Gene Norman

Hasselgård died in a car accident 75 years ago, aged just 26, he became a legend like so many other young dead in jazz history. The clarinetist Åke Stan Hasselgård managed to play with many of the greats both in Sweden and in the USA.

Before "L.A. Confidential", there was "Shotgun Freeway" -- the groundbreaking 1995 documentary about Los Angeles coming to grips with it's own history. Against a backdrop of never-before-seen archival footage, Shotgun Freeway presents a diverse group of "Angelinos" who guide the film through their own past as well as the city's. We get crime scribe James Ellroy reliving his youth as a burglar, Actor/writer Buck Henry's tour of Hollywood fakery, Jazzman Buddy Collette's trip down Central Avenue, Historian Mike Davis' tour of LA's eventual Armageddon, and writer Joan Didion's take on LA's own ephemerality. From the Beaches to the Valley, "Shotgun Freeway" will show you a Los Angeles you never knew existed.