Buona Sera

Just A Gigolo

On this day after Thanksgiving, aka Black Friday, how about some Louis Prima and Keely Smith

doing That Old Black Magic for our Feel Good Friday offering.

For all you brave shoppers out there today, may the Black Friday Magic smile upon you. May everything you seek still be in stock and your bank account be full too.

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!

I’m only up to page 138 — which is the year 1948 — in Robin D.G. Kelley’s monumental THELONIOUS MONK: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL (Free Press, 2009, 588 pages) but I had to write something about this book now rather than waiting sedately until I finish it.  Kelley doesn’t need my enthusiasm, judging by the reviews and media coverage, but his book is seriously worthwhile.

It’s clearly the product of fourteen-plus years of research, and the result is thorough without being overwhelming.  Writing about Monk isn’t easy: previous studies have tended to overemphasize his “weirdness,” his apparent reclusiveness, his tendency towards gnomic utterances — as if saying, “Both the man and his music come from the same unreachable, inexplicable sources.”  But Kelley went to the most logical sources — the Monk family and friends — so that the portrait we get is not of someone strange and threatening, but the loving husband and parent.  This may seem a terrible cliche by now, but it’s a relief from those books that equate Genius with Madness or at least with Cruelties.  I find those equations wearisome.  Although Kelley doesn’t invent scenes of Monk going to Home Depot or being a secret suburbanite, it is reassuring to find that in some deep ways, he made sense — if not always to the prying world outside, at least to those who loved him.  (This demythologizing is welcome.) 

Kelley has also had the benefit of being able to speak at length with Monk’s manager, Harry Colomby, so that the book becomes far more than the record of a musician’s life — which often follows a predictable trajectory: early encounters with the music, youthful influences, first success, and then a boring chronicle of gigs and concerts.  About twenty percent of the anecdotes are familiar, but the rest are new and often greatly revealing.  Kelley, a jazz pianist himself, gets under the surface of Monk’s music without being overly technical.

He also grapples with two other issues: the role of the media in the Forties (often the role of people who earnestly wanted to make sure Monk received wide coverage) in making Monk “the High Priest of Bebop,” thus peculiar — because peculiarity brings people to clubs more than benign normality.  He has also faces the larger — and painful — question of Monk’s mental illness, or bipolar disorder, or chemical imbalance . . . call it what you will — honestly rather than speculatively.  I haven’t yet read enough of the book to see how he takes on the unanswerable question, “If Monk had been medicated early, if he had been a compliant patient, if more had been known, would he have been happier?  And would we have those astonishing records?”

Reviewers have to complain about something so that readers know they are attempting to be objective, so I have two Official Complaints.  Kelley doesn’t mention that Louis Armstrong made influential records of JUST A GIGOLO and BYE AND BYE — material that receives some emphasis in the text.  And, perhaps in his desire to be unbuttoned, friendly rather than academic, Kelly is occasionally a bit too casual, too slangy for me.  Monk may have called it “reefer,” and Bessie Smith did, but Kelley’s hipness rings false. 

But I am a seriously finicky reader . . . and if these are the only things I could find to complain about, it has to be a beautifully written and carefully documented book.  Thrilling, even, in its diligence, intelligence, and compassion.

For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments’ sake.
—Walter Pater[1]

The point of concentrating on hooks in music is to glory in the self-sufficiency of radiant moments.  But that self-sufficiency is illusory.  No hook is an island.  Every highlight has a setting and a history.

All right, says pop music, but I will push against that necessity.  I will effloresce, erupt, slash free of the cobwebs of time.  I will choose sounds so compelling you will forget they were chosen for reasons.  Even when I take up the tools of language, I will speak words of raw presence and affirmation, summative words that say it all.  I will say—quoting here the Isley Brothers in “Shout”—“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”  When I say yeah, I’m saying it all in the best way possible.  When I unroll a chain of yeahs, I’m saying it endlessly.

