TV / Film News

Other Places: The BBC on Herman Leonard

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
August 20, 2010

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Jerry Garcia Film in Doubt

Source: JamBase
August 7, 2010

BIOPIC CALLED INTO QUESTION BY GRATEFUL DEAD PRODUCTIONS

Jerry Garcia The future of the recently announced Jerry Garcia film is in doubt, as Grateful Dead Productions have announced they will not allow any Grateful Dead recordings to be used in the film, nor will they allow access to any members of the Garcia family.

A statement from Grateful Dead Productions reads, “We want to make clear that neither Grateful Dead Prods. nor the Jerry Garcia Family LLC are in any ...

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Miles Davis vs. Don Draper

Source: Miles Davis Online
August 3, 2010

Definitely worth a read. Good stuff.

Yet, for all of its strengths, Mad Men wouldn't be nearly so appealing if not for the fact that it is set during a time when America was neatly divided between the hip and the square. It's important to point out, though, that during the early '60s, the time period that Mad Men is set, people like Don Draper and his colleagues would most certainly have been regarded as undeniably square.

Cats like ...

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Red Norvo's Spotlight Band on Film

Source: Jazz Lives by Michael Steinman
August 1, 2010

The distinguished jazz film scholar Mark Cantor offers another cinematic mystery:

“In Back Beats and Rim Shots, Warren Vache and Johnny Blowers discuss a band put together by Red Norvo, under the sponsorship of Coca Cola, for an overseas tour during World War II. The tour never happened, but before the band broke up a film --called THE VICTORY PARADE OF SPOTLIGHT BANDS -- was made of (in Johnny's words) “the show." At least one performance from this film is ...

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L.A.'s Jazz Bakery Still Homeless but Alive This Week at the L.A. Premiere of New Film, "The Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi"

Source: Jazz (Jazzers Jazzing) by Carl L. Hager
August 1, 2010

The Jazz Bakery, one of Los Angeles' most revered jazz establishments, is still homeless after closing its doors last spring, but it is still alive and living off the fat of the land. Running a non-profit jazz club that features big national acts and low ticket prices 7 days a week ain't easy. When your philanthropic landlord dies and the new owner(s) announce they're turning your club into a furniture store, you need to be imaginative.

What Owner/Chief ...

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Devil May Care: The Bob Dorough Movie

Source: The Business Musician by Craig M. Cortello
July 28, 2010

We've written about Bob Dorough several times here before. Bob is a unique and wonderful jazz singer/songwriter, but he's best known as the musical director of Schoolhouse Rock, the cartoon vignettes set to music that taught children Grammar, Math, Science, Multiplication, History. Economics, and Environmental lessons. Bob composed such wonderful songs as “Conjunction Junction" and “Three is a Magic Number," and through DVDs his music is being passed along to future generations. He continues to perform well into his 80's. ...

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A Haunting Miles Davis Film Score

Source: Riffs on Jazz by John Anderson
July 24, 2010

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 ...

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Jerry Garcia Film on the Way

Source: JamBase
July 23, 2010

WHO SHOULD PLAY JERRY?

Jerry Garcia Variety is reporting that a Jerry Garcia film is in the works. Amir Bar-Lev, director of the documentaries The Tillman Story and My Kid Could Paint That, has signed on to direct a biopic focusing on Garcia's pre-Dead years. The film will reportedly be based on Dark Star, an oral history of Garcia's life written by Robert Greenfield. According to director Bar-Lev, the “daring script does justice to Garcia and steadfastly resists cliche." There ...

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