eliza Doolittle whose voice alone is worth the price of admission, but the exquisite Rosemary Harris, who, at the performance we attended did not get the customary applause upon entrance. Her subtleties as Professor Henry Higgins’ mother may have caused her to slip by the notice of the attentive crowd in ways that Danny Burstein’s Alfred P. Doolittle, Eliza’s attention-grabbing drunk dad does not. But these great stars, joined by Harry Hadden-Paton as the stern, conceited Higgins, Christian Dante White as the besotted Freddy and Allan Corduner as the deliciously impish Colonel Pickering, under the consistently good direction of Bartlett Sher, make for a great night at the theater.

John Lloyd Young Sings Songs of Love at the Café Carlyle

Photo: David Andrako

“You’re just too good to be true,” goes the lyric of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” a signature hit for John Lloyd Young. Now in his eighth residency at the Café Carlyle, the line, the first of the night, also describes his dreamboat performance. Some men just don’t get old: Dark glasses cannot hide John Lloyd Young’s dimple-chinned prom date good looks, but then again, his music does not age either. Just ask his fans who follow wherever he plays, and return to the Carlyle night after night.