chuy93

A Bridge Too Far

2006-10-07T12:18:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

(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

2006-09-16T20:08:00.000-07:00

(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

2006-09-16T19:14:00.000-07:00

(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

2006-08-31T17:18:00.000-07:00

(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

2006-08-28T05:03:00.000-07:00

(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

2006-08-27T21:46:00.000-07:00

(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

2006-08-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-26T18:56:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-24T22:18:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-24T15:20:00.000-07:00

(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.

Muddy Waters and Keith Richards

2006-08-22T14:13:00.000-07:00

Richards recollects about his first meeting with his idol, Muddy Waters. Only problem, it never happened the way Keith remembers it. Others have better memories on this documentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4kJvIB68b0

Chet Baker

2006-08-15T12:22:00.000-07:00

(1929 Yale, Oklahoma - 1988 Amsterdam) Born Chesney Henry Baker, Jr. His father was a guitarist who played in local country western bands. When he was ten, the family movied to California. He began as a singer, competing in amateur contests while still a child. He also sang in a church choir. He took up the trumpet when his father replaced his unwieldy trombone. His first formal training came from the public schools he attended, though even then most of his playing, as it would be for his entire career, was by ear.

At sixteen, in 1946, Baker dropped out of high school and enlisted in the army. He was stationed in Berlin, where he played in the 298th Army Band. After being discharged in California in 1948, he decided to remain in Los Angeles. He enrolled at a local community college, where he studied theory and harmony. At night he found work playing in the local jazz clubs. He didn't stick with civilian life too long, quitting college in the middle of his second year and re-enlisting in the army. He was stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco with the Sixth Army Band. Here he began sitting on sessions at the city's fast growing jazz club circuit. His obvious talent made it possible for him to obtain a second discharge from the army in order to pursue a career as a professional musician.

It wasn't long before he hooked up with a sax player named Stan Getz. Then in 1952 he was chosen to play a series of dates with Charlie Parker. That same year he began playing in the Gerry Mulligan Quartet. The new Quartet attracted a great deal of attention during an engagement at the Haig and through impressive recordings on the newly formed Pacific Jazz Records. The pianoless Quartet caused a national sensation and Baker's playing came to symbolize the "cool" attitude of California Jazz.

However, the quartet disbanded less than a year later, when Mulligan went to jail on a drug charge. Baker decided to form his own quartet, which quickly shot to fame and success, winning for him numerous polls including DownBeat and Metronome. In 1954, "Chet Baker Sings," was released popular acclaim, though it alienated many Jazz traditionlists. In 1955 he made his acting debut in "Hell's Horizon". Consider by many to be the James Dean of jazz, Baker turned down a studio contract and instead took off for a tour of Europe. When he returned to America the next year he formed a new quintet. He moved his music away from the laid-back to a more be bop style.

His good looks and growing reputation for high living also fed his notoriety, although a growing frequency of drug incidents soon began to overshadow his playing. He had already had some brief jails stays of his own.

Baker returned to Europe in his mind for good in 1959, settling in Italy, where he did some acting and a lot of playing and touring. The following year a fictionalized film biography of his life, "All the Fine Young Cannibals," was released starring Robert Wagner.

The next year Baker's addictiong to heroin finally caught up with him big time. He was arrested in Italy and spent more than a year in jail. Upon his release he recorded "Chet Is Back", unfortunately, he was arrested again in West Germany and expelled to Switzerland, then France. He moved to England in the summer of 1962 to appear in the film "The Stolen Hours" playing himself. A few months later he was deported back to France for another drug offense. He lived in Paris, performing there and in Spain. He was arrested again in the beginning of 1964 in West Germany, and this time deported back to America.

Switching from trumpet to flugelhorn, Baker played mostly in New York and Los Angeles. During this period he recorded several excellent albums for the Prestige label. Then in the summer of 1966, he suffered a severe beating in San Francisco from fellow addicts and his health began to deteroriate. Though he did lose some teeth in that incident, his poor health was the main cause of his having to be fitted with dentures and had to retrain his embouchure by the end of the decade. By the early 1970s he had stopped playing altogether.

Although he remained an addict, Baker did get into a methadone program and started a comeback. In late 1974 a successful reunion concert with Mulligan was held at Carnegie Hall. Baker returned to Europe where remained, playing various clubs, and only occassionally returning to America. He also made a few trips to Japan.In 1987, photographer/filmmaker Bruce Weber began work on a documentary on Baker. The following year Baker died in a fall from a hotel window in Amsterdam after taking heroin and cocaine. Weber's film, "Let's Get Lost," premiered in September 1988 to critical acclaim and earned an Academy Award nomination. In 1997, Baker's unfinished autobiography was published under the title "As Though I Had Wings: The Lost Memoir".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjihHfxj4Xw

Animal versus Buddy Rich

2006-08-11T09:17:00.000-07:00

One of the all time great show downs. They both rock!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDU-ZyBQRnQ

Suzuki Kiitsu

2006-08-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

Japanese painter, illustrator and poet ( 1796-1858).

Considered the last master of the Rinpa school of decorative painting.
In 1813 Kiitsu moved to Edo where he took up study with Sakai Hoitsu, the leading proponent of a Rinpa revival. He was adopted into the family of Suzuki Reitan, another of Hoitsu’s pupils, and married his sister. When Reitan died in 1817, Kiitsu inherited his samurai rank and became a salaried retainer of the Sakai family. After seven years of study and work, Kiitsu was talented enough to be collaborating with Hoitsu on his compilation of Korin hyakuzu (‘One hundred pictures by Korin’). Eventually, he developed his own style, adapting the elegant compositions and brilliant opaque colors of the Rinpa masters and the decorative naturalism of the Maruyama–Shijo schools.

His most highly regarded work are his many hanging scrolls, including renditions of seasonal plants. Above an example of one of these scrolls, "Morning Glories".

Coleman Hawkins

2006-08-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

(b 1904 St. Joseph, Missouri - d -1969) Coleman Hawkins is considered by many to be the first great Jazz saxophonist. His 1939 recording of "Body and Soul" brought attention to the saxophone as a serious instrument. His improvisation and remarkable knowledge of chords and harmonies inspired others to take the instrument and Jazz itself to unchartered territory. A gifted musician at very young age, Hawkins settled on the tenor sax at nine. Back then the saxophone was considered a novelty instrument, used in vaudeville or as a poor substitute for the trombone in marching bands, but when Hawkins turned professional at age twelve, he was determined to develop his own sound. He was playing in a theater pit band in Kansas City when Jazz singer Mamie Smith discovered him. During the next twelve years Hawkins played in numerous bands, touring and recording. His superior playing quickly made him a featured soloists with each of these bands. These years brought further development of his unique style and he incorporated various influences, including working with Louis Armstrong.In 1934,tired of the American scene, he moved to Europe, where he freelanced with different bands and made several recordings. With the approach of war, Hawkins returned to the United States in 1939.At this time, Lester Young had arrived on the scene, bringing a totally new style to the tenor. Yet, Hawkins was still the dominant force in the field, proving it with triumphant jam sessions and his recording of"Body and Soul".Unable to make it with his own big band, he became a fixture on 52nd Street. Some of his finest recordings were made during the first half of the 1940s. Hawkins encouraged the younger bop-oriented musicians, eagerly playing with them, yet maintaining his own harmonically advanced style. In 1944 he used the young Thelonious Monk for his quartet. He led the first official bop record session (which included Dizzy Gillespie). He also used at various times Oscar Pettiford, Miles Davis and Max Roach as sidemen.In 1948 Hawkins recorded the first unaccompanied saxophone solo, "Picasso."By the early '50s, Lester Young's influnce had surpassed Hawkins with the young tenors. Still, Hawkins kept on working and occasionally recording, and by the mid-'50s was experiencing a renaissance. A new rising star at this time was Sonny Rollins, who considered Hawkins his main influence. Hawkins began teaming up with Roy Eldridge, appearing at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival.Here is a You Tube clip, which a terrific solo piano work by the little known Georges Arvanitas.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wnyj3zIf1S8

