Music and Political Agita

One thing both Biden and Trump voters seem to agree on is that there’s a lot at stake in this election. The degree of partisanship itself signals how much everyone is worried about the results. Of course, the more partisan you are, the more likely you are to believe that only your side has due cause for concern. The degree to which you accept the idea that someone on the other side has a right to be concerned is the degree to which you accept them as fully human. If you can take a breath and step back from this combative environment, you’ll see there’s kind of an ironic symmetry in this situation and that there are probably emotions that people on both sides are experiencing. 

There may not be a lot of overlap in the musical tastes of Biden and Trump adherents, but music does address at least some of the emotions at play. I’ve been experiencing a complex and wearisome welter of emotions and have tried to choose some tunes that reflect the way this is playing out in my gut. I hope some of it resonates with you and that after this near-civil war, music will offer a way for us to find some common ground.

Chet Baker Vocals: A New Emotional Space

There were a lot of transitions and innovations in pop and jazz singing during the 1950's. Some of these were triggered by technology-tape recording/editing, hi fi, stereo, new microphones and the long playing record (LP). Other transitions reflected innovations in arranging and instrumentation and the movement of "race music" into the mainstream via rock and roll. Leaving aside innovators in blues, R&B and rock and roll, there were two musicians who effected changes in vocal jazz and pop: Frank Sinatra and yes, Chet Baker.

Frank Sinatra and his arrangers Billy May and Nelson Riddle in "In the Wee Small Hours" (1955) and "Songs for Swingin' Lovers!" (1956) bridged a popular music gap and showed that songs could swing and still deliver an intimate romantic message. 

Chet Baker's style of singing on "Chet Baker Sings" (1954) finished off what Bing Crosby started. Crosby had initiated the movement from "hot" to "cool," as he taught singers how to use the microphone. But, even though Bing's style was relatively laid back, he still used "hot" techniques like vibrato, slurs and small ornamentations to "sell" the tune. This continued to be the standard, but Baker took it a step further, either eliminating or dramatically taking down the heat of these techniques. Also, in the range and timbre of his voice, he did not sound as a man singing was supposed to. Given the negative response by fellow musicians, friends and critics, it took some guts for Baker to continue to sing.

Louis Prima

Baker was one in a long line of trumpet players who sang. Louis Armstrong, Jabbo Smith, Roy Eldridge, Bunny Berigan, Louis Prima, Hot Lips Page and Dizzy Gillespie all sang well. They thought of themselves as entertainers, liked to sing and were happy to give their chops a break. Berigan's style was lighter, but even after he had a hit with "I Can't Get Started," he almost always deferred to a band singer and just played. The rest of those guys sang with a ballsier approach, sometimes ironic or sly, often bluesy. Armstrong always sang romantic tunes, but I hear an artfulness that separates the singer from the object of his affection and the song itself becomes the object. He did sing with great tenderness in the last phase of his career. Baker's singing was the first in this lineage that said out loud: "This is what it means to be vulnerable." 

Baker's trumpet playing was not unique. It was distinguishable from but similar to the playing of others active at that time, like Jack Sheldon, Don Fagerquist, Don Joseph, Tony Fruscella and John Eardley. Of these, only Jack Sheldon also sang. His voice was better than Baker's, but his singing style ranged from cooing drollness to belting. To Sheldon, romantic meant sexy, while Chet was never so indiscreet, or overt. His sexiness was hidden below layers of romanticism and self-protection. 

Jimmy Scott

Rhythmically and in note choice, Baker's singing paralleled his playing. But the fragility, tremulousness and high tenor range of his voice amplified the vulnerable quality of the music. The only voice like it belonged to (Little) Jimmy Scott, who had a hit in 1950 with Lionel Hampton's "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" and who showed up in the same year with Charlie Parker, singing "Embraceable You," but Scott sang with all of the heat that Baker eschewed.

Reading about Baker's foray into singing is like wading into a critical abattoir. Almost no one liked it-musicians, friends or critics. 

