Category: This ‘n’ That

miscellanea

Let Me Off Uptown

Tomorrow’s edition of “Jazz From the Archives” on WBGO radio features jazz vocalist Anita O’Day. You’ll hear tracks from O’Day’s 1952-62 work (thought by some to be her best recording years) on the Clef and Verve labels, with such arrangers as Russell Garcia, Jimmy Giuffre, Bill Holman, Quincy Jones, Johnny Mandel, Billy May, and Gary McFarland, plus small groups led by Gene Harris, Roy Kral, Oscar Peterson, and Cal Tjader.

Way back when, in my NYC hanging days (that would be about 30 years ago) I got to hear Ms. O’Day quite a bit in person at Michael’s Pub, an upscale room on East 55th street. Norman Simmons was her pianist then and I loved every minute of it. In those days I also used to go over to Jimmy Ryans club where Roy Eldridge ‘s group was in residence (Dick Katz on piano, Major Holley on bass, Eddie Locke on drums) and the standard repertoire always included Roy’s imitation of Anita singing “Let Me Off Uptown.” (here’s the original version)

“Jazz From the Archives” featuring Anita O’Day airs tomorrow, Sunday, March 18, from 11 p.m. to midnight, Eastern Daylight Time.

Affirmative

I have long had mixed feelings about events, awards, competitions, clubs, schools…that are segregated, i.e. that are solely for the benefit of one group to the exclusion of others. Separation based on race or age or sex or religion or whatever feels divisive and exclusionary. On the other hand, there are many good reasons to reach out to a specific narrowly focused group. Some will argue that disenfranchised groups need targeted opportunities to receive services and benefits to which they would not otherwise have access. Others will argue that two wrongs don’t make a right and will point to individuals who have found the ways and means to achieve their goals regardless.

It’s been awhile since affirmative action was a hot news topic, so why am I talking about it now? I just received an email and flyer from one of my writing mentors. Marita Golden saw a lack of institutional resources in the African American community dedicated to supporting creative writing either as an artistic expression or a professional endeavor. So she and a colleague created the Hurston/Wright Foundation to discover, develop, and honor Black writers. Now she was writing to announce a new Writers’ Week Workshop to take place in Washington DC in July, where an international community of Black writers will meet in a nurturing/safe space to discuss their work, its meaning, and unique aesthetic.

I’ve been debating with myself about whether or not I want to help them spread the word. I decided in the affirmative. Recognizing that such a unique aesthetic exists and should be nurtured, explored, developed and understood is a good reason for selective inclusion and therefore something I can support as an outsider. Plus they are offering a special tuition-free track for high school students, and I’m all for nurturing young writers. So if you know any aspiring African-American writers in high-school, please tell them about this opportunity. (Info and application details are here)

March Madness?

I just came across this quote in the February 2007 issue of The Writer magazine:

“I can’t write quickly. If I could write a book a year and maintain the same quality, I’d be happy. I’d love to write a book a year, but I don’t think I’d have any fans.” Donna Tartt, as quoted in the London Sunday Times

I’ve seen the work of many a hack who publishes pounds of fish-wrap in short order, but there are those writers — and bloggers — who can, and do, churn out what seems to me to be massive amounts of high-quality prose in short time-frames. (TT comes to mind.) I am not so consistent, though when I know what I want to say it does come more quickly and with greater ease. My delays are usually caused by a slow-down in thinking more so than hand-cramps. Either I haven’t worked “it” out yet or I haven’t even had time to think about it. When it comes to blogging, it is usually the latter.

Were I to dare call my writings “art,” I might invoke these words by Glenn Gould

“The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.” — from his 1962 essay Let’s Ban Applause!

implying that gradual construction might apply to the creation as well as the resultant experience.

