The year passes, as do a pair of jazz legends

In the past two weeks, jazz — and music in general — lost a pair of elder statesmen that will be truly missed. Legendary producer Joel Dorn (b. 1942), who spent years at Atlantic Records and is perhaps best known for his collaborations with reed man Rahsaan Roland Kirk, passed away on Dec. 17. And jazz pianist Oscar Peterson (b. 1925), one of the last living masters from jazz’s golden ages, passed on Sunday. Next to Monk, I don’t know if there are any pianists I love more than Peterson. You can read recent items on Dorn here and here, and on Peterson here and here. Also passing earlier in the year was Max Roach (b. 1924), quite possibly the greatest jazz drummer who ever lived. Read about Roach here and here.

[Update: You can find another good write-up on Joel Dorn here.] 

New trailer for upcoming Scorsese film on the Rolling Stones

Barrett has once again alerted me to a very hot tip (and reminded me that this is a blog I should check out more often). He sent me an e-mail this morning directing me to the new trailer for Martin Scorsese’s upcoming rock documentary on the Rolling Stones, Shine A Light (the title is taken from a song from the Stones album Exile on Main St.).

[You can also see a more high-def version of the trailer at the film's official website.]

The film was originally supposed to come out in September, but now has apparently been pushed to April. It documents a Stones show from ‘06 at New York City’s Beacon Theater, where the Allman Brothers have also recorded a number of well-renowned gigs. Having seen the Stones last year with Marsha in Wichita, I can attest that they’re still very entertaining live, despite their advanced age (I believe Mick, Keef, Charlie and Ron are all now in their 60s), and the film trailer seems to back that up. The film also features behind-the-scenes footage of events leading up to the performance, as well as some archival clips of the band.

One slight concern — and I’m sure I’m not the only one to voice it — is the guest appearance of pop vixen Christina Auguilera, joining Mick on the song “Live With Me”. That being said, the girl has a got a dynamite voice, and she’s done some respectable work the past couple years, including a good rendition of the Leon Russel number “A Song for You” on one of Herbie Hancock’s recent albums. And to make up for any bubble gum confusion, Shine a Light also includes guest appearances from Buddy Guy — one of the last living blues legends — and Jack White of the White Stripes.

Scorsese, the filmmaker responsible for such classics as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, and The Departed, also has a lot of credibility when it comes to rock docs. He made The Last Waltz, released in 1978, which chronicled the final concert of The Band, and which is often regarded as the best film ever in the genre. And in 2005, he released No Direction Home, a stellar look at Bob Dylan’s career in the ’60s. After viewing the trailer for this new film, it looks like he’s crafted another gem.

[And in case you were wondering about my opinion, dear reader: Yes, the Stones are the best rock n' roll band in the history of the world. And yes, I'm very excited about this film. I'm praying to all things holy and decent that it receives a showing on the big screen here in OKC. They still haven't brought the new Dylan film here yet, and it's not even a documentary!]

[One more addendum: As if all this weren't enough, you can also watch the new trailer for The Dark Knight, the next installment in Christopher Nolan's Batman series. Due out next summer. Looks incredible.]

Led Zeppelin reunites for London show

Fans and music writers had speculated about it for over two-and-a-half decades, and now it’s finally happened. Monday night, the British blues-rock band Led Zeppelin reunited in London for what will surely become a legendary performance.

The show, part of a larger commemoration of the life of Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun, had been touted as the band’s first full-fledged reunion concert since they split up following drummer John Bonham’s death in 1980, though they did later perform two brief shows, one in 1985 and another in ‘88. In preparation for Monday’s concert, the three remaining members — singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, and bassist John Paul Jones — held long rehearsals with their new drummer, Bonham’s son, Jason. The show was hyped for months in the press, including on the cover of the latest Rolling Stone, and by the music industry, and came shortly after the release of a couple new Zeppelin boxed sets. (I don’t know which was planned first, the reunion concert or the boxed sets, but the former is bound to boost sales of the latter.)

