Well, dear readers, Luckie let me sleep in till nine this morning, so I must hurry along and finish these here Friday notes quickly. Luckiely, I was prescient, oh, yes, I was prescient and knew something like this would happen so I finished answering all your excellent questions last night before hitting the hay. You know what I love about the hay? You can hit it and hit it and hit it and it never hits you back, it just lies there like so much fish and takes it. That’s what I love about the hay.
Today I must write, write, write (that is three writes), after all I’m in the home stretch here and I must keep up the momentum. Perhaps I’ll hit some hay just to keep me percolated.
We had such a nice walk this morning that Luckie is lying on the floor like a wet noodle, totally out. My goodness, this week has flown by, hasn’t it? Soon, we will be having our rockin’ New Year’s Eve celebration and then it will be a brand spanking New Year. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too?
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below, because don’t I have excellent questions to answer?
You had some great questions yesterday and I was so chomping at the bit (no mean feat) to answer them that I plum did them last night. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I plum up and answered your excellent questions last night. I also nectarine up and answered your excellent questions last night. And so, without further ado…
Jose asks have I ever played the lottery. Only the scratchers – in fact, my daughter gave me a whole load of them for Christmas and I have been merrily scratching for two days. So far I’ve won four dollars and a bunch of tickets. Is there a different agreement and/or pay structure for musicians who get listed on albums and those who don’t? No, it’s simply up to the producer or label whether the musicians are listed or not. We did a lot of the time, but sometimes on the early albums we didn’t for a variety and/or Hollywood reporter of reasons. When will I be giving more details about my upcoming New York sojourn. As soon as the people who are booking the trip (my producers) get back from Christmas vacation. As soon as I have the firm details I shall pass them along with rapidity. What am I doing New Year’s Eve? If you travel back one year in the Unseemly Archives you will find that I always do the same thing – stay home and contemplate the year that’s ending and the year upcoming, and think about what I thought worked and what I didn’t think worked, and the resolutions about changing the latter. It’s a very introspective end of evening for me. However, prior to that we will be having our annual haineshisway.com rockin’ New Year’s Eve celebration and it will be like no other you’ve ever attended.
William E. Lurie asks if I like the way Broadway ticket prices work – i.e. that most seats are the same price with the exception of back of balcony seating. In olden days, a Broadway house usually had several price tiers depending on the seats. I preferred it that way (and, of course, I preferred those prices – when an orchestra seat was 7.50 or something) and I deplore that they get top dollar for seats I wouldn’t put Luckie in. When and where will tickets be sold for our upcoming Tourette’s benefit. And can we put a block of them aside so all Hainsies/Kimlets can sit together? I think that is a splendid idea and I shall put those wheels in motion. I’ll arrange with Cissy a way for all dear readers to purchase their tickets directly so there won’t be a need to go to the box office of The Danny Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, although tickets will be sold there as well. Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind. Yes, there are certain old acquaintances who should never be brought to mind. I’m sure we can all think of a few.
Michael Shayne has a Craig-like plethora of questions. To wit: Did I have any involvement with the Helen Reddy dance single from the Center Stage album, and what is my opinion of it. Other than recording the original vocal and then giving it to the remixer on its own track, no, I had absolutely no involvement with it. I thought it was okay, a bit lame really. What is my involvement with the Sunset Blvd. tracks which were included on Petula Clark’s CD when she was touring in the show? None, whatsoever. We merely licensed the tracks. Brian R. Kilgore, Brian G. Kilgore and Brian Kilgore are listed on various jazz albums I’ve produced – are they the same person? Yes, he’s a world-class percussionist. The “R” was a typo, and he does prefer the “G”, but those things happen. Can I give one or two sentences about the jazz artists I’ve worked with? Of course, and with great pleasure. Terry Trotter and the trio – Well, I think Terry is brilliant, but aside from that he and I are like two peas in a pod, we get along wonderfully and we have the exact same artistic temperament. The way we work is I’ll give him the score (or the songs) and he’ll play around with them and a few weeks later have me over to hear his ideas. We talk about each track and most of the time I’m jiggy and sometimes I take him in a different direction. In the studio, I don’t think we’ve ever disagreed on when we have “the” take. I also like to throw one song at him totally by surprise on the final day of recording, and that frequently ends up being our favorite track. Tom Warrington, his bassist, is a very dry fellow but a wonderful player. I can’t say enough about Joe LaBarbera, the drummer. He is an amazing artist, who in his youth played with my favorite jazz pianist of all time, Bill Evans. He is a poet of the drums, subtle and magical and he makes his drums sing. He’s also one of the nicest people ever. Fred Hersch – we only did one album together, and I’m fond of it. I found him to be a bit prissy and a bit of a trial, and I’m sure he found me to be the same (a producer with opinions), but you know all’s fair in love and art and the end result got nominated for a Grammy, so there you are. Fred Karlin – well, I love Fred Karlin and our two albums together are amongst my favorites. He’s a brilliant trumpet player, and also a brilliant film composer (his score for Up the Down Staircase remains one of my favorites). We loved working together and we loved choosing the material for the album. He was totally open to my suggestions, material-wise, so I got some of my favorite film themes ever on those albums, including David Amram’s incredible Splendor in the Grass. And, I had quite a correspondence and phone relationship with Mr. Amram because of it (we later did his score to On the Waterfront, the Broadway play version). Fred is also a total gentleman and a pleasure to be around. Brad Ellis – a maniac, a crazy person, but very gifted and his albums are really fun and I really recommend them. Buddy Bregman – he has the biggest ego of anyone I’ve ever met, but he also has the talent to back it up. Our “swing” album is fantastic – his charts are amazing and we had a total blast in the studio. Do I think other Broadway composers can be “jazzed” (aside from the ones I’ve done) – sure, they all can be, but certain ones obviously lend themselves better. There’ve been great jazz albums of Rodgers and Hammerstein and Hart, Cy Coleman (an obvious choice), Frank Loesser and on and on. I said that releasing the cast album of Virginia Woolf was too expensive. Why? Well, it was a four LP set, and it’s Edward Albee, who had a huge royalty deal – it was, in essence like paying for two CDs worth of royalties and it simply would have lost a ton of money. Why were Working and Subways are for Sleeping affordable. Well, they were normal LPs, and in the case of Working, the royalty was reasonable, even with all those writers. Subways was actually cheap because the rights had reverted back to Styne and Comden and Green, so we dealt with them rather than Sony. Who were Michel Legrand’s best lyricists? Well, conventionally speaking, the Bergmans. Unconventionally speaking, Jacques Demy. Was my play The Good One ever optioned for the movies? I can’t tell you how many times it came close, but for whatever reasons it just didn’t happen. Same with my musical, Together Again. We came very close to making it a TV series, but again, didn’t happen. Do I google search myself? I have on occasion done so and am sometimes amazed at what I find. When I read a biography or autobiography do I go to the index and look up what I want to read about first, or do I read it from cover to cover. Always the latter, never the former. Have I read Michael’s three favorite dishy theater books – the Making of No, No, Nanette, The Whorehouse Papers, and Diary of a Mad Playwright? Yes, all three, and my favorite of them is the latter.
