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The Adaptation of Times Columnist Steve Lopez's Book Hits All the Wrong Notes.
Source:
Michael Ricci
Remember when Lloyd Bentsen told Dan Quayle, “I knew Jack Kennedy. . . . Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy"? Well, I felt a little that way when it came to reviewing The Soloist.
I could back up and write all this in the reviewer's traditional third person, but that feels disingenuous. After all, I do know Steve Lopez, whose wonderful Los Angeles Times columns and later book about his unlikely friendship with a gifted but deeply troubled street musician started ...
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Wynton Marsalis to Perform on Letterman
Source:
On Target Media Group
Wynton Marsalis has been confirmed to appear on the ‘Late Show with David Letterman’ on Wed May 13th.
The Pulitzer Prize & 9-time Grammy Award winner will perform the new song ‘School Boy’ from his new Blue Note album He & She - his 5th Blue Note release that features 22 tracks of his signature jazz, as well as spoken word and poetry tracks, all centered around the theme of the relationship between man and woman.
The show will air ...
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The Music Instinct: Science and Song
Source:
All About Jazz
THE TRUE POWER OF MUSIC UNFOLDS IN THE MUSIC INSTINCT: SCIENCE AND SONG hosted by Bobby McFerrin and Dr. Daniel Levitin
While listening to music, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, asks the questions “where do goose bumps come from?" and “what's going on in my brain that allows the goosebumps to happen?" Levitin leads a group of researchers as they investigate music's fundamental physical structure; its biological, emotional and psychological impact; its brain altering and healing powers and its role in human ...
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Another Documentary, Another Riff on the History and Mystery of Jazz
Source:
Michael Ricci
Icons Among Us, a four-part series beginning Monday on the Documentary Channel, serves as a retort to Ken Burns’s 2001 television documentary Jazz. It doesn't make this explicit, but it doesn't need to. There's no other elephant in the room. Mr. Burns's series, you may remember, outlined styles and eras and individual accomplishments. His film--with a narrator supplying context and imposing historical judgments--attempted to tell the story from the music's beginning. He put forth a big extra-musical idea: jazz is ...
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Jamie Foxx's Skid Role Soloist
Source:
Michael Ricci
Jamie Foxx struggled while playing Nathaniel Ayers, who suffers from schizophrenia. The role reminded Foxx of a mentally traumatic experience he had at age 18.
In nightclubs and strip joints across the country, the song of the moment is Jamie Foxx's “Blame It (On the Alcohol)," a leering tale of bad boys, well, behaving badly. The hit certainly inspired a few smirks in Hollywood, where Foxx has become a respected star but also has a reputation for playing as hard ...
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'Icons Among Us' Shows Jazz in a Different Light
Source:
Michael Ricci
Of all the genres in music, jazz might lead them in terms of the sheer number of eulogies that are racked up in its honor on a yearly basis.
Which is, of course, as absurd as the similar calls bemoaning rock's death that come around every few years. However, if recent tribute activity is any indication, jazz may be alive and well, but it's acquired a troubling addiction to its past; a habit that comes with its own crippling side-effects. ...
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Warner Bros. Celebrates Hollywood's Jazz Age
Source:
All About Jazz
The cycle of gangster movies launched by Warner Bros. in the early 1930s often included scenes in speakeasies with anonymous musicians in the background.
Anatole Litvak's Blues in the Night (1941) and Jack Webb's Pete Kelly's Blues (1955), which were released this month by Warners on DVD, reversed the perspective. These are Warner gangster pictures told from the band's point of view: Idealistic white jazz players, determined to play their music despite rude audiences and mob interference, win the day ...
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Pete Kelly's Blues
Source:
All About Jazz
First-time viewers of Pete Kelly's Blues are often impressed by its dynamic, directional stereophonic audio.
The Warner Sound Department concocted a particular method of recording their orchestra that gave their music tracks more brass and more bite, whether on a big picture or a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
The movie is a visual treat as well. It begins with a beautifully realized prologue at a New Orleans jazz funeral that explains where Kelly got his cornet. The carefully designed shots segue ...
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