Today’s Financial Times’ How to Spend It has a, shall we call it, interesting homage to 40s fashion. I am not entirely sure how I feel about stylist Damian Foxe’s particular approach … but his muted watercolor palette is quiet and soft enough to evoke a romantic Brief Encounter-esque dream of the 40s.
Here are some highlights from the Yuval Hen’s photo shoot.
Mikado, Dolce & Gabbana, Vintage Pilot
Stella McCartney, Phillip Tracey, Viktor & Rolf
Giorgio Armani, Phillip Tracy, Lanvin
Jean Paul Gaultier, Phillip Tracey, IWC
Lanvin
John Lennon, 1965. © Corbis
Today John lennon would have turned 69 years old, had he not been so brutally taken away back in 1980. It doesn’t seem possible that he’s been gone nearly 30 years, anymore than it seems possible that, had he lived, the Beatles’ founding member would be flirting with 70. I put it down to the timelessness of the music and the message—the music only gets younger the more years fly by (if you’ve heard the remasters you’ll know what I mean) and the message only becomes more relevant (if you’ve read the news today oh boy, you’ll definitely know what I mean).
The LA Times former rock music critic, Rob Hilbrun, has a book coming out next week called Corn Flakes with John Lennon (and Other Tales From a Rock ‘n’ Roll Life). Fittingly, today the Times published an excerpt from the book online providing an intriguing glimpse at the man that Hilbrun came to know as his friend, John Lennon:
“As soon as I started working at the Los Angeles Times, people warned me not to get too close to artists because it could make it difficult to review their work and you can never really tell if the “friendship” is genuine. Even so, I felt there was much value in getting to know some of the most important artists beyond what you can glean in the hour or so you have to interview them. The relationship with Lennon — and it never approached anything like a daily or even weekly tie — came about naturally. I liked him and enjoyed his company.
John at the Peppermint Lounge, 1964, with Ringo and wife Cynthia. © Corbis
John came to town in late 1973 to record an oldies album with Phil Spector and to promote his new solo album, “Mind Games,” which he had produced himself. I interviewed him at the Bel-Air home of record producer Lou Adler, a chief force behind the Monterey Pop festival. May Pang, who introduced herself as John’s personal assistant, answered the door and took me to the patio where John was waiting. He was wearing jeans and a sweater vest over his shirt and he walked toward me enthusiastically. “Well, hello at last,” he said with a warm smile.
“Phil tells me you’re a big Elvis fan,” he said.
We ended up spending so much time talking about Elvis and other favorites from the 1950s that I was afraid we weren’t going to get to the Beatles and his solo career. I was particularly interested in his thoughts on his “Plastic Ono Band” album (from 1970); the songs struck me as being so personal.
“I always took the songs personally, whether it was ‘In My Life’ or ‘Help,’ ” he said. “To me, I always wrote about myself. Very few of the completely Lennon songs weren’t in the first person. I’m a first-person journalist. I find it hard, though I occasionally do it, to write about, you know, ‘Freddie went up the mountain and Freddie came back.’ And even that is really about you.”
John said he actually preferred “Plastic Ono Band” to its follow-up, “Imagine,” even though the latter sold more copies and got generally better reviews. “I was a bit surprised by the reaction to ‘Mother,’ ” he said, referring to “Plastic Ono Band” by his own title for it. “I thought, ‘Can’t they see how nice it is?’ ” So, John said, he went back into the studio and wrote new songs about many of the same themes, only this time he put on some strings and other production touches that made the message more accessible. That’s why, he said, he privately called the “Imagine” album “Mother With Chocolate.”
John and his Epiphone casino, 1965
The interview didn’t run in The Times until the album “Mind Games” was actually in the stores several weeks later. In the meantime, Phil invited me to one of the sessions for the oldies project. They had been going on for some weeks and the word was that they were pretty raucous, even drunken affairs. On the night I stopped by the studio, the liquor flowed freely. John, a gob of cake in his hand, chased Phil around the control booth while those around them danced to John’s just-recorded version of an early Elvis recording, “Just Because.”