Sigerson Holmes asks what my favorite musical version of Huckleberry Finn is. The only one I know is the Sherman Brothers, and I don’t love it. Don’t know Big River at all. Do I have a favorite Leonard Nimoy album? I’m happy to say I don’t.
Craig asks what are my top three favorite Christmas movies? It’s a Wonderful Life, always number one, the Albert Finney Scrooge, which I really like, and White Christmas (for sentimental reasons). Who was the best movie or TV lawyer and why? Perry Mason, of course, no contest. He never lost a case and I never missed an episode of the original series. Who do I think is the best film composer for comedy, drama, suspense, romance. Hmmmm. Comedy – Mancini. Drama – Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Hugo Friedhofer. Suspense – Bernard Herrmann. Romance – Michel Legrand, Johnny Mandel, Dave Grusin. And many others. Do I think that in the future I would ever write a novel that was not related to Benjamin Kritzer? I think I’d answer yes – at least I think I’d give it a whirl. Finally, do I have any favorite poets and/or poems? All of Dorothy Parker and, of course, the usual suspects.
Jrand55 asks is VistaVision now Panavision or did VistaVision go away? Sadly, it went away, but I feel it was the best of all those processes. They still use it for background plates for rear projection and also for some fx shots in films. What is my favorite part of Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman? I seem to recall a scene in a bar with her giant hand – I liked that.
Kerry asks what Alan Jay Lerner songs were considered and/or tried for the album and discarded. Practically everything was tried. I was getting a cassette a week of their work sessions and we all just kept commenting on what there was too much of and what there was too little of. So, hundreds of songs were considered and most were discarded.
Td is curious about some people who only recorded for me once, but has confined himself to people who appear on my Christmas CDs. Where is Roy Chicas these days? I know not – I discovered him in that show Bring on the Morning, I think it was called that – you know, by the people who did The Me Nobody Knows. He was in it, and so was Yvette Lawrence. Whatever happened to the Talisman Quartet? I know not, but they were awfully good. What was it like to record with Miss Debby Boone? Dreamy. Hubby Mel Ferrer was there, and we all had a delightful time and she was easy as pie. Why didn’t John Gabriel do more with me? Well, it wasn’t for want of him trying. He really wanted to do a solo album, but I just didn’t think what he was talking about would sell. He eventually did it himself, and I helped him with suggestions and packaging ideas. He’s a swell guy. I had dinner with him when we were doing the album and I told him that when I was but a mere sprig of a twig of a lad of a youth I’d seen him in the LA premiere of the musical A Family Affair (he did the Larry Kert role). It was at a tiny theater on Santa Monica Blvd. and he was shocked that I’d seen it and more shocked that I remembered it. I told him that my mother had been very annoyed because he and his leading lady had kissed too intimately (i.e. Frenching on stage). Why doesn’t The Secret of Christmas from Say One For Me appear on Hollywood Christmas? Because I didn’t like it as much as the songs we used, or it didn’t fit in with the performers I’d chosen. One of the two.
KT asks if I would ever consider doing a sequel to The First Nudie Musical. In the mid-eighties we were going to try to do just that – I’d done a treatment and written a few songs, but the country was not in a place where a down-and-out raunchy sex comedy would have worked. Now it would, but I’ve already incorporated elements from the sequel into the stage adaptation. Will I be seeing Chicago, the movie? Of course and I will have a full and honest report after I do.
Laura asks if I’ve ever had a CD that is so bad that I listen to it again and again. Only Mrs. Miller.
Dennis Clancy asks if I remember when road show movies were all the rage – assigned seats at high ticket prices (West Side Story, as I recall, was almost four dollars for prime seats). Why didn’t the studios just raise the ticket price and let the patron sit wherever they wanted. Because they wanted the film to be perceived as an event, something totally unique and special – like theater. I loved road show movies and many are mentioned in the new Kritzer novel.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must write until the cows come home, I must eat various and sundried foodstuffs (yes, Virginia, I’ve decided to stay on Atkins a little while longer), I must do errands and truands, I must, in short, get crackin’. If you want to have some fun today, hit some hay – it really gets your blood flowing. Today’s topic of discussion: What are you favorite five musicals or plays that you’ve seen this year? Post away, my pretties – it’s time for our end-of-year push to make this the most popular site on all the Internet.