Sarah the Tame

I am a big fan of the Jazz Icons series of DVDs, which has uncovered some of the classic jazz performances of all time. I was looking forward to viewing Sarah Vaughan: Live in ’58 and ‘64 with great anticipation. So, I am sorry to say that I found it a major disappointment.

The first set, filmed in Sweden, is the strangest of the three. Apparently filmed for television, Sarah ends each number by thanking the audience, yet there is no sound of applause. I’m not sure if they later added canned applause or what, but it’s a bit disconcerting as presented here. And Vaughan’s vocals, while lovely and always musical, are simply tame and uninspired. The other set from 1958, filmed in Holland, is clearly in front of a live audience, but the effect is the same: lovely but bland. In the third set from 1964, we see Vaughan in a bad wig and sweating profusely through a somewhat livelier vocal delivery.

While the material she’s chosen - “Misty,” “Lover Man,” “Tenderly,” “Sometimes I’m Happy,” “Maria” (from West Side Story), among others - is impeccable and the group behind her is terrific, the overall effect of the whole is something less than the parts.

The Embodiment of Jazz Violin

Stéphane Grappelli: A Life in the Jazz Century (DVD, 2003) presents a fascinating look at the life of the great Stéphane Grappelli (1908–1997), who, one could argue, was the Louis Armstrong of the jazz violin.

Born in Paris, Grappelli was thrust out into the world at a young age. His mother died when he was four and his father went off to fight in World War One, and the young Grappelli was left at the Isadora Duncan dance school, where he became enamored of the French impressionistic music popular at the time. He went on to study music and busked on the streets of Paris to support himself. He soon gained fame as a violin virtuoso.

It was hearing Joe Venuti play violin in the late 1920s that turned Grappelli to jazz. In the 1930s, he teamed up with guitarist Django Reinhardt to form the famous Quintette du Hot Club de France. His work with the Quintette was to cast a shadow over the rest of Grappelli’s career, particularly after the Django’s death in 1953. He could never quite live up to the legend.

During World War Two, he played in England with George Shearing. He continued to record during his entire life, producing an extensive discography that is impressive in its breadth and variety. He recorded with the likes of Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Martin Taylor, classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin, Dave Grisman, cellist Yo Yo Ma, Paul Simon, and Pink Floyd.

Grappelli’s violin sound is instantly recognizable - a tone pure as a birdsong. He never played a bad note. But his wide range of collaborations and the fact that he played the cocktail hour at the Paris Hilton in the 1960s has left Grappelli with an unjustified lightweight reputation. I would say that his life embodies the history of the jazz violin.

Some might balk at the comparison to Armstrong. Grappelli was certainly not in the ranks of Armstrong as an innovator - Armstrong was a force of nature in jazz without peer. However, Grappelli’s time with the Quintette ranks as one of the high points in jazz history. There is also a parallel with Armstrong in the fact that Grappelli maintained his playing style throughout his life (lack of innovation) and had a reputation as an entertainer, which the jazz cognoscente sniffed at.

This film presents a thorough look at Grappelli’s life, including extensive interviews with the man himself and considerable concert footage. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Oscar Worthy

Oscar Peterson: Music in the Key of Oscar (2004) is a terrific documentary about the legendary jazz pianist. Shot in 1992 during a reunion tour with members of the original Oscar Peterson Trio, Herb Ellis and Ray Brown, the best thing is the generous amount of time we get to spend watching and listening to these greats play. Though all are long in the tooth at this time, they are still playing at a very high level, as cohesive a group as they were in the 1950s.

Interspersed between the song sets are brief snippets of commentary from producer Norman Granz, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, and, of course, Oscar himself. The film looks at his “boy genius” rise to prominence in Montreal, Canada, where he was discovered by Granz in what sounds like an apocryphal story but is apparently true. Granz was in a taxi heading to the airport to fly back to the States when he heard Peterson, then 24 years old, playing on the radio. When he asked the driver who the recording was by, the driver told him it was a live broadcast from a local club. Granz had him turn the taxi around and take him immediately to the club. Shortly thereafter, Peterson was introduced as a surprise performer at a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert at Carnegie Hall.

The film briefly covers the highlights of Peterson’s career, his influences, his experiences with racism while out on tour, and the recognition he finally receives at the time the film was made. It even looks at criticism of Peterson, particularly the charge that he was not an innovator or trendsetter on the piano. The point is tacitly acknowledged, but Peterson never saw this as his role, and the sheer artistry on display makes the point moot. Oscar Peterson is simply one of the greatest to ever tickle the jazz ivories.

