If you are prodding, looking, searching and asking around for a really great and cool Christmas album to buy, your search is over. Joey Ramone Christmas Spirit… In My House is a true Punk Rock gem. The late and legendary Joey Ramone has always captivated me with his trademark Punk Rock vocals. He had such an easy going delivery with his voice, yet it also contained the required toughness, swagger and Punk attitude that came out so naturally for Joey. Don’t Worry About Me, Spirit In My House and What A Wonderful World are three Punk Rock classics from Joey Ramone’s solo work. What A Wonderful World is covered here with remarkable, inspired spirit that flows over you like a wave of Punk Rock joy. These three songs can be enjoyed all year long, heck, this EP is so good I will listen to these Christmas songs all year long too! After I here Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), I feel like I never want to hear another vocalist sing this song again, Joey Ramone sings it that incredible, for me.

Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight) is Joey Ramone singing a ballad while not straying away from his trademark vocals, I get a real kick out of this song with it’s 1950’s Rock and Roll vibe happening. This song isn’t sappy either. Spirit In My House is the hardest song on this EP, the grooves are strong and the beat is contagious. Ronnie Spector lends her vocals on Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), while the ever legendary Marky Ramone is a special guest on What A Wonderful World. I am going to listen to this EP probably constantly throughout this holiday season, I am looking forward to each listen. I absolutely cannot exhaust myself from hearing these songs limitless times. All fans of the Ramones and Punk Rock need to own this EP. Fans of all other Rock genres need to lend an ear to what Joey Ramone created here and add this brilliant work to their Christmas music collection and enjoy it all year long too.

Based on the excited reaction my ten year old twin daughters showed, as they listened to this Joey Ramone EP today, it is safe to say his Punk/Rock and Roll legacy will live on for generations to come. I have never seen my daughters dance around and get as happy to music, like this, since they listened to Misfits Project 1950! It was a terrific sight to see, coupled with the feeling of knowing my daughters love some of the music I listen to as well.

* Christmas Spirit… In My House was released on December 10, 2002, on the label Sanctuary (USA).

* Don’t Worry About Me, Spirit In My House and What A Wonderful World are also on the Joey Ramone studio album – Don’t Worry About Me, (released on February 19, 2002).

* What A Wonderful World - was written by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss. The first recording was sung by the timeless legend – Louis Armstrong, being released in 1968 as a single.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just a quick reminder that we will be gathering at NapAloha in St. Helena, this Sunday, November 29, for our monthly flea fest!  If you’re bringing a new song, please bring enough copies for eveyone.  And don’t forget the pupus! RSVP with Diana: 707-967-9700.

And don’t forget the Big Ukulele Event coming up December 3 hosted by Kala Brand ‘Ukuleles to benefit the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma. There will be free ‘ukulele lessons and a concert by the “Ukalaliens.”  Tickets are available online at http://phoenix.inticketing.com/events/59289 or can be purchased in advance at Tall Toad Music in Petaluma. The fun begins at 7:00. I do believe our good friends the Petalukes are also performing.

And this just in:  An ‘ukulele showdown (of sorts) has been scheduled for the weekend of March 19-21 at John Ascuaga’s Nugget Casino in Reno/Sparks when James Hill and Jake Shimubakuro headline twin concerts in the Nugget’s Celebrity Showroom in conjunction with the Tahoe Area Uke Fest. Not sure if the two ‘ukulele superstars will be on stage toether, but at least it’s nice to see James Hill getting the billing he so deserves.  It’s kind of like Bruce Lee meets the Royal Canadian Mounties……

In the meantime, James and his partner Anne Davison just won the “Traditional Abum of the Year” award at the Canadian Folk Music Awards for their CD, True Love Don’t Weep.  Here’s what they’re saying about it: 

For starters, True Love Don’t Weep, his first full-length collaboration with cellist Anne Davison, abandons the “bet-you-didn’t-think-I-could-do-that” subtext of his earlier work to follow a muse that seems unfettered by supply and demand and uninterested in ukulele evangelicalism. Cello, banjo, bouzouki, fiddle, voices, winds, brass, bells and music boxes entwine with ukuleles of all shapes and sizes through twelve tracks that resonate with folk, old-time, gospel and blues influences. True Love Don’t Weep isn’t a campaign for the ukulele, just an offering of beautiful, sweetly sorrowful music. From the heart-rending Ev’ry Night to the cathartic Obedience Blues to the slightly demented Duke’s Alley Rag, the duo – assisted by a handful of talented friends – weaves a broad tapestry of vivid colour and emotion. Fret-burning, uptempo cuts like Ode to a Frozen Boot, Richard’s Reel, and One More Lie to Love show why Canadian Folk Music calls James “truly amazing… a serious virtuoso upon the instrument.” But it’s the meditative introduction to Sakura, Sakura, the sweet vocal harmonies of Because, and the haunting chorus of Oh! Susanna that explain the three-year gap between True Love Don’t Weep and James’ “tour de force” third album A Flying Leap. After all, it takes time to dig deeper and True Love Don’t Weep certainly comes from a deeper – often darker – place.

I can still hear that very haunting rendition of “Oh! Susanna” that James played at the first Wine Country ‘Ukulele Festival.  To hear some of the songs and order the CD directly from James you can visit his website: James Hill: Ukulele…Seriously.  Otherwise you can download the entire CD (highy recommended) or just individual songs on iTunes to the right.

And now for something entirely different, I’ve posted a new copy of “On a Coconut Island” under the Song Files.  It’s the Louis Armstrong version (you can also download it from iTunes on the right) …wonderful.

And, finally, since it is Black Friday, don’t forget to do your ‘ukulele holiday shopping soon: www.kani-ka-pila.com. Send me an email if you’d like me to bring anything to Flea Jumpers on Sunday.  I can keep it a secret if you want…..

Who can argue with the premise that Louis Armstrong was the single biggest influence on the development of jazz?

Thought I’d share this succinct encapsulation of the magic of Armstrong courtesy of Ben Ratliff, NYTimes.

This track “Dinah,” filmed on a sound stage in Denmark, 1933, is a short and efficient answer for why he was and is important. You sense he’s building his brand — the stuff with the handkerchief, getting up in the viewer’s grill, popping his eyes at .55 — but it’s still pretty extreme, and exciting.

Listen to the way he chopped up rhythm, sailing his phrases over the beat. You want to say he’s imitating a trumpet when he sings, but then you want to say vice versa, so neither can be true. He’s continuous, playing or singing something nearly all the way through, making his body part of the performance.

Also, watch the band’s feet.

Where is Harry Connick Jr when you need him? I posted this clip a long time ago but I thought it was time to have another little airing.

No, sorry gang – it’s The Old Silly, but I promise all you Adam Atom fans he’ll be back in his regular Monday spot next week. Today I’m asking y’all to cut me some bloggy slack, I’m busy all day preparing for a week of holiday travel. Gonna be heading out to The Big Apple to visit my son, drive him back here to Michigan for a good ol’ Wilson family reunion on Thanksgiving, and then … catching my breath and catching up on regular blogcasting. I do have posts scheduled to go up all week, so fear not … you will not be deprived of your daily dose of Free Spirit!

Today I thought I’d put up a special rendition of one of my all time favorite songs, performed by Lous Armstrong. Many of you, I’m sure, are familiar with it, but this clip is special in its visual accompaniment to the lyrics and tones. So, in the spirit of gearing up for this Thanksgiving, I would ask you to relax for the next two minutes, breathe deep, and meditate on all the beauty around us in this miraculous, marvelous creation.

Does our world have its faults? Are there problems, challenges facing us as a race of people and our environment as we move forward? Yes, and of course there are. But remember, we receive more of what we focus on and sincerely desire. Join me now in focusing on “What a Wonderful World” we have.

Blog dismissed, my friends. Oh – if you are a blogger that the Old Silly visits regularly, please understand over the next few days I am largely without internet access, travelling and all, but I will do my best to visit y’all as much as possible. Wifi cafe breaks, that sort of thing. And even if I don’t get a comment in every day, I am always with you in spirit. And again, there will be daily posts up here all week.

Have a great holiday week, see you here, there, and everywhere, and remember what a wonderful world we can continue to enjoy and make together with our thoughts and actions of love for each other.

Click on Tweety Bird and tweet this post if you liked it!

I don’t quite know how “Wolfgang’s Vault” tapped into the great store of recordings made — presumably for the Voice of America — for the 1959 Newport Jazz Festival, but the second neatly-wrapped present has arrived.  What interests me are two sets: one featuring the master, Jack Teagarden, with his working band of the time (Don Goldie, trumpet; Henry Cuesta, clarinet; Don Ewell, piano; Stan Puls, bass; Ronnie Greb, drums).  Aside from delightful work from Ewell — in ensemble as well as solo — and a very happy Teagarden, the band itself is workmanlike rather than inspired.  But for ROYAL GARDEN BLUES, a medley of ROCKIN’ CHAIR and BODY AND SOUL, and a closing SAINTS, Teagarden got to add his great friend and colleague (they had been recording together for more than twenty years) Bobby Hackett, who plays splendidly.  Goldie, a very competent lead trumpeter with marvelous facility but less imagination, chooses to play a chorus or two of trades with Hackett, which perhaps a wiser man would have avoided.  But Hackett has BODY AND SOUL to himself – two and a-half exquisite minutes, after which Teagarden says, “Wonderful!  Bobby Hackett!  The most beautiful trumpet in the world.  Just trumpet from heaven.”  And although I feel sorry for Goldie, I wouldn’t argue with Teagarden’s praise.  SAINTS, taken too fast, closes the set.  Goldie’s second try at a Louis Armstrong imitation is a liability; Ewell’s rocking stride and Hackett’s soaring solo more than make up for it.

Hear for yourself: http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/jack-teagarden-with-bobby-hackett/concerts/newport-jazz-festival-july-05-1959.html

Three days earlier, the Gene Krupa Quartet had performed at Newport, with pianist Ronnie Ball, Lester Young-inspired tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Eddie Wasserman, and bassist Jim Gannon.  Wasserman is rather off-mike, but that allows us to hear Krupa, in enthusiastic form, work his way through SWEET GEORGIA BROWN, a medium-tempo WORLD ON A STRING, a slow LOVER MAN, and a twelve-minute STOMPIN’ AT THE SAVOY.  Again, this set is primarily notable for Krupa — fiercely himself wherever he was, which is something to admire, even amongst jazz writers eager for “innovation” and ”development.”  Krupa did attempt to go with the fashion of late-Forties bebop (the musical equivalent of the berets and dark glasses his musicians wore for photographs) but he did play much the same way in 1972 — when I saw him last — as he had in 1938.  Why?  Because it sounded good, as it does here.

http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/gene-krupa-quartet/concerts/newport-jazz-festival-july-02-1959.html 

Finally, there’s a set from July 3, 1959, featuring Phil Napoleon on trumpet, Harry DiVito, trombone, the wondrous Kenny Davern on clarinet, the still-active Johnny Varro on piano, Pete Rogers, bass, and Sonny Igoe, drums. 

I haven’t had the opportunity to listen to this set, but the combination of Davern and Varro — or Davern and anyone — is enough for me.

http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/phil-napoleon-and-his-original-memphis-five/concerts/newport-jazz-festival-july-03-1959.html

Although I would assume that the estates of the artists aren’t receiving payment for the dissemination of their music, at least more people are getting to hear it – pushing away the day when no one knows who Bobby Hackett, Jack Teagarden, or Gene Krupa is.  (Not “was,” mind you.)  Wolfgang’s Vault is also featuring other concerts from this edition of the Newport Jazz Festival, including Dizzy Gillespie . . . rarities coming to the surface for us to hear!  What’s next?  I have my fingers crossed that someday the concerts from the first years of the Festival will surface: I’ve been reading about those lineups for years.  Someday, Wolfgang?

I took my dog for a walk … all the way from New York to Florida … I said to him, “There. Now you’re done.”

- Steven Wright

Fetch, Finn! Now sit, Sunny! Stay. Good pups!

That’s right, in a deliberate attempt to boost our Arbitron ratings Great River Radio has turned the show over to our dogs. Well, not the entire show. Our “Confluence” segment this week has a canine theme. We’ll have dog-related songs from Big Mama Thornton, Page France, Josh Ritter, Uncle Tupelo and Louis Armstrong. And as always we’ll mix in a few listener requests, including selections from Patty Griffin and John Hiatt. But despite their best efforts, Finn and Sunny won’t run the entire show.

There’s a Great River Radio tradition of digging through mountains of MP3s to bring you some of the best new music around. We’ve been working extra hard this week to unearth new tracks from Richmond Faintaine, The Avett Brothers, Brandi Carlile, Dirty Projectors, Tom Waits, Sharon Jones, Har Mar Superstar, Martha Wainwright, Girls, Echo & The Bunnymen and the Raveonettes. Haven’t heard of some of these artists? That’s OK. Give us a listen, and you might discover a new musician to add to your own heavy rotation.

Great River Radio will be “live” today from 4-6 p.m. (CST).

Brian/Dan

P.S. Great River Radio will be off next week for Thanksgiving. Give thanks and have a great holiday with family and friends!

Playlist

Maybe-Ingrid Michaelson
Crown of Ages-The Ettes
Ten Thousand Words-The Avett Brothers
Green Grass-Tom Waits
Stranded In Your Love-Sharon Jones and Lee Fields
So Hard-Martha Wainwrights
Lust For Life-Girls
8th Wonder-The Gossip
Tall Boy-Har Mar Superstore
Take It In-Hot Chip
Hound Dog-Big Mama Thornton
My Dog & Me-John Hiatt
I Wanna Be Your Dog-Uncle Tupelo
Dogs-Page France
Feed The Dog-Honey Is Cool
To The Dogs Or Whoever-Josh Ritter
Yellow Dog Blues-Louis Armstrong
Heavenly Day-Patty Griffin
I Will-Brandi Carlile
The Underdog-Spoon
The Preacher-Brother Ali
The Chosen One-The Raveonettes
I Think I Need It Too-Echo & The Bunnymen
Wild Girl-Rickie Lee Jones
Island, IS-Volcano Choir
Stillness Is The Move-Dirty Projectors

Sunday night at The Ear Inn, the performances that moved me the most were three love songs — interspersed with up-tempo romps on I NEVER KNEW, LINGER AWHILE, WAY DOWN YONDER IN NEW ORLEANS, and THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE. 

The EarRegulars were Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet and moral guidance; Mark Lopeman, tenor sax and clarinet; Chris Flory, guitar, Joel Forbes, bass.  Not to downplay the fervor of anyone in the quartet, I would hand the palm to Lopeman, whose muscular, tender improvisations hark back to Lester but look forward to Lopeman.  

For some bands, the first song of the first set is a shakedown cruise, a tentative warm-up of muscles both physical and emotional.  But not this quartet, who had everything magically in place from the first notes of SOMEDAY, SWEETHEART.

A grammatical digression: I prefer the title as written above, which seems a hopeful entreaty.  “Someday, sweetheart, we’ll . . . (fill in the blank).”  SOMEDAY SWEETHEART is ambiguous.  Someday you’ll be my sweetheart? 

The melody is sweet, but the song’s lyrics are accusatory: a precursor to SOMEDAY YOU’LL BE SORRY.  And since Louis part-dreamed of the melody of GOODNIGHT, ANGEL, it is possible he dreamed of the emotional aura of SOMEDAY, SWEETHEART: ”you will be sorry / for what you’ve done / to my poor heart”?  The subconscious is wonderfully mysterious.

The EarRegulars take this pretty, ancient Morton-inspired song at what I think of as the Venuti-Lang All-Stars tempo: a sweet-natured jog.  Not too slow, not too fast:

Then, someone suggested EMBRACEABLE YOU, usually taken at a rhapsodic-operatic tempo.  Here, it’s slightly more animated, as if some embracing was actually on the menu (Charlie Parker tempo?) and it made space for an absolutely eloquent melodic improvisation by Lopeman:

Finally, there was ON THE ALAMO, which some people think a cousin to THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS, but it’s actually a sweet 1922 song about love-longing.  The lyrics are nineteenth-century, as the singer waits at the garden gate for the Love Object to return, although Jon-Erik and Chris both had the Benny Goodman Sextet in mind:

The fact that these sessions are getting informally recorded for posterity by me, Stanley, and Jim makes me happy.  This is timeless music, even with the occasionally blurry focus and odd angle, the crash of dishes and the shouts of “I need a Bailey on the rocks!”  It’s a privilege — and that’s no cliche — to share it here.  But that no record company executives come to The Ear Inn is sad and strange.  The floating lyricism everyone displays here is irreplaceable.  Embraceable, too.  Till next week!

Four years have not lessened the horror of what happened in New Orleans during the first week of September, 2005. Spared a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina, which veered to the east and dropped from a Category 5 to a Category 3 storm before making landfall in southeast Louisiana, the city was decimated when the levee system and federal flood protection system failed in more than 50 places. Eighty percent of the city flooded, killing more than 1800 people, leaving tens of thousands more stranded for days—trapped in attics up to their chins in toxic flood water, abandoned on highway overpasses and rooftops in the sweltering heat, packed into the storm-ravaged Superdome and Convention Center. The vision of hell unfolded in real time as global media captured the images of bodies in the street, orphaned children, and the elderly and the sick, slumped in wheel chairs, waiting for rescue and fighting to hold on.

