Best Jazz Recording 2001 | FaithFred Hess/Boulder Creative Music Ensemble | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Jazz Recording

Faith
Fred Hess/Boulder Creative Music Ensemble

Instrumentalist/bandleader Fred Hess has been among Colorado jazz's saving graces for a generation. Better yet, the years have dimmed neither his talent nor his musical curiosity. Faith (Cadence Jazz) finds Hess and a collection of impressive collaborators working at yet another creative peak.

Best Theater Company Season

Artistic director Nicholas Sugar has returned the Theatre Group to a high level of quality -- something the organization, best known for producing plays at Theatre on Broadway, has lacked since it expanded some seasons back. This past year, Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing was a competently acted tale that took an inviting look at first love's discoveries, exultations and tumults; Diana Son's Stop Kiss explored a budding relationship between two young women and overflowed with episodes that defied stereotype and transcended curiosity; David Rabe's A Question of Mercy was an unflinching examination of AIDS and assisted suicide; and Howard Crabtree's When Pigs Fly was a lighthearted musical revue that enjoyed multiple extensions of its original run. Thanks to Sugar's leadership, this all bodes well for the future of provocative but tasteful entertainment.

Best Ozzy Cover by a Country Act

"Crazy Train"
The Railbenders

This up-and-coming honky-tonk band plays the stuff that made Buck Owens, Johnny Cash and their peers famous. Like those artists, the 'Benders know a sense of humor is a key ingredient in successful classic country. The group's re-creation of Ozzy Osbourne's classic "Crazy Train" on its solid debut, Southbound, is a mind-bending thrill; it's funny, devoutly twangy and downright wistful. This is one train worth riding.

Best Local Appearance by a National Author

Dave Eggers

After his mother and father died, 21-year-old Dave Eggers was left to raise his younger brother -- a situation that he turned into a best-selling memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. The cutting-edge tome inspired Amy Slothower, a fundraiser for the Webb-Waring Institute for Cancer, Aging and Antioxidant Research, to invite Eggers to come read at a fall fundraising event for the Denver-based institution. But Eggers did more than just read: At the end of the evening, he pledged a $100,000 donation to Webb-Waring. And his contributions didn't end there. The Vintage paperback version of his book includes an appendix that offers an update on Eggers's life -- including his visit to Webb-Waring last fall. "I felt I'd wasted decades," he writes. "I wanted to drop everything to move to Denver and become their Igor, sleeping on a basement cot."

Best Musical Revue

Ain't Misbehavin'

Director Hugo Jon Sayles's choice to present Ain't Misbehavin' as a New York City "rent party" lent the collection of Depression-era tunes a laid-back informality that made audiences feel at home from the first note. The Broadway musical revue paid homage to the works of legendary blues man Fats Waller, the son of a high-profile minister who denounced jazz as a product of "the Devil's workshop." Thankfully, the top-notch cast, backed by a sparkling three-piece band, expertly blended the sublime with the risqué. And while their individual abilities impressed, the singers displayed even greater virtuosity during group numbers that ranged from riotous to soul-stirring.

Best Movie Theater -- Food

Cinema Grill

Tired of cold hot dogs and overpriced nachos that wind up in your lap every time Sylvester Stallone blows something to smithereens? Aurora's Cinema Grill offers an alternative: a selection of salads, burgers, subs, pizzas and grilled-chicken dishes served to you, at table, while you take in a feature film. The fare may be second-run, mind you, but here's the chance to catch a flick you missed earlier, projected on a big screen while you chow down. The food is by no means spectacular, but it's honest enough, and if you'd like to wash it down with beer or wine, they have that, too. The swivel chairs are comfortable, and the price is right: $2 for matinees, $4 at night.

Best Colorado Symphony Orchestra Kudos

ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming

It's not the first time Marin Alsop and ensemble have received ASCAP accolades for being different, but in a time when the magnificent Maestra's days in Denver seem numbered as a result of her fire and enthusiasm, it's especially worthy of note, concrete evidence of what everyone's been saying all along: Marin Alsop doesn't settle for sap, though she's willing to allow more popular programming within the confines of a CSO season. But you can also count on her to sprinkle the concert lineup with more difficult and challenging works, meaning you're likely to hear Mahler along with your Rachmaninoff, or a world premiere of Bresnick's Double Percussion Concerto along with the crowd-charmer Pictures at an Exhibition.

Best Sifted History

...becoming non grata

The actors in ...becoming non grata performed each episode in this production as though they had personally lived it -- which, in a way, they did. The collaboratively written piece, which focused on events at the Japanese internment camp at Amache, Colorado, was developed over a six-month period by an ensemble of UCD theater students and guest artists working with professor and director Laura Cuetara. Together they devoted countless hours to research, study and improvisation, editing the material to a length that could be digested in a single sitting. The result was a series of historical scenes and present-day arguments that posed the question of whether some of World War II's most crucial battles weren't really waged at home.

Best Battle Rapper

Kingdom

Over the past year, Kingdom has gone head-to-head with some of the best rappers in the business, including Wyclef Jean, with whom the Royal One faced off during the recent Campus Invasion Tour. Kingdom's skills at the mike also earned him a slot on The Source magazine's battle competition; he didn't claim the winning title, but he won over most of the members of the audience, including the event's producers. No doubt the experience will serve as inspiration for his rhymes. We can hardly wait.

Best Indie Producer

Mike Jourgensen

In addition to fronting the explosively guitar-centric Abdomen, Mike Jourgensen records and distributes music through www.noisetent.com, an indie hub of punk-friendly Denver-based bands including Jet Black Joy, Dumbass Brothers, Stuttering Bishops, Blast-Off Heads, Negative Man, Fast Action Revolver, Tanger and Bio-Bitch. Jourgensen's affordable studio space -- a stone's throw from neighboring Children's Hospital in Denver -- can boast the production of full-length offerings from both the Perry Weissman 3 and the Pin Downs (both of whom appear on Noise Tent 2000 Spring Sampler), as well as fits of experimental passion by the likes of In Ether, Mike Serviolo and Mark Stookesbury. Mastered by the magnificent Bob Ferbrache, this limited-quantity release pays homage to some of the area's hardest-working and most underrepresented bands. Most important, all proceeds help fund a sanctuary for smiling lambs.

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