Fred Shuster – “Freddie Hubbard: When Your Chops Are Shot” (1995)
An October 1995 DownBeat article on jazz legend Freddie Hubbard…
Trumpet great Freddie Hubbard greets a visitor to his cozy split-level Hollywood Hills home with a friendly handshake that belies the worry in his eyes.
At age 57, after a career that dates back to the glory days of bebop, the growth of Blue Note records and the emergence of fusion and jazz-rock, Hubbard finds himself unable to play for long stretches, the result of a split lip that became infected when he refused to curtail a series of engagements two years ago.
In sports and in dance, performers often “play through” injuries, attempting Read the rest of this entry »
Perrey-Kingsley – “The In Sound from Way Out!” (1966)
The July 1966 press release that went out for this wacky, groundbreaking album by the pioneers of electronic sound, Perrey & Kingsley…
YOU’RE IN FOR A SHOCK – A HAPPY ONE!
This is the wackiest record Vanguard has ever put out — and good music too, as well as a lot of fun. You can even dance to the music, but don’t try whistling it. Everything that the new art of electronic sounds can do, combined with some slightly bewildered regulation instruments, is here applied to a set of bouncy numbers, some with familiar tunes , others newly and delightfully composed. The IN SOUND FROM WAY OUT!
What is the IN SOUND FROM WAY OUT! ? Atoms of pop music exploded into fresh patterns. It’s electronic sound of pop music from the future. A sample of the strange new pleasure of a world which belongs to the space age. A sample of the electronic “Au Go Go” that might be heard soon from the juke boxes at the interplanetary way stations where space ships make their rest stops.
How is it produced? A new process called “Electronic Sono-synthesis” was created by Jean Jacques Perrey. To produce these syntheses not only musical instruments from electronic sources Read the rest of this entry »
Pauline Kael – “Marlon Brando: An American Hero” (1966)
A long essay on Marlon Brando from the March 1966 pages of The Atlantic, by esteemed film critic Pauline Kael…
The history of the motion-picture industry might be summed up as the development from the serials with the blade in the sawmill moving closer and closer to the heroine’s neck, to modern movies with the laser beam zeroing in on James Bond’s crotch. At this level, the history of movies is a triumph of technology. I’m not putting down this kind of movie: I don’t know anybody who doesn’t enjoy it more or less at some time or other. But I wouldn’t be much interested if that were the only kind of movie, any more than I’d be interested if all movies were like Last Year at Marienbad or The Red Desert or Juliet of the Spirits. What of the other kinds? Read the rest of this entry »
“You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” (2010)
A review from IndieWire, Sept. 20th of this year, by Eric Kohn, of Woody Allen’s new film…
With each new movie Woody Allen directs, it grows increasingly clear that leaving New York was the best decision he made in ages. Two years ago, Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona freed the quintessentially neurotic comic from his out-of-touch depictions of American urbanity by letting Spanish flavor meld with the vibrancy of his speedy dialogue. Back on familiar turf with the Soho-based Whatever Works in 2009, Allen resorted to dated reference points and half-baked scenarios.
Abroad again with his latest venture, Read the rest of this entry »
“Rope” (1948)
A New York Times review by Vincent Canby, of Alfred Hitchcock’s experimental 1948 film Rope — dated June 3, 1984…
A Stunt to Behold
”What a lovely evening,” says the impeccably dressed Brandon (John Dall) to his impeccably dressed, great and good friend Philip (Farley Granger), as he draws back the curtains in their elegant penthouse living room to reveal the Manhattan skyline. ”Pity we couldn’t have done it with the curtains open, in bright sunlight.”
The ”it” Brandon is talking about is the carefully planned, coolly executed ”thrill” murder of their long-time friend, David Kentley, whose impeccably dressed, still-warm body they’ve just hidden in an antique chest that occupies a prominent place in their living room. Read the rest of this entry »
“A Woman Is a Woman” (1961)
A review of this French New Wave classic by Jean-Luc Godard, by John Boonstra, June 19, 2003 — taken from The Hartford Advocate…
It’s timely to catch the freshly restored print of Jean-Luc Godard’s A Woman Is a Woman hot on the heels of the recent Down with Love. What Love attempted and never quite achieved, Godard nails – a full 42 years before Hollywood would try to poke fun at itself in the same vein.
This was Godard’s third feature film. He was 30 years old; he’d been a film critic for the influential journal Cahiers du Cinema. He’d just married the Danish actress and model Anna Karina, 10 years his junior. Her exceptional beauty and the remarkable resume she acquired working for Godard (until their 1967 divorce) and other New Wave directors cinched her reputation as the thinking-man’s sex kitten of French cinema. The sheer playfulness Read the rest of this entry »
Prince – “3121” (2006)
Taken from Perfect Sound Forever, October 2006, and written by Ben Newman…
Is he still royalty and where does he get those wonderful (musical) toys?
As a new generation gets exposed to the man who is again calling himself Prince, (although apparently he never officially lost his name anyway) does it matter to the future of music that this intermittent genius is back after years of out-takes, side projects, compilations and fan-club-only releases? With a generation trying earnestly to get rid of a relentlessly youthful Madonna, do we really need another ’80’s maverick on TV? Prince, however, does have advantages over the aforementioned rival. He was always the more ingenious of the two, and although still on good physical form (despite rumours of a hip problem), he realises his age and is not cavorting around in uncomfortably flexible position in minimal amounts of spandex. Read the rest of this entry »
The Beat Patrol 