Guitarist Gregory Goodloe Is 'In This Love'

It’s a fragrant love affair and on the eve of Jazz Appreciation Month, R&B-jazz guitarist Gregory Goodloe composed a fervent song of love and appreciation that drops as a single on Monday from Hip Jazz Records. Goodloe wrote “In This Love” with producer Jeff Canady to covey his ardor and affection as well as his gratitude for the gift of music.

“For as long as I can remember, you have been a great part of my life. As long as you stay with me, I know that I will love you all of my life. Unspeakable melodies, harmonies, tones, and major and minor keys have given me inspiration every day. ‘In This Love’ is dedicated to devotion to a way of life, and a deep love of music. Let me pass it on,” said Goodloe, who topped the Billboard singles chart for the first time in 2019 with “Stylin’,” receiving more than four million Spotify streams.

Poetically lyrical guitar verses and impassioned improvised solos drive the funky rhythm track, soulful groove and vibrantly cascading choruses on “In This Love.”  With Goodloe’s classic cool jazz electric guitar in the fore, Canady’s sturdy drum beats, Robert Skinner’s rubbery basslines, Demetrius Nabors’s keyboard melodies, and Gary Johnson’s rhythm guitar decorate the track with lush sound.         

“I have loved music for as long as I can remember. It’s always been a part of me and my soul. I’ve learned one thing in life and that is music can bring us through our ups and downs, through our good times and bad. My love, devotion, and dedication to music have brought me to respect music and the love that it brings to the world. I feel so blessed to be able to share my expression of music,” said Goodloe, a Denver native.

“In This Love” is Goodloe’s second consecutive single with Canady. They teamed up on “In Paradise” in 2021. Earlier releases include collaborations with multiple Grammy-nominated saxophonist Darren Rahn (“Stylin’”), seminal urban-jazz keyboardist Bob Baldwin (“Cool Like That”), Billboard chart-topping guitarist Adam Hawley (“Somewhere Out There”), and Barbadian saxophonist Elan Trotman (“Step’N Out”).

Growing up strumming the guitar to Wes Montgomery and George Benson records, their presence is heard and felt in Goodloe’s recordings. He played drums and guitar through high school and while attending Bishop College, an HBCU in Dallas. After serving in the United States Army, Goodloe embarked on a recording career, debuting in 2016 with the single “All The Way.” Goodloe has performed at premier jazz festivals and has shared the stage with Howard Hewett, Tank, Ben Tankard, Norman Brown, Dave Koz, Brian Culbertson, Michael McDonald, James Ingram, Roy Ayers, Shirley Caesar, Angela Spivey, John P. Key, The Rance Allen Group and Larry Dunn of Earth, Wind & Fire fame, a fellow Denverite. Goodloe hosts his own radio show, “Mile High Smooth Jazz,” which airs on World Wide Jazz Radio.

For more information, please visit https://gregorygoodloe.com.

A Review: Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992

 

By Darlene Donloe

 

 

On March 3, 1991, the severe beating of Rodney King, a Black man, by four white members of the Los Angeles Police Department was caught on video. 

 

The incident would not only be the catalyst for nationwide police reform, a year later, on April 29, 1992, but the acquittal of the four officers involved in the beating also sparked the Los Angeles uprising.

 

Playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith wrote a show about the beating and the subsequent sequence of events that turned Los Angeles upside down and increased the strain on racial relations. To enhance the show, she brilliantly used the voices of the hundreds of people she interviewed for the one-woman production she performed. In the show, she embodied 40 different characters of various ethnicities, ages, races, and genders.

 

The play was called ‘Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992’. At the time it was a solo show that was originally commissioned by Center Theatre Group – making its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum in May 1993. 

 

The show enjoyed a good run including a production at The Public Theater followed by a Broadway run and two Tony nominations. There was also a national tour mounted at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and a film produced by Smith and others in partnership with PBS.

 

Smith’s reimagined ‘Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992’ returned home to the Mark Taper Forum on March 15, 2023,  this time with an impressive ensemble cast. 

 

In this incarnation, five diverse actors take the stage - portraying several of the 320 interviews conducted by Smith with politicians, activists, police, jurors, shopkeepers, and countless other Los Angelenos including now Congresswoman Maxine Waters and former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates.

 

All of the dialogue in the show is spoken by real people and is verbatim from the interviews – unless otherwise noted. 

 

The show, which explores the five days following the Rodney King verdict and how the uprising affected Angelenos, delves into the long-simmering tensions that set the stage for the L.A. uprising and explore the community as a whole.

 

The stories in this show go beyond black and white. It’s about the human spirit, which goes beyond any color lines.

 

As intense as the show is with its themes of racial injustice and police brutality, Smith interjects moments of humor, which allows the medicine to go down a little lighter.

 

It’s a heavy play, which shows the long, torturous moments that King endured the vicious blows of the LAPD. 

 

It brings up painful memories and powerful feelings of anger and frustration at man’s inhumanity to man.

 

On this particular night, the mostly-white audience gasped and said, “My God,” as if watching the beating for the first time.

 

It also shows footage of the moment Soon Ja Du, a Korean store owner shot 15-year-old Latasha Harlins in the head because she thought the teen was trying to steal some orange juice. The footage does show the teen punching the store owner in the face but it also shows her walking away – leaving the store – only to be shot in the back of the head.

 

And then there’s the raw footage of the attack on Reginald Denny, the white truck driver who was pulled from his vehicle by a group of Black men and fiercely beaten.

 

All of the persuasive videos make for an uncomfortable, disturbing night of theater. 

 

Although it’s a challenging and complicated show to ingest, ‘Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992’ isn’t to be missed. It continues to beckon with its in-your-face truths.

 

Anna Deavere Smith

When the verdict was read in the Rodney King case, Smith, named playwright in residence at the Signature Theater in 2019, was in New York at the Public Theater for the premiere of her documentary-style drama “Fires in the Mirror.” Smith said she is convinced that the unrest in Los Angeles is the reason her one-woman play about the 1991 riots in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was a success.

 

It’s 30 years after the Rodney King incident and, unfortunately, nothing has changed. Black men are still being beaten by police, and quite disturbingly sometimes by Black police officers.  

 

To her credit, Smith, a longtime NYU professor, doesn’t offer any answers. She doesn’t side with any of the situations. Instead, she leaves it up to the audience to come up with its own conclusions.  It’s a thought-provoking piece. Watching a reimagined interpretation may give some audience members a different perspective on what they originally saw, heard, or believed. 

 

Director Gregg T. Daniel’s steady directing hand imparts a touching, compelling, and passionate show.

The cast seamlessly shifts from one character to another, which isn’t always an easy achievement.

 

‘Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,’ conceived, written, and revised by Anna Deavere Smith, and directed by Gregg T. Daniel, stars Lisa Renee Pitts, Jeanne Sakata, Hugo Armstrong, Lovensky Jean-Baptiste, and Sabina Zuniga Varela.

 

On the DONLOE SCALE: D (don’t bother), O (oh, no), N (needs work), L (likable), O (oh, yes), E (excellent) ‘Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992’ gets an E (excellent).

Running time:  2 hours, 30 minutes, including one 15-minute intermission.

 

‘Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,’ The Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, 8 p.m., Tuesday-Friday; 2:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., through April 9; $35-$105. They are available through CenterTheatreGroup.org, Audience Services at (213) 628-2772.

 

The Hollywood Bowl Summer Season Schedule

The Hollywood Bowl Summer Season schedule has been released - and it's diverse and full of some of the music industry's stellar performers.

The annual Jazz Festival will take place on June 17-18, and already boasts a lineup that includes Kamasi Washington, Leon Bridges, West Coast Get Down, St. Paul, and others.

