Challenge Question:
Name one single, solitary movie about the life of a musician that doesn't involve him cheating on his wife, doing drugs and generally being a total bastard.
(We watched Ray yesterday. Seriously. After Walk the Line earlier this year, I think I'm bastard-musician-ed out.)
Name one single, solitary movie about the life of a musician that doesn't involve him cheating on his wife, doing drugs and generally being a total bastard.
(We watched Ray yesterday. Seriously. After Walk the Line earlier this year, I think I'm bastard-musician-ed out.)
Sep 10 2006, 09:12 pm
This is easy - The Benny Goodman Story.
A couple things about this movie.
First, I was really bored when I first started watching it -- but then the movie actually picks up and shows you a lot about the music of the time and how jazz broke out of the traditional 'swing' to my favorite, bee-bop, and as Benny Goodman put it, "hot music."
Second, aside from milktoast Steve Allen (a musician himself) playing Benny Goodman, some of the cats playing backup are the real deal and include some of the original musicians and leaders who 'invented' bee-bop jazz ("hot music").
1:12 PM
Sep 11 2006, 06:49 pm
Ooo, thanks! I'll see if I can find it here. Maybe it will inspire us to dust off our dancing shoes again.
The only other musician bio-pic I could think of was The Doors, but yet another example of the women, drugs, etc.
1:12 PM
Sep 11 2006, 07:42 pm
Keep in mind, I'm at the point in my life with music where I'm looking back and going "gosh, they really WERE ahead of their time." I'm like ... old moives are the best! no wonder they invented Turner Classic Movies and American Movie Classics. Don't worry, you'll get there!
Goodman had both black and white players - unheard of at the time. The movie features the Goodman Quartet players Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, and Lionel Hampton. Bam! Look those cats up on the internet.
The movie is not a cinematographic masterpiece, but there's one point in the movie where they play "Sing Sing Sing" and the hall gets rockin'. It's then you realize you're glad for music.
Anyway, I'm still in disbelief about Steve Irwin. I stop traffic and get turtles out of the road and carry spiders out of the house. I could at least identify (on a VERY SMALL level) with Irwin. It's such a weird deal. You'd hope for more people in tune with nature - and someone with as big a presence.
1:12 PM
Sep 12 2006, 03:20 am
Danielle,
Thanks for the nice note.
lets see - "one movie about the life of a musician that doesn't involve him cheating on his wife, doing drugs and generally being a total bastard."
hmm....I think your right!
Jacob Golden
1:13 PM
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