Dec. 23, 2020 3:20 pm ET
Eugene Asheâs âSylvieâs Love,â streaming on Amazon, takes place in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and looks like one of those lush, deliciously glossy Technicolor romances that Ross Hunter might have produced and Douglas Sirk might have directed, except for one readjustment of the formula. Most of the people in it are Black. Whatâs startling about that is how unstartling it is until you stop to think about those old films and how narrow their spectrum was.
The pleasure of this one, partly set in a jazz milieu, is its embrace of all the conventionsânot just the melodrama and the star-crossed lovers but careerist ambition, emergent feminism, cultural pretension. The heroineâs mother, Eunice (Erica Gimpel), presides over a Harlem finishing school that prepares proper little girls for cotillion. Sheâs so pretentious that she asks a young jazz saxophonist if he studied at a conservatory. Some of that must have rub
Maria Recio and Peter Blackstock, Austin American-Statesman
WASHINGTON It has been “hard times in the land of plenty,” as Omar and the Howlers sang, for music venues in hard-hit Austin during the pandemic.
But relief is on the way in the stimulus bill that was poised for approval in the House and Senate on Monday night that includes $15 billion in grants for entertainment venues.
“It could mean all the difference in the world,” said James Moody, owner of Mohawk, a venue on Red River Street in downtown Austin that accommodates 1,000 people.
U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, R-Austin, and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, worked to include the Save Our Stages legislation into the $900 billion relief bill.
Marshall Allen leads one of the most visionary jazz groups of all time » Borneo Bulletin Online borneobulletin.com.bn - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from borneobulletin.com.bn Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
New Music Monday for December 21, 2020
Hailing from Indianapolis,
David Childs has worked as a professional pianist in the Northeastern United States for over 30 years. He has shared the stage with jazz greats like Jimmy Heath, James Moody, Bill Watrous and the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. “Playing music well is not child’s play; however, with the right people in the right setting, it can feel easy, instinctive, and unrestrained,” say Childs of his new release, “Childs Play.” Along with world-renowned bassist Brian Torff and New York Ciy-based drummer Greg Burrows, Childs features a set of songs that highlights his intrigue with “the inherent dualities and contrasts in this music we call jazz.”
In one of the most significant closures to hit Austin’s music industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, local concert promotions company Margin Walker closed up shop for good on Monday after staging hundreds of homegrown shows annually since 2016 at a variety of venues here and around the state. Tabled: Margin Walker heads Graham Williams and Ian Orth (r) at the ground of Sound on Sound Fest in 2016 (Photo by David Brendan Hall)
News of the organization’s closing hit in a mid-afternoon social media post Dec. 14, which characterized the move as a “very tough decision, but one that, essentially, made itself” given the pandemic’s nuclear impact on live entertainment. Substantial concert calendars went mostly black after March and 2021 remains shrouded in uncertainty. As such, having one of the largest independent show stagers in the state throw in the towel appears an ominous indicator of how slow a rebound the touring music industry faces.