San Francisco.--J. E. Morgan, until recently production manager of KSFO, is new head of the radio department at the Samuel Gompers Trade School here. Giving instruction in FM, using the school's new FM transmitter, KALW, as exhibit A.
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive - Search for Early FM Radio in San Francisco
Monday, February 12, 2024
The Modern Jazz Quartet
The Modern Jazz Quartet first appeared in San Francisco on October 4, 1954 at the Blackhawk nightclub, 200 Hyde Street. Esteemed San Francisco Chronicle jazz critic, Ralph Gleason, wrote about their appearance:
The Modern Jazz Quartet ... represents the new approach to jazz. Schooled musicians, jazz men, too, they have brought forethought, planning and discipline to their music as well as the extemporaneous fire of jazz improvisations... The members of the group--John Lewis, piano; Percy Heath, bass; Milt Jackson, vibes, and Kenny Clark, drums--are among the most serious of the modern jazz men, and yet the charm of their music is that they are not so serious that they do not have fun.
The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz characterizes the music of the Modern Jazz Quartet as "cool jazz" in a "conservative bebop style." They were all, in fact, seasoned bebop musicians who performed in Dizzy Gillespie's band.
The Modern Jazz Quartet is notable for merging jazz, original a genre of dance music or entertainment, with elements of classical music. In that regard, they along with Duke Ellington and others brought jazz from the dance hall to the concert hall. This genre was sometimes called Third Stream Music.
After a stint in the army during World War II, pianist John Lewis studied at the Manhattan School of Music. He soon joined Gillespie's group and later also worked and recorded with Illinois Jacquet, Lester Young and Charlie Parker. He also worked with Miles Davis as a pianist and arranger on the Birth of The Cool sessions in the late 1950s.
Locally, Lewis collaborated with choreographer Lew Christensen and poet Kenneth Rexroth in the creation of Original Sin, a ballet in two scenes, written for the San Francisco Ballet that premiered on April 14, 1961.
Jazz Ostinato, For jazz quartet (vibraharp, piano, drums, double bass) and orchestra.
Sketch: For double quartet (1959), for jazz quartet (piano, vibraphone, percussion, and double bass) and string quartet.
The Spiritual, for jazz quartet (vibraharp, piano, drums, double bass) and orchestra.
We offer several Modern Jazz Quartet albums as streaming audio. We also have the four vinyl LP albums available to borrow in the Art, Music & Recreation Center
The Last Concert (Atlantic, 1975).
More from the Last Concert (Atlantic, 1981).
No Sun in Venice: original film score, by John Lewis (Atlantic, 1958).
Under the Jasmin Tree (Apple, 1968).
Bibliography:
Coady, Christopher. John Lewis and the Challenge of "Real" Black Music (University of Michigan Press, 2016)
Gleason, Ralph, "Oldest and Newest in Jazz In S.F. Spots This Week," San Francisco Chronicle October 7, 1954.
Gleason, Ralph J. Celebrating the Duke, and Louis, Bessie, Billie, Bird, Carmen, Miles, Dizzy, and other Heroes (Little, Brown, 1975).
Owens, Thomas, "Modern Jazz Quartet," in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, edited by Barry Kernfeld (Grove's Dictionaries Inc., 2002).
San Francisco Ballet. Spring Season 1961. Alcazar Theatre [program].
Schuller, Gunther. "Third Stream," in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, edited by Barry Kernfeld (Grove's Dictionaries Inc., 2002).
Tuesday, November 28, 2023
John Carl Warnecke and Associates Buildings in San Francisco (1950s-1960s)
Floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the first floor are recessed behind columns to provide an outdoor shelter related to waiting space in the lobby.
The front facade is a rhythmic pattern of glass metal between precast concrete panels. Above and below each window are decorative bronzed grills giving the effect of balconies and providing sun control for tall windows.
In form, the building is a 22-story rectangular tower with arched openings at ground level, and with balconies and bay windows serving to soften the shape of the rectangle above.
The bay window design was made possible by cantilevering each floor beyond the perimeter column line by about 19 inches at intervals of 6 feet, 4 1/2 inches, and enclosing the extended area with bronze-tinted glass on three sides. The facade line is indented between the bay windows to produce a curtain wall of unusual grace.
