By Dr. Valerie Wardlaw, Contributing Writer, Published September 8, 2016
Creator/Producer Reginald Hudlin, Host Craig Robinson, and Grammy Winner Marcus Miller. Courtesy Photo
On Wednesday, August 31, 2016, at the famed Hollywood Bowl – Kenneth ‘Babyface’ Edmonds, Charlie Wilson, Marcus Miller, Gladys Knight, Common, Philip Bailey, Lalah Hathaway, Verdine White and Ralph Johnson to name a few shared the stage for an evening that host Craig Robinson called “a hug for your soul.” And that it was. The Black Movie Soundtrack II, a live event created and produced by filmmaker Reginald Hudlin, Grammy-winning bassist Marcus Miller, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association in association with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) paired live performances with clips from some of the best and favorite Black movies from the 1940’s to 2014. Producer Reginald Hudlin more than delivered on his promise that this year’s show would be the “sickest show ever.”
The night began with a montage of movie scenes (edited by the very talented Laura Gibson) featuring Black actors that we know and love (Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, Denzel Washington, Samuel Jackson, Halle Berry, Spike Lee, Angela Bassett) to the “Theme from Shaft,” the Oscar winning song that sounds as good (if not better) than it did when we first heard it in 1972. In a recent interview, producer Marcus Miller revealed that Isaac Hayes “once told me he was asked to shorten the track. He stuck to his guns, which absolutely contributes to the epic feeling of the tune.” The crowd roared in its affirmation that the song deserved every award it received.
You knew you were in for a night filled with surprises, when the crowd whooped it up after seeing the infamous scene from “Waiting to Exhale,” you know…the one when Angela Bassett as Bernadine Harris, calm cool, and collected as ever sets her soon to be ex-husband’s car on fire after finding out that he was unfaithful and wanted a divorce.
First up was the fantastic “Hellzapoppin”, a 1941 movie with a dance sequence like you’ve never seen before featuring Black dancers Slim Gaillard, Slam Stewart, and Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers doing the Lindy Hop. Host Craig Robinson explained that the dance scene was filmed as a self-contained sequence so that the dance scene could be cut out of the movie when it was shown to Southern audiences. To the delight of the audience, Robinson quipped that “Today, we call them Trump supporters.”
The next stop was the Black Exploitation period where Isaac Hayes’ “Theme from Shaft” was performed by none other than the energetic and ageless Charlie Wilson (Uncle Charlie), the wonderful Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, and the sultry songstress Lalah Hathaway (yes – Donnie’s daughter). Accompanied by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra under the direction of Vince Mendoza, and the Marcus Miller combo, the music was simply heavenly when required and funky when necessary. Babyface would command the stage with his performance of “Super Fly,” from the 1972 film of the same name. His performance was followed by Lalah Hathaway’s performance of “Ghetto Boy, with both songs written by the late, prolific, and gifted songwriter Curtis Mayfield.
When scenes from the movie “Claudine” appeared on the screen, you knew it was time for the magnificent and lovely Gladys Knight, who performed three of the six songs written by Curtis Mayfield for “Claudine”: “Make Yours a Happy Home,” “The Makings of You,” and “On and On.” Did I mention that guitarist Marcus Miller, (the baddest bass player ever) accompanied Knight for this soulful walk down memory lane?
The magical night continued with a tribute to the visionary founder of Earth, Wind, and Fire – Maurice White, from Philip Bailey, Verdine White, and Ralph Johnson who performed a scrumptious medley accompanied by the outstanding guitar work of Paul Jackson Jr: “Got to Get You Into My Life,” “That’s the Way of the World,” and “September.”
After intermission, the show continued with Marcus Miller and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra performing the 1986 tune “Under the Cherry Moon,” setting off a tribute that brought hundreds to their feet, lighting up the Bowl with their camera phones in a moving tribute to the artist we love and miss – Prince. Wilson and Hathaway performed “Take Me With You,” Chance Howard (a former Prince backup singer) movingly performed “When Doves Cry.” Alice Smith sang “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” Wilson returned to the stage performing “Baby, I’m a Star,” and Hathaway ended the tribute with a soul-stirring cover of “Purple Rain.”
Then it was truly party-time as the hip-hop group Full Force took the stage following scenes from the cult-classic, “House Party,” (a Reginald Hudlin film). Full Force got it poppin’ with “Ain’t My Type of Hype,” (among a medley of other songs– “Poison,” “Hold Up, Wait a Minute”) from the aforementioned movie with a special appearance by one of the stars of the movie, AJ Johnson (Sharane in House Party) whose dance moves proved that age is nothing but a number.
Babyface, Howard, Judith Hill, and Hathaway took the stage to perform music from “Boomerang,” and “Waiting to Exhale,” showcasing the extraordinary talent of Babyface. The medley included “Love Shoulda Brought You Home,” (performed by Hathaway), “Sittin Up in My Room,” (performed by Hill), “Give U My Heart,” (performed by Babyface), and one of the most poignant moments of the night, Whitney Houston on the screen singing “Shoop, Shoop” from “Waiting to Exhale.”
The show’s finale featured the Oscar winning artist Common and Alice Smith performing the Oscar and Grammy-winning song “Glory,” written by John Legend and Common from the movie “Selma.” As co-host Robinson said, “It didn’t get all the praise it deserved but the music reaches into our souls with honesty and truth.” It was a fitting ending to a phenomenal night. As Cheryl Boone Isaacs said, President of AMPAS said, “Black movie music matters.” The good news? Producer Hudlin said at the top of the show, “I’m already planning a third installment. I’ve still got 100 songs to go.” Oh…glory!
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by Reginald Hudlin
When I first came up with the idea of a tribute to Black Movie Soundtracks at the Hollywood Bowl, I made a list of the songs that absolutely had to be in the show. I stopped writing by the time I got to 120 songs. Hopefully we’ll keep doing the show so I will eventually make it through my list. Here’s a list of albums that shaped this year’s edition of the Black Movie Soundtrack at the Hollywood Bowl.
SHAFT
By scoring Shaft, Isaac Hayes found a widescreen canvas to match his Cinemascope sound. Theme from Shaft is a classic, but don’t sleep on album cuts like Soulville and a pair of jazzy jams, Café Regio’s and Walk From Regio’s. Those two cuts turned the Village Café into a tourist destination when we visited New York as a kid.
Isaac Hayes performs “Shaft” at the Oscars in 1972.
SUPERFLY
Superfly, the movie is great, but without the Greek chorus effect of Curtis Mayfield’s song score commenting and critiquing the action, the movie wouldn’t be half as good as it is.
COME BACK, CHARLESTON BLUE
When I was a kid I would go see any movie that had Quincy Jones’ name on it as a composer. His name was the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. I loved the first movie of this franchise, Cotton Comes To Harlem, and the team up of Quincy Jones and the incredibly soulful singer, composer and pianist Donny Hathaway on the score was irresistible. The title cut is great, and “Little Ghetto Boy” was a hit for Donny — and a generation later for his daughter, Lalah Hathaway.
TROUBLE MAN
Marvin Gaye didn’t finish the score in time for the movie’s release, so what you hear in the film are rough demos. The final version of the music on the album is truly epic. Also, funk instrumental “T Plays It Cool” was one of the first legendary hip-hop break beats.
CLAUDINE
Earth, Wind and Fire scored Sweet Sweetback’s Badass Song, the first Blaxploitation film. Isaac Hayes won an Oscar. But Curtis Mayfield produced three legendary soundtracks: Superfly, Sparkle and Claudine, which he wrote and produced for Gladys Knight and the Pips. Both the film and the soundtrack are beloved.
THAT’S THE WAY OF THE WORLD
Most people don’t know this album was a soundtrack, but it was so, and I’m happy to include it. The title cut is one of the all time great mid-tempos in soul music, but every cut is a banger.
PURPLE RAIN
Too easy. Purple Rain is one of the greatest albums ever made. Every track is magnificent and the movie stands alongside Enter The Dragon as a perfect piece of pop culture. But don’t sleep on Under The Cherry Moon’s expansive sound, and the ambitious reach of Sign Of The Times, which matches Prince’s 1999 as a totally successful double album.
Prince, along with Wendy and Lisa, accept the Oscar for Best Original Song for “Purple Rain” in 1985
ROUND MIDNIGHT
Herbie Hancock does amazing work throughout this album filled with classic jazz tunes. This album has inspired a lot of movie and music making for me.
BOOMERANG
LA Reid and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds broke into the soundtrack business with this album, which went double platinum, launched the career of Toni Braxton and yielded End Of The Road, which broke Elvis’ record for the longest single to stay at #1 on the Billboard charts.
WAITING TO EXHALE
Fresh off the success of the Boomerang soundtrack, LA and Babyface did it again with hit songs from Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, Brandy and Toni Braxton. These two hit soundtracks, plus his work on Soul Food, The Preacher’s Wife and Prince Of Egypt established Babyface as one of the most important songwriters in film music.
Of course, these ten albums only scratch the surface. I still haven’t talked about the soundtracks of Black Orpheus, The Harder They Come, or Love Jones… or the incredible musical contributions of Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Terence Blanchard or Wynton Marsalis. I guess that’s a list for another day.
…
Reginald Hudlin, an Academy Governor, is a member of the Directors Branch. He received a Best Picture Oscar nomination for Django Unchained. His other feature film credits include Boomerang and House Party. Most recently he served as co-producer of the 88th Oscars.
…
Black Movie Soundtrack II: August 31, 2016
By popular demand, Grammy-winner Marcus Miller and acclaimed producer/director Reginald Hudlin reprise the Hollywood Bowl’s Black Movie Soundtrack event on August 31 with new clips and some funky favorites.
Film star and comedian Craig Robinson hosts this soulful celebration of black cinema classics with performances from Common; Philip Bailey, Verdine White, and Ralph Johnson of Earth Wind and Fire; Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds; Full Force; Lalah Hathaway; Gladys Knight; Alice Smith; Charlie Wilson; Marcus Miller; the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and special guests.
Click here to get your tickets to this memorable event.
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MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 2016 AT 4:45 A.M. BY JEFF WEISS
Reginald Hudlin, the producer behind the Hollywood Bowl’s “Black Movie Soundtrack” night, launched his career writing and directing the 1990 film House Party.
For a pre-adolescent at the dawn of the ’90s, House Party doubled as a beginner’s guide to hip-hop.
Before its release, most cinematic depictions of the genre were cash-ins, eager to capitalize on its swiftly rising stature in urban youth culture. It’s slightly reductive to say that House Party changed everything — that honor goes to the early work of Spike Lee — but the film’s genius lay in its accessibility, the charismatic performances of its young stars (Kid ‘n Play, Martin Lawrence, Tisha Campbell), a highly quotable script and the center stage it offered to the music.
If Lee demonstrated the incendiary power of hip-hop, his longtime friend, House Party director Reginald Hudlin, captured how much fun it could be. The dances, the freestyles, the high-top fades. Made for just $2.5 million, House Party grossed more than $26 million in theaters and remains one of the best hip-hop films in history.
“Most prior hip-hop movies had been made to exploit it — like, this is ‘the thing’ right now,” Hudlin says at his office in North Hollywood, where he’s in postproduction on Marshall, a film about a pivotal early case in the career of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
“Hip-hop movies weren’t being made from the inside by people who were fans, and I was a fan who kind of knew nothing,” Hudlin continues with a laugh. “It felt like there was something really happening and we got to capture it.”
The roots of House Party stretch to the Illinois native’s days at Harvard. It was originally made as a short for his senior thesis, but the success of Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It opened up opportunities for other black directors, which ultimately led to then-fledgling New Line Cinema agreeing to finance a feature-length version.
Thanks to New Line’s successful lawsuit against the Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff for sampling the theme from A Nightmare on Elm Street without permission, there’s an alternate reality where Kid ‘n Play were replaced by Will Smith and his DJ sidekick. “As part of the settlement, they were obligated to be in a movie for New Line,” Hudlin recalls, leaning back in his office chair, casually clad in a plaid button-up and jeans. After a quarter-century in the industry, he’s seemingly lost none of his enthusiasm for both music and film.
“I met with their manager, who at the time was Russell Simmons, and he was like, ‘We’re not going to be in your little movie; we got a big movie planned for them.’ I was like, ‘OK, they don’t want to be in the movie and I didn’t want you to force them to be in it.’”
The film’s success launched Hudlin’s career. He went on to direct 1992’s Boomerang, presiding over one of the greatest soundtracks of the era, and the unfairly maligned Great White Hype, whose soundtrack is a quietly unsung classic. Hudlin directed The Ladies Man and produced Django Unchained. He’s run BET and co-produced last year’s Academy Awards ceremony.
For his latest production, he spearheaded “The Academy Celebrates the Black Movie Soundtrack II” on Wednesday, Aug. 30, at the Hollywood Bowl. The stacked bill features Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, Lalah Hathaway, Gladys Knight, Charlie Wilson, Common, the surviving members of Earth, Wind & Fire and Hudlin’s longtime musical collaborator, Marcus Miller. And, of course, you can’t overlook Full Force, the Brooklyn R&B group who played House Party’s villains.
“This is my dream,” Hudlin says. “I wanted all these great black scores … a chronological survey from the great jazz of the ’40s to the ’70s black exploitation scores, the rock and soul of the ’80s, up through today’s hip-hop. To do that in one night was the best show I could imagine.”
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