Today, the people of New Orleans are still fighting—wracked by psychological trauma and the devastating Diaspora of a city destroyed, not to mention the corruption and cronyism that marred the no-bid contract recovery efforts. And just as the long, painstaking struggle to heal the deep wounds began to make headway, the city was struck again—this time by the global economic crisis that hobbled the city’s crucial tourism industry. It was an unexpected and quietly devastating blow. Today, the city is reeling from job losses, rising costs of living and a devastating escalation in violent crime. But the people who returned to claim their home are determined to preserve the city’s deep roots and extraordinary culture. Leading that fight, in many ways, is New Orleans’ tight-knit and hard-hit music community.

The birthplace of jazz and Louis Armstrong, New Orleans is a musical hot house that has incubated and nurtured the greatest traditions in jazz, blues, soul and rock and roll. From Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and King Oliver, to Fats Domino and Professor Longhair, to Dr. John, the Neville Brothers and the Meters, the Marsalis family and Harry Connick, Jr., to Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, Lee Dorsey and Louis Prima, to influential lesser known legends like Snooks Eaglin, Ernie K-Doe, Earl King, Guitar Slim, Willie Tee, and others—not to mention Dixieland, brass bands, Zydeco and a vibrant hip-hop scene—the problem with listing the incredible musicians of New Orleans is that you can never stop without fear of a glaring omission. Their contributions to American music seem almost infinite. Not bad for a city of less than 400,000 that sits below sea level and the poverty line.

“It’s a different place here,” says four-time Grammy Award-winning producer John Snyder, the program director for the music industry studies program at Loyola University. “It’s a certain thing in the air. I don’t know what you’d call it. A soulfulness and an earthiness. It’s got that tropical vibe, where people seem to be conserving energy all the time. It is more about conserving energy than expending energy. It’s in the music and it characterizes all efforts—academic, entrepreneurial, legal, you name it. A lot of effort has to be expended just to get to the point of doing something. It has lived in a different century every century it has been in, and it is never the future. It’s always in a historical context of culture and booze and music and architecture and dilapidated elegance. But after Katrina, everything changed.”

“The music community in New Orleans was so neighborhood based,” say Reid Wick, senior project coordinator for The Recording Academy, who helped administer MusiCares’ Hurricane Relief Fund and Music Rising’s instrument replacement program. “So much of it was learning how to play in the bars and churches of your neighborhood. After Katrina, so much of that was totally disrupted. Some entire regions of the city are vast wastelands, still—and not only poor areas. Everything from the neighborhood where you used to live, to the club you used to play on Saturday night and the church you played on Sunday morning, are just not there anymore. So when those clubs aren’t there, and those neighborhoods aren’t even there, a lot musicians are just going to be struggling and out of work.”

But even in the darkest days after the storm, the musical community worked together to help each other, and their city. They were matched with a vast outpouring of compassion and support from life-changing assistance programs like MusiCares and Music Rising. Following Katrina, the city had the sympathy of the world, and while volunteers streamed in to help rebuild, the city’s musicians found themselves in greater demand than ever before.

“The storm brought a lot of attention to the music community,” says Snyder. “It created work as well as displacement. It created new opportunities as well as destruction and loss. It is like everything else. It is not all one thing. In this situation you have to look for the good and make the best of it.”

“Many musicians were able to come back and for awhile there was actually more work than there had been in the past,” agrees Scott Aiges, director of programs, marketing and communications for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation. “You had places tripping over one another to hire New Orleans musicians to help support them. But that has died off now. The number of gigs has decreased significantly and the pay scale has gone down significantly, so it is much harder to make a living as a musician—much harder. And it has always been challenging. It’s a city so famous for its music that people think musicians here have it made—but musicians by no means have their livelihoods guaranteed in New Orleans. In fact, we did a study back when I was working for the mayor’s office before the storm and musicians were making on average about $21,000 a year. So we referred to the musicians a lot of the time as the working poor. They are working very hard. They are most often parents and they struggle extremely hard to make ends meet.”

Compounding the destruction and displacement wrought by the storm and its aftermath was the long-term damage done to New Orleans’ tourism industry, a vital part of the city’s economy and the economic lifeblood of the music community. While the city’s struggles to attract visitors began to pay off a few years after the storm, they were suddenly and dramatically undercut last year by the global financial crisis.

“It seemed like we were really starting to see some improvement in the local economy,” says Mark Fowler, manager of Tipitina’s Music Office Co-Op in New Orleans. “The local tourism industry was really starting to get back into good shape. And then we had this big economic crash that just derailed everything. People just aren’t having conventions like they did. And a big convention isn’t just about the people in town going out and spending money—there is all the auxiliary support business, whether it is people in restaurants or cab drivers or audio-video tech guys, all the people whose work is related to that stuff. So all the people in the local economy don’t have money to go out and do stuff either. It impacts musicians on a lot of different levels.”

“The convention business drove so much of the economy of New Orleans, in particular the music industry,” says Wick. “It just hasn’t really come back to the level of what it was. It could be ten years if it ever comes back. And it is hard to track that—a restaurant that would hire a trio or a pianist, when the tourism dollars stop coming in, the first thing they are going to cut is the music budget.”

In addition, the wealth of talent in New Orleans seems to compound the problems. Though the community is surprisingly uncompetitive and supportive—just listen to the warmth and respect when musicians talk about each other during interviews on the incredible WWOZ, one of the best radio stations in the country—their sheer number drives down the fees they can command.

“Music is everywhere,” Snyder says. “Everyone is a musician. The way up North people carry briefcases, down here they carry instruments. But musicians have never made money here. People don’t like to pay for music. They might pay a little bit, but not enough to support it. If you go out in New York City and go to a jazz club, it’s going to cost you a hundred bucks for two people. Nobody would pay a hundred dollars to hear music here. If you ask for ten, you might get people to go. So there’s no money in playing music and there is no infrastructure to speak of, no publishing companies or record companies or management companies.”

