{"id":7625,"date":"2014-08-21T10:02:31","date_gmt":"2014-08-21T14:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=7625"},"modified":"2014-08-28T09:31:39","modified_gmt":"2014-08-28T13:31:39","slug":"throwbackthursday-julie-esposito-revives-old-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/throwbackthursday-julie-esposito-revives-old-hollywood\/","title":{"rendered":"#ThrowbackThursday: Julie Esposito Revives Old Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"julie-esposito\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Old Hollywood comes alive in the voice of Julie Esposito as she reinterprets a few of the film industry\u2019s lesser-known gems. \u201cI am too young to be old Hollywood,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I guess I have always had an old soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

The songs Esposito features in her 2007 self-produced album, Unsung Hollywood<\/em>, include the whimsical and the romantic, some from as far back as the 1920s and 1930s. Indeed, an album standout, \u201cLittle Jazz Bird,\u201d was written in 1923 and omitted from the 1947 film Lady Be Good<\/em>. This track in particular embodies the benevolent cabaret style of Prohibition-era speakeasies and jazz clubs with lively horns, deep piano, and Esposito\u2019s slightly sardonic tone.<\/p>\n

One of the newest tracks Esposito croons called \u201cWhat Can You Lose?\u201d comes from Dick Tracy<\/em>, a 1990 film crafted in the style of a 1930s detective drama. Several reign from the 1960s and 1970s; one lively track, \u201cJourney to the Past,\u201d even originated in Disney\u2019s 1997 cartoon Anastasia<\/em>. The most important common denominator in this collection however, according to Esposito, is the fact that these lovely works are generally underappreciated and overshadowed by more iconic numbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have ALWAYS wanted to sing the songs that I felt were underrepresented,\u201d she said in an email, acknowledging her love of music and singing from the tender age of three. She attributes her uncompromising, spunky attitude to her mother\u2019s politically-minded family and her artistic tendencies to her father\u2019s family of musicians. She herself lives somewhat of a double life these days: lawyer by day, performer by night. \u201c[I] want to fight for the underdog as a lawyer,\u201d she said, providing an integral connection between her passion for her profession and her motivation for creating Unsung Hollywood<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Esposito reveals in the album notes the personal strength she gathered from the production of this collection. Although the songs were written in very different times and for very different purposes, the singer discovered a grain of truth in each of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am deeply grateful to the composers and lyricists represented,\u201d she says. \u201c[They] have enabled me to voice that which I feel I must say.\u201d<\/p>\n

She embodies the idea that music expresses that which can\u2019t merely be spoken, and the great power that a meaningful song can have to unite people and excite human sympathy. \u00a0Track \u201cIf I Love Again\u201d is highlighted in the album notes as being particularly emotional and important to Esposito.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a song that has meant a great deal to me over the years,\u201d she says, also paying tribute to its versatility and revealing that the song functioned as a Broadway piece in 1932\u2019s Hold Your Horses<\/em> and as a film track in 1974\u2019s Funny Lady<\/em>. It\u2019s certainly one of the album\u2019s more melancholy tracks with the addition of beautiful piano playing by Shelly Markham; Esposito\u2019s voice is allowed to fill all empty space with the richness and sweetness of honey.<\/p>\n

The album holds not a single boring, intolerable, or bad track, a result of the timelessness of each song and Esposito\u2019s perfectly suited talent. The collection, full of hope, wonder, and freedom, pays a lovely tribute to a few of the film and theatre industries\u2019 finest works, while sending listeners on a journey through the life and psyche of one of the industry\u2019s finest performers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Old Hollywood comes alive in the voice of Julie Esposito as she reinterprets a few of the film industry\u2019s lesser-known gems. \u201cI am too young to be old Hollywood,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I guess I have always had an old soul.\u201d The songs Esposito features in her 2007 self-produced album, Unsung Hollywood, include the whimsical and the romantic, some from as far back as the 1920s and 1930s. Indeed, an album standout, \u201cLittle Jazz Bird,\u201d was written in 1923 and omitted from the 1947 film Lady Be Good. This track in particular embodies the benevolent cabaret-style of Prohibition era speakeasies and jazz clubs with lively horns, deep piano, and Esposito\u2019s slightly sardonic tone.<\/p>\n

One of the newest tracks Esposito croons called \u201cWhat Can You Lose?\u201d comes from Dick Tracy, a 1990 film crafted in the style of a 1930s detective drama. <\/p>\n

READ MORE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":7752,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[221,4,213,217,220,212],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7625"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/205"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7625"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7755,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7625\/revisions\/7755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}