THE GAZETTE
Wednesday, January 22, 2014 z
Page B-7
A hot mix of movies, music
Gypsy jazz and vintage films blend at BlackRock
n
BY
VIRGINIA TERHUNE STAFF WRITER
LENNY GONZALEZ
BAYLIN ARTISTS
“The Cameraman’s Revenge,” a 1912 short about the marital problems of insects, is part of the “Cinema Vivant” program.
THE HOT CLUB OF SAN FRANCISCO n When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25 n Where: BlackRock Center for the Arts, 12901 Town Commons Drive, Germantown n Tickets: $14-$25 n For information: Blackrockcenter.org, Hcsf.com
play the guitar,” Mehling said. Also performing in the band are the Grammy award-winning violinist Evan Price, vocalist Isabelle Fontaine, guitarist Jeff Magidson and bassist Clint Baker. “People around the world are interested in this music,” said Mehling, who said the genre has become more popular in recent years. Gypsy jazz is featured in the
films “Sweet and Lowdown” with Sean Penn and “Chocolat” with Johnny Depp, he said. At BlackRock, Hot Club of San Francisco will perform several gypsy jazz songs and talk about their history, then play a variety of music to accompany three short, silent films. Incorporating the films into the band’s performances was “a way of getting our foot in the door” with a broader range of venues, Mehling said. “Americans don’t think they understand jazz or like jazz, but we show them how easy it is to listen to and how much fun it can be,” he said. Mehling learned about early stop-motion movies from a friend who had started a San Francisco silent film festival, where films are often accompanied by an organist or a
The Hot Club of San Francisco visits BlackRock in Germantown on Saturday for its “Cinema Vivant” program, a mix of gypsy jazz swing and early stop-motion film shorts. From left are band leader and lead guitarist Paul Mehling, guitarist Jeff Magidson, vocalist Isabelle Fontaine, violinist Evan Price and bassist Clint Baker. band. “He gave me a bunch of films to look at,” Mehling said. The oldest short in the show is “The Cameraman’s Revenge,” a pioneering 1912 film by Ladislaw Starewicz. Born to Polish parents in Russia, Starewicz is considered to be the inventor of stop-motion films. The movie is about an adulterous marriage, but the characters are not people — they’re insects, one of which rides a motorcycle. Like animated works, stopmotion films involve shooting small changes in the actions of the characters, frame by frame, to create the illusion of movement. “It was expensive and time consuming,” Mehling said. Starewicz also made “The Mascot” in 1933, an adventure story about lost toys. Also in the show is “There
It Is,” a recently discovered 1928 comedy about a mysterious incident investigated by a Scotland Yard detective played by Charley Bowers, an American. Known for his technical expertise, Bowers combined animation with live action, creating images of wagons going through walls and telephones weaving like cobras. “This gives people the chance to see movies they’ve never seen,” said Mehling. “He made 20 films in America and only 11 exist, and they were all found in Europe.” Mehling said that after the shows, audiences often say “they’d wished we played more [gypsy jazz], and they’re often shocked about how modern the films seemed.” vterhune@gazette.net
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Scott Fitzgerald Theater
603 Edmonston Dr. Rockville, MD 20851
240-314-8690
www.rockvillemd.gov/theatre Rockville Little Theatre Presents
An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestly
The family is celebrating when a mysterious inspector comes to call. It becomes clear that they are implicated in a young women’s death. Join us for an exciting whodunnit that will keep you guessing to the very end.
Jan. 24 and 25 at 8 p.m. Jan. 26 at 2 p.m.
$18 to $16
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Time was when gypsies traveling through the French countryside would look for a barn wall or throw a white sheet over a tree branch to entertain villagers with silent movies while they supplied the music. The tradition has died out, but the Hot Club of San Francisco band preserves the memory in its show “Cinema Vivant,” featuring Gypsy jazz music and vintage shorts on Saturday at the BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown. “I grew up listening to Django Reinhardt and Louis Armstrong,” said band leader Paul Mehling, who started the group 25 years ago. “I was a big fan of the Beatles, and when they broke up, I didn’t think there was any other music worth listening to,” said the guitarist, who sought out gypsies in Europe and learned French to read liner notes from Reinhardt recordings. The Hot Club of San Francisco takes its name from the Quintette du Hot Club de France in Paris, where gypsy guitarist Reinhardt performed with violinist Stephane Grappelli in the 1930s. “[Gypsy jazz] is one part classical, one part gypsy, one part folk music and one part American jazz with acoustic string instruments,” said Mehling, who has made instructional DVDs about the genre. “It’s not easy music to play — it involves extreme dedication and technical technique to
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