NYCity 1-2-3 : What's Happening / Manhattan's WestSide

Today’s Elite 8 > TUESDAY / AUGUST 25, 2015

Have time for only one event today? Do this:

Misty Copeland: ‘On the Town’ (through Sept. 6)
Lyric Theatre, 213 W42nd St./ 7PM, $62.50-$157.50
“Broadway’s dance-heavy musical revival about sailors making the most of shore leave in NYC is closing its doors after Sept. 6. But audiences catching the show before then are in for a treat, as American Ballet Theatre’s Misty Copeland — recently named the world’s first African-American principal ballerina — takes on the role of Ivy Smith for the final 12 performances, starting Aug. 25. It’s Copeland’s Broadway debut, fittingly in the show that boasted one of the first-ever racially integrated casts in 1944.” (Metro)

Today’s Other Featured Events:

Music, Dance, Performing Arts
>New York International Fringe Festival (through Aug 30)
Various Locations and Times
“Catch more than 200 shows from emerging theater troupes and dance companies from around the world when FringeNYC returns this weekend. Productions range in topics and genres, including drama, comedy and satire. It’s $18 per ticket, with discount passes for multiple shows.” (dnainfo.com)

Kamasi Washington
Blue Note, 131 West Third St./ 8PM +10:30PM, $
“One of the breakout stories of this year in music is Mr. Washington, a tenor saxophonist from Los Angeles with a burly, beseeching sound.
(NYT-Chinen)

>Gerald Clayton Quintet (through Aug. 30)
Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Ave South, at 11th St. / 8:30PM +10:30PM, $30
“While there are certainly more daringly original pianists on the scene, Clayton has an unapologetic vivacity that’s hard to resist. Where trios were once his ensemble of choice, Clayton is now thinking like a commanding small-group leader: his sharp quintet includes the saxophonists Ben Wendel and Logan Richardson.” (NewYorker)

>Trio da Paz and Friends (through Aug. 30)
Dizzy’s Club, 60th St. and Broadway / 7:30PM +9:30PM, $40
“Effervescence comes easily to Trio da Paz, a samba-jazz cooperative consisting of Romero Lubambo on guitar, Nilson Matta on bass and Duduka Da Fonseca on drums. This engagement, a celebration of bossa nova standards, will augment the band with familiar reinforcements: the trumpeter Claudio Roditi, the saxophonist Harry Allen and the vocalist Maucha Adnet.“ (NYT-Chinen)

>Charlie Parker Birthday Celebration Sextet (through Aug. 29)
Birdland, 315 W44th St. / 8:30PM +11PM, $40
two prominent alto saxophonists, Greg Osby and Vincent Herring, in an all star tribute to the music of the “Birdman.”

>Roots of South African Jazz
Jazz At Lincoln Center, Broadway at 60th St, 5th Fl. / 7PM, FREE
in collaboration with the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, educator Seton Hawkins takes music lovers on a tour of the country’s history of jazz.

Bonus – Music Venues:
So much fine live music every night in this town. These are a few of my favorite music venues on Manhattan’s WestSide. Check out who’s playing tonight:
City Winery – 155 Varick St. / citywinery.com, 212-608-0555
Joe’s Pub @ Public Theater – 425 Lafayette St. / joespub.com, 212-967-7555
Metropolitan Room – 34 W22nd St. / metropolitan room.com, 212-206-0440
Le Poisson Rouge – 158 Bleecker St. / lepoissonrouge.com, 212-505-3474
Beacon Theatre – 2124 Broadway @ 74th St. / beacontheatre.com, 212-465-6500
B.B. King’s Blues Bar – 237 W42nd St. / bbkingblues.com, 212-997-2144
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 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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WHAT’S ON VIEW
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)

Metropolitan Museum of Art:
‘Reimagining Modernism: 1900-1950’ (continuing)
One of the greatest encyclopedic museums in the world fulfills its mission a little more with an ambitious reinstallation of works of early European modernism with their American counterparts for the first time in nearly 30 years. Objects of design and paintings by a few self-taught artists further the integration. It is quite a sight, with interesting rotations and fine-tunings to come. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org.” (Smith)

