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The Long Strange Wide World of Jerry Garcia
Though he was quite possibly the brightest and most philosophically articulate interviewee of his era in popular music, Jerry Garcia was not the guru that the media canonized in his name. While charismatic and charming, he refused to be a leader -- not of the counterculture that flowered in his hometown neighborhood, the Haight-Ashbury of San Francisco in the '60s, nor even of the band, the Grateful Dead, for whom he played lead guitar for 30 years -- "You can call me the boss, man, just don't expect me to make any decisions."
Sound Check
Here’s an odd thing. The New York Guitar Festival includes a Guitar Marathon in the 917-seat Kaufmann Concert Hall at the 92nd Street Y, an all-afternoon-and-after-a-short-intermission-all-evening event that throws every kind of guitarist at the audience until even the most desperate guitar addict leaves feeling as if he’s just about had enough for now, and maybe he’ll go home and lie down with a cool cloth on his face and listen to some Enya.
All Things Must Pass: A tribute to George Harrison
When he died last November at the age of 58, George Harrison was hailed as "the quiet Beatle," the guy who successfully managed a graceful transition from the global megastardom of the 1960s to a second career as a movie producer (whose Handmade Films banked such Monty Python comedies as "Life of Brian" and 'Time Bandits," and did much to goose the British film industry to its 1980s renaissance); he never tilted at the zeitgeist, like the "martyred Beatle," John Lennon, or persisted in recording mediocre solo albums for years on end, like the "cute Beatle," Paul McCartney. And, well, he wasn't Ringo, either.
Plucked and Bowed...
This concert will feature the cross-cultural mix of Minnesota guitar virtuoso Steve Tibbetts and Norwegian hardanger fiddler Knut Hamre, as well as the Newman and Oltman Guitar Duo with the Turtle Island String Quartet in the world premiere of a new composition by Dusan Bogdanovic (himself an outstanding guitarist). Bogdanovic draws on American jazz, Byzantine music, Western classicism and his own Balkan roots.
The Guitar Music of Terry Riley
This concert will focus on the rarely-heard guitar music of pioneering minimalist composer Terry Riley, performed by his son Gyan Riley, as well as other compositions performed by his All-Stars, featuring Terry Riley on keyboards, Krishna Bhatt on Sitar, George Brooks on Saxophone and other of Riley’s favorite collaborators. A gala festival of Riley’s music presented in association with the World Music Institute.