Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Qunicy Jones: Celebrating 75 & Marvin at Montreux 2008


Relevance and quality are going to be issues when it comes to big slick birthday celebrations for major artists. Years ago I had a friend who would either turn off the television, or at the least, go out for a smoke if he heard the words tribute or superband during any television show that featured music.

Last year the Montreux Jazz festival took on the daunting task of putting on a 75th birthday tribute to Quincy Jones. Eagle Video has some clips up on YouTube. they are a mixed bag, but their take on the Q's What's Goin' On arrangement from way back in the Smackwater Jack days is something special, taking it well beyond the solid studio arrangement that gave Marvin Gaye's both a symphonic and swinging sensibility that makes the original doesn't really possess.

Rahsaan Patterson and Ledisi open things up towards the end in a kind of hip hop scat throw down but the back up vocals including Petula Clark who also celebrated her 75th birthday last year looking and sounding great. Full Disclosure: When I was ten or eleven, she was my first big star crush. Or at least I had a crush on the cover of the This is My Song with its low angle shot of Pet crossing a square somewhere in Europe with her mini dress was.

And then there is the appearance here of Patrice Rushen, another former "girlfriend" I don't think I have seen anyone, this side of George Duke or Stevie Wonder take control of a fleet of keyboards with such creativity and confidence, making all happen with librarian glasses on. Very cool.

For years I've told folks I wanted to be part of George Clinton's PFunk posse, but with the exception of Louis Babblin' Kabbbabie, (and I am cooler than that guy, he wears a belly pack, for God's sake.) it would never be likely for a number of various reasons. Being on stage with these folks would be a much more likely. The Northern Illinois University Jazz Band is the big horn support for this jam. There are a couple of trumpet lines that stand up to the great horn parts in the Fly Me To the Moon he wrote for Frank and the Count. I imagine how very cool it would have been to have tossed those out at such a groovy gathering. What's Goin' On.


posted by well-executed buffet at 9:27 AM
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Monday, June 29, 2009

Excursions with Esquivel!



The unique and individual music of Juan García Esquivel aka Esquivel! came to my attention during the Lounge-Exotica revival of the mid nineties. I read about him in SPIN and heard one of the reissue collections, but it wasn't overwhelmed. There was a lot going on in my life during those years, such as getting married and a career change so quirky old 360 Stereophonic quirkiness of a Mexican eccentric didn't catch my attention very much. It was kind of like listening to a latin version of Spike Jones.

But recently, I was looking for something to put on headphones and get lost to. I found that old pop standards shaken not stirred with the likes of glockenspiel, slide guitar, flamboyant horns and mixed choruses going "Vu Vu Vu' fit the bill as a pretty cool way to kick back. I think ultimately Esquivel! has more in common with the clever fifties jazz pop recordings of Pete Rugolo (which I have about three hours worth on my work hard drive and find refreshing counterpoint for purging e-mail.) than the whole Martin Denny/Les Baxter exotica lounge bag. Regardless, one has to admit that Esquivel! was one sonically clever dude. A lot of his tracks are just plain goofy lame, but at his best, this fellow really had the ability to turn a familiar tune inside out and back outside in again with a most unexpected arsenal of effects for mini space age (as in Sputnik, space monkeys, space needle, and Mercury capsule) journey.

One just can't talk about Esquivel! A sample needs to be ordered up here for the buffet. I've chosen Cole Porter's Begin the Beguine because it contains many of the quintessential Esquivel! touches. The keyboard part sounds so straight and earnest at first, but you know that doesn't last for long.



Esquivel_Begin_the_Beguine.mp3


posted by well-executed buffet at 10:21 PM
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Sunday, June 28, 2009

Ernie Isley Makes Me Feel Fine


Try to forget Seals and Crofts. Summer Breeze should belong to Ronald, but especially Ernie Isley. The Isleys were of course the original twist and shouters, did a brief stint at Mowtown, but their funk soul and R&B of the seventies will prove to be their greatest contribution to the African American music tradition.

I've had great opportunity to see the Isleys twice in the past decade. First on a fine summer evening as a part of triple bill in Concord CA with Morris Day and Time and Kool and the Gang. And then several years later at one of Terrell Brandon's hometown end of summer blow outs at the Crystal Ballroom spurred on hot with an umpteenth comeback CD by R Kelly where Ronald took on the persona of the ultimate player, Mr Biggs. But the highest point of both evenings was the opportunity to watch Ernie "Who's that Lady" show his skill on the guitar majestic.

It is easy and inevitable to compare Ernie's bag of pyrotechnic tricks and licks to St Jimi of Hendrix, but one must also consider that Jimi learned a lot of his trade when he serving as stunt guitarist on the chitlin circuit for Little Richard and, yes, the Isley Brothers. I don't really compare Ernie to Jimi except for the overlap in their lingua franca.

This clip is an official teaser from the Eagle Vision who released a full length Isley concert DVD a few years back. It cuts off too early, but seven minutes of high quality is far better than the cell phone capture crap that too frequently populates the sphere of YouTube.

