Today’s Sweet 6  NYC Events > SUNDAY/JULY 09, 2017

“We search the internet everyday looking for the very best of What’s Happening, primarily on Manhattan’s WestSide, so that you don’t have to.” We make it as easy as 1-2-3.
For future NYC Events be sure to check the tab above: “Notable NYC Events-July”

Have time for only one NYC Event today? Do this:

Bastille Day
E 60th St./ 12PM, FREE
“Holidays celebrating an unusually radical approach to prison reform aren’t typically so chic, but leave it to New York to cheer the French Revolution with Champagne and lawn games. Scheduled for the weekend before the actual day, the French Institute Alliance Française takes over a few blocks of East 60th with music, can-can dancing, chocolate tastings, a mustache-heavy photo booth and free French workshops. In Brooklyn the following weekend, Bar Tabac and its fellow restaurants turn Smith Street into one long pétanque court (72 teams compete in a tournament) and pastis haven. Vive les aperitifs!” (Alexis Soloski, VillageVoice)

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5 OTHER TOP NYC EVENTS TODAY (see below for full listing)
>>BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE AND A TRIBE CALLED RED
>>HOUSTON PERSON QUARTET
>>The Django Reinhardt NY Festival All Stars
>>French Restaurant Week  
>>‘History of Burlesque’ Lecture Cabaret

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Music, Dance, Performing Arts

BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE AND A TRIBE CALLED RED
at Rumsey Playfield / 7PM, FREE
“The Canadian singer-songwriter and Native American activist Buffy Sainte-Marie is in the midst of a much-deserved late-career renaissance: Her passionate 2015 album, “Power in the Blood,” drew her strongest reviews since the 1960s, and prompted many new fans to discover the riches in her back catalog for the first time. At this free SummerStage show in Central Park, Ms. Sainte-Marie’s opening act is A Tribe Called Red, an Ottawa-based group whose ecstatic performances draw equally on EDM beats and traditional native chanting and dance.” (NYT-SIMON VOZICK-LEVINSON)

HOUSTON PERSON QUARTET (Last Day)
Jazz Standard, / 7:30PM, +9:30PM, $30
“Houston Person and Jazz Standard go way back: It was in May 2002 that he made his first appearance as a leader on our stage. The great tenor saxophonist has put fifteen more years under his belt since then but “his playing just goes on getting better,” declared Dave Gelly in The Observer. In his review of a January 2012 engagement at Ronnie Scott’s in London, The Guardian’s John Fordham wrote: “Like Sonny Rollins and a handful of other survivors, Person is an eloquent messenger from a jazz era rooted in traditional blues, black church music, Broadway love songs and the impersonation, by sax, of a singer’s tone palette…His sound has become uniquely characterful: an idiosyncratic edit of all he has learned, expressed in shrugging hoots, briefly cantering bop sprints, spacious and softly blown ballads.”

The Django Reinhardt NY Festival All Stars  (Last Day)
Birdland, 315 W. 44th St./ 8:30PM, +11PM, $50
“This annual celebration of the music and influence of the unparalleled Belgian Gypsy guitarist features such acolytes as the guitarist Samson Schmitt. Guest soloists include the saxophonist Grace Kelly and the vocalists Veronica Swift and Jazzmeia Horn.” (NewYorker)

Smart Stuff / Other NYC Events
(Lectures, Discussions, Book Talks, Literary Readings, Classes, Food & Drink, Other)

French Restaurant Week  (thru July 16)
VARIOUS HOURS AND LOCATIONS
“Can’t make it to Paris this summer? Do the next best thing and eat like a Parisian in your own city. Part of a full slate of Bastille Week festivities, the annual French Restaurant Week is an opportunity to taste your way through some of the city’s best bistros and brasseries. Special prix-fixe menus will be available at dinner (and at lunch, at some locations) at dozens of spots across the area, including Le Cirque and La Sirene (in Manhattan) and Bar Omar (in Brooklyn). Three menu options may be available at each: $17.89, $38, or $178.90. At Les Halles, for instance, they forgo the top-price option but offer a glass of wine and a choice of housemade pork confit spread or merguez au couscous for $17.89; for $38 there, you can pick an appetizer (salad or garlic-butter roasted escargots), an entreé (coq au vin or roast trout in a lemon-caper sauce), along with a glass of wine. It’s enough to make you say oh là là.” (Mary Bakija, VillageVoice)

Elsewhere, but this looks like too much fun to miss and worth the detour:
‘History of Burlesque’ Lecture Cabaret
Littlefield, 635 Sacket St./ 7PM, $20
“Join the Atlas Obscura Society New York for an evening of bawdy discovery as we delve into the history of burlesque, an enchanting form of performance that has shimmied, shaked, and shifted with the times over a transformative century in America.

 The sensational Doctor Lucky, the World’s Premiere Ph(Double)D, will be your guide as we fill your imaginations with titillating tales from the past. As the evening chronicles the story of burlesque, a dazzling array of in-the-flesh performances will demonstrate a range of burlesque styles from the past and present on the new, state-of-the-art Littlefield stage.

Performers for this event have been curated to include many of the greatest currently operating in the New York scene: Gin Minsky, Corvette Le Face, Ms. Tickle, Perle Noire, Lil’ Miss Lixx and the Lady Aye.” (ThoughtGallery.org)

Let’s not forget this marvelous continuing event from The Film Society Lincoln Center :

New York Asian Film Festival (thru July 16)

“Catch more than 50 new films, including blockbusters, art films and beautiful historical dramas, plus appearances from more than 20 international filmmakers at this 17-day festival. This year’s stellar lineup, which features films hailing from Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China and Southeast Asia, features films like Chinese romance Soul Mate on July 7, fantastical Japanese drama Vanishing Time: a Boy Who Returned on July 13, and wraps with the U.S. premiere of Jung Byung-gil’s acclaimed assassin film, The Villainess, on July 16.” (TONY)

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Bonus NYC events– Jazz Venues:
Many consider NYCity the Jazz capital of the world. Here are my favorite Jazz clubs, all on Manhattan’s WestSide. Check out who is playing tonight:

Greenwich Village:
(5 are underground, classic jazz joints. all 6 are within walking distance of each other):
Village Vanguard – UG, 178 7th Ave. South, villagevanguard.com, 212-255-4037
Blue Note – 131 W3rd St. nr 6th ave. bluenotejazz.com, 212-475-8592
55 Bar – basement @55 Christopher St. nr 7th ave.S. 55bar.com, 212-929-9883
Mezzrow – basement @ 163 W10th St. nr 7th Ave. mezzrow.com,646-476-4346
Smalls – basement @ 183 W10th St. smallslive.com, 646-476-4346
Cornelia Street Cafe – UG, 29 Cornelia St. corneliastreetcafe.com, 212-989-9319

Outside Greenwich Village:
Dizzy’s Club – Broadway @ 60th St. — jazz.org/dizzys / 212-258-9595
Birdland – 315 W44th St.(btw 8/9ave) — birdlandjazz.com / 212-581-3080
Smoke Jazz Club – 2751 Broadway nr.106th St. — smokejazz.com / 212-864-6662

Special Mention:
Caffe Vivaldi – 32 Jones St. nr Bleecker St. — caffevivaldi.com / 212-691-7538
a classic, old jazz club in the Village, Caffe V often surprises with a wonderfully eclectic lineup. It’s my favorite spot for an evening of listening enjoyment and discovery.

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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 60 million visitors last year and was TripAdvisor’s Traveler’s Choice Top U.S. Destination for 2017.  Quality shows draw crowds.
Try to reserve seats for these top NYC events in advance, even if just on day of performance.

NYCity Vacation Travel Guide Video (Expedia):

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WHAT’S ON VIEW
These are My Fave Special Exhibitions @ MUSEUMS / Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue
(See the New York Times Arts Section for listings of all museum exhibitions,
and also see the expanded reviews of these exhibitions)

Museum of the City of New York
‘A CITY SEEN: TODD WEBB’S POSTWAR NEW YORK, 1945­-1960’ (thru Sept.04)
“Webb, a Detroit native who lost his money in the 1929 crash, served as a Navy photographer during World War II. His first major solo exhibition, “I See a City,” opened at the Museum of the City of New York in September 1946. Now the museum is putting the photographer, who died in 2000, in the spotlight again with more than 100 of his pictures of the city, including this shot of 125th Street in Harlem in 1946.
WHEN | WHERE Through Sept. 4, at the Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave.
INFO $18; 212­534­1672, mcny.org ­­ (STAV ZIV-Newsday)

