Jewish guys dressed in turbans and tuxedos, waving wands, and swishing capes — in Houdini’s case, stripping to his skivvies, weighting down with locks and chains, and jumping off a bridge — seems like a purdy danged good idea to our dulled imaginations.

There is something for everyone in the saga of Harry Houdini, the Budapest-born, Appleton, Wisconsin-raised obsessed son of a Rabbi. A Jew with a cockamamie Italian-sounding name, Houdini’s tricks, challenges, exhibitions and escapades drew throngs of new urbanites — we’re talking immigrants — into the streets and set the tone for the chutzpah of the twentieth century.

Later, man wouldn’t merely do the impossible — escape from a strait jacket hanging upside down by his ankles. He would defy nature and gravity, with autos, trains and airplanes; he would walk on the moon; he would harness the life force itself in a destructive bomb.

Was Houdini visionary? con man? genius? exhibitionist? superman? or … a fake. That was the question.

You decide for yourself. One thing: you’re not allowed to ask, “How did he do that?”

Houdini: Art and Magic and Masters of Illusion, Jewish Magicians of the Golden Age | Skirball Cultural Center | thru Sept 4, 2011

Featuring more than 150 artifacts, the exhibition illuminates Houdini’s compelling story through historical photographs, dramatic Art Nouveau–era posters, playbills, theater ephemera, memorabilia, and archival and silent film footage.

Works by contemporary artists, Matthew Barney, Jane Hammond, Vik Muniz, Deborah Oropallo, Raymond Pettibon, Allen Ruppersberg, and Christopher Wool are also included in the show. That’s meant to illustrate the influence of Houdini’s physical audacity and celebrity, his magic props and illusionist effects, and the themes of metamorphosis and escape.

According to the press materials, Houdini (1874-1926) , born Ehrich Weiss in Budapest, was the son of a rabbi who immigrated with his family to Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1878. Like, who knew that? I already learned something. Now, for some tricks!

In conjunction with “Houdini: Art and Magic,” the Skirball  has organized an original companion exhibition, Masters of Illusion: Jewish Magicians of the Golden Age, which spotlights magicians of Europe and the U.S. I hope they spotlight whoever scarfs down Elijah’s cup of Manischewitz at the Seder table.

Houdini: Art and Magic | Skirball Center | April 18 – Sept 4, 2011

Garfield’s unswerving dignity as a Jewish boxer (improbably named Charlie Davis) dominates the film, a performance James Wong Howe’s majestic black-and-white cinematography captures well. Garfield’s particular brand of intense emotionalism paved the way for Pacino and DeNiro … and closer to his time, Monty Clift and James Dean.

Remembering Garfield was his daughter Julie, herself an accomplished film actress who lost her father as a little girl. Only a six-year old’s vague memory of “going round and round [with him] on a Central Park West merry-go-round” lingers. Garfield died young, at 39, the victim of a gimpy heart (rheumatic fever as a young man compromised his health) and the unbearable stress of being a huge star and at the same time a key target of the House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunt.

Conversing with Academy programmer Randy Haberkamp, Julie Garfield noted similarities between her father and his role in “Body and Soul”: “It”s so strange that he made this film. He [too] didn’t sell out.”

Garfield plays Charlie Davis, a top-level boxer who after agreeing with his mob management to throw a fight, in the heat of the moment resists. Not two years later, John Garfield was called by HUAC, but refused to name names. Did life imitate art?

Said his daughter: “What’s important about “Body and Soul” is that it happened in my father’s own life. He was a kid from the [Bronx] streets. His family was poor. His mother died at seven and he didn’t get along with his father. He was a tough kid and he was wild. Only a school teacher channeled his wildness into debating, which led to acting. That led to the Group Theater. Then he got discovered by Hollywood.”

“The boxing genre was important for him. Clifford Odets wrote boxing drama “Golden Boy” for him, but he didn’t get to play the lead role on Broadway because Luther Adler had seniority in the Group. Later when he did play “Golden Boy,” they called it “Garfield’s revenge.”"