“The money thing is very problematic,” says Fowler. “There are so many people competing for the same jobs. It is a buyer’s market. The pay at a lot of places is probably $25 a set, so $25 an hour, which for a day job is pretty good. But when you think about potential income, it is a job more than anything else.”

Of primary importance for those fighting to preserve and protect New Orleans’ musical traditions is to pass along an understanding of the business of making music—from marketing to publishing to legal issues—and a greater understanding of the income potential of licensing.

“One of the things we are trying to do at the Co-Op is to get people to not think just about gigs but all the other things you can do with your music,” Fowler adds. “Get stuff licensed to be used in films and advertising, television shows, more lucrative situations. That is where the bulk of the money is made these days, because there is actually money there. We’re like, ‘We all love playing gigs, but you gotta think of this other stuff.’”

Much like the musical traditions the community is trying to preserve, the recovery and relief efforts are marked by an intense level of creativity, generosity, humility and versatility. Wick’s deep ties to the hardest hit members of the community allowed him to see the need for an organization to help coordinate relief efforts, which lead to the founding of Sweet Home New Orleans.

“Sweet Home New Orleans is an umbrella organization for 14 different relief agencies,” Wick says. “There are probably 5,000 musicians in New Orleans and many of them live in a totally cash world. They’ve never had a checking account or a credit card, so they have no credit history established. With Sweet Home we tried to help with housing issues, and wound up being a case management and application service to streamline the application process for 14 different relief agencies, like MusiCares, Society of Singers, the Jazz and Heritage Foundation, the Musicians Clinic, and three of four other agencies that were springing up. We’re still going strong three or four years later.”

“Still going strong three of four years later.” It perfectly encapsulates the hope and heartbreak the community balances. How extraordinary that there is the generosity, dedication and compassion to keeps these relief efforts alive—and how painful to realize they are still so necessary so many years after the tragedy.

Today, there are still many, many ways to help the city’s citizens and musicians. From financial donations to instrument donations, there is still tremendous need and many devoted organizations to contact for a better understanding of how to contribute. But for Aiges, one answer is simple.

“Come to New Orleans,” he says. “Bare witness. Understand there is still a struggle going on, but the culture of New Orleans remains intact and it remains a tremendously joyous place to experience. Everyone who comes to New Orleans takes a little piece of it with them when they go. And the more that is spread throughout the world, the more people are aware of how special New Orleans is. And you can’t predict how that will resonate and how that will change things for the better.”

–Ari Surdoval

You can help. Click here:

Sweet Home New Orleans

Tipitina’s Foundation

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation

New Orleans Musicians Clinic

Listen to WWOZ!

How the Beatles Destroyed Rock n Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music

Elijah Wald, 336 pg.

The title is inflammatory and in many ways does the book a disservice because most of the book has little to do with the Beatles, or even Rock and Roll. The title after the colon is really what the book is about and for anyone interested in
American popular music from the late 1800’s to through the Jazz era and up to the birth of Rock and Roll the book is an excellent resource. Wald has done an amazing job at exploring the how American music developed and what the people at the time thought of the music, not what latter critics have said about the music.

One of his main themes is that popular music until quite recently was about dancing and that most musicians would have played dance music if not exclusively, then at many times during their career. The demand for dance music, therefore, kept music less segregated. Since people did not have ways to listen to music at home they would go out and would dance. And since the lack of music affected everyone, a broader range of people would go out to dance. The dancers, then, would be diverse and request from musicians not only current songs or dances, but older ones too. Even musicians whose primary music was not the dance hits of the day would know some dance songs. For example, when John Lomax recorded Muddy Waters in Mississippi he was not only playing his blues numbers, but hits like The Chattanooga Choo Choo. Nothing remains, though, of this music because when critics and writers discovered musicians they were looking for what set them apart from other musicians, not what made them similar. The need to create differences continues throughout the book so that many musicians such as Elvis rose to stardom on their differences, but were great fans of the popular music of the day even though they never performed it in public.

Wald continues to point out these connections throughout the book in part to make the case that the history of music has not been by those who listened to it, but those who wrote about it, namely the critics. The critics, according to Wald, are more focused on the artistic aspects of the music, and perhaps the historical, but not on what they meant for the listener. The result is often dismissive treatment of pop hits, which leads latter listeners who use the critics as a guide to older music to take misunderstand the role of the music the critics praise and what was popular. Jazz is particularly prone to this phenomena. For example, the Jazz that Louis Armstrong is most known for is the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens, but those were groups formed only for the recordings which were limited to 3 minutes max, and what Armstrong was really playing had a wider range of influences, was dance-able, and had a slower tempo. Like Muddy Waters, none of the more audience oriented music survives.

Jazz is the strength of the book and he details how when Jazz began to sweep the country it wasn’t the improvisational centered music we know now, nor the Hot Fives and Sevens music either, but something people could dance to, and that was assumed to be new and free. However, most musicians could read music and often if they made up the work “faked it” they would play it over and over as it created.  Long solos and fast tempos did not work for those who came to the shows to dance. There were other opportunities for people like Duke Ellington later to break free of the dancers, because they were playing for professionals at the Cotton Club and were not quite as constrained. Wald also does not think the history of white musicians robbing blacks of ideas is exactly accurate. Racism prevented many musicians from succeeding like white musicians, but a figure like Paul Whiteman has is responsible some developments in Jazz that he is often not credited with, namely the introduction of the arrangement styles that latter grew into Swing. There were better arrangers, Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, but Whiteman was the most popular Jazz musician and Wald believes that even if his music is to sweet now, he is relevant.

All of this underlies Wald’s idea that what we claim is great now, is really transitory and as the music changes so does the interpretation of its relevance. This may be a novel insight in music criticism, but in other fields such as literature and film this isn’t exactly new. One gets the impression that he sees The Beatles loosing their throne; at this date I don’t see it. The title, which I have yet to explain, refers to how Rock and Roll which had been more dance oriented and coming out of a mix of country and rhythm and blues was change into a more pop sensibility that was made more for listening and less for dancing. It wouldn’t be until Disco that dance would really be part of a musical trend.

Ultimately, How the Beatles Destroyed Rock n Roll is a good history of American Popular music, but once it gets to the Rock and Roll era it begins to loose a little steam. His insistence that popular music is dance based muddies the story once Rock and Roll comes along. He is correct, though, in noting how American Popular music has gone from a more cross cultural and cross generational music to a very niche based music, much to its detriment.

I checked out some other versions of this song, but as in most cases the original is hard to surpass.

Although it is wonderful to see people from across time and culture appreciate.  And do their part to share this song.

This song gives me comfort.  Thats why I wanted to share it.

It also, by the way, confirms what I have felt for two years now.  Babies now, are going to be smarter than I ever was.  I may be paraphrasing what Mr. Armstrong said, but it is close enough.

I hope if you’re having a bad day, struggling with anything, you can find a piece of music to listen to.  It helps.  If you’re having a great day I hope there’s music in your heart  with it.  If you’re having a mediocre day, be glad it’s not a bad day, play some tunes and match your heart beat to the rythem of the song.

I couldn’t help it.  One more.

Before recordings and sound film changed the world, music didn’t travel well.  Myth says that you could hear Buddy Bolden’s horn miles away, but trumpet players know that is unlikely.  You certainly couldn’t have the complete Jelly Roll Morton Library of Congress recordings on a little box in your shirt pocket. 

Recordings, then sound film, made it possible for music to be portable, reproduced, and represented far away in time and space from its origins.  Preservation is an extraordinary gift, letting us visit the dead and cherish them whenever we want.  When the Ellington band played RING DEM BELLS on a Victor record or in a 1930 film, thousands who would never see that band live could experience it. 

But “representation” is never flawless, because all individual perspectives are necessarily subjective.  A recording engineer or cameraman captures one version of what listeners experience.  Most recordings and films seem, at best, to compress the exuberance of the artists.  Jazz anecdotal history is full of the names of great performers who, we are told, never “came though whole” in the recording studio.  And films  — even contemporary performance films — have their own, sometimes intrusive, conventions that must be obeyed.     

Our texts for today are two representations of Bing Crosby singing PLEASE.  The music is by the sadly short-lived Ralph Rainger, the lyrics by Leo Robin, and Bing first performed in the 1932 film THE BIG BROADCAST, one of Paramount’s efforts to get all the musical stars it could assemble into one film, to lure people away from their radios and back into the movie theatres.  The plot of this film is exceedingly foolish, but it’s only an excuse for a now irreplaceable variety show.     

And here’s the performance itself — all too brief:

I love the flimsy fictions that this clip requires a viewer to accept.  I think, just before it begins, Bing says to his pal, guitarist Eddie Lang, “Well, let’s run it through again,” suggesting that they are rehearsing a new number.  He holds the sheet music, but casually.  And Lang is not paying much attention to the music on top of the piano.  (He was a wonderfully subtle player, never equalled.)  Do you hear a piano?  Who’s playing it?  The invisible but entirely sympathetic pianist is Lennie Hayton, which suggests that Bing and Eddie were adeptly (and not in close-up) miming to an already-recorded track, which was common practice.

Because it is a rehearsal in someone’s home (is it Eddie’s?), Bing has his vest, suit jacket, and hat off.  Our eyes are drawn to his natty two-tone shoes as he keeps the beat.  Then, after the first sixteen bars, a delightfully fictive moment occurs when Bing grins like a boy who has gotten away with three cookies instead of two and tells Eddie, “Well, I think I know it.”  (The record of PLEASE was released to coincide with the movie’s premiere, so Bing’s fans in the audience might have already had the Brunswick record while onscreen their hero was pretending he was learning the song.  But in the darkness of the movie theatre, such facts might be brushed aside.) 

Confident now, Bing launches into his own version of romantic scat singing, flicking his eyes to the ceiling, and begins getting dressed.  

Frank Tuttle, the director of THE BIG BROADCAST, wrote in an unpublished memoir (which I found in Gary Giddins’s wonderful Crosby biography), “Bing didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. . . . [he] was extremely cooperative and his sense of comedy was first-rate from the opening shot.  His approach was casual and he liked to move around.  We worked out interesting pieces of business so that he wouldn’t have to just stand there and deliver a number.” 

Thus, the striptease in reverse — bolstering the illusion that Bing was only a regular fellow who just happens to burst into song with such art.  We know this isn’t true, but watching Bing sing while getting dressed is rather like watching him sing while changing a flat tire — a splendid feat.  I don’t know if it was intentional, for comedy, or not, but Bing has some small difficulty getting his other arm into his vest, and he goes through a good deal of straightening and smoothing — while singing – before beginning to button it.  Once the vest is on, he is clearly loosening up the rhythm, and gently swinging PLEASE, confidently and cheerfully, wooing the imaginary girl right out of her reluctance, and perhaps out of her vest.  What man ever buttoned his vest with such swing, using each button as a visual accent?  Bing emphasizes the beat, bobbing his head.  It’s comic but understated.  It’s jazz made visual.  

Next comes the jacket — and Bing has more trouble finding the armhole while he makes the dramatic musical transition from ”a gloomy Romeo” to “Oh, please . . . ” most endearing.  In fact, his fumbling with his right arm behind his back seems to go on and on, although he is whistling prettily, unfazed by the burden of getting dressed.  Then, there’s no need to pretend that this has been a ”rehearsal,” as Bing and Eddie perform the closing phrase together, and Bing, hat cocked jauntily, tells Eddie, “Well, I’ll see you tonight,” and Eddie answers, “OK.”  Hardly Lubitsch, but entrancing in its pretend-casualness. 

And he sings so beautifully to Lang’s fetching accompaniment, their work mixing romanticism and swing, the effect both earnest and funny.  I found myself listening to the clip for the music — both casual and deliciously light, then watching the two men act (Lang, serious, plays the musical sidekick, never taking the spotlight away from Bing).

