Gossip Central

Herb Alpert and Lani Hall: “The Look of Love” at the Café Carlyle

Herb Alpert and Lani Hall, partners in music and marriage for 43 years, still have that “Look of Love.” While he plays his sweet trumpet, bringing in the crowd at the Café Carlyle an entertaining night of his greatest hits, Lani Hall sits beside him, her big eyes trained on him, head and body grooving to his trumpet. Her crystalline vocals in Portuguese and Spanish perfectly put everyone in the Tijuana/ Jobim mood. “I love it when she talks to me in Yiddish,” he laughs, and their ensemble with Bill Cantos on piano, Hussain Jiffrey—from Sri Lanka-- on a six-string bass he can play like a guitar, and Michael Shapiro on drums create a musical dialogue all their own.

Heat and Dust Gets a New Life: An Interview with Director James Ivory

James Ivory, with his partner Ismail Merchant, famously made outstanding films, often based on literary works, for several decades. Charles Cohen, known for distributing fine foreign films, has restored their sumptuous Heat and Dust (1983), his third Merchant-Ivory classic, after Howard’s End (1991) and Maurice (1987) to be revived through his Cohen Film Collection. Set in India in two time frames, the 1920’s and 1980’s, featuring two women protagonists Olivia and Anne played by Greta Scaachi and Julie Christie, Heat and Dust feels contemporary in its portrayal of strong-willed women. Just before the film’s opening at the Quad Cinema this week, I spoke to James Ivory about his work with his longtime artistic collaborators, producer Ismail Merchant and writer Ruth Prawer Jahbvala. This legendary director filled me in on the change in audience reception for films set in India, and his latest project on Luca Guadagnino’s script for Call Me By Your Name, based on Andre Aciman’s novel, a selection in the upcoming New York Film Festival.