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Music
04/25/2012
03/16/2012
Tickets On Sale Now! Don't wait, this is a limited engagement May 2-20 for Chicago Audiences
Ticket Link is http://www.victorygardens.org/onstage/butterfly.php
07/14/2011
Roar of the Butterfly Plays L.A. August 17-20
Celebration Theatre is thrilled to announce the Los Angeles premiere of THE ROAR OF THE BUTTERFLY, with book, music and lyrics by Spider Saloff. An award-winning artist, Ms. Saloff also stars in this one-woman play which is produced by Matthew Oltman of Chanticleer. This limited-run production will take place Wednesday, August 17 - Saturday, August 20, 2011 at Celebration Theatre, 7051B Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Direct from the show's Australian tour, THE ROAR OF THE BUTTERFLY is a one-woman play with original music starring Spider Saloff. The book, music, and lyrics are also by Spider Saloff. Based on a true story, this musical comedy is a tour de force with characters everyone will fall in love with.
In the tradition of Lily Tomlin and Tracey Ullman, Ms. Saloff portrays eight different gender bending characters in this hysterical and moving new show. The scene of the show revolves around a memorial service for Butterfly, an Asian drag queen who has been a colorful and inspirational character in the lives of the attendees-an unlikely and diverse group, all of whom are portrayed by Ms. Saloff.
THE ROAR OF THE BUTTERFLY is a comedy with a message and contains poignant moments touching on subjects of diversity, human loss and dysfunctional relationships. This show is not suggested for children under 13 years old without an adult.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Heard world wide as the co-star and co-creator of the internationally syndicated Public Radio series Words and Music, Spider Saloff has received critical acclaim nationally and internationally. Recently, Ms. Saloff was featured with the prestigious Chicago Jazz Orchestra in a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald. And as one of the rare officially sanctioned acts of the Gershwin Centennial, her concert, Spider Saloff Sings Gershwin, toured the U.S. and headlined the St. Petersburg Gershwin Festival in Russia. Spider has played such renowned jazz and night club venues as New York's Jazz at Lincoln Center, Iridium, Joe's Pub, Birdland, The Russian Tea Room, Michael's Pub, and The Algonquin, as well as other leading venues include symphony orchestras and concert spaces such as; The Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, Wilmington Grand Opera, Wallingford Symphony, The Castro Theater in San Francisco, and Town Hall.
A five-time winner of the prestigious MAC Award, including one for Best Female Jazz Vocalist, presented by the Manhattan Association of Cabarets, she also received a special citation for her musical contributions from NARAS (presenter of the Grammy Awards). Saloff also has 8 solo CDs released nationally on Kopaesthetics Records. Television and radio credits include: The Bonnie Hunt Show (CBS), The Steve Baskerville Show (CBS), Centerstage (PBS), Artbeat (PBS), Words & Music (syndicated series), a one-hour feature on the Noteworthy Women series (Public Radio), and Studs Terkel (WFMT).
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY ABOUT Spider Saloff:
"She is dynamic, a powerhouse of passion!"
-San Francisco Examiner
"A wicked way with a lyric and a glint of well-controlled mischief."
-The New York Times
"Slyly sophisticated, easily accessible, Saloff stands as a kind of ideal."
-Chicago Tribune
ABOUT THE SCHEDULE AND PRICING
Performances are:
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2011
THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2011
FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 2011
SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 2011
All performances are 8:00PM.
Ticket prices are $35.00 for Wednesday, Friday and Saturday performances.
Tickets price is $30.00 for Thursday performance.
This show is not suggested for children under 13 years old without an adult.
THE ROAR OF THE BUTTERFLY is performed at Celebration Theatre, 7051B Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood. For Tickets, please visit the Celebration Theatre website at www.celebrationtheatre.com or call 323-957-1884.
ABOUT Celebration Theatre
Starting its 29th season, Celebration Theatre is a community of artists dedicated to presenting innovative, provocative and relevant work that examines the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer experience. We endeavor to challenge society's perception of this community and give a vibrant voIce To its evolving identity.
The theatre is located at 7051B Santa Monica Blvd. (1/2 block east of La Brea Blvd.) in Hollywood. For more information, please visit www.celebrationtheatre.com.
05/26/2011
'Spider Saloff prepares for her next big move'
The Butterfly with Roar in Melbourne, Australia & Los Angeles, CA This Summer!
