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68 - The Michigan Daily - Wa4e , k. - Thursday, December 7, 1995

SHAHAM
Continued from Page 1
said, for skipping three years of gym
classes. In order to graduate, he made
a deal with the program director to
play fiddlemusic forthe seventh grade
square dance class every week for his
senior year. Was the diploma worth
the fiddling? "Well, you know, now I
know all these tunes."
Other tunes Shaham knows, such
as Beethoven's "Sonata No. 1," "So-
nata in A by Franck" (which Shaham
calbs 'the Frank Sinatra') and "Sonata
in F" by Dvorak, are on tomorrow's
program.
The recital, a venue he loves and
wishes he played more of, will be
played on Shaham's prized posses-
sion, his 1699 Stradivarius violin. The
instrument is a strong motivation for
his'schedule of 100-plus concerts per
year. The price-tag of Stradivari can
run into six figures or higher.
Shaham will be accompanied in the
concert, something of a family affair
held under University Musical Soci-
ety; auspices, by his younger sister,
Orli.
Orli Shaham, a talented pianist, has
played at the Spoleto Festival in Italy,
toured Japan and has given several
Armerican recitals. She entered
Julliard's Pre-College at age eight,
and is currently continuing her col-
lege studies at Columbia University
and Julliard, balancing schoolwork
with touring.
"She's much more responsible than
I am," said her brother.
This is the first year that Orli and
Gil'Shaham have given concerts to-
gether, and Gil is enjoying the experi-
ence. "When we rehearse, we hardly
have to say anything because we know
exactly what the other one's think-
ing," he said.'
"When we were little, we spent a
lot of time together. I moved out of
the house, she moved out of the house,
we went our own separate ways. We
miss the abuse we used to inflict on
each other... so now we get to annoy
each other on the road.
"She ,gets the bigger dressing room,
but that's fine. I don't have a problem
with that. I carry her luggage. That's
okay. I'm cool with that. And she gets
the bigger hotel room but that's okay.
She's my little sister and I want just
the best for her, he joked.
Touring with a sibling has had its
high points and its misunderstand-
ings. At a performance in Aspen, a
man told Shaham, "You know, your
daughter is a very talented pianist."
An audience member in Arizona, as-
suning that the two were married,
asked how the musicians met. "Well,
you know, one day mom came back
home from the hospital and she
brought Orli with her, explained
Shaham.
really don't know," he replied
who'n asked how he exactly decided
on his career. "That's the question
th0amusicians ask themselves all the
timt. Every day you wake up and you
thik, 'Is this really what I wanttobe
doi~ng.
A'pparently, the answer is yes.
Shaham likes the life of a musician.
H e likes picking up frequent flyer
pohits. His very -favorite aspect of
berg a soloist: "Ifyou play Thursday
night and it's a pretty short overture,
yo~can be at the hotel by Seinfeld."
'When Seinfeld goes off the air?
When his violin is, if ever, paid off?
Can, Shaham see himself touring and
playing for years into the future?

"Yeah sure," he said after some
thought, as if surprised at the possi-
bility. "It's fun."

4

Regarding Henry: Ron Silver takes on
role of Kissinger in new cable movie

Los Angeles Times
As an actor, Ron Silver found it lib-
erating to play Henry Kissinger in
"Kissinger and Nixon," TNT's latest
original movie premiering Sunday on
the cable network. Thanks to a fantastic
makeup job and wardrobe, some judi-
cious padding and a perfect accent, the
Tony Award-winning actor ("Speed the
Plow") bares an uncanny resemblance
to the influential national security ad-
viser and secretary of state under Presi-
dent Nixon.
"I leaned heavily on wardrobe and
makeup," says Silver, between bites of
his bagel in his Four Seasons Hotel
suite. He found it helpful to transform
himselftotally into Kissinger, "because
quite often in my own acting- I would
say in American acting in general -
you wind up taking a character and it
conforms to your own personality.
"Having a mask like this gets you
into a different type of acting. It's

KISSINGER AND _-
NIXON
Sunday, Dec. 10 at 9 p.m.
TNT
almost classical in terms of Greek
(theater). Once you put on the mask,
it's amazing the amount of subtlety
and exploration you can do because
you have the mask."
By wearing the Kissinger "mask,"
Silver was able to go outside himself
"in the best sense of the word" and
reach out for the character. "What it
did for me was force me to do some-
thing that I should always do, and
that's to lean heavily on your imagi-
nation. Not only your imagination,
but lean heavily on taking chances
and being much larger, bigger and
going for it. Really going for it and

not being afraid. Having the mask can
give you some courage to try to do
something like that without the fear
of failure constantly in your face. For
some reason, it is a very distancing
experience."
Based on Walter Isaacson's
bestseller "Kissinger: A Biography,"
the movie also stars Beau Bridges as
Nixon, Matt Frewer as Alexander
Haig, Ron White as H.R. Haldeman
and George Takei as Le Due Tho. Dan
Petrie Sr. directed from Lionel
Chetwynd's script.
(Ten days after "Kissinger and
Nixon" airs, Oliver Stone's highly an-
ticipated feature film "Nixon," with
Anthony Hopkins in the title role, opens
in theaters. Two years ago, TNT was
first out of the starting gate with its
acclaimed "Geronimo" project. A few
weeks later, Columbia's
"Geronimo"opened to mixed reviews
and poor box office.)

Ron Silver, shown here in last year's "Timecop," plays former Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger in a new TNT original movie.

Comedian.s' Generic Variety
Show is anytbing but generic

"Kissinger and Nixon" focuses on a
critical moment in history - August,
1972, to January, 1973 - when
Kissinger was determined to end U.S.
involvement in Vietnam.The president,
however, wanted to make sure that Viet-
nam would not be used to win the White
House.
Silver, who has a master's degree
in Chinese from St. John's University
and the College of Chinese Culture in
Taiwan, has been involved in politi-
cal causes for years - ranging from
environmental to anti-nuclear issues.
As a student, he was interested in
working in government intelligence.
But Silver didn't take on
"Kissinger" simply because he is a
political animal. "I am interested in
good roles regardless of what they

are," he says. But, he adds, "This was
one of those rare occurrences when
the marriage is between your avoca-
tion and what you spend your time
doing. It was a a real gift for me
because I was familiar with his work
over the past 25 years. (Government
service) is what I intended to do."
Silverjust happens to know Kissinger
socially. "I was honestly a fan of the
thinking and the work," he says. "We
have some disagreements, perhaps when
he was in the administration, certain
decisions that were made. I like to do
the research, and I was doing a lot of
research in areas Iread forpleasure. We
are both members of the Council on
Foreign Relations. We have done a lot
of work there over the years, so I had
access to lots and lots of information.

By Elan A. Stavros
Daily Arts Writer
If you're stressed about finals and
need a break next Tuesday night, you
may want to pop in at Not Another
Cafe to catch the strangely-titled Ge-
neric Variety Show.
The Detroit-based ensemble, per-
forriing various types of theater from
stand-up comedy to drama to music,
will do their two hour set beginning at
9 p.m. As part of their charity of the
month fund-raiser, the Cafe will hold
"Community Cover Night" for $5.
Half the proceeds will go to Ann
Arbor's Ronald McDonald House,
which gives families a place to stay
while their children are hospitalized.
"I've heard that they're really tal-
ented," Cafe manager Eiad Swidan
said. "I'm excited to see them."
GVS members, ranging in age from
23 to 28, produce, write, direct and
design sets for all their own acts. The
five actors include company manager
Kate Peckham, head writer Chuck
O'Connor, artistic director Daniel
Jacobs, booking agent Jim Shanley
and technical/financial director John
Hawkinson.
The cabaret-type group have all
been friends since they met in high
school. As actors they became frus-
trated with their opportunities for cre-
ative expression in the area and formed
their own company three years ago.
Since then, they've frequented non-
traditional theater venues like bars
and coffeehouses to eliminate the per-
ception that theater is only for the
upper-class.
"I used to go the theater and think,
'Where are all the people my age?"'
said O'Connor.
"It's a great feeling to try something
with your friends. We're doing the
things that interest us," he continued.
"We mirror the style of early Second

City and even Whoopi Goldberg's early
stuff." They've also been compared to
"Kids in the Hall," "Mad Magazine"
and a more extreme form of "Saturday
Night Live."
Peckham, a long-time friend of
O'Connor's, is the newest addition to
the group. An accomplished actress in
her own right, she has been nominated
twice for the Detroit Free Press Theatre
Awards.
COMMUNITY i y
COVER NIGHT
with GENERIC
VARIETY SHOW
Where: Not Another Cafe
When: Tuesday, Dec. 12 at 9 p.m.
"Kate's a great actress, really phe-
nomenal,"O'Connor said. "They took
my position (as company manager)
because I leaked information to the
Russians. They say I'm paranoid too."
The Generic Variety Show's pro-
ceeds from the Not Another Cafe per-
formance will go towards the produc-
tion of their first original play next
spring in Detroit.O'Connor describes
the play as "a comedic tragedy. It's