Raphael

2006-08-08T20:23:00.000-07:00

Italian painter, draftsman and architect (b. 1483 Urbino, Italy, d. 1520 Rome)

Born Raffaello Sanzio. His father was a professional painter of little note, but he began instructing his son at a very young age not only in the arts but also the intellectual court life of the city state of Urbino. At this time Urbino had become a center of Italian culture, rivaling such illustrious cities as Venice and Florence.

His mother died when he was eight and his father when he was eleven. Still, he was able to acquire an apprenticeship at twelve with one of the city's leading painters. It did not take him long for his talent to out grow his apprentice, by 1500, at the age of seventeen, he had already been declared a Master and was receiving significant church commissions. While working on a commission in the city of Perugia, he
apprenticed with the great Master Pietro Perugino, who became a major influence in Raphael's emerging style. Perugino's work "Giving the Keys to St. Peter" on the Sistine Chapel (1482), inspired Raphael's first major work, "The Marriage of the Virgin" (1504).

Yet, even at this early stage, his work was surpassing that of Perugino's, and his insatiable hunger for greater intellectual and artistic challenges brought at the age of twenty-one to Florence, where he embraced the works of Michelangelo, da Vinci and other masters of the High Renaissance. He quickly succeeded in Florence, painting not only works which incorporated the innovations of da Vinci but also new figure types, whose round gentle faces reveal uncomplicated and typically human sentiments and a sense of serenity and perfection.

By 1508 his fame had grown to the point that he was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II. His work for the papal court met with high praise and he deeply impressed the Pope. The fact that he was also personally handsome, charming and adept at court etiquette soon established himself as the most favored artist in Rome. He was known as the "Prince of Painters".

During his twelve years in Rome, he recieved commissions for portraits, devotional subjects, and the Pope's private rooms; he also designed tapestries. He eventually was put in charge of all papal projects involving architecture, paintings, decoration, and the preservation of antiquities.

His untimely death on his thirty-seventh birthday "plunged into grief the entire papal court and the Pope supposedly wept bitterly, proclaiming he had had intentions of making Raphael a Cardinal. A funeral mass was celebrated at the Vatican, his Transfiguration was placed at the head of the bier, and his body was buried in the Pantheon in Rome.

Albrecht Dürer

2006-08-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

Printmaker, Draftsman, Painter and Designer (1471 - 1528 Nuremberg, Germany). "In Venice, I am treated as a nobleman. . . . Here I really am somebody, whereas at home I am just a hack."

Dürer is well regarded as a painter, but it his remarkable work as a graphic artist and the influence he had on art history which makes him so important. He is given credit for bringing the Italian Renaissance to Germany and other northern European countries.

His father was a goldsmith, and the young Dürer began training to follow in his footsteps. He also trained as a painter and woodcutter. His early training in metal work laid the basis for his meticulous attention to detail. In 1495 he made his first visit to Italy, traveling to Venice, which made a profound change in the direction of his work. Upon return to Germany, he emersed himself in the study of mathematics, geometry, Latin and humanist literature and his subsequent work reflected this broadening education and awareness. Painting was not profitable in Germany at this time because of the powerful Lutheran reformers disdain for most religious art, so Dürer concentrated on engravings and woodcuts.In 1498 he published "The Apocalypse", considered the first book ever produced solely by an artist. It included woodcuts illustrating the Book of Revelation. Its vivid imagery, superior draftsmanship, and complex iconography established his reputation.

After visiting Italy again from 1505 to 1507, Dürer's art became even more influenced by the Renaissance. His drawings included studies of hands, draperies, and costume, portraits, Madonnas, and intimate and detailed watercolor studies of nature. Despite the impressive scope of his workshop, Dürer left no direct successors as was common practice throughout Europe. Yet many did succed him. Since his prints and books, unlike the commissioned paintings and murals, were easily transportable and artists everywhere admired and copied Dürer's work.

In his fifties, Dürer turned more of his attention and talent toward instruction, publishing illustrated ground breaking treaties on perspective and proportion. From early in his life, Dürer became aware of the significance of his fame and contribution to the world of art. His many self-portraits show the humanist in a gentle Christ-life aura.

The above drawing "Rhinocerus" was done by Durer without ever having seen one. His rendition is based upon a description in a letter he received from a friend who had. (h/t G.P. Cox)

Audrey Hepburn

2006-08-04T23:35:00.000-07:00

(1929 Brussels - 1993 Switzerland) Born Audrey Kathleen Ruston into wealth and family, Hepburn's father was an English banker and her mother a Dutch baroness. Her father changed the family name to Hepburn-Ruston. Her parents divorced when she was six and she moved to London with her mother. She later called her father's abandonment the most traumatic moment of her life. Her mother enrolled her in elite private schools in both London and Holland. Audrey and her mother were caught in Arnhem, Holland when the German army invaded. They remained trapped in the country for the duration of the war. Living through the brutal and horrifying occupation and the allied counter attack, had a devastating effect on Audrey, as she witnessed starvation and death.After the war, Hepburn and her mother returned to London, where she had a scholarship to study ballet. While she studied ballet, Audrey danced at nightclubs, stage revenues and occassional modeling jobs. In 1951 she began taking small film acting roles to make money to keep her mother from working menial jobs. Her first major role came within the same year in the film The Secret People, in which she played a ballet dancer. Her ballet career was stalled by her height, 5'7", but her acting career took off. That same year she was chosen to play the lead character in the Broadway play Gigi for which she won a Theatre World Award. After her acclaim for Gigi, she was offered a starring role opposite Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday. Peck's name was to appear above the title for all billing, with Audrey's beneath as "introducing Audrey Hepburn." Peck demaned she have equal billing, predicting she would win an Oscar. He was right. There were rumors the two stars were romantically involved, but both vehemently denied it. Hepburn, however, added, "actually, you have to be a little bit in love with your leading man and vice versa. If you're going to portray love, you have to feel it. You can't do it any other way. But you don't carry it beyond the set."After Roman Holiday she filmed Sabrina with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden. She and Holden were truly involved, and Audrey hoped to marry him and have children. The relationship ended when he revealed to her he had had a vasectomy.In 1954, Audrey returned to the stage in "Ondine" opposite Mel Ferrer, whom she would wed later that year. For her performance she received a Tony for Best Actress. Coming only six weeks after her academy award for Roman Holiday, Audrey's reputation as a major film and stage star was secured. Audrey co-starred with such major stars as Fred Astair in "Funny Face", Bogart and Gary Cooper in "Love in the Afternoon", George Peppard in "Breakfast at Tiffany's", Cary Grant in "Charade", Rex Harrison in "My Fair Lady", Peter O'Toole in "How to Steal a Million"and Sean Connery in "Robin and Marian". Cary Grant loved to humor her and once said, "all I want for Christmas is to make another movie with Audrey Hepburn;" and Gregory Peck became a lifelong friend. After her death, Peck went on camera and tearfully recited her favorite poem, "Unending Love."Hepburn's performance as "Holly Golightly" in 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's is considered one of "the most iconic characters in 20th Century American cinema." Hepburn called the role, "the jazziest of my career."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqotKcQrtTs&mode=related&search=Humphrey%20Bogart

