Rogovoy Report For 7/1/16

First things first. For anyone out there planning on going to see Bob Dylan at Tanglewood on Saturday night, as I am, I do want to let you know what you are in for, so you don’t come complaining to me after the fact. You will be hearing almost no songs you associate with Bob Dylan. In fact, unless you’re a hardcore fan, you may only recognize one or two of the 20 songs he will probably play on Saturday night. All together, only four songs – only 20 percent of the concert – were originally recorded by Bob Dylan in the 20th century. Fully 1/3 of the songs Dylan will sing are his renditions of pre-rock pop standards typically associated with Frank Sinatra. Fully one-quarter – five songs – of the set will be taken from Dylan’s most recent album of original songs, “Tempest,” recorded four years ago. The concert will feature only two songs Dylan recorded in the 1960s – “Blowin’ in the Wind” and one called “She Belongs to Me.”  “Tangled Up in Blue” is the only song Dylan recorded in the 1970s that he will sing. Nor will he so much as touch a guitar. He’ll spend most of the concert singing microphone in hand, crooner style. This will be Bob Dylan like you have never seen or heard him before. Consider yourselves warned.

Over in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., the Bard SummerScape Festival opens this weekend with the first of two world premieres. “Fantasque” opens the festival tonight. The new ballet, geared to audiences of all ages, pairs original choreography from John Heginbotham with puppetry and design by Amy Trompetter, set to the music of Respighi and Rossini, running tonight through Sunday, in the Fisher Center at Bard. This weekend also features the opening weekend of the cabaret in the Bard Spiegeltent, with Isaac Mizrahi tonight and Justin Vivian Bond on Saturday night.

On Saturday, PS21 in Chatham, N.Y., presents the eleventh annual Paul Grunberg Memorial Bach Concert, featuring award-winning American violinist and composer Jeremy Kittel and his band in The Tent at PS21 at 7:30pm. Kittel - formerly of the Turtle Island Quartet - composes music drawn from traditional roots, jazz, Celtic, classical, electronic, and other streams.

Also on Saturday night, The Ghost Train Orchestra, which reimagines the wild jazz that came pouring out of speakeasies and cabarets of Chicago and New York City in the Prohibition years of the 1920s, entertains for dancing at the Dré Pavilion at MASS MoCA in North Adams.

Woodstock’s own soul-rock singer-songwriter Simi Stone brings her signature brand of “Mountain Motown” music and her all-star band to Helsinki Hudson tonight at 9pm. Stone’s band includes musicians who have played with Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Gang of Four, B-52s, and Vernon Reid. Simi Stone boasts a huge, versatile voice. She reminds me of Diana Ross, although last time I saw her I closed my eyes and realized that who she really recalls is Jackson Five-era Michael Jackson. She’s a virtuoso multi-instrumentalist, and her violin gives her self-described “Mountain Motown” sound her unique imprint. But she can also sling on a guitar and make that sing, or play various percussion instruments. Or, frankly, she can just shimmy across the stage unburdened by any instrument with the hot legs and sexy allure of Tina Turner. That works, too.