Peggy Lee: One Sophisticated Lady

Today is the birthday of Peggy Lee (1920-2002) a versatile entertainer who could wrap a song in her personality like few other singers of her century. While most of them went loud she chose rich, seductive, and stylish. Her method caught the eye and ear of bandleader Benny Goodman in 1941 and for the next five decades her sophistication, warmth and intimacy touched millions of fans.

Lee in 1950

With her persona expressed through singing, the composition of both music and lyrics, and acting, it's easy to see why the always glamorously dressed Lee was introduced to audiences as "Miss Peggy Lee." And it's no wonder that such an "in charge" personality could become the model for one of the most beloved characters in television history. That the character is none other than a Muppet may surprise you. It is a story of caricature, humor, reverence, and unexpected fame. Read about it here in this brief Smithsonian Magazine interview.

Lee was born on May 26 in Jamestown, North Dakota. Her recording still sell well almost two decades after her death and can be heard regularly on jazz and popular music stations and channels around the world. She had a near constant string of hits from the 40's through the '60's including this 1937 song by Jerome Kern, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. Her performance, conducted by Frank Sinatra, was recorded in 1957 for the album, The Man I Love.

That's all there is!

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
public domain publicity photo

Text:
Peggy Lee, Wikipedia.org

Memorial Day 2020

This is a day of mixed emotion as we honor men and women who made the supreme sacrifice in service to their country. They gave their lives that we might live out our own in an experiment of community called the United States. Some of us may be on holiday at the beach or mountains while others gather with family and friends for a cookout at home. And there are those who may find themselves alone and not necessarily by choice this year. At some point all of us will take some moments to think of these honored men and women and what they have given us and our families.

Many of us grew up knowing this day as Decoration Day but now it is best known as Memorial Day. Though both its date and scope have changed over time its central meaning remains strong. At virtually every crossroad town from sea to sea, there will be old soldiers, flags, a speech or two, a band, and prayers. These events will take place at memorial walls bearing the names of the honored dead. Invariably, the audiences will be small, but firmly dedicated to the idea that the nation will always remember the cost of freedom.

A common theme in all of those memorial gatherings mentioned earlier will be music. The American composer, Charles Ives, captured much of the historic character of this day in his composition, Holiday Symphony, completed in 1913. Section II of that work, "Decoration Day," has a number of familiar tunes, but you may not recognize them without a guide. Like the holiday itself, Ives gives us rich, complex, and contemplative moments in time and space as we hear his interpretation of his father's holiday from dawn to dusk.

A Soldier's Burial

by General George S. Patton (1943)

Not midst the chanting of the Requiem Hymn,

Nor with the solemn ritual of prayer,

Neath misty shadows from the oriel glass,

And dreamy perfume of the incensed air

Was he interred;

But in the subtle stillness after fight,

And the half light between the night and the day,

We dragged his body all besmeared with mud,

And dropped it, clod-like, back into the clay.

Yet who shall say that he was not content,

Or missed the prayers, or drone of chanting choir,

He who had heard all day the Battle Hymn

Sung on all sides by a thousand throats of fire.

What painted glass can lovelier shadows cast,

Than those the evening sky shall ever shed,

While, mingled with their light, Red Battle's Sun

Completes in magic colors o'er our dead,

The flag for which they died.

Artie Shaw: At The Top

The famous jazz clarinetist, Artie Shaw, was born on this day in 1910. When he passes away in 2004 at the age of 94, Entertainment Weekly said this about him in his obituary:

Artie Shaw, one of the most popular bandleaders of the big-band era and the choice of many critics and musicians as the best clarinet player in jazz history, died on Thursday at his home outside Los Angeles. The ”Begin the Beguine” hit maker was 94 and apparently died of natural causes.

As a swing bandleader in the 1930s and ’40s, Shaw aspired to be considered a high-minded composer of art music, but his popularity kept getting in the way, with fans always clamoring to hear such monster hits as ”Begin the Beguine” and ”Frenesi.” Though he loathed the comparison, he was inevitably likened to Benny Goodman. Both were immensely popular, clarinet-playing big-band leaders, both were children of Jewish immigrants (Shaw’s given name was Arshawsky), and both had been among the earliest white ensemble leaders to integrate their groups racially (Goodman with players like Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton, Shaw with Billie Holiday and Roy Eldridge). During World War II, he joined the Navy and formed a band that crisscrossed the globe playing for U.S. troops; the band literally toured to exhaustion, leading to Shaw’s medical discharge.

Shaw performing his Concerto for Clarinet in 1940

To say that Shaw was complex and difficult would be an understatement. He was married eight times, greatly disliked fame, and resented the conflict between creativity and the music industry so much that he virtually abandoned music in the early 1950s. Perhaps his life illustrated a never ending search for perfection by a man who could have approached it in any number of fields. When he died in December 2004 at the age of 94, he was recognized as one of the century's finest jazz clarinetists and a principal force in the development of the fusion of jazz and classical music that would become known as "Third Stream Music."

Readers interested in a more thorough examination of even more facets in the life of this restless musical genius can visit this link at Swing Music Net for his obituary and this entry for his Wikipedia biography.

For a sample of "the sound of the horn" in the hands of Shaw, here he is with his orchestra performing the two "monster hits" mentioned in the Entertainment Weekly post above:

The world has admired Shaw's mastery and music for over eighty years and there appears to be no let up in his popularity on any number of music sources. I say let the music play!

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
public domain screen shot from the film, Second Chorus, 1940


Text:
Title quote, Tom Nolan, Artie Shaw, King of the Clarinet: His Life and Times, W.W. Norton & Company, 2010.
Artie Shaw entry, Wikipedia.org

Legendary Johnny U: He Played Football When It Was A Game

When you live in the Appalachian Mountains in a deep valley at the edge of the Allegheny Front and far-removed from television broadcast towers, the straight-line signals simply fly far overhead. Viewers have to rely on reflection in order to get decent reception. Getting a clear and consistent picture is a rare event. That problem was rectified when citizens in our small town organized one of the earliest cable television systems in the United States. My dad subscribed to their service in 1953. It was the same year the Colts reorganized in Baltimore. We watched plenty of football and baseball games over the next three years, but I don't recall watching the Colts, only the Washington Redskins, and the World Series where the Yankees always won.

In 1956. my family moved to Maryland's Eastern Shore, a region anchored to the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore, and the Colts. A new face, Johnny Unitas, joined the team that year. He was a scrawny kid from Pittsburgh who played quarterback at the University of Louisville. He was a ninth-round draft pick by the Steelers who ended up releasing him

before the season began. The Colts coach, Weeb Ewbank, saw him as a promising walk-on. When the starting quarterback broke his leg early in the season, Unitas made a disappointing debut that he would soon overcome. In fact, late in the season he threw the first touchdown pass in his 47 game streak, a record that would stand for fifty years. Many of his other records have been beaten, but keep in mind that teams played fewer games per season in those days. The simple conclusion is that Unitas's passing records will be around for a long, long time.

I'll let you read more about him and his records at the links. I will say that Johnny U and the Colts gave my dad and me, and our friends and family, some exciting entertainment between 1956 and 1973. At first, the old black and white television was small but it turned to color in 1962 and got bigger. The game was always big. Of course, the highlight of those years was the 23-17 National Football League Championship win over the New York Giants in sudden death overtime in 1958. I turned twelve that year and I doubt I'll ever see anything to beat "the greatest game ever played."

Unitas retired from the field in 1974 almost crippled from years of play in the days before adequate protective gear. He remained active in the professional football family and firmly loyal to Baltimore and the fans when the Colt franchise rolled out of town in the middle of the night on its way to Indianapolis in 1984. He lived almost twenty years beyond that sad day quietly enjoying his family, friends and fame.

I don't think the kid from Pittsburgh changed much over all of his years. He became famous, but he did it the hard way, starting out when you needed an off-season job to make ends meet. Things are different these days. Now the players are instant stars often earning mega-millions before they play their first professional game. Johnny U's magic arm helped make it happen for them.

Today is his birthday. The year was 1933, the place was Pittsburgh. Gritty origins for a star. It didn't matter to him in the end because he got to play football when it was a game. And what a game it was.




Sources:

Wikipedia, Johnny Unitas
profootballhof.com, Johnny Unitas
johnnyunitas.com, Official Johnny Unitas website

Cinco De Mayo: Location, Location, Location!

What a treat! Not only is it Taco Tuesday but also Cinco de Mayo. And for the first time in many weeks most Americans can actually sit in their favorite Mexican restaurant to enjoy the festivities. In fact, Americans are celebrating far more than their neighbors south of the border. Why, you ask? It's simply because Cinco de Mayo isn't what you think it is.
Just imagine millions of Mexicans celebrating this historic day from Cabo San Lucas to Cozumel. The dancing...the parades...the patriotic music...the parties and feasts into the night. Doesn't happen. That's right, my friends. Cinco de Mayo in Mexico is a regional celebration of the victory over France at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Outside the capital city and state of Puebla, today is pretty much just another Tuesday. For Mexicans, the big national celebration is September 16, Independence Day.

Depiction of the Battle of Puebla      Francisco Miranda 1872

Cross the border into the United States today and it's a very different story. What originated in 1862 as a local victory celebration by Mexican gold miners in northern California has spread across the United States as a celebration of Mexican heritage and culture. Like many American holidays, official and otherwise, Cinco de Mayo has grown in popularity in recent decades due to heavy commercial promotion. Greeting card, candy, and flower industries may drive Mother's Day. In the case of Cinco de Mayo a significant force driving the festivities is the alcoholic beverage industry 

Whatever the reason for such popularity, it's a great time to experience and enjoy the rich heritage and culture of the people of Mexico and their contribution to the American experience. For starters here is some traditional music to set the mood for the day.

The Kent State Massacre At 50

Today is the 50th anniversary (1970) of the Kent State University massacre in Ohio. On that day four unarmed students were killed and nine others injured by members of the Ohio National Guard. Years of conflict over the nation's role in the Vietnam War had millions of Americans on edge. Days before the event President Richard Nixon referred to some campus protesters as "bums." In seconds, 67 shots fired into a crowd of defenseless students marked the beginning of both the end of an already very unpopular war and a controversial president already well-known as "Tricky Dick" Nixon.

For three days prior to the massacre Kent State had been hit with violent demonstrations threatening both the campus and downtown commercial district. The Ohio National Guard had been on scene by the evening of May 2. From a city firehouse, Governor James Rhodes fueled the conflict by referring to the protesters as "brown shirts...the communist element... night riders... and the vigilantes."

May 4 began with university officials attempting to ban a campus protest that had been planned days earlier. The result was a loose gathering of around 2000 persons met by guardsmen armed with tear gas and fixed bayonets. For reasons undetermined shots were fired into the unarmed crowd. The  average distance of those killed was 345 feet from the guardsmen. The event incited a strike involving millions of students across the nation, forced the closing of hundreds of universities and colleges, and marked a turning point in national opinion among many who had supported American involvement in Vietnam, a escalating action that began in 1959.

A week after Kent State, police killed a student and a passerby at a demonstration at Jackson State College in Mississippi. An unquestionable sense of rebellion began to grip the nation. The Nixon administration was well aware of the situation and took steps to mitigate the danger and political erosion. One of those steps was the creation of the President's Commission on Campus Unrest- the Scranton Commission - in June 1970. The commission was tasked with reviewing the incident. After three months of work the commission concluded:

Even if the guardsmen faced danger, it was not a danger that called for lethal force. The 61 shots by 28 guardsmen certainly cannot be justified. Apparently, no order to fire was given, and there was inadequate fire control discipline on Blanket Hill. The Kent State tragedy must mark the last time that, as a matter of course, loaded rifles are issued to guardsmen confronting student demonstrators.

Location map, Scranton Commission report

In 2016,  Sally Jewell, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, designated the seventeen acre site a National Historic Landmark.