In any case, I am sorry to be so often missing-in-action from the blogosphere, but it’s certainly not for laziness or lack of interest. I think about it daily and often dash off the beginning lines of a post or file away a note of interest for later…then later gets delayed. I also keep intending, and forgetting, to respond to blog comments. I’m not sure, though, whether I should respond with a comment myself, or in a new post. So here are a few aggregated thoughts:

1) In a post about Erroll Garner I excerpted John’s story about playing on Erroll’s very first recording. I distinctly remember someone commenting that the album John spoke of was not Erroll’s “first recording”, and not even the first with John playing bass with him. I can’t for the life of me find the posted comment (maybe it was removed by the sender) or perhaps it was email that I can’t find, but I did intend to answer it. The sender (I don’t remember who it was) made reference to an earlier recording in connection with Timme Rosenkrantz. According to John, who qualifies as a primary source, after hours lots of musicians would hang out at Timme and Inez’s home, jamming. Some may have been aware at the time, others not, that Timme was taping them, but they certainly weren’t “making a record” for release. So while someone mayhave captured Erroll on tape before then, it is John’s opinion that Erroll Garner’s first intended, or official, or professional recording was made for Savoy Records on September 25, 1945.

2) Under the Art & Music post about Ted Nash’s new suite, my mother commented that back in 1993 my dad recorded “Dedications and Inspirations,” a CD with three pieces inspired by Miro, Matisse, and Monet. True, but Dad does not claim to be the first. While interesting, published discogrphies are not always 100% accurate. I do not own, nor have I heard, any of the following, so I share these results of a quick discographic database search with the usual caveat lector warning.

— a 1968 recording by Astrud Gilberto with unknown accompaniment with the title “Lillies by Monet”
— German pianist Siegfried Kessler’s 1976 recording Les Mots Sont De La Musique that includes “La femme en blue d’Henri Matisse”
— a 1987 solo piano recording titled “Water Lilies: Richie Beirach Plays Musical Portraits Of Claude Monet”
— “Homage To Joan Miro” by the Emil Viklicky Quartet recorded in Prague, 1987
— Slalom, a 1988 recording by Jane Ira Bloom with Fred Hersch in piano that includes two tracks “Painting over Paris” and “Miro”  

Tangentially, I’d like to add that I have long been fascinated by the interplay of the arts, especially artists who themselves are multi-talented, people like Tony Bennett and Miles Davis.  And not just musician/painters, works by actor/painters such as Martin Mull, Richard Chamberlain, Gene Hackman, and Sylvester Stallone have also been sold at charity auctions and at galleries.

3) In Your Eye would have been the title of my response to TT’s first posting from Los Angeles. I had planned to tell him that the majority of us who live in what is loosely called L.A. do not live in any of the places he mentioned — many live “in town” which includes the Wilshire district and the increasingly popular downtown L.A., but even more of us live in other towns, from San Pedro to Pasadena, to Thousand Oaks and beyond. I also wanted him to know that in my nearly 30 years of living out here on the left Coast I have never, ever, dined at an In-N-Out Burger, and I set foot in Westwood as seldom as possible. So when he writes, “I’d say that was a real Los Angeles evening, wouldn’t you?” I would have to reply, “not hardly.”

I’d call my disappearing act March Madness but it’s been going on for months now and, as I steadfastly refuse to give up on trying to multi-task, it may be a persistent on-again off-again condition. If you’re reading this, it means that you have been hanging in there with me, for which I thank you very much.  (Of course, you could be a brand new reader of DevraDoWrite and I may have just scared you off….).  I’ll be back as soon, and as often, as I can.

On the air now

Just this moment received an email from old school chum Denardo Coleman. Yup, the drumming son of Ornette and I went to elementary and high school together. He just heard my dad and Ornette on the radio:

Every year radio station WKCR here in NY does a 24 hour ornette birthday broadcast, you can hear it today. Just heard your dad with him. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/wkcr/

Check it out.

I recently heard or read that the cost of internet radio fees was going to be so high as to be unaffordable to the broadcasters, so listen now, while we still can.

