All That Jazz ...

I could be the minority here, but I found "Anatomy of a murder" not as great as I had anticipated; lacking in pace, with the court room sequences (and a few others) which started to drag on for too long and some support characters who had no major role to play. IIRC, it was held together by the Jazz soundtrack and Jimmy Stewart. He brings in his charm, quirks and energy to all his characters. This movie was another Jimmy show from start to finish, IMO.

Another movie from Otto Preminger which surprised me positively was the lesser known, "Bunny lake is missing". Here it was the other way round, not an ounce of extra flab in the screenplay, as tight as a drum. This was an engaging thrill ride, from the first to last scene. Outside of the Hitchcock universe, this is as good as it gets :)
I used to love watching Jimmy Stewart movies so found anything he made to be a great movie - fan boy blinkers.
I’m sure you’re not wrong about the movie itself. I can only remember Jimmy Stewart’s role!
Not seen Bunny Lake...will check it out
 
@vivek_r and @coaltrain since we're talking soundtracks, three of my favorites :

Theme song of Farewell, my Lovely - based on the Raymond Chandler book. I can vividly visualize the world weary Philip Marlowe with this tune


Who can forget Paul Neumann in The Hustler?


Dexter Gordon starred in Round Midnight as a down at heel Jazz musician. I thought his acting was quite rotten in spite of the Oscar nomination he got for that role :D but that soundtrack - man oh man...produced by Herbie Hancock and starring Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, John McLaughlin and Tony Williams!
A must listen.


Fully agree with your comments on Round Midnight. Fantastic score. Dexter Gordon merely acted like himself so I don't think the role was very demanding in terms of acting talent or versatility. I'm not a great fan of Dexter Gordon - I find his playing too laid back, but who am I to judge a great artiste!
 
I was familiar with C Jam Blues on the Oscar Peterson Album, Night Train and then I heard this today. Woah...
I hear the solo by Roland Kirk but the whole joint is jumpin.. @vivek_r slowly "gittin it".
 
Out of all the noir movies I watched in my noir watching period , I don’t know which one I find the more intriguing- The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon.

Reminded me to pull out this one:
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As intended by its makers, it brought out all the noir of the 30s-40s films. . The intro and end both feature excerpts from The Big Sleep. Have been listening to it all day :)
 
Paul Desmond interviewing Charlie Parker. popped up on my youtube feed.
Wonderful to watch the interview. Thanks for posting Sushant. To me it has a lot to say about jazz, where the artiste plays a particular way spontaneously, not because he is trying to showcase some special technique. Both great sax players with completely different styles.
 
Wonderful to watch the interview. Thanks for posting Sushant. To me it has a lot to say about jazz, where the artiste plays a particular way spontaneously, not because he is trying to showcase some special technique. Both great sax players with completely different styles.
Kishore, his style of playing seems like second nature to him. The interviewers almost seem relieved when he lays importance on practice, schooling and books (theres hope for them too ;), just kidding different styles them both like you said). The big baritone voice, man...
 
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Arito Moreira...killer bees

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From his website…

There is no way in the world that the God-like names featured could be gathered together on one album. No way, that is unless your name is Airto Moreira. So how did ‘Killer Bees’ come into being?

Airto was originally commissioned to write a ‘Brazilian’ album for a major label. He saw this as an opportunity to return to his jazz roots and explore some freeform playing ideas that had been kicking around for a while.

Airto had little trouble persuading his friends Chick Corea, Mark Egan, Herbie Hancock and Stanley Clarke to come down to Santa Barbara and jam. Used to playing within closely defined parameters on other people’s projects the musicians were delighted to find that Airto didn’t have parts written for them. The instinctive interplay between the musicians creates the deception that months of rehearsal went into creating this penthouse level of spontaneity. But the secret is simply years of playing together in lofts before any of them got famous…
 
Nostalgic days of the first video cassette I owned as an introduction to jazz video (in those days these were difficult to aquire).It was an eye opener considering that you are mostly into straight ahead rock in early days.The virtuosity is on a different plane.Watch out for Scott Henderson.
 
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