expressionistic realism."
Special guest and friend Mark Gra-
ham will be doing a stand-up half-
hour comedy routine as an opener for
the Variety Show on Tuesday.
"The Show, like Graham's, is raw
for legitimate theater. We fall through
the cracks," O'Connor said. "This
makes it immediate to our generation.
We're more rock and roll. It's a big
risk creatively."
The best part about the company,
O'Connor said, is "being able to cre-
ate our own material, from genesis to
completion. When you're an actor,
like a sports player, you fulfill plays
the director wants. It's not creatively
fertile."
O'Connor said he'd be happy to con-
tinue doing this for the rest of his life,
provided he could make a decent living
at it. In the meantime, GVS members
freelance as professional actors to keep
their careers going. Hawkinson and
Jacobs are studying at the University of
Detroit under scholarships.
"One day at a time, and we'll see
what happens," O'Connor said of the
group's future. "We're entrepreneurs.
I've worked with a lot of people and I
never want to work with anyone else."
"Though we do other projects, we
always come back to our home," he
said.

Atlantic's Coltrane box set
a 'Heavyweight Champion':

By Brian A. Gnatt
Daily Music Editor
In a day and age when even Ted
Nugent can have a box set for reasons
unknown to any non-Michigander, true
artists and innovators can easily get lost
amid the trashy "Cat Scratch Fever"
crap.
But with the release of "The Heavy-
weight Champion: The Complete At-
lantic Recordings of John Coltrane,"
Rhino Records easily proves that John
Coltrane damn well deserves this amaz-
ing seven-disc set chronicling every
note the legendary jazz innovator re-
corded for Atlantic Records.
It's hard to put into words how much
Coltrane influenced - more or less
directed - jazz to what it remains as
today. His freeform soloing streamed
from his saxophones almost magically,
in a way that hasn't been surpassed by
any otherjazz musician since his death
from liver cancer in 1967.
"The Heavyweight Champion" cap-
tures Coltrane in the prime of his ca-
reer. Including every track he ever re-
corded for Atlantic, the set chronicles
Trane's 1959-1961 stint with the label.
It was in those post-be-bop and pre-
experimental years that he recorded his
masterpiece albums "Giant Steps" and
"My Favorite Things," which the set
includes, along with "Coltrane Jazz,"
"Bags & Trane," "Ole Coltrane,"
Coltrane Plays the Blues," "Coltrane's
Sound" and "The Avant-Garde" as well
as the posthumous releases "Coltrane
Legacy" and "Alternative Takes."
The first six discs of the collection
are made up of previously released
material, all placed in order by the dates
the tracks were recorded, rather than by
which order they appeared on the al-
bums.
The seventh disc of the set is entirely
raw studio takes from the "Giant Steps"
sessions, made up of 25 outtakes and
unfinished takes of "Naima (Alternate

Version),""Like Sonny (Alternate Ver-,
sion),""Blues to Elvin," "Blues to You,'-
and nine different attempts at "Giant,
Steps." While the beauty of the final
versions of the songs are all
unsurpassable, the alternate versions,
studio screw-ups, false starts and in-
complete versions make the collection
that much more exciting, especially
when Trane can be heard conversing
with producers and musicians between'
many of the takes. The different ver-
sions of the tracks that were cut short -
for one reason or another are awesome,
primarily because you can hear the
changes Coltrane made in each song
before he arrived at the final and famed
album versions.
Besides the music, the set's finest
merit is in its glorious and elaborate
packaging. The first six discs all have
different cover photos, while the out-
takes are packaged in a replica record-
ing studio tape box with original notes
from the "Giant Steps" sessions written
on it. The set also includes a hardbound
CD-size 74 page book with dozens of
color and black and white photos, a
brief biography, and liner notes wntten
by numerous Coltrane producers,
friends and relatives.
But it's the music on "Heavyweight
Champion" that shines most of all.
Coltrane's musical progression from
1959-1961 is clearly captured on the:
set, defining his period of free jazz
between be-bop prophet Charlie Parker
and the avant-garde visions of Ornette
Coleman and more recently John Zorn..
The Coltrane box is undoubtedly one
of the finest sets of the year, catering to
Coltrane addicts as well as passive jazz
fans curious about the genre's origins,
With its more than an hour of never-
before-released material and ten albums
worth of classic jazz sweetness, "The
Heavyweight Champion" is undoubt-
edly worth every penny. Treat yourself
or someone else for the holidays.

.

. . r.,..Y...


Members of the Generic Variety Show go ... er, shoplifting. Come check out their
unique show at Not Another Cafe next Tuesday.

Chart a Course for Success at
Boston University
International Graduate Centers

lMasteu of ftcienceflegrees In



Lauagement
aund

9 -

kV0-

00090! ,
m ,

2155. STATE ST.

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