I hadn't checked in here for so long, I forgot what I had on the page. I just had to update my age in my profile blurb. That'll humble ya. And if I'm updating that, I might as well post a new blog entry. Even if this ain't no blog.

Here's the update: I'm excited to have a lot of work booked for the next year or so, all orchestration and arranging jobs on some great projects. The biggest one is SHREK, the big green Broadway musical. I'm creating the dance music for it, which is a great great job to have. It won't open in NYC until December 2008, so um.. you heard it hear first!

Playing-wise, I've basically stopped playing the piano in pit orchestras. I got really sick of the grind, and found myself being pigeonholed as a player of other peoples' music, when I'd rather be known as a writer of my own music. Also, after I somehow ended up onstage in "The Coast of Utopia" I think I got spoiled. Pit musicians don't have dressings rooms, and they don't get to bow...

So instead, playing-wise, I've been concentrating on more concert work, which is more varied and fun. I have a lot of concert stuff this fall and winter with some great performers like John Lithgow and Jason Danieley. And in January, I'll be doing some concerts with Kelli O'Hara at Lincoln Center.

I recently started recording a new album of my own new songs. Last batch I put out was over two years ago now. I did a bunch of demos in NYC this week and will be recording power-trio style with Damien Bassman on drums and Nicholas D'Amato on bass in November. I'm excited about that because I have played with those guys live for years, but we've never actually recorded all together.

I've also been working on the new Jukebox Saloon album with singer Colby Beserra. Our first album was a piano/voice duo project, but this new one will have bass and drums. We're working up radically re-arranged songs by Living Colour, Feist, Van Halen, Fiona Apple, Tom Petty, Shelby Lynne...

What else? I dunno, I'm still single and lovin' it. I still live in the West Village and love that. I still love R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" even if you're over it (come on, the Chapter 22 phone whisper fantasia? AMAZING).

And this still ain't no blog.

DL

Back in June, I had a big throwdown concert at ye olde Ars Nova Theater in NYC. It was raining, and you weren't there. Luckily, the entire concert is now online for your listening pleasure:

LISTEN HEAR

I had a great band for the night, and a gaggle o' guests. We did the Brazilian jazz thing with Eliane, and the country thing with Jason Danieley. Martha Plimpton cooed a Bee Gees song and also rocked a duet with Colby Beserra, in from Chicago, on a song I wrote with Gavin Creel. We also performed songs I've written with Sloan Just, Brian d'Arcy James, Clarke Thorell, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and David Rossmer.

And LISTEN HEAR TOO for some rough demos of new songs, recorded in Chicago a few weeks ago.

DL

I played on John Lithgow's latest album for kids, THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET, featuring Madeliene Peyroux and Maude Maggart. It's nominated for a Grammy (Best Children's Album). A few fun video links: The Making-Of doc has a lot of footage of us in the studio. And there's also a TV appearance we did on the CBS Early Show.

On Saturday night, I performed with Audra McDonald at Carnegie Hall. Check out my Carnegie experience here, summed up in 6 quick pix:

http://danlipton.com/carnegiehall.html

Since I've scored a bunch of short films it would be a waste of MySpace to not use the VIDEOS feature. I uploaded 4 shorts for your viewing enjoyment:

Cheap Camera- music video for a song from my album Life In Pictures, directed by Jeff Yorkes.

Keep Clear- a 2 minute short by director Corey Rosen that screened at film festivals across the US.

Winner's Cup- a 1 minute short that won Jeff Yorkes a Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker Award and played during movie previews on the big screen.

The Waiting Room- a romantic string overture scores the opening scene of a 20 minute short by Reif Larsen (I only posted the opening scene).

or MR. LIPTON GOES TO WASHINGTON


No matter who the President is, if you get to perform for a President at the White House, it's an honor. On February 6, I went to D.C. to accompany Audra McDonald at an appearance in the East Room of the White House. It was a TV program for PBS that will be aired in a few months. There was a dinner that night honoring Arthur Mitchell, the founder of Dance Theater of Harlem. The DTH kids and teens were all there to perform for the President on this TV special. The evening was introduced by the First Lady and included performances by The Reverend Al Green, opera singer Harolyn Blackwell, country pop star LeAnn Rimes and Audra. Each did two songs, one song with DTH dancers and one song without.


My day started at Penn Station. The 9:30am train left a little late, so instead of checking into the hotel we were driven straight to the White House for soundcheck/rehearsal.


Security clearance at the White House is funny. A bomb-sniffing dog was set loose on our car. They had our personal information 3 weeks ago (and had probably been spying on me) so clearance was quick and easy. Then you get a VIP pass like you're backstage at a rock concert, and you flash it at the White House picture on the security door. It's all very Disney World, actually.


This was by the back door, or a side door, I dunno. We were in the East Wing. I caught a glimpse of the White House screening room, which was set up for use as a coat room for the evening's dinner/event. We were shown the evening's green room, downstairs in the East Wing. That hallway is lined with the First Lady portraits.


The East Room was very small, yet big enough for a craned TV camera to swoop around. Within 20 minutes of getting off the dumpy Amtrak, I was in the White House playing Gershwin's "Summertime." I had never done this arrangement with Audra before, and we barely ran through it once. They followed her for some camera moves, we did her second song, and that was it.


We had been promised a tour of the house, but that wasn't to be. We were whisked out pretty quickly. I had, at that point, worked for about 10 minutes. This biggest, most important gig of my life was paying me more than any other gig, ever. Yet it was the most no-brainer, 2 song, easy easy EASY night's work. You can't beat this!


I had a nice large room at the Four Seasons in Georgetown. Dinner at a great Moroccan yet slightly Asian kinda restaurant called Mien Yu. Then got in my tux and was driven back to the White House.


