Mr. Smalls Hosts The Jayhawks; ‘The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!)’ at off the WALL (Sun., 5/15/16)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUMyKcNL-Vs

1) Although The Jayhawks were a part of the Twin Cities’ vibrant music scene in the 1980s, the group stood out from their contemporaries. They weren’t funky like the late Prince or The Time. They lacked the punk edge of The Replacements and Hüsker Dü. Instead, The Jayhawks were pioneers of alternative country, influencing bands like Wilco while simultaneously paying homage to singer-songwriters like Neil Young. Following two albums in the ‘80s, the Jayhawks’ had their first major label LP in 1992—Hollywood Town Hall—led by the single “Waiting for the Sun.” Over the next two decades, the band would release five more studio albums, undergo lineup changes, and go on hiatus (twice). They are active once again, and although original member Mark Olsen may have left, the other founders Gary Louris and Marc Perlman are still on board. They are joined by longtime members: drummer Tim O’Reagan and keyboardist Karen Grotberg. Joining them on tour and at their Mr. Smalls show is guitarist Chet Lyster, who has previously played with Eels and Lucinda Williams. Their new album, Paging Mr. Proust, has just been released and features production from R.E.M.’s Peter Buck. The  Folk Uke opens. 8 p.m. 400 Lincoln Ave., Millvale. (CM)

2) The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) is a musical that’s a parody of musicals. If that sounds pretty off-the-wall, it’s not surprising, since off the WALL Productions is the company performing this musically amusing meta-musical. Musical of Musicals is also a classically off-Broadway kind of musical, having premiered there in 2003. The writers were Joanne Bogart—off the WALL is dedicated to doing theater by or about women—and Eric Rockwell. The story has the same basic plot played five times, with each version lampooning the works and musical styles of different composers: Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Kander and Ebb, in that order. The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) is therefore the ultimate musical spoof, with more song-and-dance numbers than you might have imagined could fit into a show. 3 p.m. Runs through May 21. Off the WALL is fitting them into the friendly confines of Carnegie Stage, 25 W. Main St., Carnegie. (MV)

Sky boys: young Gérard Willemetz and Lartigue’s son Dani, 1926.

3) If you’ve ever found it fascinating to leaf through albums of old photographs, try the exhibit now on the walls at the Frick Art Museum. Fast Cars and Femmes Fatales is a rare major showing of photos by Jacques Henri Lartigue, the late French artist whose high-flying lifestyle featured those two pursuits, among others. Lartigue was an early master of candid on-the-scene photography, and not only are his pictures artistically striking, they tell intriguing stories. The photos displayed here span the opening decades of the 1900s—times of rapid change like our own—so that strolling the exhibit is like a trip through version 1.0 of the modern world emerging. There are pix of young folks thrilling to the hot new sport of “motoring.” Aviation was a very risky extreme sport, as other scenes attest. And Lartigue’s photos of women, taken at times from the corsets-and-frills era through the Roaring Twenties and beyond, show more than how fashions were changing. They show how women were starting to change. Admission to the Frick Art Museum is free. 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. Through May 15 at 7227 Reynolds Ave., Point Breeze. (MV)

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