Author: Devra Hall Levy

Taps

So here I am in New York, and this morning had to decide how I was going to travel uptown. I was born and raised in this city, and have been riding subways since I was a child…but not today. As I was heading toward the subway station I began to think about recent events in London, and suddenly I was hailing a taxi cab. Tomorrow I’ll probably take the subway, ’cause I felt rather silly not doing so today, but in a way I was glad for the reminder because it is so easy to go about one’s business without thinking about the horrors taking place in other countries.

Thinking about all the people dying, and recalling the days and weeks following 9/11, made me think of Taps. It is perhaps the most famous of all bugle calls, and is comprised of just 24 notes. I don’t know for sure when I first heard that haunting melody. I keep thinking that it was probably at summer camp signaling ‘lights out’ – the original purpose of the call – or perhaps in an old war movie soundtrack, playing as darkness enveloped the barracks of the good guys. Fond memories aside, my first exposure was most likely while watching television coverage of John F. Kennedy’s funeral – I was barely eight years old. Over the last forty years, the American public has come to know Taps all too well. For many days following 9/11 we heard it several times a day, and now as soldiers and civilians in all corners of the world die at terrorist hands in political and religious wars, I only hope that we never become inured to the sadness that Taps evokes.

Taps, as we know it today, was first sounded in July of 1862 for the Third Brigade, First Division, Fifth Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, under the command of Union General Daniel Butterfield. Its origins are much disputed, and the truth is confounded by verbal accounts that have grown into myth. Master Sgt. Jari A. Villanueva, a longstanding member of the United States Air Force Band and respected bugle historian, traces today’s Taps back to an earlier version of the call Tattoo used “to signal troops to prepare them for bedtime roll call.” In his comprehensive essay that covers the history and the mythology of Taps, Villanueva writes, “In the interest of historical accuracy, it should be noted that it is not General Butterfield who composed Taps, rather that he revised an earlier call into the present day bugle call we know as Taps.”

Other stories of Taps’ origin include a Union Army father finding the musical notes on a slip of paper in the pocket of a dead Confederate soldier…his own son. Villanueva has traced this tall tale back to a Ripley’s “Believe It Or Not” story that was later spread by re-telling in an Ann Landers or Dear Abby column.

Villaneuva also explains the circumstances under which Taps was first used at a military funeral during the Peninsular Campaign in 1862. Captain Tidball, worried that a loud gun volley would alert the enemy nearby, ordered Taps to be played at the burial of a fallen soldier. “The custom, thus originated, was taken up throughout the Army of the Potomac, and finally confirmed by orders.” Taps can be heard as many as thirty times a day at Arlington National Cemetery. Villanueva, himself a bugler, says that this duty “is the military musician’s equivalent of ‘playing Carnegie Hall.’”

“Taps should be played by a lone bugler,” says Colonel Arnald D. Gabriel, Commander and Conductor of the United States Air Force Band from 1964 – 1985. “Some have tried to harmonize it, but it destroys the simplistic beauty of the lone bugler. The most heart tugging time to hear it is at Arlington Cemetery when a veteran is buried and there are no family members present, just the Chaplin, the honor guard and the pallbearers. To hear taps in that setting is gut-wrenching.”

Music is a powerful communicator.

Summer in the City

A mini journalism scandal erupted not long ago when a sports reporter wrote a story about a game he didn’t attend – I don’t remember the details because frankly I thought two things: 1) it was a minor infraction from a well-respected writer and it did not involve any intended deception or fabrication. I think it was more a matter of going with the advance lineup and not hearing about a substitution, or something like that. And 2) I would never do anything like that, even in a pinch. Weeeelll, maybe not, but I came close enough to see how it could happen.

Last night, sitting at home on the left coast, I thought I’d get a head start on today’s blog entry. I figured I knew pretty much how my trip would be, what kind of reception I’d get at this end, so why not write the draft and then edit in a few details if need be and post? It would just take a few minutes that way, and I was bound to be tired.

This is what I wrote last night:

Thanks to JetBlue’s new nonstop service from Burbank to New York, I was spared the hassle of getting to, and through, Los Angeles’ main airport (LAX for short). My flight left at 7 AM, a tad early, even for me who usually arises around 6. My husband was kind enough to drive me to Burbank and we left the house at 5:30 — those of you who know him well know that we arrived in no-time flat. Security was thorough, but less uptight than at LAX, and I had plenty of time for a cup of Starbucks to rev my own engines.