NY AT ITS CORE (ongoing)
“Ten years in the making, New York at Its Core tells the compelling story of New York’s rise from a striving Dutch village to today’s “Capital of the World.” The exhibition captures the human energy that drove New York to become a city like no other and a subject of fascination the world over. Entertaining, inspiring, important, and at times bemusing, New York City “big personalities,” including Alexander Hamilton, Walt Whitman, Boss Tweed, Emma Goldman, JP Morgan, Fiorello La Guardia, Jane Jacobs, Jay-Z, and dozens more, parade through the exhibition. Visitors will also learn the stories of lesser-known New York personalities, like Lenape chieftain Penhawitz and Italian immigrant Susie Rocco. Even animals like the horse, the pig, the beaver, and the oyster, which played pivotal roles in the economy and daily life of New York, get their moment in the historical spotlight. Occupying the entire first floor in three interactive galleries (Port City, 1609-1898, World City, 1898-2012, and Future City Lab) New York at Its Core is shaped by four themes: money, density, diversity, and creativity. Together, they provide a lens for examining the character of the city, and underlie the modern global metropolis we know today. mcny.org” (NYCity Guide)

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum  (now-9/6/17)
“This newest show, Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim, provides a rare chance to explore in-depth some of the key artists of this essential New York institution. Framed by the interests of six leading patrons, Visionaries brings together canvases from masters like Max Ernst, René Magritte, and Yves Tanguy, and sculptures by Joseph Cornell and Alberto Giacometti. In addition, Jackson Pollock’s Alchemy (1947) is being shown in the U.S. for the first time in nearly 50 years. More than a dozen works on paper by Picasso and Van Gogh, rarely on view to the public, can be seen in the Thannhauser Gallery, and paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, and Édouard Manet are displayed on the museum’s legendary ramps.”

and you should be sure to check out the special exhibitions at that little museum on Fifth Ave., The Metropolitan Museum of Art
(open 7 days /week, AND always Pay What You Wish)

at the very least you will want to see this one:
Age of Empires: Chinese Art of the Qin & Han Dynasties (221 B.C.-A.D. 220)
“Not least among the achievements of Ying Zheng, the founding emperor of the short-lived Qin dynasty (221-206 B.C.), was propaganda, some of which still echoes bombastically on the walls of this show: you won’t depart with any confusion about who first unified China. But the chance to see a platoon of his spectacular terra-cotta warriors, half a dozen or so of the thousands that were buried with the emperor, who died in 210 B.C., and excavated in the nineteen-seventies, is not to be missed. Fitted together like action figures from mass-produced body parts and originally equipped with real bronze weapons, the life-size sculptures have individually detailed faces of surprising charisma. One kneeling archer, with square-toed shoes and a mustache, is so striking he may trigger déjà vu. Along with the soldiers comes a wide-ranging selection of contemporaneous artifacts, many of them demonstrating a naturalistic approach to anatomy and an untrammelled expressive whimsy—both of which were later eradicated by the heavy stylization during the Han dynasty. Examples of the former include a recently discovered terra-cotta strongman with a potbelly; examples of the latter include a bronze lamp shaped like a mythical bird tipping its head back to swallow its own smoke. But, if many of the show’s pieces make Qin and Han culture look unexpectedly relatable, its highlights are those that were unmistakably made long ago and far away, particularly the unforgettable jade burial suit of the Han princess Dou Wan. Discovered in a cliffside tomb in Hebei Province, in 1968, the ritual object is made of more than two thousand rectangular panels of jade, sewn together with gold.” (NewYorker)  THRU JULY 16.

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Museum Mile is a section of Fifth Avenue which contains one of the densest displays of culture in the world. Eight museums can be found along this section of Fifth Avenue:
• 105th Street – El Museo del Barrio (closed Sun-Mon)*
• 103rd Street – Museum of the City of New York (open 7 days /week)
•  92nd Street – The Jewish Museum (closed Wed) (Sat FREE) (Thu 5-8 PWYW)
•  91st Street  –  Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (open 7 days /week)
•  89th Street –  National Academy Museum (closed Mon-Tue)
•  88th Street –  Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (closed Thu) (Sat 6-8 PWYW)
•  86th Street –  Neue Galerie New York (closed Tue-Wed) (Fri 6-8 FREE)
Last, but certainly not least, America’s premier museum
•  82nd Street – The Metropolitan Museum of Art (open 7 days /week)*
*always Pay What You Wish (PWYW)

Although technically not part of the Museum Mile, the Frick Collection (closed Mon) (SUN 11am-1pm PWYW) on the corner of 70th St. and Fifth Avenue and the The Morgan Library & Museum (closed Mon) (Fri 7-9 FREE) on Madison Ave and 37th St are also located near Fifth Ave.
Now plan your own museum crawl (info on hours & admission updated June 2, 2015).
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For other selected Museum and Gallery Special Exhibitions see Recent Posts in right Sidebar dated 07/07 and 07/05.
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