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It's A Church For God Sakes I am about as lily white as they come--blond hair, blue eyes, fair skin and all that sort of thing. But even I understand that the Apollo Theater is a church. It's holy ground for the truly American artform of black and black inspired music. It wasn't always a place of refuge for black Americans, they couldn't even get in until 1934. It's roots were white-only, a speical place for up town well-to-do whites in the early fifth of the 20th century. But it became the home of the negro spirituals and heart-felt blues that the people of Harlem sang in that oft forgotten depression era. The theater of upper 125th street in the heart of what is now Harlem, had its first all negro ensemble perform in '34 as the neighborhood became a haven for blacks who displaced from the South and moved to New York and the opportunity it offered. That year the theater also opened to the what has become one of the mainstays in black entertainment, Apollo Amateur Night. One of the first amateurs was a little lady singer named Ella Fitzgerald. If you're music history escapes you at the moment of you are simply borne of youthful ignorance, Ella became one of the immortals in jazz music. I could fill the space from here to a several feet below this mark with the names of musicians and singers, comics and dancers who debuted their talents at the Apollo. Name someone and they either started there are they played there sometime in their career. James, Brown, the self proclaimed and eventually recognized, Godfather of Soul was an Apollo graduate. James and I had an unfortunate meeting when both of us were quite young. He had just released "The Mashed Potatoes" a record that tried to launch a dance craze but fella bit short. James didn't like the way I set the mikes for alive performance, which I was hosting way back in 1961 and we had sharp words. We never met again. Too bad, because both of us grew out of those petulant attitudes and we might have been friends. This evening I thought about the late James Brown and all of the others I met, Tina Turner, Fats Domino, Dobie Gray, The Coasters, The Drifters, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Joe Williams, Little Richard, and others. I thought about them as I watched a new parade of "talent" on Showtime at the Apollo, on some satellite channel that comes into my home from where I do not know. The show was hosted by Whoopie Goldberg, who hasn't been funny or even interesting to listen to or watch since her last appearance on Star /trek The Next Generation. THe talent line up included a pair of rappers, a female singer, a male singer and a guy who did a soft shoe routine, in real soft shoes, I think they were some kind Nike, the kind a kid could get shot for--let's just say that Bo Jangles he wasn't. What struck me during the whole thing, of which half was all I could take, was the sacrilege be committed by these people in a place of worship. Don't they know that real talent tread those boards for 70 years before they came along. Whoopie in a stumbled and silly way tried to get the point across, about the ghosts of the Apllo, but she read it so badly. What I came away with was a ringing in my head, from the aimless, non melodious quality of the songs; a befuddlement from the words I couldn't understand and a huge disconnect between me and the perfortmers---this is from a guy who wiped tears from his eyes for the last 12 minutes of the Dream Girls, and who felt loss when JB went down last month. I really wanted Showtime at The Apollo to be something I could enjoy. But it wasn't. I could blame it on my years and changing styles and music. But I dont' think so. I think there are so many people dying to be performers now and so many people to perform to and so much performing going on, that the specialness has worn off. I'm sad about that. But I am more sad that in it's earnest effort to showcase young talent, The Apllo is no longer a church, but just another place when people put themselves on exhibit and hope the hundreds in the audiance who wished they were on stage as well would appreciate them, Posted 12 January 2007 20:50 MST Faith Restored Part 2 If you are familiar with the workings and people of the evolution of the Motown Sound you can sit and try to decide which character in real life is portrayed by which character in the musical Dreamgirls. Frankly, I didn't care and I was in the pop music business in those days. Dreamgirls, on its own, without any ties to real or imagined people from the fifties and sixties, is a fine piece of work. Anyone connected to the original broadway score and the film version, which launched on Christmas day, can be proud of what they did. I found myself comparing this effort with Chicago. The energy, precision timing and solid direction by Bill Condon, who also wrote the screen play from Tom Eyen's book, was first rate. The only scene that one would quibble with was a silly little interchange between Deena Jones (Beyonce Knowles) and Jerry Harris (a puffy John Lithgow) and seedy-looking Sam Walsh (John Krasinski) as the pair pitched her a screen play role. The scene looked like an out take, put back in, which it may have been. It was totally out of context. American Idol runner-up Jennifer Hudson comported herself professionally and energetically in her role as Effie Melody White, the jilted, overweight member of the original Dream trio. Her acting was as good as her singing. Jamie Fox (Curtis Taylor Jr.) convinced us that he was a ruthless, albeit brilliant promoter and producer. Eddie Murphy, managed to stay in the character of James "Thunder" Daley, a character that was clearly an caricature amalgamation of everybody from Little Richard to Smoky Robinson. The only one who seemed out of place and zombie-like was Danny Glover, who looked pitiful and acted worse. The pacing was good, except for a short span about 90 minutes into the 125 minute running time of the film, when it looked for a short time like Condon had lost his way. But then the characters had lost their way, with drugs taking out Daley, Taylor stealing material, Effie tying to get back into the business. But he bought it all together and made the third act work. There is always a danger in comparing the originals in Motown to those who have tried to tell the story of the Detroit music revolution. I found myself doing that. But the exercise is as useless, as was trying to decide if Joe Louis could have whipped Casius, oops, Mohammad Ali. Beyonce and Jennifer are great musical talents and the side men who played behind the curtains in this opus are masters. But I'll not make judgment as to who is or was the best. The Funk Brothers, Margin Gaye, The Temptations, The Supremes, Smoky and the Miracles, Martha and the Vandelas, Mitch Ryder, and the rest of the originators will always hold their place in my musical memory and now I can add the troupe of Dreamgirls. Posted 1 January 2007 MAC Some Faith Restored Late 2005 and the first three quarters of 2006, the movie industry was in the doldrums. It was hard to find something really worth the $9.50 price at the local Cinema Super Mart. But in the last quarter of 2006 the industry finally started reading its own marketing reports and taking a hint from the box office numbers for the previous seven quarters. Movie attendance was down and, of course it was everybody's fault but the producers'. The box office slump occurred for one reason, movies we're very good, as a rule. Too many movie makers had relied on flawed star power, bad scripts, special effects and length as a replacement for good stories well told. To be honest, as a lover of movies, I stayed home, I watched some of the old ones on TV or DVD, even VHS. I read more books. I wrote a little more, did more business, played golf, almost anything to avoid the movie theater, where I had been disappointed so many times in the spring of '06 that I almost swore off forever. Then we took a chance on Happy Feet. That was fun, the silly environmental hook not withstanding. Then Gotwords Jr. came by for a visit and asked if we had seen The Holiday (Kate Blachett, Cameron Diaz, Jack, Black and Jude Law). We hadn't. He suggested that we ought to go back to the movies. Mrs Gotwords and I went to see the Nancy Meyers film and came away chuckling and agreeing that it was a good film. Ms Diaz, sans the SFX of Charlie's Angels and the like, was actually quite good in her role as a fast lane Hollywood exec' on the rebound. Kate excelled as the jilted English book editor, taking on an ancient Eli Wallach as a humanitarian project in Hollywood. Jack Black was Jack Black, which is a good thing. So we thought we would try one more. Night At The Museum was the choice. Ben Stiller plays the lead in a fast-paced and wholly entertaining film that, while it runs 125 minutes, never lags. Stiller is joined by Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobbs and Carla Gugino. The story puts Larry Daley (Stiller) in a much needed job as a night watchman at the Museum of Natural History in New York. The catch is, and he isn't told up front, that everything the museum comes to life after sundown and returns to stasis at dawn. The ensuing circumstances could have been fodder for some really bad slapstick, but director Shawn Levy didn't fall prey to the temptation and kept the intellect level up while doing to very good visual and dialogue humor. No second act doldrums here, the pacing was excellent and the result was a solid popcorn fest that won't get nominations to anything but offers what we're all after at the movies, entertainment without four letter words and sophomoric humor. We're going to see Dream Girls today, hoping it will live up to the advance billing. I watched Standing In The Shadow of Motown the other night on HD Theater, which was good prep for this venture. I was a rock and roll DJ in the early sixties, when the Motown thing happened. It was an exciting thing. Barry Gordy and the Funk Brothers created some great music in Detroit, which, up to that time was known only for bad winters and American cars. I'll report back tomorrow on the Dream Girls. Meanwhile, given the list of films out and coming out over the next few weeks, Hollywood may be on the road to recovery, at least for now. Posted 31 December 2006 by Michael A. Cox
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