The flight was smooth and I spent the time thumbing through a 400+ page catalogue of the Luther Henderson archives that I will be visiting tomorrow, and at the recommendation of Rifftides, reading The Shadow of the Wind, which I had ordered a few weeks ago and had been saving for this trip.

New Yorkers typically escape the city on summer weekends, and I knew that arriving at JFK on a Sunday afternoon would mean a lot of traffic heading back into the city. Luckily, the taxi fares from JFK into the city are flat rate, and the cab was air conditioned.

I’m not sure who was happier to see me, my mom or Django, who, though four-footed and only 25 pounds, is perfectly capable of knocking me over. (Dad’s still on tour in Europe.) I am posting this from my parent’s living room, using my mom’s computer and cable modem as the library with free wifi is closed on Sundays.

So there you have it. I have arrived and will be blogging from New York for the next two weeks.

And this is what really happened on the way to the airport:
My husband wanted to leave at 5:30 and I was running a few minutes late, no big deal. We got about 3 blocks from home and I realized I forgot my glasses, so back we went. Still nothing to really worry about, with my husband behind the wheel, we only live about 15 minutes from the airport (20 when I drive). We’re cruising along, traffic light and moving swiftly….until we rounded the bend onto the Golden State Freeway and everything came to a complete stop. Nothing was moving at all, and we couldn’t see what was causing the problem. It was five minutes before six, my flight was at seven, and I had luggage to check. I turned on the radio, couldn’t find the traffic report, and realized that it didn’t matter what the cause was — nothing was moving. I got on my cell phone and calmly called the airline to see if there is a later flight, which there was, but showing only one seat open. Should I grab it? I asked about LAX, still not awake enough to remember that Jet Blue does not fly out of LAX. “Four seats on the 10:30 out of Long Beach” the lady was saying just as a few cars began to inch forward. I said “thank you” and hung up. Just a minute longer and the traffic was moving as if nothing had happened. I don’t know whether that got my adrenaline going or stopped my heart. We pulled up to the terminal at ten minutes past the hour, I checked my bag, got through security, and as I apporached the gate, they announced boarding. No Starbucks. Thankfully, the flight was smooth and uneventful. I got throughthe first 300 pages of the archives catalogue, but I haven’t started reading The Shadow of the Wind yet.

My husband always teases me about being outgoing; he says I can get on a elevator and know everybody’s life story before we get to the lobby. He’s right,and I say that you never know who you’ll meet. Just yesterday we hired a building contractor to repair our roof – I met the contractor while on jury duty last year; he had been talking about his company and I liked what I heard and took down his number. I didn’t have any jobs in mind, but you just never know. Anyway, waiting on a long line to get a cab from JFK Airport, I got into a conversation with a fellow ex-New Yorker/California transplant. In a sleeveless tee-shirt and blue shoes, he didn’t look like a litigation attorney, and he had sense of humor, too. Turned out his destination was within about four blocks of where I was headed so we shared a taxi and exchanged email addresses — you never know when you’ll need a good lawyer. The taxi was air-conditioned, but the traffic wasn’t bad at all.

My reception was as anticipated, but now it’s after midnight and I am using my own laptop connecting to the Internet via telephone modem. I never could have imagined today’s events, so it’s a good thing I didn’t post last night’s pre-written account. “One never knows, do one?”

Word Trips

Just about two and a half months ago, my second day on the blog, I mentioned the Internet Anagram Server and shared three of the anagrams derived from DevraDoWrite. (Click here for a reprise.) Today, as I prepare for a two-week trip to the other coast for a mixture of business and pleasure, two more phrases seem particularly apropos. I am truly a Road Wired Vet, ready for virtual action anywhere I go, lugging laptop, palmpilot, digital recorder, digital camera, wireless connector, and myriad cables power sources, and of course, a cell phone. A quick google has provided me with a list of locations with free wi-fi access, so I should have no technological excuse for not blogging. The next blog posting will come from an undisclosed location in big metropolis.