But words, so far from being purely present, always come with arrows attached.  They have about-ness—even the self-absorbed “ooh” points (barely) to something going on in the world—and they have to-ness as well, pointing to someone.  The affirmation “yeah” gives something and someone a green light.  True, the something and someone are sucked into a blast of presence, but we still have to be mindful of a certain distribution of things to get the sense of a given yeah.   This means that I, alone, cannot ever be saying it all by saying yeah; but you and I together could come much closer to a completeness if we make a call and response, yeah/yeah, and better still on and on, yeah/yeah / yeah/yeah.  It’s nicely done this way in Sam Cooke’s “Bring It On Home To Me” (1961).

In “Shout” (1959), however, the Isley Brothers short-circuit the call and response structure.  There is plenty of convivial back and forth between voices in the track, but the main “yeah yeah” line is taken by just one voice, both arrogating and sharing the power of achieving this effect by oneself.  Unlike the alternation yeah/yeah, the line yeah-yeah becomes a unit of utterance, a button of excitement to push, a phrase of romantic enthusiasm—which is how the Beatles use it in their epochal “She Loves You” (1963).  (Lennon and McCartney originally intended to throw in some “yeahs” as a response to the thesis statement “She loves you,” but they ended up putting in a yeah-yeah-yeah to complete the statement line.)[2]

So the meaning of yeah, yeah has a history.  We shouldn’t have to date and sequence songs to explain their hooks, but for this hook we do.  It sounds like a revivalist stunt when Tommy James and the Shondells use the old back-and-forth yeah/yeah in “Mony, Mony” (1968).  When the Clash confronts the “phoney Beatlemania” heritage of rock’n’roll in the punk revolution of the 1970’s, one of the choicest gibes they shoot in that direction is Joe Strummer’s mocking “yeah, yeah” in the middle of  “Clash City Rockers” (1978).[3] Once the acute punk phase passes, it’s fine to use any rock value any way one likes, post-ironically.  In 1995, yeah, yeah becomes a massively popular stairway to God (Joan Osborne, “One of Us”).  Still cool in the 21^st century, yeah, yeah is now high concept for a band, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (listen in particular to “Bang,” 2001).  But there can never again be the ingenuous surge of “She Loves You” or the pointed criticism of “Clash City Rockers.”

We have to hold all this in mind to appreciate the greatest yeah, yeah, which, I contend, is Strummer’s.  What we have heard through the years has made us realize that one of the supreme verbal gestures of immediacy cannot be as free as it wants to be.  It has to drag historical baggage with it.  Strummer’s is the yeah, yeah that does this lucidly.  He makes a peak moment of a burden of awareness.  In a song suffused with anger and scorn, following a chorus that tells us “Don’t complain” and “Shut your mouth and pretend you enjoy it” (your life prospects in Thatcher Britain, that is),[4] he underlines the message by twirling us about an axis of joy—we are rocking, this is fun, no pretending about it—with a wickedly buoyant delivery of yeah, yeah that doesn’t kill it or even dampen it, but lets its feathers flutter in the sarcastic gale; and then, like a smirking MC, the yeah, yeah bounces us right over to the next battered institution of joy, the lead guitar solo.

It’s over! —a quick thing that you’re lucky to hear, the very opposite of the million-dollar hook in “She Loves You” that you can’t escape.  But it’s the pivotal midpoint of the whole history of yeah, yeah.

If you don’t like the freighted yeah, yeah of the Clash, you can go back to the exuberant “Shout” (or, earlier still, the swing band jive of Louis Prima’s “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” circa 1950) or forward to the overheated “Bang”—yeah, your choice.

See the Yeah, Yeah mix

[2] “She Loves You,” The Beatles Ultimate Experience:  Songwriting and Recording Database.

[3] “Phoney Beatlemania” is a phrase from “London Calling” (1979).

[4] But see Comment 1—Thatcher came to power in 1979 (thanks, Tim).

Priceless footage – Louis Prima & his band recording the soundtrack to Disney’s “The Jungle Book.” One of the great entertainers. http://ping.fm/xPst4

00048.0000 THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC
Words: Johnny Mercer
Music: Harold Arlen
Lyrics and Chords
Louis Prima & Keely Smith Performance

That old black magic has me in its spell,
That old black magic that you weave so well;
Those icy fingers up and down my spine,
The same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine.
The same old tingle that I feel inside,
And then that elevator starts its ride-
And down and down I go, round and round I go
Like a leaf that’s caught in the tide.
I should stay away, but what can I do?
I hear your name, and I’m aflame,
A flame with such a burning desire,
That only your kiss can put out the fire.
For you’re the lover I have waited for,
The mate that fate had me created for,
And every time your lips meet mine-
Darling, down and down I go, round and round I go,
In a spin, loving the spin I’m in-
Under that old black magic called love.

USA, 78 min

+ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV8HrpOu1FA

WITH GUEST SCOUSE IN THE HOUSE // JOHN McCREADY // WE DIDN’T GO PLASTIC // DID MASH UP STANLEY UNWIN and EDDA DELL’ORSO // WENT WELL NOODLE with MATCHING MOLE // and // COUNTRY AND NORTH WESTERN TWITCHING with NEW HAWKS

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

dan haywood’s new hawks – david in cedars
richard hayman & his orchestra – voodoo
graham clark / stephen grew – no. 1 [from improvisations series one]
moussa doubia – nambara
stanley unwin – the saucy apprentice
squarepusher – don’t go plastic
brenton wood – psychotic reaction
the tomorrow people – restless relays
the moontrekkers – there’s something at the bottom of the well [joe meek]
dan haywood’s new hawks – five red castrils
rappin’ reverend – i ain’t into that
exhadley – mykon
louis prima – beep beep
edward barton – scratches and bruises
black dice – scavenger
harry h corbet – flower power fred
the tomorrow people – snide rhythms
vernon elliot ensemble – the clangers
stevie wonder – mr tambourine man
hybrid kids – d’ya think i’m sexy
matching mole – gloria gloom
bobby peterson quintet – mamma get your hammer [there's a fly on the baby's head]
gbur – fool minds
prag vec – bits
seth samuel – dinosaurs
edda dell’orso – scusi vacciamo l’amore?
stanley unwin – goldie locks
edith frost – temporary loan
royal trux – i’m ready

]]> http://gravitysra1nbow.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/hroswitha-de-gandersheim-iii-la-envoltura-humana/ Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:30:07 +0000 gabriel lv http://gravitysra1nbow.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/hroswitha-de-gandersheim-iii-la-envoltura-humana/

 
–¿por qué fluyen tus lágrimas, andrónico?
–me desplace mi propia vida. eso es.
–¿qué te aflige?
–drusiana, tu adepta, me aflige.
–¿ha salido acaso de su envoltura humana?
–sí, ha salido.

***
clic derecho :·: descargar
louis prima & sam butera & the witnesses : symphony for the devil

3 (Downloadable) Songs for when you wake up “Happy, Refreshed, and Excited About Breakfast”

Pennies From Heaven: Louis Prima

Banana Pancakes Live: Jack Johnson

What A Wonderful World: Louis Armstrong

Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara are performing at the Geffen Playhouse (Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater) in Los Angeles, California until August 30, 2009.  This is a well performed love story musical based on true events.

Louis & Keely are a dynamic duo who took the Las Vegas strip by storm in the 1950’s during the swing dance days.  Louis Prima is a New Orleans jazz musician who found his way to Las Vegas.  Keely Smith is a songbird who performs lounge acts with her husband.  The pair makes a great team, but struggle with balancing work and family life.

This is an eventful tear-jerking love story musical.  You will not be disappointed with this performance.  If you are looking for a night out on the town with that special someone then Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara is just the show for you!

Geffen Playhouse (Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater)
10886 Le Conte Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90024

To purchase tickets for this event visit here!

By The Light of The Silver Moon
(Words by Edward Madden / Music by Gus Edwards)
Little Richard

By the light of the silvery moon,
I want to spoon, to my honey I’ll croon love’s tune,
Honeymoon keep a shining in June,
Your silvery beams will bring love dreams, we’ll be cuddling soon,
By the silvery moon.

