Local jazz legend Barbara Morrison celebrates the 100th birthday of Ella Fitzgerald, and gives a master class in scatting ... The band That Dog influenced bands like Weezer, so how come you haven't heard of them? That Dog's “Retreat From the Sun” turns 20 this year. ... We’ll ride the elevator with LA’s last elevator operator, Ruben Pardo ... and we’ll visit Wondercon with KPCC’s Mike Roe to talk with one of the guys who did special effects for “Logan.”
that dog. reunites to remind you how badass, important they are
When the alternative punk scene was sprouting up in Los Angeles, it produced big names like Weezer and Beck, and also big influencers that are less known but just as important-- like that dog. This year marks the 20th anniversary of their third and final album, "Retreat from the Sun"-- the band broke up shortly after the album's release in 1997. Offramp producer Taylor Orci chatted with guitarist/vocalist Anna Waronker, percussionist/drummer Tony Maxwell, and bassist/vocalist Rachel Haden about their decision to link back up and play their final album in its entirety at the El Rey.
"I was struggling with alcoholism," recalls bassist Rachel Haden on why the band decided to reunite. "I was in a sober living facility and I really missed being in a band and playing music." She called up Anna, who struggled with the idea of getting the band back together until, "I was like, why am I keeping this from anybody?" The band reunited in 2011 and put up a Kickstarter to raise money to record another album in November of 2016. Initially they asked for $17,500, but ended up receiving $35,550 from almost 600 backers.
that dog. formed from a pack of neighbors, high school friends, and siblings in 1991 (Petra Haden, Rachel sister and the band's violinist/vocalist decided to part ways shortly after they recorded their reunion album). The four musicians collaborated individually or as a group with numerous iconic bands including Beck, Weezer, Green Day, Nada Surf, Jimmy Eat World, as well as worked on various solo projects.
that dog. will play "Retreat from the Sun" in its entirety Saturday April 8th at the El Rey with opening act Imperial Teen.
How 'Logan' made an effects-heavy movie that feels real
Last month's gritty superhero hit "Logan" offered a grounded take on the superhero, with a movie set in the future but that feels like a western. That doesn't mean that it was any less dependent on special effects, and that began with high-tech previsualization used to lay out the film's complex stunts and subtle special effects.
That point was driven home by director James Mangold with the team envisioning what scenes like the dramatic escape from a refinery would look like.
"He many times came to us and said, 'this is not a superhero movie. This is not a fantastic movie. What you're doing is too exciting, it's too great. If you can't do it yourself, today, out on the car, then it's not in my movie,'" visualization supervisor Clint Reagan told KPCC.
Reagan works on everything from movies and video games to rides and commercials. He also has a lot of experience with the fantastic — he's worked on dozens of films, such as "Transformers," "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." But that wasn't what "Logan's" director wanted.
"Coming from many other films that are very fantastic, very over the top and all along the spectrum — this one, he wanted to make a really grounded, simple, small-feeling movie. But it wasn't small, it was a big effort," Reagan said.
One of the goals throughout the process wasn't making sure that the audience didn't feel or notice the effects. Reagan worked with Mangold to deliver that feeling.
"He knows what he wants to feel, but he doesn't know exactly where the camera's going to be. He doesn't know exactly what he wants to see, but he does know what he wants to feel, and when we show things, and we explore different ideas, he responds to that," Reagan said.
Reagan worked early in his career at a studio known for creating that emotion in audiences — he worked as a production assistant in Disney's feature animation division, working on color models.
"That's where the directors, and the studio executives, and all the department heads for the entire show would get together and talk about what they needed to do, and what wasn't working, and what was working. And I stood there the whole time," Reagan said. "I learned a ton, because that's really what I'm doing now, is I'm looking at all the different parties in a production, and what their needs are, what their desires are, what the limitations are, and I'm weighing those and trying to help get everybody's voice together on screen."
Being part of the beginning of a project lights Reagan up — the part where there aren't any effects involved yet.
"I really love figuring out situations — how to create physical situations, emotional situations, and put out a ton of ideas. And for every 20 ideas we put out and try, it's only one that's going to make it to the screen," Reagan said.
When he's trying to imagine what should go in a movie, he looks at the director's previous work, along with looking for reference in one of the same places many of us seek out video now.
"YouTube is a tremendous tool now for animating and for designing scenes, where you just get to see things that you didn't think of and consider before," Reagan said. "Everybody does that in some capacity, somewhere, where you're just laughing, and saying 'Oh, what if it was like that?' And you all get a chuckle. Well, I get to actually pursue those chuckles and that laugh, of 'Oh, that would be funny, let's make it happen and see what he thinks, see if that meets his need and what he's requesting.' That's inspiring to me."
