Seen & Heard: What’s Really Happening at Citigroup

••• Remember that Nosy Neighbor post about the work on Citigroup’s plaza? There’s much more than new concrete flags involved, says a source: “Citi is moving its global headquarters (CEO and all) down to Tribeca from 399 Park. So 388 is undergoing construction starting from the top down. In addition the 388/390 Greenwich lobbies are being combined which is why the ground level work is being done. March 2015 is the official end of work.”

••• The Lilac Preservation Project is having a fundraiser on Nov. 12 at Cercle Rouge.

••• Did we know that the 9/11 Museum is free on Tuesdays after 5 p.m.? Now we do.

••• From Arts Brookfield: “On October 17, a wide-ranging roster of jazz artists will once again fill the Winter Garden with the swinging sounds of Thelonius Monk. The celebration will kick off with a mid-day concert [12:30-2 p.m.] featuring Elio Villafranca and the James Weidman Trio, both veterans of previous Monk birthday bashes, and will continue the same evening [6:30-9:30 p.m.] with a three hour mini-marathon that will also feature the Jazz House Kids, David Weiss Sextet, Renee Rosnes Quartet, and the Arturo O’Farrill Sextet.” It’s free. I love Thelonius Monk! Here’s Geoff Dyer on Monk, from But Beautiful:

Part of jazz is the illusion of spontaneity and Monk played the piano as though he’d never seen one before. Came at it from all angles, using his elbows, taking chops at it, rippling through the keys like they were a deck of cards, fingers jabbing at them like they were hot to the touch or tottering around them like a woman in heels—playing it all wrong as far as classical piano went. Everything came out crooked, at an angle, not as you expected. If he’d played Beethoven, sticking exactly to the score, just the way he hit the keys, the angle at which his fingers touched the ivory, would have unsteadied it, made it swing and turn around inside itself, made it a Monk tune.

 

1 Comment

  1. Thanks for the tip on the Monk concert and kudos to you for quoting the great Geoff Dyer book on jazz, “But Beautiful”!

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