Those who love early animation & classic cartoons; the history of American popular music & culture; guitarist Gary Lucas' music; Broadway musicals & vocalist Sarah Stiles; and all-star NY jazz ensembles are in for a very special treat on Saturday, March 5th, 2016. That night, Gary Lucas Fleischerei: Music From Max Fleischer Cartoons will present a multi-media performance (live music & Fleischer's cartoons) at the AFI (American Film Institute) in downtown Silver Spring as part of the 2016 Washington Jewish Film Festival.
Max Fleischer, the creator of such iconic cartoons as Betty Boop, Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Bluto, was one of America's top cartoonists, his NY-based Studios in the early 20th Century rivaled only by Walt Disney's on the West Coast. The music that accompanied his cartoons in the 1930s reflected NY/urban popular music of the time: a riotous, high-speed jumble of Harlem jungle jazz (Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway), Yiddish music hall, Tin Pan Alley and Broadway show tunes, and Klezmer. Gary Lucas' Fleischerei revives this music and performs it live at the AFI with a 6 piece acoustic ensemble, composed of some of NY's finest jazz musicians (Joe Fiedler-trombone & ensemble arrangements, Jeff Lederer-woodwinds, Rob Garcia-drums, & Rob Jost-bass) and Tony-nominated vocalist Sarah Stiles, who captures the spirited delivery of '30s actress Mae Questel....
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Those who love early animation & classic cartoons; the history of American popular music & culture; guitarist Gary Lucas' music; Broadway musicals & vocalist Sarah Stiles; and all-star NY jazz ensembles are in for a very special treat on Saturday, March 5th, 2016. That night, Gary Lucas Fleischerei: Music From Max Fleischer Cartoons will present a multi-media performance (live music & Fleischer's cartoons) at the AFI (American Film Institute) in downtown Silver Spring as part of the 2016 Washington Jewish Film Festival.
Max Fleischer, the creator of such iconic cartoons as Betty Boop, Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Bluto, was one of America's top cartoonists, his NY-based Studios in the early 20th Century rivaled only by Walt Disney's on the West Coast. The music that accompanied his cartoons in the 1930s reflected NY/urban popular music of the time: a riotous, high-speed jumble of Harlem jungle jazz (Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway), Yiddish music hall, Tin Pan Alley and Broadway show tunes, and Klezmer. Gary Lucas' Fleischerei revives this music and performs it live at the AFI with a 6 piece acoustic ensemble, composed of some of NY's finest jazz musicians (Joe Fiedler-trombone & ensemble arrangements, Jeff Lederer-woodwinds, Rob Garcia-drums, & Rob Jost-bass) and Tony-nominated vocalist Sarah Stiles, who captures the spirited delivery of '30s actress Mae Questel.
The March 5th performance by Gary Lucas' Fleischerei celebrates the album Music from Max Fleischer Cartoons, to be released February 22, 2016 on Cuneiform Records. Founded by DC/SS-native Steven Feigenbaum and based in downtown Silver Spring since 1984, Cuneiform is one of Washington DC's best-known and longest-lived contemporary-music record labels. Specializing in cutting-edge jazz, rock, electronic and genre-defiant musics by artists from around the world, Cuneiform has released over 420 critically-acclaimed albums that often appear on Best of Year lists and occasionally are finalists for prestigious awards (Pulitzer Prize in Music; Mercury Prize-UK). The March 5th performance is a landmark for two institutions in downtown Silver Spring's Art & Entertainment District: the first collaboration by Cuneiform and the AFI.
Guitarist Gary Lucas (Captain Beefheart, Jeff Buckley, Gods & Monsters) is the mastermind behind Gary Lucas' Fleischerei: Music from Max Fleischer Cartoons, a tribute to the music used in Max Fleischer's cartoons from the 1930s. With Broadway/Off-Broadway vocalist Sarah Stiles, trombonist/arranger Joe Fiedler (who crafted the ensemble's arrangements), woodwind player Jeff Lederer, bassist Michael Bates, and drummer Rob Garcia, Lucas revives the music once popularized by the Fleischer Studios via the cartoon characters Betty Boop, Olive Oyl and Popeye. The resulting album is an engaging, eye-opening musical extravaganza from a time when the Jazz Age crashed into the Great Depression, and Tin Pan Alley borrowed from Harlem. This music was the East Coast's gritty counterpart, savvy and street-smart, to the refined orchestral music wafting from Walt Disney's lily-white studios on the West Coast. Most of us heard this music decades ago as young children, when the cartoons once shown in movie houses were rebroadcast on TV. Hearing this music again today, with adult ears, is a revelation. Fleischerei opens doors into a forgotten American past, a long-overlooked slice of American culture forged by Jewish and Eastern European immigrants, and casts new light on classic cartoons that remain as nostalgically familiar to us as the stories our grandparents and great-grandparents told of the "old neighborhood" or the family farm.
We look forward to seeing you on March 5th, for
Gary Lucas' Fleischerei at the AFI!
"The Fleischer event was amazing and the response was rapturous; I can't remember a more enjoyable program in our theater. Thanks to [Gary] and Sarah."
-David Schwartz, chief curator of the Museum of the Moving Image
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