There wasn’t an empty seat to be found Thursday night at the Aspen Art Museum for Barry Smith’s “Jesus In Montana,” a one-hour comedic monologue that documents the years he spent living in the basement of a convicted pedophile that claimed to be Jesus.
Continue Reading Add comment September 29th, 2006
Much has been made of the dearth of jazz at the 2006 Labor Day edition of Jazz Aspen Snowmass (JAS)—and I have been making much of it. But the story still to be written is whether the audiences coming to the big stage at Snowmass are ready for rap and hip hop as a staple of their holiday weekend diet.
So far, I’m saying the answer is no, but not all the data is in as I write this, just hours away from the performance by the Chassidic reggae rapper Matisyahu, considered by critics far and wide to be an incredible performer. My guess is that Matisyahu, performing at 6:30 PM—with opening acts Polyphonic Choir and Keller Williams starting at 2 PM—will come up far short of the attendance at a typical Labor Day performance by someone emanating from the mainstream.
Continue Reading Add comment September 4th, 2006
Hip hop and Snowmass don’t usually find themselves in the same sentence, but Kanye West changed that for all time Saturday night, just as Leann Rimes changed local expectations for country for years to come. With two backup singers, the deejay 8 Track, and strings for rent, West filled up Snowmass with a huge sound, albeit one reliant on a songbook that was not entirely his own.
My first reaction to the music was overwhelmingly positive, and I was not alone. The crowd was undoubtedly younger than the usual Jazz Aspen Snowmass (JAS) crowd, but the thunderous drum machine at the bottom of West’s music made movement mandatory. And West’s energy was front and center at all times as he moved through his own songbook.
Continue Reading 2 comments September 2nd, 2006