4
Friday, September 3, 1976
University Daily Kansan
Arts & Leisure
Ella and Pass' new album soars, scats and surprises
By STEVE FRAZIER
Reviewer
In a world where compromise in the search for commercial appeal is usually a musician's purpose, it is no surprise rent, it must be doubly satisfying for the uncompromising artist to be both financially secure and able to fulfill the great masters of her art.
Ella Fitzgerald reached that enviable position some time ago, guided by her own sweeping talents and the sense of Norman Grant, her manager for more than 20 years.
Too many people, though, are led astray by Fitzgerald's status as a virtual institution, "someone who once did something." The nostalgic are satisfied with her hit of the late '30s, "A Tasket, A Tasket," and "A Mime," for which she is the woman who breaks wine gobbles on television for Memorex.
Fortunately, they are the only losers, for members of a wide audience either have followed them or not. There is concert work through the years
or have joined somewhere along the way. Since 1973 she has been with Granz' outstanding new record label, Pablo, where she has engaged in some of the most interesting projects of her career.
Her latest release, "Fitzgerald and Pass ... Again," recorded in January and February, is a welcome encore with "Agay!" Fitzgerald's 1973 duet on Hoe Pass on guitar.
Like her previous duet recordings with Pass or Oscar Peterson, "Again" is an amusing ballad in which the Pass stay within familiar stylistic territory and work from traditional popular song forms, but the sparse introspection of her format leaves every eccentricity of the singer's voice exposed while demanding a wide range of rhythmic and support from the guitarist.
"Again" succeeds because Fitzgerald has very little to hide and much to show, and Pass has the technique and harmonic agility to substitute for an entire rhythm section.
Fitzgerald's voice in flight is a supremely flexible and accurate tool, shaping melodies and rhythms with the interpretive instincts that make her style unmistakably Ella Farrow and is keen to listen in a state of pleasant surprise.
In navigating "That Old Feeling," Fitzgerald is faced with sustaining the word "old" at 10 separate points in the song, all on the same note. The first few are identical, but then she begins inserting sliding "old" that twist and turn through the scale or leap an inch down, each yielding just in time to catch the next lyric, and each seeming to be the authoritative version of "old" until the next moment brings a new rendition.
"Again" saves Fitzgerald's famed scat singing for the last track, Antonio Carlos Jobin's classic "One Note Samba." Her performance is well worth the
Fitzgerald enters over the guitar, her voice acting like a drummer, with their instruments and then ability to act as a wordless interpreter
of the melody. She continues beautifully, simply as Ella Fitzgerald singing scat, then she plunges into a riff. Passer, guitar, as the trak ends.
Pass, with his never-intrusive backgrounds and elegant solo statements throughout "Aevin," is as always superb.
His accompaniments range from the gently strummed chords that seemacomely to the deep, old Blame" and "I Didn't Know About You" to the swagging foundation he lays for her brawny version of Tennessee Zigzager and his knowledge of the inspiration of Pass' lightly swinging solo interludes on "The One Love" and "I've Got the World on a guitar with her sizzling vocal re-embodies.
With such sensitivity and cooperation from both musicians as the outstanding characteristics of each of the album's 14 selection, the final result is never in doubt. "Fitz-Artis" is another gorgeous album from two artists who are seldom heard producing anything less than the best.
University Dance Company hopefuls limber up for last night's auditions
Group sashays onto dance scene
Thirty-two dancers auditioned for the University Dance Company last night, and no one knew how many dancers would be ready.
Becky Johnson, instructor of dance, said yesterday that the company was a new organization this year, and that she and other judges would choose its dancers after they saw them perform.
Selections will be announced by Tuesday.
The dancers first went through a series of ballet warm-up exercises. They then were taught and asked to perform several ballet and jazz steps.
Johnson said that a dancer's ability to learn steps quickly was important.
"It's going to be a select group being chosen for their technical ability as well as their ability to perform," she said.
*Primarily, it will be a performing company to give people going into a dance career a little more professional experience.*
The University Dance Company will be a step up from Tau Sigma, the university's dance club according to Johnson. Anyone can join Tau Sigma and perform in its spring con-
The University Dance Company, however, will perform more often than Tau Sigma--off campus as well as on.
Anyone can join Tau Sigma and perform in its spring concert.
Highlights
This Week's
Concerts
ROGER A. KENDALL plays tenor and a alto saxophones for his senior recital Wednesday night at 8 in Murphy Hall.
Theater
THE HILIBILLY: A ruunchy
musical comedy celebrates life
in the Ozarks (8:30 Friday
and Sunday) in Valley Farm,
fickets $30, and $40.
SHABOOM-BOY: A 1950's musical comedy show a roc-
tine of 12 shows, three thursdays at Apple Valley
Thursday at Apple Valley Perry, Luckenbach and 33-90
THE DRUNKARD: An old fashioned melodia剧 in its 17th season. (8:30 Saturday nights atickets Farm, Farm, tickets $50 and $40.)
TOBY AND THE PREACHER: An old style tent show for the family. (7 Sunday) Farm Yard, Farm Yard, tickets $3 and $40.)
Exhibits
THE BICENTENIAL OF A BOOK: Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," Watson Library, THE ART OF BLOOMDISH.
"WHEN SUBJECTS ARE REBELS, main gallery; "OBSERVATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN THE NORTH OF AMERICA; STUDENT ACTIVITIES, 1926." archives gallery, Spencer Research Library.
FACULTY ART SHOW,
featuring the works of Jane
Asbury, Michael Sims and
Richard Hillsiepe Kansas
and James Kansas
Nightclubs
MIKE BEERS plano and guitar Wednesday through Saturday from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Rubayat Club, Ramada Inn
Rubyat Club performs mainstream jazz at the 7th Spirit club from 10:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.
COLLE TUCKEN ON RYE, a band playing rock on the West Coast and western swing, plays music for dancing at the Hawk's Next tonight and Sunday.
PAUL GRAYS' JAZZ
PAU L GRAYS' JAZZ
Triplays jazz tonight from to midnight, and Gray's Gasilee performs dimsix landi jazzy.
OFF-THE-WALL HALL: The Twang Brothers, country-style performers from Kalamazoo, attend night from 8:30 to midnight. The hall offers its Last Challenge Weekend Romance Dance, with Rope Burn providing country and daylight night from 8:30 to midnight.
The Halt's free bluegrass jam session, where anyone can perform, is Wednesday night. 8 to midnight. Pat and Gordon Cleveland will play the traditional bluegrass and folk to jazz (and bop) Thursday night from 8 to midnight.
Films
DeLuisse, Marty Feldman, Sid Caesar and Brooks.
VIRIDIANDA-Bunuel's brilliant film about a run who is called home to receive an inheritance. The beggars' banquet sequence that results in a cinematic surrealism.
WHO'S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR- Marlin Scorter at MEAN STREETs' latter "Mean Streets?" has many things to recommend it, including the energetic style and character of the portrait of the trapped hero.
THE SAILOR WHO FELLS FROM GRACE WITH THE SEA-Kris Kristofferson and Sarah Miles are badly directed in this juvenile story about a girl named mean-spirited children.
THE NIGHT PORTER-
Pretentious clap-frap about an ex-Nazi who rediscovers the girl he had humiliated in a concentration camp. Dirk Bögker watches his wife stiffly, through the lead roles
MIDWAY—A disaster film, in both senses of the phrase.
MURDER BY DEATH—Nell Simons one-liners are sharper than most of her comedians, muddled in this take-off of five well-known fictional detectives, and terrible, and only Peter Falk and Alec Guinness can save the
SILENT MOVIE—Mel Brooks turns his madcap talents to the "pure" visual format. Music and sound effects are provided, and unheralded lyrics from songs are spice to the antics of Dom
Check ads for showtimes.
Books
THE BEST SELLERS,
by Stephen Lewis (Gold Medal,
$1.95) - A paperback original,
about a novelist who soars to
fame as the author of sexy best
books, who is smart who?
Trash about trash.
