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This Issue 07/05/2001

Also in this issue

• Dido headlines but Travis takes the stage
• MOVIES: Cats and Dogs
• Nostalgia Overdose

Avenue Artists 2001 is a summer tradition on the Avenue of the Arts. The idea
behind it is this: every Friday afternoon until August 17, a different artist will put
on a free lunchtime open-air concert on a different corner along S. Broad Street
each week. All this to drum up business for the theatres, hotels and retail stores
along the Avenue.

This past Friday, a very small audience gathered on the corner of Broad &
Chestnut in front of the Tower Records store to listen to Philadelphia natives

Doug Slick, Richard Orr, Jimmy Parker and Gregg Wright on trombone, clarinet,
sousaphone and banjo, respectively. The music was distinctively Dixieland, a
form of up-tempo music that originates in New Orleans.

It seemed, though, that the lunchtime crowd didn't quite know how to feel about
looking down the barrel of an 80-year old sousaphone, a rather large
instrument. Some people were looking for a hat in which to drop their spare
change. Of course, there were the lunchtime rushers who were irritated at the
vast reduction of passerby space on the already narrow sidewalk. But some
people were indeed "shimmying on by" as the promotional flyer for the concert
series suggests they should be.

Also on the roster for this summer are classical, jazz and samba performers. If
you've got a half an hour or so to spare any Friday at 12:30, why not waltz or
jitterbug or tango on down the Avenue.