* 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
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PRO S TY LE
SHOP
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917 S.W. Alder
224-8401
across from the (ialleria
fl
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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°
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PRODUCTIONS'
1st in (82
H appy H olidaysl
Portland Chapter
A. Philip Randolph Institute
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4554 N.E. Union • 284-6017