La La Land (12/6/16)

 

Hello FB - Hoping you are all enjoying a peaceful week with family as I am, and I hate to disturb the silence, but I feel that I must post a Rant - No, it's not politics, let's forget that for this week - but i did go to the movies tonight and saw "La La Land" and can not contain myself. My expectations were not high, and the film was a surprisingly charming and nostalgic salute to classic MGM musicals. Unfortunately though, the plot tells the story of a "Jazz" musician and his desire to not compromise his art and the legacy of his musical heros Kenny Clarke and Thelonius Monk ( mentioned by name by John Legend in the film! ). The problem is that the music in the film is HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The music portrayed as the "real jazz" is HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's as if the person who composed the score had NEVER EVEN HEARD A NOTE OF JAZZ MUSIC IN HIS LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The songs all ended with a BUTTON!!!!!!!!! WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU PLAYED A "BUTTON" ON THE END OF A TUNE WHEN IT WASN'T EVEN A BIG BAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How did no one of the thousands in the production team tell them that the music was HORRIBLE!!!!!!! Even the other more mainstream Musical Theater composition and orchestration was HORRRIBLLE!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS MOVIE GIVES "JAZZ" A WORSE REPRESENTATION THAN "WHIPLASH" BY FAR!!!!!!!!! HOLLYWOOD, PLEASE NEVER, NEVER REPRESENT "JAZZ" IN A FILM AGAIN - YOU ALWAYS DO IT A COMPLETE DIS-SERVICE! PLEASE STOP MAKING EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T KNOW BETTER THINK OUR MUSIC SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you and enjoy this peaceful week. Led.

 

 

“United States vs Billie Holiday” (3/7/21)

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FB MOVIE RANT ALERT!!!! Ok, I just don't think I have the stomach for this one. Watching "The United States Vs. Billie Holiday" as we speak. I'm speechless at this nightmare of a film - It has effectively removed all the poetry out of Ms. Holiday's music, and life story and turned it into some ridiculous Hollywood vision that lives in the same ridiculous caricature of a Jazz world that "La La Land" inhabited. The arrangements are anachronistic, and awful. The character playing Lester Young has no grace whatsoever, and misses all the poetry there - and he IS PLAYING A METAL MOUTHPIECE! WHAT??? THE TENOR PLAYER "MIMING" LESTER ON THE SOUNDTRACK SOUNDS LIKE AN AWFUL LAS VEGAS LOUNGE MUSICIAN IN 1974, AND THIS IS AN INSULT TO LAS VEGAS LOUNGE MUSICIANS!!! WHERE IS THE ART, GRACE, SOUL AND DEPTH OF BILLIE HOLIDAY IN THIS FILM - IT'S JUST NOT THERE, IN ANY FORM. THIS FILM IS AN INSULT. I AM SPEECHLESS. All of the other characters in the film look like a bunch of high school kids in the school play who put on fake mustaches and are trying to act like they think people in the 1950's acted. The social justice aspects of the film are completely obscured by the ineptitude of the direction and trashy script that strip ALL the characters of their dignity, and poetry. The scenes portraying Ms. Holiday in intimate moments are tasteless, uncomfortable and undignified, revealing less about the character and more about the disgusting tendencies of the director - i'm sorry the cast had to go through that. Hey, next biopic of Mozart or Bach? let's put some butt sex in it, because it really helps us to understand the characters? bullshit.

The only antidote I can think of to wasting an hour watching the film (yes, i'm turning it off now....) is to view this clip which gives us the grace, depth, musicality and soul of this great artist Billie Holiday (AND Lester Young btw). Enjoy the clip, don't watch the movie.

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“Bushwick” (12/2/17)

Last night I hunkered down and wanted to watch a movie on Netflix - I ended up with "Bushwick", perhaps the worst film I have seen since "La La Land". Oh well, at least the gratuitous and pointless violence and unbelievably confused and misguided political/social agenda might help to prepare me for my improvised duo with Jon Irabagon tomorrow night in the aforementioned neighborhood. 8pm show. With live art. Jon and I will play various instruments. No holes, no glory.

 

“A Star is Born”

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"A STAR IS BORN" IS A TERRIBLE PIECE OF INSIPID TRASH!! PERHAPS WORSE THAN LA LA LAND!!! (Now that I have your attention with one of my movie rants, which have much better metrics on FB than actual gig announcements etc, let me please remind you that I will be playing at Dizzy's all weekend Fri-Sun with Matt and crew - pls think about attending rather than going to the movies, and if you do reservations are strongly recommended) BRADLEY COOPER IS A SELF-ENAMOURED INGRATIATING BORE!

 

“Bolden” (5/4/19)

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OK FB - here goes, MOVIE RANT ALERT! There have been some terrible movies about jazz, i mean some really, really terrible movies about jazz - but I am just back from the theater tonight and "Bolden" is truly the King of S**T in jazz cinema. Another ridiculous Hollywood image of the music and it's creators as mentally ill, drug abusing lunatics. And the treatment of women in the film is a completely insulting portrayal of all women as passive, weak willed sex-crazed puppets of the music - What a fuc*ing joke this whole thing is - I can't believe Wynton Marsalis would be involved in this piece of sh*t in any capacity (his own incredible playing is the only contribution worth anything, and half the time is washed out in stupid reverb in the "flashback" scenes that make up about half the movie). Louis Armstrong is portrayed in the film as some kind of sell-out who gained success by pandering to white audiences, come-on - aren't we all through with these inaccurate and insulting views of one of the great geniuses of the music?? Again, how did Wynton put his name on this crap as Executive Producer??Worst of all, in one scene a clarinetist plays a solo while dismantling the joints of his clarinet piece by piece - What kind of idiot would do something like that??? Yes, I would - these moth-fuc*ers STOLE MY SH#T!

 

“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” (12/19/20)

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Brief Rave, not rant Alert......Watched “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” tonight- it was fantastic. I have seen some who expected a “jazz film” were disappointed with it, here was my response to them.

I have to respectfully disagree- this is not a film attempting to accurately portray historical jazz from the era, this is a brilliantly adapted work of theatrical literature from August Wilson, one of our great playwrights and was giving a voice and perspective to a slice of Black America through a broad portrayal of an historical figure. Chadwick Boseman’s performance was virtuosic and moving, as was Viola Davis’, though many of the musical details were over simplistic and flawed, including his handling of the cornet at times. The takeaway here was much broader than the music, and Wilson’s language is a delight. In contrast, last year’s “historical” film about Buddy Bolden was pure trash, Wynton’s excellent performance on the soundtrack notwithstanding and gave us no insight in the music, or the musicians beyond the producers’ own ego-driven fantasy.

 

“Elvis” (7/3/22)

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MOVIE RANT ALERT!!! Within minutes it was clear that "Elvis" was going to be the worst film portrayal of a musician since the abomination of "Bolden" - from Tom Hanks' ridiculously weird put-on fake Dutch-good old boy accent and makeup as the Colonel, to the mash-up soundtrack that mixes some Elvis themes with some kind of weak "hip-hop", and remixes that destroy the original songs completely by crappy reharmonizations etc. I actually love Elvis' music, and the only time we got to enjoy it was in the very last scene in which they play the real deal in his final taped performance where he was crushing it despite his awful physical condition. The actor who plays Elvis is passable in this film, but brings no new understanding or depth to the man or his music - playing the character only. There is an acknowledgement in the film to Elvis' real relationship with the traditions of Black music in America (something Elvis did at least acknowledge in his lifetime), but those traditions of blues, gospel and R and B are all played out in ridiculous characterizations that felt like some kind of Hollywood minstrel show once again. I'm glad Fats Domino was represented in one scene briefly, SO WHERE'S THE BIO-PIC ABOUT A REAL INNOVATOR IN ROCK N' ROLL - FATS DOMINO???!!!! Perhaps worst of all in this film? THE EDITING!!!! STUPID AND RIDICULOUS MONTAGES OF PAST AND PRESENT, STUPID USE OF GRAPHICS ON SCREEN!! NO FEEL, NO STYLE. I think editing in film is like what we sense as "feel" in music, without out it even good content means nothing. THIS FILM SUCKS, AND Chris Digirolomo, YOU TOLD ME SO!!! BUT LIKE A DUMMY I STAYED UNTIL THE END!!!!

 

“Tar” (10/22/22)

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MOVIE RANT ALERT!!! TÁR FALLS FLAT!!!! THIS FILM HAS A MUSHY ICTUS, AND EVEN LESS TACTUS!

I had greatly anticipated seeing this film which Is set in the orchestra world I have had some brief experiences with and am fascinated by. This film got so much buzz in advance, and so much praise for Cate Blanchett’s performance that I was sure it would be a winner- like the opening of Beethoven 5- bum bum bum BLAH!!! To start, Blanchett’s much acclaimed Hollywood “conducting” ( and acting) was a over-stuffed turkey ( not that we don’t know some real life over stuffed turkeys on the podium but this was a 20 pound Purdue steroid-filled bomb). She almost looked like she could play the piano, but the scenes when she was “composing” were ridiculous as this conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic struggled to find a minor third on the piano that matched what she was singing. To be fair some of her rants to young conductors were well written and funny and her German was good, but Blanchett’s performance overall failed to live up to the hype and generally fell flat. The basic storyline was ok, but I guarantee your would find more drama in the real life story of any major orchestral conductor. The final scene ( which I won’t describe in case you still want to see the film) takes this whole affair to a level of absurdity that makes Bugs Bunny at the Hollywood bowl look like cinema verité. So who generated all the positive hype about this film and Blanchett’s performance? I guess the best publicist in Hollywood- hey, I’ve got some albums coming out I want to talk to you about

MOVIE RANT ALERT!!! TÁR FALLS FLAT!!!! THIS FILM HAS A MUSHY ICTUS, AND EVEN LESS TACTUS!

I had greatly anticipated seeing this film which Is set in the orchestra world I have had some brief experiences with and am fascinated by. This film got so much buzz in advance, and so much praise for Cate Blanchett’s performance that I was sure it would be a winner- like the opening of Beethoven 5- bum bum bum BLAH!!! To start, Blanchett’s much acclaimed Hollywood “conducting” ( and acting) was a over-stuffed turkey ( not that we don’t know some real life over stuffed turkeys on the podium but this was a 20 pound Purdue steroid-filled bomb). She almost looked like she could play the piano, but the scenes when she was “composing” were ridiculous as this conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic struggled to find a minor third on the piano that matched what she was singing. To be fair some of her rants to young conductors were well written and funny and her German was good, but Blanchett’s performance overall failed to live up to the hype and generally fell flat. The basic storyline was ok, but I guarantee your would find more drama in the real life story of any major orchestral conductor. The final scene ( which I won’t describe in case you still want to see the film) takes this whole affair to a level of absurdity that makes Bugs Bunny at the Hollywood bowl look like cinema verité. So who generated all the positive hype about this film and Blanchett’s performance? I guess the best publicist in Hollywood- hey, I’ve got some albums coming out I want to talk to you about