Word: ellington
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...written revues in the Houses played to big audiences; Ain't Misbehavin', a set of Fats Waller numbers, won the Tony for Best Musical of 1978 and just opened in Boston; and last week this hardy genre of theater made it to the Loeb Mainstage in the form of Ellington at Eight, a collection of Duke Ellington classics. It shivered a bit in the Loeb's vasty spaces, but perked up its head and boldly smiled on. Despite occasional lapses in atmosphere, the performers' vigor and old-favorite songs were sure to lift the audience's spirits...
...company of 13 singers and dancers, backed by an 18-piece band behind a scrim, worked its way through about 20 Ellington numbers in the course of two hours. They seemed to have all they needed to conjure up a '40s nightclub--dim lights, thick smoke, and swinging music. But they missed the intimacy of a nightclub-sized area; the Loeb stage is pretty forbidding, especially when it's set up as a proscenium instead of the modified theater-in-the-round Loeb directors often choose. Michael Der Manuelian, Ellington's director, didn't even try to protect his performers...
Good singing undoubtedly held Ellington together; the dancing, though accomplished and well-executed, changed styles too fast and too often. Crystal Terry's delightful tap-dancing number, "I'm Just a Lucky So and So," held together a daring length of time while the band held still, but it jostled the modern-ballet choreography in nearby numbers. The ballet bits added a little visual spice to a largely aural show, and let lithe Bonnie Zimering show her impressively precise dancing--but fancy ballet choreography and Duke Ellington are uncomfortable stage-mates at best...
...nights ago, thirteen students began singing and dancing to the tune of "Mood Indigo" and "Solitude" on the Loeb Mainstage. The show, of course, is Ellington at Eight, and rumor has it that nearly every performance is already sold out. Except for the songs themselves, everything about the production--direction, choreography, and musical arrangements--is entirely original. Ellington runs through Saturday, at the Loeb...
...composer whose emotional, free-floating music helped shape modern jazz; of a heart attack after suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease); in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Raised in the Watts district of Los Angeles, Mingus began studying bass in high school, later played with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker before forming his own combo in New York in the mid-'50s. Influenced strongly by blues and gospel, he began writing music that highlighted the bass as a solo instrument and featured contorted harmonies and quick-changing rhythms with sudden breaks and howls. Of burly build...