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Girl With a Suitcase, 1961
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Girl With a Suitcase is one of my favorite Claudia Cardinale films. There's a unsettled quality about her that haunts. The post-neorealist film was directed by Valerio Zurlini, a lesser-known but superb Italian director. Among his best films are The Girls of San Frediano (1955) and Violent Summer (1959). But I chose Girl With a Suitcase because of Cardinale's childlike innocence and the gentle quality of the 16-year old (Jacques Perrin) who falls for her. With the success of Sophia ...
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Two Women, 1960
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
After Vittorio De Sica's Two Women was released and favorably reviewed in 1960, two things became clear. First, Italy still had a stomach for revisiting the horrors unleashed on the country by fascists and Nazis up until the last months of the war less than 20 years earlier. To its credit, Italy had been wrestling with its role and outcome since 1945, when Roberto Rossellini's Open City appeared in cinemas. Second, Sophia Loren had become the country's most remarkable and ...
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Sorting Out the Tijuana Sound
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Did you watch The Queen's Gambit, the Netflix mini-series about the female chess champ, starring Anya Taylor-Joy? Whether you did or didn't, there's a scene in episode 4 ("Middle Game") where lead character Beth Harmon and her step-mom fly down to Mexico City to a tournament. In the background was the brilliant use of Mexican Highway as background music Following the episode, I must have received two dozen emails from readers begging to know what Herb Alpert & the Tijuana ...
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Documentary: Pittsburgh Jazz
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Erroll Garner, George Benson, Earl “Fatha" Hines, Ray Brown, Kenny Clarke, Stanley Turrentine, Billy Eckstine, Billy Strayhorn, Ahmad Jamal, Joe Negri, {{Johnny Costa and Mary Lou Williams all had one thing in common—Pittsburgh, PA. They all grew up there along with other jazz greats. How did Pittsburgh come to be such a flourishing jazz center? And what caused jazz's decline in the city—twice? Here's We Knew What We Had; The Greatest Story Never Told, an excellent documentary about the rise ...
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Louis Armstrong: Denmark 1933
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Back in 1933, before the hamming and caricature roles in movies, Armstrong was in Copenhagen, Denmark, during a year-long tour of Europe. There, three songs were filmed, the first time Armstrong was captured by a movie camera. What we see and hear is Armstrong on stage at the Tivoli Concert Hall playing and singing jazz's swing foundation, which would hold for the next two decades and beyond. Listen to his vocal, how he phrases and bends notes; listen to what ...
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Documentary: Horace Parlan
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
The response to my Horace Parlan post earlier this week was enormous. Parlan really was special and should be thought of as one of the Top-10 post-war piano greats. So why not another post on Parlan. Though I posted the following documentary some years back, I thought I'd post it again for the thousands of readers who are newly minted Parlan fans. A special thanks to Ken Deifik for reminding me about it. Here's Don McGlynn's Horace Parlan By Horace ...
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Barney Wilen and Donald Byrd
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
In the summer of 1958, the Donald Byrd Quintet arrived in Paris to play at the Au Chat Qui Peche, a Left Bank jazz club. Also that summer, French saxophonist Barney Wilen was approached by film producer Sandro Bocola, who had an idea. In December 1957, Wilen had recorded with Miles Davis on the soundtrack to Elevator to the Gallows. Bocola wanted to make Jazz in Camera, an avant-garde film that would be an updating of Gjon Mili's Jammin' the ...
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Jazz Doc: Stéphane Grappelli
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
European jazz starts with Stéphane Grappelli and the Hot Club of France Quintet. The violinist along with guitarist Django Reinhardt added Louis Vola on bass and Joseph Reinhardt and Roger Chaput on guitar. The group ended its run in 1939 with the onset of World War II. Grappelli was in London when war broke out and remained there for the duration. Reinhardt was in Paris. They would reunite after the war. Grappelli is the father of the jazz violin and ...
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