Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Nightlife roundup: The endearing Frankenstein monster CHRISTEENE beguiles, the MINGUS BIG BAND continues a master’s legacy

• By drediman
• February 4, 2026
• No Comments

Often to supplement my performing arts outings, I cap the night off with a late night performance palette cleanser at one of New York’s many nightlife entertainment venues. Over he past week or so, such excursions have included discovering the endearing and beguiling Frankenstein monster that is Christeene, as well as sitting back to listen to the jazz outpouring of Mingus Big Band as it continues to celebrate its namesake master’s legacy. As per usual, read on below for my further thoughts.

CHRISTEENE: MMXXVI
Joe’s Pub

If Harvey Fierstein, Britney Spears, and Marilyn Manson were somehow to audaciously have a love child, it would have to be Christeene, whose sold out tour-de-force show — entitled MMXXVI — I recently caught at Joe’s Pub (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED). As part of the Joe’s Pub Vanguard Residency curated by Justin Vivian Bond, the show is both queer-forward and dedicated to keeping the spirit and legacy of downtown avant-garde performance alive. In MMXXVI, this singular Frankenstein monster creation mashes drag show, performance art, industrial punk concert, and artful cabaret, intersecting them in the most combustible of ways. The result is a strangely uplifting performance of in-your-face originality that begs to be experienced. As a newbie to Christeene’s underground brand of artistry, I was beguiled by the fascinating new facets they brought out of such popular and alternative songs as R.E.M.’s “Drive”, Sinead O’Connor’s “Streetcars”, Tori Amos’s “Sugar”, and Laura Branigan’s immortal anthem “Gloria”, even occasionally altering their original meaning as befits the moment. Despite the raw, confrontational performance style and the seemingly chaotic outrageousness of it all, Christeene is underneath it all a thoughtful — and I would even dare to say, endearing — artist with a firm grasp of their craft. Suffice to say, I’m hooked.

MINGUS BIG BAND
Birdland Jazz Club

Then uptown at Birdland Jazz Club — that prolific Theater District presenter of jazz and other forms of nightlife entertainment — I also had the opportunity to catch a concert by the busy New York City-based Mingus Big Band (RECOMMENDED). In just about an hour, the 14-piece ensemble blasted through a tight set of historically significant, crowd-pleasing jazz numbers. Created by Sue Mingus as a dynasty music group to keep the legacy of her late husband — the legendary Charles Mingus — alive and well beyond his passing, the big band has found considerable success on its own, both domestically and internationally, even bagging a Grammy Award in 2011 for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album for Mingus Big Band Live at Jazz Standard. Commencing the late school night show I attended was “Boogie Stop Shuffle”, which was rendered with restless and prowling rhythm. Also on tap were the swinging “Sue’s Changes” — a soulful dedication to the aforementioned Sue Mingus — as well as “Pinky” (or “Please Don’t Come Back From The Moon”), an outlandishly dissonant excerpt from Mingus’s epic Epitaph suite (a Gunther Schuller collaboration that’s typically associated with the jazz master’s large-scale orchestral recordings). Changing gears to a more tender mode was “Self-Portrait in Three Colors”, before the evening thrillingly wrapped up with “Moanin’”, a signature work for baritone saxophone.