A Treasure Trove of Jazz from Norman Granz

Norman Granz was the producer of the famous Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series, a constantly changing all-star jazz band that toured the United States and Europe from 1945 to 1959 and at one time or another included just about every significant jazz artist of the day. He was also a record producer and founder of Verve Records, among other labels.

Granz was born in Los Angeles of Jewish immigrant parents, a background that may help explain his lifelong battle against racism, particularly as it manifested itself in the jazz world of the 1940s and 1950s. He was known for his generosity, both in dollars and spirit, paying his musicians very well and insisting they be treated fairly regardless of the color of their skin. Finally, he was the long-time personal manager of Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson.

If that wasn’t enough of a curriculum vitae, Granz also made jazz films, many of which are gathered together on Norman Granz: Improvisation. This DVD presents a cornucopia of terrific jazz performances spanning the period from 1950 to 1977. The earliest snippet shows Charlie Parker performing with one of his heroes, Coleman Hawkins, and smiling like a little kid as he listens to The Hawk. Other highlights include Ella Fitzgerald and Lester Young from the same early session, Dizzy Gillespie and Clark Terry battling it out on trumpet backed by the Oscar Peterson Trio, Duke Ellington playing for the sculptor Jean Miró on the Côte d'Azur, Joe Pass playing a couple of guitar solos, and Count Basie backing soloists Al Grey, Vic Dickenson, and Roy Eldridge.

The film begins with a short and pretentious featurette about Granz and the artistry of jazz improvisation, intoned with great seriousness by jazz critic Nat Hentoff. Once you get past this bit of fluff, the rest is a feast for the ears and the eyes.

Art Blakey in Paris, 1959

Drummer Art Blakey had a knack for attracting the best young talent to his ever-changing groups, collectively known as The Jazz Messengers. Over the 1950s, 1960s, and beyond, this was a proving ground for musicians to show their stuff. Blakey was often the biggest cheerleader as well as the one setting a perfect backbeat to showcase his soloists.

Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers: Paris 1959, a brief (51-minute) film of a concert date at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, features Wayne Shorter on saxophone, Lee Morgan on trumpet, Walter Davis Jr. on piano, and Jymie Merritt on bass. (The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, by the way, was the site of the premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring in 1913; the choreography by Nijinsky caused such consternation among attendees that the audience rioted.) The group is a study in contrasts in playing style: Shorter stands almost motionless while playing sax and Davis looks almost as if he has fallen asleep at the keyboard. Morgan is much more animated on the trumpet and Blakey is in ecstasy at the drum set.

The playlist includes a couple of Benny Golson tunes - the oft-recorded classic “Blues March” and “Are You Real?” - along with a hectically paced “A Night in Tunisia,” the standard “Close Your Eyes,” and Lee Morgan’s “Goldie.” The standard was the highlight for me, with some wonderful solos from everyone. Merritt is the real surprise, playing some aggressive, rhythmic solos on the double bass. One wonders why he is not better known, but he seems to have recorded with The Jazz Messengers and others for a brief period from 1958 to about 1962 and then disappeared.

The visual quality of the film is nothing to write home about - very contrasty - but it is still a pleasure to watch and listen to this fine group play.

Vintage Dizzy

Dizzy Gillespie: Live in '58 & '70 (2006), part of the Jazz Icons series of DVDs, presents another gem with these two concerts of Dizzy Gillespie. In the earlier date from Belgium, Gillespie is in a small group setting - a fantastic quintet with Sonny Stitt on sax, Lou Levy on piano, Ray Brown on bass, and Gus Johnson on drums. The hip repertoire includes “Blues After Dark” (penned by Benny Golson), “Blues Walk” (Clifford Brown’s ultra-cool favorite), and the standard “Cocktails for Two.” Gillespie is his ebullient self throughout, but it is Stitt who gets the chance to shine, blowing some powerful solos on tenor. He is featured on a wonderful torchy version of “Lover Man.” Dizzy and Sonny belt out a comical vocal on “On the Sunny Side of the Street.”

