Opening themes to a variety of 1960s US series (including documentary series). Interesting the degree to which big-band-flavored jazz arrangements were meant to indicate modernity, and not solely though of course usually in scoring crime-drama. Westerns more likely to emulate Ferde Grofe when not Holst or Copland. This particular episode of Bus Stop got the series into trouble, adapting as it did a Tom Wicker crime novel, and criticized in Congressional hearings as an example of excessive violence--see the first Kovacs segment, below (Stephen King selected another episode, Robert Bloch's script from his own short story, "I Kiss Your Shadow," as the single most effective work of television horror drama he'd seen).
Dusty, Dusty Springfield's BBC half-hour series.
And a French & Saunders (Brit comedians/comic actors, best-known in the States for, respectively, The Vicar of Dibley and Absolutely Fabulous)-hosted interview with/biodoc about Springfield.
From Stephen Sondheim's score for the ABC Stage '67 adaptation of John Collier's "Evening Primrose": "I Remember" performed by Charmian Carr:
Frankly Jazz, a local series in Los Angeles that ran 1962-63, and drew heavily on the artists signed to Richard Bock's World Pacific label.
A freshet mostly from the late series for Ernie Kovacs, Kovacs Corner (ABC):
Among other things, a bit of a parody of NBC Radio's Monitor and their purring weather-reporter "Miss Monitor"...(a Benny Carter composition from the Count Basie Orchestra recording Kansas City Suite plays behind her):
Kovacs musical animation:
Segments featuring Yma Sumac and mockery of Disney, a partner of ABC but not yet its owner, in the earliest 1960s (and this series was on NBC, anyway...):
Married couple Kovacs and Edie Adams, doing her fine impression of Monroe, and singing more Disney parody...
4 comments:
I loved all the Kovacs I saw, but didn't see a lot of it, it wasn't watched much in our house when I was growing up. It would be great to see full length, full screen shows, original ads and all. And I don't mean U-Tube stuff.
Well, there have been some packages since the 1977 PBS retrospective series, but they have been rather hit or miss. And YT is getting to be a provider of full-length material, sometimes in very good fidelity...but I certainly could go for a fine dvd set.
Haven't seen the name Yva Sumac in years. I used to have an album of hers though. Can hardly remember Kovacs. My husband does. Those three years between us, I guess.
That PBS series wasn't the first time I'd seen his work (I'd seen him in a film or two beforehand), but it certainly was a memorable exposure.
"Sumac" certainly retains a fanbase, but it's a pretty easy one to miss...
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