‘Warriors and Mothers: Epic Mbembe Art’ (through Sept. 16)
If a dozen masterpiece Renaissance sculptures, done in an unknown and wildly unorthodox style, suddenly turned up in the Italian countryside, the find would make the news. You’ll encounter the equivalent of such a discovery in this show of spectacular weatherworn, wood-carved figures, some dating to before the 17th century, that were made by the Mbembe in southeastern Nigeria and taken to Paris by an African dealer in the early 1970s. They caused a sensation among collectors and scholars at the time, and you can see why. But the effort to find more of them proved fruitless. The examples at the Met, which include the original dozen, represent all the fully intact stand-alone Mbembe figures known to exist. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Cotter)

‘Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River’ (through Sept. 20)
This moving tribute to the 19th-century painter who depicted the hardscrabble life along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers as spacious idylls of serenity and even timelessness, presents 16 of his 17 river paintings known to exist, among nearly all the exacting studies of men at rest that preceded them. The human dimension of the figures is joined to the golden light and space of the setting by the geometric solidity of the boats and their wonderful details. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Smith)

‘Discovering Japanese Art: American Collectors and the Met’ (through Sept. 27) Highlighting contributions to the Met’s Japanese art holdings by American collectors from the 1880s to the present, this gorgeous show presents more than 200 superb paintings, drawings, prints, scrolls, folding screens, ceramics, lacquer ware and works in other mediums and genres, mostly dating from the fourth century to the late 19th. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Johnson)

Neue Galerie:
‘Egon Schiele: Portraits’ (through Sept. 07)
“Of the approximately 125 items in this terrific show, there are only 11 oil paintings, which is a good thing. Except for a large picture of his wife, Edith, in a colorful striped dress, Schiele’s works on canvas are dark and turgid. But his drawings are nimble and nuanced. Working on paper with pencil, charcoal, ink, gouache, watercolor and crayons, he portrayed himself and others with infectious avidity. There’s hardly a single sheet here that doesn’t warrant close looking for its virtuoso draftsmanship and psychological acuity. 1048 Fifth Avenue, at 86th Street, 212-628-6200, neuegalerie.org. “(Johnson)

Guggenheim Museum:
Kandinsky Gallery (through spring 2016)
“A pioneer of abstract art and eminent aesthetic theorist, Vasily Kandinsky (b. 1866, Moscow; d. 1944, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France) broke new ground in painting during the first decades of the twentieth century. His seminal treatise Über das Geistige in der Kunst (On the Spiritual in Art), published in Munich in December 1911, lays out his program for developing an art independent from observations of the external world. In this and other texts, as well as his work, Kandinsky advanced abstraction’s potential to be free from nature, a quality of music that he admired. The development of a new subject matter based solely on the artist’s “inner necessity” would occupy him for the rest of his life.”

The Guggenheim collection now contains more than 150 works by this single artist, making it the largest collection of Kandinsky works in the United States.

Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum (continuing):
The stately doors of the 1902 Andrew Carnegie mansion, home to the Cooper Hewitt, are open again after an overhaul and expansion of the premises. Historic house and modern museum have always made an awkward fit, a standoff between preservation and innovation, and the problem remains, but the renovation has brought a wide-open new gallery space, a cafe and a raft of be-your-own-designer digital enhancements. Best of all, more of the museum’s vast permanent collection is now on view, including an Op Art weaving, miniature spiral staircases, ballistic face masks and a dainty enameled 18th-century version of a Swiss knife. Like design itself, this institution is built on tumult and friction, and you feel it. 2 East 91st Street, at Fifth Avenue, 212-849-8400, cooperhewitt.org. (Cotter)

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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). ========================================================

For other selected Museum and Gallery Special Exhibitions see Recent Posts in right Sidebar dated 08/23 and 08/21.