K-pop Alert! Just when you thought K-Pop couldn’t go more over the top, up comes Exo, a boy band with two units, one that sings in Korean (Exo-K), one in Mandarin (Exo-M). They do exactly the same songs, and their videos and similar but subtly different.
Both versions of “Mama” after the jump.
Tomorrow night, Friday, June 1, I will be DJing at the Lush & Lively cocktail hour at the Time Out New York Lounge at New World Stages 340 West 50th Street (between 8th & 9th Ave) from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM. The music emphasizes horns and strings, so there will be jazz (classic and “nu”), latin, international orchestral and big band pop (like this funky version of The White Stripes’s indie garage classic) and – of course – lots and lots of disco. The Cosmo special is only $3 from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM, and there are $5 drink specials until 9:00 PM.
Video after the jump
The John Pizzarelli Quartet truly scales the heights of cabaret’s jazzier side with astonishing musicianship and elan. Their current engagement at the Café Carlyle celebrates the release of their newest CD Double Exposure, featuring songs by first-class pop/rock songwriters, mashed up with elements of arrangements by the giants of jazz.
Scott Wittman is a busy man. In addition to writing lyrics every week for Smash‘s show-within-a-show Bombshell (and serving as an executive producer for the NBC hit), and working as Creative Consultant for the much-anticipated new cabaret space 54 Below, he has conceived and directed Jukebox Jackie, currently playing at LaMaMa ETC. Jukebox Jackie: Snatches of Jackie Curtis is a collage of scenes, poetry, music and dance culled from the works of Jackie Curtis, who performed as both a man and a woman throughout his career in the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s, stating, “I’m not a boy, not a girl. I’m just me, Jackie.”
Even if this version is musically diminished, as some purists say, the stunning ambition of composer George Gershwin’s musical vision still takes my breath away. In this innovative 1935 opera, the beautiful Bess struggles to live in a community that shuns her, and the only one who truly, selflessly loves her is the crippled but courageous Porgy. The songs are sung beautifully – when Norm Lewis, as Porgy, sings “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’” it’s like the sun coming out after a grimly cloudy day. Audra McDonald is a vocally thrilling Bess, and David Alan Grier brings out all the colors, light and dark, in the seductively slick Sportin’ Life. This Porgy & Bess doesn’t succeed on every point, but it’s a strong representation of a fascinating, flawed, ambitious work of art.
To purchase, click here.
Latest from queerplanet.net