arts
oward Jones' appeal shines in concert
By RON SWEGMAN
Collegian Arts Writer
Two weeks ago on May 28th, the
city of Pittsburgh recieved a
breath of fresh pop air when the
quintessential English solo artist
Howard Jones performed in his
first concert appearance at the
Syria Mosque.
While he didn't attract quite the
crowd that pop rock dinosaurs
Genesis drew three days later at
Three Rivers Stadium, he proved
that his successful formula of natu
ral sounding synthesizers layered
under smart melodic hooks and
upbeat lyrics can be just as appeal
ing to the concert crowd. This
formula has also made him one of
the most important new recording
artists in recent years.
Jones, a 31 year-old vegetarian
from High Wycombe, England,
broke into the music world in early
1984 with his critically acclaimed
debut LP Human's Lib. Along with
the record's singles "New Song"
and "What is Love," Jones also
gained a lot of attention from his
unique one man shows where he
would play behind a stack of syn
thesizers, accompanied only by the
movements of his colleague, mime
Jed Hoile. The tour proved Jones to
be an innovative keyboard player,
songwriter and performer of rare
talent. His abilities were noticed
by jazz great Herbie Hancock, who
invited him to play a part in an all
keyboard performance on the
Grammy Awards telecast that
year along with Stevie Wonder and
another English keyboardist,
Thomas Dolby.
Human's Lib was quickly fol
lowed up by Dream Into Action,
the album which firmly estab
lished Jones in America. With sub
stantial airplay from both radio
and MTV, the record's first two
singles, "Things Can Only Get Bet
ter" and "Life In One Day"
reached Billboard's top ten. Jones'
message of positive thinking and
"don't always look at the rain" set
the tone for this singer whose elfish
good looks and sprouting hair re
minds you of someone who really
does look like fun, or at least Snap,
Crackle or Pop.
The one man band format
changed on Dream Into Action tour
when Jones added his brother Mar
tin on Bass, Trevor Morais on
Drums and three back up vocalists
collectively known as Aphrodisiac.
Jones' reasons for the change were
simple: he just wanted to try some
thing different. The new line-up
also gave him more freedom to run
about the stage during concerts
with his portable keyboard on
which he plays "guitar" a la Jim
my Hendrix.
The Pittsburgh show was just
one stop on his tour in support of
the his latest album One To One.
Released less than a year (Jones
likes to keep busy) after the EP
Action Replay which sported the
single "No One is To Blame," the
record scored an instant hit with
Local artist's lithographs
depict city parkscapes
By KERRY FORD
Collegian Arts Writer
A local artist with world-renowned
talent is now displaying his latest
work at a downtown gallery.
Lemont native Harold Altman, best
known for his intricate lithographs,
presented his newest collection to the
Douglas Albert Gallery last night.
These springtime releases, which
culminate 50 years of Altman's pro
fessional career, will provide 22 addi
tions to the already extensive Altman
collection that the gallery previously
displayed.
Like his older works, Altman's 1987
presentation details city parks and
the people who inhabit them. His
most recent parkscapes focus on
scenes from New York City, Wash
ington, D.C. and Paris, France.
"Within Altman's scenes, internal
dramas are played out that are very
appealing," said gallery owner Doug
las Albert. "Most people find them
relaxing and evocative."
Perhaps one reason for Altman's
popularity is his careful attention to
details. Instead of broad, all-encom
passing landscapes, Altman chooses
instead to concentrate on minute par
ticulars. For example, although Cen
tral Park is extremely large and
famous, when Altman examines that
park, it becomes an intimate field of
trees and lively characters.
One of the most popular pieces
from Altman's latest collection is an
impressionistic piece titled Shaded
Path. That lithograph has gained
"You Know I Love You . Don't
You?"
Jones went back to his early
days to begin the Pittsburgh show
with an upbeat musical hello.
"New Song" with its fitting lyrics:
"I've been waiting for so 10ng...T0
come on out and sing this song"
started the night off on an upbeat,
danceable note that wouldn't settle
The parkscapes of Harold Altman detail city parks and the people who visit
them
overwhelming recognition from both
the art world and private buyers. The
piece has been so highly admired that
prints are now essentially unavail
able for purchase.
In addition, Altman's Four Seasons
suite has caught the attention of art
critics because it represents a unique
departure from his typical form.
Usually Altman details one season in
each of his parkscape scenes. Howev
er in Four Seasons, the artist exam
ines each season individually in four
separate lithographs to develop a
broad perspective of the changing
lanscapes.
,~~
..)
Howard Jones (center) awaits backstage at a concert with Paul McCartney and the Princess of Wales
down until the lights were raised at
the the end of the two hour plus set.
Seeing the man's live performance
for the first time, I was dually
impressed with his ability to play
flashy yet understated lines ("New
Song") and his gift for drawing the
audience together in quiet reflec
tion (th e e anti-drug ballad "A Little
Bit of Snow").
-Altman is the recipient of numer
ous awards, including: two Guggen
heim Fellowships, a Fulbright-Hayes
Senior Research fellowship for work
in France and a National Endowment
for the Arts grant. In addition, Alt
man was a professor of art at Penn
State for 14 years.
His works can be found at galleries
and museums both in the United
States and abroad, including the
Smithsonian Institute, the Museum of
Modern Art in New York City, the
Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris and
the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in
Copenhagen.
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On record, Jones is cool, aesthet
ic and fun, in concert he was posi
tively hot. He would gyrate around
on stage with his keyboard, "gui
tar," dance around freely with his
headset microphone, then run back
up to his stack of synthesizers just
in time to swing into an extended
instrumental.
For his first time appearance in
Actor happy with 'Uncle Tom'
By ROBERT BARR
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) "Uncle Tom" has come to be a bitter
insult to black men, but Avery Brooks didn't blink when
he was offered the role."'
Brooks, who plays Hawk, the angry, enigmatic hired
gun on ABC's "Spenser: For Hire," has the lead role in
the Showtime presentation of "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
premiering Sunday with additional play dates June 20, 24
and 29.
"Here is a man who just made choices, hard choices,
and lived by them. And was extremely devoted and
faithful," Brooks said in an interview. "He's quite a
simple man, an honest man.
"The reason we get this pejorative term 'Uncle Tom' is
because we say an Uncle Tom is one who apparently
would do anything in order to survive," Brooks said.
"Well, who does not?"
Phylicia Rashad, the mom on "The Cosby Show," stars
as Eliza, Edward ("The Equalizer") Woodward plays the
evil Simon Legree, and Bruce Dern, playing against type,
is the kindly slave owner, Augustine St. Clare.
Brooks said the film was a labor of love to tell the story
of a real man, Josiah Henson, a slave who fled to Canada,
wrote his reminiscences and toured the United States and
Britain calling himself the real Uncle Tom.
Harriet Beecher Stowe never confirmed his claim, but
pointed to Henson's story and other slave narratives to
defend the authenticity of her explosive best-seller.
Henson, born in Maryland in 1789, was a faithful slave
trusted by his master to take several other slaves to
Kentucky.
As they floated on the Ohio River, people on the north
shore called to them to come over and be free. Henson,
however, delivered the slaves to their new home where
he later saw them sold.
From that moment, Henson wrote, he thought only of
freedom: "For it I stood ready to pray, toil, dissemble,
plot like a fox and fight like a tiger."
When Henson escaped, he walked all the way to Canada
like the angry and defiant George Harris, whose role is
greatly diminished in the film of "Uncle Tom."
"Josiah Henson starts out as a man whose world is
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Pittsburgh, Jones put is all into the
show. His backup band played
tight and competently and Hoile's
colorful costumes and acting com
plemented the themes of the songs
perfectly. Three years of commer
cial success appears to have been
very good to Howard Jones and his
audience got a big thank you from
him .
very, very small. He doesn't even have an abstract notion
of freedom," Brooks said. ,
"He was standing on the Ohio River, and people are
saying, 'Wait a minute, don't do this. Don't you know
where you're taking these people to?' He says, 'No. I
promised. I gave my word.'
"It haunted him, I'm sure, to his dying day," Brooks
said.
"But. what a man, who will before your very eyes
change, admit that this is no longer operable for me and I
must change this."
Brooks portrays the slave Tom as pious and gentle, but
with flashes of anger. Hawk's anger is right up front.
"There is a line in one of the episodes where Spenser
said he was aching, he was sore, he had been riding in a
trunk. And I said to him, 'Yeah, and I've been aching
since 1619' if we assume that is the moment that
African people first appeared on American shores,"
Brooks said.
"One cannot help but have a bit of what you call rage
when you understand the landscape. Again, it is the rage
of the inhumanity to man, it is not black and white. If one
has to constantly explain to people his or her humanity on
a daily basis, it would seem to me that would give you
cause for what you call the boiling rage.
"It's not a pleasant thing to consider, or to look in
childrens' eyes and know that they fear you out of some
inexplicable reason."
