1/2

balls and chain 1 (beverly kenney, demo, 1953), balls and chain 2 (beverly kenney/master, with johnny smith, guitar, 1955)/sweet lorraine/nat king cole (1957) ... beverly came first, of course

1947

it's been a long long time/stan kenton orchestra with "sfumato" debutante, miss june christy

mississippi, 2001

mississippi/standin' in the doorway cryin'

saint paul .. le temps presse ... (oh it's you that I want, but it's Him that I need)

I can’t wait, wait for you to change your mind
It’s late, I’m trying to walk the line
Well, it’s way past midnight and there are people all around
Some on their way up, some on their way down
The air burns and I’m trying to think straight
And I don’t know how much longer I can wait

I’m your man, I’m trying to recover the sweet love that we knew
You understand that my heart can’t go on beating without you
Well, your loveliness has wounded me, I’m reeling from the blow
I wish I knew what it was keeps me loving you so
I’m breathing hard, standing at the gate
But I don’t know how much longer I can wait

Skies are grey, I’m looking for anything that will bring a happy glow
Night or day, it doesn’t matter where I go anymore, I just go
If I ever saw you coming I don’t know what I would do
I’d like to think I could control myself, but it isn’t true
That’s how it is when things disintegrate
And I don’t know how much longer I can wait

I’m doomed to love you, I’ve been rolling through stormy weather
I’m thinking of you and all the places we could roam together

It’s mighty funny, the end of time has just begun
Oh, honey, after all these years you’re still the one
While I’m strolling through the lonely graveyard of my mind
I left my life with you somewhere back there along the line
I thought somehow that I would be spared this fate
But I don’t know how much longer I can wait

can't wait (le temps presse)/jeudi 22 juin 2011, milan...

belle (al green): oh it's you that I want, but it's Him that I need

and now here's the 2000 version of i can't wait, a magical take on a magical song ....

don was/kris kristofferson

closer to the bone/kk and dw

guy clark, don was/ ..... mark erelli/don was

cow boy jack clement/don was/buddy miller/don was
stephen bruton and don was/gordie sampson, don was
TO BE CONTINUED ......
all don was are here ..... ...... click to see

clarinet voice emmett, yes, that's what this sweet singer, vaudeville king, was ....

but please remember emmett, sweet emmett, never used expensive jazzy swing musicians like the dorsey bros in his vaudeville days .... so what did emmett, greatest blackface ever recorded, sweetest georgia black minstrel ever, what did he REALLY sound like? guess we'll never know ....

what we do know, however, is that youg hank williams saw emmett performing lovesick blues in a vaudeville tent, somewhere in the far west (or far south) and that he modeled his version, yodel included, on emmett millers's ever so famous howl ...so how DID old emmett sound like? probably more like young "tb" hank williams than his own jazzy versions on vinyl (or cd) ... .... ...

patsy cline's own magnificent live version on tv (1959), even more sensual and wilder than hank williams'

lenny bruce is dead/it's all over now, baby blue

à propos de la forêt interdite

Au cours de l’été 1963, les journalistes Serge Daney et Louis Skorecki avaient rencontré George Cukor à Hollywood. Quand ils avaient évoqué devant lui la Forêt interdite de Nicholas Ray, le cinéaste s’était carrément foutu d’eux.
Il trouvait le film ridicule, en particulier la distribution qui comptait, entre autres bizarreries, l’ancienne stripteaseuse Gypsie Rose Lee dans le rôle d’une tenancière de bordel ... ....

.... .... écrit le journaliste bruno icher dans libération (plutôt un bon journaliste, ce qui se fait rare) ... il faitune erreur historique de taille (par paresse plus que par ignorance, vu qu'il connaît bien les aventures hollywoodiennes du couple SD/LS), à savoir que c'est l'ami daney, parlant à peine l'anglais, qui suivait à la trace son copain de lycée jean-louis noames (futur louis skorecki) qui essaimait les collines hollywoodiennes depuis un an ou plus ....
1. dire louis skorecki et serge daney, s'il vous plaît, par pure politesse ....
2. préciser que cette folle de cukor, entouré de ses folles copines, riait à s'éclater la rate à l'évocation de cette merde de mélo écolo signé nick ray (cinéaste viril dont il était évidemment jaloux, et dont il n'eût jamais le dizième du génie)
3. même si les lignes sont rares à libé, rapopeler que gypsy rose lee (déjà vieille dans la forêt interdite), avait été la maîtresse d'otto preminger, qui lui versa une pension d'amour jusqu'à sa mort ...
4. comme on avait marché plus d'une heure (pas de voiture, pas de permis) sur ces putains de collines hollywoodiennes pour arriver à la villa cukorienne haut perchée, ce "woman's director" se pinça le nez en me reniflant, et envoya son valet chercher une chemise neuve pour masquer mon odeur, trop forte pour ses narines délicates (pascal thomas raconta -dans elle je crois, ou il était pigiste-, que j'ai gardé ce trophée chemisier pendant des année, ce qui est évidemment faux ....
5. ces (més)aventures se sont passées en juillet 1965 ...
@ EJ:
j'ai vu mieux que dolphy: coltrane jouant avec shepp (shepp sublime, coltrane pitoyable) à chicago, un été de 1965, rollins plusieurs soirs de suite au village gate, en avant programme il y avait cecil taylor, les deux avec des trios de rêve ... ....
mais sans vouloir questionner la mémoire de mr ginsberg à propos de présence et des cahiers, à part le vieux louis marcorelle (et l'ami simon mizrahi) je suis LE SEUL FRANçAIS (et, excusez mon orgueil, le seul journaliste TOUT COURT, vivant ou mort) à avoir vu ces glorieux cinéastes, tourneur, dwan, walsh,mc carey, ludwig, heisler, renoir, keaton, sternberg, hawks ... ... ... entre 1963 et 1965 ... et donc à avoir vraiment vu sur leurs tournages comment ça se passait VRAIMENT, quelques années avant qu'ils n'aillent raconter à ce crétin de bogdanovich (ou même à l'ami rissient qui s'est lui aussi fait rouler dans la farine) tout ce qu'ils avaient appris par coeur du message auteuriste des cahiers et qu'ils récitaient comme des perroquets ("j'adore filmer à hauteur d'homme, vous savez?") à ces journalistes/cinéastes tardifs