The first few days will be devoted to research for my next book, a biography of Luther Henderson. I will be blogging about Luther as the project progresses, but meanwhile, if you don’t know anything about him, read this brief bio on The African American Registry® website, and then check out this amazing CD (you can listen to some clips online). Don’t, however, pay any attention to the Editorial Review posted by Amazon.com because it lacks both understanding and accuracy. Clearly this guy was not aware that Ellington himself referred to Luther as his classical right arm, that their professional/musical relationship began in the 1940s, and their personal relationship even earlier than that when Luther, just a child, became neighborhood buddies with Duke’s son, Mercer.

It is with increasing frequency, and not a little dismay, that I notice and/or hear about factual inaccuracies created or perpetuated by the media. Just today, my husband sent off a Letter to the Editor at Jazz Times magazine to correct some misstatements in the Wes Montgomery feature. (If they don’t print his letter, I will post it on this blog.) But that is a rant for another day.

After a few days of intensive research in Luther’s personal archives, I will relax and visit with family and friends. On Thursday, July 21, 2005 at 8 PM, I will be at the 92nd Street Y (1395 Lexington Avenue) to hear a concert: Jazz Legacy – Portrait of Jim Hall, featuring Peter Bernstein, Bill Charlap, Terry Clarke, Tom Harrell, Steve LaSpina, Joe Lovano, and Strings. (The Box Office telephone number is 212-415-5500 — I heard tickets are going fast.)

By the time I cross back to the left coast and get home on Sunday, I am likely to wish that I had Arrived Towed.

The Sound of Silence

“A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.” ~Leopold Stokowski

“Talking is like playing on the harp; there is as much in laying the hands on the strings to stop their vibration as in twanging them to bring out their music.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

“The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint.” ~ Marianne Moore

“Jazz on a String”

About a month ago, I shared an email from Los Angeles Times writer Don Heckman. In part, he wrote:

…writing an attack is easy, and sometimes it’s the appropriate thing to do. But writing something which points out problems with possible solutions is much harder and, I believe, demands more of one’s writing skill.

I admire his position, but there are times when I feel the public would be better served by his powers of critical thinking and his years of musical experience. Monday was one such time. Don and I both attended the sixth annual Instrumental Women’s show, “Jazz on a String” this past Saturday at the Ford Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, and as my husband put it, “you two must have seen different shows.”

Don’s review opens with “An array of first-rate talent showed up…” but he never mentions that they could not be properly heard due to poor sound (a deficiency either of the sound system or the engineers) that turned the 18-piece string section into mud. And perhaps it was the chilled night air that troubled the strings’ ability to stay in tune. He describes Lesa Terry’s solos as “briskly swinging, jazz-driven” and mentions Cheryl Keyes “inventive flute soloing and dark-toned vocal,” but does that mean they were good? Lori Andrews “demonstrated a remarkable capacity to produce blues-bent improvised lines,” but to what end? Phyllis Battle may have been ebullient, but was she in good voice?

The two performances that he found “most intriguing” were Nedra Wheeler and the string octet from the Pasadena Young Musicians Orchestra. They were my favorites, too. I’ve written about Nedra before, and one of the things I love about her is that she embodies the music, she is jazz, and it comes through her playing and vocals, as well as her stage presence. The eight pretty high school violinists have a long way to go, but they played well on Lesa Terry’s arrangement of Horace Silver’s “The Preacher.”

Don’s only serious criticism was “the far too many announcements and introductions,” and he concludes, “It was, in sum, a fine evening of music.” I feel that while it was an entertaining evening, musically it was far from excellent.

Duke Ellington used to say that there are only two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. Arts education is virtually nonexistant in our schools, so it is up to the critics to inform John Q Audience that musical pyrotechniques do not mean that the music is good. Contrary to popular opinion as observed in myriad audience responses — opinion I suspect is largely based in ignorance — playing fast, bending notes, and changing keys does not make a musician a virtuoso. And singers who use over-the-top vocal tricks, growling and shouting, have forsaken the art of the song. A concert may be entertaining, and there is value in that, but does that mean the music was good? I think not.

And by the way…

Check out the Rifftides blog of Doug Ramsey. Maybe I’ll try to rev up my engines with his recipe (see the Food section under Doug’s Picks).

Add plenty of walnuts to a cup of yogurt and drizzle the honey over the top. I like to add raisins and mix it all together. My wife finds the mixing esthetically objectionable. Either way, it works, and it tastes terrific.

What I want to know is, what works? Is it adding the raisins, or that his wife finds it esthetically objectionable?

