South Sea Island Bolero: The Worst (Pre-Disco) Musical Number Ever Filmed

Submitted for your disapproval: the following whirlwind of WTF and monument to sheer camp, "The South Sea Island Bolero", one of the production numbers from Down To Their Last Yacht, a 1934 debacle that lost plenty of dough-re-me for RKO Radio Pictures and abruptly ended the career of producer Lou Brock.

Tacky costumes? Yes. Unrelenting bad taste? Affirmative. Ungainly dance moves, not in unison? Check. Notable for the presence of 1930's screen comedy mainstays Sterling Holloway, Mary Boland, Polly Moran, Ned Sparks and ubiquitous "lumbering dumb lug" Tom Kennedy? Uh-huh.

My guess is there are early 1930's production numbers I've yet to see (probably Busby Berkeley's handiwork) that surpass this in the WTF department. And, then again, there's that clip of Carmen Miranda and chorines dressed as giant bananas. . . but that's grist for another posting.

Yet More 1930's WTF Musical Moments

Here are "Three Short Musical Vignettes", sure to provoke gaping-mouthed WTF reactions.

The opener looks like a 1932 commercial for Coca-Cola and features cheesy dance moves by that Roaring Twenties staple, 30 year old actors unconvincingly portraying perky collegians. That is followed by two production numbers set in a prison (I'm not kidding), "The Sing Sing Serenade" and "Ballin' The Chain", where high-kicking showgirls entertain condemned men in a film that is neither pornographic nor written by Mel Brooks.

While I haven't a clue what magnum opus these pre-code musical clips came from, it's a good bet they were NOT directed by Fritz Lang or G.W. Pabst.



Next up, and somewhat less from the "what were they thinking?" file, is an excerpt from Singapore Sue, a 1931 Paramount short featuring sprightly vaudeville entertainer Anna Chang, as well as, in the anonymous role of "horny sailor on shore leave", an actor whose voice is very familiar. . .



The latter can be found on the Kino Video DVD Hollywood Rhythm Volume 2 - The Best Of Big Bands And Swing. The former - who knows?

Another Goofball Musical From Vitaphone

After the Disney Studio's Silly Symphony cartoons in 3-strip Technicolor proved emphatically to be box office gold, Vitaphone started producing musical comedy shorts in glorious Technicolor (if not yet Cinemascope or "stereophonic sound").

Here, with big time thanks to my favorite cable channel, the indispensable Turner Classic Movies, is a beaut from that mid-1930's series, Service With A Smile. Prolific screen comedian and Ziegfeld Follies veteran Leon Errol provides the wheezy jokes, while showgirls supply the pulchritude.

The same crew produced Story Conference, a wonderful classic short, and one of two musical shorts (the other being Masks And Memories) Vitaphone produced featuring the legendary Lillian Roth.

Belated Musings On The 15th San Francisco Silent Film Festival

2010 SFSFF posters by David O' Daniel

It turns out every cineaste scribe, his/her brother and Aunt Millie - not a one "way too damn lazy to write a blog" and including a prolific local correspondent and researcher who made stalwart contributions to the program notes - covered the 2010 San Francisco Silent Film Festival at length. Check their detailed accounts out here.

Also deserving of kudos: Michael Guillen's transcriptions of festival events and the review author Leonard Maltin posted on his website.



My favorite films, with full admission that the restored Metropolis and Dziga Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera blew me away (as expected), were the "lovable lug and ragamuffin" boxing flick The Shakedown and Mario Camerini's brooding drama Rotaie, produced in 1928 during the height of Murnau-Borzage-Fox, but more akin to a 1940's neo-realist film or a Monty Clift "tormented young antihero" opus from the 50's.



The Shakedown in particular was a pleasant surprise and demonstrated emphatically that William Wyler had his directorial chops early on. Enjoyed the well-crafted, skillfully edited boxing sequences and comic scenes between "the ragamuffin" played by Jack Hanlon and ubiquitous comedian-character actor Harry Gribbon.



James Murray, who you may recognize from King Vidor's The Crowd, did a fine job as "the big lug"; the extent to which this talented young actor threw a promising career away is nothing short of mind-numbing.

I had a blast at the festival, but by midway through the last day, it was apparent that I'd hit that Roberto Duran "no mas, no mas" point: my eyeballs felt as if they were going to drop out of their sockets, roll around and then look accusingly at me, as if I were starring in a Ren & Stimpy cartoon.

I did, however, get the opportunity to briefly meet Paula Félix-Didier and Fernando Martín Peña, the intrepid archivists responsible for restoring Metropolis to its original length, thank them and say "hey - maybe next time you'll find Murnau's 4 Devils". . . which got a big laugh.

KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival Returns To Foothill College On August 28

Like that itch you just have to scratch, the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival returns for another evening of 20th century pop culture deconstruction next month.



At Foothill College's Room 5015, where we did the very first one of these shows in December 1992, the crew of improvising film historians and host Robert Emmett will be back with yet another indescribable and hallucinatory blend of outrageous, hilarious, bizarre and fun forgotten (sometimes justifiably) footage.



Personally, I will be more than ready for the "and now for something completely different - and now here's something completely different from what you just watched" philosophy that the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival is all about.



I never, ever know just what my inspired co-conspirator archivists Sci Fi Bob Ekman and Scott Moon will bring to the celluloid Osterizer - and that's exactly the way I like it!

Burt Bacharach Day

This is a beautiful song by Burt Bacharach that gets me every time.

Psychotronic Paul Is A "Guest Blogger" Today

Specifically, I'm doing a guest shot on my significant other's Annie's New York Eats blog, which will soon be on the Hudson Valley Food Network website (and rechristened Annie's New York Kitchen).

S.F. Silent Film Festival Update

The latest is that the Friday evening screening of the restored Metropolis is sold out, although Festival Pass holders can see the show. Further updates can be found on the San Francisco Silent Film Festival website.

While there have been some good comprehensive pieces about the festival, the best article I've read thus far has been Richard Von Busack's write-up in The Metro.

Since I have frequently written on this blog about the silent and early sound era comedies of The Hal Roach Studio, A.K.A. The Lot Of Fun, I'm pleased that Pixar director Pete Docter has picked three howlingly funny silents - two by that unbeatable Leo McCarey/Laurel & Hardy/ Roach Studio trifecta - for the Saturday morning comedy show.

Not convinced? Read historian Thomas Gladysz' 15 Reasons To Attend The San Francisco Silent Film Festival

This Weekend: The 15th San Francisco Silent Film Festival

Silent movie diva Norma Talmadge, just one of the stars represented in the 2010 San Francisco Silent Film Festival

The spectacular art-deco movie palace The Castro Theatre plays host to the San Francisco Silent Film Festival this weekend. It is the 15th Anniversary of what began as a single screening of Ernst Lubitsch's 1918 opus I Don't Want To Be A Man and, thanks to tons of work by co-founders Stephen Salmons and Melissa Chittick (and regiments of volunteers), evolved into a three day event rivaling the epic Pordenone Silent Film Festival.

The big screen fun begins Thursday night with John Ford's epic The Iron Horse and will include Friday evening's sold-out screening of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, complete with the footage discovered by ace Argentinian archivists, who will be there to tell their story.

My only complaint is that the festival transpires on the same weekend as Slapsticon, the four days of screen comedy rarities holding forth at the Rosslyn Spectrum Theatre in Arlington, VA. One of these years, I'd really like to attend both festivals!

Sunday Matinee At Niles Salutes Dorothy "Echo" DeBorba and Our Gang

Nice composite shot of various Our Gangsters.

The mere mention of Hal Roach Studio comedy stars Our Gang (A.K.A. Little Rascals), Harold Lloyd, Charley Chase, Laurel & Hardy, etc. brings to mind the line from John Ford's 1958 film The Last Hurrah, "how can you thank someone for a million laughs?"

One way for San Francisco Bay Area classic comedy fans to do just that - and have some fun in the bargain - would be to attend the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum's Tribute To Dorothy DeBorba, the winsome and hilarious Our Gangster who passed away at 85 on June 2.


Dorothy, towards the end of her memorable stretch in the formidable early 1930's Our Gang lineup, with Stymie Beard, Dickie Moore, Spanky McFarland and Tommy Bond (before his later Our Gang incarnation as uber-bully Butch Rafferty).

Among the Our Gang alumni who dodged the "child star curse" chronicled on Neatorama at length recently as The Curse Of The Little Rascals, Dorothy, thankfully for Bay Area classic film fans, made frequent appearances at screenings and was as fun as the Hal Roach's Rascals comedy short subjects that lightened the load of Americans during the height of the Great Depression. Leonard Maltin's tribute on the Movie Crazy website says it all regarding Dorothy's affable, good-natured personality.



I have no doubt that the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum staff, the Sons Of The Desert's Midnight Patrol tent and S.F. Bay Area film historian Paul J. Mular have put together what will be an exceptionally entertaining Sunday matinee for the occasion. Of course, the penultimate vehicles for Dorothy's comic talent, Love Business and Dogs Is Dogs, will be on the bill.



We needed laughs and fellowship then and need 'em now, and the 20-30 minute gems produced by the Hal Roach Studio in the 1920's and 1930's still deliver the goods.

When: Sunday, July 11, 2010 at 4:00 p.m.

Where: Edison Theatre, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, 37417 Niles Boulevard, Fremont, CA 94536-2949

Admission: $5

Best Low Budget Comedy Sketch Ever

Ernie Kovacs As "Eugene" (In Color) In The Tilted Table Sketch, 1957

The "Tilted Table Sketch" is from Ernie's classic "The Silent Show", which originally aired on NBC on January 19, 1957. The newly Dean Martin-less Jerry Lewis was signed by the network to do a 90 minute special that night, but he would only agree to give NBC a one hour show. Asked to fill the remaining 30 minutes and save the day: Ernie Kovacs.



Ernie would remake The Silent Show in glorious black and white for his 1961 ABC series.

We thank rolko52 tons for posting this historic piece of video from one of the rare available kinescope copies. Rolko - are you a professional film/broadcasting archivist, close friend of the late, great Edie Adams or both? We'd love to hear from you!

Tilda Swinton Leads "Laurel And Hardy Dance" At Edinburgh Festival

As a big fan of Laurel & Hardy, all I can say is this is great! Wish I could have been there in Edinburgh for the fun. Thanks, Tilda - you rock!



Laurel and Hardy, like fellow Hal Roach Studio stalwarts Charley Chase and Leo McCarey, definitely had "song and dance man" in their souls. Here is the charming and funny bit from the Stan n' Babe classic Way Out West that inspired Tilda and the Edinburgh Flash Mob.



Laurel And Hardy: still the best!

Celebrating July 4th (And Post #400) With Ernie Kovacs And Edie Adams

I know, the following wonderfully loopy Kovacsian take on "Naughty Marietta" / "Italian Street Song" (My Heart is Back in Napoli / Zing-Zing)" does not have a damn thing to do with July 4 or Independence Day - and I don't care. It's my blog, by cracky!



Nothing says Americana to me quite like the inimitable sight gag genius and absurdist sensibility of Ernie Kovacs, enhanced by Edie Adams' deliciously wry performance. Enjoy the comic fireworks!

My (New) Favorite Frank Loesser - Make That Hoagy N' Frank -Tune

Hogay Carmichael (1899-1981), in his natural habitat

"Two Sleepy People" was written by Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser when the latter was working as studio lot lyricist for Paramount Pictures. The powers that be at Paramount hoped that Hoagy could, like clockwork, crank out another hit to equal "Thanks For The Memories", the boffo Bob Hope and Shirley Ross duet penned by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger for The Big Broadcast Of 1938. While not the overwhelming hit that Bob's theme song was, "Two Sleepy People" added another doozy of a charmer to Carmichael's repertoire, and also provided a key career break for Loesser (who even then had his sights on Broadway).

IMO, this is the most genuinely romantic of pop standards; the lyrics are actually about the relationship and tangible experiences between two people, as opposed to the lame-brained romantic mythology, adolescent fantasies and/or infatuation drivel that make many "love songs" range from merely false to positively cringe-worthy.

So, here, Bob n' Shirley present "Two Sleepy People":



Hoagy himself got a shot at recording "Two Sleepy People" in his inimitable laid-back style in 1958.




The incomparable songwriter, stride pianist, vocalist, cut-up and all-around raconteur Thomas "Fats" Waller waxed this into a hit in December 1938. The multi-talented Waller passed away from an extended stretch of hard living (A.K.A. too much fun + too little rest) in 1943, just as he was breaking into a new career as songwriter for Broadway.




Enjoy the ever-sultry Julie London's Marilyn Monroe-ish take on "Two Sleepy People", which begs the question, was Marilyn ripping off Julie?



Offering proof positive that this Hoagy n' Frank ditty sounds fantastic in the 21st century, here's a sweet performance of "Two Sleepy People" from Joe's Pub in fabulous New York City on July 22, 2008. Take it away, Howard and Nellie!

Happy 100th Birthday, Frank Loesser

Frank Loesser, author of literally hundreds of songs and numerous enduring standards, was born on June 29, 1910. Loesser, who could write both lyrics and music with panache, deserves credit for giving that Gershwin-Porter metropolitan musical tradition an original spin drenched with genuine 1950's style Americana.

To represent the Damon Runyon-esque part of that mix, I submit the following:

Pianist, vocalist and walking encyclopedia of American musical theater, Michael Feinstein, spoke at length about Loesser (whose classic Broadway shows include Where's Charley, Guys And Dolls, The Most Happy Fella and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying) in this interview by Terry Gross that aired as part of a tribute on the Fresh Air show.

The following trailer plugs Walter Gottlieb's 2006 documentary about the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning author of Broadway shows and movie scores.

My favorite Loesser tune? Let's Get Lost! And while I have a tough time choosing between Sinatra's and Chet Baker's versions of it, for today's blog entry, I go with Chet - but promise to crank up Frank's killer version of "Luck Be A Lady" from Sinatra At The Sands later.



My second favorite? Tough call, since there are so many cool songs to choose from, but I just love the simmering salaciousness of Baby, It's Cold Outside. Here are two highly entertaining covers - with big time thanks to Dino, Satchmo and Velma - of that fine song:

Fleischer Studio, 1921

More Amazing Stuff By The Fabulous Émile Cohl

Back at the beginning of the 20th century, cinema innovator Émile Cohl picked up where Georges Méliès, Ferdinand Zecca and others left off and invented many animation techniques.

We can only hope there's a place somewhere in which 35mm nitrate negatives of the following two films, The Dentures and Mobilier Fidéle (A.K.A. The Automatic Moving Company) have been sitting untouched in cold storage for 100 years.

Winsor McCay Invents "Squash And Stretch"

After I posted a couple of the very, very few surviving films by the remarkable early animator Émile Cohl, one of my film buff friends responded by sending me a link to an equally wonderful clip by another genius of early cinema, animation, comic art and illustration, Winsor McCay.



I've seen this clip before in 16mm, but never in a nice color print like this one. The mere thought that McCay drew and hand-colored EVERY FRAME boggles the mind.

What Émile Cohl Produced 100 Years Ago

The Wondrous And Strange Stop-Motion World Of Ladislaw Starewicz

News flash: 3-D animation techniques didn't start with Pixar in the 1980's or Henry Selick in the 1990's.

While quite a few great, creative, original and innovative artists - Charley Bowers, Willis O' Brien, George Pal, Ray Harryhausen, Jim Danforth, Karel Zeman, Jiri Trnka, Art Clokey - developed stop-motion animation techniques, arguably the most vivid, dreamlike, and strikingly surreal 3-D animation universe created onscreen was by the Russian-born entomologist turned animator Ladislaw Starewicz.

Starewicz produced puppet animation films for six decades. He began his career in filmmaking in 1909-1910 in Russia, then fled during the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and produced a wide range of puppet animation films in France until his passing in 1965.

He started as an entomologist making educational films with bugs - yes, bugs. . . real bugs. Working on a documentary illustrating the mating rituals of insects, Starewicz discovered stop-frame animation, and realized that he could make "trickfilms" featuring said bugs. So observe the following remarkable and surprisingly adult-themed piece produced nearly one hundred years ago - starring insect philanderers.



What separates Starewicz from his animation contemporaries - with the possible exceptions of the Fleischer Studio - is a macabre sensibility. His 1933 film The Mascot (a.k.a. Fétiche) remains the only stop-motion film I have seen to elicit the reaction "holy crap - this is a 3-D Heironymous Bosch painting!" No doubt viewing an original 35mm nitrate print of Starewicz' complete 30 minute opus would be an amazing big screen experience - and here is the very scene that provoked that reaction:



Starewicz worked for ten years on a feature film Le Roman de Renard (a.k.a. "The Tale of the Fox"), released in 1931. Here's a clip:



So today, this blog raises a snifter of Stoli to the memory, vivid imagination and visionary imagery of Ladislaw Starewicz, the spiritual predecessor of present-day stop-motion surrealists The Brothers Quay and Jan Svankmajer. The following DVD can still be ordered via Amazon.com.



For more info, check out Eric Schneider's piece, Entomology And Animation: A Portrait Of An Early Master: Ladislaw Starewicz in Animation World Magazine, as well as this scholarly article penned for the Senses Of Cinema website by Adrian Danks, president and co-curator of the Melbourne Cinémathèque.

Bye Bye Facebook

Earlier today, a "friend suggestion" that I absolutely did not do was attributed to my Facebook account, so I deactivated it. I sincerely hope that this was the only bogus communication that went out under the auspices of my account. Finding out that messages I never wrote had been sent from my Facebook account was not exactly the experience I sought in the social networking world.

So, again, for now, Sayonara Facebook!

(And, yes, I know, I'll be back in a couple of weeks. . . and certainly back by July 1)

Charley Bowers: The Geek As Hero

Did any cartoon producer/director not named Gregory LaCava or Frank Tashlin even dabble successfully, even briefly, in live-action films?

Yes – and it was one guy, a cartoonist, illustrator and special effects designer named Charley Bowers, who ranks alongside such innovators as O'Brien, Emile Cohl, Lotte Reineger and Ladislaw Starewicz as a genius of animation, far ahead of his time.


By all accounts, Bowers' upbringing was as wild as his pictures. One urban legend has persisted that he was kidnapped by circus performers at age six and subsequently a pint-sized star of many a big top (not unlike the fabulous 1930's comedienne Lyda Roberti). Further stories claim that Bowers was an accomplished bronco buster, draftsman, designer of all kinds of elements - scenics, costumes, sets, effects - for theatrical presentations, as well as a seasoned vaudeville performer from a tender age.



Bowers moved into animation in the teens and produced hundreds of Mutt and Jeff cartoons for Bud Fisher Film Corporation and Pathe-Freres. He also created the illustrations for The Bowers Mother Goose Movie Book in 1923.

Like the aforementioned Reineger and Starewicz, Charley Bowers was an innovator of stop-motion animation techniques - but unlike them, he starred in his own series of two-reel comedies. The 18 "Whirlwind Comedies" produced by Bowers and collaborator Harold Muller in 1926-1928 (released by FBO and then by Educational "The Spice Of The Program" Pictures) were largely forgotten until the mid-1980's, when Louise Beaudet of the Cinemateque Francaise brought a short but astounding Bowers retrospective to the United States.



Check out the following clip from Say Ahhh! (1928). The unique live-action comedy + animation blend compares with the Fleischer Studio's Out Of The Inkwell/Inkwell Imps for invention and sheer audacity.



For a later, post-talkie example of The Bowers Touch, here's his 1935 film, Believe It Or Don't.


Believe It or Don't

Bowers’ screen characterization, either a genial and brilliant (but wacko) inventor or a brazen “tall tale teller”, is clearly secondary to his animation, but key to his vision. His most frequent characterization, perpetually pale and wan from too many consecutive days in the workshop devising gadgets, personifies the geek as hero. Here are clips from his 1930 film It's A Bird.



It’s also okay to use the word surrealism in describing Bowers' stop-motion universe – none other Andre Breton loved the way-out comedies of Bowers a.k.a. Bricolo.



Although the original 35mm nitrate negatives and prints for many of Bowers' silent short subjects perished in vault fires, the surviving films can be seen on the Image Entertainment 2-DVD retrospective, Charley Bowers, The Rediscovery Of An American Comic Genius.


On the DVD set with what's left of the Whirlwind Comedies is Bowers' last stop-motion masterpiece, Wild Oysters, originally released by Paramount Pictures as an entry in the Animated Antics series.



The title characters (oyster #1 enters at 5:19) are a fitting expression of Bowers' "Gumby On Hallucinogens" or "Willis O'Brien Meets David Lynch" universe.

Warner Archive Strikes Again

This week's noteworthy DVD release is Warner Archive's Classic Musical Shorts From The Dream Factory. It includes several entries from MGM's infamous Colortone series of bawdy pre-Code musical novelty shorts (note: I have devoted blog entries to clips from two of them, Crazy House and Over The Counter), as well as miscellaneous vaudevillian weirdness from the inimitable "dawn of talkies" era.

Want that 1932 cocktail of kitsch-camp-bizarreness and scantily clad showgirls inhabiting a garish and inexplicable Freudian Technicolor dreamscape? Yep - and, by cracky, that's entertainment!

Burt Bacharach Day

Don't ask me what logic leads this blog from Ella Fitzgerald to Frank Zappa to Sonny Sharrock to Dionne Warwick. I don't know. Just enjoy this 1967 performance of a worthy but lesser known Burt Bacharach-Hal David tune, "Don't Make Me Over", sung by Dionne Warwick with her customary sensitivity and panache.

Jazz Rock Guitar Geek Rapture #2: Best Power Trio (Plus One) Ever

What I will remember most about Sonny Sharrock - even before the music - will be the laughter, the sense of humor, the fun. We laughed a lot. We laughed at the conditions that we had to tolerate to continue doing creative music. We laughed at the reaction - the response to that music - from the journalists, the audience, even the musicians - the same sad, phony, lost motherfuckers who will show up now to say how great he was. How overlooked and underrated he was. How he could have done so much more... We laughed a lot. But this part is serious. Serious as a heart attack. Peace, Sonny. You gave a lot...more than they'll ever know.

----Bill Laswell, May 30, 1994

Today's loaded question is not "who wrote The Book Of Love?" but who presented the most innovative, most sonically textured, most ridiculously powerful yet subtle and nuanced, most remarkable scary-virtuoso electric guitar/electric bass/drums amalgam ever assembled?

Hendrix-Mitchell-Redding (or Hendrix-Cox-Miles)? Nope? Page-Bonham-Jones? Terrific band - but I don't think so. Beck-Clarke-Cobham? Great, but isn't even close. Townshend-Entwhistle-Moon? Best of the British Invasion - and no. Fripp-Wetton-Bruford? Akkermann-Havermanns (or Reuter)-Van der Linden? Both fabulous - and no. Zappa-Fowler-Thompson? Never, ever short of amazing, but no cigar.

My answer to today's question links to a Halloween concert at the 1987 Zurich Jazz Festival by self-described "futuristic electronic folk music" guitarist Sonny Sharrock. Here he is, playing a solo as part of the Last Exit band (bassist Bill Laswell, drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, and saxophonist Peter Brotzmann) in 1988.



The download today's posting links to is the best recording of the '87 lineup of the Sonny Sharrock Band I have heard.



Bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummers Abe Speller and Pheeroan akLaff join Sonny, a fearless guitarslinger if there ever was one, for an excursion deep into the farthest outposts of that frontier between the often Balkanized genres (jazz fusion, rock, punk, avant-garde). These are intrepid sonic explorers, the real deal, way off the "guitar geek" charts, and a fine antidote to all flavors of corporate focus group researched entertainment.

Gentlemen and ladies, start your downloads:

Sonny Sharrock Live At The Zurich Jazz Festival, Part One

Sonny Sharrock Live At The Zurich Jazz Festival, Part Two

KFJC Declares Today "Frank Zappa Day"

KFJC-FM, my favorite radio station, as part of its annual "May Mayhem" series of specials, is dedicating May 15, 2010 to the wonderfully indescribable and original music of composer-arranger-guitarist-bandleader Frank Zappa.



I thank Frank personally for expanding my horizons as a listener. After repeated listenings to Mr. Zappa's instrumental and orchestral works in particular, the very cornerstones of cutting-edge 20th century music - from Euro-classical music (in its many flavors) and varied types of world music to post-bop jazz to blues to doo-wop to Sondheim to film soundtrack music to the farthest frontiers of "prog rock" - were no longer utterly beyond my limited understanding.



What was once frightening, incomprehensible or "too old" (A.K.A. yours truly, at that point a Level One Listener, didn't get it) miraculously became music I could both comprehend and enjoy.



Once one "gets" Frank Zappa, the shackles of Level One Listening - marked by the unshakable belief that only a "single melody with accompaniment" format qualifies as "music" - are gone, gone, gone. Those with the patience to learn are rewarded a hundredfold.



So click here before the Pacific Standard Time witching hour that ends May 15, 2010 arrives, and enjoy the genre-defying music of Mr. Zappa.



Then check out the inevitable film clip, in this case from a 1976 appearance on The Mike Douglas Show.

Ella Fitzgerald, Montreaux Jazz Festival, 1969

And if that clip leaves you wanting more, the next logical step is to break down and buy the Twelve Nights In Hollywood 4-CD box set.

Remembering Two Awesome Blondes: Vera-Ellen And June Christy

Today, this blog pays tribute to two particularly creative, stellar, wonderful and underrated artists who stand out among the numerous awesome blondes in 20th Century show biz: dancer Vera-Ellen and jazz singer June Christy.

Their careers parallel each other; both absolutely blazed in the 40's and 50's, leaving prolific artistic legacies behind, before health issues led to early retirement - and neither came close to living long enough to enjoy the fresh rounds of accolades, respect and admiration that accompany "master/elder stateswoman" status. Too bad.

Here's Vera, doing the physically impossible in her first film, Wonder Man.




Last Christmas Eve, several friends and I were simultaneously (and very unfortunately, not together) watching the ritual TV broadcast of the 1954 Michael Curtiz-directed musical White Christmas. The e-mails and Facebook postings we subsequently exchanged tended to echo each other, along these lines:

• Vera-Ellen is AWESOME!
• That's not a stunt double, that's freakin' Danny Kaye - he's actually dancing with Vera-Ellen and keeping up!
• Oh dear, Vera's waist is disturbingly small. Make that frighteningly tiny. Yikes, my ankle is bigger!
• Vera-Ellen is AWESOME!

Indeed, Vera is awesome in all the clips I've seen of her.

Unfortunately, a bonafide starring vehicle, helmed by the best directors in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's "Arthur Freed unit" (IMO, Vincente Minnelli and the team of Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen), eluded Vera. . . this excellent dance number from On The Town notwithstanding.



As it turned out, a subsequent career as a character actress was not in the cards for Vera, and her last appearances on movies and TV were in the late 1950's.


No doubt, Vera also found herself on the lethal horns of the dilemma for athletes and dancers (and faced by such silver screen stars as Doug Fairbanks, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd): where to go and how to segue to the next phase once those stressed-to-the-max bodies can no longer do impossible feats all day long.

June Christy may be the most underrated jazz singer of her era.



One could compare her to a superb outfielder who just happened to be playing major league baseball when Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente, Frank Robinson and Henry Aaron were tearing it up.

It was obvious from her stint as vocalist with Stan Kenton's big band that June, like Ella Fitzgerald with the Chick Webb Orchestra and Frank Sinatra with Tommy Dorsey and Harry James, was light years beyond the standard band singer of the era and possessed chops beyond her years.



June's solo career hit the ground running in the 40's with such recordings as "Supper Time" and "Prelude To A Kiss" (which revealed startling depth for a vocalist in her twenties), and kicked off a series of great albums, matching and raising the bar line set by The Chairman Of The Board, as well as fellow Capitol stars Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Bobby Darin.



Add to that list such inspired and original vocal talents active at that time as Ella, Mel Tormé, Tony Bennett, the Lambert-Hendricks-Ross group, Anita O'Day, Sarah Vaughan and singer-trumpeters Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker and Roy Eldridge - and the extent to which that era was indeed a "golden age" of jazz singing becomes clear.

Here's June, personifying relaxed yet uptempo swing on The Nat King Cole Show.

And on Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's classic TV show, "Not Only But Also", in 1965.

It was just one of those things that June Christy would be merely one brilliant, incandescent and memorable shining light among many in those days, and arguably under-appreciated. We can be thankful that she at least got the opportunity to record albums and tour prolifically.

Art Tatum, 1954

How does one follow a posting featuring the great Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown and Nils Henning Orsted Pederson? With the equally incomparable Art Tatum.