The 1970 date is from Denmark, where we see Dizzy fronting the Francy Boland/Kenny Clarke Big Band. In addition to Boland on piano and Clarke on drums, the group included, among others, Billie Mitchell and Ronnie Scott on tenor sax; Art Farmer and Idrees Sulieman on trumpet; Jimmy Woode on bass; and Sahib Shihab on baritone. The band may be big, but they produce a wonderfully tight sound on some complex blues and bop arrangements. Gillespie is at ease blowing on all. A couple of Gillespie originals are featured, his Afro-Cuban influenced “Con Alma” and “Manteca.” A special highlight is a smoky, noirish version of Jimmy Woode’s “Now Hear My Meanin’.”

Throughout, the visuals are excellent and intimately close to the performers. The sound is crisp and crackling. Here's a sample - "Blues After Dark" from the 1958 gig.

Blast From the Past: Mark Cantor’s Jazz Films

I had the pleasure of attending Mark Cantor’s “Jazz on Film” presentation on January 22nd here at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco and it was a blast from the past. Cantor is a jazz film archivist who has collected over 4,000 reels (yes, actual film) of vintage jazz performances. He shares programs of these rare films at presentations all over the world, including The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, The International Association of Jazz Record Collectors, Monterey Jazz Festival, Academie du Dance (Paris, France), Festival de Popoli (Florence, Italy), and even the Playboy Mansion.

The San Francisco presentation included twenty-four jazz films from the 1920s up to the 1970s, all presented on the big screen with terrific sound. Sort of puts YouTube to shame. And these are films you’ll see nowhere else. Highlights included violinist Joe Venuti sawing out a swinging version of “Sweet Georgia Brown,” a prancing Lucky Millinder conducting his band in “The Hucklebuck,” and Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers doing “Moanin’” and featuring the song’s composer, Bobby Timmons, on piano. Lowlights (but fun nevertheless) included stripper Ann Corio singing “Pistol Packin’ Mama” backed by the Red Norvo Orchestra and an odd animated Prudential Life Insurance commercial from the 1950s featuring music written by Duke Ellington specifically for the commercial and played by his orchestra. The program also featured a couple of “Soundies,” which were the first “music videos” - filmed in the 1940s, they were played on special film juke boxes.

Cantor has served as a consultant on a large number of music documentaries and feature films. His footage was included in A Great Day In Harlem and Ken Burns’s monumental Jazz. (Burns said that Cantor was an “invaluable asset” to his film.) If you get a chance to catch one of his film presentations, I highly recommend it. You’ll discover some hidden treasures of great jazz that you won’t be able to see or hear anywhere else.

(For those in San Francisco, Cantor will be giving two more presentations at the JCC. Visit their website for more information.)

Miles Plays Miles

Dingo is a little Australian-French film released in 1991 that would probably be lost in obscurity except for one fact - it stars Miles Davis. In the first image of the film, we see John “Dingo” Anderson (played by Colin Friels) playing his trumpet in the Australian outback, which sets up the tension between his life in the middle of nowhere and his dreams of playing jazz. We then see a flashback to John’s childhood in 1969, when a plane carrying legendary trumpeter Billy Cross (played by Davis) lands on a nearby runway and he gets to hear an impromptu jazz concert. John is mesmerized by what he hears and, after he approaches Cross after the concert, Billy tells him to “look me up” if he ever gets to Paris.

Two-thirds of the film is then taken up with John’s current life, twenty years later. He scratches out an existence hunting wild dogs and taking odd jobs to support his wife and two daughters. John also plays the trumpet and leads a band - “Dingo and the Dusters” - that plays a mix of jazz, country, and blues. But Dingo is still not satisfied with his life and he still dreams of going to Paris and playing with his idol, Billy Cross. He has been periodically writing to Cross over the years and sending him tapes of the music he’s playing in Australia. His dissatisfaction with his current life builds - spurred by the visit of a childhood friend who has gone on to financial success in Perth and starts hitting on Dingo’s wife - and he uses money he’s been saving up to fly to Paris.

After initially having trouble locating Cross, and ending up in jail, Dingo finally meets his musical hero. He ends up staying at his house and playing at a small jazz club with Cross, who has essentially retired but is coaxed back on stage. Dingo is a hit and he returns to Australia knowing that he has the musical chops to make it if he wants to.

The story is a little too good to be believed - it's every jazz musician's aboriginal fantasy, to be acknowledged by a master, come true - and the strange mix of hardscrabble outback struggles and big city jazz dreams is jarring to say the least. The real interest is Davis, who basically is playing himself. His character, Billy Cross, is a reticent and world-weary recluse. But when he is on screen, you can’t take your eyes off of Davis. The atmospheric music - by Davis and Michel Legrand - is quite good throughout: more late 1950s Miles than what he was playing at the time the film was made. The playing in the climactic club scene shows that Miles still had it. (Dingo’s playing was overdubbed by trumpeter Chuck Findley, who has played with Buddy Rich’s band, among others.) Miles died the year the film was released.

A Cool Ocean Breeze of Jazz

For anyone who hasn't seen Bert Stern's jazz documentary, Jazz on a Summer's Day (1960), go rent it immediately. This immensely enjoyable film, shot at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, is visual and aural candy. It is equal parts great jazz and people watching and both prove fascinating. The jazz audience of fifty years ago is like an exotic species under Stern's filmic microscope, and you can't take your eyes off the hats and sunglasses, the drunken dancing, the children playing, and the rapt listening. The musical performances are also stellar, with the likes of Thelonious Monk, Mahalia Jackson, Sonny Stitt, Chico Hamilton, Jimmy Giuffre, Dinah Washington, Gerry Mulligan, Anita O'Day, Louis Armstrong, and even Chuck Berry - all filmed with an intimacy that brings you right on stage with the performers. The way the film is put together - cutting between the performances and the people, along with the languorous pacing - make it a kind of work of abstract art come to life. This classic jazz documentary is highly recommended.

Here is a sample of the film - Anita O'Day singing "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Tea for Two."

A Look at Mingus the Composer

Charles Mingus: Triumph of the Underdog (1997) is a fascinating look at the life and legacy of bassist Charles Mingus. It combines concert footage, interviews with fellow musicians and family, and bits of a noirish documentary of Mingus made in the late 1960s. It was directed by Don McGlynn and co-produced by the composer’s widow, Sue Mingus.

     The film is hardly a complete portrait, however. It barely touches on Mingus’s troubled early life. For his own take on this - growing up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles as a mixed-race child whose mother died when he was very young and whose father was abusive - I recommend his autobiography, Beneath the Underdog, which is told partly in stream-of-consciousness quotations and partly in a curious, disembodied third-person point of view. The fractured perspective is disconcerting, but one gets the feeling throughout that Mingus, rather than falling apart, is putting the pieces of his life together. Unfortunately, insights into his musical thinking are few and far between. While one must certainly view his sexual braggadocio in the book with a prophylactic skepticism, Mingus emerges as an intelligent and sympathetic character, someone who had to overcome a great deal to become a great musician.

     In many ways, the film picks up where the book left off. The point it attempts to make is that Mingus should be ranked among the great American composers, and the evidence it presents is pretty convincing. Throughout his career, Mingus had an amazing ability to incorporate ideas and musical influences (classical included) into his own complex tunes. The concert/television footage in the film, from the 1950s to the 1970s, provides tantalizing glimpses, although one wishes that more extensive cuts had been used. None of his songs are heard in totality. Interviewees include his wives Sue and Celia Mingus, musicologist Gunther Schuller, and musicians John Handy, Eddie Bert, Wynton Marsalis, and Randy Brecker.

     His difficult personality is also on display. Mingus was a volatile personality, who could be extremely articulate on almost any topic, a lover and sentimentalist, or a raging and angry man. In one scene, we see him being literally run out of his New York City apartment in the mid 1960s and taken away in a police cruiser. There are also snippets of a documentary (made in 1968 by Thomas Reichman) in which the camera follows Mingus from behind (a la Samuel Beckett’s Film), and he appears as an ominous and shadowy figure wandering down trash-filled streets in the dark of night. I’m not sure what the point of this was, although I have to admit it was evocative.

     Finally, at the end of the film, Mingus’s music gets a little airing out with extended excerpts from “Epitaph,” his posthumous magnum opus. This two-hour orchestral piece was discovered after Mingus’s death from ALS in 1979 and first performed in 1989.

     Although somewhat scattered in its approach to Mingus (who was scattered himself), Triumph of the Underdog is definitely worth viewing for its insights into this troubled genius.

See also: Charles Mingus - "So Long, Eric" (1964) 

Bill Evans in Oslo

Bill Evans Trio: The Oslo Concerts (2006) presents two Bill Evans dates, one filmed at the Oslo Munch Museum in 1966 and the other at the Molde Jazz Festival in 1980. Evans is one of the least dynamic of performers, so filming him playing is almost a waste of film. But the music is a different matter.

