I haven't heard too much jazz guitar, but I like this version of a very old standard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IBdmsHryP0
Raggedy, I definitely agree about Placido Domingo. In fact, I think he can do no wrong.
I love the way he does this Mexican song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq8jfWAdE94&feature=related
Well, firefly, I really enjoyed Pavarotti's Mexican song. Leave it to an Italian to know Hispanic. Thanks, gal.
I like this version of Melancholy Baby by Babs, and what a surprise, folks, to find out that Edward Norton could sing. He does this one far better than Nina, methinks.
First, Babs..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW6o6CXZ1C4
Now Ed...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxd_TlVn0e8
Babs is another one who can do no wrong.
Edward Norton is a very talented guy.
BTW, for trivia lovers, William Frawley, of I Love Lucy fame, was the first person to perform the song Melancholy Baby in public in the Mozart Cafe in Denver in 1912. Frawley told the story during a 1965 appearance on the TV game show I've Got a Secret. He also sang it again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xfbrSzaQOs
Letty, that wasn't Pavarotti doing the Mexican song, it was Placido Domingo. Domingo was born in Spain and moved to Mexico with his parents when he was a child. Spanish is his native language and he was raised in Mexico.
I think I first heard that Mexican song (or, more accurately, a variation of it) in the Disney animated film, The Three Caballeros, and I've loved it since. This is the Disney version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhdalXnwB80&feature=related
Nothing is working in my wee studio, firefly. Big rainstorm here, but I can say that I always did get them three tenors confused.
Course I know the Disney trio and that song as well. Thanks, gal.
This song by The King may work; hope so, folks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQd2kCuj5Nk
Signing off for the moment
Firefly: Loved the video of Domingo peforming The Three Caballeros.
I was going to post "You Belong to My Heart" from the same movie (Enzio Pinza's version), but the video seems to be stuck.
John Gary had a good recording of it, too.
Letty: I always associated "Blue Spanish Eyes" with Al Martino and was really surprised by Elvis' version. Like it a lot.
Thinking about John Gary now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ypsssji-kM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk0D-HWrQPQ
Good afternoon. Good music flowing through the studio today. Here is Roy Hamilton, with a personal favorite of mine.
Things seem to have cleared up now, folks.
Raggedy, John Gary was fabulous singing Unchained Melody. I found out that his voice uses what is known as mezza voce or a thining of the voice much as pianissimo, which translates to softening. Thanks, PA and I was surprised at Elvis having sung that one as well.
edgar,Roy Hamilton sang Ebb Tide beautifully. Great, Texas.
I could not find You Belong to My Heart by Ezio, but this was quite a surprise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8ZsaVfdqZ4&feature=related
Back later, y'all with a bit of jazz by Paul Desmond.
This is for our cat who has strayed again, folks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BVdw02W1Zc&feature=related
and my goodnight song with a fond memory of my little boy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvvdS8ncsx4
To all of you here, there, and everywhere.
From Letty with love
The Stinkster said I was overdue here...
Pooh is cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G5x3fpfpFI&feature=related
Nite Miss Letty, dear...
RH (with love)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GET-53gbVpY
My good night song. It's by Hank Williams. A2k members will be surprised to note that I play religious music, but I love many songs of faith, each one for a reason all its own. I like this one simply because I love to hear Hank sing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5YmxKaCkwk
Joe Beck has died. He was a wonderful guitarist. Played with Frank Sinatra, among dozens of other artists.
Good morning, WA2K radio audience.
RH, what a great tribute to A.A. Milne and Pooh Corner. Kenny Loggins sounds great, honey, and thank you for the goodnight song.
edgar, That hymn was quite familiar to me and Hank, Sr. did a great job. He was searching, too, I guess.
I don't know Joe Beck, but it surprised me a wee bit to realize that jazz artists played electronic guitar. Don't know why, Texas, but thanks for the info.
Here is one featuring him, y'all, and I think we can call it a tribute to the man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ttjyYxeH7o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO3hrVaVzP0
Got Peggy Lee on my mind this morning. After she did so much for this Disney film, she spent much of her life fighting the studio for what she considered her rightful pay.
edgar, thanks for the reminder that talented people such as Peggy Lee are always fighting corporate America.
Love that song, buddy, and thanks for another classic.
Well, folks, today is NASA's birthday, and I thought that I would play this clip from the X-Files.
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=nQEevRDN8cM
I posted an article on my UFO thread about Edgar Mitchell this morning. It's entertaining if nothing else.
If it's NASA's birthday, we might as well listen to the Astronauts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHbcU5ArqBQ
Hey, edgar. I'm going to have to take a peek at that. You do some good stuff, Texas.
Mornin', firefly. Had no idea there was such a group, but that song was perfect, and thanks.