Each side of the building has 13 windowed sections -- six extended and seven recessed. The number of sections is half the number of stories for the building (26). A San Francisco Examiner article noted that the window treatment gave the building "a facade of visual interest and enhance the interior appeal as well" owing to the natural light.
CENTRAL SOMA Historic Context Statement & Historic Resource Survey (San Francisco Department of Public Works, 2015).
Monday, October 23, 2023
New Audio and Video Performing Arts Databases at the San Francisco Public Library
We are happy to able to expand our Streaming Music and Streaming Movies & TV offerings with some new databases from Alexander Street Press.
Qwest TV Collection features full-length clips produced for Qwest TV, a network formed by jazz legend Quincy Jones. It is an eclectic collection of video performances from many genres.
L.A. Theatre Works is a nonprofit whose work is distributed to public radio through PRX (Public Radio Exchange). Audio Drama: The L.A. Theatre Works Collections is a collection of plays that they have presented over the years.
Broadway On Demand Collection includes hundreds of musicals, plays, and dance performances as well as documentaries, and masterclasses.
The National Theatre Collection and Royal Shakespeare Company Collection are similar databases offering performances of full-length plays by the finest British actors and actresses. These video recordings are accompanied by a transcript (the script) for convenience.
Theatre in Video is the largest of the databases and includes a mix of performances and documentaries. Much, but not all, of the programming comes from public television. To get the most out of the database use the funnel to "filter your results.
You can find these and similar databases at the following links:https://sfpl.org/research-learn/elibrary/evideos
https://sfpl.org/databases (search alphabetically or filter by the topic Art & Music)
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
John Carl Warnecke (1919-2010)
Warnecke's main claim to fame was his association with president John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie (the architect's obituaries in the Chronicle and the New York Times both headlined this). He was commissioned by the Kennedy White House to redesign Washington DC's historic Lafayette Square. Following the president's assassination he was selected to design John F. Kennedy memorial at Arlington National Cemetery with the Eternal Flame. Senator Edward Kennedy hired him to design McLean, Virginia home. Gossip writers also printed rumors that Warnecke was romantically involved with the president's widow.
John Carl Warnecke was born on February 24, 1919 in Oakland, CA, son of architect Carl Ingomar Warnecke. He attended Stanford University where he played tackle on the school's undefeated 1940 team that won the 1941 Rose Bowl. He remained physically imposing all his life at 6 foot 3 inches tall and 220 pounds. He quickly completed a bachelor's degree at Harvard University in 1942 where he studied with Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, an innovator in the use of new materials in construction and a proponent of functionalism in design.
Warnecke began his career as an apprentice to Arthur Brown, Jr. while studying at Stanford. Brown was one of the architects for of the Civic Center's San Francisco Opera House and War Memorial Veterans Building plus the Federal Building at 50 United Nations Plaza. Warnecke later worked for his father before starting his own firm in 1950. It stayed in business until 1980.
The firm has been asked to design in places–equally beautiful–which were built by man over generations: the environs of the White House; historic Annapolis; the campuses of of the University of California and Stanford University; old Monterey; the Royal Palace grounds of Honolulu; fashionable Nob Hill; a site adjacent to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo; and the historic residential area of Neuilly in Paris. In historic places such as these, the needs of the present must show respect for the past.
Contemporary Architects, editor, Muriel Emanuel, 3rd ed. (St. James Press, 1994).
King, John, "John Warnecke - S.F. Architect with Close Ties to Kennedy Clan," San Francisco Chronicle May 7, 2010.
Krantz, Les., American Architects: A Survey of Award-Winning Contemporaries and Their Notable Works (Facts on File, 1989).
Merrick, Fred, Down on The Farm: A Story of Stanford Football (Strode Publishers, 1975).
Middleton, Deborah A. "Warnecke, John Carl," in The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, editor in chief, Joan Marter (Oxford University Press, 2011).
"On The Square," Newsweek October 2, 1967.
Shearer, Lloyd, "Jackie Kennedy, World's Most Eligible Widow - Will She Marry Again," Pasadena Independent Star News December 4, 1966.
"Ted Kennedy's Virginia House On Market For Nearly $10 Million," Huffington Post May 22, 2012.
"Warnecke, John Carl," in Current Biography (The H.W. Wilson Company, 1968).
