Theatre Aspen artistic director David McClendon, the P.T. Barnum of Aspen, has the same challenge as the original circus entrepreneur when it came to getting people under the big top: if they don’t walk in the door, there’s no way they are going to be able to tell their friends about the elephant.
Continue Reading Add comment June 30th, 2006
At the end of the day, on Sunday, there was no way I was going to make it back into Aspen for the Phishful Trey Anastasio, whom I had always wanted to see, and the former James Brown sideman Maceo Parker, whom I had always wanted to hear. By the end of the Jazz Aspen Snowmass (JAS) June 2006 festival, I was completely out of gas. But what a gas it was.
Continue Reading Add comment June 26th, 2006
Expectations are like--well, you know--everyone's got them, so there's something particularly sweet when all your expectations are met and even exceeded.
So it was Saturday night in Rio Grande Park in downtown Aspen, where a cavernous tent is home to a family of eclectic music and musicians every June. The biggest crowd I've ever seen in three years was wedged under the big top to see Delbert McClinton and Elvis Costello with special guest Allen Toussaint at Jazz Aspen Snowmass Presented by Calamos Investments.
Continue Reading Add comment June 25th, 2006
I am ashamed to say I had never heard of the piano player Henry Butler of New Orleans, but I saw him in the best possible way—without knowing who he was.
Continue Reading Add comment June 23rd, 2006
Maybe Jonny Lang puts to rest the notion that you have to live the blues to sing them. He’s too young to have lived the blues—right? And maybe that explains why a twentysomething singer and guitarist like him is breaking out of the blues box every time he plugs in.
Continue Reading Add comment June 11th, 2006