Bing’s performance of the song in the film and on the hit record spurred Paramount to make a short film (rather like the Mack Sennett shorts Bing had starred in).  I found a copy of the poster on eBay, and a wonderful piece of Art Deco foolishness it is, with a pretty blonde’s disembodied head grinning from the C in CROSBY; Bing playing the guitar (which he couldn’t) wearing something like a bathrobe, the lower half of his body swallowed up by the background.

PLEASE stars Bing, Mary Kornman (who was “Mary” in OUR GANG silents and worked with Bing in other movies), with Vernon Dent (who worked with Sennett, Harry Langdon, and in numberless two-reel films with The Three Stooges) as her huffy, pudgy suitor.  Giddins writes that it was presumed lost until the 1990s and unearthed by film preservationist Bob DeFlores.

The plot is paper-thin: my summary comes from the Mary Kornman website (www.marykornman.com) which proves that everything is indeed online:

This movie, filmed on location at Yosemite National Park, was not discovered until 1960.  In it, Mary plays a voice teacher, Beth Sawyer, on whom Bing has set his affections.  Playing himself, Bing hides his identity as to finagle lessons out of Beth in order to get close to her. Mary then enters him in a singing contest only to find out Bing’s true identity.  Humiliated by this, Mary rejects Bing but is soon won over as he croons a chorus of “Please” through her parlor window.

Fictions abound here as well.  As the sequence begins, a beautifully dressed “Beth,” with matching hat, turns on her radio — and out comes the sound of a dance orchestra playing the song for which the movie is named.  Coincidentally, Bing, wearing a pristine straw boater and neat dark suit, lurks outside her house, dramatizing his exasperation by some gesturing with a small object he discards.  The camera cuts to a momentary shot of a huge man in soiled white painter’s overalls, momentarily transfixed by the music, who takes off his hat and puts it back on again.  Director Gillstrom had trained in silent films, for you can see the idea balloon form above Bing’s head, “Hey!  That’s my song!  I could sing it to her!  Through this open window!  Wow!  What an idea!  Gee!” 

“Beth” at first doesn’t even register that a man is nearly climbing through her open window, singing along with the radio (something that would make many women call 911).  It’s as if Mary Kornman has forgotten her cue, although she does remember to sulk while Bing sings.  He sings beautifully, but without Tuttle to remind him how to understate, his gestures are at war with the song’s wooing intimacy.  Using a clenched fist to signify “I could hold you tight in my arms” is unromantic, even though it is perhaps the only gesture possible for a man still holding his hat).  And Mary Kornman may have been a delectable little girl in silent comedies, but her acting is petulantly limited.  Bing emotes and ”Beth” pouts, until his repetition of “Please!” win her over.  The lovers kiss, after a fashion; her dog turns its head away, and we are left hoping that they are going to be happy forevermore, even if she has to climb out of the window to be with Bing. 

But all this overacting doesn’t obscure the beauty of Bing’s voice, his phrasing, although I prefer the sound of the more casual version with Eddie Lang.     

Back to the song itself, one I’ve loved since adolescence.  When Bing was most popular as a romantic crooner, jazzmen, inspired by his recordings, took his repertoire for their own.  Think of I SURRENDER, DEAR and WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS!  Louis, Billie, and Hawkins (who memorably recorded I’VE GOT TO SING A TORCH SONG, WITH EVERY BREATH I TAKE, and JUST ONE MORE CHANCE).  Later on, Ruby Braff continued the tradition, including PLEASE and a whole album devoted to Bing.  But no one except John Gill has taken up the song, a pity.  I asked my Expert, Jon-Erik Kellso, about it, and he told me the melody line wasn’t easy for musicians who didn’t know the song to pick up on the spot.  If any musicians are reading this blog, would you please consider playing this song?  I’ll put more money in the tip jar when I hear it, I promise.

However, while researching this post, I also found a bouncy version of the song by Ambrose and his Orchestra.  This performance, however, deflates my theory about the song’s qualities.  Did it need Bing, John Gill, and Ruby to let its light shine through?  What you’ll hear is a fine 1932 dance record, but the yearning quality so essential to PLEASE is obliterated at this tempo.         

These clips remind me of truths that should be self-evident.  The young Crosby wasn’t an infallible actor; he needed a fine director to make sure that naturalness or “naturalness” prevailed.  But how he could sing!  And how splendidly Eddie Lang could play!  And they live in these filmed moments.   

So if someone asks you, reprovingly, ”WHAT’S the magic word?” (if anyone uses that phrase today), you must respond, “It’s Bing Crosby singing PLEASE, of course.” (Thanks to Peter Karl for that witticism, again.)

For the second time this season, a jazz book has so astonished me that I want to write about it before I take the time to read it at the leisurely pace it deserves.  This book is published in a limited edition of 500 copies, so I hope that someone might be moved sufficiently to order a copy before they are all gone.  TRAVELING BLUES: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF TOMMY LADNIER, byBo Lindstrom and Dan Vernhettes, is a lively yet scholarly study of the life and music of the short-lived trumpeter.  Many jazz books are enthusiastic but lopsided; books that collect beautiful photographs sometimes have minimal or unsatisfying text; scholarly books are often not appealing to the eye.  This book strikes sparks in every way: the diligent research that has gone into it, the expansive prose; the wonderful illustrations.  I have been reluctant to put it down.  Each page offers surprises.   

Tommy Ladnier isn’t widely known: he has been dead seventy years.  The fame he deserved never came, even though he had enthusiastic champions in Mezz Mezzrow, Hughes Panassie, and Sidney Bechet.  But a brief list of the people Ladnier played alongside will testify to his talent: Bechet, Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters, Jimmy Harrison, Coleman Hawkins, Jelly Roll Morton, Jimmy Noone, Fletcher Henderson, Clarence Williams, Sam Wooding, Doc Cheatham, Noble Sissle, Chick Webb, James P. Johnson, Teddy Bunn, Walter Page, Jo Jones.  He was known as a “sensational” trumpeter in Chicago in 1921: he appeared in Carnegie Hall in 1938.   

