LA and OC Weirdo Music and Art Forum

Website: https://www.theworldstage.org/events.html

We saw Jacques Lesure at the recent Coltrane tribute at UCLA.

Jacques Lesure (often phonetically searched as "Jacques Leisure") is an acclaimed American jazz guitarist, recording artist, educator, and radio host with a career spanning over 30 years. Known as "The Guitarlospher" for his unique blend of music, philosophy, and spirituality, he has established himself as a major figure in the Los Angeles jazz community.

Musical Style & Career Highlights

• Roots and Influences: Born in Detroit, Michigan, Lesure originally cut his teeth playing gospel guitar at age 10 for legendary acts like The Clark Sisters and Commissioned. He transitioned fully to jazz in 1980, heavily influenced by traditional masters like Kenny Burrell, George Benson, Grant Green, and Wes Montgomery.
• High-Profile Collaborations: He has performed and recorded alongside giants of the genre, including Wynton Marsalis, Jimmy Smith, Stanley Turrentine, Eric Reed, Warren Wolf, and Gregory Porter.
• Silver Screen Appearance: Jazz fans might recognize him from his appearance in the Academy Award-winning musical film La La Land.

Discography

Lesure is a prominent artist on the WJ3 Records label, owned by drummer Willie Jones III. His notable albums include:
• A Crenshaw Christmas (2010)
• When She Smiles (2013)
• Camaraderie (2015) – Feat. Eric Reed and Warren Wolf, earning critical acclaim and a 4-star review from DownBeat Magazine.
• For The Love of You (2017)
• Jacques Lesure Live At Lavender Blue

Education & Community Leadership

Beyond the bandstand, Lesure is dedicated to preserving jazz as a foundational African-American art form. He shares his knowledge as a lecturer in Global Jazz Studies at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Additionally, he serves as the Arts Commissioner for the city of Inglewood, California, and is the former president of the African American Jazz Caucus.

A FREE symposium at 2:00 pm prior to the event will take place with engaging conversations with leading experts in the music of Steve Reich and Minimalism. Register here.

Venue: UCLA Schoenberg Hall, 445 Charles E Young Drive East
Los Angeles, CA 90095

Free, but you must RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/steve-reich90a-concert-celebrating-the-visionary-american-jewish-composer-tickets-1998800940419

By Milken Center, Music of American Jewish Experience

Steve Reich@90: A Concert Celebrating the Visionary American Jewish Composer

Join the Milken Center for a 90th birthday celebration featuring the music of Steve Reich, one of the leading composers of our time.

Please join the Milken Center for a gala 90th birthday celebration featuring the music of Steve Reich, one of the leading composers of our time, and a paradigmatic musician of American Jewish experience. Works to include Eight Lines, Know what is above you, WTC 9/11 and Tehillim.

A symposium prior to the event will take place with engaging conversations with leading experts in the music of Steve Reich and Minimalism. Register here.

Interested in hearing more Steve Reich music? uclaFLUX, the School of Music's contemporary chamber music collective (Wendy Richman, Director), joins the Milken Center in presenting a second program of the music of Steve Reich on December 5, 2026. The concert features three large ensemble works (Runner, Traveler's Prayer, and Daniel Variations, in memory of journalist Daniel Pearl) led by Director of Orchestral Studies Neal Stulberg and graduate student conductors; and New York Counterpoint, for SATB saxophone quartet and tape. This program—which serves as uclaFLUX's Fall Quarter concert, in addition to honoring Reich in his 90th birthday year—will feature over 30 School of Music student performers. More information here.

This concert is part of UCLA's 90th birthday celebration of Steve Reich. See all our events here.

Free but you must register:
https://wendemuseum.org/event/exhibition-opening-competing-cosmologies-interpreting-the-sky/

visit the Wende Museum for the opening of Competing Cosmologies: Interpreting the Sky on Saturday, November 7.

12 p.m.: Curator-led tour

2 p.m.: Opening speeches

3 p.m.: Opening reception

Co-curated by the Wende Museum’s chief curator Joes Segal, associate curator Emma Diffley, and NASA historian Lois Rosson, Competing Cosmologies explores how new discoveries in space exploration during and after the Cold War have inspired visual artists around the world. Its four sections, Astronomy, the Space Race, Futurisms, and Aliens, bring together artists from the East, the West, and the Global South and trace how they responded to advances in space science and technology and connected these discoveries to their own cultural contexts.

The exhibition combines historical artifacts, including a full-scale model of Sputnik-1, an original meteorite, and cosmos-themed sculptures, with contemporary and Cold War-era artwork inspired by the cosmos.

Artists include Pyotr Belenok, Nuotama Bodomo, Chesley Bonestell, Beatriz Cortez, David van Eyssen, Bettina Forget, Chitra Ganesh, Mark Steven Greenfield, Lia Halloran, Jitish Kallat, Paul Laffoley, Alexei Leonov, Aaron Samuel Mulenga, Truong Minh Quy, Sun Ra, Leo Raudys, Ionel Talpazan, Fedir Tetyanych, and Li Tianbing.

Competing Cosmologies is on view through October 17, 2027.

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 100% positive rating

A breathtaking adaptation of the manga series by renowned manga artist Jirô Taniguchi and writer Baku Yumemakura, THE SUMMIT OF THE GODS follows a young Japanese photojournalist, Fukamachi, who finds a camera that could change the history of mountaineering. It leads him to the mysterious Habu, an outcast climber believed missing for years. Fukamachi enters a world of obsessive mountaineers hungry for impossible conquests on a journey that leads him, step by step, towards the summit of the gods.