Thursday, August 17, 2023
United Nations Plaza Fountain - A Troubled Life
The noise (every other word referred to an act of incest) came from a dozen or so men holding confabulation on the corner near the fountain. They were drinking from bottles and cans wrapped in brown paper bags, and they were shouting to each other in cacophonous discourse.
Garbage and filth surround the fountain. I stepped gingerly around wads of gum, cigarette butts, vomit, a half-eaten fly-infested turkey drumstick, flattened beer cans and empty bottles. I noted three empty bottles of Thunderbird, two empty bottles of Franzia Brothers white port and one bottle of Night Train Express pear wine.
Great granite blocks rise in a certain sculptured disorderliness that is actually a pyramidal order. From various points water rushes down the granite to a pool below, putting the fountain into dramatic motion. The flow of water came up against a barrier of refuse, however, where it was supposed to flow most dramatically out of sight--a dam of beer cans, wet paper and broken glass, and a horrible primeval compost ooze composed of God-knows-what.
The UN fountain is not even a year old, but already heavy graffiti mars many of its noble facades. The stones facing Leavenworth Street are the most heavily defaced with scores of insipid or obscene scratchings.
Market's [Market Street's] problems supersede design and maintenance. In the fifteen years since the beautification was completed, American society has undergone vast changes that Halprin and Ciampi could not anticipate. Market was designed for a stable, upscale retail base and middle-class consumers, but business was driven out by the long process of construction, and the boulevard has now surrendered to the dereliction, addiction and insanity that have grown yearly more noticeable and controllable. The usual attempted solution has been to put more cops on the beat, but symptoms indicate a problem that designers are helpless to correct and in some cases have worsened.
It is impossible to evaluate Halpin's Hallidie and UN Plazas apart from the poverty they collect and contain. In UN Plaza at the Civic Center, the derelicts sun and prowl through Halprin's usually dry fountain. These plazas remind me of ragged spectators in the Roman ruins, or of Blade Runner.
Cone, Russ, "Valve Makes A Fountain of A Fiasco at UN Plaza," San Francisco Examiner March 17, 1978.
Day, Linda, "Lawrence Halprin and the Public Realm: Can the United Nations Plaza Unite San Franciscans?," Planetizen July 20, 2017.
Fagan, Kevin, "U.N. Plaza Finally Getting New Look," San Francisco Chronicle March 19, 2005
Lelchuk, Ilene, "City Give up on U.N. Plaza Fountain," San Francisco Chronicle March 12, 2003.
Pacheco, Antonio, "Another Halprin-designed plaza could be on the chopping block, this time in San Francisco," The Architects Notebook May 30, 2018
Robinson, Gene, "U.N.'s Party in Its Plaza" San Francisco Chronicle June 27, 1975.
Stack, Peter, "A Brainy Fountain Is Dedicated," San Francisco Chronicle April 26, 1977.
Starr, Kevin, "$1.5 Million Pig Pen," San Francisco Examiner June 12, 1979.
Starr, Kevin, "Our Public Space Crisis," San Francisco Examiner June 13, 1979.
Tuesday, August 1, 2023
United Nations Plaza Fountain - A Troubled Birth
This is a flamboyant example of a designer's ego. The fountain is a gross intrusion of a personal idea into a public space. It's hypocrisy. Whoever designed this wasn't thinking about the people who are going to use it. He was only thinking of himself. Why does this thing have to be so vulgar?
Born was reacting to Halprin's initial very large design that dwarfed the eventual final design.
We are very unhappy about this... It is a very fine design for a shopping center, but it is totally disproportionate in this area... The design just has nothing to do with Market Street and nothing to do with Civic Center. The designer just doesn't seem to respond to criticism or suggestion.
Should a fountain, constructed of granite slabs and estimated by the Department of Public Works bureau to cost $1,150,000, be built in United Nations Plaza on Market Street at the juncture of Leavenworth and Fulton Streets?
Hirsch, Alison Bick., City Choreographer: Lawrence Halprin in Urban Renewal America (University of Minnesota Press, 2014).
Lindsay, Georgia. "Bricks, branding, and the everyday: Defining greatness at the United Nations Plaza in San Francisco." Archnet-International Journal of Architectural Research, 2017.
"Plaza Fountain Plans Rejected," San Francisco Chronicle April 4, 1974.
Zane, Maitland, "A Debate Over Art for U.N. Plaza," San Francisco Chronicle March 30, 1974