Torme and Windom captivate Hult audience
By Jonathan Siegle
Of ttm Emerald
Mel Torme and William Windom
brought their different brands of solo
entertainment into the Hult Center Sat
urday and Sunday, to end a weekend of
entertainment as varied and different as
Sun Ra and Scandia Festival
Mel Torme is a rarity — a white, male
jazz singer His contemporaries, the pop
singers of the 1940s and 50s are either
dead or passe, or like Sinatra, have lost
their voices Torme's remains pure and
facile The human voice as an instrument
was made to improvise, whether it be an
Italian aria or a be-bop scat
For the older folks in the audience he
sang standards and ballads He sang
tributes to Johnny Mercer and Jerome
Kern, his favorite lyricist and composer
respectively He sang tributes to Ella
Fitzgerald and Fred Astaire of all people,
but the thrill came when he cut loose on a
riff
Torme is an entertainer He can be
very corny, but he knows how to play an
audience — and Saturday night s wanted
to be played with It lay on its back like a
happy hound and let Torme scratch its
belly
The high point of the evening may very
well have been when Torme sang a satire
of the Cole Porter's '‘You're the Tops ”
He introduced it saying, "There are times
I just don’t feel like singing a love song —
sometimes just the opposite " Then he
cut loose with "You’re the Pits.”
Torme's success may be attributed to
both his refusal to compromise his music
and his unique position in the jazz world
For him, at least, it may be said there is
none other like him
His contemporaries, he says, "fol
lowed the path of the crooner, the vocal
sex symbol " They chose the fame route
for quick popularity Torme today is in
top form, enjoying greater popularity and
having a whole lot of fun
Torme performed in front of a hot trio,
featuring Jay Lenhart on bass and Mike
Renzi on piano Sunday night William
Windom performed the first of his two
one-man shows of the works of James
Thurber in front of a quiet trio, an old
typewriter, a small table, and a stool
Windom is a warm, friendly man His
portrait of the wry, witty Thurber is mas
terfully low key It is typical of Thurber's
life, that this writer who gave so much to
American culture is played with such
quiet grace
Thurber gave us Walter Mitty, the man
who put the fantasy world in the diction
ary For years, Thurber wrote essays,
fables, stories, and reminiscences of his
Photo by Dave Kao
Chilean artist Victor Paz will have his realist paintings on display in the EMU through Thursday
Chilean realist’s paintings on display
The works of Chilean painter Victor Paz, a noted realist,
remain on display in the EMU's mezzanine level through
Thursday
This is Paz's first American exhibition. The 33-year-old
artist emphasizes the physical elements of his subjects in
their visual setting, while incorporating emotion to "strike a
balance between that which is real and that which is pictor
ial,” Paz says
“It is not enough to do a work of art; I must conceive a
work of art. he says "A work of art is life made into art "
Influenced by the work of Rembrandt and contemporary
realist Claudio Bravo. Paz views himself as a promising figure
among a new Chilean generation of painters
Paz will travel to San Francisco at the completion of his
current exhibition, where he will meet with other realists, then
return to Chile to continue expanding his work
youth in Columbus, Ohio. His many car
toons often played upon two themes,
weak men and dogs
Thurber's life and works were drama
tized briefly on television in the series
"My World, and Welcome to It." William
Windom played Thurber. When the show
was canceled, Windom began doing his
one-man shows on the road
Among the pieces Windom chose were
tales of two police dogs chasing a
leopard, Thurber's rules for a happy
marriage, a weary scientist discussing
life with a lemming, a 50-year-old man
reliving an experience with a bully when
he was 13, and Walter Mitty
Thurber's wit and gentle criticism
stood out before Windom's understand
ing portrayal After discussing life a
while, the scientist asked the lemming
why they all kill themselves The lemming
asked the scientists why humans don't
Modern Times
Theatre slates
Hiroshima play
The EMU Cultural Forum will present
Modern Times Theatre's production of
"Hibakusha Stories from Hiroshima, on
Wednesday, Nov 3 at 8 p m in the EMU
Ballroom —^
The New York-based c o m p a n
recently has finished a highly successful^*®*
off-Broadway run with good reviews.
"A saga of love and courage the
acting is as impassioned as the writing,"
wrote the New York Times.
Set in Hiroshima, spanning the years
1948 to 1968, the play takes its title from
the Japanese word for "victims of the
bomb " Ostracized by their fellow
Japanese after the war, the Hibakusha
banded together to help one another and
to educate the world about the plight
As one bomb victim explains, "The
question we ask ourselves is not why so
many die. but why did we survive? And
we ourselves must be the answer to that
question "
The play is drawn from meticulous
research into journalistic and scholarly—^
accounts of the bombing, and 28 chaij^*
acters join to tell the story of one couplP®^
and the effects of the bombing on their
lives
We must go on talking about these
things and not fall into silence," says
company member Steve Friedman, the
author of the play
In the play the power of the subiect
matter and the commitment of the actors
combine for a moving and memorable
evening of theater
Tickets for the play, priced at $3. are
available at the EMU Main Desk More
information is available from the Cultural
Forum at 686-4373
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