May 1

Several years before he became famous with The Battle of Algiers (1966), Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo made one of the first World War II concentration camp dramas, Kapo, with the American actress Susan Strasberg. Sean Axmaker comments on the Criterion DVD release:

http://www.seanax.com/2010/04/14/gillo-pontecorvos-kapo/

Glenn Kenny is blown away by the films of Frantisek Vlacil from the same period:

http://www.theauteurs.com/notebook/posts/1747

On the other side of the globe, in Japan, Susumu Hani was then launching his short, intense career as a feature director. Here he is interviewed by the excellent website Midnight Eye:

http://www.midnighteye.com/interviews/susumu_hani.shtml

Jason Crane at The Jazz Session conducts another wonderful interview, this time with trumpeter and bass clarinetist Matt Lavelle, who was born a couple of towns away from me in Paterson, New Jersey. The excerpts from Lavelle's recordings are striking:

http://thejazzsession.com/2010/04/15/the-jazz-session-160-matt-lavelle/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Lavelle

I like -- and clearly Crane does too -- the fact that Lavelle has a terrific relationship with jazzmen of an older generation, both musically (for those who are gone) and personally (for some who are still alive). He talks of his visits to "the Planet Ornette" (which made me laugh heartily) and also of his part in helping to resuscitate the career of Giuseppi Logan, a Sixties multi-instrumentalist who had dropped out of sight and was long thought to be dead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppi_Logan 

Lavelle is a regular contributor at the jazz blog Brilliant Corners, where in this post he speculates on how to make a living and keep on playing. I am utterly sympathetic to the dilemma:

By 2002, I had been a dishwasher, a recycling plant guy, worked at Mcdonalds, worked Bodega's, night shifts at a supermarket, been a cashier, a subway sandwich artist, worked at Caldor, worked with disabled people, was a driver, and tried to start my own business as an astrologer and a psychic. Since then I was the shipping receiving manager at Tower records, the Jazz buyer at Tower, worked at Barnes and Noble, sold Trumpets at Sam Ash, and now I wash dogs (and even cats!). Do I want a medal or special recognition? No, but I can look back and say,...DAMN...

http://brilliantcornersabostonjazzblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/jazz-musician-chain-gangmatt-lavelle.html

Also at Brilliant Corners, you can learn more about interviewer (and poet) Jason Crane:

http://brilliantcornersabostonjazzblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/jazz-session-restoration.html

A concert I'm sorry I missed: The New York Philharmonic under Valery Gergiev playing Stravinsky's incredible Oedipus Rex, with Jeremy Irons as the narrator:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/arts/music/30rex.html

This is a score that I discovered as a teen and have adored ever since. Stravinsky himself, questioned about it by Robert Craft, expressed some doubts about the effectiveness of the narration but then added, "The music? I love it, all of it" -- as well he ought to have.

The much-quoted economist Joseph Schumpeter, him of"creative destruction," is one of those thinkers who, like Machiavelli, forces me to concentrate on those aspects of human nature I'd sometimes rather wish away. There is a big new biography by Thomas McCraw:

http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/smiling-and-back-to-work/

If I get too depressed thinking about the "hard-wired" greed of mankind (I'm not actually sure that I agree with McCraw on that point; not all cultures display equal greed motivation), I can always shift my focus to something more charming and encouraging -- such as toy boats!

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=37777

Among notables born on this date are novelists Joseph Heller, Terry Southern, Antal Szerb (Hungary), and Jose de Alencar (Brazil), poet Yannis Ritsos (Greece), essayist Joseph Addison, theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, sculptor Ralph Stackpole, film directors Karel Kachyna, John Woo, and Wes Anderson, jazz singer Shirley Horn, folk singer Judy Collins, talk show host Jack Paar, game show host Art Fleming, and actors Glenn Ford and Dan O'Herlihy. Alex Trebek is so associated with the game show Jeopardy! from 1984 on that it is often forgotten that Art Fleming was the show's original host, from 1964 to 1975 and again in a 1978-1979 revival. I was a huge fan as a kid (and since), and have often thought about trying out for the show; I have such a good memory for minor facts that after a while, my family refused to play Trivial Pursuit with me. Most of the Fleming-era Jeopardy! episodes were "scrubbed" and no longer exist, but there is some footage (naturally) on YouTube: