A pianist with a long and undervalued history -- she played piano with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the late 1960's, though not many know it -- Ms. Brackeen plays with gusto and writes refreshing, witty compositions with nonstandard chord changes and shifting arrangements.
Mr. Hollenbeck, the inventive drummer, is a member of both bands; the first balances a chamber-jazz feel with witty, strange composition, and the second dedicates itself to very updated versions of Charles Ives music.
Having become a skilled organist and viol player, as well as a composer, he graduated from University College, Dublin, then went to Germany to study with Karlheinz Stockhausen and, for longer, with Mauricio Kagel – like Barry renowned for his witty, angular compositions.
Combat fatigue forced him stateside in 1944, and he started a stringless civilian band featuring the great trumpeter Roy Eldridge and an unusually diverse library of arrangements that ranged from the Basie-style charts of Buster Harding to such wryly witty Eddie Sauter compositions as "The Maid With the Flaccid Air".
Together they have been penning delicate compositions, rich in witty soundbites, for the last eight years.
Ms. Midler, trim in a silver sequined pantsuit, her hair a nimbus of tight blond curls, hurls herself into high gear to perform the blazingly funny title song, a new composition that pays witty homage to that great Las Vegas institution of the showgirl.
She also compares American and French Christmas celebrations, and performs French Christmas songs like "Petit Papa Noel" and "Chanson pour Noel". Goldsby's compositions range from the witty to the musing and impressionistic.
As part of the MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL the MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP presents "Mozart Dances," its witty and elegant program to three Mozart compositions, with Emanuel Ax and Yoko Nozaki as soloists.
But as an idea, and as a composition of flavors, it epitomizes the witty, creative and delicious mashup of traditions from Southeast Asia, Europe and the American South at which the new Fatty 'Cue excels.
STEPHEN HOUGH Perhaps this pianist, noted as much for his witty blogging and more than competent composing as for his searching, passionate playing, will perform one of his own compositions as an encore.
