Maxine Gordon has loved jazz music all her life. From going to hear Miles Davis and John Coltrane as a teenager, to working as a road manager and promoter when she was a young woman, to becoming the personal manager and ultimately the wife of one of the most influential jazz artists of the twentieth century, Maxine has seen it all. She makes full use of these experiences in her new book, Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon (University of California Press). [Read more…] about Love and jazz
Music
This reminds me of a song…
The Harry Ransom Center holds a wide variety of materials, from Robert De Niro’s Taxi Driver script and costume to Einstein’s theory of gravitational waves. These and many other items are on display in our current exhibition Stories to Tell: Selections from the Harry Ransom Center. The stories told in the exhibition can bring to mind music that’s meaningful to your experiences, and we invite you to share [Read more…] about This reminds me of a song…
Handel’s famous 1727 coronation anthems get the royal treatment
Justine Provino is a recent graduate of the Master of Conservation of Cultural Heritage program at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, in the Book and Paper Department with Professor Claude Laroque. From October 2014 through February 2015 she worked as an intern in the Ransom Center’s book lab with Senior Conservator Olivia Primanis, and in the paper lab with Conservator Heather Hamilton. [Read more…] about Handel’s famous 1727 coronation anthems get the royal treatment
Undergraduates review music production records for “Rebecca” to understand business side of Hollywood film scores
James Buhler is an Associate Professor in Music Theory and the Director of the Center for American Music at The University of Texas at Austin. Below, he writes about using materials from the Ransom Center’s David O. Selznick collection to teach students in his Signature Course “Introduction to Music and Film Sound” about the business of being a music composer in Hollywood. [Read more…] about Undergraduates review music production records for “Rebecca” to understand business side of Hollywood film scores
The ballet performance that sparked a riot
It is 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and the audience is screaming, cat-calling, and fist-fighting. It’s the most famous riot in classical music history at the premiere of the ballet The Rite of Spring, composed by Igor Stravinsky, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, and premiered by the Ballets Russes.
Accustomed to more “palatable” ballets such as Swan Lake, the audience at the premiere of The Rite of Spring was shocked by the dissonant and jarring music, the violent and unnatural choreography, and the depiction of a Russian pagan tribe celebrating the arrival of spring by choosing a sacrificial virgin to dance herself to death. Upon hearing the opening bassoon solo played in an unrecognizably high register, French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saens is said to have fumed: “if that is a bassoon then I am a baboon!” He then stormed out of the theater.
The Ransom Center holds one of the costumes that no doubt helped to spark the legendary riot. The costumes were designed by archeologist and painter Nicholas Roerich.
The University of Texas Symphony Orchestra joins the world famous Joffrey Ballet for a performance of The Rite of Spring tomorrow and Wednesday, March 6, to celebrate the centennial of the work’s world premiere in Paris in 1913. The Joffrey Ballet’s Rite of Spring explores Stravinsky’s revolutionary score and Nijinsky’s radical choreography with a reconstruction of the 1913 production with original costumes, choreography, and design.
This blog text was adapted from an earlier version of this post from 2009.
Fellow discusses Ross Russell collection and Raymond Chandler
Judith Freeman, a fellow from the University of Southern California, discusses her research in the Ross Russell archive. Freeman’s focus lies primarily with noir, Raymond Chandler, and Los Angeles, but her time in the collections expanded her interest in jazz.
Freeman’s project, “Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles,” was funded by the Erle Stanley Gardner Endowment for Mystery Studies.