A moment to watch for--circa five minutes or so, Ernie does a tasty and unexpected quote from the theme from Last Tango in Paris. It is fitting because after all, modern Isleys are rooted deep in the seventies.


posted by well-executed buffet at 10:47 PM
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Saturday, June 27, 2009

Jack Sheldon


I found myself browsing for Jack Sheldon clips the other day and reflected on this very unique survivor of West Caost jazz and sixties and seventies media and culture. When I came home from school in the early seventies, I would check out the Merv Griffin show, but usually just the first fifteen minutes or so because Merv would hang out with the Mort Lindsay Orchestra, mainly bass genius Ray Brown and the irrepressible Sheldon.

Sheldon was also a favorite of Portland record store owner and deejay Bob Dietsche (who later went on to write Jump Street, a great history of Portland jazz.) Dietsche would play Sheldon's irreverent and bizarre comedy bits as well as his virtuoso trumpet playing and his one of a kind vocals. Sheldon's singing always reminded me of an Anglo version of what Louis Armstrong's vocals whether it be on Schoolhouse Rock, the soundtrack of Robert Altman's Long Goodbye or the way he could swing an standard and make it his own.

The clips I have embedded here show his unique ability to interpret the great American songbook. I don't think Mancini ever swung quite like it did in this poor image but fine audio capture of Days of Wine And Roses from a Beverly Hills concert last year. And, believe it or not, his take on Just in Time with Merv Griffin and Alf the puppet during Alf's short-lived 2004 talk show is a terrrific appearance. Show me another 72 year old man who can still play trumpet like that with the notable exception perhaps of Clark Terry.

I briefly encountered Sheldon twice when he doing gigs up in Portland during the eighties. The first was after a long evening of music with Red Holloway and he was pretty disoriented. I found his trumpet for him. Another time he was much more sober and comprehensible taking a smoke break at intermission in a door way. If I recall it was a dampish evening and the traffic on SE 39th was sounding like brushes on high hats. I don't remember much quick kind of fanboy encounter but I do remember him saying: "It's still hard work to get music out of that horn."





posted by well-executed buffet at 4:37 PM
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Friday, June 26, 2009

Secret Stuff


Sure, there were lots of folks at the family gathering with lots to talk about and lots of beverages available to make that talk more lugubrious. But I found this dynamic, a secret kind of bonding going on with two whose time on the planet is easily defined and described in months, the most interesting element at this party. Their nonverbal communication was great to watch, these two with Pooh in the stroller. Still at an age where most all is nonverbal, there is no need for thought balloons or subtitles. They found their own world in the greater one around them and it was a delight to glimpse upon.






posted by well-executed buffet at 6:43 PM
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Thursday, June 25, 2009

Sly & Robbie: 6.24.09 Oregon Zoo



Oregon Zoo Weds. concerts can be an agonizing scene if you put your blanket or sand chairs in the bowl and listen to soccer moms talk about their kids playgroups when they should be quiet and grooving on the tunes. At the Sly and Robbie show I found an excellent work around. I lay out my ground and disappear to another part of the Zoo to read a book until showtime and then go down below and hang out with truer music lovers.



Sly Dunbar. The man himself. This is about as good a view as one gets of him during his show, but you hear and feel the pulse of the riddim he lays down loud and clear. There really is no one else in the world who does what Sly and Robbie do when it comes to taking the listener into both strange and unfamiliar places at the same time. For instance, they started their show with a ten minute version of Fiddler on the Roof but let me tell you, Tevye, Topol and Theodore Bikel were no where to be found.


You feel like you are truly seeing something unique and all the way live. Shakespeare plays his entire instrument with movement making some sounds that seem impossible. He has this very cool effect where he holds the bass upside down and touches the floor with the fret handle. It becomes a very distinct bit of punctuation before he launches in a solo.

At one point his strap broke. The roadie came out and when it became obvious that hardware had fallen off and it was not going to be an easy fit he removed it. Shakespeare was able to do everything for a good part of the set with out it, never missing a riff. Finally it got to a point where he needed to end a jam with some pyro so had to get a chair to finish the tune until the support came out to reassemble the strap




I have a theory about the microphones musicians use at reggae shows. They are set in such a way that one can not announce fellow band members and make their names come out in an comprehensive fashion. Reggae microphones are made for dub toasting and shout outs like "Do You Lovvvve Reggae Mussic? and How you Feelin' Portland? So I really have know idea who the other fine musicians were on stage. If you recognize these guys, please leave a comment.




Sly and Robbie are rhythm kings. I was trying to recollect other sorts of performances that reminded me of the quality and unique interchange between musicians, and the only one I could come up with Booker T and the MGs. I logged on to emusic after the show and found that they had 150 albums with Dunbar and Shakespeare downloads. A friend and I used to joke that they made albums at about the rate that mortals take a meal.

Fret not if you missed them this time round. The good news is that they are slated to return to our area for Labor Day Monday. There will be no mail that day, but the Taxi Gang will gladly take you on as a willing fare to the land of Roots Rock Reggae. See you then.


posted by well-executed buffet at 10:30 PM
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Maxwell at Seattle Paramount 6.23.09


There is anticpation when a great artist goes back to work in the public eye after a long absence. Soul music returned to the scene after a decade of bands with lots of electronic keyboards doing dance charts. Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite arrived in 1993 after being pondered for months by record executives. It is an album to sit on the shelf timeless like That's The Way of the World or Marvin Gaye's best seventies work. There are inevitable comparisons to Prince when one considers Maxwell. But Marvin's albums, with exception of What's Going On can maintain both a long form vision with darn near every piece contributing to a mood, a kind of story without being too literal. Urban Hang is not only an album: it is a great first novel and collection of poetry and an album for all funky seasons.

