The Elephant Keeper by Christopher Nicholson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Historical novel set in the 18th century is essentially a love story between a man and an elephant.

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Music (I wouldn't call it a) Review: F. a Leo Roberto Cipelli

Article first published as Touched by Leo Ferre, My Search to Learn More About Roberto Cipelli on Blogcritics.


There is nothing like a pleasant surprise.

The other day, tucked in with a review copy of Matt Herskowitz's Jerusalem Trilogy that came in the mail, was another CD. It was a collection of songs in tribute to French composer and singer, Leo Ferre (there a couple of accent marks necessary over the 'e' in Leo and the last 'e' in Ferre, but word processing ignoramus that I am, have no idea how to get them there---so use your imagination); a composer I must admit I have never heard of. It was the work of a group of jazz musicians led by pianist Roberto Cipelli. I had never heard of Cipelli. I had never heard of any of the other musicians on the album. Moreover the album notes were no help; they were all in French or Italian , and although I had taken two years of college French back in the dim dark days beyond recall, it was only a word or two of the text that I could make out. When I checked to see who it was that was playing the beautiful trumpet solo on track five all I could find was someone playing the tromba. It's not French. Trumpet? Perhaps, but I don't have an Italian dictionary handy.

There was a publicity release with the CD, but it was after all a publicity release, not exactly unbiased reporting. I check the internet, first for Leo Ferre. The Wikipedia entry announces that it has "multiple issues." Wikipedia isn't the best of sources even without "multiple issues." I try the official Leo Ferre site. It's in French. I can't get the Google translator to work. I try a biography site in English. It has a paragraph of about a hundred words. He was born in Monaco in 1916. He was very important in the French song world, equated with the likes of Jacques Brel (at last, someone I've heard of). He was "involved in" anarchism. He died in 1993. He is, the entry concludes, "a great composer and writer of French songs." I give up. The publicity release has more information, although some of it seems to have been taken from the same site I was just surfing. It does add some information about his idea to set the work of some of the great poets to music, although I'm not quite clear about why this is so startlingly original. After all, the idea of setting great poetry to music is not exactly new.

I check the internet for Roberto Cipelli. Again there isn't much. What is there is in Italian, for the most part. He has a web site. The Leo Ferre album is featured. There are some pictures. He seems to have been born in Cremona; it looks like in 1958. That's about all I can get from the web page. He does have a Facebook page. He likes Alice Adams Tucker. I, of course, am not familiar with Alice Adams Tucker, although I'm willing to learn. So, it's back to the publicity release. In this case however there is not much information about the artist. Most of the release talks about the project and the individual tracks, which is fine, fine that is if you want the record label's take on its product.

Anyway, while I'm searching for information, I'm listening to the CD, and damned, if I don't like it. I import it to my iPod. I listen again. I like it again. Indeed, the more I listen, the better I like it. I don't know Roberto Cipelli, but he can swing when he wants to and do just as well with sensitive melodic melancholy. There is some really fine trumpet work by Paolo Fresu. He plays with a clarity of phrasing that is as sweet as anyone around. Their duet on "Colloque sentimental" is a masterly blend of mood and technique, ending with the horn holding a long note while the piano glides over. "Vingt ans" showcases the two musicians in an up tempo mode. Attillio Zanchi plays double bass and Philippe Garcia is on the drums.

There are vocals in French and Italian by Cipelli and Gianmaria Testa. Both have arresting voices in the gravelly straight ahead tradition of the French song stylists. They whisper of passion. Though there are lyrics printed for all the vocals, they are all in French and Italian. I have no idea what they're singing, but somehow it doesn't matter. Although I don't mean to suggest that I would turn my nose up at some nice English translation, if it had been kindly provided.

