In yesterdays post I discussed Buddy Rich’s musical analphabeta (i.e. he couldn’t read music). Today, thanks to some algorithm that I don’t really want to know about, the above video was waiting for me cheerfully in my Youtube queue. It’s a very funny five or so minutes from a 1974
Here’s a ‘drum-off’ between the legendary Buddy Rich and Ed Shaughnessy, the drummer for the Tonight Show band for two decades. The big band arrangement that kicks things off belongs to a genre of music I always think of as ‘heart-attack jazz’, a very specific over-wrought big band mayhem sound
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SOpqyg5fpUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkOpHJ_PgDk In yesterday’s post I mentioned how the members of the ‘Tonight Show’ band (aka ‘Doc Severinsen and the NBC Orchestra’) lent their own comedic talents to the show. One of the strangest examples is that of trombone player Ernie Tack. The show would occasionally do a ‘Stump The Band’
To those of us who remember the Johnny Carson incarnation of ‘The Tonight Show’, the band (or the ‘NBC Orchestra’ as they were formally known) looms as an important piece of the magical synthesis of talents that produced the greatest talk show in TV history. (If you haven’t delved into
‘They Stooge To Conga’ (1943) was the 67th short subject made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Wednesday, May 6 through Saturday, May 9, 1942 and released on New Years Day, 1943. The film is generally considered to be the most hideously, nauseatingly violent Stooge
I’m finding these old color home movies highly evocative and vivid. Yesterday’s post was a trip from LaGuardia Airport to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Today we’re at the 1939 Worlds Fair in Queens, NY. This footage isn’t about the amazing buildings and exhibits. Instead it documents the Fair’s patrons, the
What are we to make of this delightful little color short film showing the arrival of a person at the Marine Air Terminal at La Guardia Airport in the mid 1940s? The film is shot quite deliberately–a moving POV of the person entering the cab is technically adventurous though clearly
In 1951 my father, Frank De Felitta, was a free-lance writer for various anthological dramatic television series. One of them, a Sci-Fi show called ‘Tales Of Tomorrow’, put out a call to a number of writers asking them to write a script that could ‘only be produced on TV and
Apropos of yesterday’s post on television from the late 1940s, here’s a short and deeply primitive clip of a show from 1947 featuring Jinx Falkenberg and Tex McCreary. Stilted and goofy though it is, it proves my point from yesterday that television programming hasn’t really changed much. I mean, aren’t
Here’s an interesting reel of opening credits and set-up sequences of the shows you were likely to see if you were watching TV in the late 1940s. Television had of course been around in various forms and incarnations for almost twenty years by then, but it was in 1947-48 that
'The Aloof' is Bob Fosse at his best, a #Dance number from 'Sweet Charity' that truly kills. Give it three minutes and change the complexion of your Monday for the better. #dancers #Broadway #MUSICAL #FilmTwitter #TCM https://raymonddefelitta.org/the-aloof-a-bob-fosse-joint/
Dig some Three Stooges action this Sunday with 'Loco Boy Makes Good', an exceptionally good Curly short with an exceptionally sad story about it's writer Clyde Bruckman. #comedy #filmtwt #TCM https://raymonddefelitta.org/saturday-stoogefest-16/
This weekend's Three Stooges offering is an excellent Curly vehicle called 'Loco Boy Makes Good' (1942). Enjoy it and enjoy my tale of how the film led to the suicide of one its writers, Clyde Bruckman. Jesus! #comedy #FilmTwitter #TCM #slap #Violence https://raymonddefelitta.org/saturday-stoogefest-16/
1080 Lexington Avenue pictured yesterday afternoon and in 1940. The old dame has seen a lot of NewYork passing by over the years. But it appears she’s finally meeting her end as we all do.
Watch a couple of early 1940s soundies featuring the teenage pre-#MGM Cyd Charisse. Fascinating viewing, IMHO. #Dance #MUSICAL #TCM #FilmTwitter https://raymonddefelitta.org/cyd-charisse-the-pre-mgm-years/
