Tell Me The Story

Robert Halmi, Sr

Really sorry to hear of the death of Robert Halmi, Sr, the man behind Hallmark Entertainment, for whom I worked (and with whom I briefly shared offices) in 2000/2001.

He was a charming, irascible, impatient, twinkle-in-the-eye, can-do personality, who’d seen a lot – including, if the internet is to be believed, not one but two death sentences – but didn’t want to dwell on it. He only cared about the next project.

I first met him after he had effectively hired me without meeting me. I was to write a modern take on Sleeping Beauty for TV. I went to meet him and take my briefing in his offices in Soho and was late. I ran in, puffing, and literally before my bottom hit the seat in front of his desk, he said in his once-Hungarian accent, “So? Tell me the story.” I thought there must be a mistake – I had not yet met anybody to hear what the brief was. He said, “You’re the writer. You decide. Use your imagination. We can do anything you can think of. Fairies. Any fucking thing.”

So I went away, came up with a “take” and returned. This time I was ready. As my rear hit the seat, he fired me the same question. I started to tell him my story, and he waved me away. “Just write the fucking thing.” He liked to move fast. Six weeks later, I delivered a script to his offices. It was faxed to New York. By the time I got home, it had already been read (and admired) and he wanted to know how soon I could write another project.

We lost touch in the last few years, but he called me recently out of the blue, announcing he was “ninety and not dead”. He said for his 90th birthday he had given himself a new career – in films – and pitched me an idea. Now I wish I had taken it on. They don’t build ’em like that anymore.

Chris Jarrett

You know that dream in which you open a door in your house and go through and discover more rooms you never knew about?

Well, round the corner in Giove last night, after 30 years of admiring Keith Jarrett, I discovered there’s a whole ‘nother Jarrett to fall in love with. Who knew he had a brother, tucked away in Germany?

And what a brother. Jarrett is like Jarrett. He looks identical and his keyboard ‘voice’ is pretty close too. If he turned up and played a Keith Jarrett concert, nobody would notice. But he is perhaps freer, less anxious, than his sibling. He puts his stool to the left of centre and seems happy to concentrate his hands there – sometimes he hardly seemed to play a note right of the M in Yamaha – and there is a corresponding lack of melody, with the right hand preferring occasionally to splash out on the higher notes, rather than lingering to pick out a tune there.

In Giove he played with violinist Luca Ciarla. Together they were wild, dazzling, gleefully thunderous, fleetingly sweet. It was at times a soaring battle of the virtuosi, with a band to match – including an astonishing man, Vince Abbraciante, who did things with an accordion which are probably not legal.

I’d love to hear Chris Jarrett being quieter, more thoughtful and melodic – but all in all, as new-wing discoveries go, amazing.

.