But John wasn’t all playfulness. He had sharp words for one of the studio employees and insulted a record company guest. This wild John was a lot different from the charming guy I had met at Adler’s house, and I hoped the rude, drunken behavior was an aberration. But I kept hearing reports, including one about Phil firing a pistol one night and others about a tipsy John out on the town with his buddies and how he sometimes drank as much as a bottle of vodka a day. The first time I saw him this way away from the studio was at the Troubadour, where I was reviewing the opening of R&B singer Ann Peebles, who had a hit single, “I Can’t Stand the Rain.”
I didn’t know John was in the club until he was in the middle of a big commotion. He was so drunk that he had wrapped a Kotex sanitary napkin around his head. When one of the waitresses tried to quiet him, he shouted, “Don’t you know who I am?” Her answer was repeated the next day in all the record company offices and later in lots of magazine articles: “To me, you’re just some ass — with a Kotex on his head.” A bouncer escorted John and his party out onto Santa Monica Boulevard.
Eventually, John returned to New York with May and spent weeks trying unsuccessfully to get Phil to give him the sessions’ master tapes so he could finish the album himself. By then, I was beginning to hear reports about a strain between John and Yoko Ono and the suggestion that his relationship with May was more than simply professional. John was in a terrific mood when he returned from New York a few months later. He was only supposed to be in town for a few days, but the trip was extended and May phoned one day to say that John would like me to join him for dinner. When I got to the hotel, I figured he’d have a limo waiting downstairs. But John, wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt, suggested that I drive, and we were soon off to a nearby Chinese restaurant, where we spent a couple of hours talking about Elvis, naturally.
Back at the hotel, Around 11:30, John turned on Johnny Carson’s TV show and ordered corn flakes and cream from room service. He turned the sound down on the TV and stirred the corn flakes and cream with his spoon in an almost ritualistic fashion before taking a bite.
In the studio during Sgt. Pepper, 1967
I didn’t think much of it until the same thing happened the next time we returned to the hotel after dinner. This time I asked what was up with the corn flakes.
He smiled.
As a child in Liverpool during World War II, he explained, you could never get cream, so it was a special treat. He took another bite and gave an exaggerated sigh to underscore just how sweet it tasted.
The mention of Liverpool made John nostalgic. I already knew a little about John’s early days, but it was fascinating hearing him tell the story. John was born in 1940 — a year after me — and he was raised by his Aunt Mimi after his parents broke up when he was about 5. His mother, Julia, started seeing another man who had children of his own and didn’t want another one around. John loved Mimi dearly, but he also longed for his mother, who lived only a few miles away.
During his teens, just around the time he had formed the Quarrymen skiffle group, he said he had begun seeing more of his mother and had gotten the feeling she was trying to make up for all the years of her absence from his life. She was especially excited about the band, and John treasured their time together. But his mother was hit and killed by a motorist while walking to a bus stop. His mother had been taken from him twice. He was 17.
John in 1964-- a prisoner of his own fame.
John had thought that rock ‘n’ roll fame would make everything right in his life, but even after his success he continued to search for someone or something to make his world seem complete. That was the theme of the “Plastic Ono Band” album. The very first song, “Mother,” started with him screaming, “Mother, you had me, but I never had you / I wanted you, but you didn’t want me.” It continued, “Father, you left me, but I never left you / I needed you, but you didn’t need me.”
He found that missing foundation in Yoko, which is why she became more important to him than even the Beatles. In “God,” a later song on the record, he again screams, “I don’t believe in Elvis. I don’t believe in Zimmerman [ Bob Dylan]. I don’t believe in Beatles. I just believe in me. Yoko and me. That’s reality.”
As he spoke, I could understand why John felt so adrift. Until that night, I had assumed he had separated from Yoko and was involved in a new relationship with May, but he said that Yoko had pretty much demanded a break in their relationship. He was clearly still in love with her. Without her, he had no shield against the pressures of the rock ‘n’ roll world and his own depression.
