WNYC's Fishko Files

Award-Winners

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Awards season is in full swing; still to come: Annies (for animation), Grammies and Oscars. Winning one can be a thrill. But as WNYC’s Sara Fishko found out, how you handle winning the prize can be an art in itself. (Produced in 2001).

WNYC Production Credits

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Kitchen Sink Realism

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Next week, a 1950s English play opens off-Broadway that was more than just a play, says WNYC’s Sara Fishko. It was a cultural landmark that shook English class consciousness to its foundations. A trip to post World War II Britain –in this episode of Fishko Files.

A revival of Look Back in Anger opens on February 2nd at the Roundabout Theatre. For more information, visit the Roundabout Theatre Company’s website.

England was in dire straits when Look Back in Anger premiered at the Royal Court Theater in 1956. Playwright John Osborne was a product of this climate. Osborne’s biographer, John Heilpern, explains…

"He grew out of post-war depression. I mean, it’s almost hard to imagine an England that was really broke. That had lost its empire. That had rationing. That believed in capital punishment, still. Where homosexuality was a crime. You could be imprisoned for it. This is bleak! This is a bleak place! And Osborne was the first really to mirror a class war in England that was going on at the time - in my view, still does. But nevertheless it was at its height then, of working class or even lower-middle class of England, who were ignored."

In Heilpern’s authorized biography of Osborne, “John Osborne: The Many Lives of the Angry Man” (2006), he zeroes in on the direct impact England’s hardship had on Osborne’s work. Osborne pinpointed one of England’s many problems as a faltering of ‘feeling.’ From Heilpern’s book…

“’What is most disastrous about the British way of life is the British Way of Feeling,’ Osborne wrote soon after Look Back in Anger’s premiere, ‘and that is something theatre can attack. We need a new feeling as much as we need a new language. Out of the feeling will come the language.’”

Osborne repeated his call for “a new feeling” in his 1957 “Declaration” essay entitled “They Call It Cricket."

“I want to make people feel, to give them lessons in feeling. They can think afterward. In other countries this could be a dangerous approach, but there seems little danger of people feeling too much – at least not in England as I am writing”

Look Back in Anger opened to mixed reviews, to put it mildly.

Ivor Brown, of BBC Radio’s “The Critics,”
“[The setting is] unspeakably dirty and squalid. It is difficult to believe that a colonel’s daughter, brought up with some standards, would have stayed in this sty for a day…I felt angry because [Look Back in Anger] wasted my time.”

Kenneth Tynan, The Observer
“I doubt if I could love anyone who did not wish to see Look Back in Anger. It is the best young play of its decade.’

Harold Hobson, The Sunday Times
“[John Osborne is a] writer of outstanding promise, and the English Stage Company is to be congratulated on discovering him.”

What really got the play seen by a larger, non-theater-going, audience was an excerpt aired on British TV. Heilpern explains…

"The young didn’t go to the theater. They watched the telly, you see? And then they saw it. They saw this man talking their language! This furious Jimmy Porter - and they, in a way, themselves: their resentments in life about class, and their resentments about emotion and marriage, and whatever the state of England was at the time. It was all mirrored in the play."

Look Back in Anger touched off a new movement in British theater and film, known as Kitchen Sink Realism. These films embraced the initially controversial realism seen in Osborne’s work. Here’s a selection from the era, below.

Look Back in Anger, 1959
A film adaptation of Osborne’s play.
Director: Tony Richardson; Starring: Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Mary Ure

Room at the Top, 1959
An ambitious young social-climber schemes to wed a wealthy factory owner's daughter.
Director: Jack Clayton; Starring Simone Signoret, Laurence Harvey, and Heather Sears.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 1960
A rebellious, hard-living factory worker juggles relationships with two women. Director: Karel Reisz. Starring Albert Finney, Shirley Anne Field, and Rachel Roberts.
A Taste of Honey, 1961
A plain young girl matures after becoming pregnant by a sailor.
Director: Tony Richardson; Starring Dora Bryan, Robert Stephens, Rita Tushingham.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, 1962
An unruly boy, sentenced to a reformatory school, survives the institution with his talent as a long distance runner.
Director: Tony Richardson. Starring Michaeld Redgrave, Tom Courtenay, Avis Bunnage.

