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Article: Strains of a Marriage; At Kennedy Center, the Sad Notes of 'Side Man'
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- November 5, 1999
- Author:
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Appropriately enough, the strongest moment in "Side Man," which
opened last night at the Kennedy Center, is a purely musical one. The
side man of the title, Gene (Michael O'Keefe), and two of his
musician buddies are listening to an amateur tape recording that
captured the legendary last trumpet solo of jazz great Clifford Brown
a couple of hours before he died in a car crash.
The playing is extraordinary--dizzying, almost skittish, but with
the punch of a boxer--and, as the sound swells from the tiny tape
recorder to take over the Eisenhower Theater's sound system, the
three men are transported to a different and finer world.
In spite of this scene and its setting in the world of on-the- ...