::
John & Yoko
In the fall of 1980, John and Yoko were finishing up their new album, “Double Fantasy,” and I headed to New York for John’s first newspaper interview in five years. This was when John raced into Yoko’s office at the Dakota with a copy of Donna Summer’s “The Wanderer.”
He had returned to New York after the “lost weekend” period and spent the next five years rebuilding his life with Yoko and helping to raise their son, Sean. On this day, he looked nice and trim in jeans, a jean jacket and a white T-shirt. He was maybe 25 pounds slimmer than the last time I’d seen him. “It’s Mother’s macrobiotic diet,” he said later about his weight, employing his nickname for Yoko. “She makes sure I stay on it.”
By the time we headed to the recording studio, it was nearly dark. As the limo pulled up to the studio’s dimly lit entrance, I could see the outlines of a couple dozen fans in the shadows. They raced toward the car as soon as the driver opened John’s door. Flashbulbs went off with blinding speed. Without a bodyguard, John was helpless, and I later asked if he didn’t worry about his safety. “They don’t mean any harm,” he replied. “Besides, what can you do? You can’t spend all your life hiding from people. You’ve got to get out and live some, don’t you?”
….
Filed under: 1930s, arts, hollywood, nostalgia, vintage | Tags: Vanity Fair, 1935, vintage magazine, George Hurrell, Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn
Vanity Fair’s website has a nifty little feature that I think all you Pictorial readers might get a kick out of. Vintage Vanity Fair allows you to flip through (virtually speaking) a vintage issue of the magazine. The full January 1935 issue is up on their website and a heck of a lot of fun to peruse. Vanity Fair’s renowned humor and satire is in top form, as its illustrations, which in this issue, feature Mexican artist Jose Covarribuias.
There is a fascinating piece about the matter of the Saarland—a tiny region sandwiched between Germany and France which had been occupied by the Allies since the Treaty of Versailles—it’s 15 year mandate was expiring the month of the issue’s publication and its political future was of hot debate. Hollywood’s Golden Age is beautifully documented too, with an iconic Jean Harlow shot by George Hurrell and a particularly intriguing photo of Katharine Hepburn labeled “Box Office Riot.” One year before another publication starting with a “V” dubbed her Box Office Poison.
Have a look for yourself. I’ve included some of the spreads below.
January 1935 cover
a Vanity Fair travelogue
excellent opinon piece about the Saarland
Illustrations by Mexican artist Jose Covarribuias
Katharine Hepburn
George Hurrell's classic Jean Harlow portrait.
Filed under: art, arts, culture, fashion, photography | Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brian Duffy, Chris Beetles Gallery, Jean Shrimpton, john lennon, London, May Britt, Michael Caine, Sammy Davis Jr., Sidney Poitier, Swingin' 60s
London’s Chris Beetles Gallery is one of my favorite art galleries and their exhibitions are always something truly spectacular. From October 12 through November 7, they are presenting a special presentation of Brian Duffy prints—Duffy being the Swinging Sixties photographer iconic fashion shoots and portraits of pop culture icons came to embody the energy and vitality of this explosively creative era.
Duffy (in)famously set fire to all of his original negatives back in 1979, but not all were destroyed and the Chris Beetles gallery is displaying the surviving images: the result of what they describe as “two years of painstaking archiving.” If you, like me, can’t make the trip across the pond to pay a visit, here’s a look at these dynamic prints, featuring everyone from John Lennon to California’s future Governator:
Jean Shrimpton, early 1960s
Michael Caine, 1964
John Lennon, 1965
Sammy Davis Jr. & May Britt, 1960
Sidney Poitier, 1965
"Queen" Magazine, 1965
Vogue Magazine, 1964
Vogue Magazine, 1964
Hot off the Los Angeles Times press:
Responding to public outcry over the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s decision to end its 40-year-old weekend film program, two outside organizations have stepped forward to pledge a total of $150,000 in the fight to save the screening series.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., which organizes the annual Golden Globe Awards, and Time Warner Cable, in association with Ovation TV, have each agreed to put up $75,000 toward the LACMA film program, which had been scheduled to close in October.