Great are even good soul singers are a rare rare thing. There are probably fewer great soul singers than Wagner Tenors who are half way decently. It may sound a bit dramatic, but one of the prerequisites is that they have to have the right balance of the sacred and profane to pull it off. A classic illustration of this struggle can be seen the Marvin Gaye cover where he is shown as devil and angel.

So where does Maxwell 2.0 (or if you were to name revs by albums 4.0) fit into this dichotomy? Well, a little differently (and this pertains to all of the Maxwells of the past 14 years or so of his career, no matter how you count them. The difference is that Maxwell is so well connected with his feminine side as well. They don't seem to be in conflict. Sam Cooke was very pretty. Marvin Gaye also let you see his softer side at times. But Maxwell besides his very carnal moments on stage is kind of in a different bag.

Consider the first major ecstatic wave of energy outside of the opening from his Seattle concert that was exuded demonstratively from the primarily 30-50ish crowd with lots of ladies. It greeted the first few bars of Maxwell's cover of Kate Bush's A Woman's Work, which although he has incorporated into his book since he gave it a mass public debut in the MTV Unplugged session, still seems like a very improbable song for an African American soul singer to perform.

But then again, Maxwell in style and often substance resembles Al Green, a soul singer who was also unafraid to show his soft (some would say feminine side) duing his sexy period back in the day of hot grits before Reverend Al won the eternal soul mans struggle, more or less until the bills had to be paid and the secular was revived.

I thought of the famous Al Green album title when he worked up the women, in particular into a kind of frenzy. At the end of a really fine and inventive reworking of his Sumthin' Sumthin' he asked the crowd "How come you still have your clothes on?" My favorite crowd response of the evening came at a dramatic moment when Maxwell was facing his band and a woman near me yelled "Turn Around and Look at ME, Maxwell"

The patter as he wound into the final fifth of the show or so was even more explicit.
"Here's the part of the show where we are going to get a little bit nasty. I'm going to set the brothers up. If you can't get any after the show, come bring it back to me or us because you grame is whack." And then he launches into Al Green's Simply Beautiful in a most impressive way.

The old tunes seem to have a lot more heft to them these days. The base seemed to have a little more power to it and the horns were often featured to bring things home at the end in a big way.


Maxwell's new tunes were well represented. At times it seemed the crowd was singing along with those as well. This show is scaled large and well-executed. They've started on the road six or seven months ago promoting an album, Black Summer Night, which won't be released til next week. Maxwell is working real hard to remind the world of what makes his work special.

His stuff definitely addresses the racy and the world of carnal pleasures to be sure. After all this is the guy who has a song about making love ""...Til the Cops Come Knockin'

Yet probably Maxwell's song is Ascension one of the most extravagent of odes to the energy of affection of their partner. Or is he talking alluding to another order of Ascension as well? The song undeniably has a great chorus, one that sounds best with a couple of thousand people singing along with it at full volume.

So shouldn't I realize
You're the highest of the high
If you don't know, then I'll say it
So don't ever wonder

Here's a clip of Maxwell 1.0 taking Ascension to a highest high indeed.

posted by well-executed buffet at 9:59 AM
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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

A Few 14 hour Excursion Notes


The trip to see Maxwell in Seattle was a quick one. Fourteen hours round trip. I had the good luck to contact my copatriot for the evening just an exit away from where he lived, so I had the extra special treat of not having to brave Seattle traffic at the end of a business day.

We parked at the Convention Center, found out that our tickets could not be printed at will call until an hour before curtain so had an exceptional sojurn downtown where lots of young folks were hanging out in park and near fountains digging the fact summer was finally here.

In the midst of our pre-concert activities, I was introduced to two amazing business enterprises.


Along the Way


The Steilacoom has been my favorite stop for big corporate coffee and a chance to steel myself ready for the Tacoma-Seattle driving experience. No big subtext here. But I wonder what the heck this person was doing with a flute, a plate, and an instrument case on their passenger seat.






posted by well-executed buffet at 10:40 PM
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Monday, June 22, 2009

Benny Sings of Unconditional Love


Benny Sings is a thirty something pop star from the Netherlands. His voice and delivery remind me a little bit of Michael Franks and his exuberance a little bit like Jamie Cullum. Essentially, he has a talent to craft nifty tunes with a touch of inventiveness that is like a morning walk at about 8:30 or 9 when you know its going to be a good day, both with the weather, and what you will encounter.

He has a handful of albums that have been released this decade and the quality of his out put is pretty darned good overall. His fusion of pop, jazz changes, and R&B/Soul is infectious stuff.

My favorite of all of his tunes is one of my favorite kinds of love songs, an extravagant one. It is called Unconditional Love.