1933, hollywood

Most Hollywood historians don't realize that these 2 comedy titans were a team for a short while in the early 30's.
The Great Jimmy Durante was at the apex of his Broadway musical career when he was seduced by the big studios to get into "The Pictures".
Buster Keaton was nearing the nadir of his groundbreaking tenure as one of the few giants of the Silent Film Era to actually give Charlie Chaplin a run for his money. His brilliant physical comedy career was actually hurt a bit by the advent of the "talkies"...(I personally love his voice; as you can hear in this clip, he had a deep, melancholy vocal tone with a midwestern drawl that made him quite endearing.)
Both men were rather short, and Durante, who was about an inch taller, often squated and slouched so he could look up to his partners, including the shorter Keaton.
One can speculate why their comedy pairing didn't last. I think it's a marvelous pairing of 2 of the most disctinctive personalities in the history of Show Business! Their contrasting energy levels exude robust chemistry and delight us with their timeless interaction.

what, no beer?/with jimmy durante and buster keaton (1933)

Jimmy, the raspy voiced bundle of chaotic energy who's always trying to get things done, and Buster, the shy, pensive nebbish who longs for love... It works!
And just look at that peripheral detail from the 1930's! This timely slice of Americana occured just after the voting out of the age of Prohibition, which forbade the legal sale of alcohol in the US for over 10 years.
You can feel the crackling spirit of "Happy Days are Here Again" as America was once again a Beer swiling Nation.
After all, that's what we do best in this country; Celebrate, right?!

And who better to have a few beers with than the Sultan of Sadness and The Earl of Ebullience!
copyright MISTER ESOTERIC

the disease of conceit (1990)

the disease of conceit (la maladie d'orgueil)/london hammersmith, 08/02/1990

There's a whole lot of people suffering tonight from the disease of conceit
Whole lot of people struggling tonight from the disease of conceit
Comes right down the highway straight down the line
Rips into your senses through your body and your mind
Nothing about it that's sweet
The disease of conceit.

There's a whole lot of hearts breaking tonight from the disease of conceit
Whole lot of hearts shaking tonight from the disease of conceit
Steps into your room eats into your soul
Over your senses you have no control
Ain't nothing too discreet about the disease of conceit.

There's a whole lot of people dying tonight from the disease of conceit
Whole lot of people crying tonight from the disease of conceit
Comes right out of nowhere and you're down for the count
From the outside world the pressure will mount
Turn you into a piece of meat
The disease of conceit.

Conceit is the disease that the doctors got no cure
They've done a lot of research on it but what it is they're still not sure

There's a whole lot of people in trouble tonight from the disease of conceit
Whole lot of people seeing double tonight from the disease of conceit
Give you delusions of grandeur and evil eye
Give you the idea that you're too good to die
Then they bury you from your head to your feet
From the disease of conceit.

un rêve télé ou deux ....

columbo meets monk
please click on COLUMBO MEETS MONK/cliquer sur COLUMBO MEETS MONK
.... ... i always dreamed of columbo meeting his distant cousin, monk, somewhere around the corner of this beloved almost forgotten "art d'usine" (factory art) called cinema .... or tevision, if you prefer to name it this way .... it happens to be the actual name for cinema around here, in this deserted planet with plastic flowers falling all around ... (contre la nouvelle cinéphilie, adaptation libre)

dharma and greg/1999

... ... i hated it when you grew old .... i hated even more your ageing on screen as a fat dumb columbo ... but i'll love you forever ... because you made me dream ... and no one knows how to do that anymore around here ...

hollywood

guy clark, don was .... a contemporary masterpierce in country blues from deep in the heart of texas ...
LOTS OF DON WAS PRODUCED ACCOUSTIC ELECTRIC MINOR COUNTRY POP ON JUNE 25 ... ... ... ... ....

tel aviv revisited

highway 61/simple twist of fate, both from great tel aviv june 20, 2011 concert

forgetful heart

yiddish al

al jolson in yiddish (remember the jazz singer, the story told, a jazzy vaudeville singer escapes from his father and his future as cantor .... it was the opposite story ...)

melbourne, 20 avril 2011

gonna change my way of thinkin'/melbourne, 20 avril 2011

25 septembre 2000/portsmouth, angleterre/la meilleure version live de frankie lee and judas priest ... thanks to my good youtube friend hollis1960

1997, bournemouth

don't think twice, it's alright ....one of his most difficult song to do, in a rare live inspirationnal love moment

van morrison/bob dylan

carrying a torch/van morrison (hyms of silence, 1991)/bob dylan (san diego, 2002)