The reasons he is so little known have nothing to do with the quality of his art.  Ladnier did not enjoy the high-pressure urban scene, and he occasionally retreated from it (in 1934-8, when he could have been playing more often in the city, he he lived upstate); he also spent a good deal of his playing career in Europe (including a sojourn in Russia) before it was fashionable.  And in a period when hot trumpet playing was fashioned in splendidly extravagant Louis-fashion, someone like Ladnier — quieter, even pensive, choosing to stay in the middle register – might have been overlooked.  (At times, he makes me think of a New Orleans version of Joe Thomas, Shorty Baker, or Tony Fruscella.) 

I first came to Ladnier’s music indirectly, by way of his most enthusiastic colleague, reedman, pot-supplier, and proseltyzer Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, who saw Tommy as someone with pure jazz instincts.  Mezzrow idolized Tommy as a quiet prophet of soulful New Orleans jazz, music not corrupted by the evil influence of big-band swing.  My youthful purchase of the RCA Victor record THE PANASSIE SESSIONS (circa 1967) was motivated by my reading of Mezzrow’s autobiography, REALLY THE BLUES.  But Mezzrow played and improvised so poorly, never stopping for a moment, that I could hardly hear Ladnier properly.   

Eventually I heard the 1932 New Orleans Feetwarmers session, where Ladnier and Bechet were effectively the front line, and too-brief live performances from John Hammond’s 1938 FROM SPIRITUALS TO SWING concert where Ladnier, Bechet, Dan Minor, James P. Johnson, Walter Page, and Jo Jones roared through WEARY BLUES.  Finally, I understood what it was that others admired so in Ladnier’s work.  A terse, nearly laconic player, he placed his notes and phrases perfectly.  His solos never overwhelm; his forthright earnestness is convincing; he doesn’t care to shout and swagger, but he is intense.  

As is this book.  Other scholars might have rearranged the easily accessible evidence: the recollections of Mezzrow, Bechet, and Panassie, written admiringly of Ladnier’s recording career, and left it at that.  Some writers might have brought melodrama to the facts of Ladnier’s life — his ambitious wife jeopardized a number of opportunities for him (one possible drama).  Ladnier died of a heart attack at 39, and could perhaps have been saved (another drama).  One could cast him as a victim of a variety of forces and people including the recording supervisor Eli Oberstein.  But the authors avoid these inviting errors.

They succeed not only in examining every scrap of evidence they could find – their research has been cautious, comprehensive, and lengthy — about Ladnier as a musician, born in Louisiana, migrating to Chicago, taking on the life of a jazz player in the Twenties and Thirties, dying in Harlem. 

But there’s more.  These scholars are also thoughtful historians who delight in placing the subject of their loving scrutiny in a larger context.  “What did it mean?” I can hear them asking.  So that their inquiry broadens beyond the simple chronological tracing of Ladnier’s life.  When we learn (through a beautiful reproduction of Ladnier’s draft card) that he worked for the Armour meat-packing company – so justly excoriated in Upton Sinclair’s THE JUNGLE — we can read about Armour and what it meant to Chicago and Chicagoans.  What did it mean to be an African-American musician traveling overseas in the Twenties?  The appropriate footnotes are easily accessible on each page.  The book also concludes with a detailed discography — noting not only the labels and issues, but on which performances Ladnier has a solo, a break, accompaniment, and the like. 

And the book is also visually quite beautiful.  A large-format book (the size of a 12″ record, appropriately) it is generously illustrated in color, with fine reproductions, nicely varied.  I was happily reminded of a beautifully-designed history or biology textbook, where the book designers had sought to set up harmonious vibrations between print and illustrations.  Indeed, one could spend an afternoon immersed in the illustrations: maps, a handwritten letter from Ladnier, record labels, photographs of individual players and of bands.  One illustration I particularly prize is an advertising handbill for a dinner-dance, “A Night At Sea,” to be held at the St. George Hotel in Brooklyn Heights, New York, on January 22, 1939.  In part, the music was provided by “Milton ‘Mez’ Mezzrow and his Bluebird Recording Orchestra featuring Tommy Ladnier.”  Even better: heading the bill were Henny Youngman and Molly Picon.  Without this book, I would never have known.

The music?  Well, the authors have taken care of that, too.  As part of the complete Ladnier experience, they have created a CD containing all 189 of Tommy’s recordings in mp3 format.  I don’t entirely understand the technology, but the CD is certainly the ideal companion to the book — containing the equivalent of eight CDs of music. 

I urge you to visit http://www.jazzedit.org/Traveling-blues.html and see for yourself.  In this era of deeply discounted books, the initial price of this one might seem serious, but its beauty, thoroughness, and devotion make it a masterpiece.

As a coda: the noted jazz scholar and collector of rare photographs Frank Driggs wrote an introduction to the book.  Here’s its closing paragraph: “This remarkable book is loaded with details on the lives of Tommy Ladnier and most of the people he played with.  There are hundreds of illustrations, photos of people I’ve never even seen before and I’ve seen most of the photos of jazz musicians over the last fifty years.  The depth of research is I believe unparalleled.  God bless these two fanatics who have devoted so much of their time and energy to bring this work of love to fruition.”

My sentiments exactly! 

This month TaylorSpearsRecommends brings you an eclectic collection of holiday favorites (and some not so holiday-ish favorites too!). On the list is Kermit Ruffins, Count Basie, Harry Connick, Jr., Jeremy Davenport, Louis Armstrong, Wynton Marsalis, Sting, Sugarland, Carrie Underwood & Los Lonely Boys.

I’ll guide you the right gift for everyone on your list! There’s some great deals out there in November, so don’t delay, start your gift buying today!