By the light, (By the light, By the light),
Of the silvery moon, (The silvery moon).
I want to spoon, (Want to spoon, Want to spoon)
To my honey I’ll croon love’s tune.
Honeymoon, (Honeymoon, Honeymoon),
Keep a shining in June. (Keep a shining in June)
Your silvery beams will bring love dreams,
We’ll be cuddling soon,
By the silvery moon.

http://condron.us                                                 http://alphainventions.com

RIP Mr. Steve McNair

 Hi there. Hope you had a great Independence Day weekend. Thanks for starting the week with a visit to my SnJ Musings…

Headlines…and What-Not
(The Best of the Web Today via wsj.com)
~Someone Better Alert Women…
“Men Told Have Sex Daily to Boost Sperm Quality, Fertility”–headline, FoxNews.com, June 30
~Turn Me On, Dead Man…
“Pope: Bone Fragments Found in Tomb Are Paul’s”–headline, FoxNews.com, June 28
~Really, Ghee Is Not My Butter…
“State Fair Clarifies Butter Jackson Issue”–headline, Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), July 1

And this one took about 5 seconds before it got me going…
~Life Imitates The Onion…
• “Denver Optometrist Not Sure Why He Has Gay Cult Following”–headline, Onion, March 6, 2002
• “Bob Schieffer Not Sure Why His Ratings Are Going Up”–headline, U.S. News & World Report Web site, July 1, 2009

Oh Dude…Word!
~Pokemon (N), a Rastafarian proctologist.

Special of the Day (includes a roll with butter)
*Fads of the 80’s*
 Hanging out at Video Arcades
 Trapper Keepers
 Big Hair Bows
 Brat Pack
 Bandana tied around one’s leg
 Popples
 Ripped jeans
 Smurfs
 BBS (Bulletin Board Systems – Kind of like the Internet but text based ) 
 Chuck E. Cheese                    
 ”Word”
 Where’s the Beef
 Hershey Kiss Lip Gloss
 Valley Girl talk
 Hungry Hungry Hippos

Your Music Notes
~1998 Indonesian pop star Iwan Fals gives a free concert in Jakarta. More than 5,000 economically devastated people break out in a riot and charge the stage, hurling bottles and sticks and shoes. Fals barely escapes the mob and flees with his band to a nearby hotel.
~1998 Acclaimed cowboy singer and actor Roy Rodgers, 86, dies in his sleep at his home in the desert community of Apple Valley, Calif. The “King of the Cowboys” had been ill with congestive heart failure for some time.
~1991 Van Halen’s “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s pop album chart.
~1965 No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” The Rolling Stones. It is the Stones’ first No. 1 single in the U.S.
~1925 Rock `n’ roll pioneer Bill Haley (William John Clifton Haley Jr.) is born in Highland Park, a section of Detroit. The biggest hit for Bill Haley & His Comets is the rock `n’ roll classic “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock,” a No. 1 song for eight weeks in 1955. He is posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
~1971 Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong jazz musician (Hello Dolly, What a Wonderful World), dies at 70

Deeep Thoughts
~”Things are more like they are now than they have ever been.”-Gerald R. Ford
~”I phoned my dad to tell him I had stopped smoking. He called me a quitter.”-Steven Pearl
~”The Edsel is here to stay.”-Henry Ford II (December 7, 1957)

Letters…We Get Letters…
(tipping the top hat to TFB for these quotes from Thomas Jefferson)~”The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not”.
~”The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

What is Hip…Tell Me, Tell Me…
~Carleton Bryant’s latest column http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/05/out-context-look-closely-at-my-picture-/
(http://twitter.com/nittwit7000)

~Breakerbox “From the Hooks” on iTunes
(http://twitter.com/breakerbox)

~Grizzly Bear Egg Cafe Episode #37 on iTunes
(http://twitter.com/claytonmorris)

~weirdralph: “I’ve learned that no matter how far you push the envelope, it always remains stationery.”
    “The roundest knight in King Arthur’s court was Sir Cumference. He got that way from too much pi.”
(http://twitter.com/weirdralph)

~On July 6, 1937, “Sing, Sing, Sing” was recorded in Hollywood with Benny Goodman on clarinet and Gene Krupa on drums. “Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)” is a 1936 song, written by Louis Prima, strongly identified with the big band and swing eras. Although written by Prima, it is often most associated with Benny Goodman.
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And Finally…Living the SnJ Life…
~”Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.”-Phil 2:3

Have a gr-reat Monday! (Hoping the YouTube video will post)

Louis Prima:

Igor es una película de animación (2009) con una excelente banda sonora (BS).  Debemos dividir esta BS en dos partes: el trabajo de Patrick  Doyle  (más clásico) y el trabajo entre otros de Louis Prima (Swing).  Es una lástima que la música de Prima no este incorporada a la BS que se distribuye comercialmente, ya que le da a la película ese balance increíble que gusta a todos.

Patrick Doyle es un consumado músico escocés dedicado tiempo completo a las bandas sonoras (BS) para películas, series de televisión y hasta documentales.  Entre los proyectos más reconocidos de Doyle destacan las BS para: Mary  Shelly´s Frankenstein, Sense and Sensibility, Carlito´s way y Eragon.

Louis Prima en los años del Swing muchos éxitos e incluso trabajó en las bandas sonoras de algunas películas de Disney.

Buena música y buena animación.  Dos ingredientes fántasticos para tener la excusa de ver esta película.

Koko Taylor. Sam Butera. David Carradine. All gone in the last day.

Yep, they still go in threes.

I’ll leave Miss Taylor to the blues enthusiasts and Mr. Carradine to the film enthusiasts.

Sam Butera, who was 81 when he died Wednesday in Las Vegas, almost certainly is the least known of the three. He was the frenzied yet disciplined sax player who helped forge Louis Prima’s wild, swinging jazz sound in the ’50s and ’60s. It wasn’t rock, but you could see it in the distance.

Butera and his band, the Witnesses, helped make Prima one of the top draws in Vegas. That’s Butera above at right, on stage with Prima and singer Keely Smith at the Sahara in 1957. Prima and Butera, native sons of New Orleans, played together from 1954 to 1975.

Here’s what Prima’s widow, singer Gia Maione, told the Las Vegas Sun:

“Louis Prima’s true ace in the hole for 21 years was Sam Butera.  I don’t care what vocalists were with Louis, his true ace in the hole was Sam Butera. Side by side, Louis and Sam kicked Las Vegas’ butt for 21 years. …

“I really do not believe over all of these years that Sam Butera got the accolades he deserved as a tenor saxophone player. I defy anyone to name someone that played better tenor sax that Sam Butera.”

Even if you can’t place Butera, you know his sound.

David Lee Roth’s cover of “Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody?” That’s Butera’s arrangement and sax solo. Butera never got paid for it.

That Gap ad featuring “Jump, Jive an’ Wail?” That’s Butera’s arrangement and sax solo. Butera was paid $371 and received three pairs of pants that didn’t quite fit. He had to pay to have them tailored.

Here, then, the real sound of Sam Butera.

“Night Train” and “Oh Marie,” both featuring Sam Butera on sax, from “The Wildest,” Louis Prima, 1957. As the liner notes say, the former is a “slow, bluesy” instrumental. The latter, an “Italian evergreen,” swings. (The album link is to a remastered 2002 CD release.)

“St. Louis Blues,” featuring Sam Butera on sax, from “Louis Prima: Collector’s Series,” a 1991 CD compilation. Ain’t nothing bluesy about this rave-up from 1962. Butera’s scorching sax sets up Prima’s wild scatting.

Want to learn more about Sam Butera? That story in the Las Vegas paper is highly recommended, as is a 2000 interview by the Sun and an appreciation done by his hometown paper, the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

I spent a few glorious hours last night (Sunday, May 24) at the Ear Inn — absorbing the sounds in two long sets by New Orleanian Evan Christopher (clarinet), Scott Robinson (trumpet, C-melody saxophone, and tenora), Matt Munisteri (guitar), and Danton Boller (bass) — the EarRegulars minus co-leader Jon-Erik Kellso, who was working his plunger mute at the Breda Jazz Festival in the Netherlands.