Finally the date arrived, and by all accounts, the resulting spectacle was magnificent. Everyone from The Sun in Britain, to the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and the Wall Street Journal had great things to say. And the event even gave some blogger the chance to theorize on the Huffington Post about how the band has brought the western world and eastern Islam closer together. (Okay…)

Whatever the analysis, I just hope the wishful thinking that a U.S. tour is to follow will be realized. I believe Cream’s recent reunion tour did well, and surely a Zeppelin tour would be one of the biggest sellers of the decade.

Other tidbits related to Monday’s event:

• Check out the set list here. I certainly did not expect to see “In My Time of Dying”, “For Your Life”, “Nobody’s Fault But Mine”, or “No Quarter” on there, but I’m so glad they are. (And apparently this was the first time “For Your Life” has ever been played live.)
• On a similar note, despite the chagrin of this writer (and, I’ll admit, despite my own as well), the band did play “Stairway to Heaven”.
• Another interesting facet to the Zeppelin story is a new one for many fans of the band: cracking down on the uploading of clips from Monday’s concert to YouTube. Read one story on the topic here. For the record, I’ve tried viewing about 10 or so different clips, and none of them work. Dang it. Hopefully they’ll release it on DVD ASAP.

[Special thanks to Barrett for pointing my attention to some of the linked articles.]

Unique profiles

Occasionally in my reading, I stumble across a unique character profile that I wish to share with you, dear reader. It might be about an individual whom I’ve never even heard of (such is the case this time), but the nature of the person’s life strikes me in some way that I wouldn’t feel right if I were to keep such newfound knowledge to myself. In sharing these profiles with you, I may occasionally “show my age” by making some categorical statement that could easily be refuted by someone who’s been around long enough to actually know what I’m talking about (seeing as I might not). But I’ll share just the same.

The first such profile is this piece from a recent Wall Street Journal about Jacques Barzun, a cultural historian, professor and longtime feature at Columbia University. If you want to find out more, read it. If you don’t, that’s fine. It’s okay. Don’t worry about it…

And to give you another taste of what this series of profiles will be like, here’s an item from a February edition of the New York Times Sunday Book Review about the part-time literary career of E. Howard Hunt, one of those responsible for organizing the infamous Watergate break-in.

Scorsese does Hitchcock

Here’s something you might get a kick out of. Current filmmaker Martin Scorsese making a short “film” tribute of sorts to legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. In actuality, the piece is an ad for Freixenet sparkling wines. But the ad itself is a nearly ten-minute segment combining documentary style scenes and an actual short film. The plot consists of Scorsese purporting to have found a “lost”, four-page Hitchcock script (with one page missing), entitled The Key to Reserva, and then shooting it “the way (Hitchcock) would’ve made the picture then, only making it now”.

While the scenario’s reality is certainly in question, the enclosed short film (about three-and-a-half minutes in length) is fun to watch, as it basically serves as an homage to numerous classic Hitchcock scenes, thereby serving as a short, loving tribute to Hitchcock himself. Heck, for that matter, the whole ad is fun to watch. It’s similar to the series of amusing American Express ads (by Scorsese and Wes Anderson, among others) in which different filmmakers take good-natured shots at their own styles and personae. Likewise, The Key to Reserva plays off Scorsese’s reputation as an obsessive curator of the history of cinema, which gives a spark of life to the thought in the back of your mind that maybe, just maybe, this is the real deal, making the ad that much more fun. (The ad’s closing scene clearly lets the audience in on the joke, in case they weren’t already).

Dave’s Film Festival, entry #3: “Dog Day Afternoon”

The next feature in the inaugural run of Dave’s Film Festival is Dog Day Afternoon, directed by Sidney Lumet and released in 1975. The film marked a reunion of Lumet with actor Al Pacino; the two had worked together a few years earlier in Serpico (the DFF opening-night selection).

