Six stories above the intersection at Clark and Halsted looms a billboard that reads, “The Secret to selling Real Estate is Chaz. ” A photo shows the smiling Chaz Walters wearing a tie and white shirt, his shoulder revealing a hint of suspender. A red box announces that he’s sold more than $67 million worth […]
Tag: Vol. 26 No. 25
Issue of Mar. 27 – Apr. 2, 1997
Posted inNews & Politics
Lessons in Censorship/ Student Journalism: Who’s Liable for Libel?/ News Bites
By Michael Miner Lessons in Censorship The contradiction between journalism and public relations is never clearer than when one person is responsible for both. The middle school in Otsego, Michigan, changed the philosophy of its school paper this winter, and the school flack made the change sound inconsequential. “Students will still learn how to write, […]
Posted inMusic
Spot Check
SLUSH 3/28, BEAT KITCHEN; 3/29, dome room This southern California quartet attempts to contemporize Smithereens-type FM rock with bluesy garage riffs a la Jon Spencer. While the instrumental drive is there, singer Johnne Peters (brother of Grant Lee Buffalo drummer Joey) sounds like he’s too drunk on his own nerdy charisma to find the groove. […]
Posted inMusic
Tatus Aoki Trio
TATSU AOKI TRIO The emergence of Asian-hyphenate musicians committed to exploring their heritage in jazz settings has provided some of the most dynamic and fulfilling music of the last decade. In the work of such artists–including pianist Jon Jang and saxophonists Fred Ho and Francis Wong (all Chinese-American); the French-Vietnamese guitarist Nguyen Le; and Tatsu […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Human Comedy
THE HUMAN COMEDY, Splinter Group at Theatre Building. The same devotion and concentration that Splinter Group lavished on Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock in 1994 fuel this resounding revival of a problematic 1984 work by Hair composer Galt MacDermot. A cantata based on William Saroyan’s 1943 saga of an embattled California family during World […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Rags
RAGS, Circle Theatre. This sweet and sturdy musical by author Joseph Stein, composer Charles Strouse, and lyricist Stephen Schwartz may have failed on Broadway, but Kevin Bellie’s small-scale, well-honed, and often passionate revival charms and moves. The 170-minute tale of Jewish immigrants seeking a good life in turn-of-the-century New York may be sprawling and sloppy, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Off Target
Atomic Bombers Northlight Theatre at North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie By Adam Langer In a review a couple of weeks ago I expressed the sentiment that I would almost always rather see an ambitious but uneven mess than a well-acted, exquisitely crafted bore. If you don’t see how a production can […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Jedi! A Musical Tour de Force
JEDI! A Musical Tour de Force, Argos Agency, at ImprovOlympic. The night I caught this musical version of the Star Wars trilogy I overheard several people in the audience anxiously discussing whether George Lucas would “shut them down.” They were hoping he’d try, because it would be great publicity. (As if this uneven, hastily thrown […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Root Causes
ROOT CAUSES, Victory Gardens Theater. One picture is worth a thousand words, the saying goes; certainly the electric-colored pop paintings by Ed Paschke that dominate the design of this world premiere have clarity and power sorely lacking in Steve Carter’s script. Inspired by the case of one Felix Wayne Mitchell, head of an Oakland heroin […]
Posted inMusic
At Home in Her Range
Cecilia Bartoli at Orchestra Hall, March 23 By Sarah Bryan Miller It’s an article of faith for some music lovers that virtually any woman who calls herself a mezzo-soprano is actually a soprano who doesn’t want to admit it. They reason that these singers are (a) simply unaware of what their voice is, (b) lazy, […]
Posted inMusic
Lavelle White
Lavelle White Texan vocalist Lavelle White is a stylist of power and inventiveness, and she’s also an unheralded songwriting genius. She claims authorship of Bobby “Blue” Bland’s immortal “Lead Me On,” among other gems, and her latest CD, It Haven’t Been Easy (Antone’s), features no fewer than nine original compositions. White’s vocal style is a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Baubo Performance Project
So That I May Come Back The women of Baubo Performance Project have a knack for finding comedy in dangerous situations and sublimity in comic ones. In their current show, loosely based on the trial of a ten-year-old Liverpool girl who murdered two boys in the early 60s, they tightly weave together graceful dance and […]
Posted inMusic
Boozoo Chavis & the Magic Sounds
BOOZOO CHAVIS & THE MAGIC SOUNDS Many of zydeco’s most visible touring acts are profit-driven modernists, updating tradition to appeal to the lowest common denominator–i.e., cranking out zydeco versions of familiar pop tunes. Boozoo Chavis, on the other hand, is a veteran purist–his 1954 classic “Paper in My Shoe” predated the first Clifton Chenier recording […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Revisiting WWII
In some ways I was glad to see a front page article in the Reader on the Second World War [March 7]. In other ways I wasn’t. The first thing that caused me to blink a few times was the claim that “World War II came to America like an epidemic from overseas” and the […]