1958/gene vincent is king

you win again/hank williams/jerry lee lewis

you win again/gene vincent

1957/buddy holl beats gene vincent?

have i been destroyed? (1/10)

jacob taubes' student, avita ronell (don't laugh right away, please .... )
bob dylan/can't wait (2000) ....///can't wait/le temps presse ("time presses on", as used to say saul, alias paul, alias st paul, only rabbi who was also christian ... ... jesus remained a rabbi until his death, didn't even know he was about to found a new religion .... thanks to old st paul) ... would love to hear 2011 version of can't wait, sadly prophetic as i imagine it to be, apocalyptic and all ... (even in english, jacob taubes is still my only teacher these days)

eloge de sternberg

http://www.fichesducinema.com/spip/spip.php?article2618
UN TRAIN DANS LA NUIT

Dans le train qui l’emporte vers Shanghai, Shanghai Lily rencontre son ancien amour, un médecin des armées qui l’a si peu oubliée qu’il porte toujours sur lui son portrait. Mais un chef révolutionnaire arrête le convoi et le médecin est désigné comme otage.

(JPG)

Dans un bel article, Louis Skorecki disait de ce film qu’il « navigue à bonne distance de ses propres travers stylistiques, avec une sorte d’humour froid qu’on prendrait à tort pour du second degré ». Ajoutons à cette très juste remarque que le cinéma, en particulier le cinéma hollywoodien de ce temps-là (le début des années 1930, le début du parlant), ne prolonge pas tant la rêverie du spectateur qu’il n’est un rêve incarné, matérialisé. Rêve, ici, d’une Chine coupe-gorge, d’un train traversant, fantomatique, des nuits noires de jais, rêve d’une réunion cosmopolite de personnages sympathiquement ridicules venus de toute l’Europe et des États-Unis, rêve d’un amour qui a survécu au temps et survivra aux malentendus, rêve, enfin, d’une femme de rêve, Marlene Dietrich, femme encore enfant qui sait aussi bien arpenter nerveusement un quai de gare que sourire aux anges près d’un tourne-disques, avec une grâce comme on n’en voit plus, surhumainement fragile. Un monde s’accorde ici à nos désirs d’aventure, d’exotisme, d’amour fou et de danger, sans prétendre arrimer le spectateur par des effets d’intimidation en quoi consistera l’essentiel, trente à quarante ans plus tard, du grand spectacle hollywoodien. Ici se joue plutôt la carte d’un esthétisme suranné, fait de volutes et de rideaux, de lenteur et de glamour, d’impatience et de secrets. Le film est à l’image de Marlene Dietrich/Shanghai Lily, une femme dont on ne sait si elle est ou non une prostituée et qui ne fera à personne le plaisir de lever l’ambigüité. Sternberg, sourire en coin, invente des bandits complaisants pour arbitrer les débats amoureux, joue à faire trembler ses personnages jusqu’à, dans la magnifique dernière séquence, nous sortir son plus beau tour : un montage en fondus associant la foule d’une gare et le couple qui s’embrasse, et que personne ne regarde. Sternberg connaissait au moins mille et une façons, toutes déviantes, toutes charmantes, de dissimuler l’absence de secret.

Mehdi Benallal

louis prima 1938

loch lomond by louis prima (1938)/... and i can't get started with you by maxine sullivan (and top jazzmen of the time, 1958, such as tyree glenn (tb) and coleman hawkins (ts)) ...... maxine sullivan was a light skinned negro swinger who made a hit, early in 1937, out of loch lomond, old traditionnal 17th century scottish song ....

skorecki fait de la radio

un bonus radio, bricolé à libé en 2006, sur
http://next.liberation.fr/musique/06013709-les-bonnes-ondes-de-dj-dylan

<
4th Time Around (from BLONDE ON BLONDE, 1966), live, 2000

When she said,
"Don't waste your words, they're just lies,"
I cried she was deaf.
And she worked on my face until breaking my eyes,
Then said (coupé du clip/concert)
"What else you got left?"
It was then that I got up to leave
But she said, "Don't forget,
Everybody must give something back

For something they get


I stood there and hummed,
I tapped on her drum and asked her how come.
And she buttoned her boot,
And straightened her suit,
Then she said, "Don't get cute."
So I forced my hands in my pockets
And felt with my thumbs,
And gallantly handed her
My very last piece of gum.

She threw me outside,
I stood in the dirt where ev'ryone walked.
And after finding I'd
Forgotten my shirt,
I went back and knocked.
I waited in the hallway, she went to get it,
And I tried to make sense
Out of that picture of you in your wheelchair
That leaned up against…
Her Jamaican rum

And when she did come, I asked her for some.
She said, "No, dear."
I said, "Your words aren't clear,
You'd better spit out your gum."
She screamed till her face got so red
Then she fell on the floor,
And I covered her up and then
Thought I'd go look through her drawer.

