Category: Featured this Week

New millennium virtuoso and ‘Late Show’ bandleader Jon Batiste gives a free concert in Marina del Rey By Bliss Bowen It’s fitting that, in the world of late-night TV show hosts and their corresponding sidekicks, Jon Batiste landed with “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” Eschewing the kitsch of earlier-generation bandleader/sidekicks (think Paul Shaffer and Doc Severinsen), since 2015 the jazz pianist has been the soulful yin to Colbert’s sardonic yang, both sophisticated representatives of taste and humanity in an anything-goes sociopolitical landscape. Those qualities shine through Batiste’s performances on the show and even more so away from it....

Marina del Rey Symphony hosts brand-new choreography for ‘An American in Paris’ By Christina Campodonico How do you put your own stamp on an American classic? That’s the challenge that choreographer Nancy Dobbs Owen had to tackle for her latest project — creating a completely new and original dance for George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris,” which the Marina del Rey Symphony performs as part of their “Sights, Sounds & Dance in America” summer concert program this Thursday in Burton Chace Park. For this collaboration, Owen watched the Academy Award-winning Gene Kelly film based on Gershwin’s score (and known...

Next Thursday (June 25) the Marina del Rey Symphony teams with choreographer Nancy Dobbs Owen for a celebration of American music and dance in Burton Chace Park (13650 Mindanao Way, Marina del Rey), featuring selections from Gershwin’s “American in Paris” and Craig Safan’s Odyssey-inspired “Sirens.” Learn more at...

Robust songwriters the Small Glories perform with vocal chemistry and electric energy “I could sing for the money I could sing for the praise Spitting out nothing Wasting time up on the stage Good folks are bleeding freedom Denied their truth One thing I can do is sing for you” —“Sing” Though it is one of the least poetic tracks on “The Assiniboine & the Red,” the new album from Canadian folk duo the Small Glories, “Sing” is a kind of mission statement from multi-instrumentalist JD Edwards and full-throated vocalist/clawhammer banjoist Cara Luft. Named after two rivers that meet...

The 20th annual Westchester Fourth of July Parade celebrates American values and community character By Jennifer Pellerito Time flies when you’re having fun! On Independence Day the annual Westchester Fourth of July Parade returns for its 20th year, bringing thousands of community participants and spectators to Loyola Boulevard for an expression of local pride under a very unifying theme: “America, Better Together.” “The country’s going through divided times,” explained Gwen Vuchsas, current and founding parade chair for event sponsors the LAX Coastal Chamber of Commerce. “We chose the theme to embrace diversity, to embrace culture, and to embrace our...