Live music from Ben Folds will be on the menu along with exquisite cuisine from top Las Vegas chefs at this year’s Cool Comedy – Hot Cuisine event Thursday, June 5 at the House of Blues in Mandalay Bay. The 26th annual event, in Las Vegas for the first time, is a benefit for the Scleroderma Research Foundation and is hosted by raunchy comedian Bob Saget, the star of TV’s Full House and How I Met Your Mother. The event features stand-up from Saget and former Tonight Show host Jay Leno, along with fine wines and outstanding cuisine from celebrity chefs Susan Feniger, Rick Moonen and Mary Sue Milliken of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters. The event seeks to raise $600,000 for research to help find a cure for the chronic disorder; tickets for the event are $150 for the entertainment only and $500 for dinner and the show. More information is on the Foundation’s website.
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Cool Comedy – Hot Cuisine
Gilmore International Keyboard Festival
Ben will be back in Kalamazoo this spring as one of the headliners at the 25th annual Irving S. Gilmore International Piano Festival, widely regarded as America’s most prestigious keyboard festival. Nearly 100 performances in venues around southwest Michigan will be featured during the three-week festival, ranging from jazz to classical and solo to musical theater. The list of artists in performance reads like a keyboard who’s who, with jazz musicians Barry Harris and Jacky Terrasson, classical masters Andre Watts and Emanuel Ax and nine-time winner John Legend on the schedule. Tickets for Ben’s April 26 performance go on sale February 1 through the festival’s website; see our tour dates page for more information.
Folds to perform at Ringo Starr tribute
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
The David Lynch Foundation, a charity founded by the namesake filmmaker/TV producer/musician, has announced a concert honoring former Beatle and occasional railway conductor Ringo Starr with the foundation’s Lifetime of Peace and Love Award at Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre on Monday, January 20. The concert will feature performances by Ben Folds, Joe Walsh (WB6ACU), Brendan Bensen, Ben Harper, Bettye LaVette and Dave Stewart. The show is being produced by veteran musician/producer Don Was, a Detroit-area native and co-founder of the iconic band Was (Not Was).
The event is part of DLF Live, a performance arts initiative sponsored by the foundation, which provides scholarships so endangered youth, the homeless, survivors of domestic violence and veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder to experience transcendental meditation therapy in an effort to make their lives better. Starr is a longtime proponent of transcendental meditation; his interest dates back to the late sixties when the Beatles studied under the storied Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and which influenced the Beatles’ transformation from the teeny-bopper genre to making magically mysterious music.
Folds has teamed up with Lynch previously, contributing a track to a DLF video and music compilation released on iTunes in 2011.
Individual tickets (at $1,000) are sold out, but tables and sponsorships are still available as of today.
Note: Due to an editing error, an incorrect date appeared for this show in the listing below and on the Tour Dates page. It has been corrected. The Magical Armchair regrets the error.
Related show
Frog Trouble
You’ve seen the greeting cards, coffee mugs and calendars featuring anthropomorphic characterizations of animals in arrangements like “Hippo Birdie Two Ewes” and “Wee Fish Ewe a Mare Egrets Moose”. They’re the creations of artist and musician Sandra Boynton, also known for three gold records and a Grammy nomination for her humorous renditions featuring luminaries such as B. B. King, Neil Sedaka and Brian Wilson. Now, Ben Folds joins Boynton’s co-conspirators on a country collection titled Frog Trouble…and Eleven Other Pretty Serious Songs, now available in stores and online. Folds contributes a track called Broken Piano, a honky-tonk tune about a somewhat out-of-tune upright with eighty-eight keys, six of which don’t play. Besides Ben, musicians contributing to the album include  Alison Krauss, Brad Paisley, Ryan Adams and Fountains of Wayne. You can hear the track and view a behind-the-scenes video at Ben’s website, and purchase the Boynton album from Amazon.com.
Folds to perform at Kraddick memorial
Ben Folds will appear and perform at a memorial service in Dallas, Texas August 15 for the late radio host David “Kidd” Kraddick, who passed away last month. Folds was a favorite of Kidd and his daughter Caroline, who is helping to arrange the event. Kraddick was known to millions of radio listeners through his daily program “Kidd Kraddick in the Morning”, which was based in Dallas. The service, to be held at the AT&T Plaza outside the American Airlines Center in Dallas, begins at 5:30 pm and will feature several musical performances besides Folds’. The memorial, to be live-streamed on kiddtv.com, will be followed by a benefit concert for Kraddick’s children’s charity Kidd’s Kids at the Dallas House of Blues.