Candor compels me to say when I walked into the Ear, I found it noisy and crowded — as expected on the Sunday of a four-day weekend.  Finding no place to sit at first, I even entertained the cowardly thought of turning tail and heading back uptown.  But when I saw friendly faces — Jim and Grace Balantic, whose amiable presence I’ve missed for some time, Doug Pomeroy, jazz acupuncturist Marcia Salter, Conal and Vlatka Fowkes — I calmed myself and prepared to stay.

However, throughout the evening I kept noting the newest weird phenomena: photographers who have not yet figured out how to shoot without flash, thus exploding bursts of light a foot from the musicians.  Even more odd, I counted many young male faux-hipsters who now sport hats with tiny brims, rendering their skulls unnaturally huge.  Will no one tell them?  In my day, being Cool didn’t automatically mean looking Goofy.  But I digress.

The Ear Inn, incidentally, never turns into a monastic sanctuary — commerce, food, and drink are part of the cheerful drama of the evening . . . so one of the two hard-working waitresses was forever imploring the bartender (not Victor, alas for us), I need two Boddingtons, one Stella, two vodkas, one grapefruit tequila with salt!” In earnest near-shouts.

A word about the musicians.  Evan is one of the finest clarinet players I will ever hear: his command of that recalcitrant instrument from chalumeau to Davern-like high notes is astonishing, and he has a fat woody New Orleans tone, rapturous in the lower register, moving to an Ed Hall ferocity when he presses the octave key.  He is a fierce player in intensity and sometimes in volume, but he can murmur tenderly when he cares to.  And, although he is fluent — ripping through many-noted phrases — he doesn’t doodle or noodle aimlessly, as so many clarinetists do, filling up every space with superfluous rococco whimsies.

Scott Robinson, wearing his OUTER SPACE shirt, made by his multi-talented wife, Sharon, was in fine form: doubling trumpet and C-melody saxophone in the space of a performance, playing three choruses on the trumpet and then — without pause — going straight to the saxophone, magically.  Few payers (Benny Carter, Tom Baker, Smon Stribling) have managed to double brass and reeds; none of them have made it seem as effortless as Scott does.  And the tenora . . . a truly obscure Catalonian double-reed instrument that he had brought to the Ear on May 10 — which has an oboe’s insistent tone and timbre — is gradually becoming a Robinson friend.

Matt Munisteri was in fine form, even though the Ear gig was the second or third of the day (a concert for the Sidney Bechet Society in the early afternoon, then a 1:30 jam session with Evan in honor of Frankie Manning); he burned throughout the performance, with his humming-along-to-his-solos particularly endearing.

Young Danton Boller, quiet and unassuming, seemed to play his string bass without amplification, but swung heroically, reminding me at points of Milt Hinton or George Duvivier — his melodies ringing, his time flawless, his spaces just right.  One could transcribe a Boller solo for horns and it would be mightily compelling.  He is someone to watch, if you haven’t caught him yet — on CD, he is a delightful presence on the Kellso-Christopher-Munisteri CD, BLUE ROOF BLUES (Arbors).

The band began with a nearly slow AT SUNDOWN (perhaps in honor of the still light-blue evening sky?) which did that pretty tune honor, and then, perhaps in honor of togetherness to come, romped — and I don’t use that word lightly — through TOGETHER (“We strolled the lane to-geth-er,” etc.) in suggesting a modern version of Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra, with Scott riffing behind Evan, the two horns creating a rocking counterpoint.  A blistering THEM THERE EYES followed, with Evan and Scott swapping the lead in their opening choruses (this quartet showed it knew the value of old-time ensemble playing, something that some musicians have unwisely jettisoned in favor of long solo passages).  Evan, who has a comedic touch, then discussed the business of making requests of the band.  He laid out three conditions: the band had to know the song; the band had to be interested in playing the song; the band would be most knowledgeable and willing to play the request if some financial support was forthcoming.  A man sitting at the bar asked for the very unusual Bing Crosby JUNE IN JANUARY (1934) which Evan taught the band in a matter of moments, and the band learned it in performance, with its final choruses recalling the glories of Soprano Summit in years gone by.

At the end, Evan said, “That was a SPECIAL request!” — and some member of the quartet, primed to do so, asked, “Why was it SPECIAL, Evan?” to which he said, full-throttle, “Because it was PAID FOR!”  Making himself clear, you understand.

SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET followed, beginning with hints of Johnny Hodges, then moving into Louis-territory, with Evan and Scott using the Master’s passionate phrasing and high notes in their solos.  And something unexpected had taken place: perhaps because this jazz oasis is called the Ear, the noisy audience had gradually changed into a room (mostly) full of listeners, who had caught the group’s drift.  Of course, there were still people who talked through each song and then clapped enthusiastically at the end because everyone around them was doing so — but I could sense more people were paying attention, always a reassuring spectacle.  And the set ended with a joyous JUNE NIGHT — with laugh-out-loud trades between the two horns, and a jovial unbuttoned vocal by Evan (a little Fats, a little Louis Prima) which surprised everyone.  Then the musicians retired to the back room to eat some well-deserved food.

Emboldened by the idea of JUNE IN JANUARY, before the second set started, I approached Evan with an appropriate portion of currency unsubtly displayed, and asked him, “Excuse me, Evan, would that buy me some SWEETHEARTS ON PARADE?”  Evan took in the bill, said, “SWEAT-HOGS ON PARADE?  OK?!”  And that’s how the set began, the band rounding the corners in wonderful style, Scott even beginning his trumpet solo with a nod to LOVE IN BLOOM, Matt playing a chorus of ringing chords, the band inventing one riff after another to close.  Scott, brave fellow that he is, took up the tenora for a feature on THE NEARNESS OF YOU — which had plaintive urgency as you could hear him getting more comfortable with his new horn.  (At the end of the night, when I talked with him about the tenora, he said, “I know it has a pretty sound, but I haven’t quite found it yet.”  He will, I know.)

HINDUSTAN was a highlight of the BLUE ROOF BLUES CD, with the nifty idea of shifting from the key of C to the key of Eb for alternating choruses, something I’ve never heard another band do, raising the temperature considerably; this performance ended with a serious of ecstatic, hilarious, and knowing phrase-tradings, with quotes from I’M BEGINNING TO SEE THE LIGHT, PAGILACCI, leading up to an urgent, pushing counterpoint, mixing long melodic lines with fervent improvisations, savoring the many textures of the quartet.  A waltz-time NEW ORLEANS cooled things down, beginning with a duet for clarinet and guitar that sounded like back-porch music for a warm night.  A riotous THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE took us back to Noone, to Soprano Summit, with Scott’s rocking solo pleasing Evan so much that he was clapping along with it.  Finally, a down-home MAKE ME A PALLET ON THE FLOOR mixed operatic fervor and hymnlike unison playing, ending with the band getting softer and softer, as if they were walking slowly into the distance.

It was lovely music, fulfilling and fulfilled, and it has filled my thoughts a day later.  You should have been there!

A original é de 56, Louis Prima abre o CD com essa pedrada de jazz

E a versão de Lou Bega, o cara do Mambo number five (lembra dele?) é de 2001 e muita gente pensa que esta música era dele

Just because it’s Friday:

Quando seu sorriso é solto pelo ar
O mundo inteiro pára para observar
Seu sorriso é mais do que um simples brilhar
Ele é capaz de encantar

Oh Marie
Nossa estrada ele vai iluminar
E quando pela manhã acordar
Esse talismã vai nos libertar

Quando os pássaros chegarem
Abra as janelas e convide-os para entrar
Juntos, vamos celebrar nossa arte de amar

O quanto eu te amo
E o quanto te quero
Somente uma longa noite poderá mostrar
Oh Marie

Júlio Frutuoso