“He fell in love with my mother at a very early age and it was a passionate love. It survived the insane test of what fame does to you. My parents had a volatile relationship and they were separated when he died. But I feel sure they would have eventually got back together again.”

“At the Amsterdam Avenue funeral home, 10,000 people wanted to pay their respects. My mother let them.”

“What I see in this film,” said Julie Garfield, “is a truly passionate, devoted artist. It’s the specificness of the choices he makes and his profoundly deep understanding of the character [that impresses me].

“HUAC hounded him. He was tormented by how abandoned he was by the business and how he couldn’t get work. When it came to the blacklist, like Charlie Davis, he dies because of it.”

“My father wasn’t political. He was an idealist and he was anti-racist. My father had great, great integrity.”

Like this? Read more from the Academy’s Film Noir series:

• Remembering Alan Ladd
• Film-noir honey Lizabeth Scott

Read this story on The Huffington Post.

With that great one-liner, Mel Brooks, the funniest man in the world, defuses – no, ridicules – the McCarthy hearings and blacklist that terrorized the entertainment industry in the early 1950s.

Together with his longtime friend and indispensable straight-man, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks delivered 45 minutes of bliss to a sold-out American Cinematheque audience Friday night. Like, you died, went to heaven, and headlining in heaven, Brooks and Reiner doing stand-up comedy. Happiness filled the Egyptian Theater as the two alta cockers swapped schtick.

The kibitzing followed a screening of “Ten From Your Show of Shows,” a compendium of comedy sketches from the brilliant early television program that starred Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca.

Reiner, 88, shines in the clips as a durable and versatile straight-man foil to Caesar’s explosive shenanigans. Brooks, 84, was a young writer on the show, and a protege of Caesar.

Asked how he first joined “Your Show of Shows,” Brooks said, “I wandered in off the street. It was a warm place. There were doughnuts and coffee.”

“The first time I heard Mel,” said Reiner, “He did a thing about a Jewish pirate. He was complaining about how hard it was to set sail. I was laughing hysterically. A Jewish pirate. That voice was the genesis of the “The 2000 Year Old Man.”

Said Brooks, “The voice was based on my uncle and my grandmother. The only word my grandmother knew in English was subway.”

Reiner continued: “Mel was obstreperous and he was also late. He had a problem waking up. But Mel was a firecracker. Sid wanted him there.”

“I was working in the mountains,” said Brooks. “I was a bus boy and a drummer. Sid was a tenor sax player and a comic on the side. I got to know him. Don Dell took me to the Copacabana to see him. Max Liebman ["Your Show of Shows" producer] was there, talking about a thing called television. I said, ‘What am I a wrestler?’ [wrestling dominated early television], but he said, ‘Milton Berle is on it.’

They were taping at the International Theater, a little theater at Columbus Circle. They needed a few jokes. The genius Mel Tolkin was head writer — a terrific composer and comedy writer, and father of Michael Tolkin [he points to MT, in the audience, looking pleased]. I threw in a few jokes about an airport interview and Tolkin liked it. It was “Jungle Boy” arriving at Idlewild Airport. Like, “Jungle Boy, what is the most frightening thing for you in New York City?” And Jungle Boy barks, “BUICK.”

“Sid hired me to be his personal writer and stooge. I got him corned beef sandwiches,” said Brooks.

The 90-minute weekly “Your Show of Shows” was “truly a live show. We were absolutely live. There were only two [full-time] writers Lucille Kallen and Mel Tolkin.  I did additional writing. We had serious writers who were amazing. We’d all pitch, all be screaming jokes, to get the favor of the king [Caesar].”

“I went to Chicago to help Sid on his act at the Palmer House. It was 12, 1 a.m. I was tired. Sid was smoking, I couldn’t breathe. ‘Sid,’ I said, ‘I need air.’ He held me out the 8th floor window by my feet. I could see the traffic on Michigan Avenue. ‘Enough air?’ he asked me.

“Sid was strong. One day he couldn’t park his car in Manhattan so he picked up a Volkswagen [in two lifts, one front, one back] and parked in the space. Guy comes out and his VW is on the sidewalk.”

Answering questions from the house, Brooks said: “Sketch writing is an art. It has to have a beginning, middle and end. It has to have characters. At “Your Show of Shows,” we tried to write about things people understood.”

What about Woody Allen? “He was in the writer’s room, but he didn’t work on “Your Show of Shows.”  He was 18 years old. He did four specials, ‘Sid Caesar Presents.’”

“He’s a genius,” said Brooks, “but not as good as I am.”

What does Mel Brooks find funny today? “I like ‘Family Guy.’ That’s a very funny show. I like Steve Carrell. And Dave Chappelle was wonderful, truly a creative talent. I put him in ‘Robin Hood – Men in Tights.’”

♣   ♣   ♣

Read this story on The Huffington Post.

Kun launched it as "Black Sabbath." It got changed to "Go Down, Moses." Then, some genius in the Skirball Center p.r. department tweaked it further to "Get Down, Moses."

And that's precisely what a mixed-race crowd did the other night, while sipping chardonnay on a Skirball patio high above the roaring 405 freeway. They got down.

Kun, a loony, but very smart, writer/vinyl enthusiast, plucked samples from his estimable collection to illustrate the entangled musical cross-fertilization between two oppressed minority groups in the twentieth century. He and his partner, Roger Bennett, organized the "Jews on Vinyl" exhibit on display at Skirball till September.

Kicking off with vaudeville and minstrelsy led Kun directly to Al Jolson, the cantor's son who regularly did schtick in black face. Jolson's hit rendering of George Gershwin's "Swanee" represents the collaboration of two Russian-Jewish immigrants who probably never ventured below Manhattan waxing on about their black Mamie down south. Could this define chutzpah?

The man who performed in black face also fought discrimination on Broadway, promoting equality and paving the way for many black performers, playwrights, and songwriters, including Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, and Ethel Waters. African-Americans honored Jolson by turning out in droves for his funeral. (And the hugely talented Calloway, when he wasn't rapping in jive, could sing in perfect accented Yiddish.)

Kun paired Jolson's "Swanee" with a version by none other than Aretha Franklin, and the ping-pong match was on. We heard dueling versions of "My Yiddishe Mama," first from the rotund Jewish songstress, Sophie Tucker, but then covered by, ahem, Billie Holiday.

Yes, Billie Holiday, not exactly a Jewish-American princess, had a yiddishe mama. Oy vey.

And quel torchsong-du-kvetch. Here are the lyrics:

My Yiddishe momme
I need her more than ever now
My Yiddishe momme
I'd like to kiss her wrinkled brow
I long to hold her hand once more
As in days gone by
And ask her to forgive me
For things I did that made her cry

Can you imagine Billie Holiday croaking that lyric at a snail's pace? You gotta hear it to believe it.

Kun's theory is that the two groups, in a moment of mutual recognition, jumped with enthusiasm into each others' music. He pointed to the similarity between mournful Jewish prayers and the blues. More close contact came when Jews and blacks mixed in integrated big bands like Goodman's. And then there were the pervasive Jewish talent managers. Emblematic: Irving Mills, the Yiddish-spewing manager of both Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway.

Baritone Johnny Hartman crooned in the mamaloshen; Lena Horne set a civil rights anthem to the tune of "Hava Nagila"; and Ella Fitzgerald nailed "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen," which, before being etched into vinyl by the mega-shiksa Andrews, was the signature of black singing duo Johnny and George. 

And who can forget Johnny Mathis's velvet-toned "Kol Nidre"? If he davened in my shul, I'd have an easier fast.

