Today’s “Fab 5″/ Selected NYCity Events  – TUESDAY, JULY 29, 2014

Chop and Quench, “The Fela! Band”,
Comprised of members of the cast and band of FELA! the musical, these musicians are some of the finest in New York, having performed with The Roots, India Arie, Elvis Costello, and many others. Lead singer Sahr Ngaujah was nominated for a TONY Award for his performance in the Broadway show and has been featured on film and television. As a unit, the band has gotten to accompany performers such as Beyonce, Femi Kuti, and Angelique Kidjo. Known for their straightforward performances of classic Fela Kuti compositions, they have branched out, bringing their own original music to the stage.

After performing around the world, they recently performed at the Sundance Film Festival in conjunction with the premier of Alex Gibney’s film “Finding Fela”. They are now back home in New York preparing new material to take into the studio for their first recording since the Fela! Broadway cast recording, and looking forward to starting a weekly Monday night residency at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn.
City Winery, 155 Varick St, Tribeca (btw Vandam/Spring St. – #1 to Houston).
from 5PM-7:30PM / FREE
212-608-0555 / citywinery.com
This is part of the 6th Annual Hudson Square Music & Wine Festival.
This after-work Backyard Party is held every Tuesday from June 3rd through August 26th, in the back parking lot behind City Winery.

Astronomy Live: The Grand Tour
Nearly all of us know we’re the third planet from the Sun, but where are we among the stars in the Milky Way? Do we hold a special place among the planets, stars, and galaxies in the universe? The Grand Tour will answer these questions while you travel from Earth to the most distant objects in the universe. Explore planets, extrasolar planets, nearby stars, and the myriad galaxies that populate the universe while you fly through the 3D Digital Universe Atlas. In one evening, you will experience the entire observable universe and come to a cosmic understanding of where we are and how we came to be.
American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th St.
212-769-5100
at 6:30 pm / $15

Pilobolus (through Aug. 10)
“In keeping with a summer tradition at the Joyce Theater, the dancers of Pilobolus return with two programs, each featuring a New York premiere. The first, “On the Nature of Things,” is a balancing act created and performed by three company members. “The Inconsistent Pedaler” (Program B) is a collaboration with the Israeli fiction writer Etgar Keret and the filmmaker Shira Geffen, revolving around a girl and her time-bending bicycle.” (Burke-NYT)
Mondays through Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. and
Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m.,
with matinees on Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m.,
Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue, at 19th St., Chelsea,
212-242-0800 / joyce.org / $10 to $69.

David and Goliath
Malcolm Gladwell, the #1 bestselling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, and What the Dog Saw, offers his most provocative—-and dazzling—-book yet. Three thousand years ago on a battlefield in ancient Palestine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then the names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants.

David’s victory was improbable and miraculous. He shouldn’t have won. Or should he have? In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks.

Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago. From there, David and Goliath examines Northern Ireland’s Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms—-all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity. In the tradition of Gladwell’s previous bestsellers—-The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw—-David and Goliath draws upon history, psychology, and powerful storytelling to reshape the way we think of the world around us.
Barnes & Noble Union Square, 33 East 17th St.
7PM / FREE
212-253-0810

Sierra Nevada Tap Take Over & Live Jazz Series w/ Soco Creamery
Summer is FINALLY here!! To help us kick-off sun-tan season, we’ve invited Sierra Nevada Brewing Company for our latest live jazz + tap takeover series. To top it off, we’re bringing back our epically popular ice cream cocktails by SoCo Creamery including “Biscotti Summer”, “Peach Cobbler”, “Kir Royale” & the “Black Raz.”

The Markham Group, our fantastic house band, will play live jazz from 6:30pm to 8pm. $5 Soco Creamery Cocktails will be served while the music plays.
6pm (Tuesdays) / FREE
Bar Catalonia, 206 West 41st St. (btw 7/8 ave)

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♦ Before making final plans, we suggest you call the venue to confirm ticket availability, dates and times, as schedules are subject to change.

♦ NYCity is a big town with many visitors, where quality shows draw crowds. Try to reserve seats in advance, even if just on day of performance.
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What’s on View:
Special Exhibitions @ 3 Museum Mile / Fifth Ave. Museums:

‘Charles James: Beyond Fashion’ (through Aug. 10)
One of the Costume Institute’s most ravishing exhibitions argues for this American fashion designer as a great modern artist — a sculptor-architect with a keen but discreet appreciation of women and their bodies. Aided by the latest digital wizardry, the insuperably forward-looking garments, especially the ball gowns, do most of the talking. Their innovations in shape, draping, seam placement, texture and color coalesce into breathtakingly gorgeous couture and an important show. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Smith-NYT)
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‘Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy’ (through Aug. 17)
Chinese calligraphy can seem daunting to viewers who are unfamiliar with the characters of this ancient art form. Some, stymied by the language barrier, tend to think about the physical act of the brushwork in the more familiar terms of dance or choreography, or to see the characters as abstract shapes. This smart and accessible show suggests a third option: appreciating calligraphy as a social art, and even an early social network. The emphasis comes partly from the collector Jerry Yang, a co-founder of Yahoo, who, with his wife, Akiko Yamazaki, has lent the works for the exhibition. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Rosenberg-NYT)
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The Flowering of Edo Period Painting: Japanese Masterworks from the Feinberg Collection’ (through Sept. 7)
‘Garry Winogrand’ (through Sept. 21)
Mr. Winogrand, who died at 56 in 1984, was the photographer laureate of urban and suburban middle-class life in the United States from the late 1950s through the ’70s and beyond. This ample retrospective focuses on his prime years, when he recorded a newly prosperous America while strolling Manhattan’s avenues and then followed it as it waded into increasingly troubled political waters. The result is a remarkable panorama of an era, with some terrific pictures, and some that Winogrand, who left a mountain of unprocessed film behind, never edited or printed. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Cotter-NYT)
‘Early American Guitars: The Instruments of C.F. Martin’ (through Dec. 7)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave, at 82nd St.
(212) 535-7710 / metmuseum.org
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‘Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe’ (through Sept. 1)
“This epic, beautifully designed exhibition may be one of the more thorough examinations of modernism’s most obnoxious and conflicted art movement that you are likely to see. Awash in the manifestoes that its members regularly fired off, it follows Futurism through to its end with the death of its founder, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, in 1944. It covers the Futurist obsessions with speed, war, machines and, finally, flight and the aerial views it made possible. And the show highlights relatively unknown figures like the delightful Fortunato Depero and Benedetta Cappa, Marinetti’s wife. 1071 Fifth Avenue, at 89th Street, 212-423-3500, guggenheim.org.“ (Smith-NYT)
Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, at 89th St.
(212) 423-3500 / guggenheim.org.
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‘Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937’ (through Sept. 1)
“This show — one of the first in decades in an American museum to address, on a fairly large scale, the Nazi demonizing of art — tells a complicated story. The basic facts of the narrative, which centers on Hitler’s grand plan to purify German culture of Modernist, Bolshevist and Jewish influence, are well known, and it culminated in the infamous 1937 “Degenerate Art” exhibition in Munich. The Neue Galerie sets examples of art from that show beside Nazi-approved work; addresses the persecutions of artists in Dresden; and touches on the suppression of the Bauhaus. There are gripping paintings and sculptures as well as complex and haunting personalities every step of the way. And in the end the links between aesthetics and disaster are clear.” (Cotter-NYT)
Neue Galerie, 1048 Fifth Avenue, at 86th Street,
212-628-6200, neuegalerie.org.
========================================================== Museum Mile is a section of Fifth Avenue which contains one of the densest displays of culture in the world. Ten museums can be found along this section of Fifth Avenue:

• 110th Street – Museum for African Art

• 105th Street – El Museo del Barrio

• 103rd Street – Museum of the City of New York

• 92nd Street – The Jewish Museum

• 91st Street – Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

• 89th Street – National Academy Museum

• 88th Street – Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

• 86th Street – Neue Galerie New York

• 83rd Street – Goethe-Institut

Last, but certainly not least, America’s premier museum
• 82nd Street – The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Additionally, though technically not part of the Museum Mile, the Frick Collection on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 70th St. and the The Morgan Library & Museum on Madison Ave and 37th St are also located near Fifth Ave. Now plan your own museum crawl. ==========================================================

For other selected Museum and Gallery Special Exhibitions see Recent Posts in right Sidebar: “NYCity Events: Manhattan’s WestSide” dated 07/27 and 07/25.