California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Carlos Santana: "We Need to Update Bible and Constitution"

by John Lawrence

After the "I Love New York" Homecoming concert was canceled Saturday on account of rain in the middle of Barry Manilow's set, Anderson Cooper interviewed Carlos Santana on CNN. Of Santana's remarkable remarks, among which were "I don't believe in time or space", Santana expressed his opinion that the Bible and the Constitution need to be updated. How refreshing! So many have thought that both were set in stone sort of like the 10 Commandments were actually set in stone. So how would Santana change them? There wasn't enough time in the interview to go into that. The amazing thing was that these opinions were even expressed on cable TV at all. At the concert, Bruce Springsteen, one of the headliners, didn't even get a chance to perform. Mother Nature had the last word as if to say, "You all are acting as if the pandemic is over. It's not" Mother F-ing Nature had the last word. And what about climate change? Millions of dollars must have been spent on this concert with a state of the art audio visual system and a whole bunch of very expensive performers. I don't know if the concert goers got refunds after lightning strikes were observed in the area and the concert was canceled.

We're back up to 1000 deaths a day due to COVID. Having a major concert as if things were back to normal was probably a bad idea in the first place. But when the concert was being planned, it looked like the pandemic was over. It's just that COVID had a different idea and came surging back. Now fully vaccinated people are beginning to die due to the fact that they have been hanging around unvaccinated people, many of them, like those in nursing homes, without a choice in the matter. The fact is that vaccinated people can still get COVID. This hasn't been made clear by the authorities because they seemingly want you to believe that once you're vaccinated, you're safe. You're not. Put you in a room with 10 people with COVID, and you're going to get COVID. Will you probably get a milder case? Yes, but some will still die. I for one don't want to be a statistic: one of the fully vaccinated that dies with COVID, so I will avoid indoor spaces like the plague until 100% of the people are vaccinated. The pandemic is not going to be over any time soon.

Even though the pandemic is basically under control in China, they still have flare ups from time to time mainly due to people coming in from outside and despite the fact that the borders are closed. Americans are acting like the pandemic is over with only about 50% vaccinated. It's fool's gold. COVID is surging whether or not Americans are tired of it and over it in their minds. COVID isn't over them yet. The only probable thing at this time is that a lot of anti-Vaxxers will get COVID. Even Trump is afraid that many of his supporters will be checking out and is telling them to get vaccinated. The crowd booed him. That's so many fewer red state voters if they die. The south is a huge disaster aided and abetted by governors like DeSantis who mandates people not to wear masks! People advocating for increased sickness to augment their political careers are just sick themselves. American rationality is under threat, and they wonder why China is pulling ahead.

Off the Top of My Head

No Jazz Related Artist Honored in the Grammys

by John Lawrence, January 27, 2020

The only jazz artists even mentioned in passing were Jimmy Heath and Jack Sheldon in a collage with others who died in 2019. Andre Previn, who had an illustrious career which included both jazz and classical, was mentioned in the same category: those who had died in 2019. They say that country music is "three chords and the truth." Most of the music presented at the Grammys gala was one chord and a bunch of whining. Seriously, the piano accompaniment given to some of these singer songwriters could have been performed by an 8 year old piano student. My major criticism of most of this "award winning" music is that there is no melody, no harmony and no rhythm. It took Aerosmith and Run DMC to get the crowd moving and their music consisted of the same riff repeated ad nauseum. Most of the acts are more in the realm of an exaggerated version of performance art with the most important elements being costumes, hair, make-up, background scenes, dancing including strutting and prancing, video, pyrotechnics etc. So it's more than just vapid, puerile music; it's a whole stage and set meant to create a spectacle of which music is only an. incremental element

Meanwhile, such great jazz artists and vocalists like Eliane Elias, Diana Krall and Karrin Alyson were completely overlooked. I quote from Eliane Elias' five star review in down beat magazine in 2019 for her recording, "Love Stories":

Elias’ prodigious talent grows stronger as the years pass; a feat capable by only the true elites of the music world. Her romantic vocals invite the listener to delve into her timeless grace and sophisticated presence as a commanding singer, pianist, composer, producer and lyricist. Her stately arrangements, soothing, sensual vocals and piano musings are enhanced by a majestic string orchestra as standards, Brazilian classics and three originals are locked in with laid-back ease.

I don't think Diana Krall released any albums in 2019 but here's what Jazz Times said about Karrin Allyson's album, "Shoulder to Shoulder: Centennial Tribute to Women’s Suffrage."

A celebration and deep historical dive into the women’s suffrage movement, the album is pegged to the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which established the vote for American women (except African-American women living in Southern states, who—along with their male counterparts—didn’t have much shot at the franchise until the 1965 Voting Rights Act). Allyson has found 19th- and early 20th-century songs that fueled the movement and treated them to arrangements by John Daversa and a stellar band featuring Ingrid Jensen, Allison Brown, Helen Sung, Mindi Abair, and rising star Endea Owens. Several all-star guests recite relevant texts, like Harry Belafonte reading Frederick Douglass and Rosanne Cash performing Susan B. Anthony. And there’s another dazzling roster of guest vocalists, including Kurt Elling, Denise Donatelli, Madeleine Peyroux, and Veronica Swift.

Do you think there is enough historical significance here? There is so much good music in the jazz world that for it to be totally ignored by the Grammys is just unconscionable. It just goes to show that popular tastes in music have arrived at new lows. But take heart, there is still great music out there. It just isn't recognized by extravaganzas like the Grammys which are more about glitz and glamour than about music. Alicia Keys was a gracious host, however.

Off the Top of My Head

The Loss of Two Musical Legends and a San Diego Connection

by John Lawrence, March 8, 2019

Recently we lost pianist and composer Andre Previn and composer and pianist Michel LeGrand. Previn died on February 28th and LeGrand on January 26. Both men were prolific jazz and classical pianists and composers. Both were involved in the film industry. Previn won 4 Academy Awards and LeGrand won 3. They both won numerous Grammys. Their deaths coming within about a month of each other represent a huge loss to the world of sophisticated music, both jazz and classical.

Michel Legrand is the French composer of such tunes as "What are you doing the rest of your life," "The windmills of your mind," and "You must believe in spring." He wrote the music for "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" starring a young Catherine Deneuve. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is one of my favorite movies largely because of the musical score by Michel Legrand. The poignancy of the song "If it takes forever, I will wait for you" sung by Catherine dedicated to her lover who was conscripted into the French army to fight in the Algerian war is a testimony to two young people very much in love who nevertheless were forced by circumstances to go their separate ways. They were briefly reunited at a gas station when Catherine's character stopped in randomly on her way back to Cherbourg, both having married and with small children. An extensive obituary of LeGrand in the New York Times can be found here.

Previn was a classically trained pianist whose family escaped the Nazis in 1938 settling in Los Angeles where he got interested in jazz. His first wife, Betty Bennett, was a jazz singer currently married to jazz guitarist Mundell Lowe. Both are in their late 90s and live in San Diego. I have a connection with them in that, in my former occupation as a window washer, I cleaned their windows numerous times. Betty once gave me one of her CDs and as part of my former occupation as President of the San Diego Jazz Society, I presented Mundell Lowe in concert with the San Diego State jazz band. Previn and Bennett had two daughters, Claudia and Alicia, also known as Lovely (who became a violinist in the Irish band In Tua Nua). Previn later married Mia Farrow, with whom he had 3 children, after she divorced Frank Sinatra. An extensive obituary in the New York Times can be found here.

Off the Top of My Head

Michael Moore's Film - Fahrenheit 11/9

by John Lawrence, October 4, 2018

This film makes some interesting points that I was not aware of. In the Democratic primary, Bernie actually won in precincts that were reported as won by Hillary. I wasn't clear whether this was because of the use of super delegates to turn the tide or just dishonesty in the process. In any event the race for the Democratic nominee was much closer than it seemed at the Democratic convention. The use of super delegates can tip the balance in any given state. Mostly they went for Hillary in 2016 so that Hillary won states where Bernie should have won or it should have reported to the convention that he had more pledged delegates there than was actually reported.

The other major part of the film was about Flint water. It detailed how the Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, changed the water supply of Flint from pure Lake Huron water to water from the polluted Flint River. When the parts being manufactured in a GM plant started getting corroded, Snyder switched back to Lake Huron water but only for the GM plant. The rest of the people got the polluted Flint river water. So Michael Moore got a water tank truck, emblazoned "Flint Water" on the side and went to the Governor's house. He rang the bell at the security gate which he so famously did in his other movie at Charlton Heston's house. However, no one at Rick Snyder's "mansion" answered his call so he sprayed the Governor's foliage with the Flint water. Pretty hilarious and a typical daring Michael Moore move. The guy's got guts.