You Light Up my Life with the minimum.
What does it mean when I'm fully happy only looking at your face,
And What does it mean when I'm here and you're not around,
My feelings feel all out of place
What does it mean when the sound of your voice starts a sparkling noise in my ears
It means unconditional love

I'm throwing this one up on the buffet for a limited basis because the YouTube clip of the song is all screwed up and I know some you out there will likely dig this lovely song. Now you know about him, please buy his music if you dig him. He needs to be better known in the US, in my opinion.


bennysings_unconditional_love.mp3


posted by well-executed buffet at 10:57 PM
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Sunday, June 21, 2009

Jim Jarmusch testing The Limits of Control


"The best of films are like dreams you don't know if you ever had." Tilda Swinton says in an albino wig and a trench coat that looks like it was stolen from the wardrobe department outfitting Hitchcock's 1930s films. Her comment is to the lone man played by Isaach De Bankolé in Jim Jarmusch's latest and in some ways most ambitious film The Limits of Control, but it could almost be taken as a kind of explanation to the audience for the journey they have been on with De Bankolé for at least a half hour or so. A journey begun with a Rimbaud quote in a world that was described by another briefing as where "reality is arbitrary."

I'm not certain that The Limits of Control is among the best of films, but it does strike that unique and lovely cinematic version of the phrase "Nothing is true, everything is permitted" which Beat figures like Burroughs and Gysin popularized from the tale of Hassan-i Sabbah, 11th century Persian mystic and missionary.

The loan man in Limits seems to get previews and clues of the encounters and matchboxes he will exchange from visiting art museums. As in a dream, repetitions occur and then the twist will pop out like an unexpected development by a jazz soloist. And it seems absolutely correct somehow that this all takes place in Spain, the land of surrealist grandfathers Dali and Bunuel. Jarmusch has this wonderful lovely way of identifying and hanging on to a few finite key elements and moving them around again and again in for new results. De Bankolé's clothing is used to such result. For most all of the film he is wearing one of three suits, each one determining another act or level in his journey.

The last image on the screen at the end of the titles states No Controls No Limits but there is a kind of irony to this because Jarmusch's films are so tightly controlled. Camera moves and placement of extras often add significance to his films. An interview with Jarmusch in Film Comment reveals there is a spontaneous component in the making of his films in which he does not use storyboards, develops dialog for a film with a 25 page script, sometimes overnight, but he clearly possesses a concept and a vision for what he is after. He knows the same way it is clear that De Bankolé's wants two separate cups of espresso, not a double coup.

If one has followed Jarmusch's cinematic excursions before, they will find the world of The Limits of Control similar to Bill Murray's in Broken Flowers or Johnny Depp's in Deadman. But Limits will probably have me revisiting his Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai to see some relationship with the rhythms and themes he uses in both films. Ghost Dog's Samurai code set him outside a gangster world. De Bankolé as the Loan Man also has a kind of existential relativity that moves him among a surrealist landscape with modern dress spaghetti western overtones.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:23 PM
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Saturday, June 20, 2009

The Hit


The Hit is a 1984 film by Stephen Frears starring John Hurt, Terrence Stamp, Tim Roth, as the principle characters and even features Fernando Rey, one of my favorite Bunuelian principles as a Spanish detective in the police procedural subplot. The primary plot involves Hurt and Roth's transfer of a protective custody stoolie across Spain to France on the behalf of the man he had fingered ten years earlier.

The film is interesting because it was done at a time where seventies cynicism was still in vogue vs. post-modern wink and nod irony that folks like Tarantino (with Roth in tow) brought to us about a decade later. This is a gritty little film with some fine writing and characterization. Roth's portrayal of Myron, a young punk thug on his first hit is probably the most interesting. He is a full bundle of raw nerve energy with a level of danger. This character and performance are reminiscent of Clu Gulager in Don Siegel's The Killers. I find most of Roth's work pretty self-conscious, but here there was something young, dangerous and different.

It is rare to find a satisfying mix of action film and plot-driven character study. The Hit provides both of these elements and, for that reason, is worth checking out.
posted by well-executed buffet at 2:24 PM
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Friday, June 19, 2009

Maxwell Returns to the Pacific NW: A Preview


I can't miss this. I have high hopes for Maxwell's return. My encounters with this his music over the past thirteen years or so lead me to believe that it will be a special show. Here's a mini profile about his return to the road which has been a series of small tour swings since Fall 2008 in anticipation of a new album to be released in two weeks.

I'm enough of a fan that I am willing to almost naively believe that is absence was about just learning how to be a regular person cutting off his hair and blending into the crowd.



And here is a smoking hot version of Somethin' Somethin' from the 1997 Chris Rock Show. This guy tore it up back in the day. Let's see what Tuesday brings...




posted by well-executed buffet at 5:57 AM
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Thursday, June 18, 2009

Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner


After watching three of Ernst Lubitsch's silent films from circa 1919, I jumped into his 1940 film, The Shop Around the Corner. This story has seen many manifestations including You've Got Mail in 1998. After seeing Bill Murray rave about Margaret Sullavan's about Margaret Sullavan, I paid special attention to her. This woman had great energy on the screen. Her character here is strong, but can be cautiously domineering as well as full-on forceful.

