Johannes in retroland

Archive for December, 2004

Bill Graham’s first New Year’s Eve Bash was a legendary, all-night affair with additional bands dropping by to supplement the advertised fare, and this second Bash continued the tradition. The music played ’til dawn, sometimes falling on the deaf ears of the somnambulent, and Graham and his staff served breakfast to those who stayed the night. The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane were at all the early New Year’s concerts, and the Dead made it an annual gig for years. The grey letters cascading through the woman’s hair are silver on the original print.

Bron: wolfgangsvault.com

Fairly standard story — Crawford is a “career gal” in love with her boss — the exquisitely dapper and gentlemanly Kruger — or, at least, she thinks she is until a shipboard romance with Argentinian rancher Gable gets in the way. The only gimmick here is the audience’s expectation that Kruger will go mad or seek some kind of revenge (you can even imagine Lon Chaney in the role), but he doesn’t. The chemistry between Gable and Crawford is the picture of passion, although they are not aided by the tepid dialogue (“the sun of love will always shine on us” and such stuff), and Kruger and Crawford present a believable picture of a marriage based on respect instead of love.

Bron: imdb.com

Bron: rainfall.com/posters/Theatrical

The Modern Jazz Quartet were incredibly important in the development of jazz in the 1950s, and although they officially disbanded in 1974, they’ve reformed for both concerts and recordings several times since then, making them now an “evergreen” jazz band. It was not always so.

The Modern Jazz Quartet was originally formed as the Milt Jackson Quartet (which, conveniently, had the same initials, MJQ) and consisted of Jackson on vibraphone, John Lewis on piano, Percy Heath on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums. Of these, Clarke was the veteran of the group, a drummer who had been at Minton’s after-hours club in 1939, where Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Christian and Clarke invented “bebop” or bop, a harmonically advanced and challenging kind of new jazz.

Bron: holeintheweb.com

This cinematic spectacle was released in both a national and an international version. The film stars internationally renowned actors such as the German Emil Jannings (Nero), the British Lilian Hall-Davis (Licia) and the Italian Elena Sangro (Popea). The aim was to live up to the success of the first 1912 screen version. Nevertheless, despite all these efforts, the audiences remained at large and instead of causing a revival of the Italian film industry, this film marked the end of the ´historical costume drama´ genre.