Not all of the songs are by Ferre. There is an Italian song, "Lontano, Lontano" by Luigi Tenco. "Free Poetique" is a chaotic piece by Cipelli which he feels capture's Ferre's poetic spirit in music. Cesase Pavese's poem, Il Blues dei Bluess is set to the music of "Saint-Germain-Des-Pres." There is even a poem of Paul Verlaine scattered through the tracks of the disc. The album is not intended as a collection of new arrangements of Ferre's work, rather it is, according to Cipelli, his attempt "to revisit it in his own personal way." Whether he succeeds in capturing the spirit of Ferre, I cannot tell you. What I can tell you is this. He has succeeded in producing a haunting album of music that almost transcends the need for meaning.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Self conscious, almost post modern attempt to deal with the loss of both parents, the obligation to care for a younger brother, and make one's way in the world. In a sense, Eggers reminds me, as far as technical games with form are concerned, of a poor man's David Foster Wallace.

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Production photo from Mckeespot Litttle Theatre's "And Then There Were None."

Mini Review

Darkest Fear by Harlan Coben


My rating: 1 of 5 stars
By the numbers thriller--even including a superman style sidekick; few surprises in a rather absurd plot, but at least it reads quickly.

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DVD Review: Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill

This article was first published at Blogcritics


Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill, the PBS miniseries first broadcast in 1975, is now available on a two disc DVD set. In seven episodes, the series takes the American born Jennie Jerome from her whirlwind courtship and marriage to the younger son of one of the great British aristocratic families to her death after a fall necessitated an amputation of one of her ankles. While the series includes capable performances by a number of notable English actors—Ronald Pickup as Lord Randolph, Warren Clark as Winston, Jeremy Brett as Count Kinsky, perhaps the love of her life, it is Lee Remick's bravura turn as the effervescent enchanting Jennie that is the life's blood of this production.

Remick takes the character from age nineteen in the first episode to her sixties at the time of her death, and is equally adept at playing the passion of youth and the industry of the middle years as she is the dwindling powers of age. She is no less able to charm in her later years than she was in her early days. One can readily believe that even as a mother of two she was well able to attract the attentions of two men as young as her sons. That younger men would be interested in marriage with a woman of her wit and vigor as embodied by Remick is entirely believable. If Jennie mesmerized those around her, Remick's performance no less mesmerizes the audience.

Lady Randoloph, as she says in one of the later episodes, was a woman who lived her life as she felt it should be lived and not as others thought she should live it. Americans abroad in the middle of the nineteenth century were more often than not seen as unsophisticated barbarians, ill equipped to deal with the cultivated Europeans. One only has to read Henry James and Edith Wharton to get some idea of the attitudes towards Americans in the period. They were naïve parvenus who, if they were good natured and had money, were easily taken advantage of, and if they only had money they could be treated as social climbers ready to trade wealth for position and ripe for the fleecing. Not Jennie, at least not as she is presented in this biodrama. Jennie Jerome had wit, beauty, ambition, and grace. She was nobody's fool. She had a captivating personality, and captivate she did, even though she didn't have the one thing that made most Americans attractive to the Europeans, especially second sons, money.

From the first she is presented as unique. The first view we have of her she is racing on horseback with her father (played by Dan O'Herlihy). She plays the piano, not like an amateur, but with the skill of a professional. She has a mind of her own. Lord Randolph sees her at a ball and it is love at first sight. This despite the fact that he dances poorly, doesn't care for small talk, and is not exactly a matinee idol. He attracts her because his ambition is to be a great man, and she can help him.

The series, written by Julian Mitchell, is episodic. They meet and marry in the first epsode. The next three episodes deal with their marriage and Lord Randolph's political career. In the fifth installment, after Randolph's death, Jennie meets George Cornwallis-West who is the same age as Winston and they marry, despite the objections of his family. The sixth episode deals with their marital problems and eventual divorce. In the final episode she marries again, but dies before a planned trip to join her new husband in Africa. Throughout, the focus on Jennie and her loves is complimented by a broader concern with British politics, social mores, military campaigns and moral behavior.

While the jacket notes that the quality of the picture and sound may be flawed at times because of the age of the programs, these flaws are minimal and are rarely intrusive. The second disc includes a written biography of Lee Remick and a history of Blenheim Palace (the 300 year old seat of the Marlboroughs ) which provides some of the location shots for the program. There are also filmographies of the cast. Over all there is nothing particularly exciting about the extra material. But with over 360 minutes of broadcast material, the DVD set more than likely supplies more than enough excitement for most viewers.

Production shot from Murder in the Cathederal, 2007, Poet's Corner.