Hawk, in Brook's view, is a "blues hero" "the kind of
man who is a legend in his own time, hmmmm? Who
seems to be able to, no matter what the circumstance,
survive it."
A blues hero creates his own language, as Brooks does
on "Spenser." It was Brooks' inspiration to call Spenser a
"stone Cartesian" who doubted the supernatural, and
certainly Hawk's defiant shout "I know who I am!"
comes from the soul of the actor.
Much of Brooks' work has been in tribute to extraordi
nary black Americans: a one-man show as Paul Robeson,
the lead role of Malcolm X in Anthony Davis' opera "X",
and his portrayal of Charles Albert Tinley, a preacher
who conducted a huge song ministry in Philadelphia.
"What a wonderful way of looking at history, kind of a
reconstructing of ourselves," Brooks said. "I'm going to
spend the balance of my life telling those stories, if I can."
The Daily Collegian
Friday, June 12, 1987
TV actors turn
into directors
in new shows
By JERRY BUCK
AP Television Writer
Linda Gray and Larry Hagman do
it. William Daniels does it. Ted Lange
does it. Alan Alda does it. Georg
Stanford Brown does it a lot. Proba
bly no other actor does it more than
Michael Landon.
They are among the growing num
ber of actors who direct. Many direct
only their own shows , . but some gain
enough experience to seek other as
signments.
Many actors would like to direct.
Frequently, it takes the clout of hav
ing a television series to get the
opportunity.
"It wasn't in my contract," said
Robert Hays, star of ABC's "Star
man." "It wad something I told them
I'd like to do, and both Columbia and
the production company liked the
idea that I was interested."
Hays directed the final episode of
"Starman" for the season, which
turned out to be the last show of the
series. ABC did not renew it.
Ted Lange, who was Isaac Wash
ington, the bartender on ABC's "The
Love Boat," recently directed epi
sodes of CBS' "The New Mike Ham
mer" and the syndicated "Gidget."
Michael Landon and Victor French
star in NBC's "Highway to Heaven"
and share directing duties. French
directs every third show and Landon
directs the other two. "It's very time
consuming, but it's amazing how
easy it becomes when you do some
thing you love and with people you
love," French said.
Two of the most prolific directors
are Georg Stanford Brown, who be
gan as an actor on "The Rookies,"
and Thomas Carter, who was an
actor on "The White Shadow." Brown
has directed numerous television
shows, including CBS' "Cagney &
Lacey," which stars his wife, Tyne
.Daly.
Carter has directed episodes of
CBS' "The White Shadow" and NBC's
"St. Elsewhere," "Hill Street Blues"
and "Fame." Last year he directed
the NBC miniseries "A Year in the
Life" and is currently scheduled to
direct' a feature film for Zanuck-
Brown Productions.
Other stars who have directed epi
sodes of their series include Don
Johnson and Edward James Olmos of
"Miami Vice," Larry Hagman and
Linda Gray of "Dallas," Stacy Keach
of "The New Mike Hammer," Wil
liam Daniels and Eric Laneuville of
"St. Elsewhere," and Al Waxman of
"Cagney & Lacey."
"It's good to start on your own show
because everyone knows you, and you
know the show and the characters,"
said Hays. "It's very hard, though.
Your concentration becomes scat
tered. I had to work harder at learn
ing lines and focusing on my
character."
The efforts of the directing actors
has not gone unrecognized. Actors
from Noam Pitlik to Jackie Cooper to
Alan Alda have won Emmys for di
recting. Alda won for "M
-A-S-H" and
went on to direct motion pictures.
Four wheelin'?
A truck owner and his mechanic
jumped into the engine compartment
of their vehicle to perform a roadside
tune up before heading for some off.
road action.
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afiging Rock
FRANCE CINEMA $2.00 JUNE 13, 15
112 KERN 7 & 9 P.M.
-CBS ARTISTS
• TOMMY CONWELL •
& The Young Rumblers
•BILLY PRICE•
& The Keystone Rhythm Band
Sunday, June 28, 12:30 pm
at Tussey Mt. Ski Area
tickets: $8.50 adv./$lO.OO gate
Ticket Outlets: state College-
Music Mart & City Lights Records
Bellefonte -Plumb's Drugs
Beer available with 1.D., No 8.Y.0.8.
Summit Productions 238-0076
The Daily Collegian Friday, June 12, 1987-1
k.. ;!.4
A Film by Peter Weir
•HYBRID ICE•
•REAPER•
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