But the greatest presence in The Shop Around the Corner is of course that of Lubitsch. My current personal definition of "The Lubitsch Touch" is that he had the ability to problem solve on what seems to be a frame by frame level almost and come up with a solution that seems to best serve the movie and the audience experience.

Consider the many fast talk and sometimes cross talk scenes of three or more people. The dialog flows effortlessly even with quick measures and often break neck pace. It seems a reflection of what it is like to work with a team of people.

But most importantly, with a Lubitsch film, you find yourself caring pretty quickly about the characters, both those in primary confilct of the story but also those with specific supplementary roles that are easy to "read."

The latest issue (May/Jun 2009) of Film Comment has a story by Kent Jones where he analyzes The Shop Around the Corner as a film that gives us a truer reflection of the world of work than most movies. In his conclusive remarks, he finds a way to get at the substance of what makes this a special film.

"There is sentiment in The Shop Around the Corner, but there is no sentimentality. It is good-natured but it is also unerringly wise. The film's unparalleled grace is inseparable from the pettiness of its characters, which shifts unnoticed into magnanimity over the course of time. And then, perhaps we can imagine it shifting back again at a later date. Because this is one of those rare films that allows us to see a future for its characters, whose dreams of three-room apartments and petit-bourgeois happiness will be realized and replaced by grander dreams many times over as they make their way through a life at work."

posted by well-executed buffet at 6:02 AM
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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Currently My Favorite Beatles Cover


The Pozo-Seco Singers were a folk music group from 1965-1970 that country singer Don Williams was associated with before he hit the big time with his long sideburns and romantic crooning.

A few weeks back I stumbled across this version of the Pozo-Secos doing the If I Fell by the Beatles. Vocalist Susan Taylor sounds very determined and a little world weary on the intro, unsteered by the opening guitar chords. She still maintains the lead during the song but the back up, which I believe is other Pozo-Seco member Lofton Kline, with male harmony gives the song a new dimension and the guitar and bass work are just right to support them. The addition of drums would certainly have killed the beauty and delicacy of this treatment.

pozo-seco_if_i_fell.mp3

posted by well-executed buffet at 11:37 PM
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Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Duck You Sucker


Of the great five Sergio Leone "Spaghetti Westerns" my favorite is the last and least known. Giù la testa aka Duck You Sucker aka A Fistful of Dynamite is a 1971 film set in the in the Mexican revolution,with about an expatriate Irish revolutionary dynamite expert James Coburn and Rod Steiger as the paternal head of a rag tag family of Mexican bandoleros.


Because I love movies, I have a weak place in my heart for A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and Once Upon a Time in the West. But Duck, You Sucker Leone's final take on the western, is my favorite for many reasons. And this is partly due to my first encounter with it. About two decades ago. I was channel surfing cable premium channels late on a Saturday night, and encountered an exchange between Rod Steiger and James Coburn in stylish closeups so close they could only have been the work of Leone. I was amazed "What was this film?" I later found that it was known as A Fistful of Dynamite and later found out that it was also known as Duck, You Sucker God help the film that is named for an arcane catch phrases. Hellzapoppin!

It wasn't even the lost western status that has fascinated me about this film, it is because it is very rich, nuanced, and full of shots bigger than those of even Once Upon a Time in the West. Steiger is fully over the top as Juan Miranda a role which is in many way a carry over of Eli Wallach's turn as earthy bandito Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. and he contrasts well with the past-tortured IRA revolutionary played by Coburn.

I grew up watching Coburn in many movies, all cool ass and cocky with a grin that puts a certain Scientologist's smirk into filmic perspective. He is very hip coming into this film in full Leone bravado blowing up mountains and riding a motorcycle. We learn much about his past in a series of four or five dialog free flashbacks accompanied by one of Nino Rota's best themes with the chorus singing "Sean, Sean, Sean."

The flashbacks underscore a hard earned traits in Leone's. Namely, that his films could stand alone without dialog. Leone movies almost could stand as silents One could come in with a few intertitles and a Rota score and it would be an effective film experience.

I propose another title for Duck, You Sucker. Maybe it could be called An Irishman, a Bandit, and a Revolution. This is triangle is at the foundation of the film. The Mexican revolution is more than a backdrop, it almost serves as a character impacting the attitudes and the relationship of the two central figures for well over two hours.

But rest assured that Leone is not giving us a Marxist endorsement of overthrow, despite the near post-1968 revolution era of when Duck You Sucker was made and the Chairman Mao quote that begins the film. No, this is not a black and white western in that regard--good guy revolutionaries against the man. It is further from Godard and closer to John Lennon's in your face dress down of the Beatles' Revolution No.1 "Well, you know we all want to change the world." Although it shows us a lot of revolution and fall out from revolution, Duck You Sucker is really about these two oddball characters in the midst of it all.

The best way to watch this film is to find the two disc reissue of it that MGM brought out a couple of years ago. It features a remastered full length director's cut of the films and lots of fun extras. I'm glad I finally sat down and watched it, even if it took incoming library fines to finally inspire me to do that. I want to go back and watch the other Leones starting with Fistful. Maybe a viewing of what for Eastwood was a Sean Connery Dr. No kind of long term journey will lead me to the whole of the other western's chronologically, which would logically end with another screening of Duck You Sucker That would not be a bad thing at all, because I am convinced that there are a lot of wonderful things in this film I have not yet discovered.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:08 AM
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Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Trinity Bells



This Spring I have really learned to appreciate the tower outside of Trinity Lutheran Church on 39th and Columbia. It and the Clark College Fountain Pen Tower are by far my favorite free standing structures in America's Vancouver, as our mayor like to call it.

