Passages

A subforum to discuss film culture and criticism.
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jbeall
Joined: Sat Aug 12, 2006 9:22 am
Location: Atlanta-ish

Re: Passages

#7451 Post by jbeall » Wed Oct 24, 2018 8:02 pm


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L.A.
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Location: Helsinki, Finland

Re: Passages

#7452 Post by L.A. » Fri Oct 26, 2018 5:20 am


flyonthewall2983
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Re: Passages

#7453 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Oct 30, 2018 1:39 pm


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hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Passages

#7454 Post by hearthesilence » Tue Oct 30, 2018 1:46 pm

Man, those guys let nothing slide.

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The Fanciful Norwegian
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:24 pm
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Re: Passages

#7456 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Tue Oct 30, 2018 4:43 pm

Louis Cha/Jin Yong, author of much-adapted wuxia novels like Legend of the Condor Heroes, The Deer and the Cauldron, The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, etc.

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mfunk9786
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Location: Philadelphia, PA

Re: Passages

#7457 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Nov 01, 2018 5:32 pm


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mfunk9786
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Re: Passages

#7458 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Nov 01, 2018 5:44 pm


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Brian C
I hate to be That Pedantic Guy but...
Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:58 am
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Passages

#7459 Post by Brian C » Thu Nov 01, 2018 6:21 pm

Dr Z was a true great. Wasn’t afraid to ruffle feathers while also quick to praise when deserved. Worked to describe what really happened in football games instead of trying to advance inane narratives. By all accounts, would frequently go to war to advocate for overlooked Hall of Fame candidates.

I’ve missed his columns since they ended abruptly mid-season over a decade ago when he had a major stroke. His weekly in-season power rankings were always great, but I find myself missing his annual broadcaster rankings more than anything.

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Buttery Jeb
Just in it for the game.
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:55 pm

Re: Passages

#7460 Post by Buttery Jeb » Fri Nov 02, 2018 12:45 pm


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Polybius
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 10:57 pm
Location: Rollin' down Highway 41

Re: Passages

#7461 Post by Polybius » Sat Nov 03, 2018 5:40 am

Brian C wrote:
Thu Nov 01, 2018 6:21 pm
By all accounts, would frequently go to war to advocate for overlooked Hall of Fame candidates.
Or against ones that he didn't like.

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Lemmy Caution
Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:26 am
Location: East of Shanghai

Re: Passages

#7462 Post by Lemmy Caution » Sun Nov 04, 2018 9:12 am

jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove dies at age 49
A very talented musician who had health issues.
He was at the forefront of talented young lions in the 90's, along with Christian McBride (bass) and James Carter (Sax) (and slightly later Sarah Morrow (trombone), who revered the tradition but also could handle avant garde and new directions.

And that leads me to a question that's been on my mind. Is jazz dead?
There was a significant jazz mini-revival in the 90's that Hargrove was part of. Exciting young players with great talent playing and recording genuine jazz. Jazz at Lincoln Center, expensive new jazz clubs like Dizzy's Coca Cola Room.

Then we got a swing revival I think late 90's leaking into the 2000's. Along with a jazz ballad renaissance, with singers like Diana Krall, Stacey King, Jane Monheit, Holly Cole, Nnenna Freelon, plus a surge of older established pop stars like Linda Ronstadt, Sinead O'Connor et al putting out jazz standard recordings. There was also the marketing of so called acid jazz which sometimes did and sometimes didn't have much to do with jazz.

But all that seems more than a decade in the past, and far removed from today. Jazz seems to have receded entirely from the culture. I'm sure it still exists here and there in clubs and record collections and such, but it seems to have faded for evermore. The moribund recording industry certainly hasn't helped music in general, let alone an older style such as jazz. I'm wondering if a film like Whiplash aroused any interest in jazz or just confirms the autopsy.

I'm in China and maybe I've just missed it, but are there any young lions of jazz out there today, is any type of jazz seen as still relevant, is jazz still alive in some form??

Izo
Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2008 6:59 pm

Re: Passages

#7463 Post by Izo » Sun Nov 04, 2018 10:25 am

Hargrove was a giant (and don't forget Joshua Redman and Brad Mehldau from that 90s group, two of the best improvisational talents I've ever heard), but in recent years there have been a number of talented jazz groups like The Bad Plus, but a trio of newer bands from the UK - GoGo Penguin, Sons of Kismet, and especially Mammal Hands - are doing wonderful things with improvisational music. They may not swing, but I feel like jazz is doing just fine.

Edit: Also, check out Vijay Iyer. He's the best "young lion" that comes to mind and he's a brilliant musician.

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hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Passages

#7464 Post by hearthesilence » Sun Nov 04, 2018 11:37 am

Lemmy Caution wrote:
Sun Nov 04, 2018 9:12 am
I'm wondering if a film like Whiplash aroused any interest in jazz or just confirms the autopsy.
I don't think that film did anything for jazz, and even if it did, I'd be skeptical if it was a lasting impact. Think about Ken Burns's misbegotten documentary series for PBS: despite it's many, many faults as a poor, somewhat sensationalist and very biased critical history of jazz, it gave the music its best marketing push in decades, and sales for jazz records did see a substantial increase. But that faded within a few years - worse, the market plummeted, and it never recovered with many jazz labels waving the white flag by folding up or converting most (if not all) of their back catalog to streaming and burn-on-demand only.

Chazelle is an excellent craftsman, but I said this before elsewhere, his ideas (or really his viewpoint) can be a bit meat-headed, and his views on music are easily the worst example of this. I enjoyed La La Land, but the commentary on music is simple and narrow-minded, so much that I wished Kamasi Washington would crash into the picture and upturn everything he was trying to say about jazz and its current relation to popular music.

