The film tells a fictional story in which the real life Chilean poet Pablo Neruda forms a relationship with a simple postman who learns to love poetry. It stars Philippe Noiret, Massimo Troisi and Maria Grazia Cucinotta. The screenplay was adapted by Anna Pavignano, Michael Radford, Furio Scarpelli, Giacomo Scarpelli and Massimo Troisi from the novel Ardiente paciencia by Antonio Skármeta. Skármeta himself had previously adapted his novel for the screen in 1985 as Ardiente paciencia.
Writer/star Massimo Troisi postponed heart surgery so that he could complete the film. The day after filming was completed, he suffered a fatal heart attack.
About Luis Bacalov
Luis Enríquez Bacalov (b. Buenos Aires March 30, 1933) is a prolific Argentine composer of film scores. Early on in his career, he composed scores for Spaghetti Western films, including Django, Storm Rider and The Price of Power.
Bacalov has been nominated twice for Academy Awards: for Scoring of Music--adaptation or treatment for The Gospel According to St. Matthew in 1967 and winning the award for Original Music Score for Il Postino in 1996.
In the early 1970s, he collaborated with Italian progressive rock bands New Trolls, Osanna and Il Rovescio della Medaglia.
In recent years, Bacalov has also composed significant works for chorus and orchestra, including his Misa Tango , a work setting a Spanish-language adaptation of the classic liturgical Mass to the tango rhythms of his native Argentina. The standard Mass text has been significantly truncated in accordance with Bacalov's desire that the work appeal to those of all Abrahamic faiths: Christians, Muslims and Jews. All references to Christ except as the Lamb of God in the Agnus Dei have been deleted. The Credo has been reduced to "I believe in one God, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. Amen." Misa Tango debuted in Rome with Placido Domingo as solo Tenor in 2000 and was later recorded by Deutsche Grammophon with Plácido Domingo (tenor), Ana María Martínez (mezzo-soprano) and Héctor Ulises Passarella (bandoneón). Bacalov recently composed Cantones de Nuestro Tiempos (Psalms for our Times): The Cambridge Psalms, a commissioned work with text from the Psalms of David for baritone and soprano soloists, orchestra and chorus, which had its world premiere at Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts in spring 2006 by the Cambridge Community Chorus (William E. Thomas, Music Director). Two of his songs were used in Quentin Tarantino's film Kill Bill.
Presently he is the artistic director of Orchestra della Magna Grecia in Taranto, Italy.
About Lee Morgan
Lee Morgan, a leading (hard bop & modal jazz) trumpeter and composer, recorded prolifically from 1956 until a day before his death in February 1972. Originally interested in the vibraphone, he soon showed a growing enthusiasm for the trumpet; and on his 13th birthday his sister Ernestine gave him his first trumpet. His primary stylistic influence was Clifford Brown, who gave the teenager a few lessons before his untimely death in a 1956 car accident. Morgan joined the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band at 18, and remained a member for a year and a half, until economics forced Dizzy to disband the unit in 1958. He began recording for Blue Note Records in 1956, eventually recording 25 albums as a leader for the company, with more than 250 musicians. He also recorded on the Vee-Jay label.
He was a featured sideman on several early Hank Mobley records, as well as on John Coltrane's Blue Train (1957) on which, he played a trumpet with an angled bell (given to him by Gillespie) and delivered one of his most celebrated solos on the title track.
Joining Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in 1958 further developed his talent as a soloist and composer. He toured with Blakey for a few years, and was featured on numerous albums by the Messengers, including Moanin', which is one of the band's best-known recordings. When Benny Golson left the Jazz Messengers, Morgan persuaded Blakey to hire Wayne Shorter, a young tenor saxophonist, to fill the chair. This version of the Jazz Messengers, including pianist Bobby Timmons and bassist Jymie Merritt, would record the classic The Freedom Rider album. The drug problems of Morgan and Timmons forced them to leave the band in 1961, and the trumpeter returned to Philadelphia, his hometown. According to Tom Perchard, a Morgan biographer, it was Blakey who introduced the trumpeter to heroin, an addictive drug that impeded his career trajectory.