     On the 1966 date, we see the younger, nerdy Evans: slicked-back hair, clean cut, glasses with black plastic frames. He plays with his head drooping to the right or with his whole body hunched over the keyboard, almost to the point of making you wonder if he doesn’t have a long-term vitamin deficiency. (He did have drug problems from the late 1950s onward.) He barely acknowledges the audience. But the music displays all the magical, impressionistic lyricism - an almost liquid quality to his playing - that one has come to associate with Evans. Among the highlights are versions of “Stella By Starlight” and “Autumn Leaves.” The interplay among the trio (Eddie Gomez on bass and Alex Riel on drums) seems to be accomplished by mind-reading.

     By the 1980 date, Evans’s diet seems to have improved, and his posture when addressing the piano is merely kyphotic. But like the Beatles did earlier, he has transformed from clean cut to scruffy, now sporting longer, Bee Gees hair and a beard. Here, there is a sense of more warmth and connection with the audience, and this version of the trio (Marc Johnson on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums) also displays some wonderful interplay. Highlights of this date include “Days of Wine and Roses” and “Nardis.” This was one of Evans’s last dates, because he died in September of that year - from complications due to chronic drug use - at the age of 51.

     While I can’t say much for the visual impact of a Bill Evans concert, the music is absolutely top-notch and not to be missed.

A Haunting Miles Davis Film Score

Louis Malle’s 1958 film Ascenseur pour l’échafraud (Elevator to the Gallows) is legendary for a number of reasons. It helped usher in the French New Wave film movement, it made Jeanne Moreau a star, and it has a haunting score by Miles Davis.

     The film is a crime drama about two lovers, Florence (Moreau) and Julien (Maurice Ronet), who plot to murder her husband and run off together. After killing the husband, Julien becomes trapped in the building’s elevator, leaving Florence to wander the streets of Paris wondering what happened. Meanwhile, a young couple steal Julien’s car and go on a joyride ending in another murder, for which, because of the car, the trapped Julien becomes the prime suspect. After various plot twists and turns, all guilty parties are inevitably caught.

     It is a remarkably assured Hitchcockian thriller from the 24-year-old first-time feature director. One sees elements of the New Wave in the seeming offhandedness of the younger couple on their crime spree and in the “natural” nighttime cinematography shot on the streets of Paris. Jeanne Moreau was nearly 30 when the film was made, but this was the first time the camera, and audience, got a chance to fall in love with her expressive face, sad eyes, and pouting lips - a love affair that was to continue through her long career.

     But it is the soundtrack that makes the film most memorable for me. Although it plays during less than twenty minutes of the film, the impact of the moody music is tremendous. Even Malle said, “I strongly believe that without Miles Davis’s score the film would not have had the critical and public response that it had.” Davis just happened to be in Paris in December 1957 as Malle was finishing the film. After agreeing to do the score, he was shown the film a couple of times and then recorded the entire soundtrack over the course of one night, with a band that included musicians that he hadn’t worked with before that trip to Europe (although they toured together at that time).

     This soundtrack represents early inklings of the modal style that Davis was to make such a splash with fifteen months later when he recorded the seminal Kind of Blue. He does away with chord changes and plays the slow and triste melodies (in the key of D minor) over the rhythm section. It was Davis’s first attempt at scoring a film and largely improvised on the spot.

     The impact on the film is felt immediately. It opens with an extreme close-up of Moreau’s face as she talks on the phone with Julien, pledging her love to him as they plan the murder. As the credits role, the quiet wail of Miles on trumpet sets the stage for the star-crossed lovers to fall. A variation on this title tune is played later in the film as Florence wanders at night on the Champs-Élysées. Other times, Miles just uses drums or drums/bass to help build suspense. Finally, when the gig is up at the end of the film, another tragic and moody melody takes us to “Fin.”

     I can’t recommend this atmospheric film highly enough. It is like a fresh baguette slathered in brie and downed with a glass of fine French red, all while contemplating the futility of human existence and love's culpability. For me, and I imagine for all jazz lovers, the soundtrack (available on CD) is what I wait for when watching Elevator. Rather than being truly melancholy, it is exciting to see the mesmerizing images and hear the doleful melodies fit together so perfectly.

