JAZZ KINGS

randomsyncrazy: best friends, worst people

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 18:21:25 -0500

randomsyncrazy:

best friends, worst people

Photo

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 21:07:45 -0500

youngearlgrey: So isitscary and brandos and a few of some other...

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:52:40 -0500

youngearlgrey:

So isitscary and brandos and a few of some other awesome people on tumblr have this majorly cool idea for a tv show called Jazz Kings, and it literally the most awesome idea in the whole world. Picture 1920’s Harlem. Awesome characters. A plot line with actual substance as opposed to the “Two and a Half Men” crap that’s on tv at the moment. And you’ve got just the basis of this amazing idea.

Anyway, so despite this drawing lacking 1) a creative pose and 2) actual, nice linework, this is kinda my input for a character that is sort of still unnamed as yet. But she’d be a real tomboy, the kind of person that doesn’t take smack from anybody. Isitscary suggested that she’d also have a super feminine name to contrast with that, and I think that’d be hilarious! She’s sort of inspired by Audrey from the amazingly underrated Disney movie, Atlantis: The Lost Empire and partly one of the characters from the Lackadaisy cats comic thingy that’s huge on the internet.

So I’m pretty much just uploading this to give some spotlight on this Jazz Kings idea which needs to be produced ASAP and if I don’t see it on my tv in the next five years, I’d be bitterly disappointed.

missturdle: JAZZ KINGS a drama set in 1920’s Harlem New York...

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:47:28 -0500

missturdle:

JAZZ KINGS a drama set in 1920’s Harlem New York during the influx of the Harlem Renaissance, the upswing of gangsters, prohibition, and suffrage, following Evelyn “Evie” Holmes [Zoe Saldana], as she navigates her new life in the city, where she quickly becomes beguiled by the new Jazz scene and the world of the men who run it…

I’ve got this whole concept where Evie is from Louisiana, but wants to try her luck as a real New Yorker cosmopolitan kinda gal, and so she legs it to Harlem and gets herself a job and a crappy tiny apartment with a few other girls, and meets some really glam dolls who lend her things so she can go dancing (because she’s so obsessed with work and they just wanna show her a good time) and she learns to loosen up and becomes a bit of a rebellious flapper since she’s away from her parents and she makes friends with Zhang Ziyi’s character who was working as maybe a waitress or something and they just get it and how people are bringing them down and they bemoan working and Evie meets the Jazz scene boys, with different groups and their followers vying to be the Jazz King, and there is sneaky alcohol consumption and mafia, and ~trendy~ white people who try to move in on the scene but mostly cause problems and the white ladies are always chatting about suffrage but they really only care about themselves for the most part and their new ability to vote. People have intense literary discussions and talk about Langston Hughes or Zora Neale Hurston or Dorothy Parker if you’re gettin’ outta Harlem and Warren G Harding scandalizes everyone then DIES, Calvin Coolidge gets elected, people listen to the radio for news. Also people are dropping dead of wood grain alcohols smuggled in as drinking liquors and sometimes people get bumped off if you know what I mean~ and there would be a lot of sex because progressivism.

IT’S THE BEE’S KNEES.

…In my fake TV show, I’m having Zhang Ziyi. Fight me.

Jazz Kings 1 | Jazz Kings 2 | Jazz Kings Tumblr

jhenne-bean: randomsyncrazy: life before the age of the...

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:47:05 -0500

jhenne-bean:

randomsyncrazy:

life before the age of the besties before testies code was a dark, violent time

oh my god xD

randomsyncrazy: woah kids i think i should like do this...

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:38:00 -0500

randomsyncrazy:

woah kids

i think i should like do this quote-unquote lineup properly sometime but i’m just gonna leave this here because i can’t depend on myself to get anything done in a timely fashion

the guys are so much fun to draw

like

frick

randomsyncrazy: hey you guys remember jazz kings? yeah me...

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 16:20:13 -0500

randomsyncrazy:

hey you guys remember jazz kings?

yeah me neither

"What has always struck Black observers of this phenomenon isn’t just the irony of white America..."

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 17:13:26 -0400

“What has always struck Black observers of this phenomenon isn’t just the irony of white America fiending for Blackness when it once debated whether Africans even had souls. It’s also the way They have always tried to erase the Black presence from whatever Black thing They took a shine to: jazz, blues, rock and roll, doo-wop, swingdancing, cornrowing, antidisimanation (sic) politics, attacking Dead Men, you name it.

