Rob Weinert-Kendt
@robkendt.bsky.social
Editor of American Theatre magazine, musical omnivore. trainmyear.blogspot.com
From Lila Downs to Rosalía, from Arooj Aftab to Jeff Buckley, last week's Music Diary is up
Music Diary, Vol. 96
trainmyear.blogspot.com
November 10, 2025 at 8:49 PM
From Lila Downs to Rosalía, from Arooj Aftab to Jeff Buckley, last week's Music Diary is up
The orchestration is spare, the harmonies angular, and the politics almost self-parodically collectivist, but for whatever reason I find Brecht & Weill's 1930 Lehrstücke about a young boy sacrificing himself for the good of his town unutterably moving. #dailyalbum www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWPo...
November 10, 2025 at 8:37 PM
The orchestration is spare, the harmonies angular, and the politics almost self-parodically collectivist, but for whatever reason I find Brecht & Weill's 1930 Lehrstücke about a young boy sacrificing himself for the good of his town unutterably moving. #dailyalbum www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWPo...
Chief among the many things I love about this Cibo Matto classic is the fact that its chorus—the thing you wait for every time—is nothing more than a grinding, vaguely sinister guitar figure and a repeated "Oh" in the vocal. Groove is in the gut, and in the clouds. #dailysong
Apple
YouTube video by Cibo Matto - Topic
www.youtube.com
November 10, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Chief among the many things I love about this Cibo Matto classic is the fact that its chorus—the thing you wait for every time—is nothing more than a grinding, vaguely sinister guitar figure and a repeated "Oh" in the vocal. Groove is in the gut, and in the clouds. #dailysong
The Texas streetcorner preacher/musician Washington Phillips mostly recorded renditions of gospel standards for voice and a homemade zither he called a manzarene, but this original tune about a mother’s blessing for a departing son is almost unbearably sweet and sad. #dailysong youtu.be/tFV_wlhRfn8
Mother's Last Word To Her Son
YouTube video by Washington Phillips - Topic
youtu.be
November 10, 2025 at 12:43 AM
The Texas streetcorner preacher/musician Washington Phillips mostly recorded renditions of gospel standards for voice and a homemade zither he called a manzarene, but this original tune about a mother’s blessing for a departing son is almost unbearably sweet and sad. #dailysong youtu.be/tFV_wlhRfn8
Celestial harmonies, yes, but also whiffs of sulfur—apocalypse as well as rapture—course through this expertly curated and performed collection of scared choral works by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The G-minor Mass is the centerpiece but it’s all compelling. #dailyalbum open.spotify.com/album/3U2OEn...
November 10, 2025 at 12:31 AM
Celestial harmonies, yes, but also whiffs of sulfur—apocalypse as well as rapture—course through this expertly curated and performed collection of scared choral works by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The G-minor Mass is the centerpiece but it’s all compelling. #dailyalbum open.spotify.com/album/3U2OEn...
It’s hard to imagine a better production with a more stacked cast than the one of THE BAKER’S WIFE now onstage at CSC. In lesser hands it might be unbearably twee, but here it is lovingly staged and performed—a joy and a gem.
November 10, 2025 at 12:17 AM
It’s hard to imagine a better production with a more stacked cast than the one of THE BAKER’S WIFE now onstage at CSC. In lesser hands it might be unbearably twee, but here it is lovingly staged and performed—a joy and a gem.
Imagine M.I.A. narrating a Mike Leigh film, and you’re roughly halfway to what Kae Tempest achieves on this riveting concept album about a sex worker and the hapless men who try to save and/or control her. I would not hesitate to call it a masterpiece. #dailyalbum open.spotify.com/album/7D7AbN...
November 9, 2025 at 3:45 AM
Imagine M.I.A. narrating a Mike Leigh film, and you’re roughly halfway to what Kae Tempest achieves on this riveting concept album about a sex worker and the hapless men who try to save and/or control her. I would not hesitate to call it a masterpiece. #dailyalbum open.spotify.com/album/7D7AbN...