The movie had a lot of clips from the archives, a typical Michael Moore predilection in all his movies - so many that there was an archival editor who played a major behind the scenes role. One of the funniest was putting Donald Trump's words in Hitler's mouth. It actually looked like Hitler was saying the words with a Trump accent. Pretty funny. But it actually was supposed to be scary. Democracies don't last forever. The Germans can attest to that. Germany was a land of intellectual and artistic accomplishment before Hitler came along. Michael Moore is drawing the same parallels with the US which could be heading down the same path as 1930s era Deutschland.

Off the Top of My Head

Today's Music: No Melody, No Harmony, Just Rhythm

by John Lawrence

Popular music has been dumbed down, with a few exceptions, starting with the rock revolution of the 50s and 60s. The great songwriters of the 30s and 40s like Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Richard Rogers, George and Ira Gershwin, Jimmy Van Heusen and Jerome Kern don't have counterparts in today's music. Rap and Hip Hop are purely rhythmic. There are no more great melodies such as "Days of Wine and Roses" or "Autumn Leaves." Most singer-songwriters of today don't have the talent of the great American composers mentioned above and their compositions are insipid.

Frank Sinatra was perhaps the greatest singer of the 20th century. His formula was very simple: learn the freakin melody. Frank sang the melody of a song over and over until he had internalized it. Most of the singers of that era did the same. They knew the melodies "by heart." Frank was not a great improvisor or in jazz terms - "scat singer." That is he couldn't sing lines like a jazz improvisor taking a solo on the harmony or chord progression. Very few of the jazz singers could do it well. When Frank did fool around with the melody, as he did sometimes in clubs but never on records, the results were not all that propitious.

Frank backed up his singing with great arrangements by great arrangers such as Axel Stordahl, Nelson Riddle and Don Costa. The arrangements became as important and distinctive as the original composition. Then, of course, Frank had the best musicians in his orchestras. That was his formula: sing the melody straight as the composer intended, get the best arrangers and musicians to back you up.

Today there are no great songwriters composing great melodies. Some of the younger singers are recording the old chestnuts from the 20th century, but the results, in my opinion, are not that great. Better to listen to the original recordings.

Jazz musicians took these great melodies and revised the harmony to make it more sophisticated. Take the 12 bar blues for example which is ubiquitous in jazz, rock and other types of music. Where a rock musician might use just two chords in the whole 12 bars, a jazz musician might use a different chord every measure or even every 2 beats. So the chord progressions or the harmonies became more sophisticated even though they were based on the original song. Rock musicians used the 12 bar blues progression on practically every song making the music pretty unsophisticated compared to a Jerome Kern melody.

Most singer songwriters of today simply don't have the composing talent to write great melodies. That sort of went out the window. The great melodies of recent years have become few and far between. Marilyn and Alan Bergman have done some great work along with Michel Legrand including "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life" and "The Windmills of Your Mind" but even these songs are 40 or more years old.  "Send in the Clowns", perhaps the last great song, by Stephen Sondheim was written circa 1973.

So alas and alack. Today's music is all about flash and visual presentation. The real musical talent doesn't seem to exist any more. However, in the jazz world there are still a few people doing great work like Christian Mcbride and Roy Hargrove who are carrying on the jazz tradition in new and exciting ways. Pop music, however, is at a nadir.

Off the Top of My Head

New and Different Not Always Better Than Old and the Same

by John Lawrence

Take music, for example. The Golden Age of American popular music was in the 1940s and 1950s. You had great composers of popular songs like Richard Rogers, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Jimmy Van Heusen, Harold Arlen. They wrote great songs like "All the Things You Are" and "Here's That Rainy Day." Where are those great composers today? There aren't any.

You also had great singers like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. Fortunately, at 90 years of age, Tony Bennett is still with us, still performing, still reminding us of the Golden Age. The guys and gals from that era, for the most part, sang the songs like the composers intended. They memorized the melody. That was the singer's function - to sing the melody. Today the concept of melody has pretty much gone by the boards. Are there any melodies worth humming in popular songs today?

That was Frank Sinatra's secret. He absorbed the melody. I can see him working with his rehearsal pianist who is playing the melody one note at a time until Frank had it down. Frank was not a jazz singer although his music was jazz inflected and influenced. He could not improvise with his voice commonly known as scat singing. When he deviated from the melody, the results were not always good.

Instead Frank employed the best arrangers such as Nelson Riddle, Don Costa and Billy May and full orchestras. The arrangements were jazz influenced. Tony Bennett tends to sing with small jazz oriented backup groups. Jimmy Van Heusen and Frank were good buddies, and Jimmy wrote songs such as "Come Fly With Me" especially for Frank. By the way Jimmy's real name was Chester Babcock. He took the name Van Heusen because he saw an ad for Van Heusen shirts out the window.

A lot of the younger singers today are rerecording the old chestnuts, but the results are not as good as they were when recorded originally. Especially I can't stand Bob Dylan singing "Fly Me to the Moon." One of the worst voices ever, when he comes on the radio, I immediately switch channels. Fortunately, Sinatra's music is kept alive by the Seriusly Sinatra channel on Serius satellite radio. As Duke Ellington said, "There's only two kinds of music: good music and bad music." Amen to that. Thankfully, we still have the old recordings because today's popular music is mostly crap.

Off the Top of My Head

I Heard Tony Bennett Sing Last Night and It Was Great

by John Lawrence

Tony Bennett is 90 years old and still going strong. He did a 90 minute set in San Diego without an intermission and with just his backup band to support him. His voice is still strong. He never forgot the words to any of the multitude of songs he sang. Pretty amazing for a nonagenarian. But then Tony Bennett is an amazing guy who has had a wonderful career.

He got a tremendous career boost when Frank Sinatra told Life magazine "But for my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business." Tony Bennett always honored Frank, and in fact last night Frank Sinatra's recorded voice introduced Tony to the audience.

Tony Bennett started a school in New York City and gave it Frank Sinatra's name. The Frank Sinatra School of the Arts is a performing arts high school in Astoria, Queens as part of the New York City Department of Education.

In Frank's last performances he couldn't remember the words to songs he had been singing his entire life. He needed a teleprompter. Not so with Tony Bennett. He remembered all the words to numerous songs he had been singing his whole life.

It's wonderful how Tony's career has lasted this long, and that great music knows no limit as to time and era. It doesn't go out of fashion as Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra and others have proved.

E. Y. "Yip" Harburg - Blacklisted Left Wing Songwriter

by John Lawrence from the San Diego Free Press

Lyricist for "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"

E.Y. Yip Harburg (1896-1981) was born Isidore Hochberg on New York's lower east side of Russian immigrant parents. His nickname, Yipsel, was later shortened to Yip. Unlike many of his contemporary songwriters like George and Ira Gerswin, with whom he was friends, Yip grew up in poverty and never forgot it.

He was known as "the social conscience of Broadway". He wrote the words to over 600 songs including all the lyrics for the 1939 production "Over the Rainbow" starring Judy Garland. The music was composed by his collaborator, Harold Arlen. He wrote the words for the classic anthem of the depression, "Brother Can You Spare a Dime." From 1951 to 1961 during the House Un-American Activities Committee investigations and the McCarthy hearings, Yip was “blacklisted” for his political views from film, television and radio. Broadway, however, remained free from this kind of censorship. In Hollywood Harburg was interrogated by communist witch hunters. He had composed a song, "Happiness is Just a Thing Called Joe." They asked him which Joe he was referring to. "Was it Joe Stalin?"

Yip worked with many composers, but he wrote the most songs with Harold Arlen - 155. Harburg, a lifelong socialist, but never a communist, always included a strong social and political component to his work, fighting racism and poverty. Two of his most overtly political Broadway plays were Bloomer Girls, about the women’s suffrage movement, and Finian’s Rainbow, a kind of immigrants’ anthem about race and class.

Yip went to high school with Ira Gerswin who wrote the lyrics as part of the songwriting team with his brother George who wrote the music. They became lifelong friends. Yip, along with the Gershwins and Irving Berlin, all from Russian immigrant Jewish families, went on to develop the American Musical Theatre and Hollywood Musicals. They also contributed a substantial number of songs to the Great American Songbook as sung by Frank Sinatra and others.

As a socialist, Yip refused to fight in World War I. He did not believe that capitalism was the answer to the human community and that indeed it was the destruction of the human spirit. And he would not fight its wars. And at that time the socialists and the lefties, as they were called, were against the war.

The Wizard of Oz

Arthur Freed was a songwriter and aspiring producer with MGM studios. After the success of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Freed lobbied MGM to produce a similar movie based on L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He made sure Judy Garland got the role of Dorothy.

