A Bridge Too Far

1977. Directed by Richard Attenborough with Sean Connery, Dirk Bogarde (pictured), and an all star cast. Based upon the book of the same name, it is the retelling of another British General Montgomery's impractical plans that were forced upon allied troops during the war. This one, code named Market Garden, was an attempt to break through the German lines and have the troops home before Christmas by flying more than 35,000 men 300 miles behind enemy lines in Holland, laying a "carpet of airborne troops" to seize the bridges with "thuderclap surprise" and then hold them until they could be taken by a caravan of allied ground troops. Arnhem is to be the final bridge, the bridge which turned out to be "too far". This Montgomery devised operation caused more casualties than the Normany landing.

Great effort was made for authenticity in filming, and this clip of the "carpet of airborne troops" proves Attenborough and producer Lean succeeded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfv-19f8ZG8

Glenn Gould

(1932-1982 Toronto, Canada) Born Glen Gold. His parents, who were Protestant, changed their name from Gold to Gould, to avoid being thought of as being Jewish. His family was deeply involved in music and he is related to the Norweigan composer and pianist, Edvard Grieg. Both his parents were musicians, and his mother was his only teacher until the age of ten. As early as the age of three, Glenn revealed an exceptional aptitude for music in regards to pitch perception and the ability to read musical charts. By the age of five he was composing his own pieces for family performances. He began studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music at the age of ten. In 1945, at the age of 13, he passed the Conservatory's examination as a solo performer. One reviewer wrote of his performance of Beethoven and Liszt among others in 1947, "Genius as profound as [the composers'] own was at the keyboard."

The following year he made his solo debut with orchestra at a Conservatory concert and the next year he did so with the Toronto Symphony.

Gould made his New York debut in 1955 and the next day signed a recording contract with Columbia Masterworks (CBS). Gould's first recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations in June of the same year won instant acclaim, becoming a bestseller and launching his career as an international star. He would make over sixty recordings for Columbia.

In 1957 Gould toured Europe beginning with two weeks in the Soviet Union, becoming the first North American to perform there during the Cold War. He was enthusiastically received by both audiences and critics.

In 1960, with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, he made his American television debut.

Gould's concert career continued to boom along with his fame during the early 1960s until, without any fanfare, he announced his retirement from live performing.after a 1964 Los Angeles recital. Gould did not consider himself as just a pianist and wanted to devote more time and engery to composing, conducting, broadcasting and experimenting with technology and writing about music. He had also developed a strong dislike for performing. "At live concerts I feel demeaned, like a vaudevillian."

One biographer wrote of Gould, "Through a remarkable degree of self-awareness and self-knowledge, Glenn Gould knew what he wanted to accomplish and how he wanted to live his life -- and in both he succeeded completely . . . He was a solitary man, but he touched and uplifted the lives of many."

Glenn Gould died in 1982, after having suffered a stroke.

Shortly before his death, Gould made a second recording of the Goldberg Variations twenty six years after the first. This 1981 recording was one of CBS Masterworks' first digital recording, and the last in the famed 30th street studio. The album was a huge success, winning two Grammy Awards in 1983.

The following links are to clips of those recordings. No performance by any musician has so astounded me with its brilliance. The intimacy of the camera allows a partnership with Gould, an open window to his relationship with the instrument and the notes of Bach. It is as if the piano keys are his children and he is guiding them along Bach's musical trail. Enjoy.

Variations 1-7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJhs2tSoP5c


Variations 8-14

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzO0XWcnA38&mode=related&search=

Variations 15-17

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XsExacnVoM&mode=related&search=

Variations 18-24

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ0SVYf0-Qc&mode=related&search=


Variation 25

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcA-XtPgTLw&mode=related&search=

Variations 26-30 and Aria da capo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOaeJhcCtbE&mode=related&search=

Peter O'Toole

(born 1932 Ireland, maybe) English raised stage and film actor. After serving in the Royal Navy as a radioman, he obtained a scholarship to The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He had previously been rejected by Dublin's Abbey Theatre's Drama School because he did not speak Irish. He quickly gained recognition as a Shapespearean actor and had several minor roles in television and film.

In 1960 he married Welsh actress Sian Phillips. They had two daughters.

His big break came in 1962 when he was cast as the lead in David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" after Albert Finney turned it down. O'Toole was nominated for an Oscar, the first of seven nominations he would receive from the Academy along with a lifetime achievement award.

His heavy drinking finally caught up with him in the seventies. In 1976 he became a diabetic after having his destroyed pancreas removed. He also had a large portion of his stomach removed. In 1979, he and Sian divorced and he would never remarry.

Gradually, O'Toole recovered and returned to work, although he found it harder to get strong roles in films, resulting in more work for television and occasional stage roles. Then in 1980 his performance in the surprise hit "Stunt Man" gave him another resurgance and opportunity for better film projects. His performance in 1982's "My Favorite Year" as the aging film star Swain was poignant in its reflection of his own career. In 1987 Bertolucci cast him in his epic The Last Emperor.

Here is a clip from "Lawrence of Arabia"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdSz8WsNSYY

Gerry Mulligan

(1927 Queens Village, NY - 1996) Baritone saxophonist, composer and bandleader. Considered the most influential baritone saxophonist in jazz history.

His father's career as an engineer kept the family moving throughout his youth. Somehow with all the moving he managed to get a musical education and developed a talent for composing and arranging. At the age of sixteen, with the family living near Philadelphia, he talked his way into an opportunity to arrange for a radio station's house band. His brashness was one thing, but his talent got him a paying job. He quit school his senior year to join a touring band as their arranger.

In 1946 he moved to New York, where he got a job arranging for Gene Krupa big band. One of the musicans in Krupa's band was pianist Gil Evans. The two would become roommates and co-arrangers and leaders of a youthful jazz movement.

Three years later, Miles Davis formed a nine piece band featuring arrangements by Mulligan, Evans and John Lewis. The result was the album "Birth of the Cool". Commercially unsuccessful, this Davis band is today considered one of the most influential groups in jazz history, creating a sound that, despite its East coast origins, became known as West Coast Jazz.

In 1951 Mulligan recorded his feature album, "Mulligan Plays Mulligan"
Still without commerical success Mulligan moved to Los Angeles to look for steady work. He signed on as an arranger for Stan Kenton's big band. While working for Kenton, Mulligan began playing at nights in a small jazz club know as the Haig. Here he met Chet Baker. Mulligan and Baker had an almost psychic rapport in their Monday night jam sessions. "I had never experienced anything like that before and not really since, " he later remarked. Because there was no room for a piano during their performance times, Mulligan decided to build on earlier experiments and perform as a pianoless quartet. Baker's melodic style fit well with Mulligan's, leading them to create improvised and novel textures that began to wow their audiences. Their Haig gigs became sell-outs. They made a recording in the fall of 1952 that became big seller and both Mulligan and Baker began to receive significant acclaim.

It all came to a screeching halt when Mulligan was arrested in the summer of '53 for drug possession. He served six months on an honor farm. Eventually, Mulligan was able to kick his adiction to heroin, and his career flourished until his death in 1996.

Upon his release from the farm, Mulligan tried to reunit with Baker, but Chet was not interested. They would reunit from time to time for concerts and recordings. Mulligan continued with the pianoless quartet and played and recorded with a who's who of jazz greats.

Here is an absolutely dazzling clip featuring Gerry Mulligan with Ben Webster and his quintet. Gerry and Ben at their best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwNI0AxS4Ig

Billy Holiday

(1915 Philadelphia -1959 New York) The foremost female singer in jazz history, also known as Lady Day.

Born Eleanora Fagan. She took the name of Billie from an actress she admired and Holiday was her estranged father's last name.

Raised in Baltimore, and according to Billie, her father, a Jazz guitarist, abandoned the family and refused to acknowledge his daughter until after her first success. Her mother moved to New York, leaving her with relatives who mistreated her. She did menial work, had little schooling, spent time in juvenile reformatories and in 1928 went to New York to join her mother. There she was recruited for a brothel and eventually wound up in jail on prostitution charges.