     The scene that embodies all the innovative elements of Elevator is the one of Florence wandering the streets at night. They were using a newly available fast black-and-white film, which allowed them to get good exposures at night. Apparently, the cinematographer, Henri Decaë, was pushed along in a wheelchair as he filmed. With the Miles Davis soundtrack and Moreau the very picture of tortured heartbreak, the result is magical.

The Way It Went Down

Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer (2009) is a warts-and-all portrait of the great jazz vocalist, who passed away in 2006 at the age of 87. The film contains a trove of archival footage covering O’Day’s entire career, extended interviews with O’Day, and comments from other musicians and critics. While the filmmakers obviously adore her, they don’t shy away from the darker aspects of her life. Neither does O’Day herself - shy is not an adjective you could possibly apply to her.
     O’Day was born in Chicago in 1919 and was a chorus girl by the age of 17. She claimed a surgical mistake during a childhood tonsillectomy, which excised her uvula, left her incapable of singing with vibrato or able to maintain long notes. This forced her to develop the more rhythmic singing style that she was famous for.
     She got her big break in the early 1940s with Gene Krupa’s band. A short “soundie” musical film from the time shows a young, flirty O’Day upstaging trumpeter Roy Eldridge on "Let Me Off Uptown." She also spent some time with the Stan Kenton orchestra as the lead singer, although it was not always a happy collaboration.
     She launched her solo career in the late Forties, and this was also the start of her drug problems. She was arrested for possession of marijuana and sentenced to 90 days in jail. O’Day was one of the earliest embodiments of the “hip white chick” and she’s even mentioned in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. She asserts that the controversy actually helped her career.
     She recorded her first album, Anita O’Day Sings Jazz, in 1952 for the new label Norgran Records, Norman Granz’s precursor to Verve Records. In fact, it was the label's inaugural record and proved to be a popular success. O’Day recorded a total of seventeen LPs for Verve. At the same time, she was also arrested for possession of heroin, an addiction that would continue into the late Sixties and lead to her designation as “the Jezebel of Jazz.”
     Her appearance at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival propelled her into stardom. Her spectacular performance of “Sweet Georgia Brown” while decked out in a short black dress and showy ostrich-feather hat is featured in Bert Stern’s documentary Jazz on a Summer’s Day, where she steals the show. This performance is shown in full here as well. After this, she continued to record in the 1960s and toured extensively overseas, particularly in Japan.
     She nearly died of a heroin overdose in 1968; in fact, she was pronounced dead before being revived. This experience convinced her to kick the habit. She is quite matter-of-fact about her drug addiction in her 1981 memoir, High Times, Hard Times, and in this film she refuses to sentimentalize or moralize about it. During an interview on the Today show, host Bryant Gumbel sanctimoniously delineates her many hardships: "Your personal experiences include rape, abortion, jail, heroin addiction..." She cuts him off - "It's the way it went down, Bryant" - the icy emphasis on the final “t” in his first name chills any attempt to elicit “valuable lessons learned” from her life. She’ll have none of it.
     This film shows her to be not only a great vocalist and hip white chick, but also - there’s no better way to put it - a tough broad. Her later career was uneven, as was her voice (intonation was not her strong suit), but she continued recording right up to the end - her last LP was the aptly named Indestructible! (2006). 
     Life of a Jazz Singer contains some great vintage material of O’Day: versions of “Let’s Fall In Love” and “Boogie Blues,” as well as “Love For Sale” and “Trav’lin’ Light” with a Japanese big band. Also included are a lightning-quick “Tea For Two” and a sensuous “Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square” from a 1963 Swedish performance. My personal favorite is a version of “Honeysuckle Rose” from a televised concert in Tokyo from 1963. The video quality is mediocre, but the performance is a swinging, joyous experience.

