dancing in the street

It's now twenty years since Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing" was released. I was lucky enough to see it again at the BFI a couple of weeks ago. It's got some great music.

How are these for opening titles which blow you out of your seat?



Reckon it's a sample of this JB song:

and finally...

While I'm on the subject of New York (and I promise to move on soon), I can't really pass up the opportunity to include a musical offering by these two grouchy old New Yorkers. This comes from their first album Can't Buy A Thrill, before Donald Fagen took over lead vocal duties. David Palmer gets the gig here.

This is a great clip I think. Enjoy...

follow the yellow umbrella

Join me if you will for a whistle-stop tour of some groovy old music venues.

(Er, they're in New York, in case you were wondering...)

Day 1: Midtown Manhattan, Broadway, Fifth Avenue, etc etc

Radio City Music Hall

Perversely, like many of the skyscrapers in Manhattan, the Radio City Music Hall sprung up in the Depression Era and opened in 1932. Home to musicals, films, and in latter years, the Grammy and Tony Awards, the lavish annual Christmas spectacular, which has run throughout its history, is a Nativity re-enactment using real animals: sheep, donkeys, even camels. For the duration of the show's run, they're housed in special living quarters behind the stage and can apparently be spotted being given a Christmas Day constitutional around Midtown Manhattan. The theatre has a spectacular Art Deco interior and its "Mighty Wurlitzer" pipe organ is the largest pipe organ built for a movie theatre.

Day 2: Greenwich Village,
a.k.a. "The Village" (1960s vintage),
now West Village.

Cafe Wha?

One of a number of establishments now on the tourist trail by virtue of having hosted early performances by one Robert Zimmerman. The establishment's own website lists Dylan as only one in a string of famous names who've popped in over the years--"Allen Ginsberg regularly sipped his cocktails here. The Café Wha? was the original stomping ground for prodigies Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. Bruce Springsteen, Peter, Paul & Mary, Kool and the Gang, as well as comedians, Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby..."--but a character called David Barry (??) has some interesting reminiscences.

Day 3: Walking tour of Harlem.

The Apollo Theatre

Originally opened in 1915, in 1934 the Apollo was given over exclusively to Afro-American performers as an opportunity to appear in the weekly "amateur nights" and, if well received, tour the U.S., make a name for themselves nationally, then return to the Apollo as a headlining act in their own right. Ella Fitzgerald was one of the earliest artists to do this, ditto Bessie Smith in 1935, and in 1959 James Brown, who later used the venue for his famous 1963 live album. So close was Brown's relationship with the theatre that when he died in 2006 he lay in state there, typically, "in a blue suit, white gloves and silver shoes." Harlemites queued up round the block to pay their last respects.

and finally, also in Harlem...

Minton's Playhouse

Founded in 1938 and frequented by early jazzers Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller and Earl Hines, it later played a huge part in the development of bebop. Dizzy Gillespie was a main mover, as was Thelonious Monk and, of course, Charlie Parker.

This is what they came up with...

subway sect

Few stones left unturned on the New York tourist trail at the weekend, but I didn't in the end get to go to any gigs during my visit. I did, though, hear a great soul voice at one of the 14th Street subway stations on Saturday afternoon. It turned out to be a member of a band called Acapella Soul, singing and playing a keyboard.

I know the name because I was one of the six or seven onlookers during the five or so minutes between trains who stumped up $10 for one of his (their) CDs. For me, buying an album on the strength of a single hearing is invariably a let-down (spontaneity and atmosphere of live performance lost etc etc), but I've just got home with this one and it's actually quite good.

They're obviously regulars around the Manhattan subway network--they pop up a few times on YouTube, often shamelessly breaking off mid-song (as here) to flog a few CDs...

there's a boat that's leaving soon for new york...

...well it's actually Virgin Atlantic Flight VS001, but I'll be on it.

Off the top of my head, a few songs about or from the City Which Never Sleeps...

• Rhapsody In Blue: George Gershwin (see below)
• Take The "A" Train: Duke Ellington & Ella Fitzgerald
• Walk On The Wild Side: Lou Reed
• Life During Wartime: Talking Heads
• Hanging On The Telephone: Blondie
• 12:51: The Strokes
• Spanish Harlem: Aretha Franklin
• Say It Loud, I'm Black And I'm Proud: James Brown
• Fight The Power: Public Enemy
• New Amsterdam: Elvis Costello
• American Tune: Paul Simon
• Living It Up: Rickie Lee Jones
• New York State Of Mind: Billy Joel
• Hey Manhattan: Prefab Sprout

See you on East 17th Street...