SK 89019 - Available on CD |
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Best Actor (Sean Penn) and Best Supporting Actress (Samantha Morton) The music performed on screen in the new movie Sweet and Lowdown -- written and directed by Woody Allen -- is collected in this swinging new set of jazz standards recorded by the best musicians of today. Sweet and Lowdown is a beautifully colorful period piece set in the 1930s about the adventures of a wild and eccentric jazz guitar genius played by Sean Penn, who experiences a number of hilarious and harrowing events as he clashes with lovers, musicians and gangsters. The cast also features Uma Thurman, Samantha Morton, Gretchen Mol and Anthony LaPaglia. For the soundtrack to this touching farce, Dick Hyman (Woody's long-time musical collaborator) has assembled an all-star line-up of jazz greats to lovingly recreate the sound of the small group swing era depicted in the film in a set of new recordings of classic tunes from the era. The band features Howard Alden, whom Jazz Times says "may be the best guitarist of his generation"; guitar legend Bucky Pizzarelli, who has performed with Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, Skitch Henderson, Doc Severinson, Mitch Miller, Les Paul and Stephane Grappelli; and Ken Peplowski, one of the most gifted clarinetists to emerge in the 1990s and also an excellent tenor saxophonist. Peplowski was a member of Benny Goodman's last band and has recorded with Mel Torme, Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney and Charlie Byrd, and is a frequent collaborator with Alden.
The CD also includes two period recordings, "Viper Mad" by Clarence Williams and Sidney Bechet (the New Orleans legend who introduced the soprano saxophone as a jazz instrument in the 1920s and influenced every generation that followed); and "Caravan" by Bunny Berigan (a brilliant trumpeter who helped launch the swing era during 1935-39 with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey, before losing it all to drink and dying at the age of 33 in 1942).
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