2,374 stories by "TERRY TEACHOUT"
After living out of suitcases for the past two months, Mrs. T and I said farewell to Florida, returned at long last to our Manhattan apartment on Saturday night, and fell into bed with abjec…
Pat Metheny plays "And I Love Her," by John Lennon and Paul McCartney: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.)
"The guitar for me is a translation device. It's not a goal. And in some ways jazz isn't a destination for me. For me, jazz is a vehicle that takes you to the true destination"a musical one …
"'Yeah,' I said, 'I heard the speech. But they don't give a damn about that. Hell, make 'em cry, make 'em laugh, make 'em think you're their weak erring pal, or make 'em think you’re G…
In today's Wall Street Journal drama column, I report on Forest Whitaker's Broadway debut, in Eugene O'Neill's Hughie, which also stars Frank Wood. Here's an excerpt. * * * What happens when…
Joan Baez sings Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" on the BBC's In Concert in 1965: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and F…
"To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection." Henri Poincaré, Science and Hypothesis
In today's Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column I discuss a problem that has become an epidemic in the world of American theater"cellphone abuse"and offer a solution. Here's an excerpt. * …
"I am writing little for the moment and I prefer to think rather than to realize." Francis Poulenc, letter to Georges Jean-Aubry, June 10, 1919
Jean-Pierre Rampal and Robert Veyron-Lacroix perform Francis Poulenc's Flute Sonata: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, …
"Ah! Chabrier, I love him as one loves his father! An indulgent father, always happy, pockets full of tasty morsels." Francis Poulenc, Moi et mes amis
From 2006: Blizzards mean different things to different people at different times in their lives. To a fifty-year-old drama critic recovering from congestive heart failure who has to make hi…
"This work, which everyone had been impatiently waiting to hear, sickened me by its pretentious vulgarity. I did not realize that what I felt was merely the reaction of a Latin mind, unable …
Mezz Mezzrow is one of those fascinating, exceedingly odd figures in jazz history about whom I could write instructively and at length if I felt so moved. Alas, I don't, at least not today, …
The French composer Darius Milhaud makes a rare TV appearance in which he talks about jazz in the Twenties, followed by a performance of his jazz-influenced composition Caramel Mou, Shimmy p…
"In 1962 I was asked to talk about myself at an American college. I recalled my parents, who were so understanding, my wife, my son and his children, who have brought me nothing but joy. In …
In today's Wall Street Journal drama column I review two New York shows, Smart People and the Broadway transfer of The Humans. Here's an excerpt. * * * Lydia R. Diamond's "Stick Fly," which …
George Hearn sings Stephen Sondheim's "Epiphany" in the 1982 telecast of the original Broadway production of Sweeney Todd, directed by Harold Prince and remounted in Los Angeles. Hearn had r…
"He that grows old without religious hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every …
The Court Theatre's production of Satchmo at the Waldorf closed on Sunday. Barry Shabaka Henley's final performance was, by all accounts, a knockout. Meanwhile, the American Conservatory The…
"Certainly, it is more reasonable to devote one's life to women than to postage stamps or old snuff-boxes, even to pictures or statues." Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way
American Ballet Theatre performs Dark Elegies, a 1937 ballet by Antony Tudor set to Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder. This performance was originally telecast by PBS in 1990: (This is the l…
"For inside him there are spirits, or at least little genii, which have seen to it that for a collector"and I mean a real collector, a collector as he ought to be"ownership is the most intim…
From 2006: Like most art collectors, I spend an inordinate amount of time fussing over what to put where, and I tend to leave things in place once I decide where they "belong." It had been a…
"There are people like Senhor José everywhere, who fill their time, or what they believe to be their spare time, by collecting stamps, coins, medals, vases, postcards, matchboxes, books, cl…
