Latest news with #MildredSnitzerOrchestra
Hamilton Spectator
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Toronto Jazz Fest announces full lineup, with Mavis Staples, Jeff Goldblum and Broken Social Scene slated as headliners
Grab your fedora or your sequinned shirt, because the Toronto Jazz Festival is officially returning to the streets this summer. The 38th annual 10-day event will take place between June 20 and June 29 across various venues and neighbourhoods throughout the city, with both free outdoor performances and ticketed events from a diverse lineup of local and international artists. The 2025 festival will be headlined by legendary R&B and gospel singer Mavis Staples , Toronto indie-rock titans Broken Social Scene and renowned actor Jeff Goldblum , who will perform contemporary arrangements of classic jazz and American Songbook standards alongside the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra. Other notable acts include the experimental jazz drummer Makaya McCraven , Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Arooj Aftab and the world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra performing alongside Wynton Marsalis. The poster for the 2025 Toronto Jazz Festival. Music fans will be able to purchase tickets for shows at Massey Hall, Koerner Hall, The Rex Hotel, Hugh's Room Live and Jazz Bistro. Throughout the 10-day event, fans can also check out free performances taking place on stages and sidewalks throughout the Bloor-Yorkville neighbourhood. 'The Toronto Jazz Festival is about more than just music—it's about discovery, community, culture and the incredible creativity thriving in this city,' artistic director Josh Grossman said in a statement. 'From globally celebrated artists to local innovators redefining jazz, this year's lineup reflects the vitality of Toronto's scene and the power of jazz to connect us all.' Jazz Fest is one of the largest festivals in Canada, attracting more than 500,000 attendees annually, according to organizers. Since its inception 37 years ago, the festival has hosted more than 35,000 artists and contributed more than $625 million to the local economy. Last year's Jazz Fest was headlined by André 3000, Lake Street Dive and Hiatus Kaiyote.
The Guardian
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Jeff Goldblum looks back: ‘My brother was an interesting dude. When he died it was terrible, monumental'
Born in Pennsylvania in 1952, Jeff Goldblum is an actor and musician who has starred in some of the most acclaimed and highest-grossing movies of all time: Jurassic Park, Independence Day, The Fly, The Tall Guy, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou and Wicked. He is also known for TV roles such as Zeus in Netflix's Kaos, and his work in theatre. Beyond acting, Goldblum has been performing jazz with the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra since the 1990s. His latest album, Still Blooming, came out in April. Jeff has two sons with his wife, Emilie Livingston, a former Olympic rhythmic gymnast. Here I am in my house in Whitaker, Pennsylvania. My mom needlepointed the Grecian bench I'm sitting on. Little did I know I was going to be Zeus some day. I started playing the piano when I was nine but I was not good. Not disciplined. My teacher would come once a week, and I'd be miserable, and he'd be miserable: 'So you didn't really practise?' he'd say, and I'd reply: 'No, I didn't.' That went on until he gave me a jazz arrangement. Finally, here was something that made me think: 'I like that! I want to sit and play until I know it by heart.' That's where it all began. At this age – before the complications of puberty, before you become more developed and multifaceted – I was full of life and joie de vivre. A funny kid. I remember shopping in a department store with my mother and wanting to make her laugh by playing around with the hangers and the clothes. I would spend a lot of time going into the woods with my best friend, Bobby, and digging holes in the forest or playing back at his house. His mom once said to my mom: 'Gee, Jeffrey is just so calm to be around, and I enjoyed having him over.' I was also a good student. In the fourth grade I got all As and my teacher wrote in my report: 'Jeff is a joy.' This is all very self-serving and I'm sure I was a hellcat in lots of ways, but maybe I was kind of sweet, too. My creativity was very encouraged by my parents. As well as the piano lessons, they took my siblings and me to the cinema, and to the theatre at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. I was so lucky, and those experiences really made me what I am. Now I have two boys, and, along with Emily, who also loves the arts, I am trying to get them to follow that curiosity. My brother Rick was fantastic. He was four years older and I looked up to him enormously – he opened many doors for me in all sorts of ways. Rick was an interesting dude – he was mysterious and wanted to be Hemingway or James Bond. He was a great audience, too: I would do routines and try to make him laugh. He turned me on to Miles Davis, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, the Beatles and counterculture. He died [of kidney failure] when he was travelling in Morocco. I was 19. He was 23. At the time, I had just moved out of my parents' house and I was in a big hit – performing The Two Gentlemen of Verona eight times a week on Broadway. When the news came in, it was terrible. Monumental. Full of so much sadness and trauma. But his life also gave me the opportunity for so much education and spiritual enhancement. Puberty brought its own challenges and new types of anxiety. Adolescence welcomes private introversions – inhibitions that weren't there when I was playing around in the department store. It did, however, supply the heat and energy for what I have developed in these last several decades as an actor. I started getting turned on by the theatre. I loved the idea of show-and-tell in front of an audience. But to do it myself? I was terrified. Especially at first. Soon I realised it was also exhilarating. If you live this so-called creative life you have to get comfortable swimming in the waters of not knowing. You eventually become familiar with the fear and it becomes part of the ingredients – the tension that's interesting in the performance itself. I still like to discover something new, even if it