John & Julie & Julia

Julia Child made me a blogger.
     At the beginning of this year, I watched Julie & Julia. For those of you unfamiliar with the film, it concerns a young woman in Queens, Julie Powell (played by Amy Adams), who is feeling that her life has stagnated. To break out of her doldrums, she decides to cook her way through Julia Child’s tome, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in the course of a year - 524 recipes in 365 days - and to blog about the experience. The movie then jumps back to Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep) in late-1940s Paris, who is also looking for something to do with her life. After several unsuccessful attempts at procuring an avocation, including hat making, she finally enrolls in the Cordon Bleu cooking school, where she sticks out like a broken drumstick as a tall, uncouth, loud American - who fearlessly attacks every cooking challenge.
     The story cuts back and forth between the stories of these two women, who both find fulfillment in their own ways in the act of cooking. Julia, after many struggles, writes her masterpiece and gets it published. Julie gains more and more followers for her blog, is profiled in the New York Times, and publishes a book about her year of cooking called Julie & Julia.
     The day after watching this film, I started this blog. I was truly inspired by the notion of sharing a passion - in my case, it happened to be jazz instead of Coq au Vin - by communicating with others online. And even though fame, fortune, and the New York Times have yet to come calling, I don’t regret it a bit. In fact, I’d like to encourage anyone reading this to start a blog. Whatever it is that you’re passionate about, share it. If you’re a visual artist, post your art. If you’re a musician, post your tunes. Writers, write. There’s an audience out there looking for you. And you’ll get to indulge your own sweet tooth for your subject every day. You can have your cake and blog about it too.

A Love Letter to Latin Jazz

Calle 54 is clearly the work of an enraptured lover of Latin jazz, and the film looks marvelous. This 2000 documentary was directed by Spaniard Fernando Trueba, who also directed the wonderfully sexy film Belle Époque (1992), starring Penelope Cruz. Here, he films some of the all-time greats of Latin jazz playing their music, including Tito Puente, Eliane Elias, Gato Barbieri, Michel Camilo, Chico O’Farrill, and Chucho and Bebo Valdéz. Each musician is briefly introduced while they are filmed (often as solitary figures) in their own homes or neighborhoods, whether in New York City, Havana, Cuba, or Stockholm, Sweden.
     But the bulk of the film is performance, all done on a soundstage and intimately filmed with beautiful sound quality. (The title of the film refers to 54th Street in New York City, the location of Sony Music Studios, where the performances were shot.) We see Chico O’Farrill conducting a big band, Tito Puente as the over-animated rhythmic center of his group, and a wonderful duet with Bebo Valdéz and bassist Israel López “Cachao.” Chucho and Bebo also play a father-son piano duet. One couldn’t have asked for anything better in a music video.
     However, virtually no historical context regarding Latin jazz is provided. And I found myself wanting to see more about the musicians’ personal lives. The snippets we get wet the appetite but leave you unfulfilled. We visit Tito Puente in his eponymous restaurant on City Island, showing off his murals to Latin jazz. And there’s a wonderfully quirky interview with Gato Barbieri in a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park. Gato sounds as if he’s just been taken from a 1970s time capsule, and his answers to the filmmaker’s questions (which have been edited out) come across as a string of nostalgic and crazy non sequitirs. But Gato’s performance that follows is gangbusters.
     For some great Latin jazz, filmed and recorded with loving care, you couldn’t do better than Calle 54. Highly recommended.

A Must See for Duke Fans

Duke Ellington: Live in ’58, part of the Jazz Icons video series, shows the Ellington band at the top of its game. The November 1958 concert at Amsterdam’s famed Concertgebouw was filmed for television and also recorded for radio broadcast. The result is a gem: a great little black-and-white jazz film, a bit grainy due to late Fifties technological limitations, but with robust sound. It fully captures the magic of an Ellington date.
     Things get off to a mellow start – the band looks tired from having been on the road for several weeks - with “Black and Tan Fantasy,” “Sophisticated Lady,” and a lovely version of “My Funny Valentine” with a solo by Jimmy Hamilton on clarinet. They certainly don’t sound tired. All the featured soloists throughout step up to microphones at the front of the stage. The filming moves from full orchestral shots to close-ups of the soloists.
     The tempo picks up with “Kinda Dukish” and “Jack the Bear,” with Jimmy Woode featured on bass, both classic Ellington tunes that had been around for years. Johnny Hodges steps forward for a really swinging rendition of “All of Me.” His beautiful solid tone is on full display. My favorite was probably “Mr. Gentle and Mr. Cool” featuring Shorty Baker on trumpet in a rhythmic and bluesy back-and-forth with Ray Nance, who just nails it on violin. Excellence is the order of the day with all the soloists.
     The second set opens with “Hi-Fi-Fo-Fum,” which includes an extended drumming exhibition from Sam Woodyard. There’s also a lengthy (thirteen songs) “greatest hits” medley of Duke’s music, including old favorites like “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” and “I’m Beginning to See the Light.” The highlight is probably the brief vocal by Nance on “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” which includes a little scat singing and he busts some moves too.
     The concert comes to a rousing conclusion with “Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue” with Paul Gonsalves doing the honors on the tenor sax. This was the same number that two years earlier at Newport caused the crowd of 7,000 people to go wild. On that occasion, the Duke kept Gonsalves up there for twenty-seven bluesy choruses. The Duke - always the consummate showman - was not one to let a good thing go, although he doesn’t carry things to quite such lengths in Amsterdam.
     Live in ‘58 is a chance to see Ellington and his band up close and putting on a great show. Highly recommended.

