Today’s “Fab 5″+1/ Selected NYCity Events – FRIDAY, APR. 17, 2015
“We search the internet everyday looking for the very best of What’s Happening on Manhattan’s WestSide, so that you don’t have to. We make it as easy as 1-2-3.”    

Celebrating Joe Temperley: From Duke to the JLCO  – Jazz    (8pm)

Distorted Diznee –  Burlesque   (10pm)  

George Lucas with Stephen Colbert  – SmartStuff/ Conversation   (4pm)

‘Thereminage à Trois’  –  Electronic Music    (8:30pm) 

The AIPAD Photography Show  –  Photography  (11am-8:30pm)   

The Big Cheesy  – Food & Drink (Sat & Sun)   

For other useful and curated NYCity event info for Manhattan’s WestSide:
♦ “9 Notable Events-Apr.”, and “Top10 Free” in the header above.
♦ For NYCity trip planning see links in “Resources” and “Smart Stuff” in the header above.
♦ For NYCity Sights, Sounds and Stories visit out our sister site: nyc123blog.wordpress.com
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Celebrating Joe Temperley: From Duke to the JLCO
For the past 25 years, saxophonist and clarinetist Joe Temperley has been the heart and soul of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. The depth conveyed through his warm tone has moved countless audiences to tears. The profundity of Temperley’s presence is rooted in an illustrious career, which spans several decades.

Temperley, now 85, has performed with the orchestras of Humphrey Lyttelton, Woody Herman, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, Clark Terry, Joe Henderson, and most notably, Duke Ellington, as well as in the Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies. In honor of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’s elder statesman, band mates will debut arrangements of Temperley’s Ellington favorites as well as his original music.

Managing & Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis will present a three-movement concerto, written as a dedication to Temperley, about whose playing Marsalis says: “There is no greater sound on earth.” Free pre-concert discussion with Greg Thomas at 7pm.
Jazz at Lincoln Center, 3 Columbus Circle, Frederick P. Rose Hall
8pm / $30-$120
212-258-9800

Distorted Diznee
This show is an outrageous Las Vegas-style parody revue of some of America’s most beloved animated classics. Come be Part of Our World as a troupe of fabulous drag queens takes you on a twisted — and very adult — journey, catapulting you back to your childhood into a Magical Kingdom where dreams come true. This ever-evolving 75-minute non-stop extravaganza features high-energy dance numbers, comedy, dazzling costumes and lip-syncing “ladies”– with a bit of Cher, Patti LuPone, Idina Menzel and Rihanna thrown in for good measure!

This show is certain to offer a happy ending — if you believe in fairies, that is!
West Bank Cafe – Laurie Beechman Theater, 407 W. 42nd St.
10pm / $20 plus $15 food/drink minimum
212-352-3101 / spincyclenyc.com

Tribeca Talks Directors Series: George Lucas with Stephen Colbert
“Director and producer George Lucas of Star Wars fame talks about his storied career with incoming Late Show host Stephen Colbert as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.” (ThoughtGallery.org)
Tribeca Film Festival, 199 Chambers St.
4:00 pm / $35
212-843-9279

‘Thereminage à Trois’
“The theremin, the instrument seemingly made for science fiction, comes to Joe’s Pub in this concert presented by the New York Theremin Society. Dorit Chrysler, Rob Schwimmer and Scott Robinson will perform a sci-fi classic — the score for “The Day the Earth Stood Still” — as well as new solo and collaborative works.” (NYT)
Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., at Astor Place
8:30PM /
212-967-7555, joespub.com.