On returning to New York in 1963, he recorded The Sidewinder (December 1963), which became his greatest commercial success. The title track cracked the pop charts in 1964, and served as the background theme for Chrysler television commercials during the World Series. The tune was used without Morgan's or Blue Note's consent, and intercession by the label's lawyers led to the commercial being withdrawn. Due to the crossover success of "The Sidewinder" in a rapidly changing pop music market, Blue Note owners encouraged other of its artists to emulate the tune's "boogaloo" beat. Morgan himself repeated the formula several times with compositions such as "Cornbread" (from the eponymous album Cornbread) and "Yes I Can, No You Can't" on The Gigolo. According to drummer Billy Hart, Morgan said he had recorded "The Sidewinder" as filler for the album, and was bemused that it had turned into his biggest hit. He felt that his playing was much more advanced on Grachan Moncur III's essentially avant-garde Evolution album, recorded a month earlier, on November 21,1963.
After this commercial success, Morgan continued to record prolifically, producing such works as Search for the New Land (1964), which reached the top 20 of the R&B charts. He also briefly rejoined the Jazz Messengers after his successor, Freddie Hubbard, joined another group.
As the 60's progressed, he recorded some twenty additional albums as a leader, and continued to record as a sideman on the albums of other artists, including Wayne Shorter's Night Dreamer; Stanley Turrentine's Mr. Natural; Freddie Hubbard's The Night of the Cookers; Hank Mobley's Dippin', A Caddy for Daddy, A Slice of the Top, Straight No Filter; Jackie McLean's Jackknife and Consequence; Joe Henderson's Mode for Joe; McCoy Tyner's Tender Moments; Lonnie Smith's Think and Turning Point; Elvin Jones' The Prime Element; Jack Wilson's Easterly Winds; Reuben Wilson's Love Bug; Larry Young's Mother Ship; Lee Morgan and Clifford Jordan Live in Baltimore 1968; Andrew Hill's Grass Roots; as well as on several albums with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.
He became more politically involved in the last two years of his life, becoming one of the leaders of the Jazz and People's Movement; the group demonstrated during the taping of talk and variety shows during 1970-71 to protest the lack of jazz artists as guest performers and members of the programs' bands.
His working band during those last years featured reedmen Billy Harper or Bennie Maupin; pianist Harold Mabern, bassist Jymie Merritt and drummers Mickey Roker or Freddie Waits. Maupin, Mabern, Merritt and Roker are featured on the well-regarded 3-disc, Live at the Lighthouse, recorded during a two-week engagement at the Hermosa Beach club, California, in July 1970.
That Lee Morgan would be murdered in the early hours of February 19, 1972, at Slugs', a jazz club in New York City's East Village where his band was performing, was as improbable as it was tragic. Following an altercation between sets, Morgan's live-in girlfriend (Helen More), shot him in the heart, killing him instantly.He was 33 years old.
Born Eugene McDuffy in Champaign, Illinois, McDuff began playing bass, appearing in Joe Farrell's group. Encouraged by Willis Jackson in whose band he also played bass in the late 50s, McDuff moved to the organ and began to attract the attention of Prestige Records while still with Jackson's group. McDuff soon became a bandleader, leading groups featuring a young George Benson, Red Holloway on saxophone and Joe Dukes on drums.
McDuff recorded many classic albums on Prestige including his debut solo Brother Jack in 1960, The Honeydripper (1961), with tenor saxophonist Jimmy Forrest and guitarist Grant Green, and Brother Jack Meets The Boss (1962), featuring Gene Ammons, and Screamin’ (1962).
After his tenure at Prestige, McDuff joined the Atlantic Records label for a brief period and then in the 70s recorded for Blue Note. To Seek a New Home (1970) was recorded in England with a line-up featuring blues shouter Jimmy Witherspoon and some of Britain's top jazz musicians of the day, including Terry Smith on guitar and Dick Morrissey on tenor sax.
The decreasing interest in jazz and blues patent during the late 70s and 1980s meant that many jazz musicians went through a lean time and it wasn't until the late 1980s, with The Re-Entry, recorded for the Muse label in 1988, that McDuff once again began a successful period of recordings, initially for Muse, then on the Concord Jazz label from 1991. George Benson appeared on his mentor’s 1992 Colour Me Blue album.
Despite health problems, McDuff continued working and recording throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and toured Japan with Atsuko Hashimoto in 2000. "Captain" Jack McDuff, as he later became known, died of heart failure at the age of 74 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Υποψήφια Ευρωβουλευτής
Lyrically, Waits' songs contain atmospheric portrayals of bizarre, seedy characters and places, although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best-known to the general public in the form of cover versions by more visible artists—for example, "Jersey Girl," performed by Bruce Springsteen; "Downtown Train" and "Tom Traubert's Blues" performed by Rod Stewart; and "Ol' '55," performed by the Eagles. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations.