is disorienting and daunting. Whether it's showing up on a movie set to do Wicked, or playing with my jazz band at the Palladium – I know part of my system will be alerted and I'll be prepared. When I meet the moment, I am free. My teacher at Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York, Sanford Meisner, told me it takes 20 years of continual work before you can call yourself an actor. He was a serious person, and made acting seem like a noble and worthwhile devotion for one's life. At the start of my career I kept getting miraculous opportunities with terrific directors and terrific actors. I yearned for this life – so when it actually started happening I thought: 'Well, I'll be darned.' My first film was Death Wish with Michael Winner, who yelled at me: 'Start acting now!' It kind of scared me, but in retrospect was not a bad piece of advice. So followed lots of little parts, which were not exactly right, but, hey, I was getting jobs. One turning point was Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Philip Kaufman. A wonderful director, and he became like family. The way he saw me allowed me to appreciate myself in a way that felt new and landmark. Then came The Big Chill in 1983 and The Fly in 1986, both creatively important. Jurassic Park in 1993 – working with Mr Spielberg and that cast, and the way it rang the bell for a big audience was fun. Wes Anderson was a very important teacher and cohort, too. Most recently I've done Kaos, Thor and the two Wicked movies. They were all very nutritious, nourishing roles. Really, my career has been just thrilling. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion I've never considered giving up my loyalty to my original idea, which was to be an actor. But, in any one project, you keep asking: 'Can I do it? Oh boy, that's no good. Let me try something else.' Then you do, and it works, and it's just like that daunting feeling I described as a teenager all over again. Pretending can sometimes feel childish or trivial, and often you wonder if you're making any difference to anybody – after all, my dad was a doctor. But I have been exposed to and enlivened by the idea that actors want to make a difference, and that all our activities hopefully move the needle towards something uplifting. I am 72 now and I'm sure I'll crumble at any minute. But I better keep myself right so I can be a good dad, a good husband and a good citizen of the world. I try to go to bed on time and eat the right things. I am injury-free, thank goodness. I have good genetics, which is lucky. My body is my instrument, so I've got to keep it in shape. I cherish life and I want to do right by this gift – because that's what it is. Acting is an unbelievably lucky gift. I can't let myself down, or anyone else I am sharing this short trip with. Like Tom Hanks's character says at the end of Saving Private Ryan: 'Earn this … earn it.' I will earn this very special gift, and not let it down.
The Guardian
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Going for Goldblum: fans flock to Jurassic Park star Jeff in London
In what was once a red-light district, between a furniture shop and a recruitment agency, Jeff Goldblum is selling T-shirts. And not only T-shirts, the Hollywood A-lister is also selling his own jazz albums, while meeting fans and signing their merchandise. He has not had to work too hard to sell himself to the crowds of people waiting to meet him on a sunny Monday afternoon in London – the queues stretched more than 50 yards. 'From when I was very young, I always had a great passion for films, and I never really thought I could do it,' said 18-year-old actor Jack Foley, who was waiting in the queue to meet Goldblum. 'Watching his films, seeing how big he is and how much of a great actor he is, really has pushed my career to be better. His music is class and he's just an inspiration to everyone.' Rather than in the now-gentrified surrounds of Granary Square in King's Cross, Foley had envisaged meeting Goldblum 'in a parking lot', adding: 'You know where you've paid for your ticket and you're just kind of walking up, you see Jeff Goldblum and you say, 'oh, there's Jeff Goldblum'?' He suggested the actor and musician had a quality that made him seem just like everyone else – as long as everyone else was a style icon and a Hollywood actor. 'He's the greatest person … he cares for people,' he said, adding that Goldblum was taking time to meet his fans. Goldblum was in the UK for the launch of his fourth album as well as playing several concert dates with the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra and meeting fans, declaring: 'I love London, I love England.' He appeared at a popup shop in Spiritland, a cafe, bar and radio studio near King's Cross. 'Honestly, I just love him,' said Peach Richmond, a children's book illustrator. 'He got me out of a bit of a twisty-turny place when I was younger with his comedy. So that's why he's a bit of an idol for me, I think. It's just his energy, it's just his whole joy that he gives off. And he's just himself – it's what's really inspires me to be who I am as well.' Goldblum is in the class of actor whose 'energy' – or perhaps, more specifically, his distinctive delivery – has set him apart. Sign up to Film Weekly Take a front seat at the cinema with our weekly email filled with all the latest news and all the movie action that matters after newsletter promotion It was with that idiosyncrasy that he spoke to Amelia Wilding, a musician. He seemed to be listening intently while simultaneously holding sway over the conversation. Here, repeatedly asking her to spell out her first name so he could sign her record cover; there, crooning her surname as he scribbled his own. 'He has a really distinctive style and sense of humour,' said Stephen Barber, who was queueing with Laura Shorthall and dog Fiadh – all three apparently Goldblum fans, two of them wearing Jurassic Park T-shirts. The actor's performance in the 1993 Oscar-winning dinosaur film was in Barber's 'top three'. Sanny Hoskins, who runs a London events TikTok account, said she had never expected that a cafe a few doors down from an Indian restaurant would be the place she would meet one of her favourite actors. 'You can connect with someone who you see through cinema, through TV, and get a face-to-face moment with them. I think that's what makes London so amazing.'