The green room was the plateware collection room, where you can look at Rutherford B. Hayes' silverware, Kennedy's wine glasses, Truman's soup bowls, you get the idea. There were also all kinds of historical curiosities all over the room, and every room. What looked like the first lighter, for a primitive cigar, was encased in the corner. It was from 1847 and was about 3 feet tall. There were busts of Presidents and other founding fathers all over the hallway. But when I first walked into that plateware green room, who did I see sitting there but the Reverend Al Green!


I sat right down with Al and his piano player and started shooting the shit. There was a fancy dinner going on upstairs where everyone was dining on Kobe beef, but down in our little room it was the most typical spread ever. Cheese/ham, crackers, grapes, coffee, potato chips, soda I mean, you'd think we'd be treated a little better, no?


We all thought the show was starting at 8pm, but I glanced at the itinerary and noticed it wasn't until 9pm. So I basically hung out with Al Green for almost 2 hours. And he was a great hang. The guy's got stories for days, opinions, music coming out of him, never stops smiling, always joking around, gets deep on a whim and he'd performed at the White House 5 times.


That's when it occurred to me that, hey, maybe I'll get to come back here and perform for another administration... cool.


LeAnn Rimes moseyed in, she had a whole entourage with her. Manager, publicist, stylist, husband, pianist, etc. Didn't meet her, though she seemed perfectly nice. She munched on chips and ham... I will say that neither she nor her entire white entourage said a word to frickin' Al Green! Come on people, it's Black History Month at the White House and the Rev. Al is chillin' with the plateware! That's the table I want to be at, and that's where I stayed.


All the accompanists were led up to the East Room first. That was interesting, because it was a country pianist for LeAnn, a Memphis soul black dude for Al, a classical pianist for Harolyn Blackwell, a dance accompanist for the Dance Theater of Harlem, and then me... and I'm still the youngest, by far! We were sitting on the side of the stage near the piano and I had a TV monitor showing me the TV-special-to-be as it was going on.


The Bushes sauntered in from dinner with the rest of the crowd. It was a mix of his administration, supporters and associates of the Dance Theater of Harlem, and rich people. There couldn't have been much more than 100 people in the room. I was sitting about 10 feet from the President. He looked good. Fit, healthy, tan. So did Laura Bush. At one point I looked GW square in the eye. I think he might have stared into my soul...


Across the aisle from GW was Bill Frist. Behind him, Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. Closer to my neck of the room, Alberto Gonzales, NY Governor Pataki... The absurdity of this entire situation became clear when the mostly black and Latino dancers, with many effeminate lookin' young male ballet dancers, took the stage. Apologies to my Republican friends, but I couldn't believe I was in this room of conservative power, showing their fake support for a decidedly liberal cause, largely for political balance and some Kobe beef.


I also couldn't believe what gets Bush and his cronies' feet moving. The worst musical moment of the evening was a DTH dance to a recorded version of Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All" sung by a B-list male Babyface imitator. It was ridiculously awful. Yet that was the one that Bill Frist and GW seemed to groove to the most. He also obviously perked up when LeAnn Rimes took the stage. Someone he knew!


Audra wore a diamond peace sign necklace, which certainly got a steely look from Bush when we took the stage. My name was not in the program with the presidential seal, but I was announced. So the President has heard my name, looked me in the eye, and heard me play Gershwin.


Then it was time for Al Green. His first song was a complete misfire. It was one of his minor hits, and he and his pianist were not together at all. It fizzled out after a verse and a chorus and the room got very awkward for a second. I couldn't believe this legend I had hung out with all night was bombing.


But his second song was "Let's Stay Together" and though his voice sounds expectedly weathered and old, his performance of it was pretty magical. He worked the room like a Reverend does, talking back between the lyrics. And at one point he thrust the microphone toward Bush for the big high falsetto note, and BUSH SANG IT! The room roared. It was a moment that couldn't possibly have been planned. It was very Clintonian of him, I must say.


The show ended with all the rest of the performers and many DTH dancers onstage with Al Green. Thats when DTH founder Arthur Mitchell pulled up Laura Bush to dance, and Mitchell's wife pulled up the President. So you have all these people on a very small stage, within feet of each other: George Bush, LeAnn Rimes, Al Green, Audra, a lot of dancin' kids, I'm telling you, this was a surreal lookin' stage!!


Back down in the green room I got to shake Al Green's hand again. Audra changed back into her jeans pretty quickly and we were driven back to the hotel. Our driver all day was not Secret Service, but he's SS-approved, and has remote buttons in the car that make some road blocks around the White House disappear. That's power. Room service splurge that night, breakfast in bed the next morning, then back to NYC on an Amtrak.


To see a dozen pictures of this madness:
http://danlipton.com/whitehousetrip.html

I made a new page on my Two Straws Music site called Listen Hear. It will be where you can hear what you missed, for free. For example, if you wanted to come to Mo Pitkin's last night, but had a dinner party/card game/appointment TV/cheap sex/family gathering/don't live in NYC, not to worry! At Listen Hear, you can check out highlights from the gig. I put 7 up there from last night, from our 13-song set. We did a few brand new songs that I just wrote last week. We also did 2 covers, an Air song and Beck's "Tropicalia." It was a great set. Relive it vicariously through your computer. Listen Hear will sometimes have gig highlights and sometimes have random new stuff I'm working on... enjoy the music. twostrawsmusic.com/listenhear.html danlipton.com DL

I came home with some turkey, a little cucumber salad, good apple pie and a couple of chocolate brownies. Not too shabby. Got a ride back to the city with Tony and Becca, who had never heard R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet." Obviously, I had no choice but to buy the DVD of Chapters 1-12 and baptize them by fire.

I just spent way too long making this little page fun n' detailed. Must get some sleep...