I listened to a lot of Leonard Cohen on my walks this past Spring. At least a couple of times Anthem would come on the random generator as I neared Trinity Tower as I call it.

Ring the Bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in Everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.


This chorus means a lot to me these days. I've had tough couple of seasons as far as passages are concerned. Let me pause for the peace of mentors who have influenced my point of view about many things: William Bland, Philip Robertson, Gordon Beck, and Alice Philips. Thank you for enriching my life.

posted by well-executed buffet at 4:43 PM
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Monday, June 8, 2009

James Brown Sings Sunny


I'm back. It is much later than the date shows. And Ladies and Gentlemen, there is no other way to kick off the first rainy day of my summer than Soul Brother No. 1. His turn on the Bobby Hebb classic is almost like going on a James Brown ride starting out smooth soul and then showing everything that one could ever hope for at a James Brown Show.



This man will continue to be amazing until the end of mankind or at least playback devices. Check out the source for this at Mofunk1's YouTube Channel. Mofunk is from the UK, he is a fine Northern Soul connoisseur fanmaster. If you didn't get enough James on the inbed. Then try his compilation of greatest dance moves to There Was A Time.

posted by well-executed buffet at 3:29 PM
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Sunday, June 7, 2009

A Kind of Epic: Kurosawa's No Regrets For Our Youth


I had seen this film on a VHS capture when it was screened on Turner Classic Movies several years ago. I don't remember being really impressed by it at all. I remember it had political content and a kind of feminist bent.

It took me a couple of times to get started into the Criterion release of this film that is a part of the Post War Kurosawa boxed set. I kind of cringed in the first few scenes where Setsuko Hara appears as Yukie a professor's daughter full of wanton desire for Noge, a radical firebrand of a student (Susumo Fujito) much to consternation of the more conservative and conventional Itokawa. A scene where she plays a furious and pounding version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition expressing a mix of frustration and desire is so over the top it reminds me of the piano player in Refer Madness. I had a feeling I was going to truly hate this woman by the time the film is over.

But it turns out that Yukie's story is one of the most interesting depictions of evolving political and personal conscience I've encountered in film. The tale begins in 1933 where her father is under fire for his outspoken views on Japan's invasion of Manchuria. It ends at the time the contemporaneously when film was made, a time when "the war was lost but freedom is restored" as its intertitle to its coda sequence announces. What happens in between is a story of growth, love, espionage, sorrow, harassment, reconciliation and birth. No Regrets For Our Youth is a kind of epic where the main character is transformed. It makes me wonder if my initial reaction to Yukie is mostly about the kind of character she was at the film's outset.

No Regrets is Kurosawa's first film after WWII and is based on a a real life incidents where a Kyoto professor was forced from his teaching position due to supposedly harboring "Communist thoughts" and his student was subsequently executed for being part of the ring led by Russian spy Donald Sorage. In The Films of Akira Kurosawa, Donald Richie maintains that Kurosawa was more interested in the story of one of social oppression vs. one where he was politically motivated to explore on film. Regardless, there is no doubt that there is a lot of passion and outrage even in this movie.

In a weird kind of connection, this viewing of No Regrets For Our Youth makes me want to go back and watch Warren Beatty's Reds or even Bertolucci's 1900 because both, like No Regrets are twentieth century political epics with strong elements of character studies. How's that for a sub-sub genre?
posted by well-executed buffet at 2:24 AM
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Saturday, June 6, 2009

Pre-Teen Love and Vampires


Oskar is a twelve year old who lives with his mother in an apartment overlooking a snow filled square in a suburb of Helsinki. His days at school are filled with encounters with intimidating bullies. It is the 1960s but the viewer is only made aware of that by closely looking at clothing styles or noting there are no devices digital, only a portable turntable in the apartment. Eli lives next door to Oskar, she is also twelve and lives with a distant man presumably her father. Late in the film she tells Oskar she is twelve, but that she has been twelve for a very long time.

Låt den rätte komma in aka Let the Right One In is a 2008 film by Sweedish director Tomas Alfredson based on a novel and screenplay by John Ajvide Lindqvist. It provides an interesting and engaging twist on the vampire film, which. let's face it, has been around almost as long as film itself.

In our current cinematic landscape of so much sameness and so many remakes, the vision of Let the Right One In stands out. Alfredson creates a controlled kind of environment a bit reminiscent of his Sweedish forefather Ingmar Bergman during his sixties period. To great measure it succeeds because the two young actors are the right fit for their roles. Kåre Hedebrant is wonderful as Oskar. As Alfredson says in the DVD featurette, the film is mostly told from the point of Oskar's point of view. Therefore, his reaction shots must count for plenty. The mysterious vampiress neighbor, played by Lina Leandersson also has the right look somewhere between Darlene on the old Roseanne show and a model goth archetype. And there is a kind of counterpoint in the film between the fantastic and preposterous and dialog and situations that feel authentic and real.

