Last week in The Wall Street Journal, I interviewed actress Carol Kane for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Carol started her film career in 1971 in The Last Detail with Jack Nicholson. Hester Street, Dog Day Afternoon, Annie Hall, The Princess Bride, Scrooged, Taxi and many others followed. [Publicity still above of Carol Kane from the early 1970s]
Here she is in Seinfeld...
Here she is in Annie Hall...
And here she is in a ton of stuff...
Gil Mellé. Last week I heard from Jim Lowe on composer and multi-instrumentalist Gil Mellé (above, by Francis Wolff (c)Mosaic Images):
Marc, I wrote to you a few years back and I thought I’d follow up about what I’ve found out about Mellé’s time as a major figure in model railroading in the late 1950s and early to mid 1960s. Among other things, he started his own company called Industrial Model Works in the late 1950s that sold model railroad structure kits. He also published extensively in Railroad Model Craftsman magazine in the early to mid-1960s. The projects he wrote about were quite advanced and sophisticated for the time, and were often accompanied by his own excellent drawings. For a few years he was a big player in the hobby.
This seems to be a fairly unknown aspect of his life. I’ve often wondered if his hobby had any influence on his career in music. What I’ve found out so far is documented in these posts here.
Still, there are a lot of unknowns, and a lot of information I’ve found is uncorroborated. For example, I’m still trying to put together an accurate timeline of his activities and whereabouts from the time he stopped recording in the late 1950s to the time he relocated to Los Angeles from New Jersey in the early to mid-1960s.
Was Mellé ever featured in a book or magazine? Do you know anything about this period when he seemed to disappear from jazz? I’m trying to find some clues that might glue all the various facts together.
Dave Thompson, a marvelous pianist, sent along a note last week and a link to his take on They Say It's Wonderful. Go here...
The 5th Dimension in ads. Last week I came across a bunch of ads with jingles sung by the 5th Dimension (above, courtesy of Spotify). I had no idea they did so much commercial work, creating their own arrangements...
Here's an ad for Chevrolet in 1969...
Here's an ad for Jell-o...
Here's an ad for Coke...
Count Basie. Last week, Jim Eigo passed along an email he received from Denmark flagging a site that features short bursts of historical jazz footage. Here's Count Basie (above) and here's Eddie Condon. Want more? Go here.
Jack Teagarden is always top of mind. Here's one of my favorite tracks late in his life, It's All in Your Mind, from Tea's Verve album Mis'ry and the Blues...
More? Here's Old Folks from Think Well of Me...
And just one more. Here's Guess I'll Go Back Home This Summer...
Thad Jones/Mel Lewis. Here's nearly two hours of the band in Paris in 1969 (click "Watch on YouTube" in the embedded box), thanks to Carl Woideck...
Lalo Schifrin. You never know what crazy thing you'll discover on Instagram. I found the Mission Impossible Theme played by a marble passing down a series of carefully spaced xylophone keys. An ingenious merger of music and engineering. Go here.
Carpenters. In October 1970, Karen and Richard were on the Ed Sullivan Show. For me, nothing brings back the early 1970s more profoundly than these two (and all of American Motors' vehicles). And yes, the pageboy haircut on guys really was a thing. Here's We've Only Just Begun...
They also performed (They Long to Be) Close to You. Go here...
Live from Club Hangover. Carl Woideck alerted me to a site that features half-hour broadcasts from Club Hangover, the top San Francisco nightclub for Dixieland in the 1950s. If you have an hour or two to kill, go here.
Bennie and the Jets. I came across two great duets of the Elton John and Bernie Taupin song, featuring Elton and Cher and Elton and Lady Gaga. Both are spectacular:
Here's Elton and Cher in 1975...
And here's Elton and Lady Gaga in 2013 (along with her own Artpop)...
Here's Rosemary Clooney, Jeri Southern and trumpeter Pete Candoli in October 1956...
Jazz on the radio. Last week, I heard from Kim Paris of the FM Radio Archive. And whenever I hear from Kim, that usually means lots of free live music for you:
Hi Marc, I see you took a break for a couple of weeks, I hope you enjoyed some time off along the way. Here are some live performances of artists you featured recently:
Bill Evans & Tony Bennett—I discovered the CBC broadcast called "Together Again" shortly after we lost Tony and wasn't aware you had also written about it. The half-hour set came to me as audio only, I didn't know at first if it was a TV or FM broadcast, since CBC does both. Go here.
Carlos Santana—I have five broadcast recordings of Santana on FM Radio Archive, ranging from a 1970 jam session at The Matrix nightclub in San Francisco to a 1981 performance with Herbie Hancock in Tokyo. The other three recordings are from the 1970's. Go here.
Eddie Lockjaw Davis (above)—There are two broadcast recordings by the tenor saxophonist on FM Radio Archive, both courtesy of Mark Rabin. The first is with Harry "Sweets" Edison from the 1981 Chicago Jazz Festival, and the second is with Jay McShann on New Year's Eve 1982. Go here.
Moacir Santos—While I don't have, and am not aware of any live broadcast recordings of Moacir Santos, pianist & trombonist Mark Levine was a collaborator and devotee. This Mark Levine tribute concert after his passing last year (hosted by KCSM's Jess Chuy Varela) includes a link to a video about the making of "Off and On" by Mark Levine and the Latin Tinge, their album featuring the music of Moacir Santos. Go here.
And finally, here's Lynda Kay singing Town Without Pity in 2015...
