Anytime you can sneak Miles Davis into a playlist is a win for me so here he is this year’s Christmas Playlist with Blue Xmas (To Whom it May Concern) along with Bob Dorough! It’s nearly as cynical as Tom Lehrer’s contribution yesterday… Again. A win.
For today’s Christmas Music we have one of my all time favorites, Tom Lehrer. Regrettably I couldn’t find a live performance of this (if anyone in one is interested, Hong Kong Tenor David Quah, does a pretty good version of this but I’m afraid he comes off as way too nice.)
I’ve always been a fan of Will Vinton‘s work even at his most commercial. But obviously his side projects are a lot more fun. It’s funny watching this one now it doesn’t feel quite as irreverent as I had remembered it. Still watching the Three Wise Men trying to keep things serious while being interrupted by their doo-wop-singing camels are still fun… and it was either this or Quasimodo conducting Carol of the Bells.
On the suggestion of a friend I started experimenting with doing the ongoing theme of forgotten Oscar nominees whenever I didn’t have any better ideas,
To start this exercise I decided to begin with the year of my birth, 1968.
The first in my selection was Rachel, Rachel a drama directed by Paul Newman starring Joanne Woodward as a repressed 35 year old school teacher who gradually shakes off her shackles and finds sexual freedom after she runs into an acquaintance from high school. Technically it was good enough and did some interesting things switching back and fourth between Rachel’s dreary reality and fantasy life as well as an excellent use of flashbacks. Regrettably I’m afraid I was not really the target audience for this kind of film and while I found it competent I’m afraid that my attention span wasn’t up for it.
The other film on my list was one I’d been hearing about for years and was looking forward to seeing, The Lion in Winter.
An adaptation of the play of the same name this is a magnificent tale of court intrigue, a dysfunctional family and growing old. It’s extremely quotable and O’Toole and Hepburn are fantastic as two people who hate each other and are at the same time perfect for one another. The ongoing duels between verbal martial artists are quite addictive.
I only have problem with it. I think there is a difference between filmed plays and film adaptions of plays and this was definitely a filmed play. So much as I enjoyed the performances and the going on I did not find the directing or the cinematography very creative and found myself wanting to see a performance of the original play or different versions.
I was beginning to start working on a Christmas playlist to start later this week and I started by starting to look for Duke Ellington’s version of the Nutcracker Suite when out of habit I searched for a Rhapsody instead and found his arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue.
Now I try not to repeat most of the better known Rhapsodies too much (you know who; Gershwin, Liszt, Brahms and Queen) the whole point of these posts are to discover new material. But to listen to two of the greatest American composers combined… well… please forgive me my moment of weakness.
Today’s Sketches are a couple of northwest coastal masks from Seattle Art Museum’s collection.
From left to right they are
1. Kumkwaml – Underssea chief
2. Nulamala – Fool Dancer
3 Nuxalk – Human bird face
4 Nuxalt – Human face
My apologies when I was transcribing this I realized I didn’t know if the Salish words are the names of the masks or the names of the tribe that made it (though I’m mostly sure on 3 and 4)