Readers of Black music history are often struck by the egregious turns of public relations puffery that saw Paul Whiteman crowned the King of Swing in the 1920s, Benny Goodman anointed the King of Jazz in the 1930s, Elvis Presley propped up as the King of Rock and Roll in the 1950s, and Eric Clapton awarded the title of the world’s greatest guitar player (ostensibly of the blues) in the 1960s. Whatever Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Chuck Berry, B. B. King, and other African-American pioneers thought about these coronations, they seem to have wisely kept between pursed lips—at least until Little Richard declared himself “the architect of rock and roll” rather than announce the winner at a late-eighties Grammy Awards ceremony. The same market forces that provided Caucasian imitators maximum access to American audiences through the most lucrative radio, concert, and recording contracts of the day also fed out whatever crumbs Black artists could hope for in the segregated American entertainment business.”

- Greg Tate (via wretchedoftheearth)

randomsyncrazy: i was feeling pretty bummed out over how much...

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:41:07 -0400

randomsyncrazy:

i was feeling pretty bummed out over how much of a failure i was

but now

i’m still pretty bummed out

JAZZ KINGS a drama set in 1920’s Harlem New York during the...

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 00:19:49 -0400

JAZZ KINGS a drama set in 1920’s Harlem New York during the influx of the Harlem Renaissance, the upswing of gangsters, prohibition, and suffrage, following Evelyn “Evie” Holmes, as she navigates her new life in the city, where she quickly becomes beguiled by the new Jazz scene and the world of the men who run it…

i’m probably going to delete this later

posting this is making me feel really anxious and it’s not a fun time

randomsyncrazy: jazz kings is a half-an-hour comedy à la...

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 19:59:51 -0400

randomsyncrazy:

jazz kings is a half-an-hour comedy à la Community in my head for some reason, even though missturdle told me she thought of it more as a hbo hour long drama sort of thing

so i’m trying to think of it in terms of a drama? instead of college-student platonic relationship hijinks

these are all wips, i just wanted to compare them side-by-side

randomsyncrazy: grace may or may not be an accidental...

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 18:57:43 -0400

randomsyncrazy:

grace may or may not be an accidental self-insert

more at eleven

let’s hope not

randomsyncrazy: yeah i still have the full character sheet for...

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 03:19:09 -0400

randomsyncrazy:

yeah i still have the full character sheet for evie to finish, and this is more of a quick reference than a finished model sheet thing

but i mean

look at ruby

she’s so fun to draw aksjaljdkalalajdlala

Louis Cunningham

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 23:02:40 -0400

Louis is a singer by profession and a ladies’ man by nature- in the sense that he belongs to the ladies. He’s not quite bright enough to play them. About as sweet as pie and as smooth as sandpaper, Louis has the vocals to make up for his lack of smarts. Obviously, this leads to him speaking without thinking. Often. He means well though, a collection of half-baked empathy and good intent bottled up in a charismatic fellow who’s too gullible for his own good.

He’s somewhat of an up-and-comer in the music scene, and much more welcome at more well-to-do parties than his contemporaries. The reason is about as clear as the nose (and colour) on his face, but he hasn’t put two and two together just yet. Maybe it’s the large intricacies of the social changes of the times, but for the life of him, Louis really can’t understand what it is people are complaining about. Life’s good, isn’t it?

Margaret Holmes

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 22:26:00 -0400

Nothing says “The stars in your eyes have blinded you to the harsh reality that no one in the city is going to care about you and your life they way you’re expecting them to, so get a job you deadbeat” quite like a cousin who has begrudgingly taken you in as a roommate. And no one says it (just in fewer words) quite as well as Margaret Holmes. Curt, surly and with ten times the life experience than someone five years younger than her, Margaret sounds like she should be an unwilling bastion of lessons, but honestly, that would take too much energy.

Caring about things, and by extension, people, isn’t anywhere on Margaret’s priorities. She’s got better things to do. What they are exactly isn’t really any of your business, what do you even care? A firm believer in personal liberties, Margaret’s not a huge fan of Prohibition or obeying other people’s rules, but it takes a lot of energy to be a listless youth. Just make sure you follow her rules, because you will live to regret it. Someday. When she can be bothered to deal with you.

Ruby

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 22:05:42 -0400

What better guide to the ranks of the fashionably devil-may-care is there than one bantam, spitfire radical dame only known as Ruby? If you have to think about it, a hint: there isn’t. Petite, powerful and prolific, Ruby is, to continue the alliteration, quite the phenomenon. With a mind of firm opinions and stinging epithets and a penchant for attracting altercations, she takes it upon herself to guide one Evelyn Holmes through the glittering darkness of Harlem, New York and the greater city at large.

Despite not having an education past the eighth grade, Ruby is as sharp and progressive as they come. As a rule, take her side in the argument, but try and weasel your way out before things get a little too heated. It’s still likely that her forward-thinking attitude and outlook has something to do with a (violent) reluctance to disclose her surname and a past more enshrouded in mystery than half of the alleyways in the neighbourhood.

randomsyncrazy: bffs

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:33:42 -0400

randomsyncrazy:

bffs

Evie Holmes

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 23:32:00 -0400

Straight out of Louisiana, naïve and idealistic Evelyn Holmes aspires to become a real modern woman. And what better city is there to become a cosmopolitan than New York, New York? Evie legs it up north to the city that never sleeps, suitcases in hand and stars in her eyes. Of course, the city’s not kind to even the rosiest of ingénues. Stuck in the city with a job, apartment and cousin that are a less than stellar, Harlem doesn’t seem like the swanky upstart neighbourhood she was hoping for. Not until she befriends Ruby does Evie join the ranks of the young and fashionably devil-may-care, getting herself entangled in the darker sides- and people- of the Renaissance.

Small-town girls always seem to have both an innocent and a devious nature about them, and Evelyn Holmes is no exception. While she may have close to no idea how city folk live and breathe, she’s a fast learner. She knows how to keep her head down and her nose out of trouble, but since coming to the city, she’s become a bit too accustomed to playing fast and loose.

missturdle: JAZZ KINGS a drama set in 1920’s Harlem New York...

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 01:47:28 -0400

missturdle:

JAZZ KINGS a drama set in 1920’s Harlem New York during the influx of the Harlem Renaissance, the upswing of gangsters, prohibition, and suffrage, following Evelyn “Evie” Holmes [Zoe Saldana], as she navigates her new life in the city, where she quickly becomes beguiled by the new Jazz scene and the world of the men who run it…

I’ve got this whole concept where Evie is from Louisiana, but wants to try her luck as a real New Yorker cosmopolitan kinda gal, and so she legs it to Harlem and gets herself a job and a crappy tiny apartment with a few other girls, and meets some really glam dolls who lend her things so she can go dancing (because she’s so obsessed with work and they just wanna show her a good time) and she learns to loosen up and becomes a bit of a rebellious flapper since she’s away from her parents and she makes friends with Zhang Ziyi’s character who was working as maybe a waitress or something and they just get it and how people are bringing them down and they bemoan working and Evie meets the Jazz scene boys, with different groups and their followers vying to be the Jazz King, and there is sneaky alcohol consumption and mafia, and ~trendy~ white people who try to move in on the scene but mostly cause problems and the white ladies are always chatting about suffrage but they really only care about themselves for the most part and their new ability to vote. People have intense literary discussions and talk about Langston Hughes or Zora Neale Hurston or Dorothy Parker if you’re gettin’ outta Harlem and Warren G Harding scandalizes everyone then DIES, Calvin Coolidge gets elected, people listen to the radio for news. Also people are dropping dead of wood grain alcohols smuggled in as drinking liquors and sometimes people get bumped off if you know what I mean~ and there would be a lot of sex because progressivism.

IT’S THE BEE’S KNEES.

…In my fake TV show, I’m having Zhang Ziyi. Fight me.

Jazz Kings 1 | Jazz Kings 2

missturdle: JAZZ KINGS a drama set in 1920’s Harlem New York...

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 01:47:07 -0400

missturdle:

JAZZ KINGS a drama set in 1920’s Harlem New York during the influx of the Harlem Renaissance, the upswing of gangsters, prohibition, and suffrage, following Evelyn “Evie” Holmes [Zoe Saldana], as she navigates her new life in the city, where she quickly becomes beguiled by the new Jazz scene and the world of the men who run it…