There are some moments of graphic violence, but much of it has a kind of clinical feel to it. There are some terrific set pieces one finds in a horror film including a finale that is absolutely unforgettable, but Let the Right One In is a surprisingly quiet film. Some of this is due to a very sophisticated sound design instead of a traditional music soundtrack. And the story plays well because it doesn't lose sight of three major elements: a boy, a girl (sort of), and the outside world around them, which in many good love stories, after and before Romeo and Juliet, threatens their bond and its possibilities.
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:31 AM
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Friday, June 5, 2009

Meeting the Work of Guy Maddin


I'm finding that the supplemental features on Criterion DVD releases are sometimes more valuable and substantial to me than the films they were intended to support. A late seventies documentary on Charles Laughton was meatier and much more interesting to me than David Lean's Hobson's Choice. It featured some great interview footage with his wife Elsa Lancaster, Billy Wilder and others exploring this very intriguing character full of paradox and contradiction. It also featured tasty facts such as the fact that primaries of the cast of Night of the Hunter (Robert Mitchum, Shelly Winters) were students of Laughton's in an acting school he had formed years earlier.

I tried connecting first with Maddin's film Brand Upon the Brain! on its Criterion release but it wasn't working for me. Brand is a modern silent film and a couple of attempts to get into its nervous, kinetic but often highly stylized energy had failed me. But I have always had issues with David Lynch's Eraserhead as well. So instead of going back to Last Time Played on my DVD player, I checked out an enclosed documentary about Madden and Brand called 97 Percent True and Madden to be a fascinating artist. Like Todd Haynes, Maddin is iconoclastic, well-studied in film and fearless to be truthful to the vision he wishes to put on the screen.

Maddin talks about the film as being biographically true in an emotional way. As George Toles, his University of Winipeg mentor and co-writer of Brand Upon the Brain! says Guy is someone "who is dreaming his way back to spaces that he has occupied uncertainly and in confusion in earlier parts of his life and trying to use film to figure out what was going on with them." It isn't showoffy but trying to get at mystery according to Toles.

Childhood recollections are important to Maddin. He talks about film influences of films like Sajiyat Ray's Panther Panchali, but also the literature of Bruno Schulz which completely and empathetically try to recreate childhood experiences. He uses terms like "delicious confusions." to describe the ways that memory changes over time.

Maddin watched Bunuel and Dali's L'Age D'or 60 times when he was 24. Primitive Surrealism and the pure horny obsessions of the first wave of surrealism spoke to him. Von Stroheim's Foolish Wives was another influence. In the documentary, Maddin talks about his I vitelloni lay about friends probably watched 100 times. He talked about how he became drawn in by the "arcane and surprisingly elaborate language of silent films." "It was important for me to be obsessed about these things." Melodrama in a kind of classic silent film sense plays a big role. As Toles describes it as "the form which most fully acknowledges the way in which movies echo the dream life." Or as Maddin calls it "truth uninhibited."

Basement, punk and do it yourself bands is another kind of influence for Maddin. He picked up a camera to make a movie the same way that a garage band musician picks up an instrument.

I must have been distracted in October 2007 to have missed checking out the tour of live production accompanying Guy Maddin's film Brand Upon the Brain that played in Portland that featured celebrity narrators, Foley artists and an orchestra. It must have been a helluva show. Meanwhile, I'm finding myself entranced by some of Maddin's shorts available for online viewing and, probably and someday, I will check out Brand Upon the Brain! again. I have a feeling Maddin is a filmmaker whose work will grow on one over time. This is the kind of artist that one needs to catch up a bit with.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:20 PM
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Thursday, June 4, 2009

Obama in Cairo


In the past six months much of the greatest impact and best potential of having Barack Obama serve as President have been eclipsed by the US financial crisis and petty US politics. Those shadows ebbed on June 4, if not briefly, during his speech in Cairo to reinforce and reveal that we are in the midst of a great world citizen and statesman.

If you have not read and listened to this optimistic, aspirational speech, you owe it to yourself to take an hour and witness a moment instantly significant. He framed his remarks from an historical perspective stressing that Islamic world and the United States have a relationship that "includes centuries of coexistence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars."

The first major note or theme in his remarks came within his first three hundred words. "So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity." A short while later he states: "There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth." That is what I will try to do today -- to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart."

Good gracious. This is an American President, a world leader reaching out with hand and heart to the world at large. The lingering question is of course if the US and the world at large are ready for such a grand and elegant movement. If it is, Obama is certainly the one to make it. He cites his cultural and experiential credentials for this world view in the same way he made his case to become President or to be the point person to lead us out of economic woe. He carefully navigated the issues of trying to curb extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as Iraq ("a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world.") He got down to business talking about Israel, Palestine, Iran, middle eastern women's rights and all of those who are extreme and drink the Haterade.

The Cairo speech is worth your attention unless you have allowed your mind to be branded by the likes of fundie church and become blinded by the nonsense of Fox News and alike. I suggest reading the transcript while it runs in a You Tube window. I found myself pausing over some of the best lines such as "Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail." I like my country more than I did seven months ago. Nowadays, it is kind of like having an herb-less Bob Marley in charge of things, especially on the deeper philosophical level.