Jews On Vinyl | Skirball Center | Mazel Tov Mis Amigos Jewish-Latino listening party July 8

Like this? Read more:

• Herb Alpert is not Mexican.
• Israeli choreographers Ohad Naharin and  Barack Marshall both use Dick Dale's surfer-rock version of Hava Nagila. 
• Another worthwhile Skirball exhibit: George Segal's "The Expulsion"

Everything nifty about Israeli culture — its youth, high energy, optimism, talent to burn cut by a huge dollop of schmaltz — careened across the floodlights from the highly entertaining 90-minute show. The ein-bissel-this, ein-bissel-that format left this viewer convinced that the variety show — if not out-and-out vaudeville — is due for a comeback.

We laughed, we cried, as singers belted in Hebrew and English, a comedian did shtick, and a rock band kicked butt behind two Israeli rasta-rappers. Come on, there was klezmer, diva-pop (terrifically arranged by Sharon Farber), coluratura, funk, and a black gospel choir — and it was all really good. Greasing the Israeli-Hollywood pipeline was a witty biblical movie montage mashing up Henry King’s “David and Bathsheba,” DeMille’s “Ten Commandments,” and John Huston’s “The Bible.”

Amazingly, Israel’s 62nd birthday party also included barefoot modern dance!

Mr. Saban and his producing partners at the Israeli Consulate General, Consul Jacob Dayan and Cultural Attache Lior Sasson, won the eternal gratitude of dance lovers by engaging contemporary dance troupe BODYTRAFFIC, whose high-quality outings we have tracked since their impressive debut performing to live Schoenberg chamber music at Sinai Temple and their staging of Eric Zeisl’s “Jacob & Rachel” at the Wadsworth.

Saban et. al. smartly hooked up the BODYTRAFFIC duo, Tina Finkelman Berkett and Lillian Barbeito, with Israeli choreographer Barak Marshall, a dance wunderkind who grew up in Los Angeles but made his mark with Batsheva Dance Company. Marshall, with his corkscrew black hair and devilish demeanor, played a perfect Peter Pan infusing Israeli energy into the handsome, but-not-all-Jewish BODYTRAFFIC’ers. His rollicking funky beat in “Adir Adirim,” (see it below) mirroring music by Balkan Beat Box, utterly melted the audience, including, from my vantage point, quite a few little old ladies.

To schmooze the audience even more, if that were possible, Marshall had the Traffic’ers skid their joyous way through Hava Nagila . . . the crazy surf version by Dick Dale.

Berkett, a splendid, confident, and focused performer with exceptionally versatile dance technique, led her own troupe of ten (Barbeito is a new mom on maternity leave). Marshall, in the house, appeared delighted that a mix of Angeleno dancers could so well imbibe his profusion of on-beat, gesture-strewn phrases and then roll them out almost quicker than the eye could absorb.

In 2008—after an eight year absence from dance—Marshall was commissioned by Israel’s Suzanne Dellal Centre to create “Monger.” In 2009, Suzanne Dellal and the Israel Opera co-commissioned Marshall to create a new  piece, “Rooster,” also supported by a grant from the Cultural Exchange Initiative of the City of Los Angeles’ Department of Cultural Affairs.

Here’s a taste of Marshall’s “Monger” set on Batsheva’s soulful dancers:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Waw66l_Igzg

Like this? Read more!

• Sunday Calendar piece on BODYTRAFFIC, in the Los Angeles Times
• interview with Barak Marshall’s mentor, Ohad Naharin, in the Jewish Journal
• last summer’s review of Naharin’s “Decadance” at the American Dance Festival

Pacific Serenades’ mission is to present newly commissioned chamber works alongside standard repertoire in intimate concert settings. Here’s an impressive list of their premieres.

Artistic Director Mark Carlson has designed a rich and attractive program for the weekend of March 6 — it  features a new work by Israeli-born composer Sharon Farber who now lives in Los Angeles. Still a young woman, Ms. Farber is an impressive veteran of concert music, television, and film composing, bringing to her sound Middle Eastern influences as well an extensive knowledge of classical and western music. Her new work, “Bridges of Love,” for tenor, clarinet, viola, and piano, sets three poems – one each from the Book of Ruth, Helen Keller, and Sufi poet Rumi – to music.