And, when I was through
I filled up my shoe
And brought it to you.
And you, you took me in,
You loved me then
You didn't waste time.
And I, I never took much,
I never asked for your crutch.
Now don't ask for mine.

shelter from the storm ........ ...... strangest version ever ....

tel aviv revisited (2)

easy to remember

from perry como's best lp, we get letters (1957, best year for movies and music), this lovely version of the great rodgers & hart standard it's easy to remember
i love perry como, crooner's best selling artist ever (he used to sell more than sinatra and dean martin AND bing crosby TOGETHER ...) ... only problem, he often sings bad commercial material with horrible arrangements most of the time .... not on this lovely standard, lovingly put on video by skorecki's films d'occasion ...

billie holidays lush version, from her late late violin arranged by don ellis lady in satin version/mel tormé's splendid foggy velvet reading .....

young dean martin's early crooning version

don was/sweet pea /tim mc graw

sweet pea atkinson (from was not was)and don was/tim mc graw, one of the greatest nashville heroes .... .... soul vs country

BONUS 26 JUIN/ 16 JUIN/22JUIN/24/25 ...............

things have changed/mainz, germany (dimanche 26 juin 2011)

ballad of hollis brown/mainz, germany(dimanche 26 juin 2011)
o
i dreamed i saw st augustine (j'ai rêvé à st augustin, dans ses montagnes de kabylie, 16 juin 2011)/to make you feel my love (24 juin 2011)
BONUS MILAN, jeudi 22 JUIN 2011

till i fell in love with you/visions of johnanna (22)
BONUS 25 JUIN

desolation row (25 juin)

don was goes jazz .... and reggae

monk's dream by john sinclair and don was (beware ben sidran, beware mose allison ....) switchy switch ...... by common sense/and don was
LOTS OF DON WAS PRODUCED ACCOUSTIC ELECTRIC MINOR COUNTRY POP ON JUNE 25 ... ... ... ... ....

dylan's like a rolling stone/1965

le juif dylan est de retour à tel aviv

tel aviv (20 juin 2011)

bob dylan in his jimmie rodgers hat and look/gonna change my way of thinking (from slow train coming, 1979)/cold irons bound
/thunder on the mountain/tangled up in blue/ simple twist of fate/things have changed/it's all over baby blue

hioghway 61/ forgetful heart/summer days

ALL OTHER TEL AVIV DYLAN SONGS ARE NOW DATED JUNE 13

the one kubrick worth seing

lolita/sue lyon, james mason, shelley winters, peter sellers (1962)

pinchik sings

1. pierre pinchik sings in yiddish/a briv fun amereike

שהחיינו2.

eileh ezk'roh (

(story of the ten martyrs/ 'these do i remember'. the prayer is part of the musaf (afternoon) prayer on yom kippur (day of atonement) and tells about the ten martyrs: ten rabbis who were cruelly murdered by the romans. ), pinchik's forgotten masterpiece, in between charlie chaplin and yossele rosenblatt

all along the watchtower/oslo,30/06

ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER/dylan singing hendrix's arrangement

beyond here lies nothin' (oslo, 30 juin 2011)

great arrangements, great voice, when he was more alive than alive, in spite of his awful robin hood beard (oslo, denmark) ... i love him more and more ... he's obviously high ... .... but high on what? life or heroin, or cocaine, or a mixture of all that? ..



Beyond here lies nothin'

I love you pretty baby
You're the only love I've ever known
Just as long as you stay with me
The whole world is my throne
Beyond here lies nothin'
Nothin' we can call our own

I'm movin' after midnight
Down boulevards of broken cars
Don't know what to do without it
Without this love that we call ours
Beyond here lies nothin'
Nothin' but the moon and stars

Down every street there's a window
And every window made of glass
We'll keep on lovin' pretty baby
For as long as love will last
Beyond here lies nothin'
But the mountains of the past

My ship is in the harbor
And the sails are spread
Listen to me pretty baby
Lay your hand upon my head
Beyond here lies nothin'
Nothin' done and nothin' said

jeudi 30 juin 2011, oslo ....sony's web sherriff is going to take it off soon ... watch quickly ....
this is his best 2011 song (the only other really great 2011 song on yt is SHE ACTS LIKE WE'VE NEVEER MET... in close up pirate look and asthmatic voice) please please madame sony, please please mr youtube, leave it for a few days, a few hours, a few seconds more.... when he sings new material, like he does here, from his texas produced latest cd, bob's youger than ever ... now ....

dharma and greg, 1999

filming othello/filming lindon/work in progress

orson welles et son plus vieil ami, micheál macliammóir (othello)
le film d'alain cavalier n'a qu'un équivalent au cinema: filming othello, le plus welles, un film oublié en forme de testament minuscule, bricolé à partir de ses dialogues d'ivrognes shakespeariens avec micheál macliammóir(1899-1978), l'un de ses plus anciens amis, celui qui joue iago dans l'othello original..
ils parlent, ils boivent, ils mangent, et ils "théorisent" chemin faisant ce qui reste de la vie (et du cinéma); pas grand chose apparemment, mais ce "quelque chose" est sacrément vivant dans les yeux du vieux welles ...
orson welles inventait en direct, sans en avoir l'air, un art absolu de la mise en scène .... une manière de dire comme çà, en passant: regardez le magicien que je suis, plus fort que tout hollywood, je vous colle deux ou trois morceaux de plans, tournés à six ou neuf mois de distance, dans deux pays différents, en prenant pour suture, pour raccord, une simple bouteille de vin .. "

il y a dans pater (ce filming lindon rigolo, politique, bavard, gourmand, dont le programme minimal est d'éviter -tout en le suscitant- que la langue de l'acteur lindon ne fourche) et surtout dans la dernière séquence, une scène deux fois filmée, la seconde fois en champ contre champ, une rigueur de moine même pas défroqué .... c'est l'anti-roi bégue, en somme ...

cette virtuosité modeste, bricolée, de pater est la seule leçon de cinéma qui me fasse venir les larmes aux yeux, car il s'agit d'un art, d'usine évidemment, qui n'existe plus ...
If we do meet again, why we shall smile/If not, why then this parting was well made (brutus à cassius dans jules césar .... c'était la citation shakespearienne favorite de l'ami daney)

jack owens/or skip james?

hard times killing floor, one and two (1959/1962)..... /jack owens ... please compare to skip james' original version (1930)/two great artists from bentonia hills, mississippi

hey, look at young bobby dylan ...

The Coen Bros. have an urge for going to the New York folk scene

the Coen Bros told an audience at New York's Lincoln Center earlier this month that they were working on a music-related film, but didn't offer many specifics.

Now a clearer picture is emerging on the subject of that movie: the Greenwich Village folk scene partly through the eyes of its larger-than-life patriarch.

According to a source who was briefed on the project but who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on their behalf, the Coen Bros. are working on a script that's loosely based on the life of Dave van Ronk, a legendary musician who presided over New York city's iconoclastic coffeehouse period of the mid-20th century.

mensah, c'est ça/highlife

et mensah with victor olaiyah/the "evil genius" and the godfather of ghganaian highlife join forces on this fabulous gem ... (1983)

greatest highlife from accra (ghana, 1953)/films d'occasion prod

jack teagarden sings willard robison

old folks/in a little waterfront café/country boy blues, ultimate masterpieces written by willard robison, and sung by an oldand sick jack teagarden, who would die a mere few months later .... from his ultimate masterpiece, think well of me (1962), ultimate hommage to his old friend willard robison, the closest that ever came to hoagy carmichael (willard robison's biography plus music is now on june 13)

peggy lee sings willard robison ....

don't smoke in bed/a cottage for sale, two of the fabulously simple hoagycarmichaelian songs written and composed by willard robison

filming hoagy (1)

hoagy carmichael's original vocal version for stardust .... (around 1935, his first recorded version was purely instrumental)/bing crosby's original version of the song, with the famous john scott trotter orchestra(1930 or 1931)

willie nelson's classic country pop best seller (and the best version ever, with its django/country incredible sound .... maybe)

filming pater

vincent lindon parlait de pater dimanche au 20 heures de laurent delahousse, sur FR2, une belle leçon d'intelligence, de modestie ... d'enthousiasme, de clarté, de cinéma .... ..... une leçon de vie aussi ... (et c'est vrai qu'on mange tout le temps dans pater, plus encore qu'on ne parle ... tout comme dans son film jumeau, filming othello ...)

lindon était aussi très bien dans ce soir ou jamais, même si la complicité avec delahousse manque un peu

filming hoagy (2)

my resistance is low (man what a title ...)/jane russell and hoagy carmichael, in las vegas story (piano, backing vocals) ... and hoagy carmichael's version with gordon jenkins' lush arrangement (1951/1952)

willard robison (1894-1968)

he was the closest pianist/singer/bandleader/composer that ever came to hoagy carmichael, but his fame was sort lived ... in fact he's now just known by a few conaisseurs as author of more than ten lovely compositions, let's call them standards, as accomplished in their old fashioned way, as carmichael's very best: rural life, old folks, country melancholy, sensual romance, faithful memories ... there's not any vinyls or cds about him, just rare 78s ... some of them you may listen to on youtube (i'll tell you in 5 or 6 weeks what a new obscure compilation of his 20's work i've just ordered from a small re-releasing record company (superbaton), sounds like ... in the meantime, here's what the book has to say about willard robison ...

willard robison/munequita tango (1927)

Willard Robison was born into a Missouri family with a long line of preachers. He broke with tradition, to the consternation of some family members, and pursued a career in music. But he carried his religious values and the love of small-town, rural America into his songs. He was heavily influenced by Negro spirituals, and his early songs often had religious themes such as Religion in Rhythm, The Devil Is Afraid of Music (which the sheet music calls “a syncopated sermon”), and Truthful Parson Brown which appeared in a 1929 film, The Broadway Melody. He played piano, participated in college musicals, and formed his own band in 1917, The Deep River Boys, which toured the Midwest and Southwest. Paul Whiteman heard Robison in Omaha and signed him to a three-year contract.

In New York Robison recorded piano solos and vocals and made piano rolls for the Duo-Art Company. His singing style was straight-forward--like a Johnny Mercer or Hoagy Carmichael without the southern accent. He also played with Busse’s Buzzards, a group led by Whiteman trumpeter Henry Busse. Robison developed his own radio show, The Deep River Hour, on WOR in New York. By 1931 the show was running three times weekly. He signed a contract with the distinguished William Grant Still, one of the country’s foremost composers often referred to as the Dean of American Negro Composers, to write orchestrations for the band. Trombonist Jack Teagarden, who had played with the band in Kansas City in 1924, occasionally joined them to record. But after seven years Robison felt that commercial demands compromised his music and he quit the radio show.
Robison wrote the theme song for the Jack Tremaine Orchestra, Lonely Acres, and Whiteman’s first theme song, Peaceful Valley. In 1962 Teagarden recorded an album of Robison’s songs entitled Think Well Of Me, and he included two Robison tunes on another late Teagarden album, Mis’ry and the Blues, . In 1976 vocalist Barbara Lea recorded a Robison tribute album, The Devil Is Afraid of Music. The lyrics of the title song express Robison’s optimism: “When there’s music in the heart, you won’t find room for evil.”
Robison’s contributions to the jazz standards include Old Folks, written in 1938 with lyricist Dedette Lee Hill, which is the title cut of a Walter Bishop, Jr. CD, and 1929’s A Cottage for Sale, written with lyricist Larry Conley, which became a million seller in 1945 for Billy Eckstine and was memorably recorded by Chris Connor in 1956 (who also recorded Old Folks). In 1948 Peggy Lee had a hit with Don’t Smoke in Bed which was also frequently performed by Nina Simone. The song is variously credited to Robison or to Lee, her husband Dave Barbour, and Robison.
Although Robison often wrote of the simple life, his music was quite sophisticated. His arrangements, in which he often used strings and oboe, had a symphonic flare. He also composed the eight-part American Suite in the ‘20s, Six Studies in Syncopation for piano, and the five-part Rural Revelations.

willard robison, singing his own composition, the devil is afraid of music (1926),/i'm more than satisfied/for my baby /Bix Beiderbecke (c); Frank Trumbauer (Cms); Don Murray (cl); Frank Signorelli (p); Eddie Lang or ? (bj); Vic Berton (dm/harpophone), The Deep River Quintet (probably the Revellers) (voc) New York, October 20, 1927.

tangled up in blue (cork, 16 juin)/a hard rain's a gonna fall (london, 18 juin)

tel aviv (3)

blowin' in the wind/like a rolling stone

skorecki/cavalier

saw my very first film in two years ... alain cavalier's pater has no equivalent whatsoever, except maybe orson welles' best film, filming othello, made up of dialogues between ageing welles and his irish friend, michael macliammoir (1899-1978), who plays iago in the original othello ....
they drink, talk, drink, and theorize what's left of life and cinema (not much, it seems) ....
... .... et orson welles invente au passage, sans en avoir l'air, un art absolu de la mise en scène .... ce qu'il y a d'extraordinaire chez le vieux welles, c'est cette manière négligée de dire, comme çà, en passant, "regardez le magicien de cinéma que je suis, plus fort que tout hollywood -ce hollywood qui n'a pas voulu de moi- , je vous colle deux ou trois morceaux d'un plan-séquence, tournés à trois, six, ou même à neuf mois de distance, dans deux villes différentes, dans deux pays lointains, en prenant pour seul élément de montage, de raccord, une simple bouteille de vin ... "

cette belle leçon de cinéma (la seule qui me fasse pleurer), et en particulier la dernière séquence, une scène à deux, deux fois filmée, la seconde fois en champ contre champ,est l'essence même de pater, ce filming lindon rigolo, politique, bavard, gourmand, dont le programme minimal a l'art d'éviter -tout en le suscitant- que les langues de lindon/cavalier ne fourchent, le tout avec une rigueur de moine même pas défroqué .... l'anti-roi bégue, en somme ...

insister, quitte à se répéter: cette virtuosité modeste, bricolée de bout en bout, de la séquence ultime de pater n'est rien d'autre que la plus belle leçon de cinéma qui soit, une leçon embuée de larmes évidemment...

louis armstrong beats billie holiday

willow weep for me/best version is not billie holiday's, it's louis armstrong's 1957 fabulous turning around the melody (with oscar peterson, 1957) ... ... took me 45 years to appreciate it (the whole record, louis armstrong meets oscar peterson is one of the best vocal vinyls ever recorded ..)

how bob dylan changed ST JAMES INFIRMARY into BLIND WILLIE MC TELL

rare electric version of blind willie mctell (paris, 1993)///st james infirmary/louis armstrong's original 1929 song that dylan used as melody for blind willie mctell

god's voice

you send me/sam cooke, live/sam cooke's glorious demo (FILMS D'OCCASION)

bonus dieu/ willing to run (1948)/shine on me (1950) by rh harris, sam cooke's only known master (in the soul stirrers, and elsewhere (1948), closest ever living voice to god

king of crooners (bing with a beat)

there were only two authentic crooners (with the exception of anglo/greek/lebanese al bowlly, and some of the great primitive charm singers, russ columbo, gene austin ...): dean martin, and his role model, the one and only bing crosby .... now, you must understand that the greatest ballad singer ever, mr sinatra, NEVER was a crooner ....

bing crosby/dream a lttle dream of me (from his greatest lp; bing with a beat)/FILMS D'OCCASION PRODUCTIONS

skorecki/delpy

just saw two days in paris ... haven't laughed so much for years ... i just love the way julie delpy woodyallenizes the situations and the dialogues she hears in her head ... it's her own annie hall, only much funnier ... and probably a much better film altogether

black & white (2)

just one of those things/armstrong's 1957 version with oscar peterson (best ever)/lovely billie holiday (1957)/fabulous frank sinatra, live with bill miller (1962)

charlie parker /chet baker

hot house/charlie parker, dizzy gillespie, max roach (1952)/chet baker, arriverderci (1960)

charlie parker plays ... ... and makes fun of coleman hawkins

charlie parker, coleman hawkins/ballad /Celebrity (1950)/ with hank jones (p), ray brown (b), buddy rich (drums)

watch bird's amused expression as he watches hawkins solo, and also how he cuts off the older tenor man's solo ... although the musicians are filmed playing against tracks recorded earlier, it's still a fascinating and rare look at bird on film ...

this wallpaper is the best i could find .....

