Memorial Day 2021

This day begins like any other but it is unlike any other. It is Memorial Day, a day when we honor men and women who made the supreme sacrifice in service to their country. Although both its date and scope have changed over time, its central meaning remains strong. At virtually every crossroad town across this country there will be old soldiers, flags, a speech or two, 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 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.

Remembering The King Of Swing, Benny Goodman

 

In 1935 Benny Goodman and his band had a regular late-night gig on Saturdays on NBC's radio program, Let's Dance. Broadcast from New York, most of the local teens and twenty-somethings who enjoyed his music were fast asleep. On the other hand, it was perfect timing for young audiences on the West Coast. A labor strike brought the program to a sudden and unexpected end and put Goodman and his band out of work. Together they decided on a coast to coast tour. In the interior states, the tour was a disaster because people didn't care for "upbeat" jazz arranged for orchestra. The band was looking forward to the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles as the last stop and an end to the pain. When they arrived, thousands of young fans who had heard them on the radio were waiting to hear them in person. What was to be a welcome end to a disastrous tour turned into the beginning of the Swing era.

In the shadow of Bebop: Benny Goodman, 1946

Eighteen months later , the now famous Goodman Orchestra was invited to present a jazz review on January 16, 1938 in Carnegie Hall, a venue historically reserved for "high brow" music. Several members of the Duke Ellington and Count Basie orchestras and others joined on stage to perform a concert ranging from traditional to unconventional. No jazz bandleader had ever performed there. The concert was a sensation, reaffirming Goodman as the "King of Swing," and jazz as serious American music. In the eyes of many music critics and historians, this concert remains the single most important event in popular music history in the United States. Superlatives aside, the concert was a study in swing music history and jazz improvisation.

After several curtain calls at the end of the concert, Goodman announced to the screaming fans that an encore would follow. Sing, Sing, Sing was the last song in that set. It already was a popular piece for the band, but this performance lifted it to holy status in the swing jazz genre. Featured players: Gene Kruppa on drums, Babe Russin on saxophone, Harry James on trumpet, Goodman on clarinet, and Jess Stacy in a masterpiece of improvisation on piano.

Today we celebrate the birthday of the clarinetist and bandleader, Benny Goodman (1909 - 1986). You can read about him at his Wikipedia entry here. Mention "Palomar Ballroom" and "Carnegie Hall" in the same breath and any popular music historian will follow with "Benny Goodman." His performances at the two venues took place more than 80 years ago. Today we remember both concerts as course changing landmarks in the history of swing and jazz.





Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Photo: Library of Congress, William Gottlieb Collection

Text:
bennygoodman.com
Benny Goodman entry, wikipedia.org

The Rite Of Spring: New Sound For A New Century

 

On this day 108 years ago the 30 year-old composer, Igor Stravinsky, made music history in Paris. The event was the premiere of the ballet The Rite of Spring. Like his earlier work for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, it was experimental and revolutionary. When combined with primitive choreography and a human sacrifice theme some in the audience were dazzled while others were infuriated to the point of riot.

Photo from 1913 showing original costumes

In the early 1980's the original choreography was meticulously reconstructed after being lost for almost six decades. A few years after its completion it was presented by the Joffre Ballet. There is no better representation around of what that 1913 audience both heard and saw. Here is Part 1 - all three available on YouTube - of their performance.

Stravinsky's imaginative compositions went on to have a huge impact on music and the arts. At the forefront stands The Rite of Spring as one of the most widely recorded and performed symphonic works in the world. It remains as fresh in 2021 as it was in 1913. In that century its innovative energy in sound and rhythm has been re-patterned by the likes of Aaron Copeland, Leonard Bernstein, John Williams, Philip Glass and many others.

Some say the most productive experiments often make the biggest messes until they are better understood. The genius and madman in Stravinsky would very much agree.




Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
public domain photo from First Nights: Five Musical Premieres by Thomas F. Kelly. Yale University Press, New Haven, 2000.

Text:
Igor Stravinsky entry, wikipedia.org

Peggy Lee: I Love Being Here With You

The American entertainer, Peggy Lee (1920-2002), always had a serious independent streak in both her life and career. While most singers chose to go loud she went rich, seductive, and stylish. Her method caught the eye and ear of bandleader Benny Goodman in 1941 and for the next five decades she wrapped songs in her personality, warmth, and intimacy for millions of fans.

Lee (r.) with Benny Goodman and his orchestra in 1943

Here is the song that made her famous:

She not only sang songs but also wrote or co-wrote over 270 of them. Here she is singing her biggest hit as a songwriter, Manana; words by Lee and music by Dave Barbour: 

Lee had her last big hit in 1969 with Is That All There Is?. The songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote the song based on a story by Thomas Mann. Its perfect for Lee's treatment.

With that sophisticated style and renown singing, writing lyrics, composing, and acting, it's easy to see why Lee was always 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 25, 1920 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. 

That's all there is!

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
public domain publicity still from the film, Stage Door Canteen

Text:
title, I Love Being Here With You, written by Lee and Bill Schluger in 1961. This song has been covered by 69 artists according to secondhandsongs.com

Peggy Lee, Wikipedia.org

Bob Dylan: Eighty Years Old Today

 

The legendary songwriter, Bob Dylan, turns 80 today. As expected, Scott Johnson, the outstanding cultural observer writing at Powerline, treated his readers to a revision of his Dylan tributes. Johnson conveys the message so well I won't begin to add to the story. His first post, Not Dark Yet, discusses the man and his significance in the world of music and beyond. His second post, Not Dark Yet, Cont'd., is devoted to Dylan the songwriter and features several likely unfamiliar covers of the master's work.

Bob Dylan was only 21 on July 9, 1962 when he walked into the Columbia Recording Studios in New York to record a song to be included on his second album. The song, Blowin' in the Wind, brought him fame and recognition as one of the nation's leading folk poets in the twentieth century. Dylan has this to say about the song in the June 1962 issue of the folk journal, Sing Out:

Too many of these hip people are telling me where the answer is but oh I won’t believe that. I still say it’s in the wind and just like a restless piece of paper it’s got to come down some ...But the only trouble is that no one picks up the answer when it comes down so not too many people get to see and know . . . and then it flies away.

The music critic, Andy Gill, said this about the song in his book, Classic Bob Dylan, 1962-1969: My Back Pages:

Blowin' in the Wind marked a huge jump in Dylan's songwriting. Prior to this, efforts like The Ballad of Donald White and The Death of Emmett Till had been fairly simplistic bouts of reportage songwriting. Blowin' in the Wind was different: for the first time, Dylan discovered the effectiveness of moving from the particular to the general. Whereas The Ballad of Donald White would become completely redundant as soon as the eponymous criminal was executed, a song as vague as Blowin' in the Wind could be applied to just about any freedom issue. It remains the song with which Dylan's name is most inextricably linked, and safeguarded his reputation as a civil libertarian through any number of changes in style and attitude.

Undoubtedly the song remains a poem for our time, perhaps all time. And Dylan just keeps rolling as well,






Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
public domain photo, 1964 Yearbook, St. Lawrence University, New York

Text:
Bob Dylan entry, Wikipedia.org
history.com

Artie Shaw: American Jazz Master

Today is the birthday of Arthur Arshawsky (1910-2004), the clarinetist, composer, band leader, and author better known as Artie Shaw. 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."

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.

Screenshot of Artie Shaw from the 1940 film, Second Chorus

Fed up with music he turned to writing an autobiography, several novels and short stories, and an unfinished historical fiction trilogy on the jazz era. For a more thorough examination of even more facets in the life of this restless musical genius, visit this link at Swing Music Net for his obituary and this entry for his Wikipedia biography. There is also a 1982 film biography featuring Shaw available on You Tube.

Here is Shaw and his band performing Begin the Beguine, one the "monster hits" mentioned in the quote above:

Technically, I think he was at the top.

Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
public domain photograph, commons.wikimedia.org, archive.org

Text:
wikipedia.org entry

Katherine Anne Porter: American Spirit Unbound

 

Katherine Anne Porter, an American writer, journalist and activist, was born on this day in 1890 in the west-central Texas town of Indian Creek. She led an often troubled yet exciting and eccentric life. By the age of forty she was an acclaimed and widely read author but it took another thirty years and the publication of her novel, Ship of Fools (1962), before she found financial security in her craft.

She moved to Washington, D.C., in 1959 to finish the novel and while there developed an association with the University of Maryland in nearby College Park. In 1966 her great success with the novel as well as her receipt of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for her Collected Stories published in 1965 moved the university to award Porter an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. At the same time she announced her desire to donate a lifetime of treasured personal possessions and papers to the school to be housed in the Katherine Anne Porter Room, at that time located in McKeldin Library. Porter eventually moved the few miles from her Washington home to College Park where she could be even closer to her collection and the university's resources.

Readers interested in Porter as a writer will enjoy this 1963 Paris Review interview conducted as part of their Art of Fiction series. For a sketch illustrating her literary journeys go here.

On a personal note: Back in 1968 I spent about two weeks doing research in special collections on the top floor of McKeldin Library at Maryland. At the elevator and in the hallways I kept meeting this small, friendly, elderly, white-haired woman with a jovial smile that invited conversation. She seemed far too helpful to be a typical university librarian. Years later I read how much Porter loved the academic setting and interacting with students, learning about them, their studies, and their plans for the future. She was, in fact, a near constant visitor to her room on the library's fifth floor. It wasn't long before the realization hit that my "little old librarian" was none other than Katherine Anne Porter. With the knowledge gained over the last fifty years I'd love to have those two weeks back to explore the few degrees of separation she brought me among Mexican Leftists of the 1920's, film making, fractal theory, systems of creative design, and the study of pandemics. This time I'd ask the questions.

Alas, that will never happen but perhaps I could explore this wide-ranging story in a future blog post. Better yet, it is a story best told over pitchers of craft beer enjoyed with some quiet and distant jazz, overstuffed club chairs, and early evening light. Could pure chance give rise to the opportunity for such an exploration among old friends? Porter would be pleased. 







Sources


Photos and Illustrations:
grannyweatherall.wordpress.com

Text:
Title, "Katherine Anne Porter, The Art of Fiction No. 29, Paris Review
Katherine Anne Porter, wikipedia.org

Mother's Day 2021

 

She was the fourth of seven children born to a farm couple with deep lineage in the western Virginia mountains long before the Civil War. She and my dad met at a community dance where he was selling tickets and actually had his eye on one of her sisters. Introductions ensued, romantic interests shifted, and they began dating. In November of 1933 they chose to face the height of the Great Depression as a married couple. 

Burlington, West Virginia, 1959

With my birth she became a full time mother and homemaker, but still found time to enjoy her church family, reading, gardening, nature, friends, frequent visits with her large family, and many weekends and summer vacations on Patterson Creek in Burlington, West Virginia. She was taken from us far too early in 1976 after a long and difficult illness. I can't thank her enough for all she did for me.

She never saw her daughter-in-law or her three grandchildren. Still, I think her love, compassion, wonderful sense of humor, and dedication to family and friends had a strong presence in our lives. It is a chain of being that I trust will continue within our family for generations to come.


Thanks, Mom. And Happy Mother's Day!

Johnny U: Real Football

When I was a young boy my family lived in the Appalachian Mountains in a deep valley at the edge of the Allegany Front and far-removed from television broadcast towers. Those towers in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Washington broadcast straight-line signals that simply flew far overhead by the time they reached our valley.  Viewers had to rely on reflection created by certain weather conditions in order to get even the weakest of signals. Getting a clear and consistent picture was impossible. 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.

A few years later 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 in 1956. 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. Today's players are instant stars 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 real football. And what a game it was.






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