"Big Eyes" Gives Nod to Cal Tjader

Big Eyes, directed by Tim Burton and released on Christmas Day in 2014, is the tragic but ultimately triumphant story of Margaret Keane, whose cloying paintings of children with abnormally large eyes initially gained popularity in 1958 when she met a successful real estate salesman named Walter Keane. She had recently left her first husband in an unnamed part of northern California and settled in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood with one daughter. Following a brief courtship, the couple married. Concurrently, Keane enjoyed visiting Enrico Banducci's hungry i nightclub and was able to talk the outgoing owner into displaying Margaret's work.

On the plus side, the hungry i is featured prominently in the early going and Cal Tjader's band does appear on stage a few times. In addition, during the film's first musical sequence, Banducci exhorts the club audience to express their appreciation for Tjader. However, none of the band members are shown clearly in that scene or in subsequent shots; one could think of them as jazzy apparitions. Timothy Van Cleave wears Tjader's trademark horn-rimmed glasses; the other men go uncredited.

The following are minor caveats. To my knowledge, Tjader never played at the hungry i, his local mainstay during this period being the Blackhawk, located at the corner of Turk and Hyde in the Tenderloin district. That being said, Tjader was a strong presence in North Beach at El Matador, sited at 492 Broadway, from December 1964 to 1976. As a result, one can overlook the harmless artistic license here and elsewhere. For a second example, the marquee announces "The Cal Tjader Quartet" and "The Vince Guaraldi Trio." In reality, Tjader fronted a quintet, though the group did shrink to a quartet when playing straight-ahead tunes. In fact, the late Oakland Tribune jazz critic Russ Wilson coined the term "quantet" to describe the vibraphonist's unique format. Third, Vince Guaraldi's trio did play at the hungry i, but the diminutive pianist––excluded from the movie––was a regular with Tjader's band in 1958.

The soundtrack to Big Eyes contains three selections from Tjader's repertoire: "Bludan" (Eddie Cano), "Tropicville" (Cal Tjader) and "A Minor Goof" (Brew Moore). "Bludan" and "Tropicville" are cover versions by the musicians in the cast––Cal probably would have enjoyed their work––and "Goof" is from Tjader's 1956 LP Cal Tjader Quintet. The first two originally appeared on the LPs Demasiado Caliente (1960) and Latin Kick (1956), respectively.

For those new to Tjader who would like to delve further than the soundtrack, Cal Tjader Quintet is paired with Tjader Goes Latin (1959) on the CD Black Orchid, Demasiado Caliente is paired with Latino! (1960) on Latino! and Latin Kick stands alone. On a straight-ahead note, "A Minor Goof" was first taped by Tjader in 1955 for the LP/CD Tjader Plays Tjazz; Brew Moore is featured on tenor sax.

In sum, the tragedy of Margaret Keane was that she let Walter take credit for her paintings. Although his gift for marketing made the couple a fortune during the early 1960s, the deceit took its toll on the marriage. His seductive charm gave way to verbal abuse and menacing behavior, particularly after a huge Keane painting was given a scathing review by the New York Times in 1964. Shortly thereafter, Margaret took her child and moved to Honolulu. Once the divorce was legal, she finally mustered up the strength to take Walter to court and prove that she was the real artist. That was her triumph.

For the record, Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz, who play Margaret and Walter Keane, were both justly nominated for Golden Globe awards. Adams won as Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy. This is odd, because Big Eyes does not fit in either category. Maybe the voters couldn't bear to trim another actress from the Drama category and yet did not want to overlook Adams.