Well, as most of our listeners know, we didn't really go to the moon either, and Diana Krall is waiting to be transported there, so let's listen to her desires, folks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVCgf6_M7i4
Theda Bara
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Theodosia Burr Goodman
July 29, 1885(1885-07-29)
Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
Died April 13, 1955 (aged 69)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Other name(s) The Vamp
Years active 1908-1926
Spouse(s) Charles Brabin (1921-1955)
Theda Bara was the stage name of Theodosia Burr Goodman (July 29, 1885 - April 13, 1955), an American silent film actress. Movie executives made promotional claims that her stage name was chosen because it is an anagram for "Arab Death." In reality, "Theda" was a childhood nickname for Theodosia. "Bara" was a shortened form of her maternal grandfather's last name, Baranger.
Bara was one of the most popular screen actresses of her era, and was one of cinema's earliest sex symbols. Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp" (short for vampire). The term "vamp" soon became a popular slang term for a sexually predatory woman. Bara, along with the French film actress Musidora, popularized the vamp persona in the early years of silent film and was soon imitated by rival actresses such as Nita Naldi and Pola Negri.
Biography
Birth
Theodosia Burr Goodman was born in 1885 in the Avondale section of Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father was Harris Goodman (1853-?) a prosperous Jewish tailor born in Poland . Her mother, Pauline DeCoppett (1861-1957), was born in Switzerland and was also Jewish. They married in 1882. Theda's brother and sister were Marque (1888-?) and Lori [originally Estie] (1897-?). In 1917, all changed their names to "Bara".[1]
Education
She attended Walnut Hills High School from 1899 to 1903 and lived at 823 Hutchins Avenue. After attending the University of Cincinnati for two years, she worked in theater productions mainly but did explore other projects, moving to New York City in 1908. She made her Broadway debut in The Devil (1908).
Career
Theda Bara made more than 40 feature films between 1914 and 1926. Complete prints of only six of these films still exist. Most of Bara's films were produced by William Fox, beginning with A Fool There Was (1915) and ending with The Lure of Ambition (1919). The phenomenal success of A Fool There Was gave William Fox the money to found Fox Film Corporation, while the ensuing films helped to make Fox a successful studio.
At the height of her fame, Bara was making $4,000 per week for her film performances. She was one of the most famous movie stars, ranking behind only Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford in popularity.[2] Bara's best-known and most popular roles were as "vamp" characters, although she attempted to avoid being typecast by playing more wholesome heroines in films such as Under Two Flags and Her Double Life. She also appeared as Juliet in a version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Although Bara took her craft seriously, she was too successful as an exotic "wanton woman" to develop a more versatile career.
Most of Bara's early films were shot on the East Coast, primarily at the Fox studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Bara lived with her mother and siblings in New York City during this time. The rise of Hollywood as the center of the American film industry forced her to relocate to Los Angeles to film the epic Cleopatra (1917). This film became one of Bara's biggest hits. No known prints of Cleopatra exist today, but numerous photographs of Bara in costume as the Queen of the Nile have survived.
Between 1915 and 1919, Bara was promoted heavily by Fox, and was the studio's biggest star. When the studio lessened their support, her career suffered. Bara, tired of being typecast as a vamp, allowed her five-year contract with Fox to expire. Her final film for Fox was The Lure of Ambition (1919). She left Fox and did not make another film until The Unchastened Woman (1925) for Chadwick Pictures Corporation. Bara retired after making only one more film, the short comedy Madame Mystery (1926), made for Hal Roach, in which she parodied her vamp image.
Theda Bara is most famous for having a higher percentage of lost films than any other actor/actress with a Hollywood star on the Walk of Fame. A 1937 fire at Fox's nitrate film storage vaults in New Jersey destroyed most of that studio's silent films. Out of her 40 films, 3 remain completely intact. Cleopatra (almost completely lost, 40 seconds remain), Du Barry, Carmen, Salome, and Camille are among the lost. Fortunately, A Fool There Was is preserved in a complete print. Madame Mystery is preserved in a 9.5mm print which runs 21 minutes, which may be an abridged version for home viewing. [3]
She is also one of the most famous completely silent stars. Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, although mostly silent, were filmed in sound, and none of their sound films have been lost. Bara was never filmed in sound, lost or otherwise.
Sex symbol
Bara is often cited as the first sex symbol[4] of that era, and in a number of her films appeared in risqué transparent costumes that left little to the imagination.[5] Such outfits were banned from Hollywood films after the Production Code started in 1930, and then was more strongly enforced in 1934.
Bara was photographed in several sittings in skimpy Oriental-themed costumes. It was popular at that time to promote an actress as mysterious and elusive, with an exotic background. The studios promoted Bara with a massive publicity campaign, billing her as the Egyptian-born daughter of a French actress and an Italian sculptor. They claimed she had spent her early years in the Sahara Desert under the shadow of the Sphinx, then moved to France to become a stage actress. (In fact, Bara had never even been to Egypt or France.) They called her the "Serpent of the Nile" and encouraged Bara to discuss mysticism and the occult in interviews.