The entire process of making a movie is about each person adding something new, Reagan said.
"We get a script page, sometimes, and we get that script, and the writer had something in his head, and all he was able to portray was these words to try to generate that image. And then we read that, and we say 'OK, well we've got these rough models, let's figure out what he meant by how fast that car should be going when he jumps in, versus how slow it should be going, and what situations we can create,'" Reagan said.
Next, the actors enter the process, seeing what's happening from their characters' perspective and adding another layer, according to Reagan.
"And if that's the way a film is working, all the way through production design, the stunts, the set builders — I'm going to leave people out, because there's so many people interpreting a bit, and putting their little piece on. It's like one of those gum walls, where everybody's putting their bit there, and then pretty soon, what was just small and felt insignificant and excited you for a little bit, turns into something big and amazing, and a complete whole," Reagan said.
Next on the list of films coming to a multiplex near you with a dash of Reagan's previsualization magic is one with a little more opportunity for the fantastic: "Spider-Man: Homecoming." It opens July 6.
See video of some of Reagan's other previsualization work below, including from "The Wolverine," the "Ghostbusters" reboot and the "Mass Effect" theme park ride:
Off-Ramp Recommends: Ballin' on a budget at Broke LA
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Coachella is next week. FYF single day tickets go on sale tomorrow. Outside Lands three-day passes went on sale today. Music festival season is right around the corner. And the smell of burning wallets is in the air.
Saturday, from 3-midnight, kick off the music festival season without driving to the desert and without breaking the bank. Broke LA - formerly known as Brokechella - sets you back a measly $25. Try spending less than $25 for a snack at a major music fest.
“The festival features indie, hip-hop, DJ, and comedy acts culled from an open-submissions process. In our commitment to our community, ticket and drink prices have maintained competitively low despite a fluctuating economy, ” according to the Broke LA website.
Don’t expect headliners like Lady Gaga or Radiohead … but prepare yourself to discover new favorites at the East LA festival. The focus on local talent makes it possible to discover the next big LA artists. Many Broke LA alums have gone on to grace the stages of FYF, Coachella, and Outside Lands.
The event will highlight local food and vendors. A mini film fest showcase will take place in the evening. For the first time the fest will have a designated area to participate in yoga, meditation, and tea ceremonies. You can even bring your pets if you register them before the fest ... or adopt a puppy as part of Bark LA.
LA jazz icon Barbara Morrison celebrates Ella Fitzgerald's 100th birthday
Ella Fitzgerald, the "First Lady of Song," was shy and a bit "particular" in real life, but brass on stage. She sold 40-million albums and won 15 Grammys. And her fans were legion:
"I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt. She personally called the owner of the Mocambo, and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again. She was an unusual woman - a little ahead of her times. And she didn't know it." -- Ella Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald spent the last part of her life here in Los Angeles. She had a mansion in Beverly Hills and after she died in 1996, was buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery. She would have turned 100 on April 25, and the celebrations have begun... including at the brand new California Jazz and Blues Museum in Leimert Park, which is presided over by LA's own first lady of song, Barbara Morrison. Morrison will also be doing a tribute to Ella at the Catalina Jazz Club this Sunday.
Off-Ramp contributor met Morrison at the museum this week to talk about Ella's life and legacy. Make sure to listen to the entire interview in the audio player so you can hear Barbara give scatting advice, and give us a beautiful a capella version of Make Someone Happy.
Do you remember the first time you heard Ella Fitzgerald?
I do. I was probably about ten years old. My dad had a hi-fi. And he played all the old songs of the great black singers in the day. And we had the first black radio station. It was in Inkster, Michigan. That's all he listened to.
Did she immediately appeal to you?
No, I liked Dinah Washington and Ruth Brown. I liked the more bluesy stuff. But she was artistic, and that part of her I did like. She was more creative. She took leaps and bounds. You know, sitting on the bandstand with Chick Webb when you're a little kid and you got all these professional horn players blowing all kinds of solos. She had a photographic memory. She could remember all that stuff. She could remember what Johnny Hodges was playing in his solo, and she could sing it.
What was peak Ella?
"Ella in Berlin." When she did "Mack the Knife" and forgot the words. I think that really really really made her famous because she carried that whole thing, but she made it all work. I think people appreciated that, because that's how life is. You know? You make it work.
Morrison just christened the California Jazz and Blues Museum at 4317 Degnan Blvd 90008 which has a corner devoted to Ella. "It's called Ella's Pub," Morrison says, because "Dizzy and all the cats would come to town, and instead of hanging out in nightclubs where people would bother them, they'd go to Ella's house and she had a pub in her rec room and they'd all jam all night - Oscar Peterson and everybody."
The museum is next to the Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center, which has a full schedule this month for Jazz Appreciation Month.
REVIEW: 'Composer’s Cut' of 'Tales of Hoffmann' soars at LA Opera
Off-Ramp culture correspondent Marc Haefele reviews Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffmann," at LA Opera through April 15.
This production went viral, but not in a good way. First , star coloratura Diana Damrau caught the bug and had to drop two of her four roles in Jacques Offenbach’s sprawling operatic masterpiece. Then her real-life husband, baritone lead Nicolas Teste, caught it too, and had to play on-stage ventriloquist dummy to a singer in the pit on the opening night of LA Opera’s “Tales of Hoffmann.’’
By the end of the week, Teste, officially “indisposed,” had dropped out completely. The performance I saw March 30 featured the sublimely talented Long-Island-born Christian Van Horn as the show’s fourfold villain, who goes under the splendid names of Lindorf; Coppelius; Dapertutto and Dr. Miracle. More on him in a moment.
First a word about the story, or stories. Offenbach, a German-born Jew who invented the operetta and made it huge in Paris, for decades carried a torch for German literature’s all-time Wizard of Weird, E.T.A. Hoffmann.
Although Hoffmann’s surreal stories inspired other composers’ great works (Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker;” Delibes’ "Coppelia,” etc.), Offenbach’s librettist, Jules Barbier, was inspired to make the incredibly self-destructive and besotted Hoffmann the central character. This Hoffmann tells three stories of his own grotesquely thwarted loves—a mechanical doll; an avaricious courtesan, a doomed soprano-- while he sits inebriated, waiting for a fourth love to show up.
Meanwhile, silent in a corner, sits the villain Lindorf (Van Horn), black top hat and all, waiting to snatch this last love, the diva La Stella, away from Hoffmann.
Just try to explain all this to someone new to the opera. But the biggest problem is that Offenbach died 4 months before the premiere, leaving all kinds of music, complete and incomplete, all over his workplace. Ever since, scholars have struggled to put together a “Hoffmann” that really works. LA Opera’s edition, based on the research of Michael Kaye and Jean-Christophe Keck, really does. It is as close to a Composer’s Cut of this problematic masterpiece as we are likely ever to hear.
Tenor Vittorio Grigolo was a fine romantic lead, lauding with equal eloquence and vocal perfection Hoffmann’s ideal of womankind and his devastating love of alcohol. Grigolo had a vivid physical presence, too, although his stagey collapses came a little too often.
His female foil was mezzo Kate Lindsey, in the dual role of Hoffmann’s classical muse and Nicklausse, the best friend and caretaker. In this new edition, the muse is also the soul of the entire work, perceiving Hoffmann’s mighty flaws and mightier genius, and persuading him that his travails are what nourishes his art. (I wondered: where does one find a muse like this?). A brilliant singer, a fine actress whose role hovers between tragedy and comedy, Lindsay elevates the entire production.
Diana Damrau, who was supposed to sing all three principle soprano roles, excelled as Antonia, the supposedly mortally-ill 20-year-old who sings herself to death at the end of Act III. The recently-ill Damrau was the picture of health as she brilliantly vocalized her way toward the hereafter, assisted by the villainous Dr. Miracle’s fiddling and the spirit of her departed mother, winningly sung by Sharmay Musacchio. (The role also demanded that Musacchio, in the form of a powder-white statue, stand stock still for around 20 minutes until activated by the villain).
So Young Park sang the goofy, skyrocketing roulades of the doll Olympia to perfection, while her loopy performance as a 19th Century wind-up android was hilarious just this side of hammy. Mezzo Kate Aldrich was gorgeous to see and to hear as the courtesan Giulietta, who betrays Hoffman in exchange for a diamond the size of a regulation softball.
The jewel was offered by bass-baritone Christian Van Horn’s villain, of course. Parachuted into the role on little notice, Van Horn stole scene after scene with his brilliant acting—his presence often reminded me of Benedict Cumberbatch--and actinic singing. By the last act, he is become the very luminous incarnation of evil. What a Scarafucile he would be!
Also worthy of mention was tenor Christophe Montagne as the four extremely diverse servants. Another, less obvious occasional role was some extremely demanding third act cello soloing from the pit, recalling that Offenbach was one of the greatest cellists on Earth. I expect LA Opera’s principal cellist John Walz was making those lovely sounds.
Stage director Marta Domingo made some wise decisions in this production, perhaps the best of which was to use Giovanni Agostinucci’s scrumptious 2002 sets and costumes. When people clapped as the 3rd act curtain went up, I wondered, how long has it been since I’ve heard an LA Opera audience applaud sets? Marta’s husband Placido, who has an opera career in bis own right, conducted with meticulous warmth.
They too helped make this “Hoffmann” a near-perfect night at the opera.