... as usual, i'd like to know which one you prefer, the old one or the new one?

bob dylan as white minstrel (2)

one more cup of coffee (for the road)/it ain't me babe ..... 1975

gunnar fischer, who has died aged 100 ... ...

.... .... .... could be said to have created the "look" of ingmar bergman's films, crystallised in three of the director's masterpieces: smiles of a summer night (1955), the Seventh seal and wild strawberries (both 1957) ... from port of call (1948) to the devil's eye (1960), 12 films in all, fischer was able to make visible bergman's visions ... his mentor there was the cinematographer julius jaenzon, who worked with the two great masters of swedish silent cinema, victor sjöström and mauritz stiller ... this put fischer in the direct line of the scandinavian cinematic tradition of the close relationship between the landscape and climate and the psychology of the characters.

His education was further developed by his work with the great Danish-born Carl Dreyer on Two People (1945), only his third film as director of photography. Despite the fact that this virtual two-hander, mostly set in an apartment, was disowned by Dreyer, Fischer claimed that it was a turning point in his understanding of stark lighting.

bergman and fischer's first mature collaboration was summer interlude (1950), in which a prima ballerina looks back on the idyllic summer she spent several years before on an island near stockholm with the boy she loved ... the affair comes to an abrupt and tragic end when he is killed in an accident .... fischer's camera wonderfully captures the limpid swedish summer in the early, lyrical love scenes, shifting to more shaded lighting for the present.

even more rapturous was summer with monika (1952), where an irresponsible teenage girl spends her holiday on an island with a young clerk, but gets pregnant and leaves him holding the baby ... bergman sees little hope for these adolescents in the winter of their discontent after a summer made glorious by fischer's camera.

it is no accident that three of bergman's films have "summer" in the title, and many others were set in that season, the only period of happiness for his characters before the encroachment of autumn and reality, the camera brilliantly recording the transient sun-soaked days ... .... sometimes fischer intentionally overexposed the film to achieve a hallucinatory or dreamlike effect, as in wild strawberries ... the shift from past to present, from memory to reality to dream, is signified by sharp contrasts in light. "I brought to Bergman a fantasy-like style," he explained. "It wasn't about making the scenes realistic but more theatrical, like a saga." In The Seventh Seal, whose luminous images derived from early church paintings, the change from one moral world to another is conveyed through lighting: a bright natural light indicates characters at peace, while heavy filters and backlighting indicate moral doubt.

In the sequence when the medieval knight plays chess with Death, Fischer used two powerful lights to throw the actors into sharp relief, which made it appear that the sky had two suns. When criticised for this, he responded: "If you can accept the fact that there is a knight sitting on a beach playing chess with Death, you should be able to accept that the sky has two suns."

Fischer and Bergman parted company after The Devil's Eye, which switched between an extremely theatrical Hell and the realism of a pastor's household, when the director failed to persuade the cinematographer to soften his lighting techniques. "i felt privileged collaborating with bergman," fischer recalled. "he was never indifferent to photography ... he could be upset if he didn't like what he saw ... why our collaboration ended with The Devil's Eye, i don't really know ... realistically it's most likely that he thought sven nykvist was a better photographer." thus began the bergman-nykvist era, the stylistic change demonstrating how influential the two cinematographers were to the director's oeuvre.

away from bergman, fischer worked on more mainstream movies ... for some of these, he was able to use colour, such as the pleasure garden (1961), with a screenplay by bergman, which was among the four films he made with alf kjellin ... one of the rare films on which fischer worked for a non-swedish director was anthony asquith's two living, one dead (1961) a low-key film noir, shot entirely in sweden with a largely british cast (including patrick mcgoohan and virginia mcKenna) but a mostly swedish crew. fischer also experimented with video techniques to record a series of provincial circus acts for jacques tati's parade (1974).

(adapted from the guardian, july 14, 2011)

sea of love

the sea of love/the heptones (long rare version of phil philips original doo wap hit, in 1959)/early sixties (films d'occasion production)

jonathan r./ymg

buzz, buzz, buzz (1978) / young jonathan richman/young marble giants: searching for mr right, colssal youth (1979) /à philippe l. (ordetblog) et ses quatre jonathan si jeunes , si émouvants (buddy holly, elvis presley, young marble giants)

my yiddishe mamma

yossele rosenblatt (1) (around 1930)

leo fuld's oriental version of my yiddishe mama (song starts at 2.50)/régine's own version

andré toussaint's fabulous folky creole version (nassau) ... and an even older yossele rosenblatt's version (around 1929)

al jolson in yiddish (remember the jazz singer, the story told, a jazzy vaudeville singer escapes from his father and his future as cantor .... it was the opposite story ...)

anita ellis/ellis larkins

i'll be around/anita ellis/ellis larkins trio (from the 1953 film, the joe louis story)

all the songs anita ellis and ellis larkins (he played with mildred bailey, and he's the best pianist for singers) did together are in a record costing a 100 dollars in cd ... i'm trying to find the original vinyl, which is surely less expensive ...

vaudeville (2)

sammy davis, 7 years old, king of vaudeville/ i'll be glad when you're dead (you rascal, you), 1933

sammy davis, 6 years old, king of vaudeville (1931)

bill 'bojangles' robinson, greatest tap dancer ever (and dancer king of vaudeville), according to fred astaire himself (from the film hooray for love, 1935), plus fats waller, plus the beautiful and legendary jeni legon ...

you better move on

you better move on/the rolling stones (arthur alexander)/february 8, 1964/arthur alexander's original version (1962)

tears of rage

tears of rage, a poignant version recorded in 1985, a few days before his suicide by composer richard manuel, who wrote the song with dylan ...

