Skip to content

ep. 49: Rudolph Valentino, Ernie Kovacs, Buster Keaton, and the Craft of Supporting Subtleties

In this episode: Ben plays with holding back musically to help an audience of art deco fans connect with Valentino and Nazimova during a show of “Camille” (1921); he and Kerr Lockhart dig in to details about “Oriental Blues”, the theme song Ernie Kovacs used for all of his shows from 1951-1962; and Ben discusses the various intricacies of live-scoring Keaton’s “The General” in order to help one gag, get out of the way of another, and to create a musical arc for a feature-length comedy that’s essentially one very long chase.

Show notes for this episode can be found here.


4 thoughts on “ep. 49: Rudolph Valentino, Ernie Kovacs, Buster Keaton, and the Craft of Supporting Subtleties”

      1. It’s so great to see the level of commitment of you and your team. Both the blog and the monthly youtube episodes and the releases like the early Lon Chaney Vol 1& 2. LIving in Colorado I’ve been to the Lon Chaney Theater there in Colorsdo Springs many times!!!
        Thanks again, for all that you do!!

        1. Symphony in the Valley has been in touch with me about my coming out to that area of Colorado this fall (2022) to do a couple shows with them, with SiTV performing a couple of my orchestral scores. I’ll mention Chaney auditorium to the event organizers – although it looks like the building may not be open to the public or for events. It would be fun to get a tour while I’m in the area, if possible. Thanks for mentioning this!

Leave a Reply