On May 19, 1938 Arlen and Harburg signed a contract with MGM to write the songs for The Wizard of Oz for $25,000. Although Freed was far to his right politically, he allowed Harburg to make the Munchkins members in good standing of a labor union! Harburg had much to do with the seamless integration of songs and plot. In three weeks he and Arlen had written "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead," "We're off to see the Wizard," and "If I Only Had a Brain/ a Heart/ the Nerve." They had written all the songs for the movie in just a few weeks leaving two months to come up with the final composition, a ballad for Judy Garland. Judy's attitude towards songwriters had been made clear when Irving Berlin tried to tell her how to sing one of his songs in another movie. She told him, "You write 'em; I'll sing 'em."

For the final song, Arlen and Harburg had to come up with a hit, a blockbuster, the equivalent of "Some Day My Prince Will Come" from Disney's Snow White. For slow songs, the music usually comes first and Arlen struggled hoping his muse would pop the melody into his head. Weeks passed and he had nothing. His agitation grew. In The Man That Got Away - The Life and Songs of Harold Arlen, author Walter Rimler quotes Harburg as saying, "I can't tell you the misery a composer goes through when the whole score is written, but he hasn't got that big theme song that Louis B. Mayer is waiting for... He surely sweated it out and he couldn't get a tune."

The breakthrough finally came toward the end of their fourteen week contract. Arlen said to his wife, Anya, "Let's go to Grauman's Chinese Theater." As they drove by Schwab's Drug Store on Sunset Boulevard, Arlen suddenly said, "Pull over." His muse had suddenly revealed to him the notes of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." They turned around and drove home where Arlen put it down on paper after which he called Harburg and asked him to come over. At first Harburg didn't like the song so they called in Ira Gershwin to help them. After making a few changes Harburg warmed up to it but could not come up with the first line. The first two notes represented an octave leap. He tried "I'll go over the rainbow," "Someday, over the rainbow" and "On the other side of the rainbow." Finally, Harburg's girlfriend Edelaine Gorney stepped in. Eddie finally chirped "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and Yip exclaimed, "That's It." For years Yip begged Eddie to allow him to put her name on the song along with his. But she said, "Don't be silly, it's your song."

Rimler writes:

Somehow, Harburg had been able to put the meaning of Arlen's music into words. And in an even less explicable way, Arlen had come up with a handful of notes that have meant more to people than those of any other song. It isn't known if he or his father ever considered it ironic that while the cantor toiled week in and week out at the synagogue, adhering to Sabbath and Kashrut law, improvising music as he davened on behalf of his congregation, it was to his wayward son, as he and his shiksa wife drove along Sunset Boulevard towards garish Grauman's Chinese Theatre, that the miracle had been granted.

Arlen's father always worked Somewhere Over the Rainbow into his religious services for the rest of his life. Judy Garland's performance was so good that she became associated with the song much more so than the two guys that actually wrote it.

But that wasn't the end of the saga. In the previews Arlen and Harburg were shocked to discover that Rainbow had been cut. The producers thought that a song sung by a girl as she walked around a barnyard wasn't appropriate and slowed the already too long movie down. Freed demanded that the song be put back in ("Rainbow stays or I go."), and the producers agreed reluctantly since Freed was already at work on another film starring Garland and Mickey Rooney that looked like a moneymaker. And the rest is history.

Over the Rainbow won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The song is number one on the "Songs of the Century" list compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. The American Film Institute also ranked "Over the Rainbow" the greatest movie song of all time on the list of "AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs".

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime

They used to tell me
I was building a dream,
And so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow
Or guns to bear,
I was always there
Right on the job.
They used to tell me
I was building a dream,
With peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line,
Just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad
I made it run,
Made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad;
Now it’s done.
Buddy, can you spare a dime?             

Once I built a tower
To the sun,
Brick and rivet and lime;
Once I built that tower;
Now it’s done.
Brother, can you spare a dime?           

First performed in 1932, it was the only song about the Great Depression. Nobody wanted to talk about it, let alone sing about it.

Jazz at the Handlery

by John Lawrence from the San Diego Free Press

There is a nice little jazz series running in San Diego at the Handlery Hotel's 950 lounge at 950 Hotel Circle North. This has been put together by Holly Hofmann who has been presenting concerts in San Diego for 30 years or more. In addition she plays a helluva flute. Recently I saw Stef Johnson with Rob Thorsen and the week before Gilbert Castellanos and Bobby Cressey. The place has a nice happy hour menu and reasonably priced libations. There is no admission or cover charge. Parking is free with validation.

Jazz does not have that many dedicated venues in San Diego so the jazz loving public has to rely mainly on the musicians themselves to create their own gigs. There are no institutional venues such as classical music has. No Symphony Halls. No billionaire sponsors. For that you have to go to New York City, the epicenter of jazz. We do have a dedicated jazz radio station - KSDS-FM - 88.3. Now we just need a billionaire to step up and underwrite the equivalent of New York's Dizzy's Club Coca Cola at Lincoln Center. Holly would make a wonderful impresario for such a venue because her connections in the jazz world are endless and her dedication, nonpareil.

San Diego Has Great Jazz Talent

The talent pool in San Diego and LA is considerable. Many jazz musicians have attempted to make a go of it in San Diego, but then moved on to greener pastures when prospects became untenable. One such was Hal Crook who started a school here and had an excellent big band which performed weekly. Like Hal said about his book, How to Improvise, at a workshop I attended, "My book will explain to you what to play, when to play, how to play. The only thing it can't tell you is where to play." That's the hard nut to crack. Having moved on, Hal is now at the Berklee School of Music in Boston.

The aforementioned Bobby Cressey, in addition to playing jazz organ at the Handlery, is also the organist for the San Diego Padres. A man of many hats, in addition to jazz he plays electro, hip hop, dubstep, reggae, classical, rnb, ska, gospel and blues. He currently plays with the world famous DJ Skee’s Skeetox band. I guess one has to be involved in many aspects of the music business these days to make a go of it. But maybe he's spreading himself too thin as a jazz artist. Just sayin.

On the other hand Gilbert Castellanos, winner of San Diego Music Awards artist of the year in 2013, is a full on dedicated jazz musician. His mastery of the trumpet has increased by leaps and bounds over the years that I've been following him. Gilbert honors the history and tradition of jazz with every performance. In particular he played Clifford Brown's composition "Delilah" and Charlie Parker's "Segment." Clifford Brown and Charlie Parker were two of the most important musicians in the development of jazz. Unfortunately they both died young, much too young.

Quincy Jones: Brown Was the Very Essence of Musical and Moral Maturity

Charlie Parker was a heroin addict and died at the age of 34 on the Jazz Baroness', Pannonica de Koenigswarter's, couch. He had multiple organ failures. He created the greatest revolution in any art form in the 20th century. Unfortunately, he couldn't overcome or transcend the racist society he grew up in or his own lifestyle.

Clifford Brown was clean living, hardly even touching alcohol. He was an inspiration to other players who had thought that they had to be high to play well. On going through my old vinyl albums recently, I spent some time reading the liner notes of a few rare Clifford Brown albums which went into detail about that tragic rainy night when Clifford lost his life in an auto accident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike on his way to the next gig. It was in 1956.

He and pianist Richie Powell were catching some shut eye while Powell's wife, Nancy, was at the wheel. Nancy was known to be an erratic driver. There were no seat belts in those days. Brown and the Powells were all killed instantly after the car hit a bridge abutment. It was Clifford's second wedding anniversary with his wife LaRue. It was her 22nd birthday. Clifford was 25 and, despite having spent a year in the hospital following a prior auto accident in 1950, is a major part of jazz history having only been active for about four years.

Nearly everyone who knew Clifford agree on his likeability and welcoming personality. “To me, the name of Clifford Brown will always remain synonymous with the very essence of musical and moral maturity,” Quincy Jones said. “This name will stand as a symbol of the ideals every your jazz musician should strive to attain.”

After his death, Clifford's wife LaRue remained active in the jazz world establishing in 1994 the Clifford Brown Jazz Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to Brown's memory and inspiring a love for jazz among young people. The Foundation is currently under the direction of Clifford Brown III, Brown's grandson and a respected Bay Area trumpeter and music producer.

Clifford's son Clifford Brown Jr has received the Ampex Award of Excellence as the nation's top jazz Program Director, and in 1996 he received the Beverly Anne Johnson Media Award for his many years of being a "positive Black male role model." Since 1979 Clifford Brown Jr. has been one of the most popular radio personalities in the San Francisco Bay Area and has made the Brown name synonymous with broadcasting there.

So life goes on.

