'Music Under the Stars' Documentary Traces Hollywood Bowl's History

Posted on Jul 16th 2010 12:00PM by Marina Galperina
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Many a Los Angelino took that pleasant trek up North Highland Ave, scissoring through the crowds to a bench beneath the stars and settling in for an open air concert in a Hollywood canyon. The white, shelled stage of the Hollywood Bowl has welcomed acts from Frank Sinatra and Janis Joplin to Radiohead and Jay-Z and treated classical music lovers, jazz aficionados and eclectic music fans to unforgettable concerts, 18,000 guests at a time. Last Sunday, the Bowl turned 88. Celebrate the legendary music venue's birthday with our friends at SnagFilms and take a gander at its history with the documentary 'The Hollywood Bowl: Music Under the Stars.'

Before nibbling on a picnic while listening to Tchaikovsky and watching fireworks was an option, the Hollywood Bowl was a glamorous night spot where stars dressed to impress and be seen. But in the early 20th century, the Bowl's canyon was an empty wilderness and the film site of epic Westerns. There was no cultural center in Los Angeles and the film industry had only just began to relocate from New York. The beginning of the Bowl's history with music started when an heiress hauled a piano into the canyon and discovered that the acoustics were perfect. She purchased the plot for sermon readings and morality plays, then other, more innovative, art-minded benefactors developed the land into a concert venue.

It took decades of construction and fundraising to make the Bowl a full-fledged "outdoor music palace." "Classical Music is very important if you have parking to go with it," notes director Garry Marshall, so yes, there was parking and plenty of star-strutting space. The narrator of this documentary couldn't be more romantic and nostalgic about those old Hollywood days that cemented the venue's cultural reputation, but there are proud montages of the Bowl's noted popular performers that reinvented it. Since Ol' Blue Eyes defiantly took the stage, it wasn't all about classical music anymore as the Bowl played host to legendary performances by the Beatles, Ray Charles, Little Richard, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Elton John, David Bowie, Grateful Dead, Miles Davis, the Beach Boys and more.

Unearth more of the Bowl's surprising history in the doc below, as you're reminded that though some of the Bowl's visitors went from tuxedos to Hawaiian shirt over the years, it's still a glamorous, romantic amphitheater on a hillside. After the movie, catch Hollywood Bowl's upcoming shows with B.B. King, the Swell Season, the Chemical Brothers, Phoenix, Grizzly Bear, Pavement, Sonic Youth, No Age, Vampire Weekend, Beach House, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers or Tchaikovsky with fireworks -- a classic experience in more ways than one.