The cues in Bill Lee’s great jazz-orchestral score for DO THE RIGHT THING that I especially cherish are the 3 he wrote for Ossie Davis’s character: Like Da Mayor, they have an old-school sweetness, courtliness, and pathos to them. #dailysong youtu.be/xfio9spr878
Da Mayor Loves Mother Sister
YouTube video by Bill Lee - Topic
youtu.be
November 8, 2025 at 2:40 PM
The cues in Bill Lee’s great jazz-orchestral score for DO THE RIGHT THING that I especially cherish are the 3 he wrote for Ossie Davis’s character: Like Da Mayor, they have an old-school sweetness, courtliness, and pathos to them. #dailysong youtu.be/xfio9spr878
Reposted by Rob Weinert-Kendt
sometimes an Oxford comma can make all the difference
November 8, 2025 at 12:36 PM
sometimes an Oxford comma can make all the difference
One of the great privileges of my life is to play regularly with the outlandishly talented singer Catherine Brookman in the Greenpoint Reformed Church band. Her beautifully layered new album, out today, gives you a chance to hear why I’m so fortunate. #dailyalbum open.spotify.com/album/2dd0Zy...
November 7, 2025 at 5:19 PM
One of the great privileges of my life is to play regularly with the outlandishly talented singer Catherine Brookman in the Greenpoint Reformed Church band. Her beautifully layered new album, out today, gives you a chance to hear why I’m so fortunate. #dailyalbum open.spotify.com/album/2dd0Zy...
Still processing the kaleidoscopic genius of Rosalía's new record, but on first listen my ears perked up at this sweetly tuneful, Gaby Moreno-esque waltz (backed by the sierreño trio Yahritza y Su Esencia), which happens to deliver a bitterly sarcastic kiss-off to an ex. #dailysong
La Perla
YouTube video by ROSALÍA - Topic
www.youtube.com
November 7, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Still processing the kaleidoscopic genius of Rosalía's new record, but on first listen my ears perked up at this sweetly tuneful, Gaby Moreno-esque waltz (backed by the sierreño trio Yahritza y Su Esencia), which happens to deliver a bitterly sarcastic kiss-off to an ex. #dailysong
Reposted by Rob Weinert-Kendt
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women
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November 6, 2025 at 8:43 PM
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women
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Been spinning this lively, boisterous Kodály suite for the past few days. I love its manic high points, of course, but I also key into the lush cimbalom passages in movement III. The wild moments hit even harder by contrast with the lyrical flights. #dailyalbum open.spotify.com/album/46sRi9...
November 6, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Been spinning this lively, boisterous Kodály suite for the past few days. I love its manic high points, of course, but I also key into the lush cimbalom passages in movement III. The wild moments hit even harder by contrast with the lyrical flights. #dailyalbum open.spotify.com/album/46sRi9...
This breathtaking Arooj Aftab piece came up on shuffle this morning, and despite its length I didn't think once about skipping. The interweaving of her delicate voice and Maeve Gilchrist's harp is positively soul-suspending. #dailysong
www.youtube.com/watch?v=udgz...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=udgz...
Inayaat
YouTube video by Arooj Aftab - Topic
www.youtube.com
November 6, 2025 at 5:12 PM
This breathtaking Arooj Aftab piece came up on shuffle this morning, and despite its length I didn't think once about skipping. The interweaving of her delicate voice and Maeve Gilchrist's harp is positively soul-suspending. #dailysong
www.youtube.com/watch?v=udgz...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=udgz...
Love this conversation about criticism between Wesley Morris and Kelefa Sanneh. It’s chiefly about music criticism but so many of its insights resonate for theater criticism as well
When Did Music Critics Get So Nice?
Podcast Episode · Cannonball with Wesley Morris · 11/06/2025 · 59m
podcasts.apple.com
November 6, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Love this conversation about criticism between Wesley Morris and Kelefa Sanneh. It’s chiefly about music criticism but so many of its insights resonate for theater criticism as well
Laurie Metcalf and Sam Hunter are such an ideal match on paper, I half worried that, in working together, they would somehow cancel each other out. My fears were misplaced: LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD is an exquisitely rendered piece of observational drama with a startling undercurrent of rage.
