Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Breaking Up With Your Car

A video for Earthday, as Sustainable Jazz takes on a theatrical dimension:

"It's guys like me driving cars like you that are messing things up forever," says Johnny, as he struggles to come to terms with his car's addiction problem. Will he run off with that "anorexic chick with the two skinny wheels", or will he and his car find a way to work things out? This performance was part of the March 13 premier of the Climate Change Cabaret at the Princeton Public Library, written by Steve Hiltner and sponsored by the Princeton Environmental Film Festival. Actors: Basha Parmet and Steve Hiltner.       

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Complaint Training

Friday the 13th was one wild and crazy night at the Princeton Public Library as the Climate Change Cabaret launched, if not into space, at least into the space better known as the Community Room. Seven actors, a Princeton High School acappella group, a jazz pianist, and three singers bearing an uncanny resemblance to Doris Day filled the full house with wonder, joy and laughter--perhaps not the sort of response you'd expect from material dealing with climate change, but there it was.

For those who missed it, the event was not lost in space, but recorded by The Little Camera That Could, tucked off to the side. I'll be posting some of the sketches so that they're accessible to Earthlings everywhere.

The evening began with a piece called Complaint Training, in which The Three Grouseketeers seek to fill any void there might be in instruction to the human race on how to rant higher, rant lower, rant longerrrrrr.


Sunday, April 19, 2015

Accidental Background Music

Anyone heading to the exhibit and fundraiser featuring the paintings of Jeanne Calo at the Princeton Senior Resource Center today at 3pm may hear the music of the Sustainable Jazz Ensemble emanating from the adjoining room, where we'll be performing for Community Without Walls. The performance is for CWW members, but the art exhibit and reception is open to the public.

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Waltz for Ruth

We had a video camera set up to document our Climate Change Cabaret last month at the Princeton Public Library. Phil Orr played music before and afterwards, and I joined him for a rendition of Waltz for Ruth just before the show began. Google "Waltz for Ruth" and you discover that bassist Charlie Haden wrote a Waltz for Ruth dedicated to his wife. My Waltz for Ruth is part of a trilogy I wrote prior to traveling to Cleveland to be at my mother's bedside during the last day of her life. I played the melody for her on the clarinet I had taken along, not knowing if she could actually hear it because she was unconscious the whole time. Something of her upbeat nature comes out in the melody.