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Anything You Can Do

By Will Friedwald

In jazz terminology, it’s known as “call and response”: The trumpet section plays a few notes, which are answered immediately by the saxophones. Or, a soloist will give out with a four-bar phrase and then hear it echoed back at him by the full ensemble. Call and response is as essential to big band swing as the idea of “theme and variations” is to classical music.Read More

Asher Roth Raps Suburbia, Campus Life

By Adam Sacks

Success has been easy for Asher Roth, but respect is proving more elusive. A 21st century MySpace star, Roth owes his success almost entirely to the Internet. Hailing from suburban Morrisville, Pa., Roth — and his educated flow, was first discovered on MySpace by the producer Steve Rifkind. Without a song on radio or a video on TV, Roth had a widget of his infectious song “I Love College” downloaded 2.7 million times.Read More

Pale Dreadlock Sabra

By Jordana Horn

The idea that Raichel would become a de facto ambassador of Ethiopian music to Israel seems somewhat incongruous. The fact that he’s taken that role one step further to become an ambassador of Israeli music to the world, in contrast, seems comparatively logical.Read More

Arthur Laurents: Broadway’s Last Ferocious Man Opens a New Version of 'West Side Story'

By Benjamin Ivry

In a showbiz world, where backbiting and hissy fits are a way of life, Arthur Laurents, who has directed a revival of “West Side Story” that opens on March 19 on Broadway, stands apart. Laurents, who wrote the original book of “West Side Story,” among many other plays and screenplays, will be 92 on Bastille Day (July 14), but he is no patriarch in the sere and yellow leaf.Read More

Felix Mendelssohn: Music That ‘Keeps Working’

By Raphael Mostel

Felix Mendelssohn was still alive when the New York Philharmonic was founded in 1842. “He most certainly influenced our orchestra from its inception,” Philharmonic archivist Barbara Haws told the Forward. “Our very first program featured Mendelssohn. In fact, before his death in 1848, a total of six Mendelssohn works were performed in our first 14 concerts. And we gave the U.S. premieres of most of Mendelssohn’s works, like the Violin Concerto.”Read More

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