Jazz week: trumpet. Day 2, Roy Eldridge

January 11, 2011 • 6:08 am

Between Pops and Dizzy Gillespie, one trumpeter stands out: Roy Eldridge, also called “Little Jazz” because, though only five foot six, he was hip from top to toe.  Eldridge lived a long time for a jazz musician: 1911-1989, spanning the eras of Armstrong, swing, and bebop.  (Why did jazz trumpeters live so long—Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie also come to mind—while sax players dropped in their 30s and 40s?)

Eldridge combined great technical virtuosity (attained by practicing six hours a day) with remarkable improvisational skill.  Both are on offer on this 1937 recording of After You’ve Gone. The vocals by Gladys Palmer are forgettable, but oh, what musical fireworks you hear at the beginning and—especially—in the final choruses! According to the liner notes of one of my Eldridge CDs, the young Dizzy Gillespie listened to this song every day for inspiration.

That’s one of my favorite jazz pieces, and one of the few that makes me want to get up and dance. (Another is Cottontail by Duke Ellington.)

Recorded about the same time (I like the early Roy best) is Wabash Stomp. Teddy Cole on piano, Zutty Singleton on drums, and Roy’s older brother Joe Eldridge on alto sax.

Eldridge played for Artie Shaw’s, Benny Goodman’s and Gene Krupa’s groups, as well as smaller ensembles.  He’s well known for accompanying jazz vocalist Anita O’Day, particularly in their duet Let Me Off Uptown. Here’s that song, with Gene Krupa’s orchestra, from a film made in 1942.  You can hear the original Okeh recording here.

“Uptown”, of course, refers to Harlem, where the white people would be “let off” to hear the great black jazzmen play.  It’s ineffably sad that black patrons weren’t allowed to hear that music in places like The Cotton Club—those places were segregated!  The words and visuals in this film are kind of corny, but the song is so forties; and Roy’s playing near the end, though very brief, is superb—he was great in the high registers. What a noise that man could coax out of a piece of metal!

O’Day, a sometime heroin addict, was also great when she was on.  Her 1941 recording of Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer’s beautiful ballad “Skylark,” with Eldridge’s fantastic introduction, is a classic.  After laborious searching, I finally found it on the internet: you can listen to it here (press the “play” button).

Spam

January 10, 2011 • 4:18 pm

I spam-delete a lot of commercial sites that try to link here, many of which promise to enlarge or invigorate certain appendages.  This one is salacious, too, but inadvertently, using the semi-archaic but endearing British language you often hear in India.

Nice blog please give us a chance to promote this blog we are google professional cum website designing company in india.

A right to bear Glocks?

January 10, 2011 • 8:06 am

There are two op-eds on gun control in today’s New York Times.  The first is a regular editorial, “Bloodshed and invective in Arizona.”

That whirlwind has touched down most forcefully in Arizona, which Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik described after the shooting as the capital of “the anger, the hatred and the bigotry that goes on in this country.” Anti-immigrant sentiment in the state, firmly opposed by Ms. Giffords, has reached the point where Latino studies programs that advocate ethnic solidarity have actually been made illegal.

Its gun laws are among the most lenient, allowing even a disturbed man like Mr. Loughner to buy a pistol and carry it concealed without a special permit. That was before the Tucson rampage. Now, having seen first hand the horror of political violence, Arizona should lead the nation in quieting the voices of intolerance, demanding an end to the temptations of bloodshed, and imposing sensible controls on its instruments.

And a piece by Gail Collins, “A right to bear Glocks“, including:

. . .Arizona has completely eliminated the whole concept of requiring a concealed weapon permit. Last year, it got 2 points out of a possible 100 in the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence state score card, avoiding a zero only because its Legislature has not — so far — voted to force colleges to let people bring their guns on campuses.

Today, the amazing thing about the reaction to the Giffords shooting is that virtually all the discussion about how to prevent a recurrence has been focusing on improving the tone of our political discourse. That would certainly be great. But you do not hear much about the fact that Jared Loughner came to Giffords’s sweet gathering with a semiautomatic weapon that he was able to buy legally because the law restricting their sale expired in 2004 and Congress did not have the guts to face up to the National Rifle Association and extend it. .

. . . Loughner’s gun, a 9-millimeter Glock, is extremely easy to fire over and over, and it can carry a 30-bullet clip. It is “not suited for hunting or personal protection,” said Paul Helmke, the president of the Brady Campaign. “What it’s good for is killing and injuring a lot of people quickly.”

In all the discussion yesterday, and in the political discourse about the right to bear arms, I’ve never heard a single good justification for allowing people to own semiautomatic weapons.  As you know, I favor the banning of all firearms (or at least their restriction to target practice, where they could be sequestered at gun clubs), but for the nonce that’s a losing cause.  But allowing the sale of semiautomatic weapons to the public is insane. Is there any justification for it save the specious “slippery slope” argument (if you ban those, all weapons come next)?

Screw the NRA.

Jazz week: trumpet. Day 1, Pops (and Bix)

January 10, 2011 • 6:39 am

The greatest American contribution to popular music—perhaps to all music, or even art in general—is jazz.  And from its beginnings the music was produced and sustained almost entirely by African Americans.  This week I want to play some of my favorite jazz songs:  those that feature the trumpet.  (Sax, vocals, and others will come in future weeks.)  I’ll put up the artists in chronological order.

Others will disagree, but I date the beginning of popular jazz to this song, Potato Head Blues, recorded in Chicago by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven on May 10, 1927. (Armstrong wrote the song, too.)  For in this song is what I consider the first great jazz solo, and the solo—often improvised—is a hallmark of jazz.  Armstrong’s remarkable solo, played over stop-time, begins at 1:50.  You can hear the echoes of jazz’s ancestor Dixieland throughout the song and in the rousing chorus (there’s a tuba instead of a bass, for example), but what an advance!  I never get tired of listening to it; it puts extra spring in my step when I’m jogging with my iPod.

(When you click below, it will say “content restricted.” Just click on the “Watch on YouTube” line, on both this song and the one below, to get to the YouTube version.)

(The photo above shows Armstrong’s original group, the “Hot Five,” to which he added two members for this song and some others.)

Potato Head Blues was one of the things on the list of “what makes life worth living” recited by Woody Allen in Manhattan (it shows up at 1:06):



(I must admit: it’s a pretty damn good list.)

The Hot Five and Hot Seven produced many early jazz standards, including my other two favorites, Struttin’ with Some Barbecue and West End Blues (I’ve given YouTube links, but if you have RealPlayer, you can download these songs, and many others, for free at the “Hot Five” and “Hot Seven” links above.)

If you know Armstrong (nicknamed “Pops”) only as the gravel-voiced, clownish musician of his latter years, do realize that he was perhaps the most important founder of jazz, and one of its greatest artists.  And even in his “clown” years, his voice was mesmerizing and he still played a fantastic trumpet.  Listen to “Hello Dolly” again and you’ll see (and note his scat singing; he was one of the first musicians to do this).

I know that some people are going to carp if I forget Bix Beiderbecke, a white guy from Iowa who also produced great early jazz solos, and I should mention here his best: “Singing the Blues,” recorded a few months earlier: February 4, 1927.  I was just going to refer to it, but having just listened to it again, I realized that I had to post it as well.  This song had tremendous influence on later jazz musicians; Lester Young is said to have carried the music for it in his saxophone case:

Sadly ironic

January 9, 2011 • 1:10 pm

This is a real statement by Congresswoman Giffords, made last March:

I don’t place this at Palin’s door, not yet and never wholly.  Still, Palin’s Facebook statement after the shooting  (this might also have been released elsewhere) could have included something more explicit decrying violence against politicians or politically inspired violence:

My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today’s tragic shooting in Arizona.  On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.

It’s lame, lame, lame.  Since she’s been associated in people’s minds with the tragedy, it might have been appropriate to add, “Such crimes, and such violent attacks on public figures, can never be justified, and I condemn them in the strongest possible terms.”

Compare what Palin said with Obama’s statement after the shooting:

This morning, in an unspeakable tragedy, a number of Americans were shot in Tucson, Arizona, at a constituent meeting with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. And while we are continuing to receive information, we know that some have passed away, and that Representative Giffords is gravely wounded.

We do not yet have all the answers. What we do know is that such a senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society. I ask all Americans to join me and Michelle in keeping Representative Giffords, the victims of this tragedy, and their families in our prayers.

The violence in Arizona

January 9, 2011 • 7:57 am

Many bloggers have weighed in about the horrible attack in Tucson, Arizona that killed 6 people and wounded 19, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.  A lot of the blame is being put on the Tea Party for creating a climate of violence in which, to some crazy people, such attacks appear justifiable.

But the perpetrator, one Jared Lee Loughner, appears to be a garden-variety American crazy:  paranoid, alienated, and with schizophrenic tendencies.  While there were political overtones in some of his writings and videos, I don’t see any smoking gun connecting him to the Tea Party; and there’s no evidence yet that he was motivated more by right-wing politics than simple lunacy.

While it does seem that this kind of violence is whipped up more by conservatives than liberals (viz. abortion-doctor killings), conservatives too can be the targets of gun-equipped crazies. (Remember John Hinkley, who tried to kill Ronald Reagan just to get the attention of Jodie Foster?)  So before we start pinning all this on the Tea Party, let’s get the facts.  I hate the Tea Party and their platform as much as anyone, and I despise their “let’s-get-them” rhetoric that uses the language of shooting and targets when referring to liberals. But they may not be much of a causal factor in this case.

What is ineluctably involved, however, is the availability of automatic weapons, one of which Loughlin used to gun down those 25 people.

There is no justification for allowing Americans to buy and use automatic or semi-automatic weapons.  Indeed, I don’t see much justification for Americans to legally buy a firearm of any sort, save for target practice or hunting (and I have severe reservations about hunting for sport rather than food).  Europe gets along fine without guns, and has many fewer murders.  As the American Bar Association points out, “the rate of death from firearms in the United States is eight times higher than that in its economic counterparts in other parts of the world.”

Right-wingers, gun advocates, and the NRA use the Second Amendment as justification for Americans owning all sorts of guns, including automatic and semi-automatic weapons. And that’s the way the courts have interpreted it, too.  That Amendment says this:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Well, we have a militia now—it’s called the military.  How can anyone, even an originalist, say that this Amendment justifies untrammeled access to weapons by everyone? It’s about a militia!  And a “well-regulated” militia, not a bunch of unorganized Americans with rifles.  And if you respond that without guns, ordinary Americans couldn’t overthrow the government and the military like our ancestors overthrew the British, well, I’ll take that risk.

It’s time for America to do what most of our counterparts do: ban guns or put them under the tightest of restrictions.  We may not be able to get rid of crazies, but we can get rid of guns.

There are two embarrassing ways that America differs from what the ABA calls “our economic counterparts” in the rest of the world: we are way more religious, and we have way more guns.  The combination, of course, is toxic.

As the old folk song goes, “When will they ever learn?”