Dizzy Gillespie

2006-07-29T11:31:00.000-07:00

John Birks Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, one of ten children. His father was a local band leader. At the age of four he had already learned to play the piano and taught himself the trombone. At twelve he switched to the trumpet. He went to Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina on a music scholarship. In 1935, he left school to pursue a career as a professional musician. His musical idol at this time was Roy Eldridge, a pioneer for black Jazz musicians. He quickly hooked up with the Frankie Fairfax band from Philadelphia. It was because of his stage antics with this band that he got his nickname Dizzy. For the next two years he freelanced and toured with various bands through the U.S. and Europe. In 1939 he joined Cab Calloway. Playing with Calloway's poplar band gave Dizzy a chance to develope his own style. Calloway didn't like Dizzy's style, calling his solos "Chinese music." Still Calloway kept the talented and popular player until 1941. In a legendary incident Calloway accused Dizzy of hitting him in the back with spitballs while he was facing the audience. Dizzy vehemently denied it and the two began to fight. Dizzy ended up cutting Calloway with a knife. Although the two made up after Jonah Jones and Milt Hinton confessed, Dizzy was fired.

For the next few years Dizzy moved from band to band, playing with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter and Duke Ellington. It was during this time that he met Charlie Parker, beginning what would be a long friendship. He also began working with Thelonius Monk, experimenting with complex chord changes that became the essence of bebop. Along with the sound, Dizzy brought the era's look, black horn-rimmed glasses, beret and goatee.

Late in 1942, Dizzy joined the Earl Hines's band with Charlie Parker. It was with this band that Dizzy wrote "Night In Tunisia", the front piece for the Bebop Era.

Here is a you tube clip from a 1971 performance in Prague with Art Blakley on drums, Theleonius Monk on Piano. Sonny Stitt on sax. Kai Winding (Danish born) on trombone. I don't know who is the bass player.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CTw0vOYIDQ&mode=related&search=Dizzy%20Gillespie

Kawase Hasui

2006-07-27T16:55:00.000-07:00

Japanese Print Maker (1883-1957). One of the most successful of the shin hanga art movement. Shin hanga was a new style of Japanese print making popular from about 1910 until 1960. Shin hanga took the art of ukiyo-e to a new renaissance, intergrating Western elements while maintaining the values of traditional Japanese woodblock prints. Inspired by the European Impressionists use of light and expression of individual moods. The result was a technically superb and compelling new style of Japanese prints.

Hasui travelled extensively around Japan, capturing some of its most scenic sites in sketches and watercolors for later use in his woodblock prints.

Hasui was born in Tokyo the son of a merchant family. As a child Hasui learned to paint in Western style. His family disapproved of his desire to be an artist, preferring he join the family business. He was relieved of this expectation when the family business went bankrupt.

At 26 he attempted to study with Kaburagi, a traditional Japanese painter, but was rejected by the master who considered him to be too old. Undaunted by the rejection, Hasui persisted and two years later he was finally accepted. Kiyokata soon recognized Hasui's talents and introduced him to publisher Wantanbe Shozaburo, who was the driving commercial force of the shin hanga movement.

With the traditional ukiyo-e printmaking close to extinction due to the technological advances in photography, Wantanabe gathered a handful of starving artists around him and gave them commissions for prints. Watanabe's business idea was to target these prints at art lovers. From 1918 - 1923, Hasui created over a hundred woodblock print, which were mostly exported to the United States. Then in 1923 an earthquake and subsequent fire destroyed the Wantanabe print shop and all of Hasui prints and sketches. They rebuilt the shop and started anew, with Hasui creating more than three hundred new prints before his death in 1957.

In 1956 Hasui was the first Japanese artist to be named a Living National Treasure by the Japanese government.

Fat City

2006-07-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

1972 film by John Huston and based on the novel by Leonard Gardner, adapted by Gardner. Considered one of the masterpieces of Hollywood's last golden age (70's). It is a small-scale character study about unlucky men living on the margins of society. Set in the depressed northern California city of Stockton, the movie follows the life of a once promising boxer (Stacy Keach) ruined by his addiction to alcohol, who attempts a come back while he tries helping a young amateur boxer (Jeff Bridges) launch his own career. One reviewer, Elbert Ventura, wrote of this film, "Graceful, dignified and seemingly effortless, Fat City finds Huston at the top of his game. A model of understatement, it's a movie of indelible, unobtrusive details, like the thick layer of smoke hanging over a dingy boxing arena, or the slouched silhouettes at the local tavern on a lazy afternoon. Laced with empathy, these moments all add up to a fully realized portrait of failure."

Stellar cast: Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, Susan Tyrrell, Candy Clark, Nicholas Colasanto

M. Night Shyamalan

2006-07-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

Shyamalan’s Latest Sham
(b 1970 India) Mr. Shyamalan was raised in a wealthy section of Philadelphia. Both his parents were doctors. His directing career started at age eight when he received a super 8 film camera. He went to NYU and its pretigious film school. He made his first full length film in 1992, "Praying with Anger", loosely based on his trip to India . He raised his own funding for the film, which he produced, directed, wrote and starred in. His film "Sixth Sense", starring Bruce Willis put him on the Hollywood "A" list. Disney paid him $5 million to write the screenplay for his movie, "Signs". His latest movie is "Lady in the Water".

I have been dumbfounded by Shyamalan's success. I never did understand the commotion for "Sixth Sense". I thought it was simply another example of style over substance. Is his latest movie an example of his true talent coming through or just a slip on his part? Below is an excerpt from Rex Reed's review of "Lady in the Water" from the New York Observer in which he called it, "pretentious, paralizing twaddle". I think the reviews on the money and could be used for most of Mr. Shyamalan's films.

By Rex Reed
As vacation time nears, it is safe to say that no matter how rotten things get on the big screen during the rest of the summer, the worst of it is over. Hollywood cannot pollute the ozone with anything more idiotic, contrived, amateurish or sub-mental than Lady in the Water. This piece of pretentious, paralyzing twaddle is the latest in a series of head-scratchers by the incompetent, self-delusional M. Night Shyamalan. He’s the writer, producer and director, and terrible at all three, but if that isn’t bad enough, this time he has even gone one further and cast himself in one of the roles. I am here to tell you he is about as camera-ready as the corpse that Tommy Lee Jones dragged across the cactus in Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. In a war of wits, brains, imagination and talent, Mr. Shyamalan would be defenseless.

"Lady in the Water is described by Mr. Shyamalan as a “bedtime story” he told to his kids. Do not even think of repeating it to yours unless you plan to turn them into runaways, orphans or worse. No sane person could do justice to the plot, since the plot is as comprehensible as the ukulele of Tiny Tim and the voice of Tom Waits . . .

Eugene Delacroix

2006-07-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

Delacroix (1798- 1863) considered by many to be the greatest of the French Romantic painters. Known for his daring, highly political and violent subjects, his use of expressive colors influenced the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists like Matisse and Picasso.

A member of a distinguished artistic family, the 17 year old Delacroix apprenticed with famous history painter Antoine-Jean Gros. At 24 he had a critically acclaimed exhibit at the prestigious Paris Salon, which included his "Dante and Virgil". This frightening, yet romantic painting was purchased by the French Government. This, and subsequent paintings, secured his reputation as an intellectual who believed in social and political causes .

In 1830 Delacroix was appointed head of architectural decoration for the city of Paris. This same year he debuted his most famous painting, "Liberty Leading the People", a work which glorified revolution while vividly portraying the agonies of the dead and dying. His rising acclaim brought him to the head of the Romantic School, but the failure of the Revolution forced him to change his subjects to literature and the exotic

In 1832 Delacroix traveled in North Africa and Spain which inspired a series of lush and exuberant paintings depicting people, animals and customs of those lands. Upon his return to Paris in 1833 he received a commission to paint murals at the Palais Bourbon. He spent the later part of his life painting large decorations in palaces, churches and government buildings.

Delacroix, who had bouts of fever as early as 1820, died of a chest ailment in 1863.

Eric Idle

2006-07-21T11:29:00.000-07:00

Eric Idle (b.1943 South Shields, County Durham, England) Comedian, writer, actor, musician, director. His father, survived World War II as a member of the Royal Air Force, only to be killed in a car crash shortly afterwards. His mother had difficulty coping with a full-time job and raising a child, so at the age of seven enrolled him into the Royal Wolverhampton School as a boarder.

"It was a physically abusive, bullying, harsh environment for a kid to grow up in," Idle is quoted as saying, "I got used to dealing with groups of boys and getting on with life in unpleasant circumstances and being smart and funny and subversive at the expense of authority. Perfect training for Python."

Idle attended Cambridge, where he was invited to join the prestigious Cambridge University Footlights Club. He became President of the club in 1965. Other members of the Cambridge University Footlights Club were John Cleese and Graham Chapman. Terry Jones and Michael Palin attended Oxford, while Terry Gilliam attended Occidental College in the United States. Before Monty Python's Flying Circus, Eric Idle appeared in the comedy program Do Not Adjust Your Set with Terry Jones, Michael Palin and David Jason.During the 1960s, the combined comedy students of both the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge became known as the Oxbridge Mafia.

As the only member of Monty Python who wrote alone,it was difficult at times for him to get his material accepted and used by the others.. His work was often closely associated with long, complex speeches or catchy one-liners.

(On his favourite sexual position) "Flat on my back with my wallet open."

Here is a clip from the Daily Show to promote his new book, "The Greedy Bastard Diary".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxOp0R8Ku9U&mode=related&search=Eric%20Idle

Here is an early clip from Monty Python, Eric doing his money song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkhOhUkhIFA&mode=related&search=Eric%20Idle

Brueghel

2006-07-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

Pieter Bruegel, the elder (about 1525-69) was the first in a family of painters and the greatest Flemish painter of the 16th century.

Gene Krupa

2006-07-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

Gene Krupa (b.Chicago 1909-1973) The youngest of nine children. His father died when he was very young and all the children had to take jobs to help support the family. One of his first jobs was as a "choreboy" in a music store. He started out as a sax player, but took up the drums at age 11 because it was the cheapest instrument. Orginally planning a career as a priest, he started percussion studies in 1925. He joined the musicians union for fifty dollars and began playing with small commercial bands. After hours many of the musicians would get to gether for jams, which is where he was able to hone his skills. He is considered the first solo drummer, gaining international fame playing with big bands like Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman, and eventually started his own band, the first drummer to front a big band.

His fame continued to rise and he appeared in several motion pictures including "Some Like it Hot" & "Beat the Band", becoming a matinee idol. In the summer of 1943, Krupa was arrested in San Francisco on a bogus drug charge. Charged with possession of marijuana and contributing to the deliquency of a minor, he was sentenced to 90 days, of which 84 were served. He was later cleared of the minor charges.

After getting out of jail, Krupa briefly joined up again with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey before re-forming his own band. Krupa's groups of the early 1940's were often criticized as being too commercial but his big band was one of the first to introduce Bop arrangements with the help of Gerry Mulligan and the playing of trumpeter Red Rodney.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHr4XQ9SEcg&search=Gene%20Krupa

Here is a short clip with Krupa playing with Lionel Hampton and Chico Hamilton.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UUlFVLc9JU&search=Gene%20Krupa

Here another clip from the 1966 Sammy Davis show, with the 57 year old Krupa playing with the 40ish Buddy Rich. Krupa had already suffered a heart attack and back problems forced a temporary retirement. He was also struggling with the onset of leukemia and emphysema.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwJAAlXomVk&NR

Sakai Hoitsu

2006-07-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

Sakai Hoitsu (1761-1828), a son of the Lord of Himeji, was born into one of most highly aristocratic families of Japan. Among his best works are exquisitely painted screens with both gold and silver backgrounds. He was also a master of the painted scroll. The scroll "Birds and Flowers of the Four Seasons" (1808) is one of his most highly regarded works, as is the screen "Stream amid Summer and Autumn Flowers". The above painting is his "Thirty-six Immortal Poets".

George Carlin

2006-07-20T07:35:00.000-07:00

George Carlin (born 1937) , who many consider the successor to Lenny Bruce with his irreverent observations on taboo subjects. "I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it diliberately."

Here is a clip from an early Johnny Carson appearance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwEssBRdlEI&mode=related&search=George%20Carlin

The following link is to George's website. It's full of interesting stuff.

http://www.georgecarlin.com/

Joe Cocker

2006-07-18T22:54:00.000-07:00

Joe Cocker. John Robert Cocker's career as a pop singer was going no where until he began performing rock and soul in English pubs. His rendition of the Beatles "With a Little Help From My Friends" rose to number one on the British charts. His performance of this hit at Woodstock made him a legend. Here is that performance from the movie Woodstock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUt4Sfh8TBg&mode=related&search=Joe%20Cocker

Joe Cocker and John Belushi

2006-07-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

One of the great immitators and originals together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nIADvq4xXk&search=John%20Belushi

Earl Hooker

2006-07-17T20:38:00.000-07:00

Earl Zebedee Hooker (Clarksdale, Miss. 1930-1970). Chicago Blues guitar player, considered the guitar player's guitarist. First cousin of legendary bluesman John Lee Hooker. Check out You Tube's clip if you need convincing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF86XR3ICo0&search=Earl%20Hooker

Canaletto

2006-07-17T07:05:00.000-07:00

Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal) (1697-1768). Venetian painter. Is considered the best of the 18th century "view painters". His father was a theatrical scenery painter, and Canaletto began his career doing the same. Then after a visit to Rome in late 1719 he came under the influence of Giovanni Panini and turned to topography. By 1723 he was painting dramatic and picturesque views of Venice.

The above is Piazza di San Marco, Venice painted in 1742. Below is a detail from the same painting.

John Lennon

2006-07-15T23:19:00.000-07:00

Two clips of Lennon. First is Slipping and Sliding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AG5t-2aK98&mode=related&search=John%20Lennon

This clip has Clapton playing lead. Can you guess who's on bass without looking at the You Tube credits?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLaivdQl9n8&mode=related&search=John%20Lennon

Moody Blues

2006-07-15T21:09:00.000-07:00

For sister Flea. Here is a photo from that period of this band's history. They were doing bluesy rock with the rest of the British invasion in the early sixties, then moved more into the psychodelic with changes in the band personnel. Here is a clip from You Tube "Nights In White Satin". This song was the final cut on their Days of Future Past Album of 1967

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkC0H85hcvg&search=Moody%20Blues

The Eagles

2006-07-15T20:38:00.000-07:00

Hotel California from a 1977 concert. Looks like Hollywood Bowl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIWyuLTEGmc&mode=related&search=The%20Eagles

Vladimir Horowitz

2006-07-15T12:23:00.000-07:00

(Kiev 1904- New York 1989) Premier pianist.
Horowitz had already made a name for himself in Russia before he turned 20. His fame began to spread when he left Russia for Germany in 1925 and was immediately recognized as a sensational new talent, resulting in appearances in England and France. In 1928 he made his American debut. He emigrated to America in 1940 and became a citizen in 1945. He became known as the most virtuosic of all virtuosos. In 1953 he withdrew from making public appearances. For the next twelve years he instead devoted himself to making recordings and studying new works. His historic comeback in 1965 at Carnegie Hall was the first of the relatively few public recitals he was to give over the next years, most of them on Sunday afternoons at Carnegie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
WOXO4WcBkuo&mode=
related&search=Horowitz

Cassandre

2006-07-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

Ukrainian born French art deco printmaker (1901-1968) also known as Adlophe Mouron. A graduate of Paris' Académie Julian, he co-founded an advertising agency in 1926, where he designed posters for the new fast moving vehicles being manufactured throughout the world. It was during this time that he also introduced the concept of the serial poster; a group of posters in quick succession to portray one complete idea. In 1929 he designed Bifur, a new typeface. Later, he designed two other typefaces, Acier Noir (1935) and Piegnot (1937). In 1939 he abandoned poster art for stage set design and painting.

Lewis Wickes Hine

2006-07-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

Lewis Wickes Hine (1874 -1940), photographer, sociologist and humanist, is best known for his portraits of immigrants at Ellis Island and his unflinching views of housing and labor conditions in the United States.

In 1904 Hine began documenting immigrants arriving at Ellis Island and then followed these immigrants into the teeming tenements of the Lower East Side in Manhattan. Believing in the power of photography to persuade authorities to enact better housing codes for tenements and labor laws protecting children, Hine approached social welfare agencies about using his images for reform campaigns. In 1907 he was invited to participate in the Pittsburgh Survey, which was designed to investigate the living and working conditions of that heavily industrialized city. Following this he became a staff photographer for the National Child Labor Committee and traveled across much of the southern and eastern states documenting the working conditions of factories, fields, mines, mills and canneries which made use of child labor. The results of Hine's photographic pursuits eventually led to the establishment of child labor and safety laws for all workers.

Hine believed that the emerging modern technologies of the 1920's and 1930's would lift the burden of hard labor from the American worker. In the 1920's Hines began a series of photographs he called "Work Portraits" which showed man and machine at work together. The best known of this series came from a commission to document the construction of the Empire State Building from March 1930 to May 1931. At the conclusion of the project Hine published "Men at Work", a picture book which summarized his theme.

Pink Floyd

2006-07-12T22:36:00.000-07:00

Dark Side of the Moon. You Tubes has a clip of a recording session for this album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZygApgnVu4&search=Pink%20Floyd

Georges Lacombe

2006-07-12T22:10:00.000-07:00

Lacombe (1868-1914) French painter and sculptor. He came from a well to do Versailles family. His father was a cabinet maker and his mother a painter and engraver. Independently wealthy, he spent his summers on the Brittany coast, where he came into contact with the group of painters known as the Nabis. The Nabis were heavily influenced by the symbolism of Paul Gauguin and his strong colors, expressive, simplified forms and dynamic rhythms.

The posted painting is titled, "The Chestnut Gatherers" and was one of four paintings he created to represent the seasons of the year. The women in the foreground depict three generations of gatherers. Lacombe created the painting as a gift for the home of Mme. Wenger, a wealthy Versailles widow, whose daughter, Marthe, was his fiancee. Marthe was the model for the the three women. The painting is on display at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California.

Wantanabi Shiko

2006-07-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

Wantanabi (Kyoto, 1683 - 1755)

a masterless samurai who entered the service of the aristocratic Konoe family in Kyoto in 1709. He is best known as one of the leading exponents of the decorative Rinpa style

Jascha Heifetz

2006-07-09T18:23:00.000-07:00

Jascha Heifetz (1901-87) Premier violinist. Born in Vilna Russia (now Vilnius, Lithuania) He was instructed by his father at very early age and gave his first public performance at age seven. Two years later he went to St. Petersburg to study and within three years was declared a child prodigy. He began to tour in Europe, performing in Germany, Austria and Scandinavia. With the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, his family, with much difficulty, emigrated to America in 1917.

Heifetz made his American debut in Carnegie Hall on October 27, 1917. One music critic wrote of that performance, "The 16-year-old violinist seemed the most unconcerned of all the people in the hall as he walked out on the stage and proceeded to give an exhibition of such extraordinary virtuosity and musicianship as had not previously been heard in that historic auditorium." Overnight, Heifetz became a sensation. The demand for his performances was overwheling. He made thirty appearance the first year just in New York alone.

Heifetz became an American citizen in 1925 . In the '40s he settled in Beverly Hills, California, where he lived until his death. Heifetz continued to perform into his seventies, giving his last public recital in 1972. During his long career he recorded over 80 albums. Heifetz received many honors . He was made an officer of the French Legion for his numerous charity recitals in France. He also received numerous Grammy Awards and in 1989 the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1999 he was posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Here is an amazing clip from You Tube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yexrDPEfDRw&search=Heifetz

Frederic Church

2006-07-09T18:04:00.000-07:00

Cotopaxi - 1862

One of several paintings Church did of the Ecuadorian volcano.

