For Immediate Release: Contact - Jazz for Peace - 212-947-1104

Jazz For Peace™
featuring Rick DellaRatta
to perform benefit concert in NYC for

Little Gem Theatre 
on Sat. May June 5th

at 9:00pm


**Purchase advance tickets now online at   www.JAZZFORPEACE.org
and save 20%!**



Jazz For Peace™ featured in the current issue of
BIG NEWS!

Click here to view the pictures of our sold out concerts



Jazz For Peace™ Concerts featuring Rick DellaRatta continue with a special benefit concert  for Little Gem Theatre on Sat.  June 5th at 9:00pm at Jazz on the Park - 36 W. 106 St. between Manhattan Avenue and Central Park West. Tickets are $25 For details and to purchase advance tickets online for a special discount please go to  www.JAZZFORPEACE.org  or call 212-947-1104 for reservations.

Jazz For Peace™ featuring Rick DellaRatta has been featured on the cover of  UPWARD  , the feature article insert of  BIG NEWS  which is distributed widely in the streets and subways of New York City as well as Albany, NY.

 

One of the things to be most relished about the New York theatre scene is the group of actors who band together and put up a show just about anywhere -- and do it well. Such is the case with the Little Gem Production of The Last Days of Lenny Bruce. Give a couple of AMDA grads free range in a central New York location and they will give you back the world and ... Lenny Bruce.

Most people are not aware of the groundbreaking work of "sick comic" Lenny Bruce, who spent much of his career fighting authorities for the right to perform. History tells that he was the first standup comic to use profanity onstage as part of his act, and that he strove to defuse the violence of bigoted language by constant repetition. This spiel landed the rebel in jail on numerous occasions in the '60s.

Playwright Jonathan A. Goldberg has successfully taken plenty of researched information and created an entertaining evening of revealing and very funny anecdotes of the performer's life and career. Although the piece could be cut immensely, the core is superb.



Under the steady direction of Mark A. Klimko, Ron Palais ambitiously took on the title role and was charming and sexy. He immediately broke the fourth wall and searched the audience for a list of minorities and called out to them by their most offensive names. The majority of the play is done as a standup act, as he pours out his heart about what happened during the highlights of his career.

Nicole Bischoff played the legendary Sally Marr, mother of the famed comic. Although her first-act performance was less convincing, her second act was absolutely breathtaking. Her scenes with Palais in the second act were emotionally rousing.

John Magin, who was merely "featured" in the program, played dozens of characters that were each phenomenal. His portrayal of each U.S. president was priceless, while Brian Dusseau was amusing as Bruce's agent.

Edgar Fox was sensitive and solid in all his roles, particularly as a student from UCLA who comes to New York to pay homage to his childhood hero.

Where Act One was played entirely on a small stage built for a standup comedy routine, the second act was played in the New York apartment of the broken Bruce. Set design (not noted in the program) was simple but effective, and the sound design, by Anthony Sage and Andrew Blasenak, added musical interludes that bridged scenes effortlessly. Bischoff did excellent costume designs. Klimko deftly designed the lighting.

Show-business lore often notes Lenny Bruce as the father of modern standup. This piece tells the story of how and why he came to earn his reputation, and how the conservative society of the times prevented him from doing what he did best. Fans of the unpredictable Chris Rock might find this Lenny Bruce extraordinary.

September 25, 2002, Jazz Pianist & Vocalist Rick DellaRatta was invited to lead a band consisting of: 'Israeli, Middle Eastern, European, Asian & American' Jazz musicians in a concert inside the United Nations, for an international audience. Rick named this band:                                             

                                                   "Jazz For Peace™"

Jazz for Peace's mission is to help advance people to their highest potential through the understanding of Jazz as well as spreading peace through our "Jazz For Peace™ Concerts" worldwide - joining forces (or performing) with multicultural musicians to spread peace through the art form of Jazz and entering regions that are politically controversial. By the means of live concerts, video taping, on hands/on-line teaching as well as supplying musical instruments to underprivileged children in under developed areas worldwide, Jazz for Peace will re-enforce what past history has proven - that the art form of Jazz has the ability to create a positive effect that unites people and may eventually start to transform the barriers and issues of different cultures and beliefs.
For more information please visit www.jazzforpeace.org


Recent Quotes:
"Rick DellaRatta is one of the finest Jazz pianists alive."
               --Savannah Times
"It is actually the quality of DellaRatta's voice that grows on me more & more with repeated listenings. At first I felt that Rick's strengths as a pianist were foremost, but with time I have come to understand that Dellaratta's skill as a vocalist is not to be underestimated. "His voice has quite a haunting quality to it, being slightly androgenous in tone, sometimes ghostly.... sometimes sexy. "
                --Jen Karpin, Green Mtn Jazz Messenger

".....sure it will be a good show."
               --New York Times Jazz Forum