It’s been a week since the the Jesus Christ Superstar performance at Derryfield Rep, and I needed another theatre “fix”.  As luck would have it, the solution was two minutes down the road at Wheaton College’s Weber Theatre.  The Triboro Musical Theatre and Wheaton College are presenting 2 performances of “Curtains” (January 15,16) .  It was glorious!! OK… I’ll come clean, I had never heard of this show and I decided not to do any research before the performance.  This morning I spent a few minutes on the net getting some more background- thanks to IBDB.  Curtains is by Kander and Ebb (”Cabaret”, “Chicago”, etc.)- it’s a purposefully old-style musical/whodunit.  The original show ran on Broadway from March ‘07 to June’08 and starred David Hyde Pierce and Debra Monk.  The Amazon link has some additional information but unfortunately no samples of the wonderful music.

OK back to last night’s performance.  The cast was very talented and it showed in the acting and singing as well as in the choreography.  Ted Nesi as Lt. Frank Cioffi and Amanda Nelson as producer Carmen Bernstein were wonderful.  Writeups from other sources refer to them as Wheaton Alumnists (is alumnist a word?)  but you get the idea.  Other Wheaton students star in the production – Katie Anderson (Niki Harris), Pete Rizzo and Lauren Bamford (writing team of Hendricks and Fox).  Another standout was Diana Puccio (Bambi).  It’s unclear to me how the combination of Wheaton College and the Triboro Musical Theatre works and there’s a surprising lack of information about this collaboration (hint hint).  The Triboro’s web site is just a splash page at the moment.

I love the old show-within-a-show template and Curtains does this admirably.  So some of the numbers are about reworking the show and the others relate to the characters and the arc of whodunit.  “Show People”, “Coffee Shop Nights” and “The Man is Dead” were a few of the standouts among the dozen or so tunes.  The show ran almost three hours (including a 15 minute intermission).  It was genuinely enjoyable and I highly recommend getting over to Wheaton College for the second show.

The eleven piece orchestra (!) was excellent under the direction of David Renoni and the sound was reasonably well done.  Now that I’m into the music and sound side of theatre again, the other side of my brain wants to get a little more analytical about what I saw/heard.  But I’ll save that for the next post.

Brilliant!  Jon Stewart’s introduction of Bruce Springsteen at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony:

“I am not a music critic, nor historian nor archivist.  I cannot tell you where Bruce Springsteen falls in the pantheon of the American Songbook.  I cannot illuminate the context of his work or its roots in the folk and oral history traditions of this great nation.  But I am from New Jersey.  And so I can tell you what I believe.  And what I believe is this.  I believe that Bob Dylan and James Brown had a baby.  Yes.  And they abandoned this child, as you can imagine at the time, interracial, same-sex relationships being what they were.  They abandoned this child on the side of the road; between the exit interchanges of 8A and 9 on the New Jersey Turnpike.  That child is Bruce Springsteen.”

Stevie Wonder’s set started with him doing For Once in My Life. The band was nice and tight (as you’d expect) and we get a first introduction to the horns (trumpet, sax) and the singers.  Stevie then introduced Smokey Robinson who did Tears of a Clown.  A nice, slower version of the tune.  The man has had some serious plastic surgery – seeing him in HD was a little creepy…I’m just sayin’.  But he’s still got good pipes.

John Legend was introduced and proceeded to do a gorgeous version of Mercy Mercy Me.  I originally saw this set as part of the 4-hour recording.  This tune was not included.  Luckily when they rebroadcast this in two session they include the tune.  Legend that sat in with band on piano.  Stevie moved on to Michael Jackson’s You Turn Me On.  He actual broke down and cried during this tune but recovered nicely – it was a genuinely touching moment.

Next up was B.B. King (inducted in 1987) doing his signature The Thrill is Gone.  Stevie sang a verse in his inimitable style… a nice touch.  The classic blues tune was an enjoyable addition.  Then it was time move on to some more Stevie classics… like Higher Ground .  And freakin’  Sting joins the band playing bass!  Interesting having two basses.   Sting then does Roxanne with the band.  He and Stevie share the vocals.  The instrumentals on this tune were just great and looking at all the faces of the band members, you could see that they were seriously enjoying themselves.  The band then transitioned back to Higher Ground.  Sting’s voice added a nice new color to the tune.

Almost time to go… Sting leaves the stage and band fires up yet another classic – Superstition and Stevie introduces… Jeff Beck … no really.  I’ve always thought of this as an instrumental tune and the band was absolutely  rippin’ (and smilin’).  Some very tasty guitar work from Mr. Beck.  A tremendous build to the end with the signature horn lick and the backup singers.

And then it was time for the Metallica set.   Yeah whatever…

I managed to remember to record HBO’s 25th anniversary celebration concert of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame earlier this week.   I watched it once (4 hours!) and wanted to go back and put down a few thoughts.

It was structured in “sets” anchored by A-list groups acting as the house band for a number of performers.The show itself opened with an introduction by Tom Hanks which was nicely poetic and then jumped to Jerry Lee Lewis doing Great Balls of Fire.  It was impressive that the man can still play and a tribute to R&R’s roots but it was honestly hard to listen to.  And I was hoping it wasn’t an indicator of things to come.  It wasn’t… it definitely wasn’t.

Crosby Stills and Nash anchored the first set and it was absolutely inspired. CSN opened with a wonderful version of Woodstock.  The harmonies were right on and Stills’ guitar work was great.  It was nice to hear this song sung with a new rawness that comes from the age of the performers.

David Crosby introduced Bonnie Raitt, who performed See You Again.   It was a beautiful, poignant performance (the woman can sing) and again, the harmonies with CSN were gorgeous.

Graham Nash introduce Jackson Brown.  He did one of his signature peices, The Pretender with CSN harmonies and Stills playing guitar.  The band mix here was great – nice bass work and the B3 provided some tastey additions.  Visually, I was distracted by Nash who was a bit over-dramatic for my personal – just sing man.

Nash then introduced James  Taylor (and the crowd goes wild).  The hat was a nice touch – interesting watching all these musical icons age (and lose their hair).  The band then jumps into Love the One You’re With – the opening guitar riff followed by that B3… nice.  Taylor’s voice doing the verse was outstanding and the 4-part harmonies for the hook gave me tingles.

It was a great set and a good opener for the three and half hours to follow.

Up next – the Stevie Wonder set.

I’ve been a fan of WERS (Emerson College Radio) in Boston for years.  They’ve held on to the traditions of a real college radio station.  Their programming continues to be a great, eclectic mix of music – such an enjoyable escape from commercial radio.  As expected, not every show is my particular cup of tea but that’s half the fun.

One of the best weekly shows is All A Cappella – it’s on 2-5pm ET Saturday AND Sundays and provides my weekly dose of enjoyable vocal music.  Lots of collegiate a cappella combined with “commerical” a cappella material. Although WERS does not provide podcasts of their shows, you can catch the realtime stream.  And all the individual show pages include links to their playlists – present and past.  A nice touch.