Waits currently lives in Sonoma County, California with his wife and their three children
Mobley was born in Eastman, Georgia, but was raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, near Newark. Early in his career, he worked with Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach. He took part in one of the landmark hard bop sessions, alongside Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Doug Watkins and trumpeter Kenny Dorham. The results of these sessions were released as Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers. They contrasted with the classical pretensions of cool jazz, with Mobley's rich lyricism being bluesier, alongside the funky approach of Horace Silver. When The Jazz Messengers split in 1956, Mobley continued on with pianist Horace Silver for a short time, although he did work again with Blakey some years later, when the drummer appeared on Mobley's albums in the early 60s.
During the 1960s, he worked chiefly as a leader, recording 25 albums for Blue Note Records, including Soul Station and Roll Call, between 1955 and 1970. He performed with many of the most important hard bop players, such as Grant Green, Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Clark, Wynton Kelly and Philly Joe Jones, and formed a particularly productive partnership with trumpeter Lee Morgan. Mobley is widely recognized as one of the great composers of originals in the hard-bop era, with interesting chord changes and room for soloists to spread out.
His 1961 album, Another Workout, while considered an instant classic, was inexplicably not released until 1985.
Mobley also spent a brief time in 1961 with Miles Davis, during the trumpeter's search for a replacement for John Coltrane. He is heard on the album Someday My Prince Will Come (alongside Coltrane, who returned for the recording of some tracks), and some live recordings (In Person: Live at the Blackhawk and At Carnegie Hall). Though considered by some as not having the improvisational fire of Coltrane, Mobley was still a major voice on tenor saxophone, known for his melodic playing.
Mobley was forced to retire in the mid-1970s due to lung problems. He worked briefly with Duke Jordan before his death from pneumonia in 1986.
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Their biggest hit single was 1973's instrumental disc, "Love's Theme". The track, written by White, went to #1 for one week in the U.S. and #10 in the UK Singles Chart. The R.I.A.A. awarded a gold disc on 7 February 1974.
About Lonnie Liston Smith
Lonnie Liston Smith, Jr. (born December 28, 1940 in Richmond, Virginia) is an American jazz, soul, and funk musician. Smith started out playing acoustic jazz before exploring jazz fusion, soul, and funk. Smith played acoustic piano with Pharoah Sanders, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Betty Carter, and Gato Barbieri. He later joined Miles Davis as an electric keyboardist in the early 1970s.In 1973 Smith founded the Cosmic Echoes band with his brother Donald Smith, a singer and piano player who has collaborated, among others, with Oliver Lake. Smith was featured on rapper Guru's album Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1.
The series was created by Don Cornelius, who also served as its first host and executive producer, and aired from 1971 to 2006, with reruns continuing until 2008.
The origins of Soul Train can be traced to 1965, when WCIU-TV, an upstart UHF station in Chicago, began airing two youth-oriented dance programs: Kiddie-a-Go-Go and Red Hot and Blues. These two programs—specifically the latter, which featured a predominantly African American group of in-studio dancers—would set the stage for what was to come to the station several years later.
Don Cornelius, a news reader and backup disc jockey at Chicago radio station WVON, was hired by WCIU in 1967 as a news and sports reporter. Cornelius also was emceeing a touring series of concerts featuring local talent (sometimes called "record hops") at Chicago-area high schools, calling his travelling caravan of shows "The Soul Train". WCIU-TV took notice of Cornelius's outside work, and in 1970 allowed him the opportunity to bring his road show to television.
After securing a sponsorship deal with the Chicago-based retailer Sears, Roebuck and Co., Soul Train premiered on WCIU-TV on August 17, 1970 as a live show airing weekday afternoons. The first episode of the program featured Jerry Butler, the Chi-Lites, and the Emotions as guests. Its immediate success attracted the attention of another locally-based firm—the Johnson Products Company (manufacturers of the Afro Sheen line of hair-care products) -- and they later agreed to co-sponsor the program's expansion into syndication. Soul Train began airing in selected cities across the United States, on a weekly basis, on October 2, 1971. When it moved into syndication, the program's home base was also shifted to Los Angeles, where it remained for the duration of its run. Syndication of the program was initially handled by Syndicast Services until 1985, when Tribune Entertainment took over those responsibilities.