Thoughts upon awaking this morning

Did I choose the wrong metier? — I am a writer and as such my medium is the printed word. I am a biographer, charged with bringing people to life on the printed page. But even as I am in the midst of researching the Luther Henderson biography and writing People On The Page, a book about the process and nature of writing biographies, I have become mesmerized by multimedia, intrigued by video podcasts. Indeed I am becoming jealous of those whose have what I perceive to be the luxury of using audio and visual components in crafting their pieces.

Yesterday I watched online a new podcast created by Bret Primack for Sonny Rollins’ website. Bret does not have to struggle to find the words with which to describe Sonny’s intensity, or his warmth, or his prowess, when you can see and hear and feel it for yourself. Now don’t get me wrong — I know that what Bret does is not easy. Scripting, shooting, directing, producing films of any length is its own art form with it’s own dilemmas and challenges…I wish I knew how to do what he does so well! I remember too my reaction to the NPR radio piece that Sara Fishko did about John in January of last year — it was so good that it brought tears to my eyes and I told Sara then that I was in awe of her ability to distill someone’s very essence into the space of only several minutes. Her audio-only segment had, in my opinion, more emotional depth than the NEA’s very excellent biographical video clip about John, so clearly it’s not the added media component alone that makes the difference.

I am what I am, and will comfort myself with the thought that perhaps, on occasion, one of my finely-crafted sentences will evoke the envy of a videographer…the grass IS always greener, isn’t it?

I also awoke thinking about ways in which I can explore and incorporate the parallels between the work of a psychotherapist and that of a biographer — not only the reconstruction of a life, but also the nature of the relationship between biographer and subjects/sources and the complexities of transference and counter-transference. While in NY earlier this month I was telling a psychoanalyst friend about People On The Page and she said “hmmm, that’s a lot like the work that I do.” Then a few nights ago I had a conversation with a writer friend who is also a therapist and he agreed that there were similarities between the work of therapist and biographer. Okay, this is not a giant revelation; apparently it was not even a new thought to me, but one that had slipped my mind. So, just to be sure I was paying attention, the universe sent me another reminder message yesterday. While reviewing my note files, I came across an excerpted quote taken from an August 2000 newspaper article, “Writing from the Heart but Drawing on the Mind,” about novelist Amy Bloom. She said, “Some of the traits that led me to be a psychotherapist are the ones I find in myself as a writer. I’ve spent a lot of time listening to people, and I’m endlessly intrigued by relationships, particularly the gap between what people say and what they truly feel, and the gap between what they do and what they really want.” One might be able to ignore a one-two punch, but this thought has now come up three times in ten days, so I had best pay attention.

Another related thought has also reached my consciousness — with my mother being an analyst and my father a jazz musician, I am following in my parents’ footsteps as a biographer of jazz artists. Hmmmm….

Through Their Eyes

A few years ago, while in Washington, DC, I met a young photographer named Shawn Davis at a showing of some of his work shot in Cuba. It was the first time I ever bought a work of art directly from the artist, and, I believe, the first time I ever bought a photographic work of art (posters and museum prints in my younger days don’t count). Periodically I receive an email from Shawn and I am pleased to share with you news of his latest project — Visual Griots of Mali: African Children Tell Their Stories with Cameras. I have seen some of the childrens’ work online and I also bought the Spring 2006 issue of African Arts (published by The James S. Coleman African Studies Center, UCLA International Institute) that has a feature story about the project with wonderful accompanying photos, but this is an exhibit that I wish I could see in person.

(Actually, to be perfectly honest, this is the sort of project with which I wish I could be personally involved. To empower young people to share their stories and viewpoints — well, you can easily see that it’s an ideal quite compatible with my penchant for biography, especially those of the “less than famous.”)