Clifford Brown Is My Ideal As a Jazz Trumpet Player

Clifford Brown is my ideal as a jazz trumpet player and composer - beyond Miles Davis or Dizzy Gillespie. He adhered to and transcended the tradition of Charlie Parker who pointed the way for others before his young life came to an end. Gilbert Castellanos, Holly Hofman, Rob Thorsen and a few other local San Diegans follow in that venerable tradition while expanding it at the same time. Who knows what heights could have been scaled had Clifford Brown survived that crash that rainy night?

While Pannonica de Koenigswarter was called the Jazz Baroness, Holly Hofmann certainly deserves the epithet: Jazz Empress of San Diego. Holly has presented concerts at Diego's Loft from 1988-90; Horton Grand from 1990-1997; Bristol Hotel from 1998-2000; San Diego Museum of Art from 2002-2009; Birch North Park Theater from 2010-2012 and Croce's First Thursdays from 2015-.

In addition to her impressive resume as an impresario, she placed eighth in the flute category of the Down Beat Critics Poll last year. On her latest CD, "Low Life," made with her husband, pianist Mike Wofford, she plays the alto flute exclusively. Jazz critic Dan McClenaghan says this in his review of the album:

Holly Hofmann, one of the jazz world's premier flutists, explores a deeper-toned territory with Low Life: The Alto Flute Project. Primarily a conventional C flautist—with an impressive discography—Hofmann has broken out the lower tone of the alto flute in her concerts, and occasionally on record. Now it's time for a full length CD featuring her expertise on the instrument....

Hofmann's lone writing contribution to the set, "Lumeiere de la Vie," is a five minute long gold nugget of a tune, a smooth and gorgeous masterpiece, and the CD's closer, guitarist Pat Metheny's "Farmer's Trust" blossoms like a spring flower, a sweet and unpretentious ballad, so delicate and lovely in the hands of this band and flutist Hofmann that it can make a grown man cry.

This Friday, October 30, Rob Thorsen will be at the Handlery with L.A. guitarist Steve Cotter. Steve comes from the Wes Montgomery school of great, swinging guitarists. Fernando Gomez is back on drums.

Upcoming in November:

11/6 Latin Percussionist Tommy Aros with Irving Flores, piano and Dean Hulett, bass.

11/13 Guitarist Peter Sprague with Mackenzie Leighton, bass and Charlie Weller, drums

11/20 Los Travellers: Carlos Vasquez, drums, Ray Briz, piano and Glen Fisher, bass

11/27 Two Guitar Trio: Mundell Lowe, Bob Boss and Rob Thorsen, bass

1915: It Was a Very Good Year

by John Lawrence

1915 was a very good year because three giants of twentieth century music were born that year: Frank Sinatra, Billie Holliday and Billy Strayhorn. This year is the hundredth anniversary of their births. By far the best known is Frank Sinatra, born in Hoboken, NJ to a middle class Italian family. His mother, Dolly, was a real go getter who became a political force in Hoboken. She secured Frank his first real job as a singer with the Hoboken Four, and got her husband hired by the Fire Department. When they told her they didn't have any openings, she told them, "Make one." They did. Frank's stories of growing up poor were so much BS. The Sinatra family moved into a $13,400. house in Hoboken in the middle of the Depression, an astronomical sum in those days. She had befriended so many people in Hoboken that, when the Democratic machine needed votes, Dolly could deliver them. She also had a thriving business as a midwife and an abortionist. Unfortunately, she died in a plane crash, a plane that Frank had chartered to bring her from Palm Springs to Las Vegas for his opening at Caesar's Palace.

Frank got his first major job as a singer with trumpeter Harry James and his band. From there he went with Tommy Dorsey's band. He created a sensation with the "Bobby Soxers", teenage girls that moaned and swooned over him at the Paramount Theater in New York. Little known is the fact that his press agent, George Evans, paid a few girls to instigate the exuberance and before long many others joined in making Frank the first singing superstar in the 1940s. His following was similar to that of Elvis Presley in the fifties.

Later Frank gravitated to Hollywood and made some unmemorable movies. His career flagging in the early 50s, he begged for the part of Maggio in the film, From Here to Eternity, based on the eponymous novel by James Jones. His ex-wife Ava Gardner put in a good word for him with the producer and the rest is history. Frank won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and his career, which had been on the skids, rebounded.

Although he made over 50 movies altogether, he was best known as a singer who recorded for Columbia, Capitol and Reprise records. As a vocalist he had over 2000 recordings. Although he couldn't read music and was a ninth grade drop-out, he recorded almost every song ever written for the Great American Song Book and made a fortune with his investments in Las Vegas casinos. In a symbiotic relationship with Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana, the Sands became the House That Frank Built. Frank brought in the customers, was paid $400,000 a week, and everybody made money. He also had an investment in the Cal-Neva Lodge in Lake Tahoe.

There was only one song he had problems with though: Billy Strayhorn's Lush Life. Reports are that Frank stomped out of the recording studio in frustration over not being able to master this song. Billy Strayhorn wrote it as a 16 year old teenager living in the Pittsburg, PA ghetto. It is widely regarded as one of the most sophisticated and difficult songs in twentieth century American music. However, Lady Gaga didn't have any problems with it in her recent recording.

The lyrics have references to world travel and the French language from a 16 year old who had never been out of Pittsburg. "A weekend in Paris will ease the bite of it. All I care is to smile in spite of it." The song's opening words are:

"I used to visit all the very gay places
those come what may places
where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
to get the feel of life
from jazz and cocktails"

This song was from an era where "gay" had completely different connotations from what it has today. Nevertheless, Billy Strayhorn was a closeted gay man. He eventually became Duke Ellington's right hand man composing much of the music that Ellington was known for as Strayhorn stayed in the background. When Ellington invited him to come to New York City to meet him, he gave him the directions: Take the "A" train to Sugar Hill in Harlem. In honor of that meeting he wrote the tune that became Ellington's theme song, Take the "A"Train, or as Lawrence Welk later announced it, "Take a Train."

Some of the other Strayhorn compositions and my favorites are the following:

Chelsea Bridge, Day Dream, A Flower is a Lovesome Thing, Passion Flower, Raincheck, Satin Doll, Something to Live For and Upper Manhattan Medical Group.

Billie Holiday had a tragic life dogged by racism and addiction. As it says on biography.com: Billie Holiday was one of the most influential jazz singers of all time. She had a thriving career for many years before she lost her battle with addiction. Her autobiography was made into the 1972 film Lady Sings the Blues starring Diana Ross. In 2000, Billie Holiday was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Billie was not only a singer but a songwriter too. Among her compositions are "God Bless the Child", "Fine and Mellow" and "Don't Explain." Although she didn't write it, she became identified with the song "Strange Fruit" about black lynchings in the south:

"Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."

She starts out her autobiography with: "Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen, and I was three." After being raped as a child, she became a teenage prostitute in her mother's bordello. She escaped the poverty and misery of her life by listening to the jazz of Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong. Around 1930 she started singing in local New York City clubs.

At the age of 18, Holiday was discovered by producer John Hammond while she was performing in a Harlem jazz club. Hammond was instrumental in getting Holiday recording work with an up-and-coming clarinetist and bandleader - Benny Goodman.

Holiday toured with the Count Basie Orchestra in 1937 where she met lifelong soul mate, Lester Young, who named her "Lady Day." In return she called the tenor saxophonist "Prez." Artie Shaw signed Billie as his band's vocalist in 1938, becoming the first white bandleader to hire a full-time black female singer to tour the segregated south. Promoters objected to Holiday—for her race and for her unique vocal style—and she ended up leaving the orchestra out of frustration.

Touring the U.S. in the 1930s meant running head-on into racial discrimination. While with Basie in Detroit, a theater manager insisted the light-skinned Holiday blacken her face so the audience would not mistake her for white and get angry she was performing with black musicians. While touring with Shaw's mostly white band in the segregationist South, it was difficult just finding a restaurant where the band could eat together.

After she left Shaw's band, she went back to New York City where she performed at the liberal Cafe Society, the first racially integrated night club in the United States. She first sang "Strange Fruit" there. At owner Barney Josephson's insistence, she closed her set with this song, leaving the stage without taking any encores, so that the audience would be left to think about the meaning of the song.

Billie Holiday was one of Frank Sinatra's favorite singers bringing the three cats born in 1915 full circle. Billie Holidays's records and Billy Strayhorn's compositions will never go out of style. Nothing classic ever does. In addition Frank has left a lasting legacy as he has a whole channel on Sirius satellite radio devoted to his music. They also play Billie's records and Strayhorn's compositions there. Just the other day I heard Lady Gaga singing Lush Life on Sirius.

