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Arts & Life
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – The annual winter concert series at the Tallman Hotel in Upper Lake continues on Sunday, March 15, at 3 p.m. in Riffe’s Meeting House next to the hotel.
The performers will be Kenny Washington, one of the country’s leading male jazz vocalists, backed by the superb guitarist Jeff Massanari.
“Two years ago, this duo created one of the most memorable afternoons we’ve had in this series,” said Tallman owner Bernie Butcher. “They went on to do a sold-out show at the Soper-Reese in Lakeport the next year. It’s great to have them back in our intimate venue at the Tallman.”
Recently dubbed “the Superman of the Bay Area jazz scene” by the San Francisco Chronicle, Kenny Washington is a jazz virtuoso who thrills audiences with his soulful interpretations, seemingly limitless range, and rapid-fire scatting.
A native of New Orleans who grew up singing gospel in church, Kenny studied various styles of music at Xavier University and then performed worldwide with the U. S. Navy band for nine years.
He then settled in the Bay Area where he has recorded, collaborated with others, and was the featured artist at the “Top of the Mark” for many years.
As Massanari said, “If you haven’t heard Kenny Washington in concert before, get ready for a jaw-dropping experience. I just love playing with him.”
Massanari studied jazz composition and performance at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. He then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and quickly became one of the region’s most in-demand guitarists.
He is often asked to accompany artists such as Kenny Washington, Seth MacFarlane and Mark Inouye. He has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Hall and Stern Grove as well as on tour in China.
“The intimate venue at the Tallman is a perfect showcase for Kenny,” said Massanari. “We’re both really looking forward to a relaxing and fun afternoon in Lake County.”
More information on Kenny Washington can be obtained at his website http://www.kennywashingtonvocalist.com/ and on Jeff Massanari at http://jeff-massanari.com/.
Tickets at $25 plus tax are available online at Eventbrite.com or by calling the Tallman Hotel at 707-275-2244, Extension 0. Coffee and cookies are served to guests.
The hotel is also offering a 10-percent discount on hotel bookings for people purchasing tickets to the concert.
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
The audition will take place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lakeport Dance Studio, 93 Soda Bay Road.
This year's theme is "Dance is in the Air!"
Please come with a prepared piece you are interested in sharing with the community.
The dance piece must be family-friendly. All styles are welcome!
This year’s Spring Dance Festival performances will take place at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 4, and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 5.
If you are interested, please contact Blair Brookes at 209-269-6766 or email
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- Written by: Ted Kooser
This week’s poem is one of my favorites and I can’t explain why in the 15 years I’ve been writing this column I’ve neglected until now to share it with you. Wendell Berry is one of our country’s finest writers, a poet, a fiction writer, an activist and a Kentucky farmer.
This poem is from “New Collected Poems” from Counterpoint Press, 2012. Berry’s most recent book of poetry is “A Small Porch.”
Before Dark
From the porch at dusk I watched
a kingfisher wild in flight
he could only have made for joy.
He came down the river, splashing
against the water’s dimming face
like a skipped rock, passing
on down out of sight. And still
I could hear the splashes
farther and farther away
as it grew darker. He came back
the same way, dusky as his shadow,
sudden beyond the willows.
The splashes went on out of hearing.
It was dark then. Somewhere
the night had accommodated him
– at the place he was headed for
or where, led by his delight,
he came.
American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©1985 by Wendell Berry, "Before Dark," from New Collected Poems, (Counterpoint Press, 2012). Poem reprinted by permission of Wendell Berry and the publisher. Introduction copyright @2020 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
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- Written by: Tim Riley
Police procedural shows have been a staple of network and cable television for so long that it is difficult to imagine many new twists for the genre as so many series have the feeling of being inspired by shows that came before.
If there is a new variation for “Tommy” on the CBS network, it could be executive producer Tom Szentgyorgi’s observation during the winter press tour that the new series was “inspired by the absence of somebody.”
He was referring to the fact the three largest cities in the country, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, have never had a female chief of police, and so why not rectify the situation with Edie Falco’s Abigail “Tommy” Thomas taking charge of the Los Angeles Police Department.
As an actress who has made a strong presence in cable shows like “The Sopranos” and “Nurse Jackie,” Edie Falco is an interesting yet effective choice for creating a cop show that Szentgyorgi describes as being less about action and more focused on relationships.
Falco’s Tommy, as she prefers to be called, has been hired by Mayor Buddy Gray (Thomas Sadoski) away from the NYPD as the result of pressure from a federal judge to appoint a woman to the post.
The previous chief, Milt Leakey (Corbin Bernsen), though apparently still popular with the rank-and-file, was accused of sexual harassment by different women while a prostitution scandal that festered under his watch also figured into his dismissal.
As a New Yorker with the accent intact, Tommy is an outsider coming in to run a police department with no knowledge of the local culture. To cement the outsider status, she’s also a lesbian and seems to relish being identified as a “feminist icon.”
Not unlike the pilot of FOX’s “Deputy,” also set in Los Angeles, the first episode of “Tommy” steps into the politics of immigration when an LAPD officer fakes a traffic stop of immigrants to thwart an arrest by ICE agents.
What follows is the most improbable involvement of a police chief of volunteering to take a minor child into her own custody even though she’s living temporarily in a hotel, a situation that stretches credibility.
Moreover, when not struggling to reconnect with her estranged adult daughter Kate (Olivia Lucy Phillip), Tommy is such a hands-on chief that her appearance at every crime scene makes one wonder how she finds the time to exercise management of LAPD.
Navigating the politics of City Hall and maneuvering through the culture of the police force offer Edie Falco a chance to shine but may not do much to elevate “Tommy” beyond the standard procedural.
CABLE TV WINTER-SPRING PREVIEW – PART FOUR
Al Pacino, an iconic thespian with a great career on the screen, stage and occasional forays into TV movies, has arguably been one of the greatest masters of intensity as a method actor in films such as “The Godfather” and “Scarface.”
Pacino’s forceful personality is certain to follow his character of Meyer Offerman in the Amazon Prime Video series “Hunters,” in his role as a Nazi hunter in 1977 New York City.
When a Holocaust survivor is brutally murdered in her own home, Offerman recruits her grandson into a secret organization that is determined to track down hundreds of high-ranking Nazi officials conspiring to create a Fourth Reich in the United States.
The eclectic vigilante squad of hunters sets out on a bloody quest for revenge to bring the Nazis to justice and thwart their new genocidal plans.
During the winter TV press tour, series creator David Weil, while acknowledging that Nazis who sought refuge after the war on our shores were hunted through legal action, observed that “Hunters” is “a piece about wish fulfillment” of Nazis being eliminated.
That Pacino’s character brings intensity to his role of a hunter is powerfully brought home where he brutally nails the hand of his prey to a desk with the sharp blow of a big knife. The others are equally up to the task of violent retribution.
The setting of the series in the late Seventies allows for more Holocaust survivors to be among us. As it is, the last known World War II Nazi living in the United States, was deported to Germany in 2018 and died a year ago.
Fans of “Downton Abbey,” of which there are many, may want to tune in to the new EPIX series “Belgravia,” a story of secrets and scandals amongst the upper echelon of London society in the 19th century.
An invitation to the Duchess of Richmond’s ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo sets in motion a series of events that will have consequences for decades to come as secrets unravel.
Not surprisingly, “Belgravia” is based on the bestselling novel of Julian Fellowes, who just so happens to be the creator, writer and executive producer of the award-winning “Downton Abbey” television series. Safe to say we likely know what to expect of another period drama.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.