Here is an article published by The Chicago Tribune
Howard Reich, Arts critic - May 26, 2011
When the accomplished Chicago jazz singer Spider Saloff takes the stage at Katerina's on Saturday night, she'll be bidding the city farewell — but just for awhile. "It's really a bon voyage party," says Saloff, who soon will be spending a month in Melbourne, Australia, where she'll unveil her long-in-gestation one-woman show, "The Roar of the Butterfly."
Though Saloff had done previews of the piece last fall at the Wilmette Theatre, when she called the evening "Entertaining Guests," she regards the Melbourne premiere as the official launch of a show that marks a major change of direction in her art.
Or at least a dramatic expansion of it. For though Saloff has devoted her career — until now — to interpreting what's often termed the Great American Songbook, "The Roar of the Butterfly" is built around nine songs she wrote. Moreover, Saloff also penned the book, in which she plays fully eight characters.
"It's based around a (fictional) memorial service for an Asian drag queen named Butterfly," explains Saloff. "But the people attending the memorial all know him from completely different walks of life. It's about how one person's life changes so many others."
This may sound like a far stretch from Saloff's life as a veteran Chicago jazz singer, but the piece — from which she'll sing some excerpts at Katerina's — carries more than a little autobiography. For inasmuch as "Butterfly" examines the after-effects of a life that has ended, it gives Saloff an opportunity to address the sudden, unexpected death of her husband two years ago, of a heart attack.
"In this play, I talk about human loss, and I was able to express the loss of my husband — but through the eyes of someone else," says Saloff, who had been married to Bob Drake for nearly 19 years. "There's a song (in the show) about loss that I'm very happy with. It's called 'Deep Inside the Rain.' "
The beautifully crafted ballad shows Saloff grappling with the pain of losing someone, but also trying to transcend it, through music.
When Saloff began creating her one-woman show, in 2001, she of course had no idea she eventually would be dealing with such heady issues. Back then, the conception of the piece was much more explicitly about her life as a jazz singer and, more important, it was built on well-known songs she had performed for years
Eventually, she put the piece away, only to come back to it in 2008, at that point deciding that she wanted to write her own songs (two of them were penned in collaboration with other musicians). Moreover, she wanted to remove herself as a character in the drama. Ironically, the story she invented better enabled her to probe her emotional inner life, she says, through the guise of characters she has created.
Saloff expects the show to play in Los Angeles late this summer, with a hoped-for run in Chicago in the fall. Until then, Chicago listeners will be hearing her in club and concert settings, such as this weekend's Katerina's date.
How's life on the jazz circuit for Saloff, who moved here from New York with her husband in 1993 and never looked back? "I'm doing fantastic," she says, though getting past the recent second anniversary of her husband's death was challenging.
Apart from that, "I love everything about my life. Yes, I wish I had more money, but who doesn't? "Everybody wishes the jazz business was more lucrative than it is. But that's why I have felt compelled to use my talent in other ways." As in "The Roar of the Butterfly," which later this year should give us a deeper look in to Saloff's art and life.
05/16/2011
"A wicked way with a lyric and a glint of well-controlled mischief." – The New York Times
"Slyly sophisticated, easily accessible, Saloff stands as a kind of ideal." – Chicago Tribune
"Spider Saloff is a gifted and polished song stylist. A most enjoyable musical outing!" – NY Observer
SPIDER SALOFF BIO
Spider Saloff has performed in such nationally recognized venues as New York's Jazz at Lincoln Center, Birdland, Chicago’s Green Mill, San Francisco's Castro Theater, Yoshi's and the Jazz Heritage Center. As one of the rare officially sanctioned acts of the Gershwin Centennial, her Gershwin concert, The Memory of All That, continues to tour the globe including Russia where she headlined the St. Petersburg Gershwin Festival. In addition to her famed Gerhswin concert, Ms. Saloff also tours with own one-woman show entitled The Roar of the Butterfly, which performed in Melbourne and Tazmania, down-under to sold-out crowds, and then on to a successful run in Los Angeles and will open for a limited run in Chicago Spring 2012. Spider Saloff will also tour again with acclaimed biographer, James Gavin, in a show about Chet Baker, called Deep In a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker, which will tour the Midwest fall and winter of 2012/2013.
As a guest artist Ms Saloff has performed at The Smithsonian Institution, Denver Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Jazz Orchestra the Willingford Symphony and at the Wilmington Grand Opera.
