Uncle Al, “You’re the Cure for What Ails Me”

Brian Gari NYC Book Signing Event for, “We Bombed In New London”

Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 at 6:00 PM event will feature author Brian Gari will be performing with Broadway star Jana Robbins and signing copies of his new book about the inside story of his Broadway musical, “Late Nite Comic”. The event will take place at the Drama Book Shop located at 250 West 40th Street in New York City.

August Jolson and Friends Trivia Challenge

Only one person correctly answered the August Jolson Trivia Challenge (see correct answer below). Congratulations to Jeff Decker who actually provided a more comprehensive answer to the question than my opera knowledge base.

One winner will receive a FREE Al Jolson, “The Singing Fool” T-shirt who can correctly answer the upcoming September Jolson and Friends Trivia Challenge.

August Question:

Jolson was known to have taken song-writing credits on dozens of songs. As the legend goes, one of these songs landed Jolson as co-author in court for lifting a melody from another piece of famous music and resulted in a $25,000 judgment for punitive damages in 1921. Can you name both the song that Jolson made famous as well as the borrowed melody?

August Answer:

The song was “Avalon” and the melody in questions was borrowed from Puccini’s "E lucevan le stelle" from the opera “La Tosca”.

In 1921, the Italian publisher of Puccini’s opera successfully sued the named composers and the publisher for lifting the melody and was awarded $25,000 in punitive damages as well as future royalties.  This was certainly a better compromise than removing the song permanently from circulation.

Avalon remains a classic jazz standard and versions have been recorded by many jazz artists including Benny Goodman, Bing Crosby, Dave Brubeck, Dick Hyman, Errol Garner, Harry James, Les Paul, Lionel Hampton, Mel Torme, Nat King Cole, Steve Allen and of course the legendary Al Jolson.

Part VIII Eddie Cantor Interview with Brian and Janet Gari

Brian Marcus Decker:  Brian, at the age of 12 years, you received a very special letter from (Eddie Cantor) your grandfather.  Can you share with us the significance of that letter?

Brian Gari:  It was a letter written in June of 1964 and my grandfather had heard all about these movies that I was making, little documentaries about New York and things that I was filming with my eight millimeter camera, and I was also going to all the TV shows in New York, like “Miss Miller”, if you remember “Miss Miller”.  I was doing a lot of things.  I had not written any songs yet.  Strangely enough I wrote my first song the month he died but he wrote me a letter that said, ‘I believe that you’re the one that’s going to carry on the show business tradition in this family’, and prophetically, I guess it happened.

Brian Marcus Decker:  Since then you’ve produced about 13 projects to date, to preserve the memory of your grandfather, including a number of audio recordings, video, reprints of books.  You’ve also participated in numerous public venues, with your mother, including the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Public Library, the International Al Jolson Society, Friends of Old Time Radio and, of course, the Eddie Cantor Appreciation Society.  When did you decide that you were going to become this keeper of the flame, and how did you really just all of a sudden realize that you were going to become the Eddie Cantor archivist?

Brian Gari:  I was doing a lot of other projects at that time, concerning re-issues of old material.  Not from the era of my grandfather, but mostly rock and roll kinds of things, and one day I walked into Tower Records and I saw in the section for Eddie Cantor, there were no CDs out.  There was nothing available.  So I decided, why don’t I just move forward and cover my grandfather’s era as well, and I called up, I believe the first one was RCA that I contacted, and I told them about, you know, how I wanted to do an Eddie Cantor project and there was reluctance to do it.  People really didn’t start calling me immediately for it, but they thought about and they said, “Well what’s coming up?” And we decided on a 100^th anniversary, 100^th birthday, which would have been 1992 at that time, so I accepted the idea of doing a project for them, centennial celebration.  Unfortunately they released only a portion of his material, from RCA, from the Victor period.  They had a lot more but they were, as I say, reluctant to step out on a limb and do something enormous at that time.  Maybe in the future they will.  But we at least started that project and it ricocheted from there, because I then found some incredible discs in California of my grandfather’s Carnegie Hall performance, which had never been heard before.  To this day I have no idea why it was shelved for that long, but it had.  Then I released the Carnegie Hall album on the label that I’m associated with which is called Original Cast Records, so it just became a domino effect and it went on to this day.

Brian Marcus Decker:  What were the origins of the Eddie Cantor Appreciation Society?  And people who actually view this weblog, how do they get information about becoming a member?

Brian Gari:  I received many letters during that time when the RCA album came out, when the Carnegie Hall CD came out, and a lot of people were writing to me, even before then, saying how much they enjoyed Eddie Cantor, and why isn’t there a fan club, and that kind of thing.  And I wasn’t really equipped to start a fan club but just at that same time, around 1992 - 93, a woman by the name of Sheila Riddle from West Virginia sent me a letter as well and was interested in starting a fan club if I was interested in supporting that thought.  And I thought it came at just the right time and she became the first president of the Eddie Cantor Appreciation Society and all those letters that I was getting, I then informed all those people that there was a fan club, and suddenly it started to grow into hundreds and hundreds of members.  At one point I think it became a little too much for Sheila and we gave the reigns over to Michelle Malik and she now heads up the Eddie Cantor Appreciation Society, which is at:

Eddie Cantor Appreciation Society

Box 4521

Valley Village, California

91617

Brian Marcus Decker:  And the website address is?

Brian Gari:  The website address is http://www.eddiecantor.com and there’s an email address there as well, so that’s where people can find us.

Janet Cantor Gari:  And may I just offer congratulations to Michelle.  She just got her Masters degree just the other day.  She got her diploma.

Brian Marcus Decker:  Several of your audio video based projects have involved Al Jolson.  Can you share with us some of the history of how those individual projects got launched?  For example, “Cantor Meets Jolson”.

Brian Gari:  I wish I could remember the person, I think he came from England.  Maybe it was Richard …

Brian Marcus Decker:  Selwood

Brian Gari:  Yes, that’s who it was.  I think he, as well as several other people had mentioned, that there was such a great interest in Al Jolson as well as Eddie Cantor and the combination of the two and I saw his point.  I thought it was a very well-taken point on Eddie Cantor, and I decided to put out every radio show that I had that was connected to Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson, and that’s how ‘Cantor Meets Jolson’ started.

“Cantor Meets Jolson” and “I Remember Jolson” produced by Brian Gari

Brian Marcus Decker:  You also issued, “I Remember Jolson”?

Brian Gari:  Yes, I did that to follow-up hot on the heels of “Cantor Meets Jolson”.  I don’t think it’s done as well.  I don’t think people realize how good it is.  It’s a single disc and maybe some people don’t think it’s of great importance but it took a long time to put together.  What I did was I found every reference to Al Jolson that I could find that my grandfather had said and put it all together in one CD package, and I’m very proud of it.  It also includes some rare recordings where my grandfather put his own voice on top of Jolson’s to create a duet effect, and I thought it’s a great CD.   Also it has that rare shot of the Jolson Theater on Central Park South, well Seventh Avenue and 59^th Street, that’s long gone, but a really nice picture.

Brian Marcus Decker:  Can you talk to us about the last DVD that you issued?

Brian Gari:  Yes, there’s a DVD of “Eddie Cantor in Person” and it’s a one-many show, kind of a re-creation of that Carnegie Hall show that I spoke of earlier, except that he bought Jimmy Durante and Eddie Jackson on as special guests and it’s just a wonderful recreation of what he did at Carnegie Hall, cut down a little bit, but it’s a quasi-filmed version of it, and pretty exciting.

Brian Marcus Decker:  Are all these CDs, DVDs and books still available for people?

Brian Gari:  Well, some of them have gone out of print.  The “Cantor Meets Jolson” was an extremely costly project because I think it’s a three-disc set and I think once it runs it’s course, I mean I would love to keep everything in print, but I don’t have enough room in my apartment for all these CDs and DVDs.  So once something kind of like simmers down a bit, it’s hard for me to do … the pressings are a minimum of 1,000 and it’s just hard on a three-disc set to keep something like that constantly in print when you sell, you know, just a handful at a time once it’s gone through it’s initial run.  So, some of them have gone out of print.  That one went out of print, and so did “Eddie Cantor, The Early Days”.  They’re just two that are out of print right now, but the rest are all in print.

Brian Marcus Decker:  Well my “Cantor Meets Jolson” was actually the first thing that I actually purchased from you on cassette.

Brian Gari:  Oh, on cassette, a real rarity.  Do you have it on CD yet?

Brian Marcus Decker:  No.

Brian Gari:  Can’t now, unless you get it on the Internet somehow.

September 15th Conclusion Part IX Cantor Interview: Janet and Brian Gari discuss

• Can you share with a brief history of your fascination with preserving the architectural and cultural history of New York City?

• Can you share with us the background and motivation behind your recently published book, “We Bombed in New London”?

• Can you tell us what your favorite Eddie Cantor songs and movies are, and what significance they have to you?

• Brian what is your next Eddie Cantor related project that you are working on, and when do you think that might be available?

This is Brian Marcus Decker and thank you for joining us on the Jolson Blog.  This is the first blog dedicated to the legendary life and musical influences of Al Jolson, The Worlds Greatest Entertainer and Friends and don’t forget to visit us weekly at www.JolsonBlog.com .

 

Changes to Jolson and Friends Blog

In the upcoming months I am looking to continue to evolve the Jolson and Friends Blog and wanted preview some upcoming changes.  As of this post, I am promoting the sale of Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and other Limited Edition T-shirts and matching gift cards. The sales from these items will help offset the cost of maintaining this blog.

Due to the time intensive nature of ongoing research, content development, production and maintaining and the Blog, I will start publishing twice a month instead of weekly. The next blog update will happen on September 15, 2006.

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