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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 31, 1981)
* Page 6 Portland Observer, December 31,1961 ENTERTAINMENT HAPPENINGS Getting Ready For The Holidays Special— ENTERTAINMENT Still The Beet Curl In Town A t The Beet Priced I Movie Review Call N o w 2S 4 1897 Ragtime L e g e n d a ry ja z z t r u m p e t e r M ile s D av is w ill be in c o n c e r t on W ednesday. January 13th, 8:00 p .m . at the Civic A udito rium . T ic ke t prices are $9.. $11. and $12.50. Miles Davis Returns ILES D AVIS IS TH E GREATEST trum peter/stylist since the leg M endary Louis A rm strong. Davis’ musical concepts and ground breaking bands changed the course o f postwar jazz several times; changed the face o f both jazz and rock in the late '60s and early ’ 70s with his popularization o f fusion. When Miles Davis stopped performing in the spring o f 1976, rumors flew that the legendary jazz trumpeter would never play again. Once he had been sighted occasionally on the streets o f New York; now he was not seen at all. Like an invalid under self-imposed quarantine, Davis remained hidden away in his Manhattan brownstone for five years, admitting only his most trusted friends. Anguished fans began lingering on his block, staring at his windows, pawing through his garbage for some clue to his mood, and listen ing in vain for the lonely, probing sound o f his trumpet. Then came word o f a series o f operations. Some o f his followers concluded that Miles Davis, em bittered and alone, was dying. Happily, the mourning was premature. When Davis, 55, returned to live performances this summer, and released The Man With the H orn, his first i new recording in six years, he was accorded the kind o f greeting reserved for a demigod. Alm ost im m ediately, the album soared to the top o f the jazz I charts, then became a pop hit as well. Davis had demonstrated once again that as a composer and stylist, he is one o f the few jazz artists capable o f reaching beyond the genre fo r an audience. His 60 recordings, so widely imitated by other musicians, wed emotional sophistication with a rare sim plicity o f form. Miles learned about exacting professional standards from his father. Miles Dewey Davis II, a successful oral surgeon. His interest in music was the legacy o f his mother, Cleota, a piano teacher. Born in Alton, III., Miles grew up on a farm in nearby East St. Louis, where his father raised horses and pedigreed pigs as a hobby. “ M y fa m ily was s tric t,” he recalls. ” 1 couldn’ t fool around. I knew that whatever I did, i f it wasn’ t good, my father was going to strangle me.” When he was 12, Miles received his first instruction on trumpet from one o f his father's patients, Elwood Buchanan. He taught the youngster to play without vibrato and suggested a unique mouth exercise to improve his tech nique. “ He told me to spit rice all the way to school,” Davis remembers. “ So I ’d have a m outhful and spit for a mile and a h a lf.” Before his protracted absence. Miles Davis was both the foundation and the focal point o f the new movement tow ard a fusion o f jazz and rock which has spawned a wealth o f new, young talent. His influence on other musicians was awesome; there’ s not one among the new generation who wouldn’ t immediately acknowledge the debt he owes to Davis. Says Carlos Santana: “ He’ s the last o f the Picassos. The thing about M iles— and i t ’ s been said before— is that he doesn’ t have ‘ this’ or ‘that,’ but what he does have is tremendous sense o f vision and imagination. A lot musicians have a lot o f talent, but they don’ t know how to write songs or put them together. So they become better when they’ re around Miles because they become like a Maserati car, and he s the driver. He’s the best because he knows where to take it, because otherwise the car is just standing there.” For more than three decades, fans and musicians alike have looked to Miles Davis for the major breakthroughs, the changes in style and form. LEGENDARY JAZZ TRUMPETER MILES < DAVIS IN CONCERT R-gMoNoW I The real surprise in the movie ver sion o f E .L . D o c to ro w 's p o p u la r novel o f turn-of-the-century Am eri ca— Ragtim e— is not that director Milos Forman was able to project a coherent n a rra tive fro m such competitive images onto the screen. It is that Blacks, who occupied a large part o f the novel, have made their c o n trib u tio n to that restless period in U .S. h is to ry live again through the character o f Coalhouse W alker, Jr. As played by H ow ard E. Rollins, Jr., Walker comes across as an intelligent, sensitive man who decides to stand up and demand ret ribution when his pride is damaged by racist whites just once too often. H O W A R D RO LLINS JR. W alker is a ragtime piano player who w orks his way th ro u g h de and that his car, cleaned and re meaning beer jo in t jobs and anony paired, be delivered to the fro n t o f mous stints providing musical sound the library steps. tracks fo r silent movies to fin a lly Booker