I first heard about Stanley Turrentine when I was in high school. A friend of mine had started collecting CTI records, which were truly amazing discs. Creed Taylor wrote checks to what seemed like everybody to produce these lavish jazz sessions. Joe Farrell, Freddie Hubbard, Airto, Deodato, Ron Carter, and dozens of other great artists ended up recording for CTI. My favorite was Stanley Turrentine. When I entered Tufts University in the fall of 1975, I met a guy who was a huge Turrentine fan. One day he told me that Stanley was going to play at the University on a double bill with Larry Coryell. We snagged tickets in the balcony and well, it was elegant! Since then, I've made a point to collect Stanley Turrentine recordings. I guess he's my favorite sax player. I own more of his stuff than just about any saxophonist, although I only got to hear him play live one other time, at Iridium in New York City in 1999. Enjoy these two clips!Friday, November 18, 2011
STANLEY TURRENTINE
I first heard about Stanley Turrentine when I was in high school. A friend of mine had started collecting CTI records, which were truly amazing discs. Creed Taylor wrote checks to what seemed like everybody to produce these lavish jazz sessions. Joe Farrell, Freddie Hubbard, Airto, Deodato, Ron Carter, and dozens of other great artists ended up recording for CTI. My favorite was Stanley Turrentine. When I entered Tufts University in the fall of 1975, I met a guy who was a huge Turrentine fan. One day he told me that Stanley was going to play at the University on a double bill with Larry Coryell. We snagged tickets in the balcony and well, it was elegant! Since then, I've made a point to collect Stanley Turrentine recordings. I guess he's my favorite sax player. I own more of his stuff than just about any saxophonist, although I only got to hear him play live one other time, at Iridium in New York City in 1999. Enjoy these two clips!
Monday, November 14, 2011
CYRIL & BUGS
I was thinking back on one of my earliest memories. When we were little kids, NBC would broadcast the musical, Peter Pan, which starred Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard. This was not the 1955 release, which was actually a live TV broadcast of the famous Broadway show, but a staging of that same show in a studio located in Brooklyn, taped in 1960. The 1960 version was shown several times when I was a kid and I always loved Ritchard's over-the-top performance as Captain Hook. In what I still consider to be the best scene in the whole production, Hook is tantalized by what he believes at first to be a spirit of the forest. With the help of a flimsy disguise, Peter Pan undergoes a cross-dressing transformation into a mysterious woman who flirts with the Captain. Hook realizes the ruse and he rallies his crew to attack Pan, but to no avail. Pan escapes and routes the pirates.
It all sounds vaguely familiar doesn't it? Think of another genre and you'll see what I mean. It's like the classic love tale. Elmer Fudd meets Bugs Bunny. Elmer tries to kill Bugs. Bugs appears as a cross-dressing vamp and steals Elmer's heart. Elmer realizes he's been made a fool of and...well, you know the rest. Enjoy the 2 clips below!OH MY MYSTERIOUS LADY
WHAT'S OPERA DOC
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)