Transcript of Obama's Cairo University Speech



posted by well-executed buffet at 9:46 PM
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Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Friends In Bands Who Play On Saturdays I


I have a couple different acquaintances who play free and accessible gigs most every Saturday during the day. That is a good thing to remember. As long as you don't act like Mel from Flight of the Conchords, folks who are in bands always seem to appreciate it when people they know come out to see them. And these gigs are wonderful because they don't require any exceptional disruptions of bedtimes and evening habits.

Kenny Lee and the Sundowners at Skidmore Market

Portland is many things. Among them, it is a blues town, and not just at the big July 4 weekend blowout at the Willamette Park Bowl south of the Hawthorne Bridge. There are blues musicians working every weekend, practically every night in town at places like The Candlelight, but also as regular weekend bookings in Vancouver, North Portland, even Oregon City.



The Skidmore Saturday market filled with booths for crafts people and artisans has always struck me as more of a tourist spot than a location that locals often frequent, but somehow it keeps on strong year after year. They have a couple spots for live bands to play. My longtime pal, Damon Brothers plays with this blues power trio which seems to feature a lot of guests at their afternoon gigs at the market. It can be quite a scene. The set I saw featured a one armed guy who could have been a pirate, a woman on the way up or way down on her medication ride dancing up a storm, and Portland's most illustrative Elvis impersonator. The impersonator no longer has a cardboard guitar and his glasses that are longer mended with scotch tape, he now wears a black Elvis in Vegas era jumpsuit complete with a rhinestone pattern. More evidence of the environment commented on by the the bumpersticker that reads Keep Portland Weird.


Anyway, it was fun to watch Damon and the Lee band do their thing for a little while, and reassuring to know that if I'm ever downtown on a Saturday, I can stop by here a bit of blues and say hi to an old pal.
posted by well-executed buffet at 2:38 PM
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Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Dylan's Shout Outs Now and Then


The best couple of lines from I Feel A Change Comin' On, the best song on Bob Dylan's latest take on Americana, Together Through Life are

I'm listening to Billy Joe Shaver
And i'm reading James Joyce
Some people they tell me
I got the blood of the land in my voice

Shaver is a real deal Texas songwriter. A tough son of a bitch who served as Kinky Friedman's spiritual advisor when he ran for governor of Texas and was involved in a shooting incident a couple years back. As for Joyce, you want to ask Bob (all fans have lots of stuff they'd like to ask Bob) if its Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake. My listening to Bob Dylan of Late leads me to believe it might well be the first round of Daedelus in Dublin.

The shoutouts in the recent song lead me back to these lines from Blood on the Tracks'

Situations have ended sad,
Relationships have all been bad.
Mine've been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud.

I was working with a Dylan obsessive in a bookstore in 1976 when we both decided we didn't know anything about the two poets he called out except that we had heard Patti Smith talk about Rimbaud. We found a biographical citation but we ended up ordering copies of collections with biographical sketches of both from obscure college presses. Today someone curious would just go to Wikipedia and order up through Amazon
posted by well-executed buffet at 12:10 AM
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Monday, June 1, 2009

Horray For Art Side


Sometimes stories have a happy ending. The Buffet has been monitoring and even directly connecting with a set of circumstances in the New York City art community. The staging and storage space for an important repository and advocacy group of independent film was going to lose space to a studio for creating a studio to put on a magzine style arts related podcast in Tribeca.

In the only world that matters, it is obvious that the heritage of the moving image would overule the creation of another new media aggregate comodity. But I obviously don't rule the world. It seemed like all one could do is hope that the Film-maker's Cooperative would be able to find a home. This is an organization founded by Jonas Mekas, one of the last of a great generation of visual arts in this country. Mekas, now 87 is a film writer, cultural figure, filmmaker, central and foundational to the world of film artists who dedicate themselves to exploration of all aspects of the medium.

I was astounded when I read the story in the Feb 11 NY times about a forced eviction of the hundreds of films and the work of the Cooperative. What kind of world do we live in where a man of Mekas' stature has to defend the legacy of the work of culture preservation and advocacy of cinema in such a way.

So I wrote to the arts group that was scheduled to take the space as well as the the Co-operative. The arts group sent one line message that said thank you for your thoughts or something like that. On the other hand, MM Serra, the Co-operative's director and I exchanged a couple of e-mails.

Like I said, this story has a happy ending. An article in the May 28 New York Times began:

After months of uncertainty, the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, whose future was threatened early this year when it received an order of eviction from a city-owned building in TriBeCa, has found a new home, and on terms that are likely to make it the envy of other arts organizations and tenants across the city.

Not all real estate developers are douche bags. Charles S. Cohen is a developer who loves film. He was one of the producers of Frozen River. He has arranged the group to move into over 3000 feet of prime NY building on Park Avenue S and 32nd. as well as a 15 seat scholar's screening facility near by.

In the Times article Cohen said “I was in a position to help, and I thought that I should. They are a wonderful group doing important work, and there is no other place to go and see this kind of thing. They needed a storage space for their archives, and this meets their needs.”

You rock Charles S. Cohen. I think I might just e-mail my close personal friend MM and tell him congratulations.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:15 PM
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