Monthly Archives: December 2014

Chris Parker and Kelley Hurt headline tonight’s Local Live at South on Main

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chris_parker_web.jpg.190x140_q60_cropThis week’s installment of the free Local Live concert series features Chris Parker and Kelley Hurt! Presented by the Oxford American magazine with support from sponsor Landers FIAT of Benton, Local Live showcases the best of local and regional music talent. Call ahead to make your reservations at South on Main to ensure a table.

A native of Arkansas, Chris Parker’s first training came from a line of great Southern pianists, including Charles Thomas, James Williams, Gene Rush, Robert Talley, Art Porter Sr., Bob Steele, Lee Tomboulian, and Michael Bates. Though his training was primarily in jazz, his teachers always included the study of classical music. In 1991, Chris moved to Memphis to work on his undergraduate degree in jazz performance at the University of Memphis. There he continued his studies with teachers from both the school and from the surrounding region, including Eugene Rush, Daniel Fletcher, Sam Viviano, Herman Green, Fred Ford, Calvin Newborn, Bill Mobley, Alvin Fielder, Kidd Jordan, and Vernel Fournier. Chris also lived in New York City for several years where he studied under masters like Benny Powell, Chris Anderson, Walter Perkins, Barry Harris, Sonelius Smith, Harold Ousley, Warren Smith, and Bill Fielder. In 2008, he received a Masters degree in Jazz from the U of M. During this degree he also studied with Victor Asuncion (classical piano) and Jack Cooper (jazz comp./arr.).

Chris has worked all over the United States, particularly in NYC and the Southeastern region. He has also performed in Brazil, France, Portugal, Austria, and Germany. Artists that Chris has worked with include: Delfeayo Marsalis, Harold Ousley, Benny Powell, Art Jenkins, Kidd Jordan, Alvin Fielder, Bob Stewart, Frank Lowe, Warren Smith, Wendell Harrison, Frank Lacy, John Stubblefield, Kiane Zawadi, Herman Green, Calvin Newborn, J.R. Mitchell, George Braithe, Fred Ford, Bill Mobley, and Jimmy Vass. In more informal situations, Chris has worked with Rashid Ali, Frank Gant, Sonny Simmons, Frank Foster, and others.

Kelley Hurt’s musical accomplishments include winning the Phillips Award for Best New Artist from the Memphis chapter of the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. She was a lead vocalist for the band DDT—a jazz fusion and funk band featuring Luther and Cody Dickinson, Paul Taylor, Jim Spake, and Chris Parker.

In addition, Kelley has worked with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, recording the song “Could Woulda Shoulda” which was produced by Jim Dickinson at Phillips Recording Service. She has toured Italy with the Memphis Blues Revue and has also performed internationally with Bruce Willis and the Accelerators.

The rich musical legacy of Memphis has had a big influence on Kelley but she also listened to such national performers as Shirley Horne, Diane Reeves and Cassandra Wilson. Kelley writes her own lyrics, sings the melody, and then adds the chords. On Raindance she wrote “The Art of Love and War”, “I Can Come To You”, “Black Widow”, and “How Can I Let You Go”.

“this is the garden: colors come and go” Works by Rachel Trusty at Historic Arkansas Museum

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Rachel Trusty’s solo exhibition takes its name from the classic poem by e.e. cummings. The exhibition includes paintings, sculpture and mixed media works which center around floral motifs. The collection alludes to femininity, family and the transience of life.
Works by Rachel Trusty have appeared in galleries, shows and competitions across Arkansas as well as in Massachusetts and New York. Her work is included in the Arkansas Arts Council’s Small Works on Paper Permanent Collection. Trusty was named one of “Five Arkansas Artists You Should Know” by Arkansas Times in 2014.
“this is the garden: colors come and go” Works by Rachel Trusty continues in the 2nd Floor Gallery through February 9, 2015.

 

12 Days of Christmas Movies : DIE HARD and DIE HARD 2

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Though not the typical holiday fare, both DIE HARD (1988) and DIE HARD 2 (1990) take place at Christmas time.

Christmas parties, Christmas travel and references to Santa Claus are present throughout these movies.

Bruce Willis’ John McClane is an Everyman hero in these movies. His performance combines macho bravura with humor, frustration, exhaustion, honor, compassion and rough edges.

Bonnie Bedelia, as his long-suffering but independent-minded wife turns what could have been a caricature into a fully-fleshed character.

Reginald VelJohnson adds humor and a sense of redemption to the first movie. He also makes a welcome cameo in the second.

One of the joys of the first movie is Alan Rickman’s deliciously slick villain. He relishes the role. Rickman’s portrait of a nemesis is so compelling the audience is almost sad to see him disappear at the end.

For the second movie, the villains are less interesting, but the plots twists and turns make up for that.

Veteran character actors William Atherton (in both), Paul Gleason (in the first), Fred Thompson, Dennis Franz, and Art Evans (in the second) flesh out the movies as skeptics and/or foils for Willis and Bedelia.

These two movies are definitely period pieces. The plot points would be much different now in this day of smartphones, social media, and truly 24 hour news cycles. It was also amusing to see 74 cent gas. IMG_5077-0.JPG

Sculptures and Portraits on exhibit at Arkansas Arts Center this month

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Open now through January 18, 2015, Winthrop Rockefeller Gallery
The Sculpture of Stoney Lamar

This exhibition presents work from 1987 to the present. Uninspired by traditional turned wood vessel forms, Stoney Lamar embarked on a personal exploration of the lathe and other tools of turners and woodworkers. This spirit of experimentation has firmly placed his work in the avant-garde of the wood turning world. Not only was he one of the first to use multi-axial turning, but eventually he added steel, color and distressed surface treatments.

Open now through February 1, 2015, Jeannette Edris Rockefeller and Townsend Wolfe Galleries
William Beckman: Drawings, 1967-2013

This exhibition includes intimate portraits of friends and family members, alongside arresting nudes of the artist and his wife. Some of the most attention-demanding works are massive portrayals of bulls. Accompanying the exhibition is a 112-page, full-color catalogue of Beckman’s work, which includes a revealing interview with the artist by exhibition curator Tom Butler and also illustrates archival photos from his childhood and college days. The catalogue is published by D Giles, Ltd., London. The exhibition was originated by the Columbus Museum in response to the ideas of Townsend Wolfe, the long-time director of the Arkansas Arts Center.

Open now through February 15, 2015, Museum School Gallery
Color, An Artist’s Tale: Paintings by Virmarie DePoyster

As a child, DePoyster absorbed the brilliant colors of her birth country, Puerto Rico, which now dominate her art, as featured in the Color, An Artist’s Tale: Paintings by Virmarie DePoyster exhibition. She first started painting at the Arkansas Art Center Museum School where she quickly fell in love with the bright pigments of soft pastels and developed a true passion for painting with pastels on surfaces she created

Winners of 10th Ever Nog Off Announced by Historic Arkansas Museum

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Drumroll please…

People’s Choice Eggnog:
Capital Egg Nog 
Capital Chefs Matthew Dunn, Zach Pullam, Tyler Rogers and CBG Bartender David Cash
A drink one guest proclaimed, “Tastes like World Peace!” and another described as, “Liquid Christmas.”

Not Your Great, Great, Great Grandfather’s Eggnog
Firefly Chai Egg Nog
Matthew Cooper and Brian Townley, Cache Restaurant
Described as, “Nog, New Age-style” this nog had one guest exclaim, “To Die For!”

Tasters’ Choice
John Robert Jackson’s Eggnog
Bridget Fennell Farris

A nog so good, all our guest could write was, “Yes, this one, yesssssssssss”

12 Days of Christmas Movies: CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT

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Before there was Martha Stewart, there was Gladys Taber of Family Circle magazine. A lifestyle columnist, Ms Taber lived on a farm in Connecticut.

In 1945, Warner Bros. released a comedy which wondered what would happen if a food writer for a magazine really couldn’t cook. Barbara Stanwyck played the domestically-challenged writer who must fake her way through a Christmastime while playing hostess to a WWII veteran as part of a publicity stunt.

Dennis Morgan plays the veteran and Sydney Greenstreet portrays Stanwyck’s editor. Neither visitor has any idea she is a single NYC woman who cannot cook, not the Connecticut housewife and mother her column depicts. As she tried to fake her way through the holidays, much merriment ensues, as does romance.

This light, smart comedy was released in summer 1945 just as the war was ending in Europe and winding down in Japan. It was a combination screwball comedy, wartime distraction, and romance. Stanwyck and Greenstreet were better known for dramas. Morgan had started in a series of war-set movies thoughout WWII. This comedy also gave the actors a chance to be a bit more carefree and represented the optimism Americans were feeling as the war was finally ending.

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19th Century Steroscopic photographs of Arkansas now on display at Historic Arkansas Museum

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Capturing Early Arkansas in Depth: The Stereoview Collection of Allan Gates, a new exhibit at Historic Arkansas Museum, opened last Friday. It explores early photographs of Arkansas.

In a world before motion pictures and color photographs, stereoscopic photography captured the attention of millions. These affordable 3-D images created a phenomenon that spanned the last half of the nineteenth century, bridged demographic and socioeconomic gaps and provoked discussions about the nature of reality and truth, science and art.

Unlike traditional studio photographers, stereo photographers took their cameras outdoors to capture life as it occurred, giving a documentary quality to many of the images.

Today, stereographs serve as a meaningful source for studying the 1800s.  In Arkansas, these views are a window into the growth of a young state, early tourism, railroad expansion and a unique culture and people.

Capturing Early Arkansas in Depth continues in the Arkansas Made Gallery through April 5, 2015.

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