In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed actor Titus Welliver for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Titus is best known for his starring role in Bosch, the Amazon Prime color-noir series, in which he plays Harry Bosch, the Hollywood detective whose "lane doesn't have lines." Titus is now in the new Amazon Freevee series Bosch: Legacy, in which he has resigned from the Los Angeles Police Department and is a private detective while his daughter, played by Madison Lintz, is now a cop. Titus is the son of Neil Welliver, a prominent landscape painter. [Photo above of Madison Lintz and Titus Welliver in Bosch: Legacy, courtesy of Amazon Freevee]
Here's the Bosch: Legacy trailer...
And here's a super 1992 documentary on Neil Welliver...
Spotted by Bob Ruggiero of the Houston Press at Houston's Four Seasons Hotel: Anatomy of a Song—perched atop decorative books in the hotel's private-event room right behind the podium. All books were naked—without their dustjackets. Bob is host of Classic Rock Bob here.
Back in August, I posted about Behind My Eyes, a film by Ivan Acosta made during the 9/11 attack in New York from his high-floor apartment in a building in Midtown. Well, the film just won top prize at the spring 2022 Florida Shorts film festival. Congratulations Ivan! If you missed my post, you can watch the film here.
The Real Ambassadors. In the late 1950s and early '60s, Dave Brubeck and his wife, Iola, in collaboration with Louis Armstrong, developed a musical called The Real Ambassadors. Set in a fictional African nation called Talgalla, the musical explored the Civil Rights movement, the music business, the Cold War and other issues of the day. It was a twist on the State Department's programs of sending jazz musicians around the world as ambassadors of freedom and democracy. Which came with some irony, since much of the country was still segregated or fighting to remain so. A soundtrack was recorded in 1961, but the musical's sole performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1962 was never captured on film. If you're curious about the show, how it came to be and why it couldn't gain traction, read Keith Hatschek's new book, The Real Ambassadors (University Press of Mississippi ) here.
Below is the only surviving photo of the cast after a day of rehearsing on September 17, 1962, at San Francisco’s St. Francis Hotel. Pictured back row, from left, Howard Brubeck, Danny Barcelona, Eugene Wright, Joe Morello, Billy Cronk, Dave Lambert, Yolande Bavan, Jon Hendricks and Iola Brubeck. Front row, from left, Trummy Young, Carmen McRae, Louis Armstrong and Dave Brubeck. Not shown, clarinetist, Joe Darensbourg. Credit: Photo by V.M. Hanks. Brubeck Collection, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library, © Dave Brubeck.
One more with Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes. Here's You Baby..
Terry Gibbs gala. On May 26-29, an all-star jazz tribute will celebrate the astonishing career of vibraphonist Terry Gibbs. The event, produced by Ken Poston and the Los Angeles Jazz Institute, will take place at the Four Points Sheraton at LAX in Los Angeles. Terry, at 97, will be there performing. To buy tickets, call (909) 939-0777. For more information, go here.
Photo gallery. Recently, I came across a couple of nifty photos. The first is of Bill Evans and manager Helen Keane in 1969 in the office of Arnold Maxin, left, president of MGM Records, renewing his contract...
The other photo supports something Marshall Rogers told me during our interview about his father, Shorty Rogers. In the interview, Marshall told me that actor Marlon Brando pushed The Wild One studio to bring in Shorty to create original jazz for the film and soundtrack. But first, the studio wanted to see if Shorty and his band were part of the Los Angeles drug scene. Said Marshall: "Apparently, when Brando asked the studio to use Dad, the studio dressed up a couple of security guards to look like beatniks and sent them to the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach to observe a Sunday jazz session." As ludicrous as that may have sounded, it apparently was a practice used by police departments in the early 1950s, including in New York...
Music break. Here's Dave Thompson playing I Should Care in his rehearsal studio...
Mel Brooks, Part 2. Back in April, I posted on director Raymond De Felitta's postcast interview with comedian-director Mel Brooks (above, courtesy of Wikipedia). Raymond just uploaded Part 2. To listen to both parts, go here.
And finally, because the temperature here in New York this weekend is supposed to peak in the chilly low 50s, here's Pat Metheny's Spring Ain't Here...
