Morning, readers.
*Yesterday, Mike West reported on the death at 90 of bop pianist Hank Jones (right). Below the jump, find a lilting little rendition of “Willow Weep for Me.”
*The 40th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix‘s death has supplied us with a) a lot of excitement over B-sides and b) further evidence that Hendrix remains better appreciated in England, the island that gave him his start, than in America, the country where he was born. To wit: yesterday’s piece in the Independent on Hendrix’s obsession with George Frederic Handel, to whom he was a posthumous neighbor in Mayfair. Their adjoining houses will open in September for a curious exhibit on the two maestros.
*Flavorpill compiles the best & worst book trailers of the year. If you haven’t yet seen the one for Lowboy—in which Zach Galifianakis switches seats with author James Wray—this is a good chance. All the crucial book-trailer elements are there: a slowly nursed beer; an identity crisis; a binary typewriter. Also of note: Thomas Pynchon‘s voiceover for Inherent Vice (set to sinister, distorted guitar)—a novel which, à propos of nothing, Jonathan Rosenbaum chipped away at on this page.
*Nice mini-profile on Juliette Binoche and director Abbas Kiarostami, whose film Certified Copy is opening at Cannes.
*The Daytrotter Barnstormer Tour! Its tracks are now online, claims our sister paper.
*The Guardian files the ultimate Ronnie James Dio tribute; Jack Black‘s was also pretty good and gets bonus points for arriving eight years early.
*Jim Carrey covers the Beatles.
*Tonight in City Lights: Barnaby Whitfield and Aaron Johnson at Irvine Contemporary.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUWZzj0TU1s]
Hank Jones, “Willow Weep for Me”