Cotopaxi was painted after Church’s second visit to Ecuador in 1857, where he had made arduous treks into the jungle and mountains to make extensive sketches to take back to his studio in New York City. The response to the 1862 exhibition of Cotopaxi was even greater than to his previously exhibited (1859) Heart of the Andes which had created a sensation and drew 13,000 viewers a month. (See post below for more biographical information on Church and his stunning Iceberg)

Paul Tortelier

2006-07-09T08:44:00.000-07:00

Paul Tortelier (b Paris 1914-1990) Premier cellist.

His father was a carpenter and cabinet-maker, who played the violin and the mandolin. At age six he was given a cello by his mother, who loved the instrument and wanted a cellist for a son. She was deeply involved with every step of his career. When Tortelier was sixteen, he won first prize at the Conservatoire. He was a member of the Monte Carlo Symphony Orchestra from 1935 to 1937, where he played under Toscanini and Bruno Walter, as well as with Richard Strauss. In 1939 he became solo cellist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. A French critic wrote, "If Casals is Jupiter, then Tortelier is Apollo." Torterlier was a friend of Pablo Casals, and was invited to be principal cellist at the first Prades Festival, which commemorated the 200th anniversary of Bach's death.

At the age of forty, at the height of his career, Tortelier moved to Israel to help establish a Jewish homeland. From 1956 to 1969 he was a professor at the Paris Conservatoire, and at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, from 1969 to 1975. Shortly thereafter he became the first Westerner to be an honorary Professor of Music at the Central Conservatoire in Beijing, China. Tortelier died in December of 1990, at the age of 76.

Here is a clip of Tortelier performing an except from Bach's 6th prelude.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ncFzGEytd4&search=bach

Mark Rothko

2006-07-07T14:11:00.000-07:00

Mark Rothko (born Marcus Rothkowitz in Dvinsk, Russia - now Latvia - 1903 - 1970)

One of the preeminent artists of his generation. He was part of a group of painters who emerged during the 1940's to form what would be later known as the New York School, providing a new collective voice in American art. He created a new form of abstract painting, incorporating rigorous attention to formal elements such as color, shape, balance, depth, composition, and scale. "It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism. There is no such thing as good painting about nothing."

Hokusai

2006-07-06T11:37:00.000-07:00

Katsushika Hokusai (1760- 1849) Prolific Japanese painter, illustrator and print maker created well over thirty thousand designs. Best known for his Under the Wave of Kanagawa

One of the best known Japanese artist, Hokusai embodied the essense of the ukiyo-e style. In his youth he apprenticed with an engraver and at the age of 18 became a pupil of the leading ukiyo-e master, Katsukawa Shunsho. In 1793 Shunsho died and soon after so did his wife, leaving Hokusai with three children. Legend has it he was soon expelled from the Shunsho school for secretly studing with other masters. Studying with more than one master at a time was considered taboo. Now in his mid-thirties, he still craved artistic training. During this period he studied with a rapid succession of more than a dozen masters and schools.

In 1797 he remarried and took the name Hokusai, "Northern Studio". This marked the beginning of what is considered the golden age of his work. Because he had no ties to any one school, he often found it difficult to get commercial work. He was often reduced to selling condiments and calendars.

"From the age of five I have had a mania for sketching the forms of things. From about the age of fifty I produced a number of designs, yet of all I drew prior to the age of seventy there is truly nothing of any great note. At the age of seventy-two I finally apprehended something of the true quality of birds, animals, insects, fish and of the vital nature of grasses and trees. Therefore , at eighty I shall have made some progress, at ninety I shall have penetrated even further the deeper meaning of things, at one hundred I shall have become truly marvelous, and at one hundred and ten, each dot, each line shall surely possess a life of its own. I only beg that gentlemen of sufficiently long life take care to note the truth of my words."

Isaac Stern

2006-07-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

Isaac Stern (1920-2001) pantheon violionist of the 20th century.

Stern was born in Kremenetz, Ukraine in 1920. Ten months later his family, fleeing the Russian civil war, moved to the United States and settled in San Francisco. His first music teacher was his mother, a professional singer. At the age of eight his parents decided to remove him from school so that he could focus exlusively on the violin. By 15 his talent was evident when he gave his debut recital in San Francisco. By 1943 he was performing at New York's Carnegie Hall to rave reviews and immense popularity. He rapidly became one of the country's most recorded musicans. During World War II he toured vigoursly for the USO. In 1945 he made his first recordings for Columbia Records, and the following year he doubled the violin parts for actor John Garfield in the movie Humoresque. During the forties and fifties Stern continually toured throughout the country and Europe bringing him further acclaim and recognition as one of classical music's greatest violists.

During the height of the cold war, he was one of the first American musicians to tour widely in Soviet Russia and is credited with opening up cultural exchanges between the East and West.

Stern's contribution to American classical music and arts included work as director for the National Council for the Arts, Chairman of Carnegie Hall and a founding member of the National Endowments for the Arts. In 1979 Stern traveled to China, which was documented in the Oscar winning film Mao to Mozart. He is widely recognized as an influential teacher, emissary, speaker, and humanitarian. Many honors were bestowed upon him by governments around the world, including Commandeur de la legion d’honneur by order of the President of the French Republic, The Order of the Rising Sun (Japan’s highest award), the Commander’s Cross of the Danish government’s order of Dannebrog, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Surprisingly You Tube does not at present have a clip of Stern performing. If one appears I will add it to this post.

Dersu Uzala

2006-07-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

A few months after his notorious suicide attempt, out of favor Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa was invigorated by the idea of directing what would be the first Russian/Japanese co-production. Co-scripted and directed by Kurosawa, Dersu Uzala is a turn of the century story of an elderly hunter who agrees to guide an officer and his men on a mapping expedition through the treacherous Asian forests of Imperial Russia. Four years in the making, Dursu Uzala won the 1976 Best Foreign Film Oscar and restored Kurosawa to the top ranks of the Japanese film industry.

The film is beautifully realized, allowing the images to awe and the story to portray the power of friendship and the harsh brutality of human survival be it in the wilderness or hub of civilization.

Theodore Roosevelt

2006-07-05T08:27:00.000-07:00

Recent administration hacks have been trying to equate George Bush with Theodore Roosevelt. They couldn't be more different. No president could be more different from Bush than Theodore Roosevelt. Well, add to that Andrew Jackson and George Washington, Thomas Jefferson. Abraham Lincoln. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Well, you get the point.

Back to Teddy. To illustrate the stark differences in character: As soon as war with Spain was declared in 1898, Roosevelt (41), then assistant secretary of the Navy, harrassed every member of President McKinley's Administration and every military big wig he could get his hands on to make allowances for him to join the fight. "I know perfectly well that one is never able to analyze with entire accuracy all of one's motives, " he wrote. "But . . . I have always intended to act up to my preachings if occassion arose. Now the occasion has arisen, and I ought to meet it." He was given permission to not only join the fight, but also to form his own regiment . . . The Rough Riders.

