Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • Page 64

hi i I i 1 1 I i i i THE HARTFORD COURANT THURSDAY JULY 20, 1995 Free New Haven jazz festival opens Saturday on the green By OWEN McNALLY Courant Jazz Critic Sax player Marion Meadows performs at the New Haven Jazz Festival Saturday. the Charles Ives Center for the Arts at Western Connecticut State University's west side campus in Danbury. The lineup is: Aug. 5, McCoy Tyner Trio, Dave Koz and Kurt Ell-ing; Aug. 6, Graver Washington Beta Fleck and the Flecktones and Tuck Pattl.

Concerts begin at 5 p.m. A jazz concert by the sea will be held Sunday at 4:30 p.m. at Avery Point in Groton to benefit the Alexey von Schlippe Collection of art at the University of Connecticut. Held on the seaside lawn outside the Bran-ford House mansion at UConn's Avery Point campus, the concert will feature the Jack Madry Trio, Charlie Holland's Traditional Jazz Band, Pat Mitchell with Standard Time and Deborah Franciose and Moonfire. Tickets are $10 in advance or $12 at the gate.

Rain date: July 30. Call: 445-3421. Bill Hinds and Top Brass and vocalist Dianne Mower provide music for ballroom dancing July 30 and Aug. 13 from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Starlite Ballroom at Lake Compounce, Bristol.

Tickets: $10, advance; $12.50 at the door. Mills Bros. II, featuring Michael Mills on percussion and Paul Mills on drums, churning out an eclectic style that mixes funk and soul, among other elements. Concerts are held rain or shine. For more information call: 946-7821.

OTHER NOTES Real Art Ways director Will Wilkins suggests concert-goers bring folding chairs to the RAW Jazz fest Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Day Playground featuring Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band, The William Hooker Quintet and People of Goodwill. RAW can provide up to 200 chairs for fans on a first-come, first-served basis. But it's expecting a much larger turnout for its free outdoor fest held in the playground across the street from its digs at 56 Arbor Hartford. In case of rain, the triple-bill concert takes refuge indoors at RAW.

As it has for many years, the RAW bash brings a strong dash of variety to the Hartford jazz scene. For more information call RAW at 232-1006. Because of a scheduling conflict, percussionist Big Black will not perform Aug. 7 at the Monday Night Jazz Festival in Bushnell Special EFX, saxophonist Marion Meadows and pianist Harold Danko and his quartet kick off the New Haven Jazz Festival '95 Saturday on the New Haven Green. All concerts in the series are free on the historic green in downtown New Haven.

Food booths open at 6 p.m. and opening acts begin at 7. Special EFX (pronounced effects) is a contemporary jazz band spearheaded by George Jinda's percussion. Meadows, an RCANovus recording artist, is a regular on the charts with his sultry pop offerings. Danko, a pianist who has worked with Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker and Woody Herman, brings some straight-ahead sounds to the first of three concerts in the series.

Danko is the opening act. Latin music is the theme for the second concert on the green, July 29. Eddie Palmieri, a powerfully percussive pianist, is the headliner. The opening act is Bobby Rodriquez La Compania, which brings the sound of salsa to the festival. Spyro Gyra, the popular fusion band, is the headliner Aug.

5. The opening act is RCA Park, director Paul Brown has announced. Vishnu Wood and Safari East, with vocalist Melba Joyce, replaces Big Black for that final concert in this summer's free Monday night series in the park, Brown said. McCoy Tyner and rover Washington Jr. are among the artists performing in the Duracell Jazz Festival Aug.

5 and Aug. 6 at Write to Owen McNally, The Hartford 285 Broad Hartford, CT 06115. 1 Jane Austen character gets a Valley Girl twist in 'Clueless' By MALCOLM JOHNSON imp i if Although she seems rather clueless when interviewed on television, Alicia Silverstone proves she can play an overprivileged California girl to the hilt. She tosses out the Valley parlance with great elan. ny Murphy, and the off-againon-again romance between Dionne, glamorously ren- dered by Stacey Dash, and her boyfriend Murray, done as a would-be homeboy (with braces) by Donald Faison.

Among the men in Cher's life, when she decides to put the brakes on matchmaking and make changes in her "hymenally challenged" status, are the fashion plate Christian and the politically correct Josh. Justin Walker lends a fine ambiguity to Christian, while Paul Rudd brings collegiate intelligence to Josh, related to Cher through her father's brief marriage to Josh's mother. Breckin Meyer provides both stoned humor and a romantic sympathy as the burnout Travis Birkenstock, and Elisa Donovan makes an absurd rival to Cher and Dionne in the film's high-fashion sweepstakes. As for the adult world, Dan Hedaya fills Mel Horowitz, the hard-boiled litigator and loving dad, with humorous rudeness; and Wallace Shawn and Twink Caplan pair rather sweetly as two nerdy teachers in love. The cast works admirably to get as many laughs out of Heckerling's screenplay as possible.

But although Heckerling begins with a bouncy, breezy portrayal of life among the rich and clueless in the land of great cars and endless malls, the fun generated by the outfits and lingo cannot quite sustain a film that has the plot but not the wit and insight of its source, written by Austen almost 190 years ago. LI Courant Film Critic With its silly but cute clothes, its vacant Valley vocabulary and flashes of satirical humor about family values in upscale Los Angeles, Amy Heckerling's "Clueless" comes across as smarter than you might think. And, yes, it is loosely based on Jane Austen's "Emma." Although she seems rather clueless when interviewed on television, Alicia Silverstone proves she can play an overprivileged California girl to the hilt. She tosses out the Valley parlance with great elan, spitting out "as if!" with just the proper inflection that tells us her character, Cher Horowitz, better method of saying "no way." Cher is the Emma figure in this update of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" by writer-director Heckerling, who also gave us "Look Who's Talking" and "Look Who's Talking Too." Like Austen's heroine, she interferes in the love lives of all her acquaintances while ignoring the possibilities of romance in her own life. In the end, she must look into her own heart, just as Emma did.

Austen's story line provides the framework for "Clueless" and even contributes a character name. A "Baldwin" Valley for good-looking guy named Elton is not named for the British rocker but for Austen's Mr. Elton, the clergyman Emma Wood-house attempts to match up with Harriet Smith. In "Clueless," Elton is an arrogant, if physically attractive, high schooler whom Cher attempts to pair with Tai, a chunky new girl made over by Cher and Dionne, her CLUELESS. directed and written by Amy Heckerling; director ol photography, Bill Pope; music composed by David Kitay; production designer, Steven Jordan; edited by Debra Chiate; produced by Scott Rudin and Robert Lawrence.

A Paramount Pictures release, playing at Showcase Cinemas, East Hartford, East Windsor and Berlin. Running time: 97 minutes. Vi Cher Alicia Silverstone Dionne Stacey Dash Tai Brittany Murphy Josh Paul Rudd Murray Donald Faison Travis Breckin Meyer Elton Jeremy Sisto Christian Justin Walker Amber Elisa Donovan Mel Dan Hedaya Mr. Hall Wallace Shawn Miss Geist Twink Caplan Miss Stoeger Julie Brown Excellent; Very Good; Good; Fair; ir Poor Elliott Marks Paramount Alicia Silverstone plays Cher Horowitz, an overprivileged California girl, to the hilt in "Clueless." Total Betty buddy (a female Baldwin). As it turns out, of course, Elton, endowed with an air of conceited coolness by Jeremy Sisto, is interested in Cher, she of the flowing blonde locks and long "stems," as one admirer puts it.

Elton shows his porcine colors by dumping the object of his desire in a deserted, dangerous neighborhood when she resists his advances. Other plot elements adapted or invented by Heckerling include the making-over of Tai, buoyantly and toughly played by Britta- Rated PG-13, this film contains impolite talk and wild partying, with teenage drinking and dope-smoking..