Archives for February 2012

I rarely suffer from writer’s block, but I’ve been stymied for weeks and weeks by the opening of the fifth chapter of Mood Indigo, my Duke Ellington biography. I’m sure that the underlying reason for my paralysis was the unusually high level of distraction in my life, but I found it so hard to get going that I actually became near-phobic about it.
Yesterday I finally broke through the ice and wrote the following words:

Hollywood has always had an equivocal relationship with jazz. Once upon a time, the presence of a saxophone on the soundtrack of a Hollywood film was a signpost pointing to unbridled sexuality. Nowadays it indicates world-weary sophistication. But no matter what signals the sound of jazz is meant to send, the making and makers of jazz have usually been romanticized when they are portrayed in movies (just as the music itself is softened). Nor has the American film industry ever been at ease in putting black musicians on the screen in anything other than the most stereotypical of roles–when it allows them to appear at all. The supremely photogenic Louis Armstrong was customarily relegated to such roles, so much so that he once played a character who was referred to on screen as “Uncle Tom.” Even though the first feature-length talking picture was called The Jazz Singer, it was not until 1929 that black jazz musicians of importance appeared on the silver screen. Moreover, the films in question were shot in Manhattan, not Hollywood, and they were directed not by an old studio hand but by an avant-garde filmmaker.

And…I’m off!
* * *
Excerpts from Black and Tan, a 1929 short directed by Dudley Murphy and starring Duke Ellington and Fredi Washington:

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:

• Anything Goes (musical, G/PG-13, mildly adult subject matter that will be unintelligible to children, closes Sept. 9, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Godspell (musical, G, suitable for children, reviewed here)

• How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (musical, G/PG-13, perfectly fine for children whose parents aren’t actively prudish, reviewed here)

• Other Desert Cities (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Seminar (serious comedy, PG-13, closes Mar. 4, reviewed here)

• Stick Fly (serious comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (monologue, PG-13, closes Mar. 4, reviewed here)

• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

• Million Dollar Quartet (jukebox musical, G, off-Broadway remounting of Broadway production, original run reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN SAN DIEGO:

• Dividing the Estate (drama, PG-13, remounting of Broadway production, adult subject matter, closes Feb. 12, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN SANTA MONICA:

• Our Town (drama, G, remounting of off-Broadway production, suitable for mature children, closes Feb. 12, original run reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN CORAL GABLES, FLA.:

• The Motherf**ker with the Hat (serious comedy, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

This week I’m posting five films made by Charles and Ray Eames. Today’s installment, The Information Machine, was made in 1958:

“Sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.”
William Shakespeare, Richard II

This is my desk in Winter Park, Florida:

You will note that I’m taking pictures of it rather than sitting at it.

This story appeared in the New Orleans Times-Democrat on January 2, 1913. It was reproduced in the Times-Picayune the other day. Here’s how I described it in Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong:

The law of unintended consequences was working overtime when Louis pried open his mother’s cedar chest, stole a revolver belonging to one of his “stepfathers,” loaded it with blanks, and took it along with him on his nightly tour of the red-light district. It was the last day of 1912, and the city was in its customary New Year’s Eve hubbub. As Louis and his quartet strolled up Rampart Street, another boy from the neighborhood started “shooting” at them with a cap pistol. Louis promptly pulled his .38 out of his belt and fired back. All at once a policeman came up behind him and wrapped his arms around the boy. “Oh Mister, let me alone!” he cried. “Don’t take the pistol! I won’t do it no more!” He spent the night in a cell and went before a juvenile-court judge the next morning. What followed, unlike his birth eleven years before, was deemed worthy of coverage by the local papers: “Very few arrests of minors were made Tuesday, and the bookings in the Juvenile Court are not more than the average….The most serious case was that of Louis Armstrong, a twelve-year-old negro, who discharged a revolver at Rampart and Perdido Streets. Being an old offender he was sent to the negro Waif’s Home.” The old offender was hauled away in a horse-drawn wagon, scared and unsure. All unknowing, he had come to the turning point of his life.

The clip marks the very first time that Louis Armstrong’s name appeared in print anywhere. Alas, all I had in hand was a fuzzy photocopy that was too dim to reproduce in Pops. How I wish that I could have included it in my book! Rarely has so great a man made so inauspicious a debut.

This week I’m posting five films made by Charles and Ray Eames. Today’s installment, Toccata for Toy Trains, was made in 1957. The narration is by Charles Eames and the score is by Elmer Bernstein: