TV / Film News

The Spring Standards Get Conan on Friday

Source: Seth Cohen PR
August 27, 2008

No Label? No Publisher? No Problem. Conan O'Brien Performance Confirmed for The Spring Standards, This Friday The Spring Standards are proud to announce their national television debut for this Friday night, August 29th, on NBC-TV's Late Night with Conan O'Brien. An independent band in virtually every sense of the word (no label, no publisher, etc,) The Spring Standards have let their music speak for itself, and have seen a path unfold for them that just seems to get better and ...

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Woodstock: Rock's Famous Fest Heads to the Big Screen

Source: All About Jazz
August 26, 2008

Oscar-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, The Ice Storm) and his producer partner James Schamus are dialing back to 1969 in their current project Taking Woodstock.

Based on a true story, Demetri Martin stars as interior designer Elliot Tiber, who inadvertently played a pivotal role in Woodstock when he offered his family's Catskills hotel to organizers as a home base, while his neighbor Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy) offered his farm. The eclectic cast also includes Liev Schreiber, Paul Dano, Emile ...

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The Lost Art of Glamour

Source: Michael Ricci
August 25, 2008

Kobal Foundation celebrity photos capture eternal glamour. Santa Barbara Museum of Art displays some of the best portrait photography from Hollywood's Golden Age.

FROM THE time he was a schoolboy, John Kobal was in love with Hollywood. He longed to become a part of it, and eventually he did -- by befriending faded movie stars and forgotten photographers, enchanting them with his sincerity and his hungry memory, and collecting photographs. By the time he died in 1991, at ...

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American Idol Gets New Judge

Source: Michael Ricci
August 25, 2008

It's a girl!

When American Idol premieres in January, there will be a fourth judge seated at the judge's table: Grammy-nominated songwriter Kara DioGuardi, Fox announced on Monday. DioGuardi will use her background as a songwriter and producer to praise or critique the contestants throughout the competition, according to a press release. The eighth season of the show premieres on Jan. 29. The network, partly responding to a small decline in ratings, announced in January that there will be changes ...

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Summer of "Love of Don Ellis" Film Tour 2008

Source: CSP-Media
August 25, 2008

Electric Heart Screenings include: Moondance International Film Festival (August 29 - September 1st) Boulder, Colorado Screenings date: Saturday, August 30th. The 51st Annual Monterey Jazz Festival (September 20th, 5:30pm Jazz Theater - Monterey, California (Music with Milcho Leviev, Screening & Discussion). Earshot Jazz Festival (October 18 - November 9) Screening dates: November 1 & 3. Northwest Film Forum. Great Britian & The British Isles DVD & CD Distributor Sleepy Night Records and Producer Gary Gillies has signed an Agreement with ...

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Jack White Talks Bond Theme Collaboration with Alicia Keys

Source: All About Jazz
August 22, 2008

Jack White has finally given some insight into his James Bond theme collaboration with Alicia Keys. Discussing Another Way to Die, the theme for the upcoming Quantum of Solace,

After a couple of years of wanting to collaborate with Alicia Keys, it took James Bond himself to finally make it happen. Alicia put some electric energy into her breath that cemented itself into the magnetic tape. Very inspiring to watch. We wanted to push soul into those tapes, and join ...

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Clint Eastwood Make's His Day Keeping Jazz Alive!

Source: All About Jazz
August 17, 2008

Last week, I happened to view for the 20th time the film “Bird." In case you have yet to see this film, it is a brief biography about one of the most prolific jazz musicians in history, Charles “Yardbird" Parker, aka “Bird." Parker's life was one of ups and downs, so I imagine it was difficult to capture it all on film. However, credit should be given to the one and only “Dirty Harry" or as he's sometimes known as ...

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Jazz and Film Animation: A Brief, Sketchy History

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
August 17, 2008

Film animation married to jazz improvisation goes back to the 1930s and the advent of sound films. This collaboration of the cartoon figure Betty Boop and the real Louis Armstrong is one of the most famous early examples. Social sensitivity was not a consideration.I

n 1949, the art advanced--or at least changed--dramatically when two Canadians, painter Norman McLaren and pianist Oscar Peterson, got together. They made Begone Dull Care, in which McLaren painted and otherwise altered the surface of ...

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