Ms. Saloff received a special citation for her musical contributions from the presenter of the Grammy Awards and also is A five-time MAC Award Winner, including one for Best Female Jazz Vocalst.
Discography includes 1938; Sextet; The Memory of All That; Cool Yule; A New Set of Standards; and Like Glass. Her Christmas CD entitled Cool Yule was a finalist for the Indie Awards. Her latest recording, Cole Porter Live at Maxim's, was released in 2008. Spider Saloff and the shows mentioned above are exclusively represented by KMP Artists. More on Spider can be found through kmpartists.com.
MP3 File of a song written and performed by SPIDER SALOFF:
Youbetterwatchyourselfwiththatone
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Exclusive Booking Contact for Ms. Saloff 310.734/7079 Los Angeles |
05/15/2011
03/09/2011
Recent Reviews! Raves from Cabaret Scenes Magazine & Chicago Jazz Magazine
Ricky Ritzel & Spider Saloff
Don't Tell Mama
New York, NY
It was S.R.O. at Don't Tell Mama on December 20 — that stands for both Standing Room Only and the Saloff/Ritzel Outrageousness, also spelled LOL. It was the reunion of two who've been longtime friends and musical partners, through shtick and through thin. Reprising some of their sly and daffy routines from yore, newer bits, plus jazzy takes on Christmas songs and the score of Porgy and Bess, it was a pre-holiday feast for fans. The season to be jolly brought many laughs, beginning with their ludicrously languid version of "This Joint Is Jumpin'" with (temporarily) straight-faced pianist-singer Ricky at a pace a snail could beat wherein Spider simply falls aleep. Zzzzzzz. Contrastingly, energy could be wonderfully frantic later. Donning costumes to play nutty characters—like a turban-wearing lady of big ego and very questionable pitch—Spider gamely and glibly played things broadly, bringing broad grins from the crowd. Guest "Babe" Robinson also came on as a wacky woman looking more like a human Christmas tree. Just as silly in his own way, Ritzel did a dramatic reading — Dr. Seuss's Grinch!! The audience also ate up his bit where the chipper, twinkling-eyed entertainer pluckily plunks out "You Can't Have Everything" and self-interrupts to burst into wonderfully corny jokes, like the one about cannibals eating a clown, asking "Does this taste funny to you?" It all tasted plenty funny. And, all kidding aside, Spider was in splendid voice for the serious ballad "You Go to My Head." Denise Andersen on lights and sound made it all look and sound like an old vaudeville show. And the friendship felt onstage and among returning fans and cabaret regulars in the audience was evident. Marvelous stuff! Maybe you CAN have everything.
Rob Lester
Cabaret Scenes
---ALSO---
Chicago Jazz Magazine And Along Came Spider Saloff By Randy Freedman And Along Came Spider Saloff By Randy Freedman Date Posted: March 08 2011
Written By: Randy Freedman
Chicago resident Spider Saloff has a well-deserved reputation as one of Chicago’s most talented and versatile entertainers. Any of her career accomplishments as jazz singer, actress, cabaret performer, composer, radio host, or recording artist would be impressive individually, and together form an extraordinary resume. With the highest of expectations, I braved the freezing single-digit January outside temperature to hear Saloff, accompanied by veteran Chicago pianist Tom Muellner, give a Saturday night jazz performance at Katerina’s Supper Club. Nationally and internationally known, Saloff has won five MAC awards from the Manhattan Association of Cabarets, which included one for Best Female Jazz Vocalist. She has headlined the St. Petersburg Gershwin Festival in Russia with her concert “Spider Saloff Sings Gershwin,” and has appeared at prestigious national venues like New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Russian Tea Room, in addition to San Francisco’s Plush Room, Chicago’s Green Mill, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, and recently M Bar in Los Angeles, with Grammy-winning pianist, Bill Cunliffe.
Saoff has received a special citation for her musical contributions from NARAS, The National Academy of Recording Arts and Science (presenter of the Grammy Awards). Jazz fans and musicians love to endlessly speculate and discuss who is really a “jazz singer” and who is not. Not once however, have I ever heard a clear cut, and practical definition given during any of these discussions. The words improvisation, scat, and interpretation are often bandied about as defining terms, but seldom with same meaning or intent twice. Even when these terms are clarified, if only for the purpose of a particular discussion, there is often no objective agreement as to how “jazzy” a particular singer performance is in those three categories. Someone as versatile as Saloff is almost assured to be included as a subject for these discussions, but Spider prefers to be known first and foremost as a “jazz singer,” which is exactly how I think of her. Saloff and Muellner began their Saturday night performance at Katerina’s, as well as the musical highlights of the evening with a rendition of “Day In, Day Out,” that featured Saloff’s audience capturing exuberance punctuated with a thought provoking Muller piano solo. Other highlights included “The Very Thought Of You,” a mood lightening “‘Deed I Do” and “Honeysuckle Rose” (which began slowly and methodically, then progressed into a lively fast dance hall-style performed perfectly by Muellner).
