Jack Cole’s mid-century-modern dance design 1
A lost Jack Cole dance sequence from DOWN TO EARTH (Columbia, 1947). [click on the photo for detail.] Called the “New York number,” it used to be part of the larger “People Have More Fun Than Anyone,” number before it was cut from the film. It was absolutely common in Cole’s Hollywood career that his ...
Review: Streisand, refridgerated
Warming the nippy November night with her presence, Barbra Streisand captivated the Hollywood Bowl — an outdoor amphitheater, a house of 18,000 seats — in a wonderful concert. She looked gorgeous and her voice was gorgeous, often silken and surprising. A powerful, beautiful woman dressed sharp in a black sequined pant-ensemble, Streisand commanded the Bowl’s ...
Stones still rolling fifty years later, on HBO 1
When the great blues-steeped rock band, The Rolling Stones, launched in 1962, I was seven years old — and already an budding arts journalist. Their marking a half century of existence is the magical stuff of a generation. Last night we previewed Crossfire Hurricane, the 100-minute tour de force of fascinating original footage knitted together ...
Groovin’ with Grusin & his huge jazz orchestra 1
Nov
7
2012
The 67-piece Symphonic Jazz Orchestra, the only ensemble of its kind in the country, will celebrate its tenth anniversary with a special concert featuring Academy and Grammy Award winning composer, arranger and pianist, Dave Grusin this Friday evening. Grusin has composed for such films as Fabulous Baker Boys, Havana, On Golden Pond, Tootsie, Milagro Beanfield ...
Classical Underground looks above ground — and it’s a mess! 1
As part of its holistic approach to the arts (“In Art We Trust,” its tagline), the informal classical music showcase, Classical Underground, now in its sixth season, features the work of visual artists. November’s concert highlights a neo-realist painting that resonates — much as we wish it didn’t. The work, Among The Ruins by New ...
Barrie Chase to reminisce about her favorite dance partner 1
Oct
30
2012
We would never miss the upcoming event at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences this Thursday evening when the elegant, long-legged beauty, Barrie Chase, appears in person for a fun screening and panel discussion. Clips from four of the Emmy-Award winning television specials Chase made with Fred Astaire in the late 1950s and early ...
Musical message from Moscow … 1
Oct
30
2012
… will be hand delivered when the members of the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble performs in a free concert at UCLA’s Popper Theater. The program will focus on recent works by living Russian composers Galina Ustvolskaya, Edison Denisov, Leonid Desyatnikov, Pavel Karmanov, Sofia Gubaidulina,and UCLA music professor David S Lefkowitz’s “Berceuse” for violin, clarinet, and ...
Heidi’s healing happening in Elysian Park 2
In her most recent escapade, the skyscraper-topping “Cleopatra CEO,” Heidi Duckler ramped up her audience with an heady dance cocktail mixing corporate and sexual politics. This past weekend, the pied-piper choreographer, having transformed us into alpha men, led us to a forested glen in Elysian Park, one mile outside downtown Los Angeles. There on the ...
Ballet dancer, movie star Marc Platt’s “Culture by the Mile” 2
A marvelous Columbia Pictures publicity photo from 1947 features a rare creature: a ballet dancer who became a movie star — Marc Platt. And he’s still alive, with us, nearly 100 years old. Bravo Marc Platt, a beautiful American dancer! The touching, slightly potboiler “verso” text (posted below the photo) was written by a Columbia ...
Wayne Shorter blows his own horn at L.A. Jazz Society tribute
At a swank do at the Universal Hilton Hotel Sunday evening, the Los Angeles Jazz Society, for the past 29 years the labor of love of Flip Manne (she’s the surviving widow of drummer Shelly Manne), honored saxophonist Wayne Shorter as its 2012 Jazz Tribute Honoree. Movie maven Leonard Maltin, also a jazz lover, smoothly ...