Thoughts of Julie London the other day naturally stirred the ghost of her first husband, the deeply misanthropic maverick television auteur, Jack Webb. In fact, his ghost practically kicked me in the ass this morning and told me the pussycats could wait another day–as he still hasn’t gotten his due, twenty-five years
Fred Astaire thought their “Jumpin Jive” climax in “Stormy Weather” (see 10/9 post) the greatest tap dance number ever filmed. Balanchine and Barishnikov also claimed them as among their top picks as greatest dancers ever. Gregory Hines said that if they ever made a biopic about them they’d have to
And now, after a decade of keeping it locked in a dark vault as if it were the mutant child of a royal family, Showtime is bringing back my first feature, “Cafe Society”. It will air this Sunday evening at ten pm. Is that time Eastern or Pacific? I don’t
My film, “Tis Autumn: The Search For Jackie Paris”, has officially opened in LA, for its one-week Oscar qualifying run. Anyone interested in seeing the film on the big screen, projected on 35mm (yes, even though its a digitally shot low-budget documentary, we’ve gone to the trouble of film-outing to
This is an extraordinary piece of filmmaking from 1935. It runs just under ten minutes but is well worth your time. “Symphony In Black” is a short film featuring Duke Ellington and his band, with guest appeareances by Billie Holiday and Scatman Crothers, believe it or not. (Holiday sounds like
Sunday. Spent much of today in jazz-geek heaven, listening to transcriptions of old WRVR broadcasts of “Just Jazz with Ed Beech”. Beech was a New York based d.j. who made discography sound suave. Using a Shakespearean-trained actors voice (at least according to his publicity) he filled New York radio with
My producer, and dear friend, David Zellerford, has grown to hate me and this film like a disease that wont go into remission but also wont get worse. Every moment of this last few months of finishing is torture for him and me. But especially for him. Largely this has
A great sigh of relief as a week of uncertainty comes to a positive-ish close. “Ish”, by the way, is a very important trio of letters in show business. Things are always happening–until they’re not. Or perhaps they’re happening again. Never say never. Never give up. We’re shooting/releasing/whatevering September-ish. Which
There’s an old saying that the real movie isn’t the one that winds up on screen but, rather, is the one in the dailies (the unused film, the rejected takes). Certainly my moments with Hank Jones and Soupy Sales qualify. And plenty of other fascinating conversations (Mark Murphy, Harlan Ellison,
Last Night (7/5) at Birdland, in New York City, I heard the impeccable and impeccably modest jazz giant Hank Jones at the piano with his trio. At age 89 (and after a recent heart episode) he is naturally somewhat less authoritative in his approach, but never less than elegant and