Of course, the usual suspects will still take that stage including great classical, jazz, and world music, including Maestro of the Movies with John Williams (July 7-9), and multiple KCRW Festival dates (with some artists still TBA). Dudamel the L.A. Philharmonic will also take the stage.

Single-event tickets have not gone on sale yet.

• On sale right now are a handful of concerts (Louis Tomlinson, Jill Scott, King Gizzard, and the Lizard Wizard) plus new subscriptions and renewals, along with group sales.
• “Create Your Own” packages open on March 14.
• Single ticket sales start May 2.

Below is the summer season schedule

June

June 10 (opening night): Janet Jackson + Ludacris

June 17-18: Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival

June 21: King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard

June 22: Jill Scott

June 24: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

June 25: The Game Awards 10-Year Celebration

June 30: Louis Tomlinson (formerly of the boy band One Direction)

July

July 2-4 July 4th Spectacular with the Beach Boys

July 6: A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Dudamel

July 7-9: Maestro of the Movies: John Williams with the L.A. Phil

July 11: Dudamel conducts Verdi’s Requiem (L.A. Phil + L.A. master Chorale)

July 12: Charlie Wilson with En Vogue

July 13: An Ellington Celebration (L.A. Phil)

July 14-15: Kool & The Gang and the Village People

July 16: Sparks + They Might Be Giants

July 18: Estancia with Dudamel (L.A. Phil + Grupo Corpo)

July 19: Diana Krall

July 20: Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky with Dudamel (L.A. Phil)

July 21: Café Tacvba with the LA Phil

July 23: Reggae Night XXI (KCRW Festival)

July 25: Rhapsody in Blue (L.A. Phil)

July 27: Pictures at an Exhibition (L.A. Phil)

July 28-29: Quincy Jones’s 90th Birthday Tribute: A Musical Celebration

July 30: Everybody Rise! A Sondheim Celebration (Hollywood Bowl Orchestra)

August

August 1: All-Rachmaninoff (L.A. Phil)

August 3: 2001: A Space Odyssey (L.A. Phil + Los Angeles Master Chorale)

August 4-5: Walt Disney Animation Studios: The Concert (L.A. Phil)

August 6: Portugal. The Man + Chicano Batman + Say She She

August 8: Elgar and Beethoven (L.A. Phil)

August 9: Joe Bonamassa with orchestra

August 10: Sibelius and Grieg (L.A. Phil)

August 11: Rubén Blades

August 12: Carla Morrison 

August 13: Maggie Rogers + Alvvays

August 15: Symphonie fantastique (L.A. Phil)

August 16: Gladys Knight

August 17: Shostakovich and Dvořák (L.A. Phil)

August 18-19: Tchaikovsky Spectacular

August 20: My Morning Jacket + Fleet Foxes

August 22: Chris Thile and Appalachian Spring

August 23: Herbie Hancock

August 24: Joe Hisaishi and La mer

August 25-26: Culture Club

August 27: Smooth Summer Jazz with Dave Koz and Friend

August 29: Beethoven at the Bowl (L.A. Phil)

August 31: The Four Seasons (L.A. Phil)

September

September 1: Star Wars: Return of the Jedi in Concert (L.A. Phil)

September 3: Air Supply and Michael Bolton

September 5: Mozart Under the Stars (L.A. Phil)

September 6: Buddy Guy and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram

September 7: Bach and Mendelssohn (L.A. Phil)

September 8-10: Maxwell (Fireworks Finale)

September 12: The Planets (L.A. Phil + Pacific Chorale)

September 13:  Jacob Collier with the L.A. Phil

September 16: Sing-A-Long Sound of Music

September 17: KCRW Festival with artists TBA

September 20: Promises featuring Floating Points with Shabaka Hutchings

September 24: Los Auténticos Decadentes + More TBA as part of KCRW Festival