Album Review—Paul McCartney and Wings, "One Hand Clapping" (Capitol)

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 03 July 2024 19:20

Written by Kevin Filipski

When Paul McCartney released his first Archive Collection set in 2010—Band on the Run, often considered his greatest post-Beatles work (for me, it’s just behind Ram)—he included One Hand Clapping, a long-unseen 50-minute TV documentary from 1974 about Wings, including interviews and live performances at Abbey Road. The quality of the video and audio was lacking, but at least it was officially released (bootlegs had proliferated for awhile).

 

 

Fourteen years later, remixed by Steve Orchard, the music from One Hand Clapping gets a shiny new audio release—little can apparently be done for the video quality that was seen on the archive set—and McCartney fans can listen to this superbly played, often raw collection of live songs, comprising solo Paul, Wings, that other band he was in and a few vintage tunes.

 

 

The band—comprising Linda on keyboards and backing vocals, stalwart Denny Laine on guitar and vocals, Jimmy McCullough on guitar, Geoffrey Britton on drums and Paul on nearly everything else—begins with the percolating instrumental, “One Hand Clapping,” followed by boisterous run-throughs of Wings and solo classics “Jet,” “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Band on the Run,” “Live and Let Die,” “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five,” “Let Me Roll It” and “Junior’s Farm.” A hard-hitting “Hi Hi Hi” closes the performance.

In between, amid several song snippets and medleys like “The Long and Winding Road”/”Lady Madonna” and “C Moon”/Little Woman Love,” Paul—either by himself or with his crack band—takes on old favorites like “Baby Face” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” along with two hidden gems from 1971’s much-maligned Wild Life: the title track and “Tomorrow.” On his truncated solo rendition of “Let It Be,” Paul accompanies himself on harmonium, giving it a more funereal feel. Laine gets his sole lead-vocal turn with a solid take of the early Moody Blues hit, “Go Now.”

When Paul tosses out the wittily tongue-in-cheek “I’ll Give You a Ring,” some fans might be surprised that it emerged a full eight years before it appeared as the B side of the single of “Take It Away” from Tug of War. But here it is, already fully formed, another example of Paul pulling perfect pop melodies out of thin air, then apparently sitting on them since he’s also written other memorable tunes in the meantime.

Another underappreciated classic, the taut rocker “Soily,” is best known as the incendiary encore on 1976’s Wings Over America. That Paul decided to have “Soily” climax the shows on his first world tour since leaving the Beatles shows how much faith he had in it—and his band—at the time. (Let’s forget that he hasn’t included it in his setlists since.) Although I prefer the balls-out version on Wings Over America with Paul at his screaming best, this energetic blast through it is no slouch either.

My lone quibble: If the 83-minute performance can’t fit on one CD, why not include the six additional songs from the sessions that Paul played solo versions of—’50s chestnuts “Twenty Flight Rock,” “Peggy Sue” and “I’m Gonna Love You Too” alongside the Beatles’ “Blackbird” and Paul’s “Blackpool” and “Country Dreamer”—on the CD release as well as the “special” vinyl edition? It always seems bizarre to prioritize vinyl over digital in 2024.

Armenian State Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Sunday, 30 June 2024 09:12

Written by Jack Angstreich

At Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium on the night of Thursday, June 27th, I had the immense pleasure of attending an amazing concert exclusively devoted to the seldom performed but brilliant music of Aram Khachaturian, presented by the extraordinary musicians of the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra under the sterling direction of Sergey Smbatyan. 

The evening began superbly with the revised version of the outstanding Triumphal Poem, an inventive, stirring work with an almost satirical interlude and a forceful conclusion. A remarkable soloist, Sergey Khachatryan, then entered the stage to admirably play the underrated Violin Concerto in D Minor from 1940. The initial movement—marked Allegro con fermezzo—is propulsive, with solemn, lyrical passages—it drew applause—while the Andante sostenuto movement that follows opens suspensefully and is song-like too, if in a more subdued manner. The Allegro vivace finale is exuberant but with quieter episodes, ending powerfully.

The second half of the event was even more memorable, starting with three wonderful selections from the popular ballet, Gayaneh, from 1942. (The Adagio from this score was used by director Stanley Kubrick in his 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.) The charming Dance of the Maidens preceded the mysterious and bewitching Lullaby and the lovely, waltz-like Aysheh’s Dance.

