Podcasts about Lotte Lenya

Avui sentirem: "Happy end" (tres can

Avui sentirem: "L'

Avui sentirem: "Das Berliner Requiem"; "Der Lindberghflug" ("El vol de Lindbergh sobre l'oce

Avui sentirem: "Recordare", op. 11 (fragment); Concert per a viol

Avui sentirem: Simfonia n

What would you do? What will you do? In the election run-up, Peter & Nathan are talking about musicals that deal with political unrest and social change (don't worry, it's still fun!). We begin with the 1966 Broadway classic Cabaret, one of the darkest, kinkiest, and most-enduring musicals of all time.   We talk about: – Willkommen / Two Ladies / The Money Song: The "decadence" depicted by the emcee and the performers of the Kit Kat Klub (KKK, anyone?) in 1930s Berlin on the eve of Nazism. Does Cabaret hold this very queer decadence as responsible for the rise of fascism, or is there something deeper at work? – Married / So What / What Would You Do?   Bob Fosse's 1972 film version of Cabaret eliminates most of the traditional musical theatre story exemplified in the romance between Fraulein Schneider & Herr Schultz. But these two characters—and the songs that Kander & Ebb wrote for them—carry much of the show's political weight – and its emotional heart. Is Fraulein Schneider secretly Cabaret's protagonist? – Don't Tell Mama & Cabaret:  We talk about one of Cabaret's most well-known characters, Sally Bowles. What does she mean when she sings that "life is a cabaret?" – Tomorrow Belongs to Me:  The incredible music of Cabaret – hymns, patriotic anthems, folk songs and music hall ditties – raises provocative questions about entertainment, pleasure, emotional release, and the rise of demonic ideologies. Religion traffics in some of the same territory. Is good music morally neutral... or not?   You'll hear Joel Grey, Jill Haworth, Lotte Lenya, Jack Gilford and the cast of the 1966 Original Broadway Cast – as well as Mark Lambert on the 1972 film soundtrack singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me”.

durée : 00:15:35 - Disques de légende du jeudi 06 juin 2024 - Lotte Lenya la mémoire vivante de Kurt Weill

Heino [00:23] "Heute Singen Wir Mit Heino/Wißt Ihr Was? Heute Hat's Geschneit" Sing Mit Heino Folge 9 und 10 Winterzeit - Kinderzeit - Weihnachtzeit Hör Zu 1 C 066-45 322 1979 Sing along with Heino! And evidently, the old Deustschekrooner is still alive. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the German phenomenon that is Heino, of course, there's a documentary (https://youtu.be/M-39Unh0X2E?si=WlId8Vtympf3n2ob). The Four Roses Society [03:03] "Hand Me Down My Walkin' Cane/Deep in the Heart of Texas" Sing with the Four Roses Society Four Roses K8OP-6582 / 3 Well all right then. During my brief career as a liquor store clerk (one summer during college), Four Roses bourbon was not the esteemed brand it is today. It was easily found on the bottom shelf of the whiskey section. Kitty Wells [05:49] "Country Girl" Singing'em Country Decca DL 75221 1970 One of the contenders to the title of Queen of Country Music reminiscing at the ripe old age of 51. Elvis Presley [08:24] "Santa Bring My Baby Back (to Me)" Sings Christmas Songs - Elvis' Christmas Album RCA Victor LPM-1951 1957 (1964 reissue) An extremely well-worn seasonal classic. I'm surprised it sounds as good as it does, considering the state of the record surface. Odetta [12:45] "Don't Think Twice, It's Allright" Odetta Sings Dylan RCA Victor LSP-3324 An excellent rendition of this transitional Dylan single. To my mind, it is almost as good as the jangling toe-tapper version by Waylon Jennings (https://youtu.be/2GTl6-BJhvc?si=Ofi9FdbmGvJyqCKr). Bob McGrath with the Jimmy Joyce Singers [18:30] "Black and White" Sings for All the Boys and Girls Disneyland 1357 1974 Indeed, that Bob from Sesame Street. Helped out here by some of the Wrecking Crew including Tommy Tedesco and Earl Palmer. Inspired by the Three Dog Night version of this song (https://youtu.be/PEy6968xO-I?si=hNq9IL8tnQ9RCPDd), the song was originally recorded by Pete Seger in 1956 and with lyrics by David I. Arkin, father of Alan Arkin no less. Nat King Cole [22:21] "Autumn Leaves" Sings for Two in Love Capitol Records DT 420 1963 (original release 1953) This monophonic classic album is reinvigorated in beautiful Duophonic sound! Bonnie Prince Billy [25:03] "Ohio River Boat Song" Sings Greatest Palace Music Drag City DC252 / Palace Records PR31 A collection of Nashville-ified reimaginings Will Oldham's earlier work, with a number of Nashville greats, including Hargus "Pig" Robbins. The thing I love about seeing Will Oldham perform live in whatever configuration is that he seemingly never plays a song the same way twice. This pass at the debut single from Palace Music (https://youtu.be/jYVTkUTHENg?si=Iz69YWTah4Kmc4uO) exemplifies that spirit. Wayne Newton [30:00] "More (Theme from 'Mondo Cane')" Sings Hit Songs Capitol Records T 2130 1964 Despite rumblings in Memphis and New Orleans and even Liverpool by this point, the big band sound of the Greatest Generation continues to thrive in popular music. John McCormack [32:37] "The Foggy Dew" Sings Irish Songs Pickwick CAS-407 1975 Evidently, stereo, in this case, means slapping some reverb on the left channel. Despite being partially the result of Irish immigration, I am not sentimental, which is why I chose the shortest track for this collection. Lotte Lehman [34:41] "Ich Liebe Dich (Beethoven)" Sings Lieder, Vol. 1 Camden CAL-378 Pretty sure I grabbed this from the dollar bin because in my haste I thought it was Lotte Lenya. Colin Meloy [37:21] "Bandit Queen" Sings Live! Jealous Butcher Records JB-065 2008 From a solo tour Colin Meloy made in 2006, recorded at various venues, including this one that I happened to attend at the Great American Music Hall. This live album does do one of those things that drives me nuts, which is to put the stage banter for the upcoming song before the track break. Tom Jones [43:05] "In Dreams" Sings She's a Lady Parrot XPAS 71046 1971 Candy colored clown! (https://youtu.be/R7zukRlfzh8?si=110VDkQtE8m4jD52) Nat "King" Cole [46:30] "Blue Gardenia" Ballads of the Day Capitol Records DT 680 1960 (original release 1956) As performed in Fritz Lang's classic noir The Blue Gardenia (https://youtu.be/3bxSn2UMBMY?si=vKu34lBUOQstY3f4). Harry Belafonte [49:29] "A Fool For You" Sings the Blues RCA Victor LSP-1972 1958 A collection of blues standards, including this Ray Charles number. Ella Fitzgerald [53:09] "'S Wonderful" Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book (Volume Two) Verve Records MG V-4025 1959 Helped out here by Nelson Riddle. An excellent cover painting by Bernard Buffet is featured on this album. Music behind the DJ: "Games People Play (https://youtu.be/hIBlCac8_wk?si=KjX6MUoC_zQ0qftn)" by Arthur Greenslade and his Orchesta

Celebrating 18 years of the podcast. Music includes: Confirmation, Go Where I Send Thee, Alabama Song, I'm Beginning to See the Light, Caravan, The Great Gate At Kiev, Worried Man Blues and Truckin' My Blues Away. Performers include: The Golden Gate Quartet, The Carter Family, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Arturo Toscanini, Duke Ellington and Lotte Lenya. 

Character Spotlight: Rosa Klebb played by Lotte Lenya in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE! In a continuation of our Character Spotlight series of episodes, Dan and Tom look at the evil character Rosa Klebb in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.  She may be small in stature, but she knows how to take control of almost any situation. Lotte Lenya gives an amazing performance bringing this character from the Ian Fleming novel to the big screen. Here we examine Rosa Klebb's character in each scene and how Lotte Lenya just nails this character with her acting prowess.  Her facial expressions let us into her emotional state, often without saying a word. She's just brilliant. Quick, who would you have hired that could have been better?  We can't think of another actress for this role. So, take a listen – Does Rosa Klebb deserve to have a Character Spotlight episode?  Let us know your thoughts, ideas for future episodes, and what you thought of this episode by dropping us a note at info@spymovienavigator.com.  The more we hear from you, the better the show will be! You can check out all of our podcast episodes on your favorite podcast app or our website. Our channel name is CRACKING THE CODE OF SPY MOVIES.   Check out our YouTube channel as well. Webpage:  https://bit.ly/3O6rZNn

Avec Beck, Doors, Tom Waits et Dave Matthews Band. Sur son album "Mutations" en 1998, le groupe Beck publie "Bottle of Blues". "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)" des Doors, Jim Morrison n'est pas l'auteur du titre, c'est Bertold Brecht qui avait écrit ce morceau en allemand en 1925, mis en musique par Kurt Weill pour le spectacle "Le Petit Mahagonny" en 1927, puis réutilisée dans l'opéra "Grandeur et Décadence" de la ville de Mahagonny en 1930 chanté par Lotte Lenya, épouse de Kurt Weill. 1975, Tom Waits sort un album ambitieux "Nighthawks at the Diner", il y décrit l'ambiance des diners américains au creux de la nuit. Et pour servir dans un bar, il faut un barman ou une barwoman, titre du Dave Matthews Band "Bartender" en 2002. --- Du lundi au vendredi, Fanny Gillard et Laurent Rieppi vous dévoilent l'univers rock, au travers de thèmes comme ceux de l'éducation, des rockers en prison, les objets de la culture rock, les groupes familiaux et leurs déboires, et bien d'autres, chaque matin dans Coffee on the Rocks à 6h30 et rediffusion à 13h30 dans Lunch Around The Clock. Merci pour votre écoute Pour écouter Classic 21 à tout moment : www.rtbf.be/classic21 Retrouvez tous les contenus de la RTBF sur notre plateforme Auvio.be Et si vous avez apprécié ce podcast, n'hésitez pas à nous donner des étoiles ou des commentaires, cela nous aide à le faire connaître plus largement.

Filmkritikern Lars Lönroth berättar om Tolvskillingsoperans premiär 1928 i Berlin och några försök att filmatisera den, först 1931 i regi av G.W. Pabst. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. Brecht inledde process då filmbolaget ville ändra i hans manus. Tidigt sextiotal blev den åter film av Wolfgang Staudte, en film Lars Lönroth inte uppskattar.Vi hör också Brecht sjunga och Sammy Davis Jr och Lotte Lenya.Ur Kulturradion Brecht 100 år!!! I filmens svekfulla värld från 1998.

Heute vor 125 Jahren wurde in Wien die Schauspielerin und Brecht/Weill-Interpretin Lotte Lenya geboren.

巴别塔词典首先祝大家中秋国庆假期快乐，在假期开始的第一天也奉上我们百期前的特别节目。这次没有统一主题，而是就最近几周里的个别新闻事件进行了简单的分析和锐评。对于想要参加我们百期连麦的听众，欢迎联系下方听友群微信号，具体时间通知我们在节后会发布。主持人：鬼王橙、姚天宜、竹溪00:01:39——本期“词典策划”感谢：下一期已经在剪辑了吧（专属配乐：Grinding All My Life，音乐人：Nipsey Hussle）00:02:31——超级小桀事件00:26:52——Lisa疯马秀事件00:37:53——李佳琦事件00:56:58——价值事件00:50:41——饥渴陷阱的升级01:17:53——百期预告事件结尾音乐：Barbara Song，音乐人：Lotte Lenya若对我们的节目感兴趣，可以在“巴别塔词典编辑部”微信群（添加微信号playtimeguy）、即刻“巴别塔词典播客组”以及新浪微博“@巴别塔词典”联系我们！我们的爱发电也开通啦！欢迎感兴趣的听众在我们的爱发电站点提供支持！在此特别感谢鸣谢我们的“词典恩人”：荔枝、小马、无限衍义、溪主席的好战士、lfkdsk、爱发电用户_N97b、面包棍棍、爱发电用户_W9X8、Antarcticite、sheldor、争和zhenghe、张大喵MIN、Lorraine_zz、荔枝哦、fa2r。

For the last episode of 2022, I begin a series of episodes which was one of the reasons I began Countermelody in the fall of 2019: a celebration of great singing from great singers in the late years of their lives and careers. In the early years of the recording industry, a long-retired artist such as Adelina Patti would consent to leave recorded documents of their voices for future generations to experience. Oftentimes a cherished artist will make a guest cameo appearance at an important event (think of Leontyne Price coming out of retirement at age 74 and singing “God Bless America” at the September 30, 2001 memorial concert at Carnegie Hall). Other times, artists like Johnny Mathis, Regina Resnik, or Helen Donath, simply never retire, but continue to bestow their artistry upon us decade after decade. Sometimes, as is the case of Lotte Lenya, a performer finds herself later in her life on a mission which demands that she resume performing, in Lenya's case, as a means of securing the musical legacy of her late husband Kurt Weill. There is also, in the case of someone like Alberta Hunter or Elisabeth Welch, the thrill of a jazz or pop artist at the end of her life experiencing a career resurgence at the end of a long life. In the classical world, artists late in their lives can still give extraordinary performances of art song, which makes fewer demands on their voices than taxing operatic roles, while allowing full display of their deepened artistry and experience. There are also operatic roles specifically designed for the more mature artist: roles like Schigolch in Lulu, or the Countess in Pique-Dame, among many others, which are sampled here in performances by Hans Hotter and Rita Gorr, respectively. There are also those rare and exceptional artists who are able to perform movingly even into their nineties, like the Ukrainian bass Mark Reizen, or the verismo soprano Magda Olivero; or after having suffered catastrophic physical setbacks, like the German tenor Karl Erb, the African American baritone Robert McFerrin, or the pop icon Joni Mitchell. These artists (along with many others) and this topic seems deeply appropriate as 2022 draws to a close and we look forward to the inevitable challenges, the blank slate, the looming horizon, of the year to come. Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel's lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody's core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody's Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.

