Archives for December 2, 2013

This wonderful photo was taken in February of 1971 in the master bathroom of Louis Armstrong’s home in Corona, Queens, two weeks before the events portrayed in Satchmo at the Waldorf, my one-man play about Armstrong’s last gig. It was originally published in Time, but I saw it for the first time today:

Stan Getz plays Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” at Montreux in 1972, accompanied by Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, and Tony Williams:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)

“I do not mean to suggest that luck per se plays the major part in success, theatrical or otherwise; but I venture to guess that in the grand design of any successful career the element of luck has been a powerful factor. Perhaps luck is too easy a word–too all-inclusive. A sense of timing would be more accurate–or perhaps a quirk of character that enables its fortunate possessor to tread the main path and never swerve from it. Every successful person I have ever known has had it–actor or businessman, writer or politician. It is that instinct or ability to sense and seize the right moment without wavering or playing safe, and without it many gifted people flicker brilliantly and briefly and then fade into oblivion in spite of their undoubted talents.”
Moss Hart, Act One