Bill Liar, 1963
A lazy young clerk in provincial Northern England lives in his own fantasy world.
Director: John Schlesinger. Starring Tom Courtenay, Julie Christie, and Wilfred Pickles.

Alfie, 1966
An unapologetic ladies' man learns the consequences of his lifestyle.
Director: Lewis Gilbert; Starring Michael Caine, Shelley Winters, and Millicent Martin.

For more on John Heilpern…

John Heilpern is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, where he writes the Out to Lunch column. Heilpern’s biography of Osborne, “John Osborne: The Many Life of the Angry Young Man,” is available here.

Fishko Files Production Credits

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

John Levy, Jazz Master

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

We got word today that renowned jazz musician-turned-manager, John Levy, has died– just three months shy of his 100^th birthday. Levy made a profound impact on the jazz world. As a bassist he jammed, played and recorded with Ben Webster, George Shearing, Billie Holiday, Art Tatum and many other greats. But later, Levy took his love of jazz and applied it to the business side of music: He became the first African-American Jazz artist’s manager. His management roster featured Nancy Wilson, Joe Williams, Ramsey Lewis, and Shirley Horn, to name a few.

Levy achieved much in his career, perhaps because his work as a musician had given him an “insider’s” understanding of the music business and the needs of his clients. He was inducted into the International Jazz Hall of Fame in 1997. And, in 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts named Levy a Jazz Master. This archival Fishko Files, “John Levy, Jazz Master,” was produced on the occasion of his 2006 Jazz Master honor.

To read more…

From NPR Music: “The Extraordinary Career of a Man Who Managed Jazz Musicians”

Lushlife: The Website of John Levy

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Modern Times

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

With the much praised film The Artist gathering steam this awards season, here’s a related “Fishko Files”: WNYC’s Sara Fishko explores Charlie Chaplin and the power of silence and sound in film (Originally produced in December 2003).

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Three Jazz Works

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Some of the major struggles and victories of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s coincided with a most active period for jazz music. In honor of Martin Luther King Jr's Birthday, WNYC’s Sara Fishko looks at a few cases where the movement and the music came together. Here’s the next Fishko Files…

The music of Max Roach will be performed by The Willie Jones III Sextet at Dizzy's Club, a part of Jazz at Lincoln Center, next week. The program features Jeremy Pelt, Steve Davis, Stacy Dillard, Eric Reed, and Dezron Douglas. For more information, click here.

The liner notes of “We Insist! Freedom Now” -- which were written by Nat Hentoff -- offer an inside perspective on the creation of the suite.

“In this intensely expressive performance, Coleman Hawkins plays the male counterpart to Abbey Lincoln. Hawkins was intrigued by the work as a whole and stayed long after his own part was finished. He kept turning to Max Roach, commenting on the strong, bold melodies. ‘Did you really write this, Max?’ Hawkins kept asking. ‘My, my!”

More on Hawkins:
"It is Coleman Hawkins who solos after [Lincoln's] opening. There was a squeak in this, his best take. ‘No, don’t splice,’ said Hawkins. ‘When it’s all perfect, especially in a piece like this, there’s something very wrong.’”

Hentoff ended the liner notes with this statement:
“...What this album is saying is that Freedom Day is coming in many places, and those working for it mean to make it stick. In 1937, a Negro who still remembered slavery spoke of what it was like in 1865. ‘Hallelujah broke out…Everybody went wild. We all felt like heroes, and nobody had make us that way but ourselves.’ It’s happening again.’

