As this the Anne Courtney Birthday Week edition, I have to start with happy birthday to my better half, my favorite culture and travel companion, and the person who always makes me want to be better. I love you, baby.
Theatre: Amadeus by Peter Shaffer, directed by Michael Longhurst, presented by the National Theatre.
I haven’t kept up as much as I should on NT’s stellar dive through their archive in response to the pandemic. My failing there was thrown into sharp relief as I caught the finale of their YouTube series, a jaw-dropping, perfect revival of Amadeus filmed in 2018.
I’ve been in love with the material since I saw the movie (probably younger than I should have) and it’s hard to picture a better take on Shaffer’s tragic hero of Salieri than Lucas Msamati here. Msamati conjures the character’s iron-willed belief in a just world and a forgiving god, and the shattering, destructive crash when it’s not so.
This Salieri’s judgmental nature poisons everything he touches, ultimately rotting himself from the inside out. His raging monologue at the end of act one and his final declaration, anointing himself to that holy pantheon as “patron saint of mediocrity” are as devastating as I’ve ever seen them. Beyond the stellar acting, Longhurt’s choice to have the Sinfonia on the stage playing the music amidst the actors adds to the mythic, widescreen feeling of this intimate epic.
Amadeus airs through July 23 on National Theatre’s YouTube channel.
Music: Johnny Thunders’ Birthday Bash, streamed live from Bowery Electric
As expected, I’ve been missing New York bad as spring turns into full-bore summer. Clubs coming to life with full bands broadcasting into the ether instead of just someone in their apartment (though I’m grateful for that too) are helping salve just a little of that ache.
One of my favorite things about the city is the close proximity of people and one of my favorite immediate manifestations of that energy comes in bulging, riotous tributes. No one does those better than Jesse Malin (with help from Diane Gentile and others) and this online edition of his annual Johnny Thunders tribute at Bowery Electric was some of the most fun I’ve had on a couch all pandemic.
With a tight backing band consisting mostly of Malin’s players (including Derek Cruz on guitar and Danny Ray on sax), for about two hours they reminded us why Johnny Thunders still matters – as Bob Gruen said from his home upstate, he was “kind of Chuck Berry” for that post-74 generation.
MC Steve Krebs – who also closed the night with joyous takes on “Who Are the Mystery Girls” and “Too Much Junkie Business” – kept the well-oiled night moving. Younger acolytes partied through classics like Strange Majik doing “Personality Crisis”, Diane Gentile’s “Sad Vacation” and Kelley Swindall’s “She’s So Untouchable.” The previous generation showed up with stellar, lived-in takes on the catalogue from Keith Streng of the Fleshtones’ majestic cry on “I’m a Boy I’m a Girl” to Steve Wynn and Linda Pitmon’s swampy, minimal “Downtown” to Gilby Clarke’s trio rampaging through “Born to Lose.”
The icing on the cake was Lenny Kaye – who as Patty Smith’s first accompanist has the same kind of claim to “first barrage of punk rock” as Thunders and his Dolls bandmates, perfectly essaying the glittering melancholy of “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory” before kicking into “Gloria” with the mid-song rap directed toward the memory of Johnny.
In many ways, this made me miss the shows even more but it also reinforced that spirit that we’ll all make it out of this. And we’ll remember not only the people we lost but how good it feels to be in that room together.
Music: Caroline Davis Quintet livestreamed from Small’s
Spike Willner’s club Small’s has led the charge getting real jazz played in clubs. Small’s is always a treasure, the highest quality of classic jazz in a funky, real setting. A bar that’s always made me feel good to be alive whenever I made it there – even though usually it was those nights when I wanted just a little more music, after a ticketed show somewhere else.
They’ve perfectly preserved that vibe on this series, the warm chatter of musicians setting up before playing, the great sounding but low-fi video. I’ve been averaging three or four a week – another charge Small’s led for years was recording and archiving all their shows and this finally pushed me over the line to become a monthly subscriber – and they get better and better.
This Saturday’s Caroline Davis Quartet left me in awe, firing up those pleasure centers jazz has a direct line to. Davis is one of the finest alto players working and a stunning writer, and this band was on fire from the first moment. Her front line with trumpeter Marquis Hill had a rare empathy from sinewy ballads to burning protest songs, tossing back and forth with the exquisite rhythm section of Julian Shore on piano, Chris Tordini on bass, and Allan Mednard on drums.
This and all Small’s show are archived at http://www.smallslive.com. It’s more than worth the cost. Each show is also available free for registering when it plays live at 4:45 pm every day.
Screen of Distance 