THREE MOTIVES FOR MURDER, by Roy Winsor (Gold Medal, $1.25)—About a defective named Ira Cobb, exprofessor, in a peaceful little town where the male heir of a wealthy woman was drugged and stabbed to death. Ira solves everything
ST, IVES, by Oliver Bleaker (Pocket, $1.50) – Formerly *The Chronicle*, this one has been retitled to feed on the movie that stars Charles Branson, a suspense thriller with much
THE FONZ; THE HENRY WINKLER STORY, by Charles E. We're really back in 1955. We caught up in an episode of Twilight Zone, and the latest Dean movie is coming to town.
THE MALPAS LEGACY, by Ariadne Pritchett (Gold Medal, USA), just died to live with her look alike and finds that the girl isn't there and that the family is missing. As the missing, Pure Gothic.
By CHUCK SACK
Bowie sci-fi film a rarity
"The Man Who Fell to Earth" is as futuristic in its style as it is in its story, and this may be why it has troubled so many young readers. The show shows that with minimal special effects and a few nods to the conventions of the genre, Nicolas Roeg, director, has made that rarest of films—an ancient science fiction movie.
Reviewer
Like Roeg's other films, "Performance," "Walkabout" and "Don't Look Now." "The Man Who Felt to Earth deals with the planet being from another planet (David Bowie) lands on Earth equipped with several thousand American dollars, a string of identical gold rings and an object of Thomas Jerome Newton.
For the record (it's never made clear in the film), the alien's mission is obtaining enough fuel to enable him to return to his barren home world and then his family back to our planet.
He begins by building World Enterprises, a gigantic corporation that manufactures consumer products for patents developed by Newton.
The reclusive stranger contacts only a very few people, including Oliver Farnsworth (Buck Henry), a lawyer who was president; Mary Lou (Candy Clark), a hotel maid who becomes Newton's mistress; and Nathan Bryce (Rip Torn), a chemistry professor in charge of research for World Enterprises.
Because Paul Myersberg's script (from the Walter Tevis novel) minimizes the plot, most attention is focused on these characters. Despite Newton's physical differences—he lacks fingernails, body hair and nipples and has catlike eyes—it is soon evident that the alien culture in *Who Fell to Earth*'s own.
Through Roeg's masterful direction and Anthony Richmond's camera work, the familiar takes on sinister connotations. The first scenes of human lovemaking are disconcertingly intercut with scenes from a ritual Oriental swordflight. Farmers make thick heavy makeup to give heavy makeup make the two appear to be less normal than Newton.
Newton's friends begin to betray him. The horrible irony is that the alien hopes to prevent this world from repeating the errors that depleted his planet. But he faces his human acquaintances from the other side of the planet and of aiding the materialistic culture he has adopted, he is undone by it.
Newton is isolated and painfully vulnerable. Rather than be alone, he is the Messiah, he is a failure, an embodiment of the Icarus myth implied by the title. In fact, the character of Newton, "Icarus," is shown early.
And as the film progresses,
The reference is revealing, because Roeg's style has much in common with the painting. No solid narrative is given. The plot isn't sharply advanced, but slowly unfolds in clues the viewer must assemble on his own.
Such an elliptical approach carries with it a good deal of risk, because it demands that the viewer commit himself to the experience and involve himself in the telling of the tale. He must also himself must interpret details and determine their relative worth.
Roeg offers guideposts with emotionally charged framings,
Similarly, Farnsworth, Bryce and Mary Lou are myopic—concerned with their own petty desires to the point that they are obsessed with her. Newton's presence. So the spaceman travels through America spiritually alone, his gaze measuring the things we have lost and each loss giving him of his dying world.
careful editing and subjective sound—all of which comment on the characters. Yet for all the flashy technique, the style is generally restrained, with a design much the same as Bruegel's. The painting's "touch of lacerus" puffily small splash-down because other figures in the painting ignore it.
Newton is as much a figure of the past as a figure of the future, and Roeg's editing implies extraterrestrial powers that make Newton seem able to conquer the universe with America's pioneers.
seems to happen simultaneously.
Elsewhere, the editing blurs time distinctions, with five-and 10-year gaps between quick cuts. These techniques, coupled with the fact that Newton doesn't physically age, throws the story into a timeless dimension where everything
Admittedly, this makes the film puzzling, especially on first viewing. "The Man Who Fell to Earth" has received the same mixed response that greeted "2001: A Space Odyssey". Kubrick's achievement in visual narrative has long since become a standard indication will show that Roeg has surpassed Kubrick's experiments by reinstating sound—and humanity.
He has drawn polished performances from his entire cast, especially newcomer Bowie. Bowie's stature as a rock star gives the role a texture that is reminiscent of an strange cast. The comic features of Candy Clark (the dizzy blink in "American Grafitti") and Buck Henry enhance the tragic aspects of the film, which features something of a maverick among actors, has never looked better.
In short, Nicolas Roeg has given "The Man Who Fell to Earth" all the elements needed to make a great film. But the crucial ingredient is his artist's skill in creating a science fiction. Roeg's personal style points the way toward future possibilities.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
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WKDC/ Corry and Westphal
MR. FITTIMMONS, MANU UNION MEMBERS ARE ANGRY BECAUSE OF YOUR POWER TO DESIGNATE SEEK INLY USELESS POSITIONS TO TOP EXECTS AT A PHENOMENAL COST TO THE UNION.
ONE SUCH POSITION IS THAT OF 'GENERAL ORGANIZER' $30,000 SALARY. PERHAPS YOU COULD CLEAR THINGS UP BY JUST EXPLAINING...
WHAT IS $\Delta$ GENERAL ORGANIZER?
A GENERAL ORGANIZER IS ONE STEP HIGHER DAN A LEUTENENT GENERAL ORGANIZER TWO STEPS HIGHER DAN A MAJOR GENERAL ORGANIZER...
'Brell' alive and well and under wav here
By BILL CALVERT Staff Writer
Production on the new selection for this year's KU musical, "Jacques Brell is Alive and Well and Living in Paris," has plunged into full-swing activity.
"It's an exciting show," Jack Wright, professor of theater and the play's director, said Wednesday. "Each of the songs in it is so dramatic that it lends itself to staging."
"The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crow!" was the original choice for the KU musical, but it was dropped in favor of "Brell" because of casting difficulties.
"Brell" is a collection of music and lyrics by Jacques Brell, French composer. Wright said that instead of providing a definite plot, "Brell" includes musical collage focus on living as an experience.
"It's a series of songs—poems set to music—lair end to end, that gives the composer's view of life's experiences," Wright said. "Brell writes about the beauty of life and death, and loses the one you love to another."
Wright said he was adding a small ensemble of
"What happens in the audience is that you sit there and your life passes before you. That is why Brell is such a genius—he makes you relate to yourself." Wright said.
"We're trying to get as many students involved as possible," he said. "Because there are 20 to 24 songs in the play, we can divide up the songs any way we want."
The play's acting is done through song with
all the connecting dialogue, he said.
"Brell" was a popular Broadway show in the late 1960s and recently has been revived in many places. Wright said. The original show had only and only four acts, with a cast of 10 to 12 will be in the KU production.
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singers to help the principal singers in big numbers.
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Wright said that the set and other technical aspects of the musical were in the process of being designed and that the first rehearsal would be tonight. The musical's first technical rehearsal, complete with set and lighting arrangements, will be Oct. 10, and the musical will be presented Oct. 15-17 and 22-24 at the University Theatre in Murphy Hall.
The to 27 profe Fran Iowa local setti pear the Allis
Wright said "Greasepaint" had been dropped for two reasons: not as many men as had been expected auditioned and "Greasepaint" made severe demands on the men in key roles. Because of these two factors, not enough men could be auditioned for such single requirements of acting, singing and dancing.
F
Wright said the problems in casting the musical indicated no shortage of talent in the School of Performing Arts.
"Every play you do makes specific demands on talent," he said. "We have lots of talent—it's just that the play made certain demands that couldn't be met."
to U
Wright said that the scheduling of "Greasepaint" was planned last year and that some of the people he had thought would be in it weren't available this year.
"Brell was chosen as the new musical because it's a small production that could be done in the same amount of time as 'Greatapease,'" Wright said. It also was chosen because it didn't require as many male leads as "Greatapease," he said. Debbie Shumate, Hushstone sophomore, and "Brell" cast member, said she wasn't overly disappointed in the change of musicals.
"I wasn't personally upset because I don't know either of the sheets very well," she said. "I respect the director's judgment and I'm sure he knows what to do. I'm very excited about being in 'Brell.'"