The program proper closed marvelously with five enthralling selections from another very famous ballet, Spartacus, from 1953. The spirited, delightful Introduction and Dance of the Nymphs was succeeded by the rhythmic, exhilarating Scene and Dance with Crotalums that finishes softly. The ensuing Variation of Aegina and Bacchanalia is exciting, and has a celebratory ethos. The enchanting, exquisite Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia builds in intensity but concludes gently and the Dance of Gaditanae and Victory of Spartacus is haunting and then triumphal. An enthusiastic ovation elicited three fabulous encores: first, the Waltz from the 1944 symphonic suite, Masquerade, from incidental music for a play by Mikhail Lermontov, and then, the indelible Sabre Dance and Lezghinka from Gayaneh.

“Carnal Knowledge: The Films of Catherine Breillat” at Lincoln Center

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Saturday, 29 June 2024 09:30

Written by Jack Angstreich

Fat Girl

From June 21st through the 27th, Film at Lincoln Center presented “Carnal Knowledge: The Films of Catherine Breillat,” a long overdue retrospective—programmed by Florence Almozini and Dan Sullivan—of the cinematic oeuvre of that extraordinary director, in anticipation of the release on the 28th—at this same venue—of her latest opus, the marvelous Last Summer, which had its local premiere at last year’s New York Film Festival.

Already a published author as a teenager, she began as a novelist and sometime actress, appearing in a small role along with her sister in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris in 1972—that pathbreaking movie, in its radicalism and explicit sexuality, would seem to be an important precursor for her own distinctive practice as a filmmaker. She collaborated with Federico Fellini in some capacity as a screenwriter on his interesting late work from 1984, And the Ship Sails On, and has co-written scripts for Marco Bellocchio and Liliana Cavani. Also significantly, she was the source of the original story—and co-wrote the screenplay for—Maurice Pialat’s powerfulPolicefrom 1985–this was already several years after she had begun to direct features.

The earliest of these that I saw was also the first one I encountered, the striking36 Fillettefrom 1988. I didn’t see her impressive next movie, Dirty Like an Angel—from 1991—until somewhat later. I’ve never seenCouples et amantsfrom 1993, but it’s immediate successor, Perfect Love from 1996 further intrigued me and suggested her assurance as a filmmaker. The following Romance—from 1999—was an audacious endeavor with some beautiful sequences but I thought it ultimately artistically unsatisfying. I look forward to revisiting all of these.

With her next feature,Fat Girl (2001)she seemed clearly to have emerged as a major director, if she was not one already. Brief Crossing (2001) and Sex Is Comedy (2002) were both excellent and further extended her range. The invaluable critic J. Hoberman described Anatomy of Hell (2004) as her “most radical film.” (He added, “But in its stunning dialectic between tasteful and tasteless, Romance is surely her most insolent.”) The Last Mistress (2007), based on a novel by Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, seemed to me to be possibly her greatest work to date, along withFat Girl.I was unconvinced by her adaptation of the Charles Perrault fairytale, Bluebeard (2009) and have not seen Sleeping Beauty (2010), also based on Perrault.

Abuse of Weaknessfrom 2013—which was screened at the New York Film Festival—if slighter than her very best films, demonstrated that she was still a force with which to be reckoned. Film at Lincoln Center’s summary reads as follows: 

In 2004, at the age of 56, Catherine Breillat suffered a serious stroke. Her left side was initially paralyzed, and after five months in the hospital she worked like a demon to walk again. Not long after, she prepared an adaptation of her novel Bad Love and decided to cast the notorious “swindler of the stars,” Christophe Rocancourt, fresh from a jail term for fraud. Over the next several months, Rocancourt took advantage of Breillat’s condition and stood by her side as she wrote him checks amounting to €650,000. She later took him to court and won her case, and chronicled the experience in a book that she then adapted into this uniquely haunting film, with a bold, tough performance by Isabelle Huppert as the Breillat stand-in and French/Portuguese rapper Kool Shen as the con man. 

Huppert is indeed dazzling and her realization of the role is a true tour de force, remaining one of the most compelling components of this pleasurable film.

Last Summer, a remake of a Danish movie from 2019, is another outstanding achievement, and it was on Cahiers du Cinéma’s list of the ten best films of 2023. It stars Léa Drucker and the luminous Samuel Kircher, a relative newcomer.