Playlist for Three Jazz Works

Max Roach, Oscar Brown. “Freedom Day.”
Max Roach. “Tears for Johannesburg.”
Duke Ellington. “My People Narrated by Duke Ellington.”
Duke Ellington. "Come Sunday/David Danced Before the Lord"
Duke Ellington. “King Fit the Battle of Alabam.”
Duke Ellington. “What Color is Virtue”
Dave Brubeck. “XI. His Truth Is a Shield.”
Dave Brubeck. “IVb. Except the Lord Build the House (improvisation).”
Dave Brubeck. “VII. Shout unto the Lord.”
Louis Armstrong, Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks. The Real Ambassadors. Sony, 1994.
Max Roach. “Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace.”

Where to find the music from Three Jazz Works

Max Roach's We Insist! Freedom Now is out of print. However, you can download digital copies of the suite here. The digital album was produced by Candid Records in 1998.

Duke Ellington's My People was originally released in 1960. It's currently out of print -- we tracked down an LP at The Jazz Record Center -- but you can hear an excerpt from it in this video, below.

Dave Brubeck. The Gates of Justice. Naxos, 2004.
Louis Armstrong, Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks, and others. The Real Ambassadors. Sony, 1994.

Many other jazz musicians wrote provocative and compelling Civil Rights music. One of the pieces considered barely publishable was Charles Mingus' “Fables of Faubus" (Orval Faubus was the governor of Arkansas from 1955 through 1967). Columbia Records refused to record these lyrics. In 1960, however, Mingus recorded the song for Candid Records, lyrics and all, on Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus.

Oh, Lord, don't let 'em shoot us!
Oh, Lord, don't let 'em stab us!
Oh, Lord, don't let 'em tar and feather us!
Oh, Lord, no more swastikas!
Oh, Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!

Name me someone who's ridiculous, Danny.
Governor Faubus!
Why is he so sick and ridiculous?
He won't permit integrated schools.

Then he's a fool! Oh Boo!
Boo! Nazi Fascist supremacists
Boo! Ku Klux Klan (with your Jim Crow plan)

Name me a handful that's ridiculous, Danny.
Faubus, Nelson Rockefeller, Eisenhower
Why are they so sick and ridiculous?

Two, four, six, eight:
They brainwash and teach you hate.
H-E-L-L-O, Hello

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister and Paul Schneider

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Preservation Hall

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:21:28 -0500

This Saturday the Preservation Hall Jazz Band celebrates its 50^th anniversary with a performance at, of all places, Carnegie Hall. As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us in this archival edition of Fishko Files (recorded in pre-Katrina New Orleans), Preservation Hall is about as far from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center as a concert space can get.

For more information on the Preservation Hall Jazz Band's concert this weekend, click here.

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Marilyn

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:53:47 -0500

Actress Michelle Williams has received multiple nods this awards season for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in “My Week With Marilyn.” For WNYC’s Sara Fishko, it’s another in the chain of actresses trying to capture the essence of the iconic blond star of stars. Here’s “Marilyn,” a holiday highlight of this year’s Fishko Files…

Michelle Williams as Marilyn in "My Week with Marilyn."

One Blonde Leads to Another

PHOTO CAPTION:
Clockwise from top left: Catherine Hicks played Monroe in Marilyn: The Untold Story (1980); Diana Dors had a career in Britain in Marilyn’s day; Mira Sorvino played Marilyn in Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996); Theresa Russell played a character modeled after Marilyn in Insignificance (1985); Poppy Montgomery played a fictionalized Marilyn in Blonde (2001); and Jayne Mansfield was a Marilyn-inspired entertainer in Monroe’s time.

For more from the speakers featured in this episode of Fishko Files...

*Susan Doll is a writer and editor at Facets Media. You can read a selection from her book, Marilyn: Her Life & Legend here.

*Lois Banner is currently at work on her second biography of Marilyn Monroe. To see her first book, MM-Personal: From the Private Archive of Marilyn Monroe, click here.

*Joyce Chopra's 2001 mini-series about Monroe, Blonde, is available here.

Assistant Producer Laura Mayer went to Times Square on a buying trip. She came back with one Marilyn Monroe salt and pepper shaker, four postcards, two magnets, and a framed photo spread of Marilyn images.

