Maria Schneider

A Gato Barbieri performance is not so much a jazz concert as it is a geothermal incident. The Argentine tenor saxophonist certainly has his jazz credentials, having worked with a range spanning Lalo Schifrin and avant garde trumpeter Don Cherry before taking off on his own in 1969. But the sound pouring from his instrument's bell at the Coach House Friday evening was nothing short of a volcanic eruption. The U.S.

It's school time again, and even those without children are reminded of that by the big yellow buses back on the street and the increase in traffic. It's all part of the excitement--and anxiety--that a new school year in Los Angeles brings. Los Angeles Unified School District, still feeling the effects of crippling budget problems and a bitter labor dispute, has openings for 650 teachers. Many teachers left the district after a 10% pay cut.

Movie critic Pauline Kael is not known for gushing, but when "Last Tango in Paris" came out in 1972, she went into an uncustomary swoon. In a long piece in the New Yorker that was as much essay as critique, she wrote that Bernardo Bertolucci's film "has made the strongest impression on me in almost 20 years of reviewing." The picture caused more than a sensation with the formidable Ms. Kael.

It was business as usual at the Monterey Festival over the weekend. The venerable event celebrated its 38th installment with a characteristic array of music that included everything from Dixieland and be-bop to mainstream and acid jazz. What was missing was any real sense of innovation.

More or fewer than five nominations in a category is a result of ties. General Categories Record of the Year: "Give Me One Reason," Tracy Chapman (Chapman and Don Gehman, producers); "Change the World," Eric Clapton (Babyface, producer); "Because You Loved Me (Theme From 'Up Close and Personal')," Celine Dion (David Foster, producer); "Ironic," Alanis Morissette (Glen Ballard, producer); "1979," the Smashing Pumpkins (Billy Corgan, Flood and Alan Moulder, producers).

Bob Brookmeyer, a jazz trombonist, composer, arranger and educator whose multifaceted career reached from cutting-edge performances with Gerry Mulligan and Stan Getz to innovative big band compositions and highly regarded classes at the New England Conservatory, has died. He was 81. Brookmeyer died Thursday of congestive heart failure at a hospital near his home in Grantham, N.H., according to his wife, Janet. He would have been 82 today. One of the few musicians who played the valve rather than the slide trombone, Brookmeyer created a highly personal musical identity for himself as a jazz improviser.

IT'S hard to imagine a film that's been written about more and seen less than "The Passenger." One of the enigmatic masterworks of modern cinema, the 1975 Michelangelo Antonioni movie has been out of circulation for years -- it's never been on DVD and was only briefly available on video in the mid-1980s. But thanks to Sony Pictures Classics, the film opens Nov. 4 for a weeklong run at the Nuart, with a DVD release to follow early next year.

One of the high points of next weekend's Monterey Jazz Festival, America's oldest and most highly regarded jazz event, has always been the presentation of new jazz compositions. In the early years, legendary artists such as Duke Ellington, Jon Hendricks, John Lewis, J.J. Johnson and Dave Brubeck debuted impressive, newly composed works.

A spate of recent album releases reveals a trend: Jazz guitarists are looking to their roots. And we don't mean Wes Montgomery or Charlie Christian. More and more guitarists are employing the R&B, pop and rock influences of their youth to inspire their improvisational music. Charlie Hunter, a guitarist never far from an R&B feel, has an album of Bob Marley songs out.