Missing In Action

Technological glitches, downed laptop, desktop mail snafus, telephone recording device used during interviews dies minutes before an important interview… if I didn’t know better, I’d say gremlins had invaded my office. Add in your basic case of overload mixed with mild panic and you have a picture of my unproductive day. I’ll be back tomorrow.

Patriotic Jazzmen

I am continually amazed by the number of legendary jazz musicians who have served our country, in uniform, carrying instruments in lieu of weapons. Music has the power to break barriers, be they barriers of geography, ideology, religion, or other discriminations.

Prior to 1920 (when more than one thousand warrant officer positions were authorized and their jobs expanded to include clerical, administrative, and band leading activities), military musicians were either enlisted men or commissioned officers — and none were black. Expanding the role warrant officers allowed the military to recruit superior musicians who were not otherwise qualified for officer status.

Racial integration has historically been a piece-meal operation, in or out of the military. It was through music that President Roosevelt found one way to elevate the status of black men in the Navy. Before World War II, blacks in the Navy were mess men or stewards, boot blacks or stokers. Through the Great Lakes Experience (1942-1945), the US Navy recruited 5,000 black musicians and trained them as bandsmen at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois. This act added dimension to the great history of the Navy Band Great Lakes, which was founded in 1917 by Lieutenant Commander John Philip Sousa.

My husband, John Levy, a jazz bassist living in Chicago, might have been one of the Great Lakes recruits, but he was not. In December of 1941, he was on the road again with the Cabin Boys, this time headed for Warren, Ohio. He was en route one Sunday, listening to the car radio, when he heard that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. “Everybody in those days was feeling patriotic, and I was no exception,” he remembers. “There were role models in my family. My Uncle Johnny, Mama’s oldest brother, had fought in the Spanish-American War. Then years later, Uncle Sherman was one of the 300,000 blacks who fought in WWI.” John wanted to join the Army Signal Corps, so when he got back to Chicago, he took lessons and scored high, 98.2 on the test. A few months later he was called for an appointment, but when he got there they refused to accept him, despite his high score. “We don’t take niggers in the Signal Corps,” they told him.

That experience left a scar and killed his desire to enlist, but it did not hamper his feelings of patriotism, nor did it stop him from supporting the war effort or entertaining the troops. Several years ago, while writing his biography, I discovered a letter from the United States Treasury Department thanking him for his “efforts in furthering the sale of War Bonds and Stamps,” probably a thank you for his participation in the War Bond Jam Session in the Mayfair Room of Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel. The letter was dated April 1944, and was addressed to him in care of the Garrick Stagebar where he had a steady gig playing bass with the Stuff Smith Trio. One day the trio went to the Navy base to entertain. “The Great Lakes Navy Band with Willie Smith, Ernie Royal and Clark Terry also played that day,” John reminisces. “That band had great musicians, guys we didn’t get to hear often around town.”

In a 1978 interview posted on the Jazz Institute of Chicago’s web site, trumpeter Clark Terry told Charles Walton, “When we finished our boot camp we received our ratings, which was displayed by having a lyre sown on our sleeve. To see a Black man in a United States Navy with a lyre on his sleeve instead of a C, which meant cook, was quite an oddity.”

Many of those musicians went on to have stellar musical careers after their military service. A few years ago, The Great Lakes Naval Training Center celebrated the 60th anniversary of “The Great Lakes Experience of World War II,” and paid tribute to the Navy’s first black musicians. Clark Terry was there, along with composer/bandleader Gerald Wilson. Both men have earned more honors and awards than either can count. My husband and I saw both of them together at a January 2004 gathering of National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters. Gerald Wilson received a Jazz Master award in 1990 and Clark Terry got his in 1991.

My father’s musical experience vis a vis racial bias has been from the opposite end – he was “the white guy” in the celebrated Chico Hamilton Quintet back in 1955. And with the Sonny Rollins quintet he was “the white guy” featured on the legendary album titled The Bridge. People have asked him about his experiences and he refuses to see it as black and white. He views music as a way of bonding people together and crossing barriers, be they barriers of geography, ideology, religion, or other discriminations. He is also an NEA Jazz Master (2004), and in his acceptance speech he said, “The women and men who have received this award in the past have spread peace and love throughout the world, something that governments might emulate. I am pleased to be one of the peacemakers.”

If music is the language of humanity, then every musician, in or out of uniform, will be a peacemaker, musical instruments will be standard issue, and wars will be resolved diplomatically, in concert.

F Sharp

Where is Django’s guitar? The Epiphone that Django Reinhart played when touring the US with Duke Ellington was given to Cleveland-born guitarist Fred Sharp by Django’s son, Babik, in 1985. (The story of Django’s Epiphone, a 1946 Zephyr #3442, can be read here.)

The two guitarsts, Fred and Babik, were brought together in 1967 by Charles Delaunay, noted French critic, Django biographer, and founder of Jazz Hot magazine. (Jazz Hot, started in 1935, may be the oldest jazz magazine in the world.) Fred has written about Babik here and about Delauney here.

I met Charles Delauney when I was 16 years old. I was in France with a teen travel group called The Experiment in International Living, and after spending a few weeks living with a farming family in the Jura Mountains where I learned how to milk cows and bale hay, the Americans and one similarly aged family member from each of the host families took a bus trip all the way down to Nice. Riding down the Promenade des Anglais in the bus I saw huge posters everywhere heralding Le Grande Parade du Jazz, the festival produce by George Wein. To make a long story a little shorter (you’ll have to wait for my memoir for all the details), I ran into Ed Thigpen who arranged for me to see that night’s show, and it was there, listening to Ella Fitzgerald, that I met Delauney. When he learned that I would be in Paris about a week later, he said to call, which I did, and that led to a delightful afternoon at Versailles followed by une crème glacée at a lovely little cafe.

Google led me to an article about Delauney titled Magnificent Obsession: The Discographers, by Jerry Atkins. It seems that the first discographies almost simultaneously sprang into being in 1936 — in Melody Maker (a British weekly), Dalauney’s Hot Discographie (in Paris), and Hugues Pannassié’s Hot Jazz (in the US) — but Atkins writes, “Charles Delaunay is probably the father of discographical format as we know it today. ”

But geting back to Fred, who has played and recorded with Pee Wee Russell, Mugsy Spanier, Miff Mole, Red Norvo, and Jack Teagarden, among others. It was Fred who, in 1946, sent a young songwriter named Joe Bari to pitch his song to Frankie Laine. Bari sang the song for Laine, who said, “What do you need me for? You sing great!” There’s more to this story written up by Joe Mosbrook, but Bari later became famous as Tony Bennett.

Fred also happened to be Jim Hall’s first guitar teacher. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Fred in person (he lives in Florida now), but we do exchange occassional emails. About a month ago he wrote:

When I first moved to Sarasota in 1990, I started teaching guitar ( a big mistake) at Gottuso’s Music Shop. I had a young man, about 15 or 16 come to me and asked if he could study with me. I told him, “I only teach Jazz”, to which he replied, “Oh…I already took that!”

Music On The Brain

I have long been curious about how and/or why music causes various visceral reactions. I wonder, for example, why is it that modulating keys gives one a lift. In search of some answers, I am reading Music, The Brain, and Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination by Robert Jourdain. (This is not a new book; first published in 1997, and the paperback reissued by Quill in 2002.) Jourdain’s explainations evolve from sounds… to tone…to melody…to harmony…to rhythm…to composition…to performance…to listening…to understanding…to ecstasy, and his ten chapters are so named. I haven’t reached ecstasy yet — I’m only as far as rhythm — but here are a few interesting tidbits (the italics are mine):

“Laboratory studies show that untrained adults discern contour almost as well as profesional musicians. So contour is central to our experience of melody.” Harmony, or “melody in flight” is a required dimension to hearing melody, as is rhythm. “Some musicologists have described harmony as music’s third dimension, its depth dimension (with breadth of time and the height of pitch space as the first two dimensions).”

“Harmony needs dissonance just like a good story needs suspense…Only after lengthy expeditions in other harmonic realms, realms that orbit lesser tonal centers, is the listener granted release from his agony. Inferior composers make quick, perfunctory returns to tonal centers, or travel so far from them that the listener hardly recognizes them when finally brought home. The trick is to find just the right balance between reinforcing tonal centers and violating them.”

“With experience, our brains acquire a vocabulary of these common progressions…Halfway through hearing them, we anticipate their endings. They are musical cliches. But a talented composer can take advantage of this fact by encouraging the listener to anticipate a standard ending yet writing something different. When the chord anticipated and the chord actually heard are aptly chosen, the contrast can be blissully excruciating.”