Selected Musical Events – May 28, 2013

WBGO Jazz Series: Benny Goodman & Other Joys
Although many important anniversaries are being overlooked (it’s hard to believe there hasn’t been an event in New York commemorating Woody Herman’s centennial), the 75th anniversary of Benny Goodman’s 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall is not one of them. we can thank Ken Peplowski for that.

This is the clarinet star’s second important gig honoring that world-changing event, but while his earlier show at the Blue Note cast Goodman classics in a new light, this more straight-ahead program plays Benny more à la Benny, with stunningly hard-swinging renditions of Goodman’s small-group bandbook. The group juxtaposes two young whippersnappers, pianist Ehud Asherie and drummer Willie Jones III, alongside three Goodman band vets: the storied guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, bassist Jay Leonhart and Mr. Peplowski himself. While never imitating, Mr. Peplowski plays swing signatures like “Avalon” with a fire and a tenacity that even the hard-to-please Goodman himself would have approved of.(WSJ)
54 Below / 254 W. 54th St.,
(866) 468-7619
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Joe Lovano Nonet
Joe Lovano, a tenor saxophonist with broad experience in large ensembles, has led this bop-flavored nonet — stocked with peers like the trumpeter Tim Hagans and the saxophonist Steve Slagle — on and off for more than a decade. He’ll draw here from his 2006 album, “Streams of Expression” (Blue Note), which smartly featured the orchestrations of Gunther Schuller, a specialist in groups of this size. (Chinen-NYT)
Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Avenue South, at 11th Street
At 8:30 and 10:30 p.m./$25 cover, with a one-drink minimum.
(212) 255-4037 / villagevanguard.com
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Eliane Elias
A Brazilian pianist with a transparent touch and a fondness for subtle harmonic shading, Ms. Elias is also a singer of breathy composure, as she demonstrates on her new album, “I Thought About You: A Tribute to Chet Baker” (Concord Jazz). The album is being released on Tuesday, the first evening of her five-night engagement here with a typically strong supporting cast. (Chinen-NYT)
Birdland, 315 West 44th Street
At 8:30 and 11 p.m. / $40 cover, with a $10 minimum.
581-3080, birdlandjazz.com
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Before making final plans, we suggest you call the venue to confirm dates and check times, as schedules are subject to change. =========================================

SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS @ 
3 Chelsea Galleries & 2 Museums: 
(WestSide Manhattan)

Richard Serra: ‘Early Work’ (through June 15)
This terrific exhibition looks back on five formative years in the career of the world’s most admired sculptor. One room contains objects made of lead, rubber, wood and stone produced by basic procedures like cutting, folding and tearing. A second gallery features works made by propping up four-by-four-foot lead panels and a single slab of hot-rolled steel, eight feet tall and 24 feet long, that juts from a corner into the room with grand implacability. (Johnson-NYT)
David Zwirner, 537 West 20th Street,
517-8677 / davidzwirner.com.

Rodney Graham (through June 15)
In four giant photographic transparencies mounted on lightboxes, the versatile Vancouver artist Mr. Graham ponders a man’s middle age with comical ennui. Each is a fictional self-portrait of the artist as a construction worker, a scientist, an aging punk and an old hippie in a kayak. They are funny and touching because of the disproportionate relationship between their grandiose scale and their goofy images, which resemble those of downbeat Father’s Day greeting cards. (Johnson-NYT)
303 Gallery, 507 West 24th Street,
255-1121, 303gallery.com.

Wolfgang Tillmans (through June 22)
The nomadic German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans addresses globalization in a curiously offhand way. This is true even in his latest works, which assert themselves more strongly as art objects thanks to Mr. Tillmans’s experiments with inkjet printing; they are lush and almost painterly in their rich concentrations of pigment. Only after connecting the dots of the installation — which moves from downtown Los Angeles to Kilimanjaro, a Masai hut to a construction site in Shanghai, a car headlight to a close-up of mold spores — do you sense transformation and upheaval.(Rosenberg-NYT)
Andrea Rosen Gallery, 525 West 24th Street,
(212) 627-6000 / andrearosengallery.com.
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‘Claes Oldenburg: The Street and the Store’ and ‘Claes Oldenburg: Mouse Museum, Ray Gun Wing’ (through Aug. 5)
‘Performing Histories (1)’ (through Aug. 5)
‘Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light’ (through Aug. 12)
Museum of Modern Art: 11 W 53rd St,
(212) 708-9400 / moma.org.
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‘A Different Kind of Order: The ICP Triennial’ (through Sept. 8) 
International Center of Photography
1133 Avenue of the Americas, at 43rd Street,
(212) 857-0000 / icp.org
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