There are conflicting stories about how Baker's vocals got recorded. Some say he demanded it and that owner of the Pacific jazz label Dick Bock balked. Others say that Bock wanted it and Baker resisted. Either way, it seems to be true that Baker's inexperience(or ineptitude) made for innumerable retakes, marathon sessions and a lot of audio cutting and pasting. 

Two things were not subject to criticism. One was his phrasing, which rhythmically paralleled his playing. The second was his scatting note choice, which reflected the melodic gift he shows in his trumpet solos.

There was a lot of criticism about his singing out of tune. I'm pretty sensitive to people staying in tune and I don't hear the problem very much, except on some held notes-the hardest to sing in tune and beyond his vocal support system.

Critics blasted his lack of affect, saying his singing lacked emotional weight. Much was made about the girlish, non-masculine quality of his voice. Often this critique was accompanied by an analysis of Baker's life choices-drug use and callousness toward women. People want the artist's life to reflect directly the qualities they find in the art and positive and negative projections about Baker were off the charts. He was worshipped and reviled. Some thought he sang (and looked) like an angel. Others saw him nod out or act like a cad and heard that in the music. 

What I think made critics most uncomfortable is that Baker didn't sing like a man. I've heard people ask, when they heard Baker sing, whether that was a man or a woman. One can only imagine how many such comments were passed in the day. For most of its history, jazz has been a macho culture. Sexual ambiguity or gay-ness were subjects of derision. Chet was heterosexual, but for him to sing the way he did was almost to "come out." Of course, Baker wasn't consciously making a political-sexual point. When he responded to interviewers who challenged his masculinity, he made certain to reaffirm that he liked girls, not "fellers."

Moving from being just a trumpet player to becoming a jazz vocalist/leading man, seeing the response it got from critics and especially from fellow musicians, cannot have been easy. Baker may or may not have been using heavy drugs before "Chet Baker Sings," but there's no doubt that he became more deeply enmeshed in heroin and speed during this period. It's not a big stretch to think that drugs and the incredibly strong response by women to his singing helped Baker weather the brickbats and continue to sing. 

It's appropriate that his most famous vocal tune is "My Funny Valentine." In this Rodgers and Hart tune, we have a psychic match between performer and song. This is a song that spells out the imperfections of the lover ("is your figure less than greek, is your mouth a little weak, when you open it to speak are you smart"). Look at the title itself-my "funny" valentine; not that the lover is funny/humorous, but funny as in-how did this happen-how did I end up with someone like you. This is love as mystery, song as mystery, sung by a musician whose life was lived publicly, but who was a mystery. Yes, we know the biographical facts of Baker's life, but the inner life was shrouded in layers of romanticism and self-protection.

It's difficult to show the influence Baker had, as he didn't overtly inspire a generation of male singers. Most tenor-range jazz vocalists remained more beholden to older approaches. Jimmy Scott, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Mose Allison, Oscar Brown, Jr., Mark Murphy, Jackie Paris and Sammy Davis, Jr. were all much "hotter" singers. 

But I contend that Chet Baker changed the "field" and in so doing influenced these singers. He brought the ethos of cool to a kind of climax by moving into territory that had once belonged only to female vocalists and opened up the emotional space to show vulnerability; a space that male singers had previously shied away from and which they were now more likely to inhabit. 

Ironic that Chet Baker, who created such distance between himself from others was able to transmute this distance into a kind of intimacy that had rarely, if ever, been expressed in the pop-jazz male voice.

Holiday Head-Spinner

Have a jazz/R&B/funk/soul/gospel trip through the holidays on the 

Duplex Mystery Jazz Hour, WZBC.ORG, 12.22.2016.