Some last thoughts on Frank Sinatra. Frank, despite his personal foibles and peccadilloes, was a force of nature unlike any other major entertainment figure of the 20th century. He was a movie star, but, unlike other movie stars who could only make money from making a movie, Frank could go out and perform on a weekly basis and make $400,000 a week in Las Vegas and around the world similar to Peggy Lee or Lena Horn. He also had invested in Vegas casinos and made lots of money that way even when he wasn't performing. He got a check for $1,000,000. from Jack Warner to merge his Reprise records with Warner studios.

Frank liked associating with those at the pinnacles of power whether it was President Jack Kennedy or Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana. As a very generous and gregarious guy, he fixed up both Jack and Sam with the same woman - Judith Campbell. He had a lifelong vendetta against gossip columnists, particularly female gossip columnists including Barbara Walters, because, like most celebrities, he felt his private life should remain private. Unfortunately, there was such a gigantic spread between Frank's public image and his private reality that the likes of Kitty Kelly who wrote "His Way, the Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra", could not resist scandalmongering. His valet, George Jacobs, corroborated most of Kelly's writing but did so in a much more affectionate manner in his book, "Mr S: My Life With Frank Sinatra".

Frank experienced his share of tragedy including the death of his mother in an airplane crash (into San Gorgonio Mountain that also claimed Dean Martin's son), the death of his best friend, Jilly Rizzo, in a fiery car crash in Palm Springs as well as the deaths of his Rat Pack buddies, Sammy Davis Jr and Dean Martin and his songwriting buddy Jimmy Van Heusen. Ever the survivor Frank outlived them all and is buried in Cathedral City in Desert Memorial Park along with his parents, Jilly, and many of his friends. His fourth wife, Barbara, still maintains a home in Palm Springs and is involved with the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center for abused children.

In any event his life is a life to ponder and his legacy in music will remain for all time. He had tremendous luck and good taste in his arrangers - Nelson Riddle, Don Costa, Axel Stordahl and others who had a huge hand in making his albums the classics they are. Frank associated with the best musicians and arrangers in the business. Of course he had the money to hire the London Symphony Orchestra and pay them triple scale for an all day session if he had wanted to. His pianist, Bill Miller, accompanied Frank for more than 50 years and played the excellent, timeless barroom piano intro to Frank's classic saloon song, "Make it One for My Baby and One More for the Road."

Touring the U.S. in the 1930s meant coming head-on against racial discrimination. While with Basie in Detroit, a theatre manager insisted the light-skinned Holiday blacken her face so the audience would not mistake her for white and get angry she was performing with black musicians. While touring with Shaw's mostly white band in the segregationist South, it was difficult just finding a restaurant where the band could eat together.
- See more at: http://www.legacy.com/news/legends-and-legacies/billie-holiday-the-tragic-life-of-lady-day/500/#sthash.RYey3TDj.dpufShe suffered so much racism with Artie Shaw's band when they toured the south that she left the band and went back to New York City where she performed at the liberal Cafe Society, the first racially integrated night club in the United States. She first sang "Strange Fruit" there; at owner Barney Josephson's insistence, she closed her set with this song, leaving the stage without taking any encores, so that the audience would be left to think about the meaning of the song.

Natalie Cressman and Band a Hit at Dizzy's Jazz Club

by John Lawrence

Singer-songwriter-trombonist Natalie Cressman brought her quintet to Dizzy's Jazz Club Saturday, July 11. Natalie has been creating quite a stir lately with her 8th place finish in the trombone category of the Down Beat critics' poll, Rising Star division. Her band has a very contemporary sound, sort of a jazz-rock groove. And groove they did.

Natalie wrote most of the songs. I'm assuming she did the arrangements too which were fantastic. She made the most out of two horns - trumpet and trombone - and a killer rhythm section consisting of Mike Bono on guitar, Michael Mitchell on drums and Adam Goldman on bass. I particularly enjoyed the drummer although he stayed in the background the whole time. There was an energy to this band especially when they cut loose on the last number.

By my count they did 15 selections, a lot of high quality music for one set. Plenty of solo space was allotted to trumpeter Ivan Rosenberg who also did the photography for her album, Turn the Sea. The trumpet-trombone ensemble sections sounded at times like an entire brass section. Since Josh also sang, there was a lot of versatility in the arrangements which had vocal as well as instrumental duets and voice cum brass sections. I was surprised at the sophistication and attention to detail in the arrangements. Natalie sure has a lot of writing chops and the musicians were all well rehearsed and of the highest calibre.

A song called "The Unknown", according to Natalie, was about young adults just starting out trying to find their way. Since she is in her early twenties, the song was about her real world reality although she has made great strides in just a few years. Trey Anastasio, front man of jam band behemoth Phish, called the 23 year old about five years ago with a job for her: playing trombone and singing backup in his eponymous solo group.

Born in San Francisco, Cressman attended the Manhattan School of Music in New York City where she currently resides. She comes from a musical family. Cressman’s parents are Jeff, also a trombone player, and Sandy, a jazz vocalist with a particular interest in Brazilian music. Her father is a longtime collaborator with Santana, and once played a tour behind Anastasio.

A song called "Radio Silence" showcased the precision and musicianship of the group. There was a mini set of duos with guitarest Bono. One of these, "Where We Started," featured her beautiful voice with the lyric "I don't want to be the prize that you always win. I wish we never started. Living brokenhearted." Reminded me of the words from a song by the New York Voices Now That the Love is Over with the line "Why did the loving ever have to start." Mike wrote Goodbye Lullaby, a very pretty tune.

The duos were nice, but the energy level dropped precipitously. I could have done with a couple less of these. When the band finally came back they grooved totally taking the energy level back to an exciting pitch. Mike Bono cut loose and the excellent rhythm section proved they could really cook even in a nontraditional jazz framework and without the amped out pyrotechnics of typical rock.

Called a "velveteen-voiced brass-blower" by the Denver Post, Natalie has stretched across stylistic boundaries with every project she takes on and has manifested the depth of her musicianship and versatility while blending seamlessly into so many different musical settings. Enamored with the music of Brazil, Cuba, India, along with the American jazz and folk traditions, Natalie's wide ranging enthusiasm for new music has propelled her into a richly diverse musical career.

I bought a copy of Turn the Sea at Dizzy's after the show, recorded in 2013, and I must say I much prefer the live performance to the album as good as it is. The energy and musicianship of the band members combined with Natalie's arrangements give the band a contemporary jazz-rock feel while the album had more of a jazz-folk feel, ala Joni Mitchell. It was nice to see though that the album involved the band's family members, about the best kind of collaboration a young musician could ask for.

If it weren't for Chuck Perrin, proprietor of Dizzy's, young aspiring musicians such as these would have no venue in San Diego. Thanks to him, San Diego still has one jazz club where they can perform and contribute to the cultural diversity without which San Diego, albeit a surfing paradise, would be a cultural backwater. These young musicians, many of whom are products of the Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard and other prestigious institutions deserve to be seen and heard. Chuck Perrin has been their host at Dizzy's for 15 years now. For him it's a labor of love more than anything else.

Racism: A Great Lady Breaks the Color Line

by John Lawrence

Lena Horne was the first black woman to get a contract with a major Hollywood Studio.

A few weeks ago the San Diego Free Press did a series on racism. I must have missed the memo because It was news to me when the articles started appearing. So a bit late forthwith is my contribution.

Born into a black bourgeoisie family in 1917, Lena Horne was signed up in the NAACP by her grandmother, Cora Calhoun Horne, a college graduate, at the age of two. The Hornes owned a four story residence in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn.

The distinguished Horne family included teachers, activists and a Harlem Renaissance poet. Lena's uncle became dean of a black college. According to James Gavin's biography of Lena, Stormy Weather, the black bourgeoisie were descendants of favored slaves "privileged blacks who, by virtue of their brains or their sexual allure to their masters, had worked in the house, not in the field. During the decade long heyday of Reconstruction, they'd used their cachet to start businesses and gain social standing."

Lena's grandmother drilled into her respectability at all costs. She was to use proper diction, no dialect allowed, and always present herself as a lady. Cora was a determined fighter for black causes, and, despite her disdain for whites, she married a white man. According to Gavin, Cora's cafe au lait skin, thin lips and delicate nose betrayed generations of intermingling with whites. Her maiden name, Calhoun, came from her father's slavemaster in Georgia, Dr. Andrew Bonaparte Calhoun. His uncle was Senator John C Calhoun who championed slavery as God's will.

Gavin reported, "Cora's militancy involved deep prejudice. [Lena] would [later say that] she'd 'been raised to dislike white people intensely.' Cora forbade her to play with white children, but wouldn't explain why."