November 6, 2025 at 2:48 AM
Laurie Metcalf and Sam Hunter are such an ideal match on paper, I half worried that, in working together, they would somehow cancel each other out. My fears were misplaced: LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD is an exquisitely rendered piece of observational drama with a startling undercurrent of rage.
Diep, crushing it as usual
I'm covering all the good plays this week about women. First: Liberation, where playwright Bess Wohl was told it would never see the light of day because there were too many women in it and it was too long. What a fool, the person who said that
Bess Wohl Was Once Told Liberation Was Unproduceable. Now It's on Broadway
Directed by Whitney White, Liberation is a 2.5-hour epic about women doing something radical: talking about their lives.
playbill.com
November 5, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Diep, crushing it as usual
Feels like a good day to revisit Lou Reed's love/hate letter to the city I'm happy to call home. His unique blend of deadpan street poetry and rock grit always gives me a lift, and this record's added layer of civic crankery also hits the spot. #dailyalbum open.spotify.com/album/7xGqf9...
November 5, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Feels like a good day to revisit Lou Reed's love/hate letter to the city I'm happy to call home. His unique blend of deadpan street poetry and rock grit always gives me a lift, and this record's added layer of civic crankery also hits the spot. #dailyalbum open.spotify.com/album/7xGqf9...
Reposted by Rob Weinert-Kendt
Wordless Wednesday:
November 5, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Wordless Wednesday:
Feeling this Ace Frehley classic today, Bo Diddley beat, stomping chorus, and all. (Fun fact: It's a cover of a song by a Brit, Russ Ballard, who wrote it as an ode to the Big Apple.) #dailysong youtu.be/DXeeY9D9u94
New York Groove
YouTube video by Ace Frehley - Topic
youtu.be
November 5, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Feeling this Ace Frehley classic today, Bo Diddley beat, stomping chorus, and all. (Fun fact: It's a cover of a song by a Brit, Russ Ballard, who wrote it as an ode to the Big Apple.) #dailysong youtu.be/DXeeY9D9u94
Reposted by Rob Weinert-Kendt
The obsessive wokeness panic is about elite labor market competition and prestige. People use a lot of fancy words to obscure this, and offer some substantive criticisms as well, but that’s ultimately its driving force.
November 5, 2025 at 2:28 PM
The obsessive wokeness panic is about elite labor market competition and prestige. People use a lot of fancy words to obscure this, and offer some substantive criticisms as well, but that’s ultimately its driving force.
From Berlioz to The Last Dinner Party, Rosalía to Red Sovine, last week's Music Diary is up
Music Diary, Vol. 95
trainmyear.blogspot.com
November 4, 2025 at 3:54 PM
From Berlioz to The Last Dinner Party, Rosalía to Red Sovine, last week's Music Diary is up
You don't hear a preview of all that Janelle Monáe would go on to do on this 2007 EP—it doesn't even tease all the styles on her stunning full-length follow-up, THE ARCHANDROID—but it's remarkable how fearlessly eclectic and rangy she was from the jump. #dailyalbum open.spotify.com/album/3T3bJi...
November 4, 2025 at 3:37 PM
You don't hear a preview of all that Janelle Monáe would go on to do on this 2007 EP—it doesn't even tease all the styles on her stunning full-length follow-up, THE ARCHANDROID—but it's remarkable how fearlessly eclectic and rangy she was from the jump. #dailyalbum open.spotify.com/album/3T3bJi...
Reposted by Rob Weinert-Kendt
I know Diane Ladd had an incredible body of work, but as a long time eterna-stan of Enlightened, on that show, she took a character that could have been a caricature & worked subtle wonders ... anyway watch Enlightened 💚https://www.tvguide.com/news/features/enlightened-laura-dern-hbo/?ref=moryan.com
HBO's Enlightened, Starring Laura Dern, Only Gets More Relevant with Time
The HBO seres was without a doubt of of the finest programs of the past decade
www.tvguide.com
November 4, 2025 at 6:08 AM
I know Diane Ladd had an incredible body of work, but as a long time eterna-stan of Enlightened, on that show, she took a character that could have been a caricature & worked subtle wonders ... anyway watch Enlightened 💚https://www.tvguide.com/news/features/enlightened-laura-dern-hbo/?ref=moryan.com