a desirable procedure,
but to quote the title
of an instrumental number
by Lester Young:
"I'm fer it!"
Or rather I'm for
keeping it legal.
bringing unwanted children
into the world is murder double-fold.
Making it illegal
means bringing the knitting needle
into play again
and reviving the back street abortion.
Nat also is convinced
that Elian should have stayed
in the United States.
To recoup,
Elian is the boy,
whose mother drowned
while tying to reach the United States
with him.
I beg to differ.
I'd like to have had Elian
grow up in the land
that's great in many ways
and can be improved
if we work at it –
but not at the price of being
separated from his surviving parent.
Elian's father may be a member
of the Cuban Communist Party
and he may be a citizen
of a totalitarian state,
but it is not democracy's business
to break up families.
The South American juntas,
who regretfully were our friends,
forcefully separated children
from their parents
and presented them to like-minded couples
for adoption.
Let's not follow their example!
Nat lists the lack of liberties and chances
that Elian would have in Cuba,
and he's right.
However, Cuban children do have
have minimum social benefits
and free hospital care when they need it.
I was impressed with Fidel
decades ago
when he was photographed
in the mountains reading a book,
of all things.
Well, I rapidly became
disillusioned,
and like Nat
I favor
freedom and democracy.
These things just ain't
in Cuba.
Nat helps underline this
by reminiscing.
Decades ago,
when he asked Che Guevara about elections,
"Guevara laughed derisively, and said in Spanish,
'Here?' And he kept laughing."
However, I don't think
that most of the twenty percent
who grow up in poverty
in our land,
will have the opportunity
of having access
to the rights we have.
Anyway Nat,
I dig what you have to say –
about music,
and like you
I enjoy swinging sessions.
The New Masses and Cafe Society
What did The New Masses and Cafe Society
have in common?
Cafe Society, as posh as it sounds,
was sponsored by the Communist Party.
And there was no mystery
about The New Masses.
With a name like that
you didn't have to do much guessing.
Cafe Society was a great jazz venue
like the Famous Door and Minton's Playhouse.
It was the first integrated club in New York
where blacks and whites could play,
as well as listen and mingle.
The question is who didn't play and sing there?
A number of jam sessions survived on record
to show what was going on.
The New Masses backed
John Hammond's From Spirituals to Swing
in Carnegie Hall in December of '38.
Hammond and The Masses
had a black gig onstage
with the Basie Band with the Pres, Buck
and Hershel, shortly before his death.
But listen to this!
The sponsor insisted that blacks
be allowed to listen to blacks,
and they got their way.
For the first time,
blacks sat with whites in Carnegie Hall.
If you love jazz,
you couldn't be opposed to that.
In those good old days,
when whites listened to jazz
at classy venues like the Cotton Club,
the blacks made the music
but couldn't listen to it.
So again kudos are due.
Here's the fly in the ointment,
contributions went to the Loyalist's in Spain.
To my mind, that was fine
since the loyalists were fighting
Spanish and Italian fascists,
as well as the Nazis.
But the Comrades
who were doing marvelous things
in the Cafe and the Hall
were admirers of Uncle Joe,
who was purging the Loyalist
of non-Stalinist elements
while the Count and his men
were swinging on the stage of the Hall.
The Comrades were opposed
to capital punishment,
but they attempted to justify
the execution of Stalin's fellow revolutionaries
and the purging of the general staff,
and I guess the mass murder
that was occurring in the Soviet Union
just didn't register with them.
And the irony of ironies
is that jazz
was on Joe's list
of music not to play,
which was one of the many things
that Joe had in common with Adolf.
Joe and Adolf were enemies at the time,
but they were soon become buddies,
until Adolf terminated their friendship.
The Hitler-Stalin Pact
had not yet come to be,
but when it came,
it didn't daunt them
Like all good believers,
they stuck to their guns,
no matter what their deity
and his acolytes did.
The difference being
that Stalin was a real life deity,
not an imaginary one.