LISTEN HERE
 
PLAYLIST

Paul Bley "Santa Clause Is Comin' to Town" (1953), on Debut
 
Dave McKenna "Jingle Bells" from "Christmas Party-Holiday Piano Spiked With Swing" (1997), on Concord
 
Ray Charles "Winter Wonderland" from "Spirit of Christmas" (1956) on MGM
 
Charlie Parker "White Christmas" from "Live at Royal Roost" (1948) on Savoy
 
Charles Brown "Christmas in Heaven" from "Christmas in Heaven" (1965) on Jewel Records
 
Eyal Vilner Big Band "Sevivon" from "Hanukkah - EP" (2016) on Eyal Vilner Big Band

Joe Pass "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" from "Joe Pass - Six String Santa" (1992) on LaserLight Digital ‎

Louis Armstrong "Twas the Night before Christmas" (1971) on Continental

Amos Milburn "Let's Make Christmas Merry, Baby"(1948) on Aladdin
 
Frank Sinatra "Let It Snow" from "Christmas Songs" (1948), on Columbia
 
Joseph Spence "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" from "Living On The Hallelujah Side" (1980) on Rounder
 
The Soul Saints Orchestra "Santa's Got A Bag Of Soul" (1994) on Hot Pie and Candy records
 
Charles Brown "Merry Christmas Baby" from "Cool Christmas Blues" (1984), on Bullseye Blues

Fats Domino "Jingle Bells" from "Christmas is a Special Day" (2006), on Cap
 
Otis Redding "White Christmas" (1967) on Atco
 
The Blind Boys Of Alabama "Last Month Of The Year" from "Go Tell it on the Mountain" (2008), on Real World
 
Clarence Carter "Back Door Santa"  (1968) on Atlantic

Vince Guaraldi "Christmas Time Is Here" from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965) on Fantasy

Funk Machine "Soul Santa" (1973) on Creative Funk

Ella Fitzgerald "The Christmas Song" from "A Swinging Christmas" (1960) on Verve
 
John Coltrane Quartet "Greensleeves" from "Africa Brass" (1961) on Impulse
 
Chet Baker "Joy To The World" from "A Christmas Jazz Album" (1997) on Dinemec Jazz
 
Duke Pearson "Wassail Song" from "Merry Old Soul" (1965) on Blue Note
 
Wynton Marsalis "We Three Kings" from "Crescent City Christmas Card" (1989) on Columbia  

Louis Armstrong "Cool Yule" from "Louis Armstrong With The Commanders" (1953), on Decca
 
Fats Waller "Swingin' Them Jingle Bells" (1936) on Victor
 
Dianne Reeves "Christmas Waltz" from "Christmas Time is Here" (2004) on Blue Note
 
Ray Charles "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" from "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (2009), on Concord

10 Ballads (Almost) No One Sings

Most of the best ballads are covered endlessly, but somehow, a few beauties have managed to slip the noose and have not been ground into dust by endless repetition.

I realize a post like this is like a person giving away a person's favorite secret swimming hole, but I know my elite and discreet readership can keep a secret.

I have ordered them from what I think are the most to the least recorded.













The song itself is sandwiched in between very non-ballad sounds and starts about 4:00 in

AUTUMN AND BALLADS

It's fall. Linger in the splendors of maple, ash and birch. It may help you infuse winter's stark chiaroscuro with some warmth. For those who are not graced with a vista of changing foliage, I've interspersed a few samples.

Ella


Sinatra

VIsiting the Abel Meeropol Archive

Abel Meeropol, under the pen name of Lewis Allan, was the composer of the song "Strange Fruit." I'm producing an animation about the amazing story of the song's creation and its linkage to Billie Holliday, so it was a natural to pay a visit to the Howard Gottlieb Archival Center at Boston University, where his papers are stored. 

An internet search will easily get you biographical details of Meeropol's life, but in this post, my aim is to give you a sense of how these documents brought me closer to the person.


Read and see more.

The Edge of Schmaltz

Schmaltz-easy to say, but how do we really define it? Where does it lay along the slippery border between cheese, camp, marginal taste, pathos, bathos and emotional catharsis?  Is the very use of the word cringe-inducing? Not to me. One era's hip is often another era's schmaltz. Sometimes there's great musicianship involved. Is that enough to rescue the song or not? Sometimes the musicians are amateurish, but through sheer dint of sincerely, a hoary tune or corny lyric works. In one mood, a song sets your teeth on edge and in another mood, you reach for the handkerchief. 

Some of the folks in this playlist will be no surprise, some may bemuse and some annoy, but that's my job. 

Here's The Show.