Like that film, Dog Day Afternoon is somewhat of a crime drama, though the former is told from a cop’s perspective, while the latter looks at the scene through the eyes of two apparently first-time bank robbers. This film, at least its first half, is also somewhat of a dark comedy. Sonny (Pacino) leads the attempted heist of a Brooklyn savings-and-loan, but as in so many such films (see the review of the previous DFF selection), things don’t go at all as planned. For starters, the vault is nearly empty. But things really go south when, after Sonny tries to burn the bank’s register log, locals see the smoke and the police soon arrive.

The bulk of the film involves what happens next. Sonny engages the cops in a standoff for the rest of the evening and well into the night. In the process, he riles up the crowd that has assembled by taunting the swarm of cops and federal agents that have him cornered (he does so in particular by yelling “Attica! Attica!”, in reference to the Attica prison riots of 1971). The bank’s employees, mostly female tellers, start to form a bond with their captors. And eventually, we learn Sonny’s true motivation for the heist: this Vietnam war vet with a wife and several children needs money for a gender-change operation for his male companion.

At this point, the humor starts to seep out of the film, and most of our time is spent looking at Pacino’s sweaty face and wild hair (the cops have shut off the air-conditioning), so we can attempt to figure out what’s going on in this odd bird’s head.

In his review of the film, Ebert calls Pacino’s Sonny “one of the most interesting modern movie characters”, and certainly, as the film progresses, we realize that this film is not so much about a bank heist as it is a character study. This guy’s world has spun completely out-of-control; we see on his face that he realizes it in the film’s opening scene, and we see it again at the film’s end, as well as at numerous points in between.

When comparing the two Lumet-Pacino pictures screened during DFF thus far, Serpico stands out to me as the more enjoyable film. But I can’t discount Pacino’s character in Dog Day Afternoon, either; I spent the entire movie wondering what he was going to do next, and that’s a pretty good mark for any film.

Where Dave gets his political news

As we near the first of the presidential primaries, I thought it might be helpful to share with you, dear reader, the websites from which I gather my political news. You may or may not know that I have somewhat of an interest in politics, and so it should come as no surprise that I’m a bit of a political news junkie.

I’ve found that The Politico, a publication devoted solely to political news, has, on a consistent basis, the best coverage around. It was started in January of this year to provide a new challenger to the “big boys” of political news reporting. I could describe to you the reasons why it’s so good, but I’d rather just let you read this section from their mission statement (yes, they have one, and yes, I’ve read it):

“Reading a story should be just as interesting as talking with the reporter over a sandwich or a beer. It’s a curiosity of journalism that this often isn’t true. The traditional newspaper story is written with austere, voice-of-God detachment. These newspaper conventions tend to muffle personality, humor, accumulated insight — all the things readers hunger for as they try to make sense of the news and understand what politicians are really like. Whenever we can, we’ll push against these limits. In the process, we’ll share with readers a lot more of what we know instead of leaving it in our notebooks.”

If, after reading that, you don’t understand why I love The Politico, then you may be reading the wrong blog.

All that aside, the New York Times does often have interesting feature stories on the different presidential candidates on their Politics page.

For blogs with the latest news on the presidential race, I prefer those blogs featuring writers who are on the ground in the traditional early primary states. They can provide a unique window into how a presidential campaign progresses over time. There are two in particular I would recommend. The first is the blog of Brad Warthen, the editorial page editor of The State, the main newspaper in South Carolina. The second is Cameron’s Corner, the blog of the Fox News political team, led by reporter Carl Cameron. [Please don't take this to be an endorsement of Fox News. I firmly believe that 24-hour news channels, be they Fox, CNN, or one of the many NBC offshoots, are lame. I just stumbled upon this blog one day and thought it was good.]

While we’re at it, let’s not forget presidential ads. By far the finest such ad of the 2008 race is Mike Huckabee’s ad featuring ol’ Walker, Texas Ranger himself (especially a good laugh for those of you familiar with the Chuck Norris Facts).

And finally, for the finest political commentary and analysis, I turn to the talking heads at Red State Update.

Hopefully, dear reader, these sites will satisfy your insatiable appetite for political news for the time being. If you know of any other good political sites, feel free to share. Rest assured, I’ll let you know when I find other quality political news sites that are worth your precious time.