Jam Session (1958)

Alright, alright. I know. I have been really lazy as of late with this and it does seem that all I have been doing is just re-directing people to other cool sites. Fair enough. But how can you complain when there are things like this out there:



Seriously. This really blows my mind and is EXACTLY why I love the 'net. Yes folks that is THE legendary Black Hawk night club in San Francisco in 1958. And, yes, that is THE Dave Brubeck Quartet featuring Paul Desmond and Joe Morello. And, yes, that is THE Mort Sahl cracking wise. Well, it turns out this is from a 1958 television pilot program. If picked up the show would have traveled around the country spotlighting different clubs and combos. If only, right? According to the comments it was produced by Jay Ward. Wait. Jay Ward? As in 'Rocky & Bullwinkle'? What kind of crazy world is that?

Brubeck is still around (catch him while you can). So is Sahl (I saw him last year at the Monterey Jazz Festival). But the Black Hawk is nothing but a concrete lot surrounded by a chain link fence - one of San Francisco's poorer monuments to it's modern jazz history. I even liked the 222 Club on Hyde if only because it was in the space adjacent to the old club and has some tenuous spiritual connection. But sadly, that is gone too. So as my man Horace used to say way back in the Latin Day...Dig It Diem!

The Best of Everything (1959)

The good folks over at IMDB seem to be beta testing a free video viewing service at the moment.  How late to the party was I this time?  I have yet to find the catch, so for the time being, sit back with you laptop and dig into some free films.  First on my list is this technicolor snapshot of life on Madison Avenue in 1959.

Monterey Jazz Festival (1971)

Yeh yeh, I know...I am SEVERELY lagging on new posts. And it ain't gonna get any better as I am heading off for the weekend to Monterey with the missus. So sit back and enjoy this extended clip from Clint Eastwood's 1971 film Play Misty For Me. That's not a stage set, it's the Monterey Fairgrounds and the real Monterey Jazz Festival in all of it's early 1970s glory. First artist is Johnny Otis, while the second is Cannonball Adderley. The festival is still held in the same location every September and the setting is virtually unchanged. Dig it...

NOLA & NYC, here I come!

I am off to New Orleans, LA (on business) and New York, NY (on pleasure) for the next 2 weeks.  I plan to take a lot of photos (as long as my piece of garbage masquerading as a camera cooperates) and will post a few here and there as I find the time.  In the mean time...

William Claxton (1927-2008)

One of my heroes died over the weekend.  If you are reading this weblog, chances are you have seen the work of photographer William Claxton.  If not, go here right now and take a look as his online portfolio.  I think it's what was once termed "the stuff of legends."  To fill in some of the details, the LA Times obit is here.  

I met him a couple of times.  The first time was 1995 or 1996.  I had recently moved into the Hollywood Tower in Hollywood during an eight month attempt to (among other things) live in LA.  I had an office job across town on the Westside and was living a pretty dead-end lifestyle...tired, broke, and busted - commuting every day on LA public transit (a whole 'nother topic).  Anyway, one afternoon I was strolling up the avenue on my lunch break when I saw a rather tall gentleman who looked like an older version of the William Claxton I knew from old photographs.  Needless to say it was the man himself, accompanied by his wife Peggy Moffitt.  I introduced myself, made nervous self-conscious small-talk, and was about to be on my way when Claxton (I never knew him well enough to call him by his nick-name Clax) invited me to an exhibition opening he was having at gallery on La Brea a few days later.  Honestly, it was the first exhibition I had been to.  It was great to see so many of his photos up close and in such high quality.  Of course the empty pockets prevented me from taking home any souvenirs - something I have faint pangs of regret about to this day.

I met him years later - 2005 or so - here in San Francisco.  He was at the Booksmith promoting Taschen's DELUXE edition of his epic Jazz Life (incidentally this is now available as a special edition).  I re-introduced myself and we had a nice but brief conversation.  I think only my wife knows this - but I had a fantasy that I would do a photo session with him some day joining the ranks of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Ray Charles, and Steve McQueen in some small little way...but this was not to be.  Hearing of his death saddens me and thinking about it leaves me with little else to say but...

Farewell William Claxton.  May you rest in peace.

Arts & Architecture (1938-1967)

My buddy Dan (or Grumpy Dan as the wife affectionately calls him) just hipped me to QUITE an online resource for all of us fans of Arts & Architecture magazine. For a good solid chunk of the 20th Century, this journal was a West Coast clearinghouse for all things modern spotlighting nearly all of the greats and just as many who now languish in obscurity. Thanks to Taschen (who really do want you to buy their product - and you should, if you can afford it), there is a wealth of info on this site including excerpted issues in PDF format and art/poster-sized reproductions of some of the amazing covers. It really is worth a few hours of your time. Here is a sample of one of the covers, this one designed by Ray Eames in 1943 or thereabouts.

Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House (2008)

There is certainly no shortage of tragedy in the news today, private and public. Well I just ran across this little item that van der Rohe's domestic meisterwerk was flooded again. I know the human toll is non-existent in this news story, but it really does break my heart in no small way. Those so inclined can make a donation here.

Here is the house looking much as it did after it's 1950 completion:


And here is a photo from Sunday, showing it under 2 feet of water!