Word: lyrical
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Keith Jarrett: Sun Bear Concerts (ECM/Warner Bros.). Lyric dreams and vapor-trail improvisations on the jazz piano...
...really knows how young Paul William Bryant fared against that carny bear in Fordyce, Ark. Some say he lasted the $5 limit, at a dollar per minute, and collected his money; others insist that the scrawny old beast tossed the local boy off the stage of the Lyric Theater in short order. Bryant claims he has the scars to prove he was there, but the only thing that really matters is that the episode gave the boy a nickname to grow into-Bear. A perfect name for 50 years of football, a name to match his towering physical presence...
Working as producers and occasional writers for the Drifters, Leiber and Stoller brought strings to rock, turned out soaring lyric ballads that remain unsurpassed. As writers and producers for the Coasters, the team gave goofy high spirits and tough sidewalk irony to songs that were essentially comic melodramas in miniature. They also provided a musical definition of rock that still works as well as any: "You say that music's for the birds/ And you can't understand the words/ Well, honey, if you did/ You'd really blow your lid/ 'Cause baby, that is rock...
...oratorio for the victims at Auschwitz (1967) and a Magnificat (1974). For the past four years, Penderecki (pronounced Pen-de-ret-ski) has labored on a huge, lofty project: recasting Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost, into an opera. But last week, in its world premiere at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Penderecki's huge effort failed to justify the ways...
Paradise Lost was not just any new opera; it came as highly touted as a Cecil B. DeMille spectacular. The libretto was written by Playwright Christopher Fry (The Lady's Not for Burning). Chicago Lyric spent well over half a million dollars on the production, a near record. The musical forces were mighty: a Wagnerian orchestra of 96, a chorus of 100. The preparation was elaborate. Choral rehearsals began in April; the orchestra practiced an unprecedented 110 hours...