Though Don Cornelius moved his operations west, Soul Train continued in Chicago. Cornelius hosted the local Chicago and Los Angeles-based national programs simultaneously, but soon focused his attention solely on the national edition. He continued to oversee production in Chicago, where WCIU-TV aired episodes until 1976, followed by three years of once-weekly reruns.
Cornelius ended his run as host in 1993, and guest hosts were used from that time until 1997, when comedian Mystro Clark began a two-year stint as host. Clark was replaced by actor Shemar Moore in 1999. In 2003, Moore was succeeded by actor Dorian Gregory, who hosted through 2006.
The show was known for its animated opening titles and sequences between musical performances featuring the popular cartoon train created by various cartoon studios. As a nod to Soul Train's longevity, the show's opening sequence (during later seasons) also contained a claim that it was the "longest-running, first-run, nationally-syndicated program in television history," with over 1,100 episodes produced from the show's debut through the 2005-06 season.
Production of first-run episodes was suspended at the conclusion of the 2005-06 season, the show's thirty-fifth. For two seasons starting in 2006-07, the program aired archived episodes (all from between 1974 and 1987) under the title, "The Best of Soul Train". The future of Soul Train was uncertain with the announced closing of Tribune Entertainment's syndication division on December 18, 2007, which left Don Cornelius Productions to seek a new distributor for the program. Cornelius soon secured a deal with Trifecta Entertainment & Media.
In May 2008, the rights to the Soul Train library were purchased by MadVision Entertainment, whose principal partners come from the entertainment and publishing fields. The price and terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, by the start of the 2008-09 television season, the Tribune-owned stations (including national carrier WGN America) that had been the linchpin of the show's syndication efforts dropped the program, and many others followed suit. The move coincided with Trifecta Entertainment and Media's transfer of its only other major syndication effort, American Idol Rewind, to network television, indicating it may have exited the syndication business as well. Soul Train's website acknowledged that the program had ceased distribution on September 22, 2008.
Despite this, in years on air, Soul Train will continue to hold the honor of the longest, continuously-running first-run syndicated program until at least 2016, if and when its nearest competitor, Entertainment Tonight, completes its 35th season. (If ET does not complete a 35th season, Wheel of Fortune would pass in 2017 if it continues to air.)
As Funkadelic, the group signed to Westbound in 1968. Around this time, the group's music evolved from soul and doo wop into a harder guitar-driven mix of psychedelic rock, soul and funk, much influenced by the popular musical (and political) movements of the time. Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone were major inspirations. This style later evolved into a tighter guitar-based funk (circa 1971-75), which subsequently, during the height of Parliament-Funkadelic success (circa 1976-81), added elements of disco and electronic music.
The group's self-titled debut album, Funkadelic, was released in 1970. The credits listed organist Mickey Atkins plus Clinton, Fulwood, Hazel, Nelson, and Ross. The recording also included the rest of the Parliaments singers (still uncredited due to contractual concerns), several uncredited session musicians then employed by Motown, as well as Ray Monette (of Rare Earth) and future P-Funk mainstay Bernie Worrell.
Bernie Worrell was officially credited starting with Funkadelic's second album, 1970's Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow, thus beginning a long working relationship between Worrell and Clinton. The album Maggot Brain followed in 1971. The first three Funkadelic albums displayed strong psychedelic influences (not least in terms of production) and limited commercial potential, despite containing many songs that stayed in the band's setlist for several years and would influence many future funk, rock, and hip hop artists.
After the release of Maggot Brain, the Funkadelic lineup was expanded greatly. Tawl Ross was unavailable after experiencing either a bad LSD trip or a speed overdose, while Billy Bass Nelson and Eddie Hazel quit due to financial concerns. From this point, many more musicians and singers would be added during Funkadelic's (and Parliament's) history, including the recruitment of several members of the famous James Brown backing band The JB's in 1972 - most notably Bootsy Collins and the Horny Horns. Bootsy and his brother Catfish Collins were recruited by Clinton to replace the departed Nelson and Hazel. Bootsy in particular become a major contributor to the P-Funk sound. In 1972, this new line-up released the politically-charged double album America Eats Its Young. The lineup stabilized a bit with the album Cosmic Slop in 1973, featuring major contributions from recently added singer-guitarist Garry Shider. After first leaving the band, Eddie Hazel spent a year in jail for drug possession and assault, then returned to make major contributions to the 1974 album Standing on the Verge of Getting It On. Hazel only contributed to P-Funk sporadically thereafter.