WNYC Production Credits

Mix Engineers: Paul Schneider and Bill Bowen

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

WNYC Newsroom Editors: Karen Frillmann and Gisele Regatao

I Can See Clearly Now

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:08:01 -0500

Sometimes, says WNYC’s Sara Fishko, you have to be far away to see something clearly. In this year-end edition of Fishko Files, thoughts on distance

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Best of Fishko Files 2011

Peter and the Wolf

Aired April 29, 2011: May 2^nd marked 75 years since the first performance of Prokofiev’s children’s piece, Peter and the Wolf. As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, the millions of children listening over the decades knew only part of the story.

Vast Wasteland

Aired May 6, 2011: May 9^th marked 50 years since a now-famous speech rocked the broadcast world. Newton Minow described television as a “vast wasteland,” and the rest is history.

Frank Stella

Aired May 27, 2011: Sometimes artists, seeking inspiration, find it in the very thing that challenges and haunts them most. WNYC’s Sara Fishko talked with visual artist Frank Stella, about some very productive pain.

Marilyn

Aired July 1, 2011: Marilyn Monroe would have been 85 in June. her popularity has never been greater, says WNYC's Sara Fishko, thanks to a seemingly inescapable urge to evoke her in any way possible.

Marshall McLuhan

Aired July 15, 2011: Professor Marshall McLuhan rose to stardom in the 1960s as a pop culture guru. In honor of the McLuhan centenary in July, WNYC's Sara Fishko took us back to McLuhan's futuristic thoughts.

See for Yourself

Aired September 9, 2011: Over the last 10 years, there has been a steady stream of people - non-New Yorkers, mostly - visiting the site downtown known as Ground Zero. After the opening of the Memorial on September 11th, 2011, record-breaking crowds traveled there to see the exact spot. In this edition of Fishko Files, WNYC's Sara Fishko asks -- why?

Brothers and Sisters

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:23:13 -0500

Best of Fishko Files: The tradition of siblings singing together is as old as song. WNYC’s Sara Fishko looks at brothers, sisters and sibling harmony, in this edition of the Fishko Files...

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Tunisian Collaborative Painting

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 10:46:04 -0500

Cultures the world over have long recognized the power of individuality in the creation of art.. But when the individual artist is threatened, can there can be creative power in groups? WNYC’s Sara Fishko explores the world of “Tunisian Collaborative Painting” –in this edition of Fishko Files

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Rob Granniss

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

For more about Tunisian Collaborative Painting, visit the Art Students League's Youtube channel.

Photos from the Tunisian Collaborative Painting Workshop

A Cappella

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 18:46:32 -0500

Best of Fishko Files: Tis the season to make music. And, as WNYC's Sara Fishko tells us, music is sometimes best made with what you have available -- your voice. (Produced in 2001)

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Rachmaninoff

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:55:14 -0500

Best of Fishko Files: WNYC’s Sara Fishko explores the contradictory career of the Russian composer-pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff in this episode from 2001.

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Beethoven Sonatas

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:31:25 -0500

This Sunday at the Greene Space, as part of what is being called “Beethoven Awareness Month,” a lineup of pianists will perform a marathon concert of the 32 piano sonatas by Beethoven. As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, these pieces provide a particular window into the soul of one of our greatest composers. Here is the next Fishko Files…

The Beethoven sonata marathon presents all 32 sonatas played by a lineup of pianists, this Sunday (11/20) at The Greene Space, from 11 AM to 11 PM. For tickets and more information, visit The Greene Space's website.

For more about Beethoven, visit WQXR. They're celebrating Beethoven Awareness Month all November.

For more from the speakers in this edition of Fishko Files...

Read "Playing the Beethoven Sonatas" by Robert Taub
Listen to pianist Garrick Ohlsson's Beethoven Sonatas
Listen to pianist Mitsuko Uchida's Hammerklavier.