And here's the point I'm getting to.
In spite of their dopey views,
you can't ignore their good deeds.
I have CDs of the Carnegie Concert
and gigs at the Café,
and I wouldn't
want to be without them.
So, thank you Comrades
for your contribution to jazz.
Taking Europe By Storm
In '39 the Duke
took Europe by storm.
Crowds greeted him everywhere.
Concert halls were full
to the brim.
Name a big city,
and it was at his feet.
There was only one country
that barred him.
He and his men
had to transgress it,
from Holland to France,
in railway cars
that were literally sealed shut.
Yes, the Duke was the ambassador
and leading exponent
of "Nigger-Jew Music"
Goebbels had served up
some films to show
what things were like in the USA.
There were clips of mad jitterbugs,
dancing to a prancing Cab
decked out in white tails
as the band blew the roof off.
The viewers in Teutonic theaters
were aghast at Yankee decadence,
while softly tapping their feet.
German doors may have been locked,
but the Duke came through
to spread the good words
and music.
But unfortunately,
he did not provide a prelude,
but rather a swan song.
The spirit he brought,
did not prevail.
After his boat left Le Havre,
Storm Troopers took Europe
by storm,
and their boots trampled
everything underfoot
that the Duke,
and men like him,
stood for.
Military Music,
marching feet,
and spilled blood,
would be the order of the day
for six long years.
Stalin, Hitler and Music
Stalin dug jazz
and was a fan of Eddie Rosner,
its leading exponent in the Soviet Union.
Once he listened to Eddie
in a theater all by himself.
But at the advent of the Cold War,
Stalin politics
took precedence over his tastes,
jazz was condemned,
and he sent Eddie to a gulag
Hitler had the same kind of integrity.
He never let personal preference
interfere with his politics.
His favorite operetta
was The Land of Laughter
by Franz Lehar.
In 1940 there was a gala performance
at the Vienna Opera House,
which he attended as a guest of honor.
He sat there and enjoyed the music
as well as the book,
laughing in the right places.
The composer was feted,
but the librettist had the bad luck
of being a Jew,
and while his words were sung,
he was languishing
in a concentration camp.
Eddie Rosner managed to
return to Germany in the Seventies
to die,
but Fritz Beda
ended up in Polish skies.
Fritz and the Bananas
You've heard it
hundreds of times.
What would the Twenties
have been like without
Yes, We Have No Bananas.
You just couldn't imagine
the Jazz Age without Bananas.
They're as much a part of
the Roaring Twenties,
as flappers and bath tub gin.
Frank Silver wrote the music,
and Irving Cohn wrote those snappy lyrics.
The German version
came from the pen
of an Austrian jack-of-all-lyrics,
who was as Viennese,
as Viennese can be.
Fritz Löhner-Beda.
was never at a loss for words.
He shook Bananas
out of his sleeve
in 1923.
Among other things,
he wrote the libretto for
Lehar's Land of Laughter.
Fritz was good-natured,
and he didn't think things
could be bad as they seemed
in March of '38,
when Austria became part
of the Third Reich.
After all, everywhere he went
he heard his lyrics being sung
or hummed.
But Fritz was wrong.
He was in the first roundup
that was carted off for Dachau.
And his career continued
behind barbed wire.
After being transferred
to Buchenwald,
he and Hermann Leopoldi
wrote The Buchenwald Song.
That tune was composed
at Commandant's request,
to be sung by the inmates,
while they engaged in slave labor.
Leopoldi's family and friends
managed to buy him out,
and he went on to play piano
and sing in emigré haunts
in New York.
But Fritz stayed on,
Laughter went over the boards,
Fritz had waited in vain.
Later he did leave Buchenwald
When his train arrived,
The inmate orchestra
The songs of Fritz Beda
In December of 1942,
Information from Kein Land des Lächelns,
A New Orleans Man
Werner is a New Orleans man.
Werner is a traditional music man.
He has a band, which is called
Recently he had one
I hate smoke,
The Museum had the look of
When they built the Museum Quarter,
The Quarter is built on the sight
One of the choice comments
The lady showed great feeling
Well, all but the facade
The best barber
Werner made the mistake
Isn't it natural
During the intermission,
Putting George Down
Hans Weigel,
Hans, there's a song I'd like to play for you.
Weigel was off base,
Freeman concedes that Gershwin
Bud concedes
I like your sax work Bud,
The questions I ask are
And here's the question of questions.
The First Singers and Musicians
The birds were the first singers
Their music
The birds are the mentors
How could man have made music
It's appropriate
Yes, I know the name came
Bird became a jailbird
Birds usually symbolize freedom,
Their songs are the songs
That says a lot about
An Austrian artist
She used them as models
To achieve this
That's how birds are treated
Beauty is a thorn in the side
An essential part of demolition
And here's the irony of ironies:
Of course torturing and killing birds
Sometimes I am ashamed
The Aristocrat of Jazz
I'm not talking about
Ferde was born in Santa Monica in 1892
At the age of fourteen,
In San Francisco
In 1924 he orchestrated Rhapsody in Blue
Could that have been partially due
George was the Orson Wells of music.
Needless to say,
George and Ferde
Could anything have been more homegrown
Saying Goodbye
It's Billie who introduces the song
When she starts to sing
The music and the lyrics
"Love is just like a faucet,
Ben Webster follows her chorus,
He's the only one sitting.
He takes it high and slow,
The solo is a summation
He and Billie glow
The Pres and Billie
The slow strains of Fine and Mellow
It was goodbye
Two years later
never giving up hope.
After all, his friend and collaborator,
Franz Lehar
wouldn't let him down..
was set for the Vienna State Opera
to commemorate Lehar's 70th birthday
in April of 1940,
and Fritz waited.
and Lehar was feted,
but his librettist remained elsewhere,
<
and went unmentgioned
on the posters and the program.
for new destination.
he heard the dolorous strains of
Oh, Donna Clara,
for which he had written the lyrics.
played that melancholy tango
to welcome the new arrivals.
It had become
the theme song of Auschwitz.
had followed him
wherever he went.
Donna Clara ushered him out.
Fritz Löhner-Bäder 1883-1942,
by Barbara Denscher and Helmut Peschina,
Residenz Verlag, Salzburg, 2002.
It's impossible not to identify him
He has the largest collection
of New Orleans baseball caps,
T-shirts, polo shirts, and sweatshirts
ever accumulated.
and I suspect,
he wears the Calvin Klein line
of New Orleans BVDs.
He goes to guess where every year,
and plays banjo
with the local jazzmen.
Werner may have an accent
when he speaks English
but there's no accent, whatsoever,
in his playing.
the Piccadilly Onions,
and he has gigs all over town.
in the Tobacco Museum,
which is located in the new Museum Quarter.
but I love smoke shops,
and the accoutrements
that play a part
in making the gray haze.
unsmoked tobacco
It was beautiful.
they renovated the Tobacco Museum,
for good measure,
making it as white as a clinic
or a morgue.
of the Imperial Stables.
during the campaign to construct it
came from children's book author,
Christine N.
She remarked,
"There's enough
Fischer von Erlach in Vienna.
The horse stables
should be torn down."
for the past,
and her comment augurs
coming attractions
in the future.
was torn down,
and as befits a stable,
the architects rode roughshod
over Fischer von Erlach.
A nd the walnut decor
of Tobacco Museum
was shaved smooth.
couldn't have done a better job.
of having his Onions
play the St. James Infirmary
for the "old" Museum.
for a man who plays
traditional jazz
to have a taste for the traditional?
And why shouldn't he
be able to play a dirge
for the death of it?
he was told
that he'd played his last gig
at that venue.
No criticism allowed.
who was reputed to be
the dean of Austrian critics,
claimed that Uncle Sam
had committed "mortal sins"
in the music category.
Porter, Berlin and Kern
are named as the greatest sinners,
but the sinner of sinners,
according to Weigel,
was George Gershwin.
He calls Gershwin
"a second-hand syncopation profiteer."
It's called The Gentleman Is a Dope.
I'm sorry you're not around to hear it.
but he got a little help
from tenor-man Bud Freeman,
who's in another league.
"was a damn good composer,"
but adds,
"I don't feel that he understood
a great deal about jazz."
that his works had the black beat,
but tacks on, "We all copied the beat."
but I beg to differ.
what would George have been
without jazz,
and what would jazz have been
without George?
How can a musician avoid George?
The answer is
there's no avoiding him,
but then,
who would want to avoid him?
and musicians.
They ushered in spring
<
with their songs
before man was there to hear them.
preceded man's chants
and his use of instruments
by millions of years.
of every man and woman
who sings and plays an instrument,
whether the style be
folk, popular, classical
or jazz.
without listening to them,
and what kind of world
would this be
without their concerts?
that the most prestigious jazz venue
should be called Birdland.
from Charley Parker,
known as "Bird,"
which was short for "Yardbird."
The yard referred to
was unfortunately
the prison yard.
when he had the bad luck
of being caught with the stuff.
and not incarceration,
since in addition to singing,
they can fly.
of freedom,
and man,
being the delightful creature
that we know him to be,
makes the singers
his captives.
He places them in cages
so that he can hear
those songs in his lodgings.
the world we live in,
and the most sophisticated creature
that populates it.
launched a career
and achieved international fame
with the help of birds.
to create a work of art.
she poured scalding wax
over her models
made docile by tranquilizers,
petrifying their moment of agony,
and exhibited the result
as an art object.
and that's how they are rewarded
for singing their songs.
of those who love ugliness,
and they must destroy it.
is making beautiful voices mute.
this artist was recently chosen
to design an anti-fascist monument.
is the best requisite
for commemorating
human victims
who were tortured and killed.
of being a member of the human race.
the Count or the Duke
but the composer
Ferdinand Rudolf von Grofe,
also known as Ferde Grofe,
who has a place
in the front row of jazz history.
of Austrian extraction,
and as we know,
Austrians always have to get into the act,
be it jazz or what-have-you.
he belied his aristocratic background
by playing piano
in saloons and dance halls up north.
he switched to the fiddle,
and in 1914 he joined
drummer Art Hickman's big band.
Ferde was the first creative arranger of jazz,
which brought him to Good King Paul
to play piano and arrange.
for Gershwin,
who was otherwise occupied,
and it was performed
with Whiteman holding the baton
and George at the keys.
was faster and jazzier,
and more humorous
than later ones.
to the participation
of Ferde Grofe?
He juggled with songs, musicals, film scores,
concertos and an opera,
but unlike the Boy Wonder,
he didn't go downhill
after his first masterpiece
but carried through
to the premature end.
Ferde Grofe
was also versatile juggler,
and he juggled till the ripe old age of eighty.
had another thing in common.
Their parents came over on the boat,
but they were both as American as apple pie.
than Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite?
in a cracked and broken voice,
explaining the blues
and what jazz means to her,
and failing miserably.
the music gives her voice strength,
and the singing is the explanation.
are what it's all about
and they just happen to be hers.
it turns off and on.
Sometimes when you think it's on, baby,
it has turned off and gone."
with a great solo
that could only be paled
by being followed by the Pres.
And when he stands up
and places the mouthpiece
between his lips,
you know he could only be
the greatest.
slurring and dragging the notes,
blowing so tenderly
and so sadly,
so very sadly.
of all the solos he's ever blown.
while playing and singing,
they glow like they've never
glowed in life,
because they've never been able
to achieve the feeling
in life
that the music gives them.
were masters of music and song,
but they both failed
at mastering life.
on that dreary winter day
in December of '57
would be the last time
they'd ever play and sing together.
and they knew
they were saying goodbye,
saying it to each other
and to the world.
there would be no more
Pres and Lady Day.
