Cutting Through the Grammys

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

The Grammy Awards are being handed out this Sunday in Los Angeles. If the top nominees are any indication, the trend in music seems to be a new form of angst-ridden pop that combine '90s fretting with electronic hip-hop production. In the Off Duty section of today's European edition of the Wall Street Journal, I write on the swing to woe and how it reflects on growing anxiety among today's youth culture about the future given the daily diet of bad news, staggering college debt and higher everyday costs. Go here.

In the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal today, I interview Tony Danza—who is starring on Broadway in Honeymoon in Vegas. Our chat is in the "House Call" column of the Mansion section. Tony talks about the trials and tribulations of growing up short in suburban Malverne, N.Y., with a six-foot Brooklyn accent. [Photo above of Actor Tony Danza at the Nederlander Theatre in Manhattan before a performance of Honeymoon in Vegas by Allison Michael Orenstein for The Wall Street Journal] Read it here.

For the "Playlist" column in the Review section, I spoke to David Lubars, worldwide chief creative officer of the ad agency BBDO, on Tom Waits's Rain Dogs. Go here.

And finally (yep, it has been some week), I preview two important shows of Jean-Michel Basquiat's paintings, drawings and sketches in Toronto and Brooklyn. Basquiat is my favorite contemporary artist. It's pure jazz. High-energy improvisation and intensity with sophistication. Childlike chaos meets the big message. [Image above: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (1981)] Read it here.

Used with permission by Marc Myers