Pete Kelly’s Blues

Jack Webb is not an actor one easily pictures playing a musician. For those familiar with his work as Sergeant Joe Friday on the Dragnet TV series, you know that his emotional range as an actor is from wooden to glum. So, it is surprising to find him in the film Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955) in the title role as a jazz cornet player and bandleader. Swing he doesn't....
     The story takes place during Prohibition (1927 to be exact) in Kansas City. Pete and his Big Seven Band, a hot ticket on the speakeasy circuit, are targeted by the local mob boss (played by Edmond O’Brien in full chew-up-the-scenery mode), who extorts “management fees” from the band. Pete’s love interest is a local socialite played by Janet Leigh. Unlikely but true casting choices include Lee Marvin as the clarinet player (a precursor to his vocal stylings in Paint Your Wagon) - the laconic way he moves is somewhat reminiscent of Dexter Gordon - and Andy Devine in an understated role as a lawman, sans ten-gallon hat, pursuing the mob. The movie includes some voice-over narration in Webb’s one-note drone (a la Dragnet). Describing one of his band’s gigs, Pete deadpans: “You could put the whole crowd in a bathtub and still have room to splash around.” The gangster story and the love story, plodding plots both, meander along to a rather unlikely happy ending.

“You could put the whole crowd in a bathtub and still have room to splash around.”

     But the real treat for jazz lovers is the music. No attempt is made to play authentic music circa 1927, but the snippets of jazz heard throughout the film are quite good. Peggy Lee, in an Oscar-nominated role, plays Rose, a washed-up alcoholic singer forced on Pete’s band by the mob boss. She sings a couple of complete tunes, “He Needs Me” and “Sugar,” before drinking herself senseless and winding up in a mental institution. (Playing crazy is always good for an Oscar nod.) And Ella Fitzgerald appears in the film as well to sing two tunes, “Hard-Hearted Hannah” and the title song. The film basically stops and lets Ella sing; she also has some dialogue.
     Jack Webb, who also directed the film (with a more deft touch than his granite-faced acting), was a jazz fan in real life, and it shows in this film. He had an interest in the cornet in particular, and he was married for a time to the torchy songstress Julie London. Webb even recorded an album of himself speaking lyrics over musical arrangements, including a rendition of “Try a Little Tenderness” that shows he didn’t try enough.
     This Warner Brothers picture was shot in CinemaScope and WarnerColor, so it looks and sounds beautiful. The film is available through Netflix. In spite of its flaws, I definitely recommend it for jazz fans.

Classic Brubeck Quartet on Video

Dave Brubeck Live in '64 and '66 is part of the Jazz Icons series of DVDs and presents two performances in Europe by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. The is the classic quartet with Paul Desmond, Joe Morello, and Eugene Wright. The DVD lasts for 67 minutes, and the first half is a 1964 performance in Belgium. This is a beauty of a black-and-white film, just what you'd want a jazz performance to look like from the period. Very crisp - everything was shot on film back then, of course - with lots of close-ups of Dave's hands flicking over the ivories and Paul on sax. Paul was a very low-key performer, standing quietly with his eyes closed as he produced all those smooth-as-butter notes. Songs include "St. Louis Blues," "Koto Song," and "Take Five," with a terrific extended drum solo. (By the way, this video of "Take Five" can be downloaded separately on iTunes.) Paul's expressive playing is a standout, and Dave - often underrated as a piano player - shows his range from lyrical to percussive.
     The second date is from Berlin in 1966 and is filmed, again in black and white, in front of a live audience. There is some compromise in the sound quality here - a little muffled reverb in the background. Songs include "Take the A Train," "I'm in a Dancing Mood," "40 Days," and "Take Five" again. (Some of the songs from this set and the '64 date are available on YouTube.) This is a chance to see and hear the Brubeck Quartet in its heyday and in classic form.