Selected West Side Events – Tuesday, Jun. 18, 2013

For other useful NYCity event info be sure to check out :
“Notable Events-June”, “on Broadway”,  and “Top10 Free”, in the header above.
For D-I-Y NYCity trip planning see links in “Resources” and “Smart Stuff” in the header above.

Celebrating Sammy Cahn
One of the last great old-school songwriting teams, Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen—both coming up on their centennials—are frequently remembered as the composer contingent of the Rat Pack. (Van Heusen, in particular, inspired Sinatra in ways that went beyond music.)
But the scope of their work extends throughout Hollywood, Broadway, and jazz. On Tuesday at Stage 72 (formerly the Triad), it’s a veritable Cahn film festival, as singer-pianist twosome Eric Comstock and Barbara Fasano join forces with the sugar-throated Jeff Harnar.
Stage 72, 158 W. 72nd St.
At 7pm / $25, + 2 drink minimum
(800) 838-3006 / stage72.com

George Gershwin’s “Blue Monday”
“This isn’t “Porgy & Bess,” but it’s a fascinating step (more likely a chromatic half-step) that the composer made along the path to his great American opera. (It’s also a predecessor to “Rhapsody in Blue.”) Likewise, the current Cotton Club on 125th Street isn’t the legendary venue of the Harlem Renaissance—it’s about 20 blocks and 75 years away.

Put the two together and you get an early attempt at a “jazz opera” in a unprepossessing roadhouse off the West Side highway, a potentially fascinating evening of what the presenter has labeled “on site opera.” The excellent soprano Alyson Cambridge stars as “Vi,” and the rest of the “Afro-American” cast (as Gershwin and libbretist Buddy DeSylva called it in 1922) includes Chase Taylor and Lawrence Craig. The one-act, 30-minute presentation is preceded by “cocktails and dancing.” The opera hasn’t been written that wouldn’t benefit from both.” (WSJ)
The Cotton Club, 656 W. 125th St.
maybe sold out. will keep our eye on this club.
(212) 663-7980 / cottonclub-newyork.com

Buffy Sainte-Marie
“The leading chanteuse of American Indian activism packs one of the most warbling, deliberately halting voices in all of folk. Yet the informed protestations behind that instrument are steadfast, especially the heart-rending refrain of the Academy Award-winning “Up Where We Belong,” which she wrote with Jack Nitzsche and Will Jennings. With Del Barber.” (Anderson-NYT)
B. B. King Blues Club & Grill, 237 West 42nd Street
at 7:30 p.m., $30 in advance, $40 at the door.
(800) 745-3000 / bbkingblues.com

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN
Veteran guitar grandmaster JOHN McLAUGHLIN has earned a place in the top echelon of the six-string pantheon.

His virtuosity has been on display in a number of divergent settings throughout his celebrated career, beginning in the early 1960s as the electric guitarist for Georgie Fame’s rocking Blue Flames.

The veteran guitar aficionado celebrates his 70th birthday year with the announcement of Now Here This (Abstract Logix) as he ups-the-ante even further with greater fire, finesse and freewheeling interplay with his latest group, The 4th Dimension.
Blue Note, 131 West Third Street, Greenwich Village
at 8 and 10:30 p.m., $55 cover at tables. $35 at the bar, $5 min.
475-8592 / bluenote.net

Unpacked Treasures – CMF at The Italian Academy
Discover the treasures of 400 years of music from Italy and Britain, including Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in B flat, an oboe concerto by Giovanni Platti, Elizabethan madrigals with Ensemble Amarcord, as well as “Variations on an Elizabethan Theme” for string orchestra featuring arrangements by six leading British composers of the 20th century including Benjamin Britten.
7:30pm | Italian Academy, Columbia University | $45 | Curated Gala Reception
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A PremierPub + 3 Good Eating places 

Jimmy’s Corner
140 W 44th St (btw B’way & 7th ave) 
Jimmy’s Corner is right in the heart of Times Square, but you won’t find it on the corner, it’s mid-block. Enter this long narrow bar and you are struck by the walls covered with mostly black-and-white boxing photographs, and memorabilia. Soon enough you learn that “Corner” refers to proprietor Jimmy Glenn’s long career as a corner man for some of boxing greats – Liston, Tyson, even “the greatest”, Ali.

