Word: jazz
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...actors often have burning desires to direct, music producers frequently long to be behind the microphone, and Steve Tyrell is no exception. Having contributed to the Father of the Bride soundtracks, Tyrell has decided to try his hand at a full length project, A New Standard, composed entirely of jazz standards (doubling, naturally, on producing duties). The execution is something fairly uneven. While works penned by Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern can never be truly faulted, Tyrell doesn't possess the vocal versatility to make them twinkle with true allure. "Give Me the Simple Life" caters to his scratchy vocals...
...directors latest, the fanciful Sweet and Lowdown, is in most respects a minor work of art, though it is pleasant and interesting. But enthusiasts should note that it represents something of a breakthrough for Allen, in that the main character, fictional 30s jazz guitarist Emmet Ray (Sean Penn), is a brooding, inarticulate, freewheeling figure motivated by moody emotions. Sure, hes neurotic as hell, but not in the style of nebbishy self-analysis that has informed so many Allen protagonists. Emmets comic/pathetic exploits are governed by the cadences of jazz, which has always been a background presence in Allens movies...
...Emmets story is told in the form of a mock-biography, with the commentary of Allen and a few other jazz authorities interspliced between sequences of Emmets flickering Depression-era career. Allen takes a genial swipe at all of those documentaries in which scholars pose as talking heads, theorizing about their favorite historical figure. The cerebral structure of the movie draws attention to the fictional nature of the whole biographical enterprise: even if Emmet were a real figure, re-constructing his life would still be an art of grappling with, and perhaps smoothing over, the complexities of a man whose...
...nervous tics that Penn knows how to make believable. Emmet is, in addition to being a performance artist, a kleptomaniac, pimp and all-around heel, who somehow comes off as a nice guy despite himself. The running joke of the movie is that Emmet Ray is the second greatest jazz guitarist of his time, and the two times that Emmet has encountered number one, the real-life figure Django Reinhardt (this Gypsy guitar player from France), he fainted on sight. Penn handles the movies many slapstick moments with gusto, including a terrific scene in which Emmet crashes through the roof...
...Much more clubhouse than gallery, Zeitgeist provides all counter-cultural necessities: vegetarian potluck dinners on Mondays, poetry readings on Mondays, figure drawing on Wednesdays, jazz on Thursdays and improvisational jazz on Fridays. The director says that he likes multimedia art and installations, preferably "non-traditional" and "politically involved." Currently showing are garish, clumsy paintings by David Grossack and Michael Hallaren. A billboard on the side of the Harvest Co-op in Central Square ("The Zeitgeist Artboard: Gallery of the People's Republic of Cambridge") offers additional exhibition space for local artists...