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The Power Of Peter Fetterman's Photos
The Power of Photography by Peter Fetterman (ACC ART BOOKS $45) is a perfect Father's Day gift â in fact, for me, this will be my gift of choice for birthdays and other present-bearing occasions.Fetterman, the long-time impresario of The Peter Fetterman Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, has suffered the difficulties of a business dependent on the purchase and sale of artworks, along with the changing tastes of collectors as generational, societal, and economic shifts have occurred... View… -
Songwriter Patrick Davis' Paradise
There are no more CD sales (what's a CD?) and streaming revenue is just a trickle of what Songwriters once earned. Superstar performers" hits now list teams of songwriting contributors and although live performances are back in demand, if your name is not marquee-worthy (and sometimes even if it is) the gigs that pay a living wage are few and far between. What's a songwriter to do?To answer that question and others I spoke with Patrick Davis. Heard of him… -
Bob Dylan And Elvis Stay True
In the last few weeks, I"ve had two cultural experiences that I"m still trying to get my head around: Bob Dylan on his "Rough and Ready Ways" Tour and Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis." Each, in their singular way, speaks to the struggle for authenticity in one's art.Bob Dylan, who recently turned 81, performed three nights at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. I attended the first night's performance: Dylan spent most of the night behind the piano, occasionally venturing beside his piano… -
Shulamit Nazarian Los Angeles: Looking Back, Moving Forward
Shulamit Nazarian Los Angeles Gallery just celebrated its tenth anniversary, which in gallery years is a serious achievement and reason enough to visit with Shulamit Nazarian and her gallery partner Seth Curcio."The most meaningful part of what I do," Shulamit Nazarian told me recently, "is learning from my artists, opening these amazing windows to their narrative, their cultural history or personal history."For its anniversary, the gallery exhibited a group show of many new works made for ... View Original Article -
Ken Burns' "The U.S. And The Holocaust" On PBS
This Sunday, PBS premieres, The U.S., and The Holocaust, Ken Burn's three-part six-hour documentary, produced and directed by Burns, Lynn Novick and and Sarah Botstein.You might wonder what, if anything, there still is to say about the Holocaust, after so many, many films have been made about it, all over the world. Having watched many of those films, and as the host and curator of an annual Holocaust Film Series at the Holocaust Museum LA, I can tell you that… -
Mesmerized By The Music Of Hania Rani
Late one night during the early days of the pandemic, I was listening to music performances on YouTube, one of my main new music discovery engines. I am always checking out NPR's Tiny Desk concerts or listening to random performers that appear if I just let the channel play. It was on such evening of YouTube selections when I watched a young woman, Hania Rani, give a piano performance unlike anything I"d ever seen or heard.As soon as I heard… -
The Fight for Democracy in Bernard-Henri Levy's "Why Ukraine"
"Ukraine can not lose," Bernard-Henri Lévy says at the end of his powerful new film about the war in Ukraine, "But it must be helped to win." And this film, Why Ukraine co-directed with Marc Roussel and co-written with Gilles Herzog, produced by Francois Margolin with Emily Hamilton and Natalia Gryvniak, which is being screened at the United Nations on October 27 and will be released in the US later this year, is in no small part dedicated to that… -
Shepard Fairey: Portrait Of The Artist
shepard fairey: backward forward at Dallas Contemporary in Dallas, Texas, through July 23, 2023, is an expansive solo show of Shepard Fairey's most recent work that speaks to his evolution as an artist. When I was in Dallas for the opening of the exhibit, I had the chance to sit down with Fairey to hear about his journey and current practice.Fairey's work sits at an interesting intersection of American Art, graphic design, advertising, social justice activism, and entrepreneurship.Throughou... View Original… -
Not So Quiet On The Western Front: Remembering The Activism of Universal Pictures" Carl Laemmle
Netflix recently started streaming a new German-made production of "All Quiet On the Western Front," based on Erich Maria Remarque's 1929 Anti-War novel. This is the third filmed production, with a 1979 TV version adapted by Delbert Mann, and the original Academy Award winning 1930 version. It is worth recalling the impact of the original and the way in which it galvanized the humanitarian efforts of Carl Laemmle.Laemmle, the German-born Jewish immigrant who was one of the founders of Univer...… -
Larkin Poe's Deep Funk In "Blood Harmony"
David may have played a secret chord that pleased the Lord, but when it comes to a sound that pleases me deep in my own soul it comes from sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell who perform as Larkin Poe (reportedly the name of one of their great-greats).They have a new album Blood Harmony that is 11 songs and 42 minutes of pounding driving guitar and slide guitar virtuosity â a deep funk that conjures bands as disparate as The James… -
Louis Armstrong: Black and Blues, A Very Human Genius
Louis Armstrong is an artist whose musical genius, expressed with his trumpet, his voice and his personality, rarely fails to bring a smile to whoever is listening. However, as Sacha Jenkins" new documentary, Louis Armstrong's Black and Blues (available on Apple Tv+) makes clear, Armstrong's persona at times was seen as cringe-worthy by younger Black artists and as conciliatory rather than outspoken on Civil Rights and Racism in the United States.Louis Armstrong, a creature of the road and t... View… -
Best Of 2022: At KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic, it's Novena Carmel and Anthony Valadez's Mix And Flow
This is the time of the year for "best of" lists, and if you care about adult contemporary music (i.e. adult alternative, singer-songwriter, world music), you will want to check out the end year best of list from KCRW's DJs Novena Carmel and Anthony Valadez who co-host that station's signature music program Morning Becomes Eclectic. KCRW will reveal their end of year lists on Wednesday Dec 14 with a reveal on Tuesday December 13 (This event is virtual, and free…