I credit - and thank - my parents for introducing me to the music of Ella Fitzgerald. As a kid I loved listening to their collection of jazz LPs - Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Duke Ellington - and Ella, the fabulous Ella. So it was no surprise that when I bought my first record player, Ella Fitzgerald: The Cole Porter Songbook was one of the first LPs that I purchased, and still have to this day.
I am delighted to announce that beginning this Friday, March 26th the Rose will begin streaming ELLA FITZGERALD, two hours of rare concert recordings that the BBC recently unearthed, with an added bonus performance from Jazz From Montreux (1977). Dubbed "The First Lady of Song," Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. In her lifetime she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums. The Rose has the exclusive United States streaming rights for ELLA FITZGERALD. You won't find it anywhere else. If you enjoy it - as I expect you will - I hope you'll share it with your friends outside of Port Townsend.
Also starting this Friday, ROSE PLAYS JULIE, a powerful psychological drama about a young woman's search for her birth parents. Mapping MeToo-era revelations and a deceptively simple revenge plot that could have been plucked directly from a Greek drama, ROSE PLAYS JULIE has a remarkably precise, controlled and composed look that belies the tale's creepy and increasingly fraught storyline. "Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor's film is one of the best screen depictions of the internal struggle of being adopted, perfectly realizing a character's permanent sense of existential displacement, and constant worries that she's not living the life she was intended for. I was absolutely floored by this film." -Film Inquiry
Cinematically Yours,
Rocky