The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), a professional membership organization of songwriters, composers and music publishers, announces its Top Holiday Songs for 2017. According to an ASCAP analysis of streaming and terrestrial radio data, 1994's 'All I Want For Christmas Is You,' written by Walter Afanasieff and Mariah Carey, moves to #1, joining enduring Christmas classics like 'A Holly Jolly Christmas'(written by Johnny Marks, 1962) and 'Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow'(written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, 1945), at the top of the charts. (Check out ASCAP's interview with Afanaseiff about writing 'All I Want' at http://bit.ly/2k8S9E0)
The Los Angeles Master Chorale will perform five festive Christmas concerts in Walt Disney Concert Hall in December. The choral programs are a much-loved Los Angeles holiday tradition and these concerts frequently sell out.
Jazz at Lincoln Center's 2016 Popular Song series at the Appel Room ended this year's agenda on June 8 with host Michael Feinstein's appreciation of the interconnection between swing and popular song, a subject about which he's clearly enthusiastic. Each musical era, he suggests, is previewed by a song marking change: “Alexander's Ragtime Band” ushered in ragtime, “Sing, Sing Sing,” prefaced swing, “Rock Around the Clock” heralded rock n' roll. With the able assistance of Musical Director Tedd Firth (also on piano), Firth's Big Band, and special guest vocalists Allyson Briggs, Jeremy Jordan, and Catherine Ross, Feinstein and Co. delivered a lively evening of familiar and eclectic material.
Bar Thalia, a narrow, uber-casual bar/café adjacent to the Upper West Side arts hub Symphony Space, has become the musical pied-à-terre of vocalist Marcus Goldhaber. Each first Sunday of the month, the artist presents two loosey-goosey acoustic sets with a guest singer and guitarist. The past Sunday's show featured vocalist Tessa Souter with Tony Romano on guitar.
This year, ASCAP brings its 100th birthday celebration into the holiday season by unwrapping the top 30 ASCAP holiday songs of all time. Topping the list is 'Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,' written by Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie.
When Margaret Whiting died on January 10, 2011, the news was like a dagger into the heart of the New York cabaret community. Whiting was a beloved singer for almost seven decades, who seemingly delivered every American popular song ever written, conquered almost every musical art form--from Big Band to Country to Musicals to Cabaret, from radio to the recording studio. On top of all that, Whiting worked with and mentored many New York cabaret musical directors and performers, including the late Mary Cleere Haran and K.T. Sullivan, who along with Whiting's daughter Deborah, hosted a 90th birthday Whiting tribute show on Monday night at Carnegie Hall's elegant Weill Recital Hall. Presented by The Mabel Mercer Foundation, for which Sullivan is Artistic Director, It Might As Well Be Spring! A Celebration in Song of the Life of Margaret Whiting was an almost three-hour concert featuring two All-Star teams worth of cabaret stars spanning a few generations.
Legendary American singer and pianist Leon Russell has entertained the world for five decades, getting his start as an in-demand Wrecking Crew session player and playing on hundreds of hit records before he began releasing his own albums in 1967.
Neile Adams show Wasn't It Good! Wasn't It Fine! at Tom Rolla's Gardenia in West Hollywood was nothing short of 'AMAZING'. The choice of her material was absolutely delicious, as you will soon find out.
Fifty years after her legendary Carnegie Hall debut, The New York Pops remembers Hollywood icon Judy Garland with a song-for-song re-creation of the 1961 performance that is referred to by so many as "the greatest night in show business history".
Fifty years after her legendary Carnegie Hall debut, The New York Pops remembers Hollywood icon Judy Garland with a song-for-song re-creation of the 1961 performance that is referred to by so many as "the greatest night in show business history".
The daffy and delightful Christine Pedi's newest cabaret concoction, the Jolly Holly Christmas Folly is an inviting cocktail mixing old favorites with a few new routines; very merry, raucously funny and abundantly cheery.