Elizabeth, Sonny and Billy

This week in The Wall Street Journal, I interviewed actress Elizabeth Marvel for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). If the name doesn't ring a bell, her TV roles have included playing the president in Showtime's Homeland and Heather Dunbar on House of Cards. Her movies include True Grit, Lincoln and The Meyerowitz Stories. Growing up, Elizabeth was convinced she was from outer space and that if she blinked twice, she could send pictures back to aliens who sent her here. She's also a Deadhead and a self-described "happy hippie." [Photo above of Elizabeth Marvel in Homeland, courtesy of YouTube/Showtime]

Here's Elizabeth in Homeland...

Here's Elizabeth in House of Cards...

And here she is in her new series, Helstrom...

Sonny Rollins. Here's the tenor saxophonist in 1965 playing There Will Never Be Another You [Photo above of Sonny Rollins by Francis Wolff (c) Mosaic Images]...

Here's Sonny in Kongsberg, Norway, in 1974...

And here's Sonny in Umbria, Italy, in 1998...

Song roots. Curious where this song came from (the singer is pictured above)...?

The music began with Charles Dawes and another Tommy...

Color and fear. Many of us are already familiar with images and footage of workers constructing New York's Chrysler Building in 1930. As director Raymond De Felitta noted when he sent along the following YouTube clip, it's amazing how terrifying their work becomes when the original black-and-white film is in color. Note the older age of most of the workers and the "casual" construction garb. Amazing hats didn't blow away. Here's the footage...

Supersax was a group formed in the early 1970s with five reeds playing the transcribed solos of Charlie Parker. In 2015, Vincent Herring, Grant Stewart, Paquito D'Rivera, Harry Allen and Gary Smulyan were in Uruguay with a local rhythm section resurrecting Supersax on Just Friends. A special thanks to John Herr. Go here to watch the clip.

Frank Sinatra. It was 46 degrees at sunrise this morning (Saturday). What better song to usher in the brisk season in Manhattan than Frank Sinatra in 1941 singing Violets for Your Furs, arranged for Tommy Dorsey by Heinie Beau...

Here's Billy Eckstine signing I Apologize in 1951...

Here's Dinah Washington singing I Won't Cry Anymore in 1951...

And here's Frankie Laine in 1956 updating his 1946 hit That's My Desire. The updated arrangement is by Paul Weston. Dig how the reeds are arranged with strings on the opening and close, with a dash of trombones...