by Steven Blier | May 24, 2018 | Song of the Day
“The Art of Pleasure”—my Wolf Trap concert for this year—includes a section of guilty pleasures. This was at once the most fun and the most difficult group to program. How far were we willing to go? It’s not so easy to assign louche material for a group of people you...
by Steven Blier | May 23, 2018 | Song of the Day
In the interest of empowering the cast of my Wolf Trap show “The Art of Pleasure,” I asked them to make suggestions of songs and subjects. “What pleasures beyond the obvious ones (food and sex) do you want to sing about, and what songs bring those pleasures to life...
by Steven Blier | May 22, 2018 | Song of the Day
The final group of songs in Act I of “The Art of Pleasure” is simply called “Romance,” and that gave me an opportunity to program the steamy duet “Schön wie die blaue Sommernacht” from Lehár’s Giuditta. When it comes to high-calorie, high-fat romance, there’s no one...
by Steven Blier | May 21, 2018 | Song of the Day
I am at Wolf Trap this week working on a program called “The Art of Pleasure.” Why? Well, for the past eighteen months, I have been assaulted every morning by news of cruelty, greed, shortsightedness, and mendacity unlike anything I can remember. I know others also...
by Joseph Li | May 18, 2018 | Song of the Day
I’ve always viewed my journey with jazz and improvisation akin to someone’s journey with the game of golf – each year, I hope to suck just a little bit less than the previous one. And what’s the most common answer I would get when I asked jazz musicians how to get...
by Joseph Li | May 17, 2018 | Song of the Day
Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers is a bit of a misnomer for this first song on the album, which should probably fall under the heading of “Paul Foster and the Soul Stirrers.” It’s not that Sam Cooke doesn’t bring his trademark irreplaceable quality to the song, it’s...
Recent Comments