Visual Griots of Mali is the result of a project in which U.S. and Malian photographers helped the youth of the country create their own photographic documents of their lives. If you are in DC on Saturday, February 24 do yourself a favor and join Shawn at the National Museum of Natural History (Baird Auditorium) where at 12:00 noon he will not only introduce this landmark exhibition, but also screen the short film Malick Sidibé: Portrait of the Artist as a Portraitist (2006, 8 minutes). Here’s an excerpt from Shawn’s email:

This event, free and open to the public, is an opportunity to celebrate the enormous success of the 22 young students in Mali, West Africa …This will be a great chance to hear updates on how the photographs were received in Mali, what the local communities have to say about the project, how local DC area youth have been involved in the project, and what the President of Mali had to say about it all!! I’ll be giving a lecture that I promise will be full of fun photos and video footage. We hope to see you there. Please share this with your friends, family, and colleagues. The lecture hall is right next to the exhibit, so if you haven’t seen the show yet you can do both in one shot.

And if you can’t make the opening event, you have until April 27th to view the exhibit at the Smithsonian — then it’s on to Kansas City.

The exhibit is sponsored by the Academy for Educational Development and NMNH Office of Visitor and School Services.

So Sorry

I was missing in action…again. Just returned from 10 days in New York (cold, yes, but got out just before it turned really ugly-frigid) where I spent much time back at the Schomburg going through more of Luther Henderson’s files. I also spent some time with Mrs. H. and shot some very brief video snippets at their home for my People On The Page project. Now I’m back, warmed up so to speak, and playing catch-up with messages and mail.  In addition to the three books in progress (don’t forget John’s At the Feet of a Jazz Master), I’ve got a file folder full of notes to myself about blog topics so I had best get to work.

I’ll never learn…

Instead of paring down, I took on more. In the midst of all my writing projects, I have been building websites and blogs for people (arnoldrichards.net, missnancywilson.com, and boomerhead.com, to name a few) …..but it was for money. Got to do a little something to fill the coffers while waiting for the SnapSizleBop projects to earn their keep.

Speaking of which, we have now officially launched the At the Feet of a Jazz Master project — that’s the one based on John Levy’s long life in the jazz world. The end result of the project is a high-quality soft-cover coffee table book of exquisite color photos (shot by Leroy Hamilton) interspersed with short essays and vignettes that celebrate John’s life, the lessons he’s learned, and the legacy that he leaves. But there is much to the online project experience that will not make it into the book — for example, photos from John’s personal archives, lots of streaming audio on the SnapSizzleBop radio player, audio interviews with many artists and friends, and maybe even some streaming video clips.

We’ve launched seven participant levels ranging from the $30 Download Participant and the $50 Mail Order Participant, to the $2500 Collector Participant (includes a poster with dozens of great autographs) and the Enduring Legacy Participant that lets you give the gift of jazz education to the school of your choice for only $3500.

Here’s a direct link to the complete list of participant offers and here’s a link to the overall project description. I hope you’ll check it out.

Those were the days….

My ongoing, online, elementary school reunion (first mentioned back in June) suffered a brief hiatus when the politics got too hot and heavy, but I’m glad to say that we’re back in action albeit with more benign subject matter. We are currently focused on childhood memories of school plays, favorite foods, birthday parties and tv shows. One of the “boys” remembered playing frogman in the bathtub with another “boy.” The response?

Frogmen? In my bathtub? I remember being obsessed with scuba divers, having decided that this would be my future career at an early age after watching some TV show with Lloyd Bridges about divers. But I don’t recall playing with you in my bathtub.

The tv show seems to have been Seahunt, but I thought it might have been Diver Dan, which I remember watching. That led another classsmate to send me the lyrics and a link to hear Diver Dan:

Below in the deep there’s adventure and danger;
That’s where you’ll find Diver Dan!
The sights that he sees are surprising and stranger
Than ever you’ll see on the land!
He moves among creatures
Of frightening features:
Flashing teeth, slashing jaws,
Flapping fins, snapping claws!
He protects and he saves
His friends under the waves;
That’s where you’ll find Diver Dan!

Oh my, what we can find online. Suddenly, instead of working, I am trolling for sounds from childhood tv shows, such as Batman, Casper the Friendly Ghost ( I remember the visual, but I have no recollection of this audio), but I do remember this sound of the Chipmunks, and then there was Dick Tracy and of course Dudley Do-Right.

As you can see, I didn’t get past the Ds yet, but break time is over and it’s back to work for me.