It Girl September 2020

Dancer, actor, and singer Fred Astaire worked steadily in various entertainment media during nine decades of the 20th century. The most celebrated dancer in the history of film, with appearances in 31 movie musicals between 1933 and 1968 (and a special Academy Award in recognition of his accomplishments in them), Astaire also danced on-stage and on television (garnering two Emmy Awards in the process), and he even treated listening audiences to his accomplished tap dancing on records and on his own radio series. He appeared in another eight non-musical feature films and on numerous television programs, resulting in an Academy Award nomination and a third Emmy Award as an actor. His light tenor voice and smooth, conversational phrasing made him an ideal interpreter for the major songwriters of his era, and he introduced dozens of pop standards, many of them written expressly for him, by such composers as Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Burton Lane, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Arthur Schwartz, Harry Warren, and Vincent Youmans.

By 1981, Frank Zappa’s Halloween shows in New York were already legendary – a rock and roll bacchanalia of jaw-dropping musicianship, costume-clad revelry, spontaneous theatrical hijinks and of course a heavy dose of Zappa’s signature virtuosic guitar workouts. Eagerly anticipated every year, fans never knew exactly what was in store but knew it would be of epic proportions and one-of-a-kind experience that only Zappa and his skilled group of musicians could provide. When Zappa returned to The Palladium in NYC in 1981 for a five-show four-night run from October 29 to November 1, the nearly-annual tradition was even more anticipated than usual as the 1980 concerts were cut short due to Zappa falling ill. Curiously there was no fall tour the previous year and thus no Halloween shows.

The ultimate exploration into Elton John’s extensive back catalogue, ‘Jewel Box’ encompasses a selection of deep cuts chosen by Elton himself; rarities from the earliest stage of his and Bernie Taupin’s musical journey; B-sides spanning 30 years, and songs discussed in Elton’s best-selling, critically acclaimed 2019 memoir, ‘Me’. The eight discs come in a beautiful hardcover book, enclosed in an outer slipcase. Each section contains extensive notes and, for ‘Deep Cuts’, there is track-by-track commentary by Elton. The set contains an unprecedented number of previously unheard, unreleased tracks from 1965-1971, the years that cemented the foundations of the iconic John-Taupin partnership: ‘Jewel Box’ truly is a treasure trove for Elton John fans.