Hargrove was notable for playing on some landmark recordings outside of jazz too, and in many ways Washington has done the same to a much greater extent, as seen by his work with Kendrick Lamar.

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domino harvey
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Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Passages

#7465 Post by domino harvey » Sun Nov 04, 2018 12:12 pm

If I had to choose between someone who was passionate about Jazz but maybe didn't have the fullest breadth of nuance or complexities, like Ryan Gosling in La La Land, or someone who exhaustingly nitpicked and obsessively derided depictions of Jazz in popular movies for failing their purity tests, there is no fucking contest which one I'd side with

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Lemmy Caution
Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:26 am
Location: East of Shanghai

Re: Passages

#7466 Post by Lemmy Caution » Sun Nov 04, 2018 12:56 pm

Izo wrote:
Sun Nov 04, 2018 10:25 am
Hargrove was a giant (and don't forget Joshua Redman and Brad Mehldau from that 90s group, two of the best improvisational talents I've ever heard), but in recent years there have been a number of talented jazz groups like The Bad Plus, but a trio of newer bands from the UK - GoGo Penguin, Sons of Kismet, and especially Mammal Hands - are doing wonderful things with improvisational music. They may not swing, but I feel like jazz is doing just fine.

Edit: Also, check out Vijay Iyer. He's the best "young lion" that comes to mind and he's a brilliant musician.
Yes, Redman and Mehldau too. I also left out saxophonist Chris Potter and trumpeter Terence Blanchard.

I've never heard of any of those bands. The name Vijay Iyer is somewhat familiar, but don't think I've heard anything of his. So I'll give a listen.

The other day I was checking out some Bria Skonberg on youtube. She's Canadian, now based in Brooklyn, around 35 years old. Favors old standards, plays a Louis Armstrong inspired trumpet and sings sultry standards. One clip she's seated next to Woody Allen at the Cafe Carlisle. Another she's doing a fun raucous version of Janis Joplin's Mercedes Benz. She has a nice stage presence. Here's her doing Bye Bye Blackbird on a street corner in Vail (the vid is mostly a Vail promo interspersed with the band). Her last album was crowdfunded. So she's one of the only this-decade jazz performers I'm familiar with.
I need to check out her albums.

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hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Passages

#7467 Post by hearthesilence » Sun Nov 04, 2018 11:01 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Sun Nov 04, 2018 12:12 pm
If I had to choose between someone who was passionate about Jazz but maybe didn't have the fullest breadth of nuance or complexities, like Ryan Gosling in La La Land who also exhaustingly nitpicked and obsessively derided the latest bands for failing their purity tests, there is no fucking contest which one I'd side with
Fixed.

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Big Ben
Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:54 pm
Location: Great Falls, Montana

Re: Passages

#7468 Post by Big Ben » Sun Nov 04, 2018 11:05 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Sun Nov 04, 2018 12:12 pm
If I had to choose between someone who was passionate about Jazz but maybe didn't have the fullest breadth of nuance or complexities, like Ryan Gosling in La La Land, or someone who exhaustingly nitpicked and obsessively derided depictions of Jazz in popular movies for failing their purity tests, there is no fucking contest which one I'd side with
I very much agree with this. No True Scotsman is a thing and I've always detested the completely asinine purity tests set forward by individuals who like gatekeep.

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Caligula
Carthago delenda est
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 2:32 am
Location: George, South Africa

Re: Passages

#7469 Post by Caligula » Tue Nov 06, 2018 2:29 am

Ivan March, longtime critic for Gramophone magazine, as well as editor of the sadly departed Penguin Guide to Classical Music

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GaryC
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:56 pm
Location: Aldershot, Hampshire, UK

Re: Passages

#7470 Post by GaryC » Tue Nov 06, 2018 2:36 am

Eleanor Witcombe, who adapted The Getting of Wisdom and My Brilliant Career for the screen, plus stage and television work. She was 95.

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MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
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Re: Passages

#7471 Post by MichaelB » Tue Nov 06, 2018 6:09 pm

I think all the big names (Kazimierz Karabasz, Tomasz Stanko, Piotr Szulkin) were flagged up here at the time, but here's a list of every Polish film and TV professional who died over the previous twelve months.

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MichaelB
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Re: Passages

#7472 Post by MichaelB » Tue Nov 06, 2018 10:25 pm

One from a few months ago that I've only just spotted: French director Claude Bernard-Aubert, who died on 25 June at the age of 88.

Probably best known in respectable circles for the 1973 Jean Gabin thriller L'affaire Domenici, Bernard-Aubert is perhaps rather better known in less respectable circles for being one of the most prolific directors contributing to France's so-called golden age of porn, making several 35mm hardcore films a year between 1976 and 1987 under the anagrammatic pseudonym Burd Tranbaree.

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Dylan
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:28 pm

Re: Passages

#7473 Post by Dylan » Wed Nov 07, 2018 6:39 pm

Composer Francis Lai, probably best known for Love Story (for which he won an Oscar) and A Man and a Woman (as well as most of Claude Lelouch's subsequent films), he also scored such films as Emmanuelle II, Hannibal Brooks, Mayerling, Anima Persa, Bilitis, and many more. I've always loved his music.

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bearcuborg
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2007 2:30 am
Location: Philadelphia via Chicago

Re: Passages

#7474 Post by bearcuborg » Sun Nov 11, 2018 1:49 am


CJG
Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:13 am

Re: Passages

#7475 Post by CJG » Sun Nov 11, 2018 6:21 pm


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