These three songs all offered a showcase for Saloff to show her ability to scat.n”Makin’ Whoopee” was clearly sung by Saloff to draw laughs from the audience, and she got them in bunches. Saloff varied her phrasing from soft and romantic on “Prelude To A Kiss” all the way to sexy and sultry on “Caravan.” In addition to her clever manipulation of voice and phrase common to the best jazz singers, Saloff adds body language, facial expression, hand gestures and a provocative verbal jazz narrative delivered as much for humor as for historical perspective. This is probably why some snooty self-styled “jazz purists” might like to affix Saloff with a “cabaret-only” label, but the basic uncomplicated high quality of her vocal performance keeps it from sticking and leaves Saloff regarded by many critics, including this one, as one of the most outright enjoyable female jazz vocalists working today.
Spider's performance proves that the phrases ‘jazz singer” and “consummate entertainer” are not mutually exclusive. For more information contact: spiderjazz.com or katerinas.com.
Chicago freelance writer Randy Freedman is a jazz connoisseur, photographer, food critic, humorist, and devoted music fan. He is a regular contributor to Chicago Jazz Magazine. Don't miss anymore Chicago Jazz Information. Subscribe to Chicago Jazz magazine / Get A Free CD.
03/02/2011
Celebrate Chet Baker on Saturday, March 19
March 19th, 6:30pm at Katerina's Supper Club (1920 W Irving Park Rd, Chicago, IL)
Deep In A Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker
A narrated concert featuring the author of Deep In A Dream, James Gavin
Featuring vocals by Spider Saloff with Dennis Luxion, piano, Art Davis, trumpet
RESERVATIONS REQUIRED BY CALLING 773-348-7592
www.katerinas.com
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James Gavin, a contributing writer to the New York Times since 1992, has been published in Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, TV Guide, JazzTimes, Town & Country, and other periodicals. His second book (DEEP IN A DREAM) went into its second printing in its first five weeks. It has been covered in the London Times, the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, the Wall Street Journal, and numerous other publications. 02/05/2011
01/21/2011
Spider Saloff LIVE at the M Bar Hollywood
[Hollywood, Calif.] -- January 21, 2011 -- Nightlife Legend SPIDER SALOFF Performs at M Bar & Restaurant (Hollywood, CA)
Reservations: (323) 856-0036
Spider Saloff sings at Hollywood's M Bar. One of New York's top jazz and cabaret singers, she's a five-time winner of the prestigious MAC Award, and has recorded seven critically acclaimed albums. She's equally renowned for her immaculate vocal phrasing and her comic stage banter. Spider is the co-star and co-creator of the internationally syndicated public radio series Words and Music.
Quotes & Highlights
- "Rarely have I heard so many musical ideas from one set of pipes with the talent and self assurance to carry them off. Her musical phrasing is flawless." --Back Stage Magazine
- "A wicked way with a lyric and a glint of well-controlled mischief." --The New York Times
- "Slyly sophisticated, easily accessible, Saloff stands as a kind of ideal." --Chicago Tribune
- "Her voice takes on a lovely Billie Holiday-like quality. Saloff will win you over completely." --New York Post
- "It's apparent she's a performer of depth... she demonstrated her impressive jazz skills [with] a sudden outpouring of high notes." --Chicago Sun-Times
- "Saloff's flexible pop soprano pipes are tops." --Variety
- "She is dynamic, a powerhouse of passion!" --San Francisco Examiner
Venue:
M Bar & Restaurant
1253 N. Vine St. Hollywood CA 90038- Phone:
- 323-856-0036
- Website:
- http://www.mbarhollywood.com
According to owner-actor Joe Reynolds, the "M" stands for music, martinis and mangia (Italian for "eat"). Enter through red velvet drapes to find a speakeasy-like interior dripping in dramatic red, from the vinyl booths to the server's micro-miniskirt. The crowd is eclectic and the mood is bohemian--low lighting, high artistic vibe.