T. Washington is enlisted land a better position as lead pianist by N .Y . C ity Police Commissioner in a ragtime band. He makes good Rheinlander W aldo (portrayed by money in a fancy Black roadhouse James Cagney in his heralded return o f the era and intends to m arry his to the silver screen) to talk W alker sweetheart. Sara, w ho has mean out o f his plan. W ashington fails, while borne him a son and tried, in but not before d e live rin g an e lo her despair at W a lk e r’ s seeming quent plea to W alker not to “ set abandonment, to leave the child in back the cause o f our people.” An the garden o f a wealthy white couple action like yours undoes the work o f (played by M ary Steenburgen— o f hundreds o f other Blacks who only M e lv in and H o w a rd — and James want to work and prosper alongside Olson). whites, he tells W alker. A lth o u g h Walker is taunted by white volun moved by Washington’ s plea, W alk teer firemen on his way back from er stands by his demands. proposing to Sara (taken in with her and he " I ’d like Coalhouse to be seen not son by the sympathetic couple) and just as a te rro ris t, but as a man o f is enraged when they block his p rin c ip le and a c tio n ,” says actor brand new M odel T and demand Rollins in an interview in American an exorbitant S25 “ to ll.” Refusing Film magazine. “ He has exhausted to bow to th e ir racist dem ands. every legal means at his disposal and W alker leaves the car to fin d help is left with no other choice." fro m a policem an, re tu rn s, and Rollins, 31, appeared in Portland fin d s the firem en have shoveled at the film ’s premiere. He starred in horse manure onto the front seat o f the 1978 miniscries K ing, in which his car and damaged its exterior. he played Andrew Young, and por T his re la tiv e ly com m on act trayed Alex Haley's brother George against a Black m an, especially in Roots: The Next Generations. He those who were becoming prosper knows the part o f Coalhouse ous in the boom times o f the early W alker, Jr. is one o f the most sig 1900s, mushrooms in to a vendetta n ific a n t fo r Black actors in many W alker proclaim s against the fire years o f Hollywood films and recog chief and firehouses in general after nizes achieving success is much Sara dies fro m a bludgeoning re more d iffic u lt for Black actors and ceived from a policeman when she actresses. tries to present W alker’ s plight to a visiting politician. " I f you happen to be B lack, Aided by friends, in clu d in g the things arc going to take a bit longer. w hite b ro th e r-in -la w o f the man I ’ ve always heard that as a Black who took in Sara (played by Brad person you have to w ork tw ice as D ourif, who also appeared as Susan hard. I t ’ s true. I t ’ s im p o rta n t fo r S arandon's husband in A tla n tic people to realize that. But, on the C ity), W alker destroys several fire other hand, to steep yourself in that houses around New York in a series kin d o f th in k in g is u ltim a te ly o f fire bombings, and fin a lly holes stiflin g .” up in the J.P. M organ L ib ra ry on Discouraged by the lack o f sub M adison Ave. Named fo r a fa b u stantive roles for Blacks in the film lously wealthy financier o f the per business, a group in C a lifo rn ia is iod, the library houses priceless trea c u rre n tly ca llin g fo r a boycott o f sures, and the police therefore re- Hollywood movies. straih themselves from storming the A lth o u g h th e ir disgust is more lib ra ry to capture W alker, who in than warranted by most studio p ro the meantime, has mined the place. ducts. Ragtime, with its portrayal o f He demands only that the chief o f Blacks as real, sensitive and in te lli the firehouse whose volunteers o f gent people having a great impact fended him be delivered to the l i on U.S. h is to ry , is well w orth the brary—and to W alker's “ justice” — viewer’ s time. HAPPY NEW YEAR tf/icf Best Wishes For The New Year GENEVA'S Lounge & Restaurant Owners: Thomas & Grayce Kennedy - I $25 Cut Rag M0 NOW 9 1 0 __ w ith this a<4 butch caore 1 4 0 ^ ^ E B ro a d w a y 7 P o rtla n d ^ re flo n 9 7 2 1 ^ ^ ^ party w ith M a lb a M o o r«, Sytvaatar In Loa A ngeloa ■ i PRO S TY LE SHOP « I 917 S.W. Alder 224-8401 across from the (ialleria fl ■ ■ I ■ I Proline now offers a SUPER CUT Under these conditions ONLY ♦No appointment ♦First available operator only $000 (present this coupon with visit) featuring Saiundaq. - fatut&uf, 2. t9% 2 Time. 9:00 P.M. UNTIL / $5.00 (4.00 with button) I tfsrdfci: HOUSC OF SOUNDS ACCORDS Must Be 21 - I.D, Required 1 Variety Beauty Salon W E D N E S D A Y JA N U A R Y 13 1982 Civic A u d ito riu m 8 00 P M Robert Boyer - Pres. Willie Hart - V. Pres. Maureen Liniar - Recording Sec. William Young - Sec./Trees. CURL SPECIAL Judy Knawls Boyer Corresponding Sec. 'r!0 T.C«*’- Sì t 4’ 2 T-cKet Ou'i*ts Ste T chef P ate An G : Joe stores a Frank Brown Sarg. in Arms 6° ■ ■ ■ ■I PRODUCTIONS' 1st in (82 H appy H olidaysl Portland Chapter A. Philip Randolph Institute ■ ■ ■ ■ 1 4554 N.E. Union • 284-6017
