In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed historical and suspense novelist Ken Follett for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Ken talked about growing up in a Puritan household in Wales and then London where his parents eschewed pleasure. Which meant no TV, no radio, no records and no going to the movies. As a result, Ken grew up reading adventure novels—until his parents finally bought a cabinet with a built-in radio and turntable. It enabled him to listen to the Beatles in 1963. Ken's latest historical novel is A Column of Fire, which takes place in the 1500s and is about Queen Elizabeth I and how she set up the first English secret service to warn her of assassination plots. You'll find it here. [Photo above of Ken Follett in his home office in Stevenage, England, by Dylan Thomas for The Wall Street Journal]
I found Ken utterly charming. He was delightful, funny and acerbic. Hear for yourself...
Love trombones? Kurt Kolstad sent along this clip by the Dutch group New Trombone Collective playing Bones From Brazil, featuring 21 horns. Solos are by Jiggs Whigham, Mark Nightingale, Bart Van Lier and Nils Wogram...
Barcelona jazz. Here's another one from Kurt, this time it's the Alba Armengou Sant Andreu Jazz Band playing and singing Triste, under the direction of bassist Joan Chamorro...
Buster Keaton. In the 1920s, jazz began spreading into American popular culture with the advent of radio, better sounding records and lower priced phonographs. But jazz—syncopated music based on the blues and marked by wild improvisation—didn't exist solely in music. Its spirited wound up in comic film, as well. The humor and ups and downs of everyday life, often in the extreme, was a theme in most comedies then. While Charlie Chaplin receives much of the attention today when we think of silent comedies, Buster Keaton was a much better action comic and director. Here's a fast documentary on Keaton's genius called the Art of the Gag...
Randy Weston's funeral service will be held in New York on Monday, September 10, from 3 to 4 p.m. (viewing), with a service from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine at 1047 Amsterdam Ave. For more information, call the cathedral at (212) 316-7540.
Here's Randy Weston with baritone saxophonist Cecil Payne playing I Can't Get Started...
Marlene VerPlanck, a singer and dear friend, died in January. A celebration and memorial for her will be held in New Jersey on Sunday, September 23, at 2 p.m. at the Shea Center for Performing Arts at William Paterson University, 300 Pompton Road in Wayne, N.J. Among the performers will be vocalists Sandy Stewart, Annette Warren, Daryl Sherman, Ronny Whyte and Ben Cassara; pianists Mike Renzi, Bill Charlap, Tedd Firth, Tomoko Ohno and Russ Kassoff; bassists Jay Leonhart and Boots Maleson, drummers Ron Vincent and Victor Lesczak; and trumpeter Warren Vaché.
Tickets are $20, and can be purchased on-line here and in-person or by phone (973-720-2371) from the box office at the Shea Center for Performing Arts. All proceeds from the concert will be donated to the Marlene and J. Billy VerPlanck Endowed Scholarship Fund.
Here's Marlene in September 1978 singing I Remember You...
What the heck: What would the end of summer be like without Tavares. Here's Don't Take Away the Music in 1976...
And here's Tavares in 1967 when they were still known as Chubby and the Turnpikes, with Antone "Chubby" Tavares on lead vocal...
Oddball album cover of the week.
An odd cover, since you'd think it was from the mid-1950s. Given that The Girl From Ipanema is on here, it has to be from 1964, at the earliest. Cocktail hour? The skyline is lightless, which tells us it's around 3 a.m. And The Topless Dancers of Corfu by Dick Hyman? Dick!