Blue Stars "Hernando´s Hideaway" from "Jazz in Paris" (1955) on Barclay 

Ziggy Elman and His Orchestra "With a Song in My Heart" from "Dancing With Zig" (1950) on MGM 

Sarah Vaughn "Jim" from "w. Clifford Brown" (Jazz, 1954) on EmArcy  

Andre Previn "Mad About The Boy" from "Previn at the Piano" (1958) on RCA 

Cannonball Adderly "Shake a Lady" from "Domination" (1965) on Capital 

Chet Baker "Time After Time" from "Time After Time" (2002) on GFS 

Sam The Man Taylor "Tara's Theme" from "Blue Mist" (1955) on MGM 

Johnny Hartman "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart" from "Sings" (1947) on Savoy 

Lena Horne "Beale St Blues" from "Swinging Lena Horne" (1962) on Coronet 

Matt Dennis "A Trout No Doubt" from "Saturday Date" (1957) on Tops 

Errol Garner "April In Paris" from "Concert By the Sea" (1956) on Philips 

Frank Sinatra "Autumn in New York" from "That Old Feeling" (1956) on Columbia 

Earl Hines "Why Must We Part" from ". . . And His Orchestra" (1933) on Jazz Archives 

Esperanza Spaulding "Precious" from "Esperanza Spaulding" (2008) on Heads Up 

Freddie Hubbard "I Got It Bad (And That ain't Good)" from "The Body and The Soul" (1963) on Impulse 

Bobby Hackett "Stairway to The Stars" from "Dream Awhile" (1961) on Columbia 

The "Chick Singer" Phenomenon

My whole musical life, I've heard snide comments about "chick singers." Maybe the level of enmity jazz instrumentalists harbor toward vocalists doesn't quite rise to that between the Houses of York and Lancaster, but there is definitely something there.

War of the Roses

Mostly the battle is carried out sub rosa-among the boys-and anecdotes are few in the jazz history I've read. Buddy Rich and Frank Sinatra exchanging blows and engaging in various forms of mutual psychological torture in the Dorsey band in the 1940's doesn't stand as a fair example, as it involves two of the biggest egomaniacs in the history of jazz/popular music. Also, while sex no doubt played a part there, it's heterosexual sex that keys this story. Seems like where there's smoke, jazz and sex, there's always been fire.

There's a thesis online by Ariel Ann Alexander with reasons why female participation as instrumentalists in jazz is limited. Many subjects of her study note that band members seem more interested in hitting on them than in playing with them. They also note faculty members who tried to steer women away from playing instruments toward singing and generally tried to get them to tart themselves up for performance. Sexual harassment by teachers was also widely noted.

So, lust is a touchstone. The other 7 deadly sins I'm accusing jazz musicians of (at least in this post), are pride and envy.

In previous posts I have tried to make a case for the importance of vocals in sustaining jazz. My premise is that, while instrumentalists can be credited with the major musical advances, there is a feedback loop with singers. And, that vocalists and instrumentalists who sing have consistently connected with larger numbers of people. With rare exceptions, even the most gifted jazz instrumentalists would have been hard-pressed to sustain their careers without in some way working with or on the same bill as vocalists.

Jazz musicians may not have parsed it out this consciously, but their egos know it even if they don't.

One way to defuse this emasculating predicament is to reduce women vocalists to second class citizens and the easiest way to do this is to reduce them to sexual objects-or at least "the other" and not worthy of a hang with the boys. Nothing has changed, of course. You've simply wrapped your self-delusion around a flimsy sexual chimera, which you then try to project onto someone who has probably invested as much sweat equity in her art as you have in yours.

I understand the problem. Thousands of hours wrestling with your horn, you think, entitles you to something. Well, no. It entitles some geniuses (not even all), to something, but not to you and me. It entitles you to play and maybe to a few bucks. If you get a fortune cookie that predicts a ticker tape parade down Broadway, ignore it.

I've been tough on us jazz guys, but we are not really loathsome creatures. No more than most. Some of us may take the more arthritic aspects of jazz mythology too seriously and that doesn't help, but we can be very generous people. So suck it up, guys and relax. Man or woman, our trip on this paper moon sails over the same cardboard sea.