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Chick Corea

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 01:08:41 -0500

Best of Fishko Files: Chick Corea, pianist, composer, improvisor, bandleader, is coming to town this month. As WNYC's Sara Fishko tells us, he’s had a career filled with variety, and he’s managed to do it without all that much forward planning involved.

Chick Corea is playing a series of shows at The Blue Note - now, through the end of the month. For more scheduling and ticket information, visit their website.

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Photo League

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:59:18 -0400

At the Jewish Museum, a show called “Radical Camera” looks at the work of photographers in New York’s Photo League in the 1930s and 40s. As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, the League’s members were dedicated to facing reality, head-on. Here is the next Fishko Files.

"The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League" opens at The Jewish Museum on Friday, November 4th. For more information, visit the museum's website.

Photo slide show prepared by Laura Mayer

For more from the speakers in this edition of Fishko Files...

Vivian Cherry's most-recently published photo book is Vivian Cherry's New York. You can see it here.
To see a collection of Rebecca Lepkoff's photos taken during the late 30s through the early 50s, see her book Life on the Lower East Side: Photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, 1937-1950.
Marvin E. Newman's work is featured in this blog post, here.
Ida Wyman's work was recently exhibited at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Jean Vigo

listenerservices@wnyc.org (WNYC, New York Public Radio) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:20:58 -0400

For the first time, the complete films from the 1930s, by the French director Jean Vigo, are available in a DVD set. The restless and adventurous young filmmaker was not always so celebrated, WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us --in this quick look.

See the set: The Complete Jean Vigo from The Criterion Collection

From Francois Truffaut's The Films in My Life

“I had the huge pleasure of discovering Jean Vigo’s films in a single Saturday afternoon session in 1946, at the Sevres-Pathe, thanks to the Cine-Club “La Chambre Noire,” organized by Andre Bazin and other contributors to La Revue du Cinema. When I entered the theater, I didn’t even know who Jean Vigo was. I was immediately overwhelmed with wild enthusiasm for his work, which doesn’t take up two hundred minutes of projection time.

At first, I liked Zero de Conduite best, probably because I identified with Vigo’s collegians, as I was only three or four years older than they. Later, after I’d seen both films again and again, I definitely came to prefer L’Atalante, which I never leave out when I’m asked: ‘What, in your opinion, are the ten best films of all time?’”

Ludovic Cortade on Jean Vigo

Ludovic Cortade teaches French political history and cinema at NYU. We spoke to him about Jean Vigo, his films, and the importance of Vigo's work in the film landscape.

Photo courtesy of New York University.

On Vigo's films combining politics, social criticism and poetry

Ludovic Cortade

He brought together two very important aspects of filmmaking: politics, social criticism, and poetry. He wrote texts in which he said that a social documentary should open the eyes of the spectator. And what’s so interesting in Vigo’s films is that he definitely has a political approach to French society in the late 1920s, and the 1930s. And let’s keep in mind that France at that time was coping with the side-effects of the 1929 crisis. So it can be said that there is, without a doubt, a social agenda in his films, which, in my opinion, have such a powerful echo today. But that’s not all. At the same time, he defined a style and an aesthetic that is based on landscapes, dreams, poetry. And bringing together these two aspects is not that common in the history of filmmaking.

On Vigo's "documented point of view" documentaries

Ludovic Cortade

He’s certainly not making a case for a so-called objectivity of the film medium. It’s a false question. Many people ask the question of whether a documentary should be objective or not. He doesn’t care about this. And he makes it clear that documentary should be about what he calls a documented point of view. His films are documented point of views meaning that he uses documents or footage from real life and puts in evidence a certain perspective on society, a certain conception -- a critical conception of society. His intention is certainly not to hide that. It doesn’t shy away from his critical voice. And the fact that this critical voice is developed on a poetic note -- on the basis of a poetic note -- is something totally fascinating.

For more from the speaker in this week's Fishko Files...

Luc Sante is a critic and writer who writes about film and photography. You can take a look at some of his work here.

Sara Fishko has been thinking about film this week. Read her most recent blog post about the Museum of The Moving Image's new modern-day movie palace.

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann