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2.3.09

Fun with Ethan and His Orchestra

Humor, spot-on observations of life, love, Tupperware, pets, and many unexpected twists... Ethan Lipton brought his orchestra to the Vermont Arts Exchange's Basement Music Series in Bennington, Vermont, on Saturday night and blew us all away. I awoke the next morning with a smile, thinking about Greg Aguilera, the king of accounting, so wry, so good.

Lipton, a New York-based singer, songwriter, and playwright, masterfully weaves sophisticated often hilarious parables from the simplest moments in our lives, what will really fit in that Tupperware container or as in the tune Old People Don't Whisper, the beauty of growing old together is, we become more alike (he gets large breasts and she grows a beard).

Ethan Lipton continues a long tradition of observational story telling: John Prine, Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman, Frank Zappa, the Gershwins. He cherishes the mundane, and with whit, charm, and tight back-up from Eben Levy on guitar, Ian M. Riggs on bass, and Vito Dieterle on sax, the simple and mundane become the puzzle pieces we've been searching for and Ethan has had them in his pocket all along.

Update: New York Magazine's best lounge act! Cool Ethan.

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