In addition, Time Warner Cable and Ovation said that they will spend more than $1.5 million to market the film program across their multiple media platforms, both locally and nationally.
A spokeswoman for the museum told The Times that as a result of the new money, the film program will now continue at least through the end of the fiscal year in June 2010. She added that the museum will continue to seek additional donors and patrons in support of the film program.
In a statement, LACMA Director Michael Govan said that the museum is ”grateful to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Time Warner Cable, and Ovation TV, for expressing their tangible support for the art of film at LACMA, and we’re very pleased that we can keep film rolling while we build for the future.”
The museum also announced that it intends to create a film department within its curatorial ranks that will be in charge of “thinking about the history and future of film as art as well as film’s increasing importance in the larger narrative of art history.”
– David Ng
Thanks to Marty and Mr. Shickel for getting the ball rolling on this, and to the Hollywood Foreign Press Assoc and (I never thought I’d say this) Time Warner Cable (even though they overcharged me two months in a row) for keeping LA’s premier film program alive!
Filed under: art, arts, culture, film, movies, preservation | Tags: los angeles, Martin Scorsese; LACMA; Richard Schickel;, museum of art
Marty
I heart Marty Scorsese.
And when he goes and does things like this, well, it just sends me all aflutter.
First, a bit of background.
For nearly four decades, the film program at the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art has been a primary venue for film lovers to gather for some of the most engaging retrospectives in LA.
But LACMA director Michael Govan has decided to pull the film program, citing declining audiences and $1 million in losses over the past decade. Govan claims that the move will allow them to “pause for re-thinking.” But you, me, Marty and just about everyone else who gives a damn about film history can see through that one like an episode of Gray’s Anatomy.
Over the past two weeks, a slew of damning op-eds have appeared from some of the most powerfully persuasive pens in the industry—Richard Schickel and Kenneth Turan to name the few.
Mr. Schickel states “It is the duty of museums to place before us the accumulated works of the ages, movies definitely included — old and new; obscure and well known; good, bad and absurd — in order to keep us in touch with the rich and ever-informative history of an ever-evolving, yes, I’ll say it, art form …The fact that good movies arise out of a corrupt commercial system makes it more, not less, worthy of our attention. How in the world does a “Chinatown” arise out of that unpromising soil?”
And now, a letter to Mr. Govan from that preeminent film crusader, Martin Scorsese.
“I am deeply disturbed by the recent decision to suspend the majority of film screenings at LACMA. For those of us who love cinema and believe in its value as an art form, this news hits hard.
We all know that the film industry, like many other institutions and industries, has to be radically rebuilt for the future. This is now apparent to everyone. But in the midst of all this change, the value and power of cinema’s past will only increase, and the need to show films as they were intended to be shown will become that much more pressing. So I find it profoundly disheartening to know that a vital outlet for the exhibition of what was once known as “repertory cinema” has been cut off in L.A. of all places, the center of film production and the land of the movie-making itself. My personal connection to LACMA stretches back almost 40 years to when I lived in L.A.during the ’70s and regularly attended their vibrant film series, programmed by the legendary Ron Haver. It was actually at LACMA, during a 20th Century Fox retrospective, that I first became aware of the issues of color film fading and the urgent need for film preservation. Ian Birnie, a programmer of immaculate taste and knowledge, has continued in the tradition of Ron Haver, who was so well-versed in cinema past and present. I do not understand why this approach to programming needs to be re-thought. I am puzzled by the notion of pegging future film programming to “artist-created films,” as stated in the letter announcing this shift – to do this would be tantamount to downgrading the worth of cinema. Aren’t the best films made by artists in the first place?