At the height of Bara's fame, her vamp image was notorious enough to be referred to in popular songs of the day. A line in "Red-Hot Hannah" said "I know things that Theda Bara's just startin' to learn - make my dresses from asbestos, I'm liable to burn...." The song, "Rebecca Came Back From Mecca", contains the lyrics "She's as bold as Theda Bara; Theda's bare but Becky's bare-er", The song "If I had a man like Valentino" contains the chorus lyric, "Theda Bara sure would die; she would never roll another eye".
Marriage and retirement
Bara married British-born American film director Charles Brabin (1883-1957) in 1921. Her film career soon began to slow down, finally ending with the comedy Madame Mystery made for Hal Roach in 1926. The following year, Bara made a successful but much maligned appearance on Broadway in The Blue Flame.
Though she subsequently expressed interest in returning to the stage or screen, her husband did not consider it proper for his wife to have a career. She did make at least three interview appearances on radio from Hollywood: on the June 8, 1936 broadcast of Lux Radio Theater; as a guest on NBC's For Men Only on March 7, 1939; and on CBS, November 8, 1939.
Bara spent the remainder of her life as a hostess in Hollywood and New York, in comfort and relative wealth. Producer Buddy DeSylva and Columbia Pictures expressed interest in 1949 in making a movie biography of her life, to star Betty Hutton, but the project never materialized.[6]
Death
Bara died of stomach cancer in 1955 in Los Angeles, California, and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. She died under the name "Theda Bara Brabin", and her death certificate incorrectly listed her birthday as "July 22, 1892".
Legacy
Theda Bara has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 1994, she was honored with her image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. In June 1996, two biographies appeared, Ron Genini's Theda Bara: A Biography (McFarland) and Eve Golden's Vamp (Emprise). In October 2005 TimeLine Films of Culver City premiered a film biography, Theda Bara: The Woman With the Hungry Eyes. A film by British video artist Georgina Starr titled Theda based around Bara's lost films premiered in London in November 2006.[7]
The Fort Lee Film Commission dedicated Main Street and Linwood Avenue in Fort Lee, New Jersey, as "Theda Bara Way" in May of 2006 to honor Bara, who made many of her films at the Fox Studio on Linwood and Main.
Theda Bara's image has been the symbol of the Chicago International Film Festival. A stark, black and white close up of her eyes set as repeated frames in a strip of film serves as the logo for the nonprofit festival. Only a handful of Theda Bara films still exist: The Stain (1914), A Fool There Was (1915), East Lynne (1916), The Unchastened Woman (1925), and two short comedies she made for Hal Roach in the mid-1920s.[8]
Sigmund Romberg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sigmund Romberg, born Zsigmond Romberg (July 29, 1887, Nagykanizsa − November 9, 1951, New York, New York) was an American composer best known for his operettas.
Biography
Romberg was born to a Jewish family in the West-Hungarian provincial town of Nagykanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian K.u.K. Monarchy period. He went to Vienna to study engineering, but also took composition lessons while there. He moved to the United States in 1909 and, after a brief stint working in a pencil factory, was employed as a pianist in cafés. He eventually founded his own orchestra and published a few songs, which, despite their limited success, brought him to the attention of the Shubert brothers, who in 1914 hired him to write music for their Broadway theatre shows. That year he wrote his first successful Broadway revue, The Whirl of the World.
Romberg's adaptation of melodies by Franz Schubert for Blossom Time (1921, produced in the UK as Lilac Time) was a great success. He subsequently wrote his best-known operettas, The Student Prince (1924), The Desert Song (1926) and The New Moon (1928), which are in a style similar to the Viennese operettas of Franz Lehár. He also wrote Rosalie (1928) together with George Gershwin. His later works, such as Up in Central Park (1945), are closer to the American musical in style, but they were less successful. Romberg also wrote a number of film scores and adapted his own work for film.
Columbia Records asked Romberg to conduct orchestral arrangements of his music (which he had played in concerts) for a series of recordings from 1945 to 1950 that were issued both on 78-rpm and 33-1/3 rpm discs. These performances are now prized by record collectors. Naxos Records digitally remastered the recordings and issued them in the U.K. (They cannot be released in the U.S. because Sony BMG, which acquired Columbia Records, holds the copyright for their American release.)[1]
Much of Romberg's music, including extensive excerpts from his operettas, was released on LP during the 1950s and 1960s, especially by Columbia, Capitol, and RCA Victor. Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, who appeared in an MGM adaptation of New Moon in 1940, regularly recorded and performed his music. There have also been periodic revivals of the operettas.
Romberg died in 1951 in New York City and was interred in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.
Romberg was the subject of the 1954 Stanley Donen-directed film Deep in My Heart, in which he was portrayed by José Ferrer.
Operetta "New Moon" was base for a film with same title in 1940, with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in main roles.
"Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise" and "Lover, Come Back to Me" from "New moon" are still jazz-blues / soft-jazz classics; the first was performed by many jazz performers, and second is best known as Billie Holiday performance.
