Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, continuing my Stan Getz with various orchestrators listening experience. One of my all-time favorite albums as a teen was Stan Getz and Arthur Fiedler at Tanglewood with the Boston Pops. It’s an amazing live album. Two great David Raksin tunes – the themes from The Bad and the Beautiful and Too Late Blues, one classic bossa nova (The Girl from Ipanema), Three Ballads for Stan written by Alec Wilder, and the centerpiece of the album, The Tanglewood Concerto by Eddie Sauter, a brilliant piece of musicmaking. As a listening experience it doesn’t get much better. Then I heard Stan’s Didn’t We album with nice arrangements by Johnny Pate. The it was Reflections, a fantastic album with charts by Claus Ogerman and Lalo Schifrin and one of the best versions of Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most. And now playing is Communications ’72, his collaboration with the one and only Michel Legrand. It’s a really interesting album, with some Swingle Singers-style vocalizing (it may, in fact, be the Swingle Singers – if not, it’s their clones) – some great tracks on this one. I’m saving the two Eddie Sauter albums for last – Focus and the soundtrack to Mickey One. For those who may not know, Sauter was also one of my favorite Broadway orchestrators – he didn’t do a huge number of shows, but the ones he did are really fantastic, even if they were flops. They include Milk and Honey, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman (just listen to that overture – one of the greats), The Apple Tree (brilliant), Henry, Sweet Henry, 1776, the one-nighter La Strada, which I have a soundboard recording of and which is wonderful as is his next flop, Georgy. Then came Two by Two, and his last two shows, Molly and Little Johnny Jones. One wonders why he didn’t do more shows. He passed away in 1981 before Little Johnny Jones reached Broadway. Anyway, it’s always enjoyable revisiting the orchestral Stan Getz albums. I also watched a motion picture on the Flix of Net, a film from last year entitled Oxygen, a French film from France. It was originally slated to star Anne Hathaway, then Noomi Rapace. Ultimately, French actress Melanie Laurent did it and I can’t really imagine anyone doing a better job. It’s basically her show – never off the screen in a small cryogenic chamber trying to figure out how she got there and why. It’s nothing new or anything, but it’s enjoyable and almost takes place in real time – ninety minutes – the film runs 101-minutes, but seven of those are end titles.
Yesterday was indeed a ME day – I refused to do anything work-related. I got eight hours of sleep, had a Cobb salad (which I’d pre-ordered from Stanley’s) – that was very good – and I just played on the computer and then did my viewing and listening and I don’t care who knows it. I don’t even care who nose it. And in the early evening I had a Philly cheesesteak sandwich from Jersey Mike’s – not quite as good as it usually is, but still okay.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll write the short sequence for the project with David Wechter, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll eat, I’ll hopefully get instrumental tracks for our upcoming rehearsals, and I’m going to start making a schedule of who needs to be with us when, so I don’t really waste anyone’s time. But after Saturday, everyone’s with us all the time as we assemble the show and then do run-throughs. And then at some point, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, we’re back to rehearsing for the next three nights and I hope to get mostly everything done in terms of staging the solos and duets and sketches. I’ll also have some Zoom things and some meetings and meals. Friday is off, then we do our long Saturday rehearsal, which is when I can start finessing everything.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, write, hopefully pick up some packages, eat, hopefully get tracks for rehearsals, begin making a schedule, and then I’ll watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite motion pictures that take place in Outer Space? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to be listening to all the Getz orchestral albums, including the now playing Cool Velvet, with orchestrations by the great Russell Garcia, who’d go on to write a great film score, The Time Machine. From the Getz go, Mr. Getz is just smooth and velvety and incredible.