From Cuba, below San Juan Heights.

With rifle fire filling the air, snapping the branches, ripping into the men around him, Colonel Roosevelt raised his head to get a better view. Kettle Hill rose directly ahead, its blockhosue and breastworks clearly visible, as were the entrenched Spanish soldiers with their deadly Mauser rifles. Roosevelt was flaming with frustration. Not at those of his men lying wounded or dead, but at the Commanding General. He had sent messenger after messenger begging permission to attack instead of remaining in reserve. He was just about to do so on his own, when orders finally arrived telling him to advance. "The instant I received the order, I jumped on my horse, and then my 'crowded hour' began."

The sound of bullets "like the ripping of a silk dress," he recalled, whizzed around him as he galloped his horse across a stream and up through the brush. A bullet grazed his elbow. Leaping off his horse, he pushed his way through barbed wire, running ahead of his men. In fact as he gained the heights, only one man was with him, his orderly, the others still struggling through the brush and wire. His orderly opened fire first, shooting two of the Spanish soldiers. A third Soldier had his gun aimed at Roosevelt and he instictively pulled out his revolver and fired first, killing the Spanish soldier who doubled over, "neatly as a jackknife." At last the summit of the hill. He and the orderly alone for one breathless moment before the other Rough Riders and cavalrymen swarmed up to join them.

From his newly won position, Roosevelt supervised a continuous fire on the Spanish entranched on the nearby fortified San Juan Hill, which the remaining army was now attacking. Roosevelt could not contain himself. He had to join in the charge. Leaping over rolls of wire, he started down the hill to join them, but forgot to give the order to follow and found he only had five men with him. Two were shot down while he ran back and shouted to his regiment. "Forward MARCH!" The Rough Riders and others in the vicinity followed. Under heavy fire Roosevelt ran over the lower ground, then charged up the grassy slope of San Juan Hill as the Spanish began to desert their fortifications. "When we reached these crests we found ourselves overlooking Santiago."

When George W. Bush graduated from Yale and could no longer use his student deferment to avoid military service in Vietnam, his family connections were able to get him into the booked-up Texas National guard. Serving in the Texas National Guard he learned how to fly fighter jets and party hard. When he got tired of it, he left early to start his graduate studies.

When initial combat in Iraq was deemed over, in an incredible publicity stunt, President George W. Bush helped pilot a combat jet landing on an aircraft carrier stationed off of San Diego, California.

Both in character and accomplishments, there are no similiaries which I am able to find between Theodore Roosevelt and George W. Bush.

James Wolcott

2006-07-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

James Wolcott is a contemporary columnist who worked for more than ten years at the Village Voice reviewing TV, books, and the punk scene before moving on to work as a columnist on media and pop culture for Esquire, Harper's, New York Magazine and Vanity Fair. He writes a blog under his own banner. His wife, Laura Jacobs, is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. He wrote the following in his blog on June 28th about right wing commentator and light weight nut Timothy Graham.

"Have scientists ever tested the density of Tim Graham's skull? Advances in medical technology ought to enable skilled technicians to determine its thickness, composition, and echo depth, and perhaps locate a suitable drilling spot to release the sawdust packed inside. For the uninitiated, Tim Graham is a high profile pest at the Media Research Center [also a regular in NRO's The Corner], dispatching frequent letters of varying degrees of umbrage to Romensesko's media site [poynteronline.org, a website for the journalism industry] regarding liberal bias. Few men have the consistent ability to be as inane as they are irate.

"Here is one of [Tim Graham's] recent lightning flashes. 'ABC and Ideology. Here's an illustrative sign of the liberal media times: ABC did not report the Santorum-Hoekstra story on the discovery of WMD in Iraq. However, yesterday morning, ABC did report Limbaugh's Viagra.'

"Trying to unravel the alleged hypocrisy of liberals, [Graham] sometimes twists himself up in knots and has to hop around for help, before tipping over like a mummy."

Here's another from Graham, titled JUST WONDERING.

'Correct me if I'm wrong, but is there anything more oddly self-negating than generally statist liberals arguing for the New York Times by citing Jefferson saying he'd rather have newspapers without government than a government without newspapers? As if they'd ever pick newspapers and libertarian utopia?'

"No, I don't know what point [Graham]'s trying to make either. His questions are more like cries for help. But his colleagues at the Corner have learned how to swerve around him on the sidewalk, pretending he's not there as he tugs at their sleeves, trying to draw their attention to his latest media outrage that outrages no one but him and Brett Bozell's beard.

"But never let be said that Tim's complaints about liberal bias lack methodological rigor."

GOOD STUFF.

http://jameswolcott.com/

Frederic Church

2006-07-04T07:03:00.000-07:00

Frederic Church (1826-1900) was one of American's premier landscape artists and the country's first to recieve worldwide acclaim.

Born into a wealthy and connected New England family, Church was secured an apprenticeship at age eighteen with one of America's most famous landscape artist, Thomas Cole. Cole is regarded as the genesis of the Hudson River School of painting. For two years Cole and Church traveled the mountains and vast forests of the Hudson River valley. It was during these travels that Church developed not only his passion for landscape painting, but also for travel and adventure.

After finishing his apprentice, Church moved to New York City to launch his career as an independent artist. Within a year he became the youngest ever to be elected to the National Academy of Design - a distinction that remains to this day.

Church traveled widely throughout his career, using his sketches of New England, South America, Europe, the Arctic, the Middle East, and North Africa to create the transcendent landscapes that brought him fame, respect, and wealth. His large, breathtaking paintings of an active volcano in the Andes mountains, the turbulent waters of Niagara falls, and the icebergs of the Artic awed the artworld and the general public.

Pablo Casals

2006-07-04T06:11:00.000-07:00

Spanish cellist and conductor (1876 - Vendrell, Catalonia - 1973). His father, who was the parish organist and choirmaster, taught him piano, violin, and organ. When he was 11, a group of traveling musicans came to town and performed with a cello. After hearing the cello for the first time, the young Pablo was in love with it. He immediatley told his father this was the instrument for him. His father told him, if this is so you must give up the other instruments. "Very well," said the young Pablo and he did, dedicating himself to cello for the rest of his life.

In 1888 his mother took him to Barcelona, where he enrolled in the Escuela Municipal de Música. His progress as a cellist was extraordinary and by age fourteen he was giving solo recitals. The revered Spanish composer Albéniz heard him play in a cafe trio and gave him a 1etter of introduction to Count Morphy, the private secretary to the Queen Regent, in Madrid. Casals was asked to play at informal concerts in the palace, and was granted a royal stipend for composition study. In 1897 he appeared as soloist with the Madrid Symphony Orchestra, and was awarded the Order of Carlos III from the Queen. Two years later he performed for Queen Victoria. In 1904 he was invited to play at the White House for President Theodore Roosevelt.