Lena's father, Teddy Horne Jr. left the family when Lena was barely a toddler to pursue being a numbers runner, pimp and hustler. According to Gavin, "Whatever their education, only menial jobs - or none at all- tended to await them. Many Negro men thumbed their noses at the system and took to the streets." Evidently, Teddy Horne Jr. was very good at it because he always lived high on the hog and never went to jail. He later owned a hotel and a restaurant.

Lena's mother Edna was an aspiring actress, and she dragged Lena all over the south looking for acting jobs which never quite panned out. Going to school in the south Lena discovered that her light skin and perfect diction did not go over so well with other black children. They called her "Yaller! Yaller!" Despite her pedigreed background, Lena's childhood was far from ideal. She was always being left with caregivers while her mother went looking for acting jobs. She felt abandoned by her father.

Lena learned to read before kindergarten. Reading developed into a life long love. She could always take refuge in books and shut out the cold, cruel world. In the south Edna took Lena shopping for shoes. Her shoes usually didn't fit right because black people weren't allowed to try on different pairs to get the right size. They had to buy ill fitting shoes because no white person would buy the shoes after a black person had tried them on.

Back at home for good in Brooklyn in 1929, Lena escaped the violent and racist south. She was enrolled in an integrated girls' high school, one of the most prestigious in the city. She joined the Junior Debs, one of a slew of clubs for the black bourgeoisie. Her mother gave up acting, married a white man and became a stage mother.

Edna enrolled Lena in dancing school, a skill that would serve her well when she auditioned for the chorus line at the Cotton Club. The Cotton Club was the most prestigious club in Harlem where an all black revue entertained an all white audience. Blacks weren't allowed in the audience. White swells wanted to be entertained by blacks, but not necessarily to be in their company. Black entertainers there could not come in or leave by the front door nor could they use the white customers' rest rooms. The club was run by white mobsters.

Out of hundreds of applicants in 1933, Lena was one of two chosen although she was only 16 and the official age to become a chorine was 18. The Cotton Club was never known to play by the rules. By Lena's own admission she couldn't sing or dance. However, she had a drop dead, stunningly gorgeous beautiful face and by all accounts that's what launched her show business career. "I had no talent; all's I had was looks," Horne said, but that was the primary criterion as far as the Cotton Club chorus line was concerned. Gavin said, "Even the most talented chorines would never have gotten that job had they not been 'high yaller.'"

Lena became the financial support of the family. Her mother coached her with her singing and she continued in dancing school. Around 1935 Edna landed Lena a job with Noble Sissle, a thriving black society bandleader of the day. She was glad to leave the Cotton Club because it embodied all the indignity her grandmother had taught her to revile. Sissle's band was a class act. It had entertained at highbrow white functions in Paris, London and New York. Sissle sat Horne down and told her that at all times, "You must be a lady!" She must counter every black stereotype. Under Sissle's tutelage, Horne became a class act.

Despite the high toned sophistication of Sissle's band in general and Lena Horne in particular, whenever they played at a white ballroom, they invariably had to enter by the back door. It galled Lena that her white stepfather was welcomed at places she could not go to at least by the front door. And they had no idea of where they would be sleeping after the gig. They scouted around for black families that would take a few band members in. The rest ended up sleeping on the bus.

Later Horne got a job as a girl singer with Charlie Barnet's all white band. In many ballrooms and colleges she wasn't allowed to sit on the bandstand between numbers. At a prom in a New England girls' school, she overheard the matronly dean tell Barnet, "We can't have that colored girl sing here." Most of the white restaurants where the band ate refused to serve her. Hotels would refuse to let her sleep there until Barnet started introducing her as Cuban.

Her singing lacked even a hint of black musical influence. Her elocution and diction were perfect. Bandleader Artie Shaw said, "She was a white singer."

In 1941, Hollywood was under pressure from the NAACP to cast a black person in a non-stereotype roll. Up to then a fair number of black people had made a pretty good living playing stereotype blacks in subservient roles as mammies, maids, shiftless drifters, whores, pimps and Pullman porters saying things like Yessuh, Nossuh, Would you like mo pah suh? A friend got Lena an interview with Arthur Freed at M-G-M. Lena Horne had been perfectly groomed to play the role of a non-stereotype black person. She spoke perfect English, not black dialect. She was a well bred and well educated lady through and through, not a tramp or a whore.

She auditioned for Freed and then Louis B Mayer himself. Both were white, Jewish liberals who sincerely wanted to help. But they also had their eye on the bottom line, and that proved the factor that determined Lena's Hollywood career in the end. In January 1942 M-G-M signed Lena Horne to a seven year contract, the first black to be so signed. She would get $350. a week the first year and $450. thereafter. Her contract stipulated that she would sing in pictures and play legitimate roles not cooks or servants.

At M-G-M Horne had the benefit of the best of the best in terms of the four things that could transform a female into a star: hair, make-up, dress and jewelry. Max Factor came up with a special foundation exclusively for Lena Horne called Light Egyptian. Plus she had expert coaching in singing and dancing. She realized that it was no accident that women appeared so beautiful on screen and this expertise served her well in her later career as a cabaret singer.

She appeared in two films right off the bat: Panama Hattie, a film starring Red Skelton based on a Broadway play with songs by Cole Porter and musical direction by Vincente Minelli, and an all black musical, Cabin in the Sky. Horne's first scene in Cabin called for her to sing a song while reclining in a bubble bath. After the prerelease the censors got busy demanding cuts in Lena's scenes of anything suggesting sexiness. Her bubble bath scene was axed. Cabin was released in 1943 and was an instant success with audiences despite critical put downs. M-G-M was having a hard time figuring out non-stereotype roles for Lena Horne. They loaned her out to Twentieth Century Fox for a film called Stormy Weather in which she sang the title song, and that became her theme song in later years. When Cabin opened, black people still had to be seated in the Jim Crow upper balcony.

These three films were successful and established Lena Horne's reputation. M-G-M, however, conscious of the fact that a third of their revenues came from the deep south and that the south would not screen a movie with a black actress, except one in a subservient role, resorted to just having Horne do cameo appearances in which she sang a couple of songs which could be easily cut out without disrupting the dramatic flow for southern distribution.

According to Gavin:

At least Horne could look ahead to the April 1946 premiere of Ziegfield Follies. Once more the critics singled her out. Edwin Scallert of the Los Angeles Times wrote that Horne with her "Love" number, "comes off as the best."

The film went south to Birmingham, and Hugh Martin, who had composed the music for "Love," flew there for the premiere. At the Alabama Theatre, Martin - a Birmingham boy - sat proudly with his entire family, eager for them to hear Horne sing his song. "And the number was gone," he said. Puzzled, he asked the manager what had happened. "He said, 'Oh, down here we don't want to see a lot of niggers writhing around.' I was absolutely horrified." Storming out with his relatives, he shouted that he would never set foot in that theatre again.

In Durham, North Carolina, the Morning Herald ran an ad for the local premiere. It listed Horne among the players. Scores of black patrons bought tickets for the first showing - and saw a jagged splice where "Love" should have been. Many of them complained angrily and asked for refunds. Within twenty-four hours, Horne's name had vanished from ads. Word of the scandal reached the Pittsburgh Courier, which tried to investigate. No one would take responsibility.

"Love" got chopped in Knoxville, Tennessee, too. Theatre manager ... explained that Horne's song "might prove objectionable to some people." Meanwhile, ... the excision of "Love" [was reported] in Memphis, the town with the most bigoted censor in the country. The septuagenarian Lloyd T Binford declared: "No film shall appear in a Memphis theater as where a Negro is shown mingling with whites. Unless, of course, the Negro is in the role of maid or butler, and then their every spoken word must be prefaced with 'Sir' or 'Madame'."

Some southern theaters barred blacks altogether or admitted them only for midnight showings. Others provided a "colored entrance" down a back alley. They had to climb a back staircase and sit in the "Balcony for Colored."

Lena Horne met her future husband, Lennie Hayton, on the M-G-M lot. Hayton, a white Jewish man, was a very accomplished musical director, maestro and man of the world who mixed a wicked martini. He would go on to win Oscars for his contributions. Because of Louis B Mayer's strict moral code [no onscreeen kiss could last more than one second] and because both of them were married at the start of their affair, Hayton and Horne employed the device of a 'beard' when they went out. Horne would show up at a restaurant or night club in the company of her best black friend, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington's alter ego and composer of some of the greatest songs in the Great American Songbook. Later Hayton would come in and join them. Thus the gossip columns were averted. With Hayton as maestro, Horne built her career as a cabaret singer as her movie career was going downhill.

The final straw with M-G-M came when they proposed to do a movie version of Show Boat in which a racially mixed, but passing for white, woman, Julie, is married to a white man but sought after by another. The jealous suitor exposed the fact of miscegenation which was illegal at the time. Lena wanted the part very badly; she thought it was perfect for her. At last M-G-M would provide her with a dramatic speaking role as opposed to placing her against a pillar and having her sing two songs which were easily cut for southern distribution. There was one problem. Until 1952 the Hollywood Production Code would not let a racially mixed person such as Lena Horne interact romantically onscreen with a white partner. However, it was OK for a white woman to portray herself as partially black and play the same role. The role went to Lena's good friend, Ava Gardner, who was "blackened up" to appear as an octaroon, a person one eighth black.

Ava Gardner had to lip synch to Lena Horne's voice for the movie. Horne quoted Gardner as saying: "Girl, I'm sick to death of you. They're locking me up in a sound booth all day and making me work my mouth to Lena Horne records so I'll learn to play Julie the way you would have played it. Why didn't they just give you the fucking part in the first place?"

Horne stepped up her activism. She championed Malcom X rather than MLK Jr because of his militancy. She wore a Star of David to protest anti-Semitism. She became a fervid speaker. At the Washington rally where MLK Jr delivered his "I have a dream" speech, she spoke ... one word: "Freedom!" Horne continued to see Show Boat as the stolen chance of a lifetime. Horne's 1981 Broadway concert, The Lady and her Music, found her using Show Boat as evidence of M-G-M's mean and racist treatment of her. She insisted that Mayer was a coward as he used "someone white made up to be me." The fact that she couldn't interact with whites on camera made her feel second class.

Horne would go on to sing in exclusive night clubs and cabarets such as the Empire Room and the Copacabana. Her marriage to Hayton would not last. Interestingly enough despite the Horne family's disdain for white people, four generations of Horne women married white men: Cora, Edna, Lena and Lena's daughter Gail who would marry famous Hollywood director Sidney Lumet.

Lena Horne died in 2010 at the age of 92. She was a multimillionaire. Unlike her contemporary, Billie Holiday, who died with less than a dollar in her bank account, Horne used her rage against racism in a highly constructive way. It gave an edginess to her performances which only increased her sex appeal. More than one of her band members heard her mouth under her breath "Fuck you, assholes" as she made a sweeping bow after the end of her performance before a white audience.

Unlike Billie, Lena never got hooked on drugs. Unlike Billie, she never got barred from singing in exclusive New York City night clubs due to the loss of a cabaret card. Billie Holiday, who broke the color line herself as the first singer to sing with the all white Artie Shaw band, died in 1959 at the age of 44, a victim of white racism who was vanquished by it even as Lena Horne transcended it.

Christina Aguilera and the Hideous Cult of Oversouling

by John Eskow

February 8, 2011, from Huffington Post

To me, the horrific part of Christina Aguilera's rendition of the National Anthem -- and "rendition" is an apt term for it, because she kidnapped the song and shipped it out to be tortured -- was not her mangling of the words, but her mangling of the tune itself: to paraphrase the great Chuck Berry, she "lost the beauty (such as it is) of the melody until it sounds just like a (godawful) symphony."

This is the same grotesque style -- 17 different notes for every vocal syllable -- that has so dominated the pop and R&B charts for years. Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston are relatively minor offenders, but singers like Aguilera -- who admittedly possesses a great instrument -- just don't seem to know when to stop, turning each song into an Olympic sport as they drain it of its implicit soul, as if running through the entire scale on every single word was somehow a token of sincerity.

It's called melisma -- the bending of syllables for bluesy or soulful effect -- and what's creepy about the way it's used now is that it perverts America's true genius for song, as evinced by its creators in the world of gospel and R&B, like Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin.

You will hear more of this tonsil-twisting insincerity -- to your eternal sorrow -- if you watch any episode of American Idol.

The great Jerry Wexler -- who produced both Ray and Aretha -- coined a great term for it: "oversouling." He described it as "the gratuitous and confected melisma" that hollows out a song and drains it of meaning. Wexler, who knew more about soul than any producer before or since, said:

"Time and again I have found that flagrantly artificial attempts at melisma are either a substitute for real fire and passion or a cover-up for not knowing the melody... Please, learn the song first, and then sing it from the heart."

And Christina, he wasn't referring to the words.

POSTSCRIPT: I was lucky enough to know Wexler a bit, near the end of his life, and I can hear his raspy, streetwise voice in my ear, insisting I clarify his point: the problem is not Melisma--which I believe is also the name of Joan Rivers' daughter--it's Oversouling. It's like those corny educational films I saw in grade-school: "Fire can be our greatest friend...or our worst enemy!" The same goes for melisma. Without melisma, no Ray or Aretha, and also no Sam Cooke, no Waylon Jennings, no B.B. King, no Charlie Parker. It's rare for a singer or instrumentalist to disdain melisma completely; Miles Davis and Merle Haggard come to mind, but even they employ it, sparingly, at times. The nightmares begin when--as several posters have wisely pointed out--singers practice Melisma Abuse in order to draw attention to themselves and away from the song. Then it becomes, as Jerry Wexler said, that "gratuitous and confected melisma" that has driven so many of us to the point of shrieking, Aguilera-style, in despair.

 

Classical Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Rapper Yo Ma-Ma do a Recording Session Together

The date is set and the venue is famous sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s recording studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. The rapper and the cellist will each bring one additional colleague to round out the group. Yo Ma-Ma has brought rapper R. Kelly and Yo-Yo Ma has brought basso profundo R. Peggio. It’s around 10 AM when the troops come wandering in.

Yo Ma-Ma  (to R. Kelly amid much virtuosic handshaking): Whassup niggah! Good to see you, man!

R. Kelly (to Yo Ma-Ma): Whassup niggah! How you is, man?

Yo Ma-Ma  (to Yo-Yo Ma): Dis heah be R. Kelly.

Yo-Yo Ma (to R Kelly): Whassup, niggah!

Yo Ma-Ma  (to Yo-Yo Ma): Whatchu call him?

Yo-Yo Ma: Well, I...

Yo Ma-Ma: Whatchu call him?

Yo-Yo Ma: Well, I…you called him a niggah in an endearing and affectionate way. I was just trying…

Yo Ma-Ma: You can’t call him no niggah. What are you, a racist or somethin? How would you like it if I called you a chink?

Yo-Yo Ma: Well, no, Chinese people find that very offensive.

Yo Ma-Ma: Well then, don’t you be usin the N word around heah agin, heah?

Just then in walks R. Peggio, the basso profundo with the San Diego Symphony.

Yo-Yo Ma (to R. Peggio): Hey, my man. Whassup, chink?

R. Peggio: Hey, whassup, chink? Good to see you, Yo-Yo.

Rudy Van Gelder: Hey, I didn’t know he was Chinese. How’d he get a name like Peggio. That sounds Italian.

Yo-Yo Ma: Yes, his father’s Italian, but his mother is Chinese.

Yo-Yo Ma (to Yo Ma-Ma  and R. Kelly): This is R. Peggio.

Yo Ma-Ma  and R. Kelly: Whassup, chink?

Rudy Van Gelder: Awright, places everyone. Time to do the sound check. Yo-Yo, give me an A flat.

Yo-Yo Ma: We always tune up to a concert A at the symphony.

Rudy: Yeah, Yeah. Well these guys are always so out of pitch, what difference does it make. And besides my parents are asleep upstairs, and an A always wakes them up.

Yo-Yo Ma: Oh, so solly, I didn’t realize this is your parents' living room.

Rudy: Yo, give me some rap in mike 2.

Yo Ma-Ma: Mutha humpin, mutha frumpin, piss, shit and…

Rudy: That’s good. OK. Mr. basso profundo, give me an arpeggio in mike 3.

R. Peggio: Dah, duh, duh, dah, duh, duh, dahhhh.

Rudy: Very good. Now, R. Kelly, give me some rap in mike 4.

R. Kelly: Shake yer booty, baby. Get down with it. Up yer ying yang…

Rudy: OK. That’s fine.

Yo-Yo Ma: Hey Rudy, can I get some more low end in my monitor.

Yo Ma-Ma: Hey, that sounds like what I told my girlfrin lass night. Gimme sa Mo a Dat Low End, Babuh. Hey R. I think we can use that today in the ‘cawdin session. That sounds like the name of a tune.

R. Kelly: Yeah, good hook!

Yo-Yo Ma: You mean you didn’t bring the music with you. You’re going to make it up right here on the fly, so to speak.

Yo Ma-Ma: Thass right, baby. It’s more spontaneous that way. Hey Rudy, what we gonna call dis album anyway?

Rudy: How about Yo Ma-Ma  and Yo-Yo Ma: Together again for the first time.

R. Kelly: I like that, man. It has a nice ring to it.

Yo Ma-Ma: Yo … Yo-Yo. Whatcha tink a dat?

Yo-Yo Ma: Yo … Ma-Ma. I can live with…

Yo Ma-Ma: Don’t be callin me by my last name. It’s Mr. Ma-Ma to you … or you can call me Yo, like Yo … Yo, but don’t be addressin me by my last name without putting a Mistah in front of it.

Yo-Yo Ma: OK, Yo. By the way I like your bring bring.

Yo Ma-Ma: You mean my bling bling doncha?

Yo-Yo Ma: That’s what I said: bring bring. Chinese people have problem pronouncing l and r.

Yo Ma-Ma: Oh that’s hot. Hey, R. There’s another song: “Bring bring my bling bling” or in Chinese “Bling bling my bring bring.” Yeah put some words to it, man. We can use dat today. Bring me all da bling bling, man, as in money, moolah, cash as in Johnny Cash, paycheck as in Johnny Paycheck, price as in Sol Price. That’s what I tell my girls, man. Bring me all the money. I’ll give you a taste after Big Daddy checks it out first. I call them my Poosah Posseh. They sure is good to me, you see what I’m sayin?

Yo-Yo Ma: I understand what you mean, but isn’t it hard out there for a pimp.

Yo Ma-Ma: Yeah, man dat be da song dat won da Oscahs dis yeah: "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" by my man Cedric and my man Jordan.

Yo-Yo Ma: I thought it was by Deejay f and Shug.

R. Peggio: Actually it’s by the Three 6 Mafia.

Yo Ma-Ma: Oh, who cares who it’s by, but my man, my men, my bros, my soul brothers, they sure knows how ta rake in da dough.

Yo-Yo Ma: I heard they couldn’t say “fuck, “shit” or “niggaz,” but “bitches” and “hos” was OK at the Oscars.

Yo Ma-Ma: Yeah, you know the censahs man. They had to clean it up fa da Oscahs.

R. Kelly: Yeah, but they be rakin in da dough. Whooeey!! Did you hear they gonna license it to that Abu Dabi Dubai Ports seafood company and they gonna do a commercial: “It’s Hard Out Here for a Shrimp.” And Pixar studios is a gonna come up wit a cute cartoon shrimp, and Will Smith be doin da voiceovah.

Yo Ma-Ma: Yeah, dat’s mah man. He thinks of everythin. Dey be gettin residuals on they residuals.

R. Peggio: Yeah, and did you hear that Revlon has spun off a subsidiary called “Girl Stick” to market cosmetics to girls in the hood?

Yo Ma-Ma: That’s hot, man. My man can license they pimp song to them and cut a commercial, “It’s Hard out Here for a Primp.” That’s perfect man, cuz when my girls - the Poosah Posseh as I calls em - are out they workin the streets, they be primpin all the time. Puttin on lipstick, pluckin they eyebrows…

R. Kelly: Yeah, and then they backup groupies is gonna do another follow-on called “It’s Hard out Here for a Ho, Too, Dammit.” They gonna call theyselves "Deb Occle and the Ho Down!"

Yo Ma-Ma: That’s perfect, man. Man, they be rollin in dough. And just think we be marketin all this shit to da white man and be takin all his money just to listen to our shit.

R. Kelly: Beats reparations, man. We deserves it after all the slavery and shit.

Yo Ma-Ma: Yeah, da Indians be takin most a da white man’s money wit da casinos and slot machines and crap, and we be takin da rest of it wit rap and hip hop. Dat’s justice, man. Dat’s justice!

Yo-Yo Ma: Maybe we could do a cover of “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp" today to round out our album.

Yo Ma-Ma: Great idea, man. Hey bah da way, why did you, a world famous classical musician, want to do a hip hop album?

Yo-Yo Ma: We need to repay student loan.

Yo Ma-Ma (incredulous): What!!!

Yo-Yo Ma: Yes R. Peggio and I went to Juilliard, and we have $100,000. in student loans to pay back. The symphony pays so poorly and…

Yo Ma-Ma: So you decided to make a rap album. Jeesh, I went ta da school a hard knocks in the ghetto. The only student loan I ever heard of was when some niggah comes up to me, sticks a knife in my rib, and says, “Hey, student, gimme a loan.” I say, “Sure Perfessah, how much do ya need?”

Rudy Van Gelder: OK. OK. Let’s get on with it. Yo-Yo, did you bring in any tunes?

Yo-Yo Ma: Well I thought, this being Easter and all, it might be nice to have something seasonally appropriate like “Here comes Peter Cottontail.” You know (sings) “Here comes Peter Cottontail. Hip hopping down the bunny trail.” Notice how I cleverly change lyrics to get real hip hop feel.

Yo Ma-Ma: That’s some sad shit, man! I can’t be singin no shit like dat, man. I’d be laughed right outtada hood! Dere goes mah street cred, rot dere. Whaddaya think R. Can you make somethin outta dat?

R. Kelly: Let me work on it, man. Maybe I can come up with somethin.

Rudy: Ok. Let’s get something down. Time’s a wastin.

Yo Ma-Ma: Awright. Let’s do the first tune: “Bring bring bring me some bling bling bling. Yo-Yo, just give me something like dang dang dang a dang a dang dang on the cello and just keep playing that over and over.

Yo-Yo Ma: Don’t you have a score, man, or at least a lead sheet. I’m a classically trained musician, you know.

Yo Ma-Ma: No, we don’t need none a dat shit. Jus do what I tells you.

Yo-Yo Ma: Well, what key?

Yo Ma-Ma: Yuh can figuh dat out as we moves along heah.

LATER:

Rudy: OK folks, we got lotsa good tunes down in the can. We need one more though. Hey R., did you come up with anything on that Cottontail tune?

R. Kelly: Yeah, how’s this:

I’m Peter pimpin Cottontail. I be down heah in da hood. I lives in a breier patch, and dat makes all my bunnies good. My girls be workin overtime turning tricks and rollin johns. I’m Peter pimpin Cottontail down here in da hood.

Yo Ma-Ma  and R. Peggio: He’s Peter pimpin Cottontail. He be down here in da hood.

R. Kelly: I said to my girl, Tawanda, get yo ass on outta bed. She just look at me and pull da covahs ovuh huh head. I said get on outta heah; get up outta da bed. You could be up on da street givin some john some head. I said get on up and outta heah. Get up on da street.

Yo Ma-Ma  and R. Peggio:  Get yo ass on outta heah and get out on da street. Get yo ass on outta heah and get out on da street.

R. Kelly: My babies call me “Big Daddy.” Dey’s cute as dey can be. You know it’s just a wondah how they all done look like me. Dey all be different colors and some a dem are black. I done raised em good down in da hood. I tell you thass a fack!

Yo Ma-Ma  and R. Peggio:  He done raised em good down in da hood. I tell you thass a fack! He done raised em good down in da hood. I tell you thass a fack!

Now dat old Brer Rabbit, he be cuttin in my turf. I told him he better watch his ass if he know what it’s wurf. He look at me and said “No shit. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll whip yo ass and call it grass and make a meal of you!”

Yo Ma-Ma  and R. Peggio: He’ll whip yo ass and call it grass and make a meal of you! He’ll whip yo ass and call it grass and make a meal of you!”

R. Kelly: I said dis hood ain’t big enough fa da likes a you and me. Cuz I’m Peter pimpin Cottontail, and you’re not shit, you see. I’ll carve  yo ass and you’ll throw up glass when I get done wich you. You piece a crud. You be spittin up blood, and then you be turnin blue.

Yo Ma-Ma and R. Peggio: You piece a crud. You be spittin up blood, and then you be turnin blue.

R. Kelly: I saw old Grandpa Moses. He be walkin pritty slow. He said, “Cotton, you be da man now. Ole Brer he gotta go. You watch your back cuz he be sellin crack and da Man he gotta know."

Yo Ma-Ma  and R. Peggio: You watch your back cuz he be sellin crack and da Man he gotta know. You watch your back cuz he be sellin crack and da Man he gotta know.

R. Kelly: I’m Peter pimpin Cottontail and now my tale be told. I’m sittin mighty pritty. Cuz of all da snatch I’ve sold. And as for old Brer Rabbit, he better watch his back. Cuz if I see him, I’ll cut his ass, and I ain’t be smoking no crack.

Yo Ma-Ma  and R. Peggio: If he see him, he’ll cut his ass, and he ain’t be smoking no crack. If he see him, he’ll cut his ass, and he ain’t be smoking no crack.

Yo-Yo Ma (playing): dang a dang a dang a dang dang a dang a dang a dang dang

Rudy Van Gelder: That’s it, man. It's in the can. Good as gold!