Jimmy’s is a sort of time machine, taking you back to a time and place that no longer exists. All around you Times Square has cleaned up, grown up, assumed a new identity. Jimmy’s probably hasn’t changed a bit since it first opened in 1971. Certainly the bar itself looks original and the prices haven’t changed much either. When I brought a friend, who owns her own bar, she was surprised when she got the small tab for a round of drinks. Figured there must be a mistake, that maybe they forgot to charge for all the drinks.

Times Square today is filled with neon glitz and wandering tourists from Dubuque, but not Jimmy’s. You’ll likely find some old timer’s at the bar nursing their drinks, some younger locals at tables in the back, and maybe a few adventuresome tourists clutching their trusty guidebooks. There’s no food served here because this is just a bar, and sometimes that’s all you need.

On nights when no local team is playing, it’s a fine place to sip some drafts and listen to a great old time jukebox (40s, 50s, R&B, and soul). On sports nights this very narrow bar can get a bit claustrophobic, filled with excited fans watching their team on the TVs. Either way, Jimmy’s is the place to be if you are looking for an old time bar in the new Times Square.
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Website: are you kidding !
(although there is a facebook page with lots of photos –
facebook.com/jimmyscornernyc)
Phone #: 212-221-9510
Hours: 11am – 4 am, except Sunday they open 12 noon
Happy Hour: not necessary, low prices all day, every day
Subway: #1,2,3 to TimesSquare 42nd st
walk 2 blks N on 7th ave to 44th st; ½ blk E to Jimmy’s

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“Pub” is used in it’s broadest sense – bars, bar/restaurants, cocktail lounges, wine bars, tapas bars, craft beer bars, dive bars – just about anyplace you can get a drink without a cover charge.

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3 Good Eating places 
It’s not difficult finding a place to eat in Manhattan.
Finding a good, inexpensive place to eat is a bit harder.
Here are a few of my faves in this neighborhood:

Patzeria Perfect Pizza – 231 W46 st (Betw 7th/8th ave)
Perfect name for a pizza joint. On a street filled with Broadway theaters, this is a real hole in the wall, but don’t let the dive look scare you away. You can never go wrong with a slice of NYC pizza, and this one is a classic thin crust. Only a few seats here, but pizza was made to eat standing up.

Shake Shack – 691 8th ave (Betw 43rd/44th st)
Danny Meyer has revolutionized the high quality burger in this town. Now he has a branch on the West Side that was desperately needed, with none of the insane lines that you find at the Madison Sq. Park location. Plus, it may be the cleanest joint to eat in all of Hell’s Kitchen.
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The focus for “3 Good Eating places” is on a quick bite, what I call “Fine Fast Food – NYCity Style”.
That covers a wide range of food – pizza,  burgers,  food trucks/carts,  vegetarian/falafel,  soup & sandwiches,  salad bars,  hot dogs,  bbq,  picnic fixins’,  raw bars & lobster rolls.
No reservations necessary.

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There are also some casual dining, chain restaurant locations in this neighborhood that have decent food and free Wi-FI:

A. Pret a Manger @ 11 W 42nd st (Betw 5th/6th)
Subway: #1/2/3 to 42nd st / times square

B. Potbelly @ 30 Rockefeller Plaza (Betw 49/48 st)
Subway: #1 to 50th st

C. Pret a Manger @ 1200 6th ave (Betw 47/48)
Subway: #1 to 50th st

For all my picks of 54 Good Eating places and extended descriptions of 18 PremierPubs in 9 Neighborhoods, order a copy of my e-book:
“Eating and Drinking on NYCity’s WestSide”.