The Sound of Seattle

Robert McKee - Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

Writing for the screen is quirky business. A writer must labor meticulously over his or her prose, yet very little of that prose is ever heard by filmgoers. The few words that do reach the audience, in the form of the characters' dialogue, are, according to Robert McKee, best left to last in the writing process. ("As Alfred Hitchcock once remarked, 'When the screenplay has been written and the dialogue has been added, we're ready to shoot.' ") In Story, McKee puts into book form what he has been teaching screenwriters for years in his seminar on story structure, which is considered by many to be a prerequisite to the film biz. (The long list of film and television projects that McKee's students have written, directed, or produced includes Air Force One, The Deer Hunter, E.R., A Fish Called Wanda, Forrest Gump, NYPD Blue, and Sleepless in Seattle.)

' As is the case with the JB's and other James Brown protégés, Bobby Byrd's legacy is spread over numerous out-of-print, difficult-to-find vinyl records. So this 22-song retrospective, which gathers numerous singles, and a couple of previously unreleased tracks spanning 1964 to 1973, is a welcome consolidation of his most significant work into one package. Solid stuff, covering both standard soul from the '60s and hard funk (usually featuring the JB's) from the early '70s, though it sounds a lot more like a James Brown record with a different vocalist than a Bobby Byrd record that happens to benefit from James Brown's backing crew. Brown produced (and occasionally contributed to) all of the recordings here, and duets with Bobby on the 1968 single "You've Got to Change Your Mind." ' Richie.Unterberger@allmusic.com

In 2001, alto saxophonist Brent Jensen released The Sound of a Dry Martini: Remembering Paul Desmond. Resonating immediately with radio stations and their audiences, the album has been a consistent presence on the airwaves and has been streamed thousands of times a week since that technology was first conceived. Some twenty years later, Jensen now offers the house another round. Joined by guitarist Jamie Findlay, his long time partner in interpreting Desmond's works, Jensen improvises new melodies as rich and satisfying as the tunes from which they are based, subtly coloring his lines with romance, melancholy and joy. He shares a stylistic affinity with both Desmond and Lee Konitz in a lyrical sense, weaving singing, free-flowing lines in his own singular voice through Desmond favorites such as “Take Ten,” and “Desmond Blue,” or standards like "These Foolish Things" and "Alone Together." Supported by an outstanding Seattle cast - drummers Stefan Schatz and John Bishop, bassist Chris Symer and pianist Bill Anschell - Jensen creates another irresistible tribute to an iconic musical voice.

Widely acknowledged as one of the finest of the American Idol winners, Phillip Phillips suffered the shrapnel from arriving too late in the show's run to turn into a true superstar. He came storming out of the gates with "Home," his coronation song for taking the crown in the eleventh season of American Idol in 2012, but once his 2014 sophomore set Behind the Light stiffed, he became embroiled in a lawsuit with 19 Entertainment – another sign that he was hobbled by appearing on Idol late in its run, when all of the management contracts were ironclad.