The Westport connections to “La La Land” just keep on coming.
Erik Feig
In his Academy Award acceptance speech last night for Best Original Score, Justin Hurwitz — who wrote the music that Staples High School graduate Justin Paul helped pen the lyrics for — thanked Erik Feig.
He’s the president of Lionsgate’s motion picture group — and a “La La Land” production executive.
He’s also a Staples High School Class of 1988 graduate.
And … before we finish our Oscar stories (which are taking only slightly longer to post than the ceremony itself), here’s one more.
In a backstage interview last night — held while the awards were still being presented, which is why everyone spoke so quietly — Paul praised Staples Players director David Roth, and Coleytown Middle School director Ben Frimmer by name. That followed his prime-time shoutout to the arts education he received in his home town.
Click here for that video. (And scroll down — it’s the 2nd one).
“La La Land” won the Academy Award for Best Picture last night — until it didn’t.
But the old-fashioned, new-fangled musical about hopes and dreams still picked up an admirable 6 Oscars.
And — in addition to Staples High School graduate Justin Paul — there in Los Angeles to share in the glory was Westporter Joelle Berger. Her son Fred was a “La La Land” producer.
When she flew to California for the 89th annual ceremony, she did not go empty-handed.
Mom brought along a special treat: a chocolate creation of a scene from the movie, hand-crafted by Le Rouge owner Aarti Khosla.
Aarti Khosla’s chocolate rendition of “La La Land.”
Fred Berger had just finished his acceptance speech, when fellow producer Jordan Horowitz announced that, actually, “Moonlight” was the Oscar winner.
Publicly Fred, Justin and the rest of the cast were gracious winners/losers.
I have no idea what went on afterward, backstage. But hopefully they had a chance to drown their disappointment in chocolate.
Justin Paul and his songwriting partner, Benj Pasek, won Oscars tonight for “City of Stars,” the signature song from “La La Land.” The lyricists were honored for another song — “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” — from the same film. So they had 40% of the category locked down.
The 2003 Staples High School graduate used part of his acceptance speech to give a shout-out to the importance of the arts for young people.
“I was educated in public schools, where arts and culture are valued,” Paul — a product of the Westport school system — said. At a time of pressure from STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) state requirements, as well as the possible elimination of the National Endowment of the Arts, Paul made sure to thank all the teachers who helped nurture him.
He did not mention them by name, but former Staples High School choral director Alice Lipson and current Staples Players directors David Roth and Kerry Long were enormous influences. So were Coleytown Middle School director Ben Frimmer, and Kevin Connors of Music Theatre of Connecticut.
Justin Paul at the Oscars.
Paul and Pasek’s Oscar is the latest in a string of awards for the young duo. Earlier this year, “City of Stars” earned a Golden Globe.
And that comes on the heels of the success of Broadway’s “Dear Evan Hansen,” for which they wrote the music and lyrics.
Congratulations Justin, from all your fans in Westport — this “town of stars.”
Some photo challenges can be figured out by current Westporters, and those who lived here many years ago. The anchor by Ned Dimes Marina — installed in 1958 — was a great example, 3 weeks ago.
But you need to live here now — or have visited in the past 2 summers — to know last week’s image. John Videler’s shot showed the tile ramp at the “new” Levitt Pavilion, leading down to the lawn. If you’ve never seen it, be sure to stop by next summer — it’s a beauty! (Click here for the photo.)
Congratulations to Eileen Lavigne Flug, Marc Hartog, Cheryl McKenna, Nancy Wilson, Seth Braunstein, Fred Rubin and Seth Goltzer. If there was a prize, you’d get a season’s pass to the Levitt. Oh, wait — it’s free for everyone!
Today’s photo challenge was inspired by tonight’s Academy Awards. Here’s a hint: It has nothing to do with the Oscars.
(Photo/Lynn U. Miller)
If you think you know where in Westport you’d find this beauty, click “Comments” below. Winners won’t get a prize that looks anything like this.
They’ll get something better: Their name on “06880,” next Sunday.
On Thursday night, STAR held its annual “Galaxy of Gourmets” event.
Among Fairfield County’s many worthy organizations, STAR is a star. Since 1952 it’s offered programs and services for anyone in the area, of any age, with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The fundraiser was certainly fun. Aitoro turned its appliance showroom into a showcase for nearly 2 dozen restaurants, delis and caterers. Westport was represented by A & S, Grana Pastificio, Le Rouge, Winfield Street Italian Deli and A Dash of Salt Catering.
The food was fantastic. Meeting and mingling with STAR families and supporters was rewarding.
Pork, chicken and spicy meatballs were part of the menu.
But one of the biggest treats was the Rubber Band.
Formed 15 years ago to provide an outlet for STAR-related musicians, the hard-working rock group includes staff members Nancy Armstrong and Mark Minnock, who lead 6 or more STAR participants and occasional guest performers.
The group rehearses a couple of times a month, and performs many times a year.
They play for STAR’s Music Club, and are regular participants at the Oyster Festival, Norwalk Concerts on the Green, Sono Arts Festival and STAR’s Walk, 5k Run & Roll at Sherwood Island each May.
They’ve ventured further afield too, to venues like Toad’s Place, the Georgetown Saloon, Cobb’s Mill Inn and the Ridgefield Playhouse.
Here’s their version of “Johnny B. Goode.” Chuck Berry — move over!
A number of local businesses have become “polling places” for a contest. Just stop in and vote for who you think will win awards this Sunday in a variety of categories: Best Leading Actor and Actress; Best Supporting Actor and Actress; Best Director; Best Picture; Best Animated Feature; Best Documentary and Best Foreign Film.
Winners receive prizes donated by those merchants.
The contest ends this Sunday (February 26) at 4 p.m. You can vote at these locations:
Le Rouge by Aarti
iFloat
Francois du Pont Jewelers
Organachs Farm to Skin
Vincent Palumbo Salon
The Brownstone
Green & Tonic
The UPS Store
Downunder
Westport Hardware
Saugatuck Sweets
Joe’s Pizza
Simon Pearce
Body Quest
Soleil Toile
PS: As you enjoy the Oscars Sunday night, raise a glass in memory of Oscar’s.
Last year’s pre-Oscars party at Oscar’s was also deli owner Lee Papageorge’s 65th birthday. His daughter Missy presented him with his very own statue. (Photo/Diane Lowman)
The music world is mourning Larry Coryell. The jazz guitarist with a rock sensibility, died Sunday in New York. He was 73.
He’s also a former Westporter. Coryell lived for several years on Watch Hill, off North Compo across from the Town Farm tennis courts.
His career was intertwined with another Westport musician, Brian Keane. The Staples High School Class of 1971 grad has composed the music for hundreds of films and television shows, produced over 100 albums, and won Grammys, Emmys and Peabodys.
Brian recalls his friend, fellow collaborator, and enormous influence:
Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell was a legendary guitarist who pioneered the fusion of jazz and rock. There will be lots of tributes to his career. He played with everybody in jazz.
Besides his own 11th House band, he recorded with John McLoughlin, Gary Burton, Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock.
He also made some recordings with me.
Larry was an amazing musician. Many people don’t realize it, but he was among the best rhythm guitar players (certainly that I ever played with). He was incredibly supportive as a rhythm player. I didn’t even realize that until years later, when I listened to old tapes of some concerts that someone recorded of us together in Europe. He could play very fast as well of course, and he could play a wide variety of styles.
I was 24 years old when I met Larry in 1977. I had managed to get some gigs with Eddie Gomez, Jeremy Steig, and a few other notable musicians. I heard Larry lived in the area, and arranged to take a guitar lesson from him (in order to meet him).
It worked. We became friend, and partners in crime, partying and sharing music. We were both wild men back then, living the life, in the height of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. I could tell you so many crazy stories it would take pages. But I will save those mostly depraved and highly entertaining tales for those who lived through that era with us.
Larry Coryell (left) and Brian Keane in Europe, 1982.
I gave Larry’s kids guitar lessons when they were young. I was good friends with his departed wife Julie, and Larry and I had many good friends in common.
After a while, Larry and I did some festivals together, and started doing duo gigs (lots more stories I could tell). Larry provided a young idiot savant stoner guitarist (me) a chance to do concerts around the world. We went everywhere together for a while: all 50 states, more than 50 countries, in about a 5-year span. We made 4 records together. I thought it was the biggest thing for my career at the time (and it probably was then).
However, Larry and I did something even bigger for each other than just about anything else that happened, and it had a tremendous impact on both of our lives.
We got sober together. And we did it largely on the road.
I have to give Larry’s wife Julie some of the credit for making him go to get help, and forcing me to be clean in order to tour and record with him. But Larry took it seriously, and kept me in line (at the age of 28 when I definitely didn’t want to be). That said, I got better at it eventually, and helped him more than a time or two as well.
This was an era when nobody in the music business was going straight. As much as Larry showed me some great guitar riffs or chord changes, as much as I got to see the world as a young man playing with him, I owe Larry my greatest debt of gratitude for being that person I leaned on to stay sober while out on the road — and I was that for him as well. Later, we influenced many other prominent musicians in that same regard.
Larry and I stayed in touch over the years, though our career paths went in different directions. I have stayed in touch with his incredibly talented kids Murali and Julian as well. Larry was very sick last year, but I thought he was on the mend.
His death leaves a huge hole in my life, in the lives of so many of our mutual friends who were there during those years, and in the music world. But my heart especially goes out to his wife Tracey and the Coryell family at this difficult time.
R.I.P., my fellow road warrior. We certainly did up some great times together.
The video below is a very rare recording of “Bolero” by Larry Coryell and Brian Keane. It was recorded live in concert in Italy, in 1983.
This Sunday, Westport’s eyes will be on Justin Paul. The 2003 Staples High School graduate and his songwriting partner Benj Pasek are up for 2 Academy Awards. Two of their “La La Land” lyrics — “City of Stars” and “Audition” — have been nominated for “Best Song.”
A 2nd Westporter is also up for an Oscar. Nicholas Britell’s “Moonlight” is among 5 nominees for “Best Original Score.”
Paul — who with Pasek also wrote the music for the current Broadway smash “Dear Evan Hansen” — has gotten plenty of local publicity.
Yet despite winning a Westport Arts Horizon Award in 2012, Britell has gotten less press here.
Nicholas Britell.
A 1998 graduate of Hopkins School in New Haven (as well as Juilliard and Harvard), he’s a New York-based composer, pianist, and film producer.
He composed and arranged spiritual and work songs, violin performances and dance numbers for “12 Years a Slave,” among many other credits.
Yesterday’s New York Times described how Britell “chopped and screwed” classical music, giving the “Moonlight” score its “otherworldly sound.” Click here for the full story.
Here’s wishing good luck to both Justin Paul and Nicholas Britell on Sunday. Besides growing up in Westport a few years apart, they’ve got another connection: Damien Chazelle. He’s known today for directing “La La Land.” Four years ago, he directed “Whiplash.” The producer was Britell.
(Hat tips: Anne Rutherford and Jeff Wieser. Click here for a full list of nominees for Sunday’s Academy Awards. If you spot any other Westport connections, click “Comments” below!)
“06880” could post stories every day about Justin Paul, and never run out of things to say.
We could, but we won’t.
Nevertheless, the latest news about the 2003 Staples High School graduate — who with his songwriting partner Benj Pasek is a Golden Globe winner, Oscar nominee, movie and stage and TV sensation, and basically the hottest thing on the musical theater horizon since Rodgers and Hammerstein — is pretty impressive.
The original cast recording of “Dear Evan Hansen” — a Broadway smash — debuted at #8 on the Billboard chart. That’s higher than any cast recording since 1961, when “Camelot” appeared for the 1st time at #4.
To answer your question: “Hamilton” first showed up at #12.
That’s today’s Justin Paul news. We’ll be back soon with more, for sure.
(Want your own “Dear Evan Hansen” cast recording? Click here!)
It’s a story so outlandish, folks who were there don’t believe it: In a 2-year period in the mid-1960s, the Doors played a concert at Staples High School.
So did Cream. The Yardbirds. Sly and the Family Stone. The Rascals. The Animals. The Beau Brummels.
Plus over the next few years, the Byrds, Rhinoceros, Buddy Miles, J. Geils, Peter Frampton and Taj Mahal. And Steve Tallerico, before he became Steve Tyler.
I saw most of those bands. I’ve written about it, on “06880.” So has Mark Smollin, a 1970 Staples grad, in his great book The Real Rock & Roll High School: True Tales of Legendary Bands That Performed in Westport CT.
Still skeptical? Now there’s even more proof: a video documentary, called “The High School That Rocked!”
It’s a labor of love from Fred Cantor, a 1971 Staples alum who missed most of those performances, but is now making up for lost time.
Rock has never died — witness all the young rock lovers born decades after Jim Morrison died — and Cantor enlisted the help of a very recent Staples grad to bring his vision to reality.
Casey Denton (Class of 2014) led a high-level Emerson College camera and sound crew, then edited the final prodcut.
The video includes research Cantor had done for Smollin’s book, and over a dozen interviews with people who were there at the concerts. (Spoiler alert: I’m one of them. Our recollections seem pretty accurate, despite the admonition that if you remember the ’60s, you weren’t there.)
Cantor focused on a 2-year period, when 6 bands now in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame all took the Staples stage. He is convinced no other high school that could make such a claim.
The video also includes Staples grads from that era who made their mark in the music world. One is Paul Gambaccini, perhaps Britain’s most famous music presenter. Another is Charlie Karp, who at 16 years old was influenced by the concerts to leave Staples and join the Buddy Miles Express. A third is Emmy winner Brian Keane.
Cantor is working with the Westport Cinema Initiative, Westport Historical Society and Levitt Pavilion, to bring “The High School That Rocked!” to a wide audience here.
He’s also entering it in festivals (film, not rock). The first is Film Fest 52 at the Bethel Cinema (Wednesday, March 8, 6 pm VIP party meet and greet, 7 pm film, followed by a Q&A and reception). It will also open the SENE Film, Music & Arts Festival in Providence on April 25.
You don’t have to have seen any of the Staples concerts — or even to have been alive then — to love this film.
But if you were there, you’ll appreciate the final credits.
They say the film was produced by “Sally’s Record Dept. Productions.”
Ginger Baker, Cream’s drummer, at Staples. (Photo copyright Jeremy Ross)
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