In the early thirties she began singing at a small club in Brooklyn, then moved to larger ones in Harlem known to jazz enthusiasts. In 1933 she was discovered by the producer and talent scout, John Hammond, who arranged recording sessions with Benny Goodman and found her engagements in the more upscale Manhattan clubs.

1936 she began working with Lester Young, who is credited with giving her the nickname, Lady Day. In 1937, Holiday joined Count Basie's band, then the following year moved to Artie Shaw's, the first black singer to be featured with a white group. The very next year, she began appearing regulary at the Village interracial nightclub, Cafe Society, popular with the intellectual crowd.

By the end of the forties, Holiday had become a popular star for both her slow, melancholy songs of unrequited love, but also her gutty representation for the struggle of black Americans.

As her career was taking off, her use of hard drugs became more and more a part of her life. In 1947, after a highly publicized trial she was jailed on drug charges. The result of this conviction led to the forfeiture of her New York caberet license, which kept her from working in city clubs for the remainder of her life. In tandem with her drug problems was her habit of taking up with abusive men. She also began drinking heavily. She lost most of her money, which was considerable from both performances and recordings. Consequently, her health suffered and her voice coarsened. Yet, she continued to record and perform successfully until her death.

Holiday toured Europe in the fifties and appeared on a BBC television show. She made her final studio recording in 1959 for Verve, and a final peformance in a benefit concert in the Village on May 25, 1959. According to jazz critic, Leonard Feather and musician and comedian Steve Allen, co-hosts for the show, Holiday was only able to make it through two songs. Six days later she was taken to the hospital suffering from from liver and heart failure. While still in the hospital, she was placed under house arrest for drug possession, despite evidence suggesting the drugs may have been planted. Holiday remained under police guard at the hospital until she died from complications of cirrhosis on July 17th. She was 44. Her net worth at the time of her death was slightly more than $750.

She is now considered one of the most important vocalists of the 20th century, having influenced many not only for her enormous body of work but also for her fight against racism and sexism.

Here is a wonderful piece from You Tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tNSp7MaADM

Ando Hiroshige

(1797 Edo -1858) Japanese printmaker. Considered along with Hokusai the premier printmaker of the first half of the nineteenth century. His father was a smaurai and fireman. When he was twelve both his parents died. At fourteen, he was accepted at the famous Utagawa painting school, run by the ukiyo-e master Toyohiro Utagawa.

In 1818, at the age of twenty-one, Hiroshige published his first book of illustrations. He continued to create prints, mostly commissions for book illustrations, in the traditional style learned from Utagawa. Then in 1830 he began producing landscape prints. One of his great masterpieces is the series Tokaido gojusan-tsugi no uchi created from 1833 to 1834 with 55 prints in oban format. The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (rest stops along a coastal highway) became the basis of Hiroshige's fame and commercial success. For the next twenty years he concentrated on landscape prints.

One Hundred Famous Views of Edo is considered as one of his greatest masterpieces.During his lifetime, Hiroshige was well known and commercially successful. However, Japanese society was not impressed and he did not receive the acclaim of other artists popular at the time. It wasn't until he was discovered by the Europeans, that his international and artistic reputation took off.

Hiroshige died at the age of 62 of cholera, leaving behind an estimated 5,400 prints, making him one of the most prolific artists of ukiyo-e.

Bill Evans

(b 1929 Plainfield, New Jersey - 1980 New York) Both his parents were musicans, though his father, an alcoholic, managed a golf course. His mother, a devout Russian Orthodox, got him his first musical training at her church. He began studying piano at age six, but also studied the flute and violin. Evans' older brother Harry, two years his senior, and also a piano player was his first influence and he would mimic his style. By the age of 12 he was substituting for Harry in a professional band. It was playing at one of these gigs that he says he discovered a little blues phrase during a performance of “Tuxedo Junction.” It was only a Db-D-F phrase in the key of Bb, but it unlocked a door for him. “It was such a thrill. It sounded right and good, and it wasn't written, and I had done it. The idea of doing something in music that somebody hadn't thought of opened a whole new world to me.” This became the central theme of his musical career.