Mac the Knife (literalmente Mac el del cuchillo), también conocida como Moritat fue compuesta por Kurt Weill con letra original de Bertold Brecht y en inglés de Marc Blitzstein. Desde una versión de 1928 en alemán, pasando por la de Lotte Lenya (esposa del autor), la inmortal de Satchmo; las trompetas de Dorham, Terry y Sandoval; a Grapelli; Rollins, Stanley Clarke pasamos a Pedro Navaja con el mismo tema y rematamos con Ole' Blue Eyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Soundtracket fra tv-serien "Babylon Berlin" er omdrejningspunktet i denne Natsværmer, der tager nattoget til Berlin. Det gamle Europa leder an, men efterlader også plads til det nye. Tom Tykwer, Brahms, Lotte Lenya, Bach, Hildegard Knef, Nils Frahm og Hildegard von Bingen klinger igennem tusmørke landskaber sammen med andre landsmænd og kvinder. Vært: Minna Grooss. www.dr.dk/p2

Revisamos el musical de Kander & Ebb “CABARET”, todo un clásico, que nos muestra con una frialdad increíble, el ascenso del nazismo en la Alemania de los años 30, con un maestro de ceremonias de un cutre cabaret de Berlín, riéndose de todo y dando la espalda a lo que bullía en el ambiente. La versión que hemos elegido es una mezcla de varias producciones, para poder acercar al máximo este clásico del musical americano en las voces de Joel Grey, Jonathan Pryce, Judi Dench, Maria Friedman, Asier Etxeandía, Liza Minnelli, Alan Cumming, Lotte Lenya y muchos otros y ya sin más… Welcome to Berlín…… 00h 00’00” Tiller girls 00h 01’40” Presentación 00h 02’24” Cabecera 00h 03’35” Introducción 00h 04’08” Wilkommen – Jonathan Pryce 00h 09’59” So what? – Judi Dench 00h 13’34” Don’t tell mama – Maria Friedman 00h 18’36” Telephone dance – Gregg Edelman 00h 23’27” La más fabulosa mujer – Natalia Millán & Manuel Bandera 00h 26’53” Two ladies – Joel Grey, Mary Ehara & Rita O’Connor 00h 29’40” It couldn’t please me more – Jack Gilford & Lotte Lenya 00h 33’13” Tomorrow belongs to me – John Mark Ainsley 00h 35’32” Why should I wake up? – Gregg Edelman 00h 39’08” Don’t go, Sally – Gregg Edelman & Maria Friedman 00h 43’24” Sitting pretty – Money – Jonathan Pryce 00h 50’24” Married – Fred Ebb & Judi Dench 00h 53’25” Meeskite – Fred Ebb & Maria Friedman 00h 58’49” Tomorrow belongs to me (Reprise) – Caroline O’Connor 01h 01’00” Entr’acte 01h 06’02” Kick line 01h 09’25” Married (Reprise) – Ron Rifkin & Marie Louise Wilson 01h 10’54” If you could see her with my eyes – Alan Cumming 01h 14’49” What would you do? – Lotte Lenya 01h 18’44” ¿Y a mi qué? – Asier Etxeandía 01h 22’06” Cabaret – Jill Haworth 01h 27’55” Finale ultimo – Atsier Etxeandía & Manuel Bandera 01h 31’53” Anécdotas y curiosidades 01h 34’31” Good time Charlie – Fred Ebb 01h 37’48” It’all blow over – Fred Ebb 01h 41’50” Roommates – Fred Ebb & John Kander 01h 51’50” Money – Liza Minnelli & Joel Grey 01h 55’26” Mein herr – Liza Minnelli 01h 59’58” Maybe this time – Liza Minnelli 02h 04’15” Fruit shop dance

CABARET COMPOSER: John Kander LYRICIST: Fred Ebb BOOK: Joe Masteroff SOURCE: Christopher Isherwood's The Berlin Stories (1945) DIRECTOR: Hal Prince CHOREOGRAPHER: Ron Field PRINCIPLE CAST: Bert Convy (Cliff), Joel Grey (Emcee), Jill Hayworth (Sally). Lotte Lenya (Schneider) OPENING DATE: Nov 20, 1966 CLOSING DATE: Sep 06, 1969 PERFORMANCES: 1,165 SYNOPSIS: American Clifford Bradshaw takes up residence in pre-war Berlin. While there he becomes enamored with cabaret singer Sally Bowles, and her divine decadence. As the Nazi's rise to power, Cliff wonders if he must flee Germany or take a stand against the Third Reich. Harold Prince's staging of Cabaret took audiences by surprise as it tossed aside all manner of theatrical conventions, reflecting the audience back at itself through a large mirror and challenging them with diegetic and nondiegetic song and dance routines. Taboo subject matter including queerness, sex, antisemitism, abortion, and the Holocaust came to the forefront of a Broadway musical for the first time. Bruce Kimmel explores the impact of the various elements that made Cabaret a seismic event. From the authentic performances of Lotte Lenya and Jill Haworth to the Weimar infused score of John Kander and Fred Ebb, as well as the star-making turn of Joel Grey, each element of this groundbreaking musical is explored to underline its collective power. Bruce Kimmel is a legendary Grammy-nominated producer of theatre music on CD, having produced over 180 albums, including Broadway and off-Broadway cast albums, singers, and concept recordings. He is also an award-winning songwriter and the author of twenty-one books. He wrote, directed, and starred in the cult movie hit, The First Nudie Musical, and co-created the story for the hit film, The Faculty, directed by Robert Rodriguez. As an actor, Mr. Kimmel guest-starred on most of the long-running television shows of the 1970s. SOURCES Cabaret: The Illustrated Book and Lyrics by Joe Masteroff, published by Newmarket Press (1999) Cabaret, Original Broadway Cast Recording. Columbia Masterworks (1966) Cabaret, starring Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli, directed by Bob Fosse. Allied Artists Pictures (1972) The Making Of Cabaret by Keith Garebian, published by Oxford University Press (2011) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode one hundred and forty-eight of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Light My Fire" by the Doors, the history of cool jazz, and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "My Friend Jack" by the Smoke. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources As usual, I've put together a Mixcloud mix containing all the music excerpted in this episode and the shorter spoken-word tracks. Information on Dick Bock, World Pacific, and Ravi Shankar came from Indian Sun: The Life and Music of Ravi Shankar by Oliver Craske. Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, and Robby Krieger have all released autobiographies. Densmore's is out of print, but I referred to Manzarek's and Krieger's here. Of the two Krieger's is vastly more reliable. I also used Mick Wall's book on the Doors and Stephen Davis' biography of Jim Morrison. Information about Elektra Records came from Follow the Music by Jac Holzman and Gavan Daws, which is available as a free PDF download on Elektra's website. Biographical information on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi comes from this book, written by one of his followers. The Doors' complete studio albums can be bought as MP3s for £14. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript There are two big problems that arise for anyone trying to get an accurate picture of history, and which have certainly arisen for me during the course of this podcast -- things which make sources unreliable enough that you feel you have to caveat everything you say on a subject. One of those is hagiography, and the converse desire to tear heroes down. No matter what one wants to say on, say, the subjects of Jesus or Mohammed or Joseph Smith, the only sources we have for their lives are written either by people who want to present them as unblemished paragons of virtue, or by people who want to destroy that portrayal -- we know that any source is written by someone with a bias, and it might be a bias we agree with, but it's still a bias. The other, related, problem, is deliberate disinformation. This comes up especially for people dealing with military history -- during conflicts, governments obviously don't want their opponents to know when their attacks have caused damage, or to know what their own plans are, and after a war has concluded the belligerent parties want to cover up their own mistakes and war crimes. We're sadly seeing that at the moment in the situation in Ukraine -- depending on one's media diet, one could get radically different ideas of what is actually going on in that terrible conflict. But it happens all the time, in all wars, and on all sides. Take the Vietnam War. While the US was involved on the side of the South Vietnamese government from the start of that conflict, it was in a very minor way, mostly just providing supplies and training. Most historians look at the real start of US involvement in that war as having been in August 1964. President Johnson had been wanting, since assuming the Presidency in November 1963 after the death of John F Kennedy, to get further into the war, but had needed an excuse to do so. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident provided him with that excuse. On August the second, a fleet of US warships entered into what the North Vietnamese considered their territorial waters -- they used a different distance from shore to mark their territorial waters than most other countries used, and one which wasn't generally accepted, but which they considered important. Because of this, some North Vietnamese ships started following the American ones. The American ships, who thought they weren't doing anything wrong, set off what they considered to be warning shots, and the North Vietnamese ships fired back, which to the American ships was considered them attacking. Some fire was exchanged, but not much happened. Two days later, the American ships believed they were getting attacked again, and spent several hours firing at what they believed were North Vietnamese submarines. It was later revealed that this was just the American sonar systems playing up, and that they were almost certainly firing at nothing at all, and some even suspected that at the time -- President Johnson apparently told other people in confidence that in his opinion they'd been firing at stray dolphins. But that second "attack", however flimsy the evidence, was enough that Johnson could tell Congress and the nation that an American fleet had been attacked by the North Vietnamese, and use that as justification to get Congress to authorise him sending huge numbers of troops to Vietnam, and getting America thoroughly embroiled in a war that would cost innumerable lives and billions of dollars for what turned out to be no benefit at all to anyone. The commander of the US fleet involved in the Gulf of Tonkin operation was then-Captain, later Rear Admiral, Steve Morrison: [Excerpt: The Doors, "The End"] We've talked a bit in this podcast previously about the development of jazz in the forties, fifties, and early sixties -- there was a lot of back and forth influence in those days between jazz, blues, R&B, country, and rock and roll, far more than one might imagine looking at the popular histories of these genres, and so we've looked at swing, bebop, and modal jazz before now. But one style of music we haven't touched on is the type that was arguably the most popular and influential style of jazz in the fifties, even though we've mentioned several of the people involved in it. We've never yet had a proper look at Cool Jazz. Cool Jazz, as its name suggests, is a style of music that was more laid back than the more frenetic bebop or hard-edged modal jazz. It was a style that sounded sophisticated, that sounded relaxed, that prized melody and melodic invention over super-fast technical wizardry, and that produced much of what we now think of when we think of "jazz" as a popular style of music. The records of Dave Brubeck, for example, arguably the most popular fifties jazz musician, are very much in the "cool jazz" mode: [Excerpt: The Dave Brubeck Quartet, "Take Five"] And we have mentioned on several occasions the Modern Jazz Quartet, who were cited as influences by everyone from Ray Charles to the Kinks to the Modern Folk Quartet: [Excerpt: The Modern Jazz Quartet, "Regret?"] We have also occasionally mentioned people like Mose Allison, who occasionally worked in the Cool Jazz mode. But we've never really looked at it as a unified thing. Cool Jazz, like several of the other developments in jazz we've looked at, owes its existence to the work of the trumpeter Miles Davis, who was one of the early greats of bop and who later pioneered modal jazz. In 1948, in between his bop and modal periods, Davis put together a short-lived nine-piece group, the Miles Davis Nonette, who performed together for a couple of weeks in late 1948, and who recorded three sessions in 1949 and 1950, but who otherwise didn't perform much. Each of those sessions had a slightly different lineup, but key people involved in the recordings were Davis himself, arranger Gil Evans, piano player John Lewis, who would later go on to become the leader of the Modern Jazz Quartet, and baritone sax player Gerry Mulligan. Mulligan and Evans, and the group's alto player Lee Konitz, had all been working for the big band Claude Thornhill and his Orchestra, a band which along with the conventional swing instruments also had a French horn player and a tuba player, and which had recorded soft, mellow, relaxing music: [Excerpt: Claude Thornhill and his Orchestra, "To Each His Own"] The Davis Nonette also included French horn and tuba, and was explicitly modelled on Thornhill's style, but in a stripped-down version. They used the style of playing that Thornhill preferred, with no vibrato, and with his emphasis on unison playing, with different instruments doubling each other playing the melody, rather than call-and response riffing: [Excerpt: The Miles Davis Nonette, "Venus De Milo"] Those recordings were released as singles in 1949 and 1950, and were later reissued in 1957 as an album titled "Birth of the Cool", by which point Cool Jazz had become an established style, though Davis himself had long since moved on in other musical directions. After the Birth of the Cool sessions, Gerry Mulligan had recorded an album as a bandleader himself, and then had moved to the West Coast, where he'd started writing arrangements for Stan Kenton, one of the more progressive big band leaders of the period: [Excerpt: Stan Kenton, "Young Blood"] While working for Kenton, Mulligan had started playing dates at a club called the Haig, where the headliner was the vibraphone player Red Norvo. While Norvo had started out as a big-band musician, playing with people like Benny Goodman, he had recently started working in a trio, with just a guitarist, initially Tal Farlowe, and bass player, initially Charles Mingus: [Excerpt: Red Norvo, "This Can't Be Love"] By 1952 Mingus had left Norvo's group, but they were still using the trio format, and that meant there was no piano at the venue, which meant that Mulligan had to form a band that didn't rely on the chordal structures that a piano would provide -- the idea of a group with a rhythm section that *didn't* have a piano was quite an innovation in jazz at this time, and freeing themselves from that standard instrument ended up opening up extra possibilities. His group consisted of himself on saxophone, Chet Baker on trumpet, Bob Whitlock on bass and Chico Hamilton on drums. They made music in much the same loose, casual, style as the recordings Mulligan had made with Davis, but in a much smaller group with the emphasis being on the interplay between Mulligan and Baker. And this group were the first group to record on a new label, Pacific Jazz, founded by Dick Bock. Bock had served in the Navy during World War II, and had come back from the South Pacific with two tastes -- a taste for hashish, and for music that was outside the conventional American pop mould. Bock *loved* the Mulligan Quartet, and in partnership with his friend Roy Harte, a notable jazz drummer, he raised three hundred and fifty dollars to record the first album by Mulligan's new group: [Excerpt: Gerry Mulligan Quartet, "Aren't You Glad You're You?"] Pacific Jazz, the label Bock and Harte founded, soon became *the* dominant label for Cool Jazz, which also became known as the West Coast Sound.  The early releases on the label were almost entirely by the Mulligan Quartet, released either under Mulligan's name, as by Chet Baker, or as "Lee Konitz and the Gerry Mulligan Quartet" when Mulligan's old bandmate Konitz joined them. These records became big hits, at least in the world of jazz. But both Mulligan and Baker were heroin addicts, and in 1953 Mulligan got arrested and spent six months in prison. And while he was there, Chet Baker made some recordings in his own right and became a bona fide star. Not only was Baker a great jazz trumpet player, he was also very good looking, and it turned out he could sing too. The Mulligan group had made the song "My Funny Valentine" one of the highlights of its live shows, with Baker taking a trumpet solo: [Excerpt: Gerry Mulligan Quartet, "My Funny Valentine"] But when Baker recorded a vocal version, for his album Chet Baker Sings, it made Baker famous: [Excerpt: Chet Baker, "My Funny Valentine"] When Mulligan got out of prison, he wanted to rehire Baker, but Baker was now topping the popularity polls in all the jazz magazines, and was the biggest breakout jazz star of the early fifties. But Mulligan formed a new group, and this just meant that Pacific Jazz had *two* of the biggest acts in jazz on its books now, rather than just one. But while Bock loved jazz, he was also fascinated by other kinds of music, and while he was in New York at the beginning of 1956 he was invited by his friend George Avakian, a producer who had worked with Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, and others, to come and see a performance by an Indian musician he was working with. Avakian was just about to produce Ravi Shankar's first American album, The Sounds of India, for Columbia Records. But Columbia didn't think that there was much of a market for Shankar's music -- they were putting it out as a speciality release rather than something that would appeal to the general public -- and so they were happy for Bock to sign Shankar to his own label. Bock renamed the company World Pacific, to signify that it was now going to be putting out music from all over the world, not just jazz, though he kept the Pacific Jazz label for its jazz releases, and he produced Shankar's next album,  India's Master Musician: [Excerpt: Ravi Shankar, "Raga Charu Keshi"] Most of Shankar's recordings for the next decade would be produced by Bock, and Bock would also try to find ways to combine Shankar's music with jazz, though Shankar tried to keep a distinction between the two. But for example on Shankar's next album for World Pacific, Improvisations and Theme from Pather Panchali, he was joined by a group of West Coast jazz musicians including Bud Shank (who we'll hear about again in a future episode) on flute: [Excerpt: Ravi Shankar, "Improvisation on the Theme From Pather Panchali"] But World Pacific weren't just putting out music. They also put out spoken-word records. Some of those were things that would appeal to their jazz audience, like the comedy of Lord Buckley: [Excerpt: Lord Buckley, "Willy the Shake"] But they also put out spoken-word albums that appealed to Bock's interest in spirituality and philosophy, like an album by Gerald Heard. Heard had previously written the liner notes for Chet Baker Sings!, but as well as being a jazz fan Heard was very connected in the world of the arts -- he was a very close friend with Aldous Huxley -- and was also interested in various forms of non-Western spirituality. He practiced yoga, and was also fascinated by Buddhism, Vedanta, and Taoism: [Excerpt: Gerald Heard, "Paraphrased from the Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu"] We've come across Heard before, in passing, in the episode on "Tomorrow Never Knows", when Ralph Mentzner said of his experiments with Timothy Leary and Ram Dass "At the suggestion of Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard we began using the Bardo Thödol ( Tibetan Book of the Dead) as a guide to psychedelic sessions" -- Heard was friends with both Huxley and Humphrey Osmond, and in fact had been invited by them to take part in the mescaline trip that Huxley wrote about in his book The Doors of Perception, the book that popularised psychedelic drug use, though Heard was unable to attend at that time. Heard was a huge influence on the early psychedelic movement -- though he always advised Leary and his associates not to be so public with their advocacy, and just to keep it to a small enlightened circle rather than risk the wrath of the establishment -- and he's cited by almost everyone in Leary's circle as having been the person who, more than anything else, inspired them to investigate both psychedelic drugs and mysticism. He's the person who connected Bill W. of Alcoholics Anonymous with Osmond and got him advocating LSD use. It was Heard's books that made Huston Smith, the great scholar of comparative religions and associate of Leary, interested in mysticism and religions outside his own Christianity, and Heard was one of the people who gave Leary advice during his early experiments. So it's not surprising that Bock also became interested in Leary's ideas before they became mainstream. Indeed, in 1964 he got Shankar to do the music for a short film based on The Psychedelic Experience, which Shankar did as a favour for his friend even though Shankar didn't approve of drug use. The film won an award in 1965, but quickly disappeared from circulation as its ideas were too controversial: [Excerpt: The Psychedelic Experience (film)] And Heard introduced Bock to other ideas around philosophy and non-Western religions. In particular, Bock became an advocate for a little-known Hindu mystic who had visited the US in 1959 teaching a new style of meditation which he called Transcendental Meditation. A lot is unclear about the early life of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, even his birth name -- both "Maharishi" and "Yogi" are honorifics rather than names as such, though he later took on both as part of his official name, and in this and future episodes I'll refer to him as "the Maharishi". What we do know is that he was born in India, and had attained a degree in physics before going off to study with Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, a teacher of the Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism. Now, I am not a Hindu, and only have a passing knowledge of Hindu theology and traditions, and from what I can gather getting a proper understanding requires a level of cultural understanding I don't have, and in particular a knowledge of the Sanskrit language, so my deepest apologies for any mangling I do of these beliefs in trying to talk about them as they pertain to mid-sixties psychedelic rock. I hope my ignorance is forgivable, and seen as what it is rather than malice. But the teachings of this school as I understand them seem to centre around an idea of non-separation -- that God is in all things, and is all things, and that there is no separation between different things, and that you merely have to gain a deep realisation of this. The Maharishi later encapsulated this in the phrase "I am that, thou art that, all this is that", which much later the Beach Boys, several of whom were followers of the Maharishi, would turn into a song: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "All This is That"] The other phrase they're singing there, "Jai Guru Dev" is also a phrase from the Maharishi, and refers to his teacher Brahmananda Saraswati -- it means "all hail the divine teacher" or "glory to the heavenly one", and "guru dev" or "guru deva" was the name the Maharishi would use for Saraswati after his death, as the Maharishi believed that Saraswati was an actual incarnation of God. It's that phrase that John Lennon is singing in "Across the Universe" as well, another song later inspired by the Maharishi's teachings: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Across the Universe"] The Maharishi became, by his own account, Saraswati's closest disciple, advisor, and right-hand man, and was privy to his innermost thoughts. However, on Saraswati's death the leadership of the monastery he led became deeply contested, with two different rivals to the position, and the Maharishi was neither -- the rules of the monastery said that only people born into the Brahmin caste could reach the highest positions in the monastery's structure, and the Maharishi was not a Brahmin. So instead of remaining in the monastery, the Maharishi went out into the world to teach a new form of meditation which he claimed he had learned from Guru Dev, a technique which became known as transcendental meditation. The Maharishi would, for the rest of his life, always claim that the system he taught was Guru Dev's teaching for the world, not his own, though the other people who had been at the monastery with him said different things about what Saraswati had taught -- but of course it's perfectly possible for a spiritual leader to have had multiple ideas and given different people different tasks. The crucial thing about the Maharishi's teaching, the way it differed from everything else in the history of Hindu monasticism (as best I understand this) is that all previous teachers of meditation had taught that to get the benefit of the techniques one had to be a renunciate -- you should go off and become a monk and give up all worldly pleasures and devote your life to prayer and meditation. Traditionally, Hinduism has taught that there are four stages of life -- the student, the householder or married person with a family, the retired person, and the Sanyasi, or renunciate, but that you could skip straight from being a student to being a Sanyasi and spend your life as a monk. The Maharishi, though, said: "Obviously enough there are two ways of life: the way of the Sanyasi and the way of life of a householder. One is quite opposed to the other. A Sanyasi renounces everything of the world, whereas a householder needs and accumulates everything. The one realises, through renunciation and detachment, while the other goes through all attachments and accumulation of all that is needed for physical life." What the Maharishi taught was that there are some people who achieve the greatest state of happiness by giving up all the pleasures of the senses, eating the plainest possible food, having no sexual, familial, or romantic connections with anyone else, and having no possessions, while there are other people who achieve the greatest state of happiness by being really rich and having a lot of nice stuff and loads of friends and generally enjoying the pleasures of the flesh -- and that just as there are types of meditation that can help the first group reach enlightenment, there are also types of meditation that will fit into the latter kind of lifestyle, and will help those people reach oneness with God but without having to give up their cars and houses and money. And indeed, he taught that by following his teachings you could get *more* of those worldly pleasures. All you had to do, according to his teaching, was to sit still for fifteen to twenty minutes, twice a day, and concentrate on a single Sanskrit word or phrase, a mantra, which you would be given after going through a short course of teaching. There was nothing else to it, and you would eventually reach the same levels of enlightenment as the ascetics who spent seventy years living in a cave and eating only rice -- and you'd end up richer, too. The appeal of this particular school is, of course, immediately apparent, and Bock became a big advocate of the Maharishi, and put out three albums of his lectures: [Excerpt: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, "Deep Meditation"] Bock even met his second wife at one of the Maharishi's lectures, in 1961. In the early sixties, World Pacific got bought up by Liberty Records, the label for which Jan and Dean and others recorded, but Bock remained in charge of the label, and expanded it, adding another subsidiary, Aura Records, to put out rock and roll singles. Aura was much less successful than the other World Pacific labels. The first record the label put out was a girl-group record, "Shooby Dooby", by the Lewis Sisters, two jazz-singing white schoolteachers from Michigan who would later go on to have a brief career at Motown: [Excerpt: The Lewis Sisters, "Shooby Dooby"] The most successful act that Aura ever had was Sonny Knight, an R&B singer who had had a top twenty hit in 1956 with "Confidential", a song he'd recorded on Specialty Records with Bumps Blackwell, and which had been written by Dorinda Morgan: [Excerpt: Sonny Knight, "Confidential"] But Knight's biggest hit on Aura, "If You Want This Love", only made number seventy-one on the pop charts: [Excerpt: Sonny Knight, "If You Want This Love"] Knight would later go on to write a novel, The Day the Music Died, which Greil Marcus described as "the bitterest book ever written about how rock'n'roll came to be and what it turned into". Marcus said it was about "how a rich version of American black culture is transformed into a horrible, enormously profitable white parody of itself: as white labels sign black artists only to ensure their oblivion and keep those blacks they can't control penned up in the ghetto of the black charts; as white America, faced with something good, responds with a poison that will ultimately ruin even honest men". Given that Knight was the artist who did the *best* out of Aura Records, that says a great deal about the label. But one of the bands that Aura signed, who did absolutely nothing on the charts, was a group called Rick and the Ravens, led by a singer called Screamin' Ray Daniels. They were an LA club band who played a mixture of the surf music which the audiences wanted and covers of blues songs which Daniels preferred to sing. They put out two singles on Aura, "Henrietta": [Excerpt: Rick and the Ravens, "Henrietta"] and "Soul Train": [Excerpt: Rick and the Ravens, "Soul Train"] Ray Daniels was a stage name -- his birth name was Ray Manzarek, and he would later return to that name -- and the core of the band was Ray on vocals and his brothers Rick on guitar and Jim on harmonica. Manzarek thought of himself as a pretty decent singer, but they were just a bar band, and music wasn't really his ideal career.  Manzarek had been sent to college by his solidly lower-middle-class Chicago family in the hope that he would become a lawyer, but after getting a degree in economics and a brief stint in the army, which he'd signed up for to avoid getting drafted in the same way people like Dean Torrence did, he'd gone off to UCLA to study film, with the intention of becoming a filmmaker. His family had followed him to California, and he'd joined his brothers' band as a way of making a little extra money on the side, rather than as a way to become a serious musician. Manzarek liked the blues songs they performed, and wasn't particularly keen on the surf music, but thought it was OK. What he really liked, though, was jazz -- he was a particular fan of McCoy Tyner, the pianist on all the great John Coltrane records: [Excerpt: John Coltrane, "My Favorite Things"] Manzarek was a piano player himself, though he didn't play much with the Ravens, and he wanted more than anything to be able to play like Tyner, and so when Rick and the Ravens got signed to Aura Records, he of course became friendly with Dick Bock, who had produced so many great jazz records and worked with so many of the greats of the genre. But Manzarek was also having some problems in his life. He'd started taking LSD, which was still legal, and been fascinated by its effects, but worried that he couldn't control them -- he couldn't tell whether he was going to have a good trip or a bad one. He was wondering if there was a way he could have the same kind of revelatory mystical experience but in a more controlled manner. When he mentioned this to Bock, Bock told him that the best method he knew for doing that was transcendental meditation. Bock gave him a copy of one of the Maharishi's albums, and told him to go to a lecture on transcendental meditation, run by the head of the Maharishi's west-coast organisation, as by this point the Maharishi's organisation, known as Spiritual Regeneration, had an international infrastructure, though it was still nowhere near as big as it would soon become. At the lecture, Manzarek got talking to one of the other audience members, a younger man named John Densmore. Densmore had come to the lecture with his friend Robby Krieger, and both had come for the same reason that Manzarek had -- they'd been having bad trips and so had become a little disillusioned with acid. Krieger had been the one who'd heard about transcendental meditation, while he was studying the sitar and sarod at UCLA -- though Krieger would later always say that his real major had been in "not joining the Army". UCLA had one of the few courses in Indian music available in the US at the time, as thanks in part to Bock California had become the centre of American interest in music from India -- so much so that in 1967 Ravi Shankar would open up a branch of his own Kinnara Music School there. (And you can get an idea of how difficult it is to separate fact from fiction when researching this episode that one of the biographies I've used for the Doors says that Krieger heard about the Maharishi while studying at the Kinnara school. As the only branch of the Kinnara school that was open at this point was in Mumbai, it's safe to say that unless Krieger had a *really* long commute he wasn't studying there at this point.) Densmore and Manzarek got talking, and they found that they shared a lot of the same tastes in jazz -- just as Manzarek was a fan of McCoy Tyner, so Densmore was a fan of Elvin Jones, the drummer on those Coltrane records, and they both loved the interplay of the two musicians: [Excerpt: John Coltrane, "My Favorite Things"] Manzarek was starting to play a bit more keyboards with the Ravens, and he was also getting annoyed with the Ravens' drummer, who had started missing rehearsals -- he'd turn up only for the shows themselves. He thought it might be an idea to get Densmore to join the group, and Densmore agreed to come along for a rehearsal. That initial rehearsal Densmore attended had Manzarek and his brothers, and may have had a bass player named Patricia Hansen, who was playing with the group from time to time around this point, though she was mostly playing with a different bar band, Patty and the Esquires. But as well as the normal group members, there was someone else there, a friend of Manzarek's from film school named Jim Morrison. Morrison was someone who, by Manzarek's later accounts, had been very close to Manzarek at university, and who Manzarek had regarded as a genius, with a vast knowledge of beat poetry and European art film, but who had been regarded by most of the other students and the lecturers as being a disruptive influence. Morrison had been a fat, asthmatic, introverted kid -- he'd had health problems as a child, including a bout of rheumatic fever which might have weakened his heart, and he'd also been prone to playing the kind of "practical jokes" which can often be a cover for deeper problems. For example, as a child he was apparently fond of playing dead -- lying in the corridors at school and being completely unresponsive for long periods no matter what anyone did to move him, then suddenly getting up and laughing at anyone who had been concerned and telling them it was a joke. Given how frequently Morrison would actually pass out in later life, often after having taken some substance or other, at least one biographer has suggested that he might have had undiagnosed epilepsy (or epilepsy that was diagnosed but which he chose to keep a secret) and have been having absence seizures and covering for them with the jokes. Robby Krieger also says in his own autobiography that he used to have the same doctor as Morrison, and the doctor once made an offhand comment about Morrison having severe health problems, "as if it was common knowledge". His health difficulties, his weight, his introversion, and the experience of moving home constantly as a kid because of his father's career in the Navy, had combined to give him a different attitude to most of his fellow students, and in particular a feeling of rootlessness -- he never owned or even rented his own home in later years, just moving in with friends or girlfriends -- and a lack of sense of his own identity, which would often lead to him making up lies about his life and acting as if he believed them. In particular, he would usually claim to friends that his parents were dead, or that he had no contact with them, even though his family have always said he was in at least semi-regular contact. At university, Morrison had been a big fan of Rick and the Ravens, and