Tuesday, June 26, 2007
The Kennedy Center Millenium Stage presents a free concert at 6:00 every evening. Free shuttle from the Foggy Bottom Metro Station. I took in the show this evening.
It was the Czech singer Ondrej Havelka and his 14-member big band, the Melody Makers, doing jazz and popular songs from the 1920s and 30s (!). Sweet saxophones, trumpets with mutes, tuxedos. Ondrej did tap-dances during the show. The female singer wore a tight black gown with long gloves and didn't move around much on-stage....
Boogy Woogy: Beat Me Daddy, 8 to the Bar
Hammerstein & Kern: Can't Help Lovin' That Man of Mine
Hoagy Carmichael: Am I Blue
Waiting For the Sunrise
Sweet Sue
Etc.
It was pretty good, although it felt to me like a parody of a US culture from the past that no longer exists. Familiarity, Loss, Nostalgia, and Irony in that it was a Czech group presenting this pean to a USA musical period that no longer exists. All the more strange because of the various cultures I have been immersed in over the past few years. It brought home how our culture - most cultures, I suppose - changes and develops over time.
!
It was the Czech singer Ondrej Havelka and his 14-member big band, the Melody Makers, doing jazz and popular songs from the 1920s and 30s (!). Sweet saxophones, trumpets with mutes, tuxedos. Ondrej did tap-dances during the show. The female singer wore a tight black gown with long gloves and didn't move around much on-stage....
Boogy Woogy: Beat Me Daddy, 8 to the Bar
Hammerstein & Kern: Can't Help Lovin' That Man of Mine
Hoagy Carmichael: Am I Blue
Waiting For the Sunrise
Sweet Sue
Etc.
It was pretty good, although it felt to me like a parody of a US culture from the past that no longer exists. Familiarity, Loss, Nostalgia, and Irony in that it was a Czech group presenting this pean to a USA musical period that no longer exists. All the more strange because of the various cultures I have been immersed in over the past few years. It brought home how our culture - most cultures, I suppose - changes and develops over time.
!
