Exploring the people, places & culture of greater LA
We are very fortunate to live in a city that is home to some of the finest film preservation and screening organizations in the country. This month, two of these local film institutions, the UCLA Film & Television Archive and Los Angeles Filmforum, in cooperation with NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, present a program called Celebrating Orphan Films, an eclectic mix of screenings and discussions at the Billy Wilder Theater.
With his perpetually dazed, beatific gaze, jazz guitarist and composer Bill Frisell found an ideal creative foil in the deadpan mug of silent film genius Buster Keaton. An ongoing relationship first documented on Frisell’s 1995 albums “Music for Films of Buster Keaton: Go West” and “Music for Films of Buster Keaton: One Week and High Sign” (Nonesuch), Frisell revisits his evocative scores for the three films Saturday afternoon at UCLA’s Royce Hall with bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen (the original recordings featured bassist Kermit Driscoll and drummer Joey Baron).
With Kenny Burrell’s 80th birthday fast approaching, it’s an apt time to appreciate this elegant and seemingly ageless jazz master. A mainstay on the Southern California scene for more than 30 years, the guitarist taught the first university course on Duke Ellington at UCLA back in the early 1970s. Now head of the school’s jazz program, Burrell leads a jam session at the Fowler Museum on Saturday with a glittering roster of fellow faculty, including trumpeter Bobby Rodriguez, vocalist Barbara Morrison, trombonist George Bohanon, drummer Clayton Cameron, saxophonist/flutist Justo Almario, bassist Roberto Miranda, and pianist Llew Matthews.
The Hammer Museum runs an excellent children’s program called Hammer Kids, which includes films, art installations and various participatory experiences. This program sounds particularly interesting. Francis W. Hoeber—early collaborator with Brian De Palma, historian of American social and cultural behavior, tour guide, and amateur magician—will give a tour of the Demon Hill mystery house, an installation […]
I have always admired the ease with which the people of Los Angeles embrace change and look to the future. And yet, I know this attribute has led to much destruction of what came before, the obliteration of our past and at times, the elimination of existing communities that were seemingly invisible to those with the power to impose change for their own benefit.
During the last century, we lost once vibrant neighborhoods such as Bunker Hill, Chavez Ravine, and the old Chinatown. We also lost numerous architecturally and/or historically significant buildings, such as the Brown Derby restaurant, the Columbia Savings Building, the Ambassador Hotel, Welton Becket and Associates office building and the Hollywood Star Lanes bowling alley, just to name a few.
If you love gardens as I do, then the Mildred Mathias Botanical Garden (“the garden”) is a special one to visit. Tucked away in the southeast corner of the UCLA campus, it is seven acres of frost-free terrain that supports approximately 5000 species of plants from all over the world.
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