had gone to see them perform regularly, but would always disrupt the shows -- he was, by all accounts, a lovely person when sober but an aggressive boor when drunk -- by shouting out for them to play "Louie Louie", a song they didn't include in their sets. Eventually one of Ray's brothers had called his bluff and said they'd play the song, but only if Morrison got up on stage and sang it. He had -- the first time he'd ever performed live -- and had surprised everyone by being quite a good singer. After graduation, Morrison and Manzarek had gone their separate ways, with Morrison saying he was moving to New York. But a few weeks later they'd encountered each other on the beach -- Morrison had decided to stay in LA, and had been staying with a friend, mostly sleeping on the friend's rooftop. He'd been taking so much LSD he'd forgotten to eat for weeks at a time, and had lost a great deal of weight, and Manzarek properly realised for the first time that his friend was actually good-looking. Morrison also told Manzarek that he'd been writing songs -- this was summer 1965, and the Byrds' version of "Mr. Tambourine Man", Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone", and the Stones' "Satisfaction" had all shown him that there was potential for pop songs to have more interesting lyrical content than "Louie Louie". Manzarek asked him to sing some of the songs he'd been writing, and as Manzarek later put it "he began to sing, not in the booze voice he used at the Turkey Joint, but in a Chet Baker voice". The first song Morrison sang for Ray Manzarek was one of the songs that Rick and the Ravens would rehearse that first time with John Densmore, "Moonlight Drive": [Excerpt: Rick and the Ravens, "Moonlight Drive"] Manzarek invited Morrison to move in with him and his girlfriend. Manzarek seems to have thought of himself as a mentor, a father figure, for Morrison, though whether that's how Morrison thought of him is impossible to say. Manzarek, who had a habit of choosing the myth over the truth, would later claim that he had immediately decided that he and Morrison were going to be a duo and find a whole new set of musicians, but all the evidence points to him just inviting Morrison to join the Ravens as the singer Certainly the first recordings this group made, a series of demos, were under Rick and the Ravens' name, and paid for by Aura Records. They're all of songs written by Morrison, and seem to be sung by Morrison and Manzarek in close harmony throughout. But the demos did not impress the head of Liberty Records, which now owned Aura, and who saw no commercial potential in them, even in one that later became a number one hit when rerecorded a couple of years later: [Excerpt: Rick and the Ravens, "Hello I Love You"] Although to be fair, that song is clearly the work of a beginning songwriter, as Morrison has just taken the riff to "All Day and All of the Night" by the Kinks, and stuck new words to it: [Excerpt: The Kinks, "All Day and All of the Night"] But it seems to have been the lack of success of these demos that convinced Manzarek's brothers and Patricia Hansen to quit the band. According to Manzarek, his brothers were not interested in what they saw as Morrison's pretensions towards poetry, and didn't think this person who seemed shy and introverted in rehearsals but who they otherwise knew as a loud annoying drunk in the audience would make a good frontman. So Rick and the Ravens were down to just Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, and John Densmore, but they continued shopping their demos around, and after being turned down by almost everyone they were signed by Columbia Records, specifically by Billy James, who they liked because he'd written the liner notes to a Byrds album, comparing them to Coltrane, and Manzarek liked the idea of working with an A&R man who knew Coltrane's work, though he wasn't impressed by the Byrds themselves, later writing "The Byrds were country, they didn't have any black in them at all. They couldn't play jazz. Hell, they probably didn't even know anything about jazz. They were folk-rock, for cri-sake. Country music. For whites only." (Ray Manzarek was white). They didn't get an advance from Columbia, but they did get free equipment -- Columbia had just bought Vox, who made amplifiers and musical instruments, and Manzarek in particular was very pleased to have a Vox organ, the same kind that the Animals and the Dave Clark Five used. But they needed a guitarist and a bass player. Manzarek claimed in his autobiography that he was thinking along the lines of a four-piece group even before he met Densmore, and that his thoughts had been "Someone has to be Thumper and someone has to be Les Paul/Chuck Berry by way of Charlie Christian. The guitar player will be a rocker who knows jazz. And the drummer will be a jazzer who can rock. These were my prerequisites. This is what I had to have to make the music I heard in my head." But whatever Manzarek was thinking, there were only two people who auditioned for the role of the guitar player in this new version of the band, both of them friends of Densmore, and in fact two people who had been best friends since high school -- Bill Wolff and Robby Krieger. Wolff and Krieger had both gone to private boarding school -- they had both originally gone to normal state schools, but their parents had independently decided they were bad influences on each other and sent them away to boarding school to get away from each other, but accidentally sent them to the same school -- and had also learned guitar together. They had both loved a record of flamenco guitar called Dos Flamencos by Jaime Grifo and Nino Marvino: [Excerpt: Jaime Grifo and Nino Marvino, "Caracolés"] And they'd decided they were going to become the new Dos Flamencos. They'd also regularly sneaked out of school to go and see a jug band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, a band which featured Bob Weir, who was also at their school, along with Jerry Garcia and Pigpen McKernan. Krieger was also a big fan of folk and blues music, especially bluesy folk-revivalists like Spider John Koerner, and was a massive fan of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Krieger and Densmore had known each other before Krieger had been transferred to boarding school, and had met back up at university, where they would hang out together and go to see Charles Mingus, Wes Montgomery, and other jazz musicians. At this time Krieger had still been a folk and blues purist, but then he went to see Chuck Berry live, mostly because Skip James and Big Mama Thornton were also on the bill, and he had a Damascene conversion -- the next day he went to a music shop and traded in his acoustic for a red Gibson, as close to the one Chuck Berry played as he could find. Wolff, Densmore, Krieger, and piano player Grant Johnson had formed a band called the Psychedelic Rangers, and when the Ravens were looking for a new guitarist, it was natural that they tried the two guitarists from Densmore's other band. Krieger had the advantage over Wolff for two reasons -- one of which was actually partly Wolff's doing. To quote Krieger's autobiography: "A critic once said I had 'the worst hair in rock 'n' roll'. It stung pretty bad, but I can't say they were wrong. I always battled with my naturally frizzy, kinky, Jewfro, so one day my friend Bill Wolff and I experimented with Ultra Sheen, a hair relaxer marketed mainly to Black consumers. The results were remarkable. Wolff, as we all called him, said 'You're starting to look like that jerk Bryan MacLean'". According to Krieger, his new hairdo made him better looking than Wolff, at least until the straightener wore off, and this was one of the two things that made the group choose him over Wolff, who was a better technical player. The other was that Krieger played with a bottleneck, which astonished the other members. If you're unfamiliar with bottleneck playing, it's a common technique in the blues. You tune your guitar to an open chord, and then use a resonant tube -- these days usually a specially-made metal slide that goes on your finger, but for older blues musicians often an actual neck of a bottle, broken off and filed down -- to slide across the strings. Slide guitar is one of the most important styles in blues, especially electric blues, and you can hear it in the playing of greats like Elmore James: [Excerpt: Elmore James, "Dust My Broom"] But while the members of the group all claimed to be blues fans -- Manzarek talks in his autobiography about going to see Muddy Waters in a club in the South Side of Chicago where he and his friends were the only white faces in the audience -- none of them had any idea what bottleneck playing was, and Manzarek was worried when Krieger pulled it out that he was going to use it as a weapon, that being the only association he had with bottle necks. But once Krieger played with it, they were all convinced he had to be their guitarist, and Morrison said he wanted that sound on everything. Krieger joining seems to have changed the dynamic of the band enormously. Both Morrison and Densmore would independently refer to Krieger as their best friend in the band -- Manzarek said that having a best friend was a childish idea and he didn't have one. But where before this had been Manzarek's band with Morrison as the singer, it quickly became a band centred around the creative collaboration between Krieger and Morrison. Krieger seems to have been too likeable for Manzarek to dislike him, and indeed seems to have been the peacemaker in the band on many occasions, but Manzarek soon grew to resent Densmore, seemingly as the closeness he had felt to Morrison started to diminish, especially after Morrison moved out of Manzarek's house, apparently because Manzarek was starting to remind him of his father. The group soon changed their name from the Ravens to one inspired by Morrison's reading. Aldous Huxley's book on psychedelic drugs had been titled The Doors of Perception, and that title had in turn come from a quote from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by the great mystic poet and artist William Blake, who had written "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern" (Incidentally, in one of those weird coincidences that I like to note when they come up, Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell had also inspired the book The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, about the divorce of heaven and hell, and both Lewis and Huxley died on the same date, the twenty-second of November 1963, the same day John F. Kennedy died). Morrison decided that he wanted to rename the group The Doors, although none of the other group members were particularly keen on the idea -- Krieger said that he thought they should name the group Perception instead. Initially the group rehearsed only songs written by Morrison, along with a few cover versions. They worked up a version of Willie Dixon's "Back Door Man", originally recorded by Howlin' Wolf: [Excerpt: Howlin' Wolf, "Back Door Man"] And a version of "Alabama Song", a song written by Bertholt Brecht and Kurt Weill, from the opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, with English language lyrics by  Elisabeth Hauptmann. That song had originally been recorded by Lotte Lenya, and it was her version that the group based their version on, at the suggestion of Manzarek's girlfriend: [Excerpt: Lotte Lenya, "Alabama Song"] Though it's likely given their tastes in jazz that they were also aware of a recent recording of the song by Eric Dolphy and John Lewis: [Excerpt: Eric Dolphy and John Lewis, "Alabama Song"] But Morrison started to get a little dissatisfied with the fact that he was writing all the group's original material at this point, and he started to put pressure on the others to bring in songs. One of the first things they had agreed was that all band members would get equal credit and shares of the songwriting, so that nobody would have an incentive to push their own mediocre song at the expense of someone else's great one, but Morrison did want the others to start pulling their weight. As it would turn out, for the most part Manzarek and Densmore wouldn't bring in many song ideas, but Krieger would, and the first one he brought in would be the song that would make them into stars. The song Krieger brought in was one he called "Light My Fire", and at this point it only had one verse and a chorus. According to Manzarek, Densmore made fun of the song when it was initially brought in, saying "we're not a folk-rock band" and suggesting that Krieger might try selling it to the Mamas and the Papas, but the other band members liked it -- but it's important to remember here that Manzarek and Densmore had huge grudges against each other for most of their lives, and that Manzarek is not generally known as an entirely reliable narrator. Now, I'm going to talk a lot about the influences that have been acknowledged for this song, but before I do there's one that I haven't seen mentioned much but which seems to me to be very likely to have at least been a subconscious influence -- "She's Not There" by the Zombies: [Excerpt: The Zombies, "She's Not There"] Now, there are several similarities to note about the Zombies record. First, like the Doors, the Zombies were a keyboard-driven band. Second, there's the dynamics of the songs -- both have soft, slightly jazzy verses and then a more straight-ahead rock chorus. And finally there's the verse chord sequence. The verse for "She's Not There" goes from Am to D repeatedly: [demonstrates] While the verse for "Light My Fire" goes from Am to F sharp minor -- and for those who don't know, the notes in a D chord are D, F sharp, and A, while the notes in an F sharp minor chord are F sharp, A, and C sharp -- they're very similar chords. So "She's Not There" is: [demonstrates] While "Light My Fire" is: [demonstrates] At least, that's what Manzarek plays. According to Krieger, he played an Asus2 chord rather than an A minor chord, but Manzarek heard it as an A minor and played that instead. Now again, I've not seen anyone acknowledge "She's Not There" as an influence, but given the other influences that they do acknowledge, and the music that was generally in the air at the time, it would not surprise me even the smallest amount if it was. But either way, what Krieger brought in was a simple verse and chorus: [Excerpt: The Doors, "Light My Fire"] Incidentally, I've been talking about the song as having A minor chords, but you'll actually hear the song in two different keys during this episode, even though it's the same performance throughout, and sometimes it might not sound right to people familiar with a particular version of the record. The band played the song with the verse starting with A minor, and that's how the mono single mix was released, and I'll be using excerpts of that in general. But when the stereo version of the album was released, which had a longer instrumental break, the track was mastered about a semitone too slow, and that's what I'll be excerpting when talking about the solos -- and apparently that speed discrepancy has been fixed in more recent remasterings of the album than the one I'm using. So if you know the song and bits of what I play sound odd to you, that's why. Krieger didn't have a second verse, and so writing the second verse's lyrics was the next challenge. There was apparently some disagreement within the band about the lyrics that Morrison came up with, with their references to funeral pyres, but Morrison won the day, insisting that the song needed some darkness to go with the light of the first verse. Both verses would get repeated at the end of the song, in reverse order, rather than anyone writing a third or fourth verse. Morrison also changed the last line of the chorus -- in Krieger's original version, he'd sung "Come on baby, light my fire" three times, but Morrison changed the last line to "try to set the night on fire", which Krieger thought was a definite improvement. They then came up with an extended instrumental section for the band members to solo in. This was inspired by John Coltrane, though I have seen different people make different claims as to which particular Coltrane record it was inspired by. Many sources, including Krieger, say it was based on Coltrane's famous version of "My Favorite Things": [Excerpt: John Coltrane, "My Favorite Things"] But Manzarek in his autobiography says it was inspired by Ole, the track that Coltrane recorded with Eric Dolphy: [Excerpt: John Coltrane, "Ole"] Both are of course similar musical ideas, and either could have inspired the “Light My Fire” instrumental section, though none of the Doors are anything like as good or inventive on their instruments as Coltrane's group (and of course "Light My Fire" is in four-four rather than three-four): [Excerpt: The Doors, "Light My Fire"] So they had a basic verse-chorus song with a long instrumental jam session in the middle. Now comes the bit that there's some dispute over.  Both Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger agree that Manzarek came up with the melody used in the intro, but differ wildly over who came up with the chord sequence for it and when, and how it was put into the song. According to Manzarek, he came up with the whole thing as an intro for the song at that first rehearsal of it, and instructed the other band members what to do. According to Krieger, though, the story is rather different, and the evidence seems to be weighted in Krieger's favour. In early live performances of the song, they started the song with the Am-F sharp minor shifts that were used in the verse itself, and continued doing this even after the song was recorded: [Excerpt: The Doors, "Light My Fire (live at the Matrix)"] But they needed a way to get back out of the solo section and into the third verse. To do this, Krieger came up with a sequence that starts with a change from G to D, then from D to F, before going into a circle of fifths -- not the ascending circle of fifths in songs like "Hey Joe", but a descending one, the same sequence as in "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" or "I Will Survive", ending on an A flat: [demonstrates] To get from the A flat to the A minor or Asus2 chord on which the verse starts, he simply then shifted up a semitone from A flat to A major for two bars: [demonstrates] Over the top of that chord sequence that Krieger had come up with, Manzarek put a melody line which was inspired by one of Bach's two-part inventions. The one that's commonly cited is Invention No. 8 in F Major, BWV 779: [Excerpt: Glenn Gould, "Invention No. 8 in F Major, BWV 779"] Though I don't believe Manzarek has ever stated directly which piece he was inspired by other than that it was one of the two-part inventions, and to be honest none of them sound very much like what he plays to my ears, and I think more than anything he was just going for a generalised baroque style rather than anything more specific. And there are certainly stylistic things in there that are suggestive of the baroque -- the stepwise movement, the sort of skipping triplets, and so on: [Excerpt: The Doors, "Light My Fire"] But that was just to get out of the solo section and back into the verses. It was only when they finally took the song into the studio that Paul Rothchild, the producer who we will talk about more later, came up with the idea of giving the song more structure by both starting and ending with that sequence, and formalised it so that rather than just general noodling it was an integral part of the song. They now had at least one song that they thought had the potential to be a big hit. The problem was that they had not as yet played any gigs, and nor did they have a record deal, or a bass player. The lack of a record deal may sound surprising, but they were dropped by Columbia before ever recording for them. There are several different stories as to why. One biography I've read says that after they were signed, none of the label's staff producers wanted to work with them and so they were dropped -- though that goes against some of the other things I've read, which say that Terry Melcher was interested in producing them. Other sources say that Morrison went in for a meeting with some of the company executives while on acid, came out very pleased with himself at how well he'd talked to them because he'd been able to control their minds with his telepathic powers, and they were dropped shortly afterwards. And others say that they were dropped as part of a larger set of cutbacks the company was making, and that while Billy James fought to keep them at Columbia, he lost the fight. Either way, they were stuck without a deal, and without any proper gigs, though they started picking up the odd private party here and there -- Krieger's father was a wealthy aerospace engineer who did some work for Howard Hughes among others, and he got his son's group booked to play a set of jazz standards at a corporate event for Hughes, and they got a few more gigs of that nature, though the Hughes gig didn't exactly go well -- Manzarek was on acid, Krieger and Morrison were on speed, and the bass player they brought in for the gig managed to break two strings, something that would require an almost superhuman effort. That bass player didn't last long, and nor did the next -- they tried several, but found that the addition of a bass player made them sound less interesting, more like the Animals or the Rolling Stones than a group with their own character. But they needed something to hold down the low part, and it couldn't be Manzarek on the organ, as the Vox organ had a muddy sound when he tried to play too many notes at once. But that problem solved itself when they played one of their earliest gigs. There, Manzarek found that another band, who were regulars at the club, had left their Fender keyboard bass there, clipped to the top of the piano. Manzarek tried playing that, and found he could play basslines on that with his left hand and the main parts with his right hand. Krieger got his father to buy one for the group -- though Manzarek was upset that they bought the wrong colour -- and they were now able to perform without a bass player. Not only that, but it gave the group a distinctive sound quite unlike all the other bands. Manzarek couldn't play busy bass lines while also playing lead lines with his right hand, and so he ended up going for simple lines without a great deal of movement, which added to the hypnotic feel of the group's music – though on records they would often be supplemented by a session bass player to give them a fuller sound. While the group were still trying to get a record deal, they were also looking for regular gigs, and eventually they found one. The Sunset Strip was *the* place to be, and they wanted desperately to play one of the popular venues there like the Whisky A-Go-Go, but those venues only employed bands who already had record deals. They did, though, manage to get a residency at a tiny, unpopular, club on the strip called The London Fog, and they played there, often to only a handful of people, while slowly building in confidence as performers. At first, Morrison was so shy that Manzarek had to sing harmony with him throughout the sets, acting as joint frontman. Krieger later said "It's rarely talked about, but Ray was a natural born showman, and his knack for stirring drama would serve the Doors' legacy well in later years" But Morrison soon gained enough confidence to sing by himself. But they weren't bringing in any customers, and the London Fog told them that they were soon going to be dropped -- and the club itself shut not long after. But luckily for the group, just before the end of their booking, the booker for the Whisky A-Go-Go, Ronnie Haran walked in with a genuine pop star, Peter Asher, who as half of Peter & Gordon had had a hit with "A World Without Love", written by his sister's boyfriend, Paul McCartney: [Excerpt: Peter and Gordon, "A World Without Love"] Haran was impressed with the group, and they were impressed that she had brought in a real celebrity. She offered them a residency at the club, not as the headlining act -- that would always be a group that had records out -- but as the consistent support act for whichever big act they had booked. The group agreed -- after Morrison first tried to play it cool and told Haran they would have to consider it, to the consternation of his bandmates. They were thrilled, though, to discover that one of the first acts they supported at the Whisky would be Them, Van Morrison's group -- one of the cover versions they had been playing had been Them's "Gloria": [Excerpt: Them, "Gloria"] They supported Them for two weeks at the Whisky, and Jim Morrison watched Van Morrison intently. The two men had very similar personalities according to the other members of the Doors, and Morrison picked up a lot of his performing style from watching Van on stage every night. The last night Them played the venue, Morrison joined them on stage for an extended version of “Gloria” which everyone involved remembered as the highlight of their time there. Every major band on the LA scene played residencies at the Whisky, and over the summer of 1966 the Doors were the support act for the Mothers of Invention, the Byrds, the Turtles, the Buffalo Springfield, and Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. This was a time when the Sunset Strip was the centre of Californian musical life, before that centre moved to San Francisco, and the Doors were right at the heart of it. Though it wasn't all great -- this was also the period when there were a series of riots around Sunset Strip, as immortalised in the American International Pictures film Riot on Sunset Strip, and its theme song, by the Standells: [Excerpt: The Standells, "Riot on Sunset Strip"] We'll look at those riots in more detail in a future episode, so I'll leave discussing them for now, but I just wanted to make sure they got mentioned. That Standells song, incidentally, was co-written by John Fleck, who under his old name of John Fleckenstein we saw last episode as the original bass player for Love. And it was Love who ensured that the Doors finally got the record deal they needed. The deal came at a perfect time for the Doors -- just like when they'd been picked up by the Whisky A Go-Go just as they were about to lose their job at the London Fog, so they got signed to a record deal just as they were about to lose their job at the Whisky. They lost that job because of a new song that Krieger and Morrison had written. "The End" had started out as Krieger's attempt at writing a raga in the style of Ravi Shankar, and he had brought it in to one of his increasingly frequent writing sessions with Morrison, where the two of them would work out songs without the rest of the band, and Morrison had added lyrics to it. Lyrics that were partly inspired by his own fraught relationship with his parents, and partly by Oedipus Rex: [Excerpt: The Doors, "The End"] And in the live performance, Morrison had finished that phrase with the appropriate four-letter Oedipal payoff, much to the dismay of the owners of the Whisky A Go Go, who had told the group they would no longer be performing there. But three days before that, the group had signed a deal with Elektra Records. Elektra had for a long time been a folk specialist label, but they had recently branched out into other music, first with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, a favourite of Robby Krieger's, and then with their first real rock signing, Love. And Love were playing a residency at the Whisky A Go Go, and Arthur Lee had encouraged Jac Holzman, the label's owner, to come and check out their support band, who he thought were definitely worth signing. The first time Holzman saw them he was unimpressed -- they sounded to him just like a bunch of other white blues bands -- but he trusted Arthur Lee's judgement and came back a couple more times. The third time, they performed their version of "Alabama Song", and everything clicked into place for Holzman. He immediately signed the group to a three-album deal with an option to extend it to seven. The group were thrilled -- Elektra wasn't a major label like Columbia, but they were a label that nurtured artists and wouldn't just toss them aside. They were even happier when soon after they signed to Elektra, the label signed up a new head of West Coast A&R -- Billy James, the man who had signed them to Columbia, and who they knew would be in their corner. Jac Holzman also had the perfect producer for the group, though he needed a little persuading. Paul Rothchild had made his name as the producer for the first couple of albums by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band: [Excerpt: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, "Mary Mary"] They were Robby Krieger's favourite group, so it made sense to have Rothchild on that level. And while Rothchild had mostly worked in New York, he was in LA that summer, working on the debut album by another Elektra signing, Tim Buckley. The musicians on Buckley's album were almost all part of the same LA scene that the Doors were part of -- other than Buckley's normal guitarist Lee Underwood there was keyboard player Van Dyke Parks, bass player Jim Fielder, who had had a brief stint in the Mothers of Invention and was about to join Buffalo Springfield, and drummer Billy Mundi, who was about to join the Mothers of Invention. And Buckley himself sang in a crooning voice extremely similar to that of Morrison, though Buckley had a much larger range: [Excerpt: Tim Buckley, "Aren't You the Girl?"] There was one problem, though -- Rothchild didn't want to do it. He wasn't at all impressed with the band at first, and he wanted to sign a different band, managed by Albert Grossman, instead. But Holzman persuaded him because Rothchild owed him a favour -- Rothchild had just spent several months in prison after a drug bust, and while he was inside Holzman had given his wife a job so she would have an income, and Holzman also did all the paperwork with Rothchild's parole officer to allow him to leave the state. So with great reluctance Rothchild took the job, though he soon came to appreciate the group's music. He didn't appreciate their second session though. The first day, they'd tried recording a version of "The End", but it hadn't worked, so on the second night they tried recording it again, but this time Morrison was on acid and behaving rather oddly. The final version of "The End" had to be cut together from two takes, and the reason is that at the point we heard earlier: [Excerpt: The Doors, "The End"] Morrison was whirling around, thrashing about, and knocked over a TV that the engineer, Bruce Botnick, had brought into the studio so he could watch the baseball game -- which Manzarek later exaggerated to Morrison throwing the TV through the plate glass window between the studio and the control room. According to everyone else, Morrison just knocked it over and they picked it up after the take finished and it still worked fine. But Morrison had taken a *lot* of acid, and on the way home after the session he became convinced that he had a psychic knowledge that the studio was on fire. He got his girlfriend to turn the car back around, drove back to the studio, climbed over the fence, saw the glowing red lightbulbs in the studio, became convinced that they were fires, and sprayed the entire place with the fire extinguisher, before leaving convinced he had saved the band's equipment -- and leaving telltale evidence as his boot got stuck in the fence on the way out and he just left it there. But despite that little hiccup, the sessions generally went well, and the group and label were pleased with the results. The first single released from the album, "Break on Through", didn't make the Hot One Hundred: [Excerpt: The Doors, "Break on Through"] But when the album came out in January 1967, Elektra put all its resources behind the album, and it started to get a bit of airplay as a result. In particular, one DJ on the new FM radio started playing "Light My Fire" -- at this time, FM had only just started, and while AM radio stuck to three-minute singles for the most part, FM stations would play a wider variety of music. Some of the AM DJs started telling Elektra that they would play the record, too, if it was the length of a normal single, and so Rothchild and Botnick went into the studio and edited the track down to half its previous seven-and-a-half-minute length. When the group were called in to hear the edit, they were initially quite excited to hear what kind of clever editing microsurgery had been done to bring the song down to the required length, but they were horrified when Rothchild actually played it for them. As far as the group were concerned, the heart of the song was the extended instrumental improvisation that took up the middle section: [Excerpt: The Doors, "Light My Fire"] On the album version, that lasted over three minutes. Rothchild and Botnick cut that section down to just this: [Excerpt: The Doors, "Light My Fire (single edit)"] The group were mortified -- what had been done to their song? That wasn't the sound of people trying to be McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones, it was just... a pop song.  Rothchild explained that that was the point -- to get the song played on AM radio and get the group a hit. He pointed out how the Beatles records never had an instrumental section that lasted more than eight bars, and the group eventually talked them

THE THREEPENNY OPERA COMPOSER: Kurt Weill LYRICIST: Bertolt Brecht BOOK: Bertolt Brecht (Adaptation by Marc Blitzstein) DIRECTOR: Carmen Capalbo PRINCIPLE CAST: Beatrice Arthur (Lucy), Lotte Lenya (Jenny), Scott Merrill (Macheath) OPENING DATE: March 10th, 1954 CLOSING DATE: May 30th, 1954 PERFORMANCES: 96 SYNOPSIS: Polly Peachum marries the infamous robber Mack the Knife, much to the chagrin of her parents. In order to end the marriage, her parents and various citizens of the morally bankrupt town concoct a plan to have Mack The Knife arrested and executed.  A play with music by dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, The Threepenny Opera is significant as a German political satire which has since become popular in the United States. Brecht's theatrical theories have had huge significance on the way theatre is presented globally and Weill's cabaret score influenced later American composers such as Kander and Ebb. Several songs from the show have become popular standards since its premiere. Today, it is best known for kicking off “the off-Broadway” musical, a musical that performs in more intimate spaces and offers more experimental, as opposed to commercial, work. Lauren Mack traces how the musical made its way to the United States, the political and social climate that welcomed it, and how audiences were trained to expand their definition of what defines a theatrical space. Lauren T. Mack (they/them) is a NYC-based actor & writer. Lauren has appeared onstage in NYC at the York Theatre, NY Fringe Festival, IRT, the PIT, and on stages throughout the US & France. Lauren's voiceover work ranges from Ford Motors to audioplay meditations with Fullmetal Workshop. Lauren also produces award-winning indies such as CAT PLANET (2017 TFF: Best Web Series), and recently appeared in VELOUR (2020 Official Selection, QueerX FF). They teach acting, speech, and voice/movement at New York Film Academy, Trinity College, as well as throughout India and France. Proud member of Actor's Equity and a Key with Ring of Keys. LaurenTMack.com SOURCES The Threepenny Opera, Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording. MGM (1954) The Threepenny Opera, starring Lotte Lenya and Rudolf Forster, directed by G.W. Pabst. Tobis Filmkunst (1931) The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht, published by Methuen Drama (2015) Love Song: The Lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, published by St. Martin's Press (2012) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode originally aired on Monday, March 28, 2022 at 9:30am on WRCR Radio 1700AM.To celebrate Women's History Month,  we turned our attention to the women of South Mountain Road (Rockland County) who, like their male counterparts, were gifted artists and intellectuals.HSRC Executive Director Susan Deeks joined Clare Sheridan to discuss some of these notable women and why they deserve a prominent place in the history of American arts and letters.  Lita Hornick, Martha Ryther, Lotte Lenya, Eva Zeisel, Bessie Breuer and Mary Mowbray Clarke were discussed._____During the program,  research suggestions were made:  South of the Mountains is the quarterly history journal of the Historical Society that has been published continuously since 1957.  It is one of the tangible benefits of membership in the Historical Society of Rockland County.  South of the Mountains 1988-07, Vol. 32, No. 3This entire issue was devoted to Maxwell Anderson and includes excellent articles written by Alan Anderson; Quentin Anderson and an fine piece by Isabell Savell about High Tor and how it became incorporated into the Palisades interstate park system. South of the Mountains 1996-04, Vol. 40, No. 2This issue includes an article written by Alan Anderson entitled “The Artists Find South Mountain Road.”  Anderson introduces his essay as a “ inkling of how a quiet farming area in lower New York State was invaded by artists right after the end of the Great War.”Hesper Anderson's "South Mountain Road: A Daughter's Journey of Discovery"***Crossroads of Rockland History, a program of the Historical Society of Rockland County, airs on the third Monday of each month at 9:30 am, right after the Jeff and Will morning show, on WRCR Radio 1700 AM and www.WRCR.com. Join host Clare Sheridan as we explore, celebrate, and learn about our local history, with different topics and guest speakers every month. If you want to listen to the live broadcast, and you aren't local, simply download the TuneIn Radio App on your smartphone or tablet and search for WRCR. We are pleased to announce that our archived podcasts are available for streaming on the www.RocklandHistory.org website and all of the major podcast platforms, including Apple, Stitcher, Google, and others.The Historical Society of Rockland County is a nonprofit educational institution and principal repository for original documents and artifacts relating to Rockland County. Its headquarters are a four-acre site featuring a history museum and the 1832 Jacob Blauvelt House in New City, New York.RocklandHistory.org

"Red wine with fish.  Well that should have told me something." From Russia With Love (1963) directed by Terence Young and starring Sean Connery, Pedro Armendariz, Daniela Bianchi, Robert Shaw, Bernard Lee and Lotte Lenya! Next Time: Lured (1947)

Singer, songwriter Carol Lipnik weaves together folk, traditional pop, world music, and art into a unique hybrid. Acclaimed for her multi-octave range and original songs, The New York Times calls Carol an “ethereal vocal phenomenon,” and Michael Musto of Out Magazine wrote that she "is a wonderful amalgam of Joni Mitchell, Lotte Lenya, Theda Bara, and Stevie Nicks, but totally original." So sit back and enjoy our conversation with the eclectic and versatile Carol Lipnik.

Explicit Content: Authorized Eyes OnlyAgent Codenames: Old Dude; Diabolu FrankAssignment: Father & Son Spy-Fi PodcastMission: Discuss the James Bond 007 film starring Sean Connery, Pedro Armendáriz, Robert Shaw, and Lotte Lenya.See Also:?#BAsciSpy?WordPressrolledspinepodcasts@gmail.com@rolledspineFacebook

Dorit Chrysler has been dubbed a superior wizard of the theremin. An Austrian-born, New York-based composer, producer, and singer Chrysler is the co-founder of the New York Theremin Society and founder of the first school for theremin.  As much as the theremin is a tool in Chrysler's electronic instrument arsenal she's also one of the most visible thereminists spreading the gospel of this mysterious sounding instrument which is basically played by massaging thin air. Her music has been described by Ann Magnuson in Paper Magazin, “Imagine if Marianne Faithfull and Nikola Tesla had a love child with Jane Birkin as the nanny and Bjork as the wayward Girl Scout Leader!”  Arte TV calls Dorit “Theremin Goddess” Wall Street Journal  “A futuristic Lotte Lenya“   DoritChrysler.comhttps://www.facebook.com/doritchryslerofficial/ https://www.instagram.com/doritchrysler/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=WKmMRtuLfCc&list=UU2FnHcTW8yYhKX8WGQcKEsA&index=1 Resources Dorit mentions: New York Theremin Society - https://www.nythereminsociety.org/ Dorit at CERN Hadron Collider for 100th anniversary https://www.moogmusic.com/media/electric-storm-100-years-theremin The Theremin 100 - https://www.nythereminsociety.org/theremin-100-4 THEREMIN GOES BROADWAY I am happy to have contributed theremin for “FallingInLoveWithMr.Dellamort” a “mysterious new audio musical” by Jack Feldstein and Paul Doust with a tony-nominated cast -  released on Broadway Records and making a splash on Playbill https://www.playbill.com/article/falling-in-love-with-mr-dellamort-recording-with-james-monroe-iglehart-courtney-reed-telly-leung-released-july-23?fbclid=IwAR32wprk1L2NDb66_Lr0oz4BcDnhAVpE2Nqlx5-mQkg10AVCx2Hr1wZ0dkA In the podcast I used snippets from The Dark Shadows theme by Bob Cobert, Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys, and Clara Rockmore performing The Swan. ********************* Please fill out a 5-question survey at lizsumner.com/survey. Let me know when you're done and I'll send you a coupon code for my online course, 8 Steps to Launch Your Dream Life. (launchyourdreamlife.com) ********************* Remarks I've been fascinated by the theremin since 1966 when I used to watch Dark Shadows every day after school. Then of course the iconic sound of the instrument in Good Vibrations took the theremin out of the scary movie realm and into popular music. In 1993 we saw Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey in the theater and I learned more about the instrument's origin as the first electronic instrument invented in 1920. That's also where I learned of the amazing Clara Rockmore, Theremin's first virtuoso performer.  The idea of shaping sound in thin air with your hands intrigues me so much. I've never been patient enough to learn an instrument but I'm drawn to weirdness of a theremin.  My guest, Dorit Chrysler, is a virtuoso herself and a teacher. She's been playing for 20 years, and warns us that the theremin is difficult to learn. A lot of people start then give up. In our conversation Dorit describes her teaching approach and how to avoid some of the pitfalls that frustrate people so that they lose interest. I kicked myself a few years when I missed an opportunity to take a class with her locally.. I learned about it too late. I sincerely hope I'll get another chance. Here's the interview. Full transcript available at ialwayswantedto.net

Esther Freud talks to Michael Berkeley about her extraordinary childhood and her passion for story telling in both words and music. After attending drama school and making appearances in The Bill and Dr Who, Esther Freud changed direction at the age of 20 and turned to writing. She found instant success with her first novel, Hideous Kinky, which drew on her experience of living in Morocco as a very young child with her mother and sister Bella. She was named as one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists and has gone on to write eight more books, the latest being I Couldn't Love You More. Esther tells Michael about her childhood passion for telling stories and how her experiences in Morocco dominated her imagination for years afterwards. She conjures up memories of life in North Africa with a song by the legendary Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum. As she grew older she grew closer to her father, the painter Lucian Freud, partly by sitting for him and partly by their sharing a rare holiday. We hear Lotte Lenya singing Kurt Weill, which reminds Esther of her father's German heritage. Esther learned the cello at school and its sound has remained an abiding love; she chooses music by Saint-Saëns and by the contemporary English composer Michael Hoppé. And music from Britten's Peter Grimes transports her to her beloved Suffolk coast. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3

In our ongoing Bond series, we revisit the OG Bond, Sir Sean Connery, in this second film in the franchise.  We follow Bond this time in the midst of a Cold War espionage plot where he has to take on SPECTRE, the shadowy organization that is out to kill him along with possibly inciting World War III.  This was PEAK Connery and very much a film of its time, very 1960's.  It also co-stars Robert Shaw as the iconic villain Red Grant along with Lotte Lenya as the infamous Rose Klebb. Host: Geoff GershonProducer: Marlene Gershon#livingforthecinema #moviereviews #livingforthebondseries #jamesbond #007 #sirseanconnery #coldwar #spectre #1960s 

Llegó Setiembre y nos pareció apropiado recordar el standard September Song, la canción de Setiembre, en este episodio impromptu sorpresa. Compuesta por Kurt Weill (autor de Mac the Knife) en 1938, con letra de Maxwell Anderson. La letra compara la cronología de la vida con la del año, y Setiembre es el otoño y el amor no puede esperar. Rápidamente se transforma en un standard del cancionero americano (compuesta por un alemán) y del jazz. Escuchemos las versiones de Ella Fitzgerald, Lotte Lenya (esposa del autor), Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Clifford Brown, Chet Baker, Django, Bireli Lagrene, Cal Tjader, Gary Burton, Nat Cole, John Pizzarelli, Zoot Sims y otros. Feliz Otoño (o Primavera!)  

Terence Young returns to helm "From Russia with Love" 1963. Mr. Young's direction keeps the swagger in James Bond as it was initially captured in "Dr. No". Istanbul, Turkey, is the scene for much of the spy drama as James Bond and MI6 battle the Soviet Union's SMERSH (an actual counter-intelligence group) and the deadly agents of SPECTRE.Sean Connery as James Bond teams with Ali Kerim Beythe head of MI6 in Istanbul played by Pedro Armendariz (in his last film role). Together they battle Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb SPECTRE No. 3 and Robert Shaw as Donald Grant the SPECTRE hit man. Tatiana Romanova played by Daniela Bianchi is the cipher person who assists in stealing a Soviet Lektor. Off we go on one dangerous train ride.Check us out on Patreon at www.patreon.com/classicmoviereviews for even more content and bonus shows.

Never lost for a conversation, Jo, Miranda, Martin and Sam take a look at the theatrical and political context of Waits's less-mannered song of longing. We return to some conversations from recent episodes, consider Kathleen Brennan's presence in these songs, and break SbS rules to revisit Lotte Lenya's presentation of the music of Kurt Weill. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Lost in the Harbour, Alice, Tom Waits (2002) Lost In The Stars, Lost In The Stars, Lotte Lenya / Kurt Weill (1943) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Die goldenen Zwanziger - eine Zeit voller Experimente in der Kunst. Ein kongeniales Theaterpaar trat in diesen Jahren zum ersten Mal gemeinsam ins Rampenlicht: die Sängerin Lotte Lenya und der Komponist Kurt Weill. Im Theater am Schiffbauerdamm hatte Weills "Dreigroschenoper" Premiere, die den Ruhm der beiden begründete. Als die große Krise kam, bescherte ihnen dieser erste große Erfolg unverhofften Wohlstand - und sie leisteten sich ein Statussymbol.

País Reino Unido Dirección Terence Young Guion Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood. Personaje: Ian Fleming Música John Barry Fotografía Ted Moore Reparto Sean Connery, Robert Shaw, Daniela Bianchi, Lotte Lenya, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, Pedro Armendáriz, Vladek Sheybal Sinopsis El robo de un dispositivo capaz de descifrar complicadas comunicaciones está poniendo en peligro importantes investigaciones con respecto al gobierno ruso. James Bond, el agente 007 de los Servicios Secretos Británicos al servicio de Su Majestad, viajará hasta la Unión Soviética con el fin de encontrar a su objetivo.

For the second episode of Pride Month, I welcome the designer of the original production of one of the most seminal gay works, The Boys in the Band. Among his numerous other credits include Dames At Sea, The Mad Show, Johnny Johnson, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, and more. Tune in to hear him talk about why Lotte Lenya wouldn't fire Jose Quintero, how Joe Papp ruined a show in Philadelphia, how Shelley Winters tried to sabotage Carol Kane, how Mart Crowley came to appreciate his set, creating the iconic design for Dames at Sea, the hardest Broadway theater to design for, why Lee Strasberg had no creative vision, plus stories about Richard Gere, Tallulah Bankhead, Bernadette Peters, and so many more.

An hour from Kurt Weill’s extraordinarily inventive Broadway catalogue. Original renditions combine with new interpretations by such performers as Mary Martin, Gertrude Lawrence, Melissa Errico, Lotte Lenya, Donna Murphy—even the composer himself.

Diese Oper hat deutlich mehr als 3 Groschen eingespielt: Kurt Weills "Oper für Bettler" zu dem Bühnenstück von Bertolt Brecht mischt Stile der Unterhaltungsmusik mit Parodien auf Oper und Sakralmusik und enthält reihenweise Welthits wie die Moritat von Mackie Messer. (Autor: Martin Zingsheim)

durée : 01:58:47 - Relax ! du jeudi 11 février 2021 - par : Lionel Esparza - Histoires de Lotte ! Retour sur le destin de trois chanteuses : Lotte Lehmann, Lotte Lenya & Lotte Schöne. Elles appartiennent à la même génération, et leurs parcours musicaux, pourtant très différents, ont tous été affectés par l'arrivée au pouvoir des Nazis en Allemagne, puis en Autriche... - réalisé par : Antoine Courtin

Agents Scott and Cam catch a night train to SPECTRE Island for the second James Bond extravaganza, From Russia with Love.  Directed by Terence Young. Starring Sean Connery, Daniela Bianchi, Pedro Armendáriz, Lotte Lenya, Robert Shaw, Bernard Lee, Eunice Grayson and Vladek Sheybal.Social media: @spyhardsCheck out the NOC List at Letterboxd.com/spyhardsPodcast artwork by Hannah Hughes. See more of her work at hannahrosehughes.com

Some of the greatest singers in history are not necessarily the most vocally-gifted. This is the first of what I hope will be a series of episodes devoted to such artists. I consider singers across many genres: recitalists (Pierre Bernac, Madeleine Grey, Povla Frijsh, Jane Bathori), cabaret (Mabel Mercer, Noël Coward, Julie Wilson, Barbara, Lotte Lenya), musicals (Fred and Adele Astaire, Chita Rivera), pop music (Bob Dylan, Lou Reed), jazz (Billie Holiday, Alberta Hunter), actors (Audrey Hepburn, Melina Mercouri, Judi Dench, Hildegard Knef, Divine), and even comedians (Dody Goodman, Bourvil), with special focus on a few of the voiceless tenors who hold a special place in my heart (Hugues Cuenod, Karl Erb, Helmut Krebs, Julius Patzak). At the end, I feature two aging icons (Marlene Dietrich and Joséphine Baker) in unforgettable live performances of two protest songs that are painfully relevant at this moment in time. Composers include Alec Wilder, George Gershwin, Kurt Weill, Franz Schubert, Stephen Sondheim, Francis Poulenc, Abel Meeropol, Claude Debussy, Kander and Ebb, Pete Seeger, Carl Orff, Manos Hadzidakis, Fats Waller, Maurice Ravel, and Rudolf Sieczyński. Please join me for this very special episode. But prepare yourselves for an emotional wallop. Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” Occasional guests from the “business” (singers, conductors, composers, coaches, and teachers) lend their distinctive insights. At Countermelody’s core is the interaction between singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. Please visit the Countermelody website (www.countermelodypodcast.com) for additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. And please head to my Patreon page at www.patreon.com/countermelody to pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available only to Patreon supporters are currently available.

What better way to start the New Year than an interview with a true star, a true legend--Ed Asner. Tune in to hear him talk about who he based Lou Grant on,  why singing was not a challenge for him, why New York critics were biased against him, why he was "born to play" his part in The Soap Myth, and more about Mary Tyler Moore, Lotte Lenya, and Eileen Brennan.

Born on this Day: is a daily podcast hosted by Bil Antoniou, Amanda Barker & Marco Timpano. Celebrating the famous and sometimes infamous born on this day. Check out their other podcasts: Bad Gay Movies, Bitchy Gay Men Eat & Drink Every Place is the Same My Criterions The Insomnia Project Marco's book: 25 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started My Podcast OCTOBER 18 Today is Person's Day Zac Efron, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Tyler Posey, Dawn Wells, Freida Pinto, Peter Boyle, George C. Scott, Chachi, Erin Moran , Pam Dawber, Martina Navratilova, Joe Morton , Vincent Spano, Arliss Howard , Klaus Kinski, Chuck Lorre, Chuck Berry, Howard Shore, Miriam Hopkins , Melina Mercouri , Om Puri, Lotte Lenya, Pierre Elliott Trudeau David Twohy --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/born-on-this-day-podcast/message

This week represents the limbo between the first and second seasons of Countermelody. I have been collating ideas for programs for the coming year and I have some short snippets representing singers and topics that we’ll be encountering there. We begin the episode with Francisco Araiza, who celebrates his 70th birthday on October 4th. And we conclude the episode celebrating the live of Helen Reddy, whose song “I Am Woman” formed the soundtrack to the burgeoning Women’s Movement in the 1970s. In between I present short clips of some of my favorite singers who will be featured in upcoming episodes, including Anita Cerquetti, Alexander Kipnis, Russell Oberlin, Ruby Elzy, Eidé Noréna, Sándor Kónya, Heather Harper, Paul Robeson, Cyndi Lauper, Milada Šubrtová, Carol Brice, John Reardon, Yi-Kwe Sze, Judith Blegen, Charles Cambon, Dory Previn, Donald Gramm, Pierre Bernac, Irmgard Seefried, Lotte Lenya, Dusty Springfield, and many others. This episode is also a thank you to all listen and support the podcast in whatever ways they are able. I can’t wait to bring you the first episode of Season Two next week! Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” Occasional guests from the “business” (singers, conductors, composers, coaches, and teachers) lend their distinctive insights. At Countermelody’s core is the interaction between singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. Please visit the Countermelody website (www.countermelodypodcast.com) for additional content. And please head to our Patreon page at www.patreon.com/countermelody to pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available only to Patreon supporters are currently available!

Today’s topic is operetta and opera on Broadway. From the early days of the Great White Way, a large amount of the musical theatre repertoire was actually operetta. I begin with a discussion of the composers of such operettas (Victor Herbert, Rudolf Friml, and Sigmund Romberg, with a significant nod to Jerome Kern as well) and the singers who appeared in those works. Then I present an array of works adapted from the classical repertoire (primarily Wright and Forrest’s Song of Norway and Kismet), followed by examples of that curious hybrid, Broadway opera, including Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium and The Consul; Marc Blitzstein’s Regina; Frank Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella; Kurt Weill and Langston Hughes’s Street Scene; and Leonard Bernstein’s Candide. A wide range of singers is included, some celebrated (Lotte Lenya, Patricia Neway, Barbara Cook, Marta Eggerth, Lawrence Tibbett), some less so (Helena Scott, Lee Venora, Fritzi Scheff, Robert Rounseville), the careers of some of whom stretch back to the beginning of the century, but all singers which straddled the fence between musicals, operetta, and opera. But rest assured: this is no dry history lesson: it’s a fast-paced romp through a fun and fascinating topic! Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” Occasional guests from the “business” (singers, conductors, composers, coaches, and teachers) lend their distinctive insights. At Countermelody’s core is the interaction between singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. Please visit the Countermelody website (www.countermelodypodcast.com) for additional content. And please head to our Patreon page at www.patreon.com/countermelody to pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available only to Patreon supporters are currently available!

There have been many great musicals--Where's Charley?, Pal Joey, Love Life--that never had an original cast album. Here are some wonderful songs from these shows, performed by Frank Sinatra, Lotte Lenya, Jo Stafford, and more.

Movie Sushi - From Russia with LoveFrom Russia with Love (#1963) James Bond has a nifty briefcase. It contains 20 rounds of ammunition, throwing knife, AR-7 folding sniper rifle, 50 gold sovereigns & tear gas (disguised as talcum powder). If you don't twist the catches first, the thing explodes. Starring Sean Connery. Robert Shaw. Lotte Lenya. Rated PG. Dir Terence Young. Released in the UK 1963. Runtime 1hr 55mins

From Russia with Love was picked by John F. Kennedy as one of his favourite novels, which gave the producers the signal to go all in with the greatest film franchise of all time. It is jam-packed with iconic images, luxurious locations, a furious fistfight, and red wine with fish. The novel was good enough to be considered a personal favourite of the President... but is the film good enough for the boys at Très Bond?

„Pakeliui su klasika“ pradėsime viena žymiausių ir geriausių brazilų dainų „Águas de Março”, sukurta Antônio Carloso Jobimo 1972 m. Daina, tarsi koliažas, žaismingai perteikiantis tai, kas vyksta Rio de Žaneire kovo mėnesį lyjant lietui. „Naujienų pulse“ – apie hip hopo šokėjos Kassandros Wedel ir Deutsche Grammophon projektą, pristatyą per Pasaulinę ausų ir klausos dieną. Nuo trejų metų netekusi klausos, Kassandra šoka pagal 1977-ųjų Liudvigo van Beethoveno 5-osios simfonijos muziką, o tiksliau, pagal šios muzikos skleidžiamas vibracijas. Tai vienas iš projektų, skirtų 250-osios kompozitoriaus gimimo metinėms. Deja, dar vienas reikšmingas renginys, skirtas Beethoveno metams, turėjęs vykti kovo mėnesį – Beethovenfest – atšauktas. Kovo 9-ąją pasaulį paliko Antonas Coppola – dirigentas, kompozitorius, dirigavęs ir savo giminaičio Francis Fordo filme „Krikštatėvis“, įrašęs garso takelius ir kitiems jo bei kitų režisierių filmams bei Brodvėjaus miuziklams. Taip pat šią savaitę netekome iškilios piansitės, pedagogės, visuomenės veikėjos Gražinos Ručytės-Landsbergienės. Rubrikoje „Retro“ – Teresos Stratas 9-ojo dešimt. Kurto Weillo kūrinių įrašai, kuriuos „palaimino“ pati kompozitoriaus žmona Lotte Lenya. Paskuitnes laidos minutes skirsime Kronos ir Trio da Kali albumui „Ladilikan“. Ved. Ieva Buinevičiūtė.

In This second installment of Spiraken's "Bond Marathon", Xan & Gretta review the second James Bond Movie, an adaptation of the 1957 Ian Fleming novel of the same name. So grab a train ticket, close your Q Branch suitcase and enjoy as they review "From Russia With Love" directed by Terrance Young and starring  Pedro Armendáriz, Lotte Lenya, Robert Shaw, Bernard Lee, Daniela Bianchi, Desmond Llwelyn and Sean Connery as James Bond   ----more---- As our hosts analyse this second installment of the Bond Franchise, they also discuss the heavy usage of the Cold War in this film, as well as debate on if Red Grant is the real villain of the movie.    Remember to follow us @spiraken on Twitter and @spiraken on Instagram, also if you would kindly, please go to www.tinyurl.com/helpxan and give us a great rating on Apple Podcasts. Thank you and hope you enjoy this episode.   #spiraken #moviereview #dodecahydronofmovies #spymanga  #jamesbond007 #fromrussiawithlove #seanconnery #007 #movie #spirakenreviewpodcast Music Used in This Episode:Opening Theme- James Bond Theme by John Barry Orchestra  (From Russia With Love OST) Closing Theme- From Russia With love by Matt Monro  (From Russia With Love OST) Our Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spiraken/Our Email Spiraken@gmail.comXan's Email xan@spiraken.comOur Twitter SpirakenYoutube Channel https://www.youtube.com/user/spirakenOur Amazon Store http://www.amazon.com/shops/spiraken Random Question of the Week: Is Rosa Klebb a weak villain?

Record Roundtable Hosted by Jared, Dax, Tyler, and Caleb. What up peeps. The Boys™ are back with a real humdinger, Sir Mix-a-lot vs Lotte Lenya! Where else can you hear topics such as Kurt Wiell, Kurt Vile, The Pussycat Dolls, Nikki Minaj, and Christian Rap all in under an hour? Only here my friends.Find us on Facebook for updates and additional content at facebook.com/recordroundtableConsider supporting us on Patreon: Patreon.com/recordroundtableFind out more at https://gbbb.pinecast.co

Deborah Levy was born in South Africa; when she was five, her father was arrested as a member of the ANC and spent four years in jail. The family left for England, arriving when Deborah was nine, in 1968. Unsurprisingly her work as a writer is concerned with themes of identity, exile, dislocation. Beginning as a poet and a playwright – her plays were staged by the RSC – she then turned to novels, and there are now seven in all, of which the last three have been nominated for the Booker Prize. The latest is ‘The Man Who Saw Everything’. Deborah talks with Michael Berkeley about the music that means most to her. Many of the pieces she loves are to do with saying farewell: Lotte Lenya saying ‘goodbye’ in Brecht and Weill’s Alabama Song; Orpheus pining for Euridice in Kathleen Ferrier’s legendary recording of Gluck’s ‘Che Faro?’; sisters wishing their lovers safe travel as, purportedly, they depart for war, in the trio from Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. Deborah talks openly about her memories of her father’s imprisonment and of his return home; about the enormous transition in her life when, aged fifty, her marriage ended; and about how she found a room of her own in which to write, renting a friend’s garden shed and working to the noise of apples dropping onto the roof. Also among her music is Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata (‘the silences are as important as the notes’); a song by Leonard Cohen; and a translucent setting of a Verlaine poem, ‘La Lune Blanche’, composed by Billy Cowie and sung by identical twins. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3

durée : 01:58:26 - Relax ! du mercredi 04 septembre 2019 - par : Lionel Esparza - A l'affiche cet après-midi L'Opéra de quat'sous de Kurt Weill dans la célèbre version de 1958 avec Lotte Lenya, un portrait du violoncelliste Marc Coppey, et enfin le décryptage d'une photo de 1990 sur laquelle on voit le célèbre violoncelliste Mstislav Rostropovitch en tutu... - réalisé par : Antoine Courtin

durée : 00:17:15 - Disques de légende du mercredi 04 septembre 2019 - Cette version de référence de L'Opéra de quat'sous de Kurt Weill a été enregistrée en 1958 avec la célèbre Lotte Lenya, qui avait interprété le rôle titre dès la création à Berlin en 1928, ainsi qu'à l'écran en 1931 dans le film de Georg Wilhelm Pabst.

We ask regular TP contributors and guests to tell us about the books they've most enjoyed recently and the ones they are looking forward to reading this summer. History, science fiction, philosophy, memoirs and a little bit of politics too: it's all here.Sarah ChurchwellMy Face for the World to See, Alfred HayesIn Love, Alfred HayesChris BickertonThe Man Without Qualities, Robert MusilHans van de VenThe Great Flowing River, Chi Pang-yuanHelen ThompsonDominion, Tom HollandThe Hotel Years, Joseph RothThe Emigrants, W.G. SebaldDennis GrubeThe Fifth Risk, Michael LewisMiddle England, Jonathan CoeCatherine BernardIn our Mad and Furious City, Guy GunaratneDavid RuncimanFrom Bacteria to Bach and Back, Daniel C. Dennett Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted ChiangClare ChambersInvisible Women, Caroline Criado PerezNormal People, Sally RooneyChris BrookeOn Mercy, Malcolm BullPaul MasonLove Song: The Lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, Ethan MorddenTom HollandNefertiti’s Face, Joyce Tyldesley See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In advance of the MasterVoices concert at City Center, we're joined by Ted Sperling as we survey the saga of this Weill/Gershwin classic, with a bevy of ladies including Gertrude Lawrence, Lotte Lenya, Julie Andrews, and Ute Lemper.

Wilkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome! Sally Bowles is one of Zane’s all-time favourite characters and so we are taking this opportunity to bring back this great episode with that hilarious cabaret-star Tash York! Tash is still living her best life, touring Australia, so check out her website to see what she is up to!Find Tash and info about her upcoming events online: www.tashyork.com- FURTHER READING -Wiki - Musical, Film, Christopher Isherwood.IMDbiTunesSpotify- CELEBRITY SHOUTOUTS -John Kander, Fred Ebb, Joe Masteroff, Christopher Isherwood, Jill Haworth, Bert Convy, Lotte Lenya, Joel Grey, Judi Dench, Kevin Colson, Barry Dennen, Jane Horrocks, Adam Godley, Alan Cumming, Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Anna Maxwell Martin, Michelle Ryan, Michelle WilliamsLike us on Facebook! Follow us on Twitter! Support us on Patreon!Email us: musicalstaughtmepodcast@gmail.comVisit our home on the web thatsnotcanonproductions.comOur theme song and interstitial music all by the one and only Benedict Braxton Smith. Find out more about him at www.benedictbraxtonsmith.com

Memory, desire, madness: these are the themes that fascinate Lisa Appignanesi and that she’s explored over the last forty years in novels, in memoirs, and in prize-winning books such as “Mad, Bad and Sad”, a history of women and mind doctors. Lisa Appignanesi is the Chair of the Royal Society of Literature and a former President of English PEN, an organisation which campaigns for free speech. She’s written about cabaret, about Proust and fin-de-siecle Paris, about Simone de Beauvoir, about Freud, and about her own troubled search for identity. In Private Passions she tells Michael Berkeley about her childhood in Poland, where she was born Elżbieta Borensztejn, and about the way identities in her family were always shifting, “always there for the making”. She reflects on the power of the dead to haunt us, expressed by Monteverdi in his opera Orfeo, and admires the strength of singers Bessie Smith and Lotte Lenya, alongside music choices such as Mozart's ’The Marriage of Figaro’, Laurie Anderson, and Prokofiev’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 3

This week Zane will chat with Melbourne cabaret artist Tash York about which of life's truths can be gleaned from classic musical Cabaret!Find Tash and info about her upcoming events online: www.tashyork.com- FURTHER READING -Wiki - Musical, Film, Christopher Isherwood.IMDbiTunesSpotify- CELEBRITY SHOUTOUTS -John Kander, Fred Ebb, Joe Masteroff, Christopher Isherwood, Jill Haworth, Bert Convy, Lotte Lenya, Joel Grey, Judi Dench, Kevin Colson, Barry Dennen, Jane Horrocks, Adam Godley, Alan Cumming, Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Anna Maxwell Martin, Michelle Ryan, Michelle WilliamsLike us on Facebook! Follow us on Twitter! Support us on Patreon!Email us: musicalstaughtmepodcast@gmail.comVisit our home on the web thatsnotcanonproductions.comOur theme song and interstitial music all by the one and only Benedict Braxton Smith. Find out more about him at www.benedictbraxtonsmith.com

Þeir Earl Grant og Marvin Gaye hylla Nat King Cole. Nokkrir fleiri gullerðarmenn tónlistarinnar koma við sögu, þám Kira Kira og Lahsa De Sola. Mínimalsimi fyrr og nú er til umræðu í þessum þætti. Steve Reich og Terry Jennings sjá fyrir honum. Og Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra og Lotte Lenya slá botninn í þáttinn.

Þeir Earl Grant og Marvin Gaye hylla Nat King Cole. Nokkrir fleiri gullerðarmenn tónlistarinnar koma við sögu, þám Kira Kira og Lahsa De Sola. Mínimalsimi fyrr og nú er til umræðu í þessum þætti. Steve Reich og Terry Jennings sjá fyrir honum. Og Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra og Lotte Lenya slá botninn í þáttinn.

a cura di Alessandro Achilli. Musiche di Marvin Gaye, Popol Vuh, Inara George & Van Dyke Parks, Thelonious Monk, Peluché, Foxtrott, Henry Cow, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, Lotte Lenya, De Ponti & Moretti, Luisiana Lorusso

a cura di Alessandro Achilli. Musiche di Marvin Gaye, Popol Vuh, Inara George & Van Dyke Parks, Thelonious Monk, Peluché, Foxtrott, Henry Cow, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, Lotte Lenya, De Ponti & Moretti, Luisiana Lorusso (seconda parte)

a cura di Alessandro Achilli. Musiche di Marvin Gaye, Popol Vuh, Inara George & Van Dyke Parks, Thelonious Monk, Peluché, Foxtrott, Henry Cow, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, Lotte Lenya, De Ponti & Moretti, Luisiana Lorusso (seconda parte)

At 91, Charlotte Rae has no intentions of slowing down, as this interview will show. Charlotte began her career in Wisconsin and quickly conquered New York appearing in such musicals as Three Wishes for Jamie, The Threepenny Opera, Lil Abner, Pickwick, The Littlest Revue, and many others. Plus Charlotte was a pioneer of live television having appeared in The Philco Television Playhouse, The Colgate Comedy Hour, The DuPont Show of the Week, and many others. Now, over a crackly phone connection, Charlotte sits down with Rob for a quick chat. Charlotte pulls back the curtain on her career to discuss how she discovered a new talent named Sheldon Harnick, what it was like going to school with Paul Lynde, and why Charlotte always wanted to be a serious actress. Also, Charlotte shines the spotlight on Michael Kidd, Lotte Lenya, and Golda Meir! Become a sponsor of Behind The Curtain and get early access to interviews, private playlists, and advance knowledge of future guests so you can ask the legends your own questions. Go to: http://bit.ly/2i7nWC4

In Part 2 of their conversation, Tony Award winner Donna Murphy shares with Ilana personal stories of how she began her career. She recalls hilarious details of being cast early on -- even when the odds were against her. And she talks about how she prepared with great precision for her audition for the role of "Fosca" in Sondheim's Passion -- a rolethat secured her place as a Broadway legend. She explains how Sondheim and Lapine work together and describes their collaboration as "shared poetry."  With great sensitivity and rawness, Donna discusses how she now negotiates life and work after the death of her beloved husband and partner, Shawn Elliott.  And ... she sings on the podcast!!! Donna Murphy’s award-winning performances in theater, film and television have forged a career of exceptional diversity, impressing both audiences and critics with her depth and skill. This “seductive actress of major transformative powers” (NY Times) was named by New York Magazine as one of “Three Living Legends” of the New York Theater and awarded in 2003 one of their prestigious “New York Awards” for her work in the theater. One of the most beloved and honored stage actresses of her generation, Murphy earned the Drama League Award for Outstanding Achievement in Musical Theater. She currently shares the iconic role of Dolly Gallagher Levi with the legendary Bette Midler in the Tony Award winning revival of "Hello, Dolly!," for which she has received great critical acclaim. Ms. Murphy received the first of two Tony® Awards for Best Actress in a Musical, along with the Drama Desk and Drama League Awards, for her spellbinding creation of Fosca in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s "Passion," which was filmed for PBS’ American Playhouse. She received her second Tony® Award, as well as a Drama League Award and Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations, for her “resplendent, matchless” (New York Post) performance as Anna Leonowens in the 1996 Tony® Award-winning revival of "The King and I." In 2004, she was honored with the Drama League Outstanding Achievement Award for her work in Musical Theater, the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Astaire Awards, as well as another Tony® nomination, for her hilarious comic tour de force as Ruth Sherwood in the Broadway Revival of "Wonderful Town." She returned to Broadway in 2007, receiving Drama Desk, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, and a Tony® nomination for her mesmerizing portrayal of the legendary actress-singer Lotte Lenya in "LoveMusik," directed by Harold Prince.  Murphy’s first television film, HBO’s “Someone Had to be Benny,” earned her a Cable Ace Award as Best Actress in a Drama Special or Series, as well as a Daytime Emmy. Most recently, she starred as Jane Green, the matriarch of a prominent Southern family torn apart by the Civil War in PBS’ Mercy Street and guest starred on ABC’s hit show “Quantico” and CBS’ “Doubt” with Katherine Heigl and Laverne Cox. Other regular and recurring appearances include the mysterious “elegant woman” Angela Forrester in ABC’s “Resurrection,” Georgie on VH1’s “Hindsight,” Darlene Garretti on CBS’ “Made in Jersey” alongside Janet Montgomery and Kyle McLaughlin, the steely Denise Goodman on TNT’s “Trust Me” with Eric McCormack and Tom Cavanaugh, Heather Olshansky in CBS’ “Hack” opposite David Morse, and her critically acclaimed comedic performance as the neurotic psychiatrist Dr. Ruby Stern on ABC’s sitcom, “What About Joan,” starring Joan Cusack.  For her contribution to the Arts, Culture and Public life, she’s received special honors from New York Magazine, Symphony Space, Greenwich Village’s Caring Community, the Women’s Project, The Little Orchestra Society, Irish America Magazine, the Breukelein Institute and Emerson College.

Donna Murphy is a two-time Tony Award winning American musical theater treasure. Donna's singular voice, her comedic skills, her dancing and the authenticity and humanity she brings to every role that she plays has made her one of the most beloved actresses of her generation. From Fosca in Sondheim’s "Passion" to her current role of Dolly Levi in "Hello, Dolly!," Donna brings the audience to its feet every night. In part one of this two part episode, Donna discusses her childhood and what it was like growing up as the eldest of seven children. She shares with Ilana the discovery of her musical gifts at the age of three! And she talks of her process and the discipline needed to find every role. Donna also reveals her deep belief that she was brought into this world to perform. Welcome Donna Murphy! Donna Murphy’s award-winning performances in theater, film and television have forged a career of exceptional diversity, impressing both audiences and critics with her depth and skill. This “seductive actress of major transformative powers” (NY Times) was named by New York Magazine as one of “Three Living Legends” of the New York Theater and awarded in 2003 one of their prestigious “New York Awards” for her work in the theater. One of the most beloved and honored stage actresses of her generation, Murphy earned the Drama League Award for Outstanding Achievement in Musical Theater. She currently shares the iconic role of Dolly Gallagher Levi with the legendary Bette Midler in the Tony Award winning revival of "Hello, Dolly!," for which she has received great critical acclaim. Ms. Murphy received the first of two Tony® Awards for Best Actress in a Musical, along with the Drama Desk and Drama League Awards, for her spellbinding creation of Fosca in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s "Passion," which was filmed for PBS’ American Playhouse. She received her second Tony® Award, as well as a Drama League Award and Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations, for her “resplendent, matchless” (New York Post) performance as Anna Leonowens in the 1996 Tony® Award-winning revival of "The King and I." In 2004, she was honored with the Drama League Outstanding Achievement Award for her work in Musical Theater, the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Astaire Awards, as well as another Tony® nomination, for her hilarious comic tour de force as Ruth Sherwood in the Broadway Revival of "Wonderful Town." She returned to Broadway in 2007, receiving Drama Desk, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, and a Tony® nomination for her mesmerizing portrayal of the legendary actress-singer Lotte Lenya in "LoveMusik," directed by Harold Prince.  Murphy’s first television film, HBO’s “Someone Had to be Benny,” earned her a Cable Ace Award as Best Actress in a Drama Special or Series, as well as a Daytime Emmy. Most recently, she starred as Jane Green, the matriarch of a prominent Southern family torn apart by the Civil War in PBS’ Mercy Street and guest starred on ABC’s hit show “Quantico” and CBS’ “Doubt” with Katherine Heigl and Laverne Cox. Other regular and recurring appearances include the mysterious “elegant woman” Angela Forrester in ABC’s “Resurrection,” Georgie on VH1’s “Hindsight,” Darlene Garretti on CBS’ “Made in Jersey” alongside Janet Montgomery and Kyle McLaughlin, the steely Denise Goodman on TNT’s “Trust Me” with Eric McCormack and Tom Cavanaugh, Heather Olshansky in CBS’ “Hack” opposite David Morse, and her critically acclaimed comedic performance as the neurotic psychiatrist Dr. Ruby Stern on ABC’s sitcom, “What About Joan,” starring Joan Cusack.  For her contribution to the Arts, Culture and Public life, she’s received special honors from New York Magazine, Symphony Space, Greenwich Village’s Caring Community, the Women’s Project, The Little Orchestra Society, Irish America Magazine, the Breukelein Institute and Emerson College.

Bond, James Bond on his second major cinematic adventure! From Russia with Love is iconic James Bond, complete with sexism, racism, Bond Girl, Train Fight, espionage, and globe-trotting adventure. Join us as we discuss the elements of Bond that work, what makes this one of the best Bond movies, and who is a sexy James Bond. From Russia with Love (1963) Directed by: Terence Young Written by: Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood Starring: Sean Connery, Robert Shaw and Lotte Lenya

Con nocturnidad y alevosía, despedimos septiembre con "September Song" una hermosa composición de Kurt Weill, uno de los grandes compositores del siglo XX. A Weill dedicamos la primera parte del espacio, recorriendo algunos de sus temas más notables. Y, ya metidos en un ambiente nocturno y cabaretero, repasamos algunas de las primeras grabaciones de Tom Waits, posesía beat con aroma a whiskey y nicotina. Nuestros invitados: Pearl Django; Lotte Lenya; Opera "Die Dreigroschenoper", dirigida por Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg; Ana Belén; Dee Dee Bridgewater; Boz Scaggs; Tom Waits; Natalie Prass.

Playliste:David Bowie: Alabama Song (1980) (orig. Lotte Lenya, 1927)Frida: Liv på Mars? (1975) (orig. David Bowie, 1971)Françoise Hardy: Comment te dire adieu (1968) (orig. Margaret Whiting: “It Hurts to Say Goodbye#, 1966)John Cale: Heartbreak Hotel (1975) (orig. Elvis Presley, 1956)Esther Philips: Home Is Where the Hatred Is (1973), (orig. Gil Scott-Heron, 1971)Sort Sol: Ode to Billy Joe (1987) (orig. Bobbie Gentry, 1967)Outlandish: Man binder os på mund og hånd (2004) (orig. Liva Weel, 1940)Tricky: Black Steel (1995) (orig. Public Enemy, 1988)The Pointer Sisters: Fire (1978) (orig. Robert Gordon & Link Wray, 1977)Bruce Springsteen: Dream Baby Dream (2014) (orig. Suicide, 1979)Freddie Wadling & Fläskkvartetten: Balladen om Herr Fredrik Åkare och den söta Cecilia Lind (1988) (orig. tekst Cornelis Vreeswijk 1966/eng. folkemelodi)Marianne Faithfull: The Ballad of Lucy Jordan (1979) (orig. Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show, 1975)Al Green: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (1971) (orig. Bee Gees, 1971)Tori Amos: ’97 Bonnie and Clyde (2001) (orig. Eminem, 1997)The Czars: Angel Eyes (2005) (orig. Abba, 1979)

1928 - Berlin ist im "Dreigoschenoper"-Fieber. Und das kongeniale Künstler-Ehepaar Kurt Weill und seine Frau, die Sängerin Lotte Lenya, haben endlich Geld. Das investieren sie in eine neue Wohnung - und ein Automobil, um zu verreisen.

Discuss on Reddit ➤ Support the Show ➤ Hallo kinder! We’re going further than we’ve ever gone before for our thirtieth birthday, back to pre-war Germany and Brecht and Weill’s “The Threepenny Opera.” We learn the differences between Verfremdungseffekt and Gesamtkunstwerk, talk about how torturous times can create form-changing art and reflect on how Brechtian theatre exists today. The Threepenny Opera – 1954 New York Cast Blitzstein Adaptation Amazon / iTunes / Spotify  SHOW NOTES If you’ve only ever listened to the OBC, why not try something new and listen to the RIAS Berlin Symphony Orchestra recording starring Ute Lemper? It’s Jimi’s all time favourite. Don’t tell Brecht, but you should REALLY listen to ‘Tristan und Isolde’ by Wagner if you haven’t. It’s pretty darn life changing. After that, continue you on your operatic journey and check out our musical theatre pal Patti LuPone in Brecht and Weill’s ‘The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny’ and then buy the DVD. Here’s the queen of cabaret, Lotte Lenya, singing one of Jimi’s all-time favourite musical theatre numbers - ‘Pirate Jenny.’ Then have a swatch at Ute Lemper, her contemporary counterpart, doing the same in German. But if you want something completely different, check out Amanda Palmer taking her NSFW take on it! Which do you prefer? Why was Bob Dylan aroused? It’s a question we ask ourselves every day. Check out this article to find a bit about why! We’ve not heard from ‘Forbidden Broadway’ in a while, check out their inadvertent pastiche of ‘The Threepenny Opera’ in their ‘Spring Awakening’ spoof! A SMASHING QUESTION Which musical caused the events of this quote to occur:“From the outside, I’m sure it sounded like all hell had broken loose in my dressing room, which in fact it had. I was hysterical … I took to batting practice in my dressing room with a floor lamp. I swung at everything in sight — mirrors, wig stands, makeup, wardrobe, furniture, everything. Then I heaved a lamp out the second-floor window.”

“… And John Leguizamo in shortface.” As made famous by The Doors, Bowie takes us back to the source, reviving Lotte Lenya’s rendition of this number. The Doors made drinking sound fun before we were legally allowed to imbibe the crazy water, but Bowie’s version reminds us more of what it’s really like to be drunk. Plus we … Continue reading "Alabama Song"

Bond. James Bond. Yeah, Movieciders!  Happy New Year!  Welcome to 2013 - The Year of JAMES BOND! Well...for us, anyway.  2012 marked the 50th anniversary of the world's most famous super-spy.  It seems only right that we get up off our asses and commit a little 007 Moviecide!  This year, our resolution is to watch every Bond film yet.  We're kicking 2013 off with the one that started it all!  First up, we're watching DR. NO, directed by Terrence Young and starring Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, and Joseph Wiseman.  After that, we follow up right away with FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, also directed by Terrence Young and starring Sean Connery, Robert Shaw, Daniela Bianchi, and Lotte Lenya. Have Q show you the latest in powder-bursting suitcases and ask Moneypenny to contact MI6.  It's time to commit MASS MOVIECIDE!

Theater Talk has author Ethan Mordden discussing his latest book "Love Song: The Lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya," which chronicles the story of composer Kurt Weill, his wife, legendary actress Lotte Lenya.

In 1936, Britten and Auden established a friendship and creative partnership whilst working at the GPO film unit in Blackheath, London, producing iconic films such as "Night Mail." With war looming, Auden - a pacifist - left for America to be shortly followed by Britten and Peter Pears in 1939. 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights was to become their home and an extraordinary melting part of creativity. Gypsy Rose Lee, Carson McCullers, George Davis, Chester Kallman were fellow lodgers and regular visitors included Thomas Mann, Aaron Copland, Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weill, Virgil Thomson, Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein. When Salvador Dali met Auden at one of the infamous house parties he famously asked him "Do you speak English?"

27.11.1981 Lotte Lenya gestorben: Das Lied der Seeräuberjenny hat Kurt Weill ihr auf den Leib geschrieben. Einige Jahre zuvor, gleich beim ersten Rendezvous am Grunewaldsee, hatte er ihr einen Heiratsantrag gemacht. Lotte Lenya - Lottchen, wie er sie nannte - sagte ja und 1926 wurde auf dem Standesamt in Wilmersdorf der Bund der Ehe geschlossen...