Without places like LACMA and other museums, archives, and festivals where people can still see a wide variety of films projected on screen with an audience, what do we lose? We lose what makes the movies so powerful and such a pervasive cultural influence. If this is not valued in Hollywood, what does that say about the future of the art form? Aren’t museums serving a cultural purpose beyond appealing to the largest possible audience? I know that my life and work have been enriched by places like LACMA and MoMA whose public screening programs enabled me to see films that would never have appeared at my local movie theater, and that lose a considerable amount of their power and beauty on smaller screens.
I believe that LACMA is taking an unfortunate course of action. I support the petition that is still circulating, with well over a thousand names at this point, many of them prominent. It comes as no surprise to me that the public is rallying. People from all over the world are speaking out, because they see this action – correctly, I think – as a serious rebuke to film within the context of the art world. The film department is often held at arms’ length at LACMA and other institutions, separate from the fine arts, and this simply should not be. Film departments should be accorded the same respect, and the same amount of financial leeway, as any other department of fine arts. To do otherwise is a disservice to cinema, and to the public as well.
I hope that LACMA will reverse this unfortunate decision.
–Martin Scorsese
New York, N.Y.
I hope that Mr. Govan reads Marty’s letter without the sort of culturecrat piety that seems have crippled his powers of reason on this particular decision.
Filed under: arts, design, fashion | Tags: Hollywood glam, Hollywood regency, interior design, Joan Crawford, William Haines
"I would rather have taste than love or money." - William Haines
William Haines is perhaps best known today as being the first openly gay actor in Hollywood, and his refusal to deny or hide his relationship with his lover, Jimmy Shields, killed a soaring film career in its tracks. The handsome, witty Haines was a silent film superstar, and one of MGM’s biggest attractions and a consistent top box-office draw into the early 30s. But Louis B Mayer released Haines from his contract when he refused to end his relationship with Shields. However, Hollywood’s loss was, well, Hollywood’s gain, because the indomitable Haines (who was already buddy-buddy with the likes of Orry-Kelly) became its resident designer du choix. And while his work as an actor (particularly the comic roles as in Vidor’s Show People) is enjoyable, it is his memorable career as an interior designer that made him legendary.
The immaculate taste and style of the fearless William Haines is alive and well and flourishing in the 21st century thanks to William Haines Designs. Based out of West Hollywood, with showrooms on the east coast, the company faithfully reproduces original Haines designs and celebrates his famously glammed-up interiors (now coined as “Hollywood Regency”) with inspired décor that would do Haines proud. Kelly Wearstler and Jonathan Adler are just a few of the modern designers whose distinct sense of heightened glamour is more than just slightly influenced by Haines’ work.
But there ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, and the beautiful William Haines Designs website not only displays Haines’ classic interiors, pays homage to the man with a lovely pictorial biography.
It’s little wonder than such fashionistas as Carole Lombard and Joan Crawford (his best friend whom he lovingly nicknamed “Cranberry”) regularly employed Haines’ hand: his look positively screams Grand Hotel.
By the way, Haines and Shields remained together for fifty years until Haines died in 1973. As George Cukor put it, ‘they were the happiest married couple in Hollywood.’
Below are a few examples of Haines’ Hollywood glam interiors, both original and inspired-by.
(all images copyright William Haines Designs)
Filed under: 1920s, art, arts, classic movies, design, hollywood, photography, vintage | Tags: alice white, bette davis, buster Keaton, colorized photos; claroscureaux; vintage photos, gloria swanson, hedy lamarr, myrna loy, rudolph valentino, veronica lake
Right, so like most things in life, I am probably the last person in the blogosphere to know about this fella. Many thanks to Forget the Talkies for bringing it to my attention!
Claroscureaux colorizes vintage Hollywood photographs.
Normally the word “colorize” makes my skin crawl and I get a sudden urge for sudden death. But Claroscureaux’s work is beautiful– if I might rhapsodize, I daresay his work is exquisite. Some are spine-tingling in their realism, some have an Earl Christy-ish painterly quality, but all are obvious works of tireless, tedious attention to detail.
He has a store online to fulfill all of your every day classic cinema needs– coffee mugs, et all– and the prints are priced very reasonably.
Here are some of my favorites:
Myrna Loy - © Claroscureaux
Hedy Lamarr - © Claroscureaux
Veronica Lake - © Claroscureaux (this is quite possibly my favorite photo of the year)
Bette Davis - © Claroscureaux
Valentino - © Claroscureaux (smolder alert, ladies!)
Buster Keaton - © Claroscureaux
Gloria Swanson - © Claroscureaux
Alice White - © Claroscureaux
Filed under: arts, classic movies, culture, entertainment, fashion, film, hollywood, movies, photography | Tags: 42nd Street, Amanda Seyfired, Anton Yelchin, Channing Tatum, Elizabeth Banks, It Happened One Night, James Marsden, John Krasinski, Josh Duhamel;, Kat Dennings, Letty Lynton, Mila Kunis, Norman Jean Roy, Paper Moon, The Grapes of Wrath, They Shoot Horses Don't They, Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair Ain't We Got Fun
I don’t know about you, but I’m a big fat sucker for Vanity Fair photo shoots.
And this one is right up my alley. Vanity Fair’s August issue features an “Ain’t We Got Style” portfolio of re-created scenes from Depression-Era films. Some of today’s freshest young talent slip into the shoes of classic film immortals Clark Gable, Carole Lombard and Joan Crawford to name the few. It Happened One Night, The Grapes of Wrath, 42nd Street, Letty Lynton and My Man Godfrey are recreated alongside 1970s period dramas They Shoot Horses Don’t They and Paper Moon.
Norman Jean Roy’s work is fabulously fun, not to mention wondrously detailed– right down to the tweed in Peter Warren’s jacket. I beg you all to indulge yourselves with a gander.
(and please forgive the quality of the images—my scanner is in the throes of a midlife crisis…)
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Kat Dennings, Anton Yelchin, Maya Rudolph, John Krasinski, Elizabeth Banks, and Hugh Dancy
As depressing Depression films go, Sydney Pollack’s 1969 opus takes the stale biscuit. Heart attacks, broken dreams, and breakdowns on the dance floor of a 30s dance marathon participants down on their luck compete for prize money. Rather like a reality show without the chance of “Page Six” celebrity. Here, our cast gives their thespian all, in everything from D&G to Brioni.
42nd Street
Krysten Ritter, Margarita Levieva, Willa Holland, Ari Graynor, Moon Bloodgood, Jon Engstrom, Nikki Reed, Greta Gerwig, Lucas Till, Jamie Chung, Emma Stone, Rashida Jones, and Chris Messina
The whole world’s going to the dogs, so what do we need? Battalions of tap-dancing girls in ankle socks and flimsy shorts! Then (1933), as now, the chorines pound the boards (in Emporio Armani). Hopefuls wait their turn in assorted prêt-a-porter while choreographer Engstrom and director Mesina emote. Will the show go on? When will it not?
It Happened One Night
James Marsden and Rose Byrne
Runaway heiress, love triangle, gruff but adorable journalist—Frank Capra’s 1934 classic has everything a screwball on-the-road comedy should have to take the mind off foreclosures and bank closures. The most ironic scene (apart from the one where Clark Gable removed his shirt, revealing no undershirt and wiped out an entire industry) is the hitchhiking sequence. Gable invokes the language of the thumb. Claudette Colbert trumps him with the power of her gams. Here Gable (Marsden, in Ralph Lauren) and Colbert (Byrne, in Sportmax) square off.
My Man Godfrey
Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried
A scavenger hunt-cum-party game in this 1936 classic somehow involves Carlole Lombard’s madcap heiress wandering into the Depression-era streets, picking up hobo William Powell and turning him into an exquisitely dressed attired butler. Not, one feels, something to be attempted today. Here, as Powell, Tatum (in Armani) serves up serious tidbits as Seyfried’s Lombard (in Galliano) finds it all highly amusing.
