By Will Friedwald Spanish Harlem Orchestra
Tribeca Performing Arts Center
199 Chambers St., (212) 220-1460
Friday
This outstanding 13-piece orchestra is taking its message
downtown for the launch its eponymous new album. The Spanish Harlem
Orchestra are rooted in both Africa and Cuba, but make no mistake,
all this fire, color, and energy, could have only been created by
New York Latinos living in the magical realms above Central
Park.
Chicha Libre
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer St., Brooklyn, (718) 596 3001
Friday
In the family of Latin American music, mambo and salsa are like
a dependable pair of older and younger brothers; Cumbia, however,
particularly the psychedelic variety said to be homegrown in Peru,
is the stoner cousin. Chicha Libre's 2008 album, "Sonido
Amazonico"--which includes slyly original adaptations of themes by
Vivaldi and Satie--shows that the group is also related to such
gonzo musical outsiders as Spike Jones, Raymond Scot, and Esquivel.
This show, "Chicha Libre Goes To Sleep," is the band's final
appearance "for now," so get on the bus out to Red Hook and catch
this remarkable group before the hibernation.
The York Theatre Company presents the Oscar Hammerstein
Award
The Racquet & Tennis Club
370 Park Ave., (212) 935-5824 x213
Monday
The 2014 Gala for this independent theater company draws
attention to what has been an exceptional season at the York (most
recently their production of Sondheim's little known but worthy
juvenilia, "Saturday Night"). Moreover, this is also a rare
opportunity to hear the songs of box-office champs Lynn Ahrens and
Stephen Flaherty as delivered by an all-star cast of Broadway
headliners, led by "Rocky" himself (Andy Karl), hosted by the
stalwart Liz Callaway (whose sister, Ann Hampton Callaway opens at
54 Below the night before) and featuring our favorite musical power
couple, the seductive Marin Mazzie and the honestly sincere
baritone Jason Danieley. This celebration of the Ahrens-Flaherty
partnership should set the stage for the company's forthcoming
revision of the team's "My Favorite Year."
Christine Andreas, "Love Is Good"
54 Below
254 W. 54th St., (646) 476-3551
Through Saturday
Early in her one-woman show, Christine Andreas tells us that her
favorite part of a song is that moment of recognition when an
obscure verse unfolds into a widely-known chorus--which she
illustrates with "Fly Me to the Moon." From the audience's point of
view, however, her most thrilling moments are those miraculous
modulations, dispersed throughout her show, where she ratchets up
the excitement by taking the key a half-step higher. Yet the show's
biggest epiphany occurs during Mary Chapin Carpenter's "What if We
Went to Italy," the simplest, least musically complicated song of
all (even when decorated with quotes from "La Bohème"), thereby
revealing that Ms. Andreas's emotional gifts are fully the equal of
her prodigious chops.
Eric Reed Trio & Special Guests, "A Celebration of Coleman
Hawkins"
Dizzy's Club Coca Cola
Broadway at 60th Street, (212) 258-9595
Through Sunday
Beginning roughly 90 years ago, the high and mighty
Hawk--Coleman Hawkins--established himself as the body and soul of
the tenor saxophone. On the 110th anniversary of his birth, it
takes no fewer than five of the leading tenors of our time to do
justice to both his memory, as well as that all-encompassing tenor
tone, still the biggest in all of jazz. The festivities began
earlier this week with Lew Tabackin and Tivon Pennicott and
continue through the weekend with the big-toned Grant Stewart
(Friday), that formidable competitor Eric Alexander (Saturday), and
Seamus Blake (Sunday). They're all teaming up with the spiritually
jubilant piano of Eric Reed and his trio with bassist Dezron
Douglas and drummer Gregory Hutchinson, in a salute that promises
to be Hawkish but never mawkish.
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