By the late 40s Evans considered himself the best boogie-woogie player in northern New Jersey. It was just a phase as he moved more and more into more classical influenced jazz. His mother collected sheet music and this began his intense, life long study of the classical masters. “I've played such a quantity of piano. Three hours a day in childhood, about six hours a day in college, and at least six hours now. With that, I could afford to develop slowly. Everything I've learned, I've learned with feeling being the generating force.”

Evans received a music scholarship to Southeastern Louisiana College (now Southeastern Louisiana University) and graduated in 1950. While in college he was exposed to musicans like Horace Silver, Bud Powell, Nat King Cole and Lennie Tristano.

After college he was in the army until 1954. He then decided to pursue a career in jazz and moved to New York City.

In 1956, after having to be convinced he had the talent to record as a group leader, he cut his first album, "New Jazz Conceptions" for the prestigious Jazz label Riverside. Eleven pieces were recorded in a single day including four Evans originals: “Five,” “Conception,” “No Cover, No Minimum,” and “Waltz for Debbie.” The album was a critical success, winning reviews in Down Beat and Metronome, but it only sold 800 copies for the year.

Still his reputation brought him a great deal of work as a sideman, and he recorded with musicians such as Bob Brookmeyer, Art Farmer, Lee Konitz and Chet Baker.

Evans continued to distinguish himself as a sideman not only in the studio, but also during performances. His big break came when Miles Davis hired him to replace Red Garland. Miles realized that Evans had the ability and musical knowledge to follow into the new forms of music he was interested in pursuing. In turn Evans introduced Miles to new scales from the likes of Rachmaninoff, Ravel and Khachaturian and expanded his appreciation of classical music.

Evans made 10 albums with Miles Davis in less than a year. By 1958 Evans, tired of the travelling, the restrictions Davis put on his players and the difficulties playing in an all black band, left to form his own group. He again recorded an album for Riverside, "Everybody Digs Bill Evans", in December 1958 with Philly Joe Jones on drums and bassist Sam Jones. His original, "Peace Piece" from this album became a Jazz standard. Along with the more driving swing influenced by his time with Miles Davis, the album showcased the significant growth Evans had untaken since his first Riverside recording. The album sold much better than the first.

Still, Evans rejoined Miles for his breakthrough album, "Kind of Blue". Even though the talented Wynton Kelly was the new regular Davis pianist, Miles wanted Evans for this album. (Kelly played on one piece, "Freddy Freeloader") Davis even asked Evans to write the liner notes. The album was declared a masterpiece by the critics, though Davis told people he had missed getting what he wanted.

Evans then launched into a career characterized mostly by trio recordings. In 1961, he made a series of live recordings at the Village Vanguard. Many consider these among his best.

Here is a clip from 1965, with Evans performing "Waltz for Debby."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNG7PQum-UE&mode=related&search=

Beatles 1963

A very rare color clip from 1963 Manchester, England concert via Pathe. Nicely captures the year and the era and hysteria when there was still an innocence to it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I91CFOCp04&mode=related&search=

Gene Vincent

Born Eugene Vincent Craddock, 1935 Virginia - d 1971 California) Father and mother ran a general store near the North Carolina border. He was influenced by gospel, country and R&B. He got his first guitar at age 12 as a gift from a friend he was visitng in West Virginia.

In 1952 Vincent dropped out of school and enlisted in the Navy. Three years later, while still in the Navy, he was involved in a motorcyle accident. The damge to his left leg was so severe, the doctors were preparing to amputate. Vincent was adament about not losing his leg and even enlisted the help of his mother in persuading the doctors. His wish was granted, the leg was saved, but he paid for it with a permanent limp and chronic pain.

Discharged from the Navy and finally out of the hospital, Vincent began hanging around a Norfolk, Virginia country radio station singing with the staff band. He became a regular on one of the primetime music shows, singing some of his originals, including what would become his most famous, "Be Bop a Lula". As to who actually wrote Be Bop A Lula, no one knows for sure. Was it Vincent, his roommate at the Navy hospital, or a local sheriff/DJ/manager named Tex Davis or any combination of the three. In the end, Gene and the sheriff had legal rights to the song.

Davis knew captiol records was looking for talent to rival the new star Elvis Presley, so he took Vincent and members of the radio station staff band, including guitar player Cliff Gallup, into the recording studio and cut three demo songs. Capitol was impressed and told Davis to get Vincent to Nasvhille for a recording session.

The Nashville producer had brought in an impressive array of local talent to back up Vincent, figuring his radio station staff band wouldn't cut it. But once they heard Cliff Gallup's guitar work, it was obvious Vincent had a band with as much talent as he had. The band recorded the same three songs as their Virginia demo, including Be Bop a Lula. They also recorded a version of "Woman Love." Capitol released a single with "Woman Love" as the A-side, and "Be Bop a Lula" on the reverse. To everyone's surprise, within a month the DJs were primarily playing "Be Bop a Lula" and the record had sold over 200,000 copies.

Here is a clip from a performance of that hit song on the Long Beach California television show Town Hall Party. Circa 1956.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBtzMVRjcag&mode=related&search=

Though in and out of the hospital with serious problems with his leg and exhuastion, Vincent continued to record and agressively tour . His band went thorugh various personnel changes and hardships. In a dispute with the IRS and the Musician' Union over payments to his band, Vincemt sold the band's equipment to pay the tax bill and left the country for Europe.

Though his popularity had been fading in the US, his 1959 European tour was a big hit. He moved to England in 1960, where his shows were must see events. Also touring with him that year was singer Eddie Cochran. One day Vincent, Cochran and Cochran's fiance, songwriter Sharon Sheeley were rushing to the airport to catch a plane back to the states when their car blew a tire and crashed. Vincent broke his ribs, collarbone, and reinjured his left leg. Sheeley suffered a broken pelvis and Cochran, a rising music and film star, at age twenty-one, was killed.

Vincent's work in England and the US influenced many of the Rock and Roll bands of the 60's. That infleunce can be seen strikingly so with this clip recorded in Liverpool's famous cavern club.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF5ItjFzbLw

Vincent died from a bleeding ulcer while visiting his father in California. He was thirty-six.

Blues in Bb

An all star reunion for some very impressive work for old time's sake.
A special tribute to Oscar Peterson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4CFHWeEZHg

Jacob Duck

(c1599-1667 Utrecht, Netherlands) One of the lessor known members of the Utrecht Painters Guild during the Golden Age of Dutch painting. Though only a minor city, Utrecht was home to an impressive population of painters. As part of their training many of the young Utretch painters traveled to Italy. Here they gained an international understanding to their art.

During this time of great art, the country was plagued by war. The northern Netherlandish territories (of which Holland was the largest and most powerful) were fighting for sovereignty and to free its southern territories from the grip of the Spanish throne. Internally, the territories were struggling with severe religious conflicts between the Calvinists and Catholics, who still held a small percentage of the population and the majority of Utrecht painters.

Combining Italian romanticism, drama and innovating lighting with Dutch realism, the Utrecht painters were considered the crossroads of the baroque. Such importance was placed these painters' works, that the great Flemish painter and diplomat, Peter Paul Rubens traveled to Utrecht in 1627 to see for himself their expressions of the Italian Counter Reformation.

Jacob Duck's father's profession is unknown. His mother was a cloth merchant. At age twelve he apprenticed as a goldsmith. By the age of twenty he had been admitted to the Goldsmith Guild and had been granted the status of "master". The following year he married a woman who had the same profession as his mother, cloth merchant. She set up her business in their home while Duck continued his work as a goldsmith. However, he was not happy with either the financial prospects of this profession or preferred another. He began to spend more time studying drawing and painting. He took drawing lessons with Droochsloot, an influential member of the Utrecht Painters Guild. By 1631 Duck considered himself strictly a painter, and though he still maintained membership in the Goldsmith Guild, was admitted to the Painters Guild and qualified as a "master."

Unlike his contemporaries, Duck painted primarily soldiers, who reflected the moody introspectiveness of the profession. Duck also worked with other painters, a common Utrecht practice, teaming up for commissioned work, doing backgrounds or minor figures.

In 1648, his wife died leaving him at home with six unmarried daughters. A son to one out of wedlock was the only grandchild. When Duck died in 1667, his daughters refused to accept his inheritance, since his debts exceeded his assets.