Rounding out the “Mixed Up World” program are Leonard Bernstein’s Sonata for clarinet and piano and Mozart’s Trio in E flat major, K. 498 for clarinet, viola and piano. There’s more: songs by Gabriel Faure sung by tenor Shawn Thuris. An absolutely delectable program.

Saturday, March 6, 8 pm, private home, Tarzana
Sunday, March 7, 4 pm, Neighborhood Church, Pasadena
Tuesday, March 9, 8 pm, UCLA Faculty Center, Westwood

tickets: call 213.534.3434

Dorothy, a musicologist whom I met at the Ballets Russes centenial celebration in Boston last year, writes about the brilliant gathering of composers, conductors, and other musicians who fled Nazi Germany to relocate to L.A. She examines the lives, creative work, and influence of sixteen performers, fourteen composers, and one opera stage director, who joined this immense migration beginning in the 1930s.

I recently wrote about one composer in this group, Eric Zeisl. The occasion was his major work "Jacob and Rachel" getting new choreography from Los Angeles dance troupe BodyTraffic.

The short version of Zeisl's story is here. You can read the full story in the Los Angeles Times. 

In her book Crawford presents portraits of Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, and the other musicians while considering their influence as a group—in the film industry, in music institutions in and around Los Angeles, and as teachers who trained the next generation. The book reveals a uniquely vibrant era when Southern California became a hub of unprecedented musical talent.

At the talk in Pacific Palisades Crawford will be joined by Barbara Zeisl Schoenberg, the daughter of Eric Zeisl and and daughter-in-law of Arnold Schoenberg.

Tuesday, Feb. 16, 7 pm
Dorothy Crawford in conversation with composer/conductor William Kraft: ALOUD series at the LOS ANGELES CENTRAL LIBRARY
 
Wednesday, Feb. 17, 7:30 pm
Dorothy Crawford in conversation with Barbara Zeisl Schoenberg at VILLAGE BOOKS, 1049 Swarthmore Ave., Pacific Palisades 

Thursday, February 18, 7 pm
Dorothy Crawford talk at VROMAN’S BOOKSTORE, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena.

His father, a Russian Jew from Kiev, was a tailor. His mother, of Hungarian descent, encouraged his music, giving him a trumpet on his eighth birthday.

Alpert grew up in Fairfax district, the second Jewish neighborhood in Los Angeles after Boyle Heights. It was there, in the ‘hood, in a home recording studio, that Alpert noodled his first hit.

Years of hawking singles to distracted deejays sent the frustrated Alpert to Tijuana, but not for the standard south-of-the-border debauch.

Instead, he returned to L.A. smitten by mariachi’s sweet-and-sour blend of guitar and horn. Back in the family garage/studio, Alpert mixed The Lonely Bull — a plaintive solo trumpet line interwoven with bullfight crowd noise. This mildy exotic sound infiltrated American radio waves in 1962 during the cultural vacuum that preceded the British invasion.

Soon Alpert was scrambling to flesh out his studio-concocted music with a real band called Tijuana Brass. The group of gringos — mostly Jewish guys and one or two others Alpert knew from the USC marching band — fobbed themselves off as true Mexican mariachis. Even in Fairfax, that’s a chutzpah.

Alpert’s Mexican Shuffle soon made jingle history as the Teaberry Chewing Gum theme song. The band and the business, A&M records, were a huge success.

Fast forward four decades and the modest, publicity-shy Alpert and his wife, singer Lani Hall, have become premiere American arts patrons, doling out generous grants to artists at both start-up and mid-career stages.

I write in The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles about a young ballet dancer who is a recent recipient of Alpert’s largesse.

• Herb’s music will be featured at Josh Kun’s exhibit “Jews & Vinyl” and the “Mazel Tov Mis Amigos” listening party at the Skirball Center. Read it here.