George Clinton revived Parliament in 1974 and signed that act to Casablanca Records. Parliament and Funkadelic featured mostly the same stable of personnel but operated concurrently under two names. At first, Parliament was designated as a more mainstream funk ensemble dominated by soulful vocals and horn arrangements, while Funkadelic was designated as a more experimental and freestyle guitar-based funk band. The ensemble usually toured under the combined name Parliament-Funkadelic or simply P-Funk (which also became the catch-all term for George Clinton's rapidly growing stable of funk artists).
In 1975 Michael Hampton, a teen guitar prodigy, replaced Hazel as the premier lead guitarist in Parliament-Funkadelic, and was a major contributor to the next several Funkadelic albums. Funkadelic left Westbound in 1976 and moved to Warner Brothers. Their first album for Warner was Hardcore Jollies in 1976. Just before leaving Westbound, Clinton provided that label with a collection of recently recorded outtakes, which Westbound released as the album Tales of Kidd Funkadelic. That album did significantly better commercially than Hardcore Jollies and included "Undisco Kidd", an R&B Top 30 single. In 1977, Westbound capitalized further by releasing the anthology The Best of the Early Years.
As Parliament began achieving significant mainstream success in the 1975-1978 period, Funkadelic recorded and released its most successful and influential album, One Nation Under a Groove in 1978, adding former Ohio Players lead and keyboardist Walter "Junie" Morrison and reflecting a more melodic dance-based sound. The title track spent six weeks at #1 on the R&B charts, around the time that Parliament was enjoying the #1 R&B singles "Flash Light" and "Aqua Boogie." Uncle Jam Wants You in 1979 continued Funkadelic's new more electronic sound production. The album contains a fifteen-minute version of "(Not Just) Knee Deep", an edited version of which topped the R&B charts, featuring former Spinners lead singer Philippé Wynne. The final official Funkadelic album, The Electric Spanking of War Babies, was released in 1981. The release was originally a double-album project, but it was reduced to a single disc under pressure from Warner Brothers. Some of the deleted tracks would appear on future P-Funk releases, most notably the 1982 hit single "Atomic Dog" which appeared on the first George Clinton solo album.
Meanwhile, the album Connections & Disconnections (re-issued on CD as Who's a Funkadelic) was released under the name Funkadelic in 1981. The album was recorded by former Funkadelic members and original Parliaments Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas, who had left P-Funk in 1977 after disagreements with George Clinton's management practices. This LP, notable for its heavy use of Thomas "Pae-dog" McEvoy's jazz horn, contains the track called "You'll Like it too", which came a very popular breakbeat source for the Hip hop community in the 80's. Another rebellious former band member, drummer Jerome Brailey, released the album Mutiny on the Mamaship, by his new band Mutiny. Even Clinton himself found this to be a good album despite containing lyrics that mocked him and his management of the P-Funk enterprise.
In the early 1980s, with legal difficulties arising from the multiple names used by multiple groups, as well as a shakeup at Parliament's record label, George Clinton dissolved Parliament and Funkadelic as recording and touring entities. However, many of the musicians in later versions of the two groups remained employed by Clinton. Clinton continued to release new albums regularly, sometimes under his own name and sometimes under the name George Clinton & the P-Funk All-Stars. In the mid-1980s, the last Funkadelic album By Way Of The Drum was recorded by Clinton with P-Funk personnel and many electronic devices. The album was rejected by its record label and did not see official release in America until it appeared as a reissue in 2007. It features a cover of "Sunshine Of Your Love" by Cream. The album did not receive any publicity, but still received favorable reviews.
Clinton continued his P-Funk collective in the 1990s and 2000s, with a revolving stable of musicians, some of whom remain from the classic lineups of Funkadelic and Parliament. The rock-oriented sound of Funkadelic has diminished, as Clinton has moved towards more of an R&B and hip hop sound.
Filmmaker Yvonne Smith of New York City-based Brazen Hussy productions produced Parliament-Funkadelic: One Nation Under a Groove, a full-length documentary about the groundbreaking group, which aired on PBS in 2005. As of 2008, Clinton was at work on a new Funkadelic album for his new record label. In November 2008, Westbound Records released Toys, a collection of Funkadelic outtakes and demos from the Free Your Mind and America Eats Its Young era. Critical reception of the album has generally been positive.
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