Casals was an ardent supporter of the Spanish Republican government, and after its defeat vowed never to return to Spain until democracy was restored. He settled in the French village of Prades, on the Spanish frontier and between 1939 and 1942 made sporadic appearances as a cellist in the unoccupied zone of southern France and in Switzerland. After World War II Casals' opposition to the Franco regime was so fervent he refused to perform in countries that recognized the totalitarian Spanish government. In 1961 he made an exception when he took part in a concert of chamber music in the White House at the invitation of President John F. Kennedy, whom he admired.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIMpbOUpcUU&search=Bach

The Decider

2006-07-04T05:51:00.000-07:00

Murray Waas reports in the July 3rd online issue of the National Review, "President Bush told the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case that he directed Vice President Dick Cheney to personally lead an effort to counter allegations made by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV that his administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq, according to people familiar with the president's statement."

Bush also told federal prosecutors that "he had directed Cheney to disclose highly classified intelligence information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson."

Arthur Rubinstein

2006-07-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

Born in Lodz, Poland in 1887, Rubinstein is considered one of the great pianists of the twentieth century. He began piano lessons at age three and within five years had given his first public performance. At age ten his mother took him to Berlin to audition for the famous violinist, Joseph Joachim. Impressed, Joachim agreed to be responsible for his general and musical education. He would never return to live with his family.

In 1906, he traveled to New York for a performance at Carnegie Hall. He was not well received, but finished a planned 75 concert tour of the country. Rubinstein returned to Paris and for next four years refused to make any public appearances. During this time, he fluctuated between being poor and homeless to living among the cultured elite. Among his friends was composer Igor Stravinsky. With the outbreak of World War I Rubinstein left Paris for Spain.

Rubinstein’s tour of Spain was a major turning point in his life. As a pianist he had begun to mature and his performances were passionate and charismatic. The Spanish responded enthusiastically.

After numerous tours, including a highly successful South American debut, Rubinstein eventually returned to Paris with confidence and money. His Parisian return was a triumph, marked by an active public social life. Among his friends was the avant-garde film maker Jean Cocteau and revolutionary painter Pablo Picasso.

At the age of forty he married the daughter of a well known Polish conductor, Nela Mlynarski. She was nearly twenty years younger, but more than anything else, it was this relationship and the beginning of family life that imposed upon Rubinstein a need to return to the rigors of study. Soon after the birth of their first child, Rubinstein rented a small farmhouse and began to practice twelve to sixteen hours a day.

In 1937, Rubinstein returned to Carnegie Hall at the height of his powers. It had been more than thirty years, and this time he was hailed as a genius. In his performance of Chopin, critics saw not only the master musician, but a revolutionary re-interpretation of the composer’s work.

The changing politcal scene in Germany brought Rubinstein and his immediate family to America, where he found a home in Los Angeles among other European refugees. Those family members who remained in Lodz were all killed along with millions of European Jews. After the war Rubinstein dedicated himself to performing publicly in support of the new state of Israel.

Despite his failing health, Rubinstein continued to perform throughout his seventies and eighties. He died in Geneva, Switzerland in 1982, and his ashes were buried in an Israeli forest named after him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBd9iW5x_jQ&search=arthur%20rubinstein

Bruegel, the elder

2006-07-03T07:04:00.000-07:00

Pieter Bruegel, the elder (about 1525-69) was the first in a family of painters and considered the greatest Flemish painter of the 16th century. His paintings, including his landscapes and scenes of peasant life, stress the absurd and vulgar, yet are full of zest and incredible detail. They also portray the weaknesses and follies of mankind. Above is "The Peasant Dance" 1568; Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna . It was painted one year before his death at the age of 44.

Daniele Crespi

2006-07-02T09:10:00.000-07:00

Crespi, Daniele
Milan 1597–1630). Italian painter and draughtsman at the height of the Counter-Reformation. He is considered one of the most original artist working in Milan during the 1620s. He was the first to break from the exaggerated manner of what was known as Lombard Mannerism to develop an early Barogue style emphisizing clarity of form and content. Unfortunately, Crespi became infected with the plague in 1630 and died at the age of thirty-three.

Democracy vs Monocracy

2006-07-02T08:56:00.000-07:00

Here's another interesting quote from Jane Mayer's New Yorker article, Richard A. Epstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said, “The President doesn’t have the power of a king, or even that of state governors. He’s subject to the laws of Congress! The Administration’s lawyers are nuts on this issue.” He warned of an impending “constitutional crisis,” because “their talk of the inherent power of the Presidency seems to be saying that the courts can’t stop them, and neither can Congress.”

Attacking America

2006-07-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

As Reported in a powerful
article by Jayne Mayer on
New Yorker website.

Scott Horton, a professor at Columbia Law School, and the head of the New York Bar Association’s International Law committee, said that a small group of Administration lawyers had attempted to “overturn two centuries of jurisprudence defining the limits of the executive branch. They’ve made war a matter of dictatorial power.”

As for the Administration’s legal defense of torture historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. said, “No position taken has done more damage to the American reputation in the world—ever.”

Bruce Fein, who served as associate deputy attorney general in the Reagan Justice Department, said that Presidential legal advisers had “staked out powers that are a universe beyond any other Administration. This President has made claims that are really quite alarming. He’s said that there are no restraints on his ability, as he sees it, to collect intelligence, to open mail, to commit torture, and to use electronic surveillance. If you used the President’s reasoning, you could shut down Congress for leaking too much. His war powers allow him to declare anyone an illegal combatant. All the world’s a battlefield—according to this view, he could kill someone in Lafayette Park if he wants! It’s got the sense of Louis XIV: ‘I am the State.’

Elegant Jazz with Class

2006-06-30T21:12:00.000-07:00

Modern Jazz Quartet. Tasteful. Elegant.

You Tube has a clip from what appears to be a David Sanborn hosted show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEo7fsmEx0E&search=Modern%20Jazz%20Quartet

bass at its best

2006-06-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

Willie DixonJuly 1, 1915 -- January 19, 1992. Dixon was the soul of the premier blues label Chess Records. He wrote many of the definitive Blues standards such as Bring It on Home, Hoochie Coochie Man, and I Just Want to Make Love to You. He played and worked with the greatest blues legends including Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, Big Momma Thornton, Eddie Boyd, Bo Diddley, Lowell Fulsun, Otis Rush and Chuck Berry.

YouTube has a great clip of Willie Dixon performing bassology. If you like accustic bass, it doesn't get any better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJb7QZPcaRA&search=Willie%20Dixon

Whistleblower's Dirty Dozen

2006-06-30T07:44:00.000-07:00

National Security Whistleblowers Coalition’s Whistleblowers’ dirty dozen. “The following members of Congress, by their action or inaction, have stood against real investigations, hearings, and legislation dealing with government whistleblowers who have exposed waste, fraud, abuse, and or criminal activities within government agencies.”

Two of the three Democrats on
the list. Surprised?

Here's the complete list:

1. Senator Hillary Clinton (D)
2. Senator Mike DeWine
3. Rep. David Dreier
4. Rep. Dennis Hastert
5. Senator Orrin Hatch
6. Rep. Peter Hoekstra
7. Senator Jon Kyl
8. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D)
9. Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.)
10. Senator Rick Santorum
11. Rep. James Sensenbrenner
12. Rep. Mark Souder