The Grapes of Wrath
Kelli Garner, Eugene Levy, Dan Fogler, Emile Hirsch, Demitri Martin and Mamie Gummer
A sacred piece of John Ford cinema. Poignant, powerful, troubling—with hats to die for. Or is that a tad inappropriate? Whatever, the Dust Bowl style of 1940 is freight-training back toward us, and some September fashionable dames will surely embrace Stella McCartney’s granny-ish knits, Bottega Veneta’s drapey dresses, and Burberry’s drapier separates while the guys adopt newsboy caps and suspenders to make it “Two for the Joad.” Our irreverent cast (from Ang Lee’s latest, Taking Woodstock) shows how it’s done.
Letty Lynton
Mila Kunis
Before gigantic eyebrows and shoulders engulfed her, Joan Crawford played numerous birdlike shopgirls, socialites and gold-digging secretaries filed under the category Clotheshorse. A well-dressed nowhere film, Letty Lynton (1932) contained gold dust in its heroine’s dreamy wardrobe (by Adrian) and the Letty Lynton dress, with billowing diaphanous sleeves, became an overnight sensation. More than 500,000 copies sold in the depths of the Depression. Our Crawford give Givenchy’s feathery autumn offering a similar come-and-get-me allure.
Paper Moon
Josh Duhamel and Elle Fanning
Peter Bogdanovich’s breathtakingly black and white homage to 30s filmmaking introduced eight-year-old Tatum O’Neal in her first (and Oscar-winning) film performance as the illegitimate daughter of a small-time con man, played by daddy Ryan, with better looks and smaller ambitions than Bernie Madoff. Here, the road trip scene from the 1973 film is so masterfully re-interpreted by Duhamel (in Zegna) and Fanning (in Miu Miu and vintage Gap), you can still hear the little mite testily demanding, “I want my $200!”
Filed under: 1920s, MP3, arts, culture, entertainment, history, music, vintage | Tags: 1920s jazz; hot jazz; Louis Armstrong; Duke Ellington; Paul Whiteman; Jean Goldkette; Fletcher Henderson; Joe Venuti; Eddie Lange; King Oliver; King Oliver Creole Jazz Band; Cotton Club; syncopation;
Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five
If Italy has art, England has literature, and France has fashion, then America’ s cultural offering in the history of mankind is jazz. Its’ history as the one truly organic art form to emerge from America has been well chronicled and you needn’t look hard for an education on the subject. But harder to find are the lesser-known recordings—from the end of World War One through the prosperity of the 1920s. The music that America listened to before the movies learned how to talk –jazz that was dizzyingly fast and fun and syncopated–the soundtrack to the Jazz Age. Whether it be the ‘white’ jazz of Paul Whiteman and Jean Goldkette or the blazing, rule-breaking brilliance of Louis Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson, the music holds up remarkably well—if you know where to find it.
So the Kitty Packard Pictorial’s website of the week is the long-running, exhaustive jazz resource, The Red Hot Jazz Archive. Scott Alexander’s site is dedicated, not simply to the music, but the lives of the musicians who made them. His essays are peerless—an outstanding scholarly effort—and then there’s the music. Full-length recordings (you’ll need to download Real Player to enjoy them) abound in impressive numbers, pristine in quality and complete with recording date, locations and back story.
Red Hot Jazz is a veritable treasure trove of forgotten gems, where one find leads to countless others. Even if vintage music isn’t your particular cup of tea, the site is worth a visit if for no other reason than to see what passion for a subject really looks like.
Since it might be overwhelming to newcomers, here are some great artists to explore:
Louis Armstrong & his Hot Five
Duke Ellington & his Cotton Club Orchestra
Paul Whiteman & his Orchestra
Coon Sanders Nighthawks Orchestra
Jean Goldkette & his Orchestra
The Fletcher Henderson Orchestra
Joe Venuti & Eddie Lang
King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band
(The Pictorial did a post a while back about some of the greatest names in jazz appearing onscreen for a fun-filled jam session– take a look at ‘em in action)
