Will Friedwald
By Will Friedwald
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Culture Another Velvet Fog Summer
Mel Tormé (1925–1999) was the Art Tatum of singers: a daredevil improviser with equally flawless chops and remarkable harmonic smarts, he would take a tune and break it down into 1,000 glistening arpeggios, then put it back together in a way that often improved on the original. Like Tatum, he could do all this without…
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Culture Anything You Can Do
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…
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News On the Fourth Night, Tunes, Jokes and Shoe-Throwing
How better to celebrate the fourth night of Hanukkah than by throwing a shoe at Bernard Madoff? On December 24, nightlife impresario Michael Dorf, who gave the world the Knitting Factory, opened his new space, City Winery, with a variety show that served as the fourth evening of New York’s fourth annual Sephardic Music Festival….
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Sports It’s so cool that Sandy Koufax was there for that
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News An Israeli restaurant chain said it closed due to boycotts. Protesters are celebrating.
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News Mamdani opposes Zionism, but wants New York public schools to teach about it
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Opinion Jews are worried about Zohran Mamdani. Here’s why they shouldn’t be
In Case You Missed It
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Opinion We’re Jews in Zohran Mamdani’s neighborhood. You don’t want NYC to be like this.
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Opinion I’m an Israeli who lives in New York. Here’s why I’m voting for Mamdani
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Opinion Why are we so focused on Mamdani — not Nazi-inspired ideas proliferating on the right?
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Opinion I won’t vote for Democrats who backed Mamdani. I know I’m not the only one.
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