1955/1963/1964

hey, bo diddley/bo diddley(1955)/buddy holly (1963)/the story of bo diddley/the animals (1964)

bb & ab

gaby oh gaby/english version by original french author, boris bergman (2010) ... sounds like yiddish, eh?/original alain bashung version (early eighties)

skorecki voit des films (2)

j'ai décidé de noter au jour le jour mes très rares impressions de cinéma, sur les très rares films que je vois encore ... le plus souvent à la télévision ...

vu par hasard triple agent, l'un des derniers beaux rohmer, film étrange sous double influence biette/balthus ... sensualité vieillotte mais palpable, un mélange érotique enfantin et adulte, quelque chose de très rare au cinéma ... (à suivre)

nord (1960)

vous pensez bien que toute la nuit nous n'avons pas dormi lourd!... l'habitude!... l'habitude! il s'agissait de ne pas être surpris.. isis, la kretzer en isba... surveillées par les bidel... y avait de quoi ne pas être tranquilles... certainement elles allaient revenir!... elles s'échapperaient... et en colère!... alors?... kracht devait y aller trois fois entre minuit et six heures... à sept heures mon tour... on en avait pour un moment... quand il ferait un petit peu clair, je me lèverais... il faisait froid... par la lucarne il nous arrivait un peu de neige... je veux être sûr... un coup de "torch"!... oui!... des gros flocons... lili et la vigue dorment pas non plus... alors je demande... je veux le surprendre...

"dis donc, pote?

-quoi?

-tu te souviens?... ce qu'a dit la gitane?

-non!

-que t'as tué simmer, parbleu!"

je lui affirme...

"non! j'ai rien tué... tu inventes ferdine!... tu mens!"

j'ai toujours adoré nord, alors que voyage au bout de la nuit ou mort à crédit me tombent des mains ... mais là, ce voyage dérisoire toujours plus haut, plus au nord, (bientôt on sera au pôle ...) avec lucette, le chat et la vigue, cet acteur (robert le vigan) que j'aime infiniment ... j'ai même acheté les 3, 4 derniers livres pour y fouiner un peu ... moi qui n'ai jamais lu de ma vie (j'exagère à peine), qui n'ai jamais fait que relire (salinger, chandler, lolita de nabokov, jane bowles, leroy gourhan, jacob taubes, martin buber, ibn' el arabi ... et en ce moment l'intégralité des nouvelles d'isaac bashevis singer ... en anglais), voici que je m'y met ... skorecki avec un livre, et qui ne fait pas que lire une page par ci, une page par là, c'est vraiment une chose nouvelle, presque impensable pour moi ...

vintage

skorecki de passage sur la terrasse de libé, 7 juin 2011 (photo brigitte ollier)

casey/and the band played on/marie/once upon a time, 1995) who's more vintage? mandy patinkin's falsetto singing or skorecki's writing on music?

terry allen 2010

amarillo highway/greatest texas abstract country folk troubadour (juarez, 1975, same year as dylan's renaldo and clara, which features the same type of tex mex music, also used in peckinpah's 1973 pat garrett and billy the kid) singing one of his best songs/and robert earl keen's rocking live version in nashville ...

bonus terry allen (and the panhandle mystery band)/cocktail desperado (from david byrnes' 1984 film true stories)

black and white blues

dust my broom/howlin' wolf in pre-beefheart transe, with son house, completely drunk, dancing and enjoying (this is from an alan lomax film, in a fake juke joint built around newport, in 1966)

yardbirds' version (jeff beck on guitar, 1966)/canned heat's great live version (1968)/i took off the great slow arthur crudup version and the too famous robert johnson and elmore james ... can be listened to on youtube ..

vaudeville (1901-1993)

a short students' film about bert williams, the great negro acting as black minstrel as early as 1901 (his first records) ... just a pity the soundrack's invaded by contemporary rap music, until the very end when you can actually hear bert williams' charming and strangely dated way of singing ... what if this blackface was bing crosby's real music master?

lovesick blues/both versions, emmett miller's original (june, 12, 1928), and hank williams' one, twenty years later (1949) ...please judge and compare ...

watch for emmett miller's yodel at 0.42 ...(yes sir, mr bones, 1951)

just routine, you know, old vaudeville stuff ... but what a routine, man ... (1951)

shine/louis armstrong's fabulous minstrel vaudeville version, with young louis simultaneously playing the role of black man and of transvestite (from the film a rhapsody in blue, 1932)

sammy davis, aged 6 (1931 vaudeville at its best)

bob dylan acting as the only WHITE minstrel ever (tangled up in blue, from renaldo and clara, 1975)/a late vaudeville/minstrel version of mississippi sheik's blood in my eyes for you (1993)/and another splendid performance in WHITE MINSTREL make up (never let me go, from renaldo and clara, 1975)

jlg 1965

skorecki's favourite film

dodes ka-den (akira kurosawa)

skorecki's favourite films (2)

la nuit du carrefour (jean renoir, 1932, avec pierre renoir)