This week in The Wall Street Journal, I interviewed Lou Piniella, the former Yankee left fielder and manager, for my "House Call" column (go here). Lou talked about growing up in West Tampa, Fla. and the red sauce that gets him weepy.
Also in the WSJ, I interviewed Brazilian jazz pianist Eliane Elias for my "Playlist" column on her favorite song—Antonio Carlos Jobim's Waters of March (go here). She recalls playing it as a piano duet with Jobim at his apartment in the 1980s. Here's a promo video for her new album, Dance of Time (Concord)...
Email ads. Many subscribers to the JazzWax newsletter wondered last week about the ads that suddenly started appearing in the emails. I've taken care of that so they're now ad-free. If you're new to JazzWax and want to subscribe for free so it arrives by email each evening, scroll down the right-hand column until you find "Subscribe Free." Just click the button and type in your email. You'll receive a confirmation link and that's it!
Rolling Stones: Olé, Olé, Olé! At this point, there probably are two dozen documentaries on the Rolling Stones. Off the top of my head, the most powerful ones include Charlie Is My Darling, Robert Frank's Cocksucker Blues, the Maysles brothers and Charlotte Zwerin's Gimme Shelter, Martin Scorsese's Shine a Light, and Let's Spend the Night Together to name a few. But a new film now on DVD and BluRay—Olé, Olé, Olé! (Eagle Rock)—may be the one with the most heart.
The documentary, directed by Paul Dugdale, traces the band's Latin American tour in 2016 leading up to their March concert in Havana, Cuba, where they became the first rock band to play in the country, post-Castro. It's also a concert that almost didn't happen.
Instead of featuring the band performing hit after hit on foreign stages, the film wisely wanders into the culture of each country where the Stones perform. The 10 stops on the tour included cities in Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Mexico before the band flew to Havana for the film's crescendo.
But this isn't a Stones worship video nor one that strives to show how youthful they still are. In each country, the cameras explore the locale with the Stones as they reconnect with old local friends, embrace dance, music and food, and let their boundless curiosity run free. What stands out in each country are the miles of hard-core Stones fans—people of all ages who recognize the music as something soulful, purposeful and inspiring. For examples, in Buenos Aires, there's a guy who plays Stones songs on his car stereo and perfectly mimics Mick Jagger's stage choreography in the middle of the street. The film is peppered with moments like this, and South America may have the band's largest, emotionally invested fan base.
Access in the film is terrific. The cameras are in on planning meetings for Havana, they enter Keith Richards' suite when he accidentally opens the door, and they visit back-street courtyards where musicians play the Stones' songs on local instruments (two musicians, in shock, get to visit with Mick at his hotel).
The stadiums in South America are built for soccer and are enormous—with a much bigger capacity than in the States. So the crowd's size in each city is staggering, and adulation for the band's music is palpable and touching. Their love for the band transcends nostalgia or the love of rock renegades. It's deeply rooted in the band's earthy, familiar blues. We also get to see how hard the Stones and crew work on these tours. You quickly come to realize that these guys just throw themselves on the alter of art time after time. The box-office revenue certainly is great, but they could just as easily lay around at home. Their plane and accommodations may have improved but they clearly are doing something with great passion and purpose.
A high point for me comes in a scene when Keith and Mick are sitting casually in a dressing room reminiscing about the birth of Honky Tonk Women. Then Keith begins to play the song how it originally was conceived on his acoustic guitar and Mick sings along. Talk about stripped down! We also learn that Keith carries a primitive-looking wooden club that he uses to ward off the rain (wishful thinking in some cases). In Sao Palo, bassist Ronnie Wood meets up with an older painter he knows from years back and they spend time painting together. The humanism of all four Stones is front and center.
But the film's climax is the Havana concert. It's heartbreaking to hear Cubans tell the interviewer that playing rock records in past decades had led to arrests, and it's breathtaking to see how overcome with excitement the Cubans were in anticipation of the concert, especially older residents who had to play records quietly in secret. Today, the Stones' music is viewed in Cuba as the sound of true liberation, and the crowd's tears reflect their pent-up passion and desire to make up for lost time. As one person from Havana says in the film, "Music has no borders."
This is a worthy documentary for anyone who is remotely curious about the Stones and wants to see the little-known tender side of four guys who still fill seats in their 70s. Here's a promo video...
And here's Keith and Mick singing Honky Tonk Women in a dressing room...
Music for the BBQ. Cooking this weekend? Here are a bunch of my favorite "full albums" on YouTube to keep you company and motivated in the kitchen or in front of the grill...
Here's Clint Eastwood (not that one) & General Saint's Stop That Train (1983) album...
Here's Hector Lavoe's Comedia album (1978)...
Here's a mix of 1960s bossa nova recordings...
Here's Brother Jack McDuff's Down Home Style (1969)...
Here's a fab Motown collection...
And here's the Very Best of Roy Ayers...
What the heck: Here's Madness's music video for Our House in 1982. The Brit pop hit went to #7 on Billboard's pop chart...
Oddball album cover of the week.
As we can see from the album cover above, when high-fidelity records and turntables first hit the market in the late 1950s, it took two men to explain the new technology's benefits to every woman. And most women, like the one above, did their very best to make it seem like they cared...
