page 12
friday, September 29, 1978
daily nebraskan
arts and entertainment
McLaughlin shines in new release
By Jeff Taebel
John McLaughlin has had a long and diverse musical
career. His recordings with Miles Davis and his early work
with the Mahavishnu Orchestra helped set new standards
for jazz and rock on the electric guitar.
However, McLaughlin's interests have shifted frequent
ly, and in recent years, his playing has strayed from the
raw fusion sound of his early work. As a result, many of
his fans have failed to follow him through all of his
changes. At the same time, other artists, such as Weather
Report and Return to Forever took up where McLaughlin
left off in expanding horizons in the field of jazzrock.
album review
McLaughlin's latest album, entitled Johnny
McLaughlin, Electric Guitarist, represents his return to the
hard-edged playing style that allowed him to rise to the
top.
Impressive cast
McLaughlin has assembled an all-star cast to aid him on
this album. The impressive list of sidemen includes Billy
Cobham, Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, Stanley Clarke,
Jerry Goodman, Jack Bruce, Tony Williams. David
Sandborn, Carlos Santana and many others.
While the backup personnel change on every number,
all of the musicians support McLaughlin in their own
inimitable styles as well as taking some exciting solos
themselves.
The album opens with a slow-paced number, remini
scent of McLaughlin's' work during his Inner Mounting
Flame period, called "New York On My Mind." The song
fealuies a grandiose theme that few artists could execute
as well as McLaughlin.
Side one's second offering, "Friendship," is made
interesting by the interplay between McLaughlin and
Carlos Santana. The song contains some excellent dual
guitar work and showcases the distinctive solo styles of
these two artists. Unfortunately, the song occasionally
sounds cluttered and could have been even more powerful
had it been a little tighter.
The last number on side one, "Every Tear From Every
Eye," has a lush, full sound and features some nice inter
action between McLaughlin and guest saxophonist David
Sandborn.
Increased fervor
Things really begin to cook on side two, which opens
with a beautifully conceived piece called "Do You Hear
The Voices That You Left Behind?" which is dedicated to
John Coltrane.
McLaughlin is backed on this song by perhaps the
strongest lineup on the album, featuring Stanley Clarke on
bass, Chick Corea on keyboards, and Jack DeJohnette on
drums. The song contains some striking chord and tempo
changes as well as a breathtaking solo by Clarke that
should stifle even his staurichest critics.
The next song, "Are You The One? Are You The
One?" is somewhat of a letdown. McLaughlin is backed
only by Jack Bruce on bass and Tony Williams on drums
on this number and, while the drumming is excellent
throughout, the song never really develops itself.
The album closed with a solo number by McLaughlin.
He turns in a wistful rendering of "My Foolish Heart,"
the only non-original piece on the album, playing a
heavily phased electric guitar.
It is a perfect statement with which to end an album
that takes a tour through some of the finer points of
fusion music and boasts some of McLaughlin's best play
ing in recent memory.
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Ail?
Before becoming a movie theatre, the Stuart Theater was a performing arts center. This is the theater in its
original form.
Revolutionary director to show his films
Is there life on Earth?
Is there life after birth?
It 's a joy to be alive
It's good to be glad
It 's good to have nothing
It 's great to be mad
It's fun to be funny
To do things in the nude
Oh, it 's sweet to be hungry
It 's fingerlickin 'good
Sweet Movie song
Lyrics by Anne Lonneberg and
Dusan Makavejev
Director Dusan Makavejev has been called a revolution
ary cubist and his films will run at Sheldon Film Theatre's
Film-makers' showcase Sept. 27 to 30.
Makavejev will be at each of the evening screenings to
discuss his films with the audience.
: ';u ?vejev's film Man is a Not a Bird runs Sept. 27 and
' c plot takes place in a mining town in eastern Sebia.
' .v ? of characters include: an engineer in a factory, a
i l)3irdressei with whom he has an affair, the
Jai of the people who run the engineer' boarding
house and a truck driver with whom he has an affair.
Pete Cowie of International Film Guide says A man is
Not a Bird sets the pattern for Makavejev's feature films,
for it blends actuality with fiction in a manner so unself
conscious as to seem almost natural.
Makavejev's second film Love Affair, or the Case of
the Missing Switchboard Operator shows Sept. 27 and 29.
It begins with a dissertation on sexual customs by a
professor of sexology, and then goes into an affair
between a female telephone operator and a middle-aged
civil servant.
WR: Mysteries of the Organism runs Sept. 29 and was
banned in Yugoslavia. The mood of the film can be called
light-hearted and humorous, but it deals with a serious
theme. It deals with opposition to all oppressive social
systems, east or west, the removal of prurience from sex
and a final squaring of accounts by the new radicals with
the reactionary Russian regime.
Makavejev's last film Sweet Movie runs Sept. 30.
One of the films more publicized scenes shows a sailor
who is stabbed to death by a Marxist militant prostitute as
they lay together in a bed of sugar. The second scene
shows Miss World who drowns in a vat of chocoiate.
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Stuart Theatre
repairs costly
By Kent Warneke
Back when Eddie Cantor and the Ziegfeld Girls and
Eddie Dowling's performance in "The Rainbow Man"
were the talk of the town, Lincoln became the site of a
new theatrical standout, the Stuart Theater.
It was June 10, 1929 when the Stuart Theater formally
opened, a building which was to give Lincoln a "name"
for the performing arts.
Lincoln once again had the chance to recapture that
"name" when James Stuart Sr. and the Stuart family
donated the first five floors of their building to the
Nebraska Foundation for use as a major performing arts
center.
The opportunity has since been squelched due to
financial and architectural limits, but discussion remains
on whether the Nebraska Foundation and UNL made the
right choice.
When the bottom five floors were originally donated
on Sept. 30, 1977, a committee was formed to review the
possibilities of renovating the theater into a major per
forming arts center.
Costs too much
Chairman of Theater Arts and Theater Director for
UNL, Rex McGraw said, "The committee went in with
sound and acoustic engineers and architects to review
the existing structures of the theater and found it
financially impossible to renovate the building for the in
tended use."
Costume and prop shops, lighting and rigging struc
tures were all features that would have had to be
added to the theater to make this feasible, according to
McGraw. He added that the seating capacity (1,600)
really is too small for a major performing arts center
and too large for training theater majors.
In training, students must be able to put on seven to
nine shows instead of the one or two put on by major
musical or theatrical productions and only about 600
sets are needed in a training theater.
Harry Allen, director of institutional research and
planning for UNL said, "There was also the matter of
the theater's stage limitations."
The Stuart Theater's stage is not large enough for a
full-scale theatrical or musical production.
New building
"The university currently is working on plans for a
new theater building," McGrew added. "We have passed
the first -tage, a pre-planning stage, and the Nebraska
State Legislature has over-ridden Governor Exon's veto
to pass money to bring in an architect. The matter is
now in discussion with the Board of Regents."
Robert Hanna, of Hanna Architects, disagrees with
the decision of the Nebraska Foundation and UNL on
using the Stuart Theater.
"The acoustic level of performance that the com
mittee wanted to obtain was time times above what an
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