Elsewhere, but for photo fans this is worth the detour:
The AIPAD Photography Show New York (through Sunday, April 19)
“Celebrating its 35th edition, this show presents 89 of the world’s leading fine art photography galleries, which will display a wide range contemporary, modern, and 19th century photographs as well as photo-based art, video, and new media. Rare prints including Burt Stern’s iconic images of Marilyn Monroe, Alfred Stieglitz’s 1930 palladium print of Georgia O’Keeffe and Fred McDarrah’s 1966 print of Andy Warhol will be shown.” (dnainfo.com)

There will also be various public programs over the weekend; the schedule and additional information are at aipad.com/2015public.
Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Ave., Upper East Side.
11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. / $30.
202-367-1158

Head’s Up – Don’t Miss This Weekend Event:
Try the city’s best grilled cheeses and vote for your favorite, with some proceeds going to the Food Bank of New York, at Openhouse in NoLita. Saturday and Sunday.
timeout.com/big-cheesy-april-2015

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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, with a population of  8.5 million, had a record 56 million visitors last year and is TripAdvisor’s Traveler’s Choice Top U.S. Destination for 2015.  Quality shows draw crowds. Try to reserve seats in advance, even if just on day of performance.
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Chelsea Art Gallery District*

Chelsea is the heart of the NYCity contemporary art scene. Home to more than 300 art galleries, the Rubin Museum, the Joyce Theater and The Kitchen performance spaces, there is no place like it anywhere in the world. Come here to browse free exhibitions by world-renowned artists and those unknowns waiting to be discovered in an art district that is concentrated between West 18th and West 27th Streets, and 10th and 11th Avenues. Afterwards stop in the Chelsea Market, stroll on the High Line, or rest up at one of the many cafes and bars and discuss the fine art.

Here is a current exhibition that TimeOutNY recommends:
“Santu Mofokeng: A Metaphorical Biography” (through May 23)
Photojournaism becomes art.
“Since 2011, the New York outpost of Germany’s Walther Collection has been an important showcase for modern and contemporary African photography. Case in point: this excellent minisurvey of the work of Santu Mofokeng, titled, “A Metaphorical Biography.” It positions him as both a photojournalist and an artist concerned with questions of meaning and representation. Born in Johannesburg in 1956, Mofokeng began his professional career in the mid-1980s as a member of the photo agency Afrapix. In the turbulent decade leading up to apartheid’s end, he produced photo essays on South African townships, offering a more complex view of their inhabitants’ lives than the coverage found in the global media.

During the 1990s Mofokeng began to collect late-19th- and early-20th-century studio portraits of middle-class black South Africans. These became his 1997 slide show, The Black Photo Album/Look at Me: 1890–1950, in which intertitles provide biographical information on some of the subjects, while also questioning what their real-life experiences might have been.” (Anne Doran)
The Walther Collection, 526 W 26th St. (btw 10/11 ave)
We-Su // 11am-6pm

Here are two current exhibitions that the NYT recommends:
‘In the Studio: Paintings’ (LAST 2 DAYS)
“Organized by a veteran scholar and curator of modern art, this show roams across several centuries and between academic and advanced, well-known and rarely-seen. Full of gems and telling juxtapositions, it explores the studio as subject, beloved sanctuary, container for art and stand-in for the artist. Do not miss it. Gagosian Gallery, 522 West 21st Street, Chelsea, 212-741-1717, gagosian.com.” (Smith)

Alice Neel: ‘Drawings and Watercolors 1927-1978’ (LAST 2 DAYS)
“Alice Neel is best known for her portraits which, with their controlled painterly drama and psychological nuance, are complete and polished formal statements in a classical genre. Her drawings and watercolors, or at least the 62 in this absorbing show, are closer to diary entries. Ruminative, confiding, sometimes startlingly unguarded in emotion, they add up to a self-portrait sketched in private over some 50 years. David Zwirner, 537 West 20th Street, 212-517-8677,davidzwirner.com.” (Cotter)

For a listing of 25 essential galleries in the Chelsea Art Gallery District, organized by street, which enables you to create your own Chelsea Art Gallery crawl, see the Chelsea Gallery Guide (nycgo.com) Or check out TONY magazine’s list of the “Best Chelsea Galleries” and click through to see what’s on view.

*Now plan your own gallery crawl, but plan your visits for Tuesday through Saturday; most galleries are closed Sunday. and Monday.

TIP: After your gallery tour, stop in Ovest at 513W27th St. for Aperitivo Italiano (Happy Hour on steroids). Discuss all the great art you have viewed over a drink and a very tasty selection of FREE appetizers (M-F, 5-8pm).

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For other selected Museum and Gallery Special Exhibitions see Recent Posts in right Sidebar dated 04/15 and 04/13.