Milton Love's new fish book ... the violinist and artist recall the making of Harbor Freeway Overture mural ... Stan Kenton's Centennial ... As San Fernando Turns ... Word Banishment ... Arboretum weathers the storm ...
Violinist remembers posing for huge freeway mural, and Kent Twitchell recalls painting it
If you drive the Harbor Freeway, you've seen Julie Gigante, the LA Chamber Orchestra violinist. You can't miss her. She's eight stories high. She's one of the most prominent LACO members depicted in Kent Twitchell's mural, "Harbor Freeway Overture," which was begun twenty years ago. Gigante is still with LACO, and until just the other day when she talked with Off-Ramp host John Rabe, hadn't stood at the foot on the mural. Rabe also talked with Twitchell, who is still proud of his monument to the musical artists.
At the LA Arboretum, windstorm cleanup begins
Last week's windstorm his the Los Angeles Country Arboretum harder than anyone expected. Off-Ramp producer Kevin Ferguson went to the Arboretum and talked with staff.
Most people stayed bundled up inside last week to avoid the record-breaking Santa Ana winds. But the Arboretum's Jim Henrich went to work.
"It was actually kind of freaky being on the road," said Henrich, the Arboretum's living collections curator. "Just to see all of the eucalyptus doing this twisting and torquing and massive whipping around…[it] was a little unnerving."
The greenhouses and outdoor plants he rushed to check on were still intact, but that was before 80 mph gusts ravaged the park. The winds destroyed and estimated 10 percent of the trees in its collection. Brush and debris littered the place; over 300 trees were lost.
Arboretum CEO Richard Schulhof said staff are cleaning up and planning the process of planting a new generation of trees, but the arboretum will never be the same. The arboretum's value comes from being able to “see a great diversity of trees in their mature form,” he said.
"We lost a Eucalyptus Globulus, which in itself of course, is a very, very common species here in California, but it was a plant that dated back to the 1870s or perhaps older," Schulhof went on to say. "That kind of specimen is irreplaceable."
The L.A. County Arboretum has set up a tree fund to raise donations for the new trees that will be planted. The arboretum will be closed until further notice.
Why does Milton Love love fish?
Which is the ugliest fish of all? Which is the cutest? Why would kids have freaked out if marine biologist Milton Love had written the screenplay for Finding Nemo? These and many more questions are answered in Off-Ramp host John Rabe's in-depth interview with Love, who is also an Off-Ramp commentator. Love has just published "Certainly More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast."
Stan Kenton Centennial - an appreciation from Steven Harris
December 15th marks the centennial of one of the seminal figures of jazz, Stan Kenton, who died in 1979. Kenton, who was born in Wichita and raised in Bell, was a ceaseless innovator who was once acclaimed "Modern America's Man of Music." Jazz historian Steven Harris, who hosted a Kenton tribute show on KPCC in the 1980s and is the author of "The Kenton Kronicles," looks back at this legendary figure whose theme song said it all: “Artistry in Rhythm”
Stan Kenton was a potentate of progressive jazz. Matinee-handsome with matchless charisma, he didn't need a baton. Just his presence ignited brass fanfares not even Toscanini could rival. Kenton was a pianist, composer and arranger, but the orchestra was his true instrument.
Kenton sparked controversy from the start. One of his first experiments in sound was a pre-curser to the jazz-inspired beat movement. Before such crazy-cool literati as Kerouac and Ginsberg were permeating 1950s culture, Kenton offered a surreal poem called "This Is My Theme," set to reeds, bongos, and blaring brass. By the time of its 1948 release, Kenton was hailed as the country's top musical box-office attraction. He packed dance halls, ballrooms, and clubs with fans who wanted to sample his latest menu of symphonic concertizing, whether they could comprehend it or not.
It was hard to be neutral about Stan Kenton. You were either fanatical about his music or detested it. Take his 40-piece Innovations in Modern Music concert crew --- an unheard of traveling cast fusing the mediums of jazz and classical. The critics who got caught up in the dissonance had a field day blasting his bombastic attempts But you just have to listen to his stripped down but amped up version of "Stompin' at the Savoy" to get his swinging side.
The L.A. Music Center was only a month old when Kenton debuted another grandiose venture: a 26-piece orchestra he dubbed the "Neophonic" --- a word that Stan himself coined, meaning "new sound." Then there were the delightful novelties that kept the royalties coming in, like his collaboration with Capitol Records' reigning star, Nat Cole on "Orange Colored Sky."
For 37 years, the Kenton band was a school of talent. Among its hundreds of key players were Art Pepper, Shelly Manne and trumpet titan Maynard Ferguson. There were singers like the ever-hip June Christy, Anita O’Day and the future Mrs. Kenton, Ann Richards. Then came the beautiful brass oddity that Kenton co-designed: It was called the mellophonium --- a haunting cross between a trumpet and trombone that could send thrills and chills through an audience.
Kenton claimed another first with his entry of Afro-Cuban rhythms in orchestrated big band jazz. The climax was the monumental 1956 album "Cuban Fire."
But Stan Kenton’s greatest legacy was music education. In 1959, under Stan's auspices, the first National Stage Band Camp was formed. Kenton set a precedent in providing in-depth instruction to music students. He took it further under his own corporate name by establishing the Kenton Clinics with a faculty of up to 30 instructors, guest clinicians and lecturers. By the time of his death, Kenton had led around a thousand clinics on campuses across the nation and ignited many of the country's 20,000 stage bands into existence.
Stan Kenton made his bandleading debut at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa Beach in 1941. 70 years later, his legacy is still being felt and celebrated. So here's to you, Stanley Newcomb Kenton: Happy 100th and long reign your Artistry in Rhythm.
"Man Cave," "I know, right?" -- Word Banishment nominations close soon
Every year, Lake Superior State University in Soo MI banishes words and phrases from the English language. Stuff like "de-plane" (1981), "dawg" (2006), "giving 110%" (1998), and "bottom line" (1979 and 1992). This year, LSSU's Tom Pink told KPCC's John Rabe, the nominations include "not gonna lie;" "I know, right?;" "game-changer;" "flash mob;" "Californicate," and "man cave." But there's still room for more, from you. Deadline: Dec 15.
Scandal in San Fernando
The city of San Fernando may beat Bell for sheer soap opera quality. At a city council meeting, with his wife in the front row, the mayor recently admitted he was dating a councilwoman -- violating his marriage vows and the Brown Act. Off-Ramp host John Rabe spoke with San Fernando Valley Sun editor Diana Martinez, who says the admission is emblematic of much deeper governance problems in the city.
Bert Stern and Marilyn Monroe's last session - new from Taschen
6/27/2013 UPDATE: Bert Stern died yesterday at his Manhattan home. He was 83. Here's our 2011 conversation.
Marilyn Monroe didn't become an icon on her own. She had co-conspirators -- the photographers whose cameras loved her. Taschen has just published a huge new book of Monroe's last portrait sitting, taken for Vogue magazine by Bert Stern just six weeks before she died. Stern and Monroe worked together for three days at the Hotel Bel Air, which is where Tachen unveiled the new book. Bert Stern was the guest of honor and he talked with Off-Ramp host John Rabe.
What was that song? Off-Ramp music for Dec 10, 2011
Heard a song you liked on this week's show? Find out what it was here!
BONUS video of Dobie Gray: