A Blog of My Own

People used to say Ringo Starr was a bad drummer. I could never see this. Technically, maybe he didn’t have all the refinement of Buddy Rich, but that simple, foursquare yet swinging beat of his made The Beatles sound the way they did. With any other drummer, they wouldn’t have been The Beatles. And, since the Beatles’ sound was perfect, it follows that Ringo was perfect.

When Mad Men first began, January Jones struck me as an actress of limited technique. I always liked her, but she seemed stiff in a way that I equated with a lack of range or dynamics. But as the show progressed, I began to see that since the show was perfect, January Jones must be playing Betty Draper exactly right. Mad Men would never have been Mad Men with anyone else.

This especially hit home during the big confrontation scene in Sunday night’s episode, in which Betty forces Don to talk to her about his secret past. While watching this, I had the thought, “If January Jones has limited technique, how come this scene is so incredibly powerful?!? What the hell is she doing that is making me buy this scene so completely?” I still don’t know.

My provisional conclusion is that January Jones is a fantastic actress. Just one whose fantasticness doesn’t resemble anything we’ve seen before, so we’re not accustomed to it, and can’t fit it into a mold of what we think “good acting” is supposed to look and sound like.

One of the great radio broadcasters of all time is back on the air. Well, “air,” if podcasts count. Steve Dahl. I’ve listened to the first podcast (which was Tuesday — he does a new hour from his home basement studio every weekday) and he sounds to me in great form after a forced hiatus from FM. (CBS is paying him to sit out his contract for another couple of years — nice work if you can get it.)

There is no one to whom I could listen do nothing but sit and talk at me on the radio for an hour but Steve Dahl. There once was someone else — his name was Jean Shepherd, and he had a nightly radio show on New York AM station WOR in the late sixties and early seventies that I used to pull in from Philadelphia when I was in college. You’ve probably seen the movie of Shepherd’s A Christmas Story. Shepherd was a brilliant monologist, and so is Dahl. True, Dahl bounces off a couple of studio lackeys that he keeps around for the purpose, while Shepherd gave the impression of being in the studio alone, but I don’t take points off for that.

He talks about issues in his personal life that are bugging him, what he finds funny, the absurdity of the day’s news, his own considerable flaws, whatever. Sure, he’s witty, and there’s little enough of that on the airwaves, but it’s how wit is combined with realness that sets Dahl apart. You never feel he’s pulling punches, but you never feel he’s saying anything for effect, either. When you listen to Dahl, you hear a person, and you feel you may know him better than his own family does. The honesty is so vivid, it puts all else on the radio into relief; you realize that everyone else is faking it.

If art exists to imitate life — if all the arts, on some level, are about creating a recognizable analog of life — then Dahl is a rare artist whose medium is the extemporaneously spoken word. Over time, using only the sound of his voice, he has created a fully-formed realization of a man called Steve Dahl, who lives with you in your car, sits beside you in your office, or hangs out with you in your kitchen. He does have one disciple, a 10-to-midnight weekend guy on WGN-AM named Nick Digilio, who is the best younger hope for radio. When Dahl is ready to hang it up, Digilio (whose intelligence any Dahl fan will immediately recognize) will assume the mantle. Other than Digilio, there’s no one else. I hope Dahl takes care of himself, and lives healthy, because I don’t want him to die before I do.

He’s not a “shock jock,” because he knows that shocking people is easy, and he’s set his sights higher than that. It must be that being yourself on the radio is the hardest thing to do, judging from how few have done it.

You can find the podcast on iTunes, or at Dahl.com.

What causes someone to start a blog? Good question. Here’s an even better one: What causes someone to abandon a blog after making exactly one post? This is the question examined by the blog One Post Wonder, which harvests the work of bloggers who, apparently, were able to say it all, all at once.

It’s an optical illusion! Just one of many cool ones to be found here.

We all stuff our faces on Thanksgiving, but not like this. Enjoy this new facepainting o’ the season from our friend, mad genius/artist James Kuhn. Happy Turkey Day, everyone!

For the last year or so, our friend, artist James Kuhn, who lives in Three Oaks, Michigan, has been painting his face. Every single day. And doing it differently each day. As you can see, his face paintings are remarkable — in some cases his face is hard to see under the painting, but it’s there, all right. Sometimes he uses one of his own facial features (an eye, an ear, whatever) to represent an analogous feature in the artwork. Sometimes he completely obscures his own features. It’s trompe-l’oeil brought home — as close to home as you can get, taking the part of the body that most individuates us as humans and utterly transforming it (not just decorating it) through art.

Now he’s world-famous. The Brits have discovered him, and articles about his amazing art project have appeared in The Mail, The Sun, The Telegraph, and on Metro.co.UK.

You can see all of James’ facework at his Flickr site.

Madman or genius? I think I’ll go with mad genius. I hope he won’t think that’s two-faced of me.

Louis Armstrong in front of his house.

Me on those self-same steps.

In New York about a week ago, we toured the Borough of Queens (led by our intrepid guides, and friends, Neill and Donna), and a highlight was our visit to Louis Armstrong’s house. A modest single-family home in a neighborhood of such, it has been available to tour since 2003. You’ll find it in the section called Corona (where Dizzy Gillespie, and other jazz musicians, also lived), at 34-56 107th Street. Armstrong lived there with his wife Lucille from 1943 until his death in 1971.

I have toured the homes of the great and the near-great (including the Hyde Park residences of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and, separately, Eleanor Roosevelt), but never before have I been in a house in which one could feel the presence of the former occupant as vividly as one can feel Armstrong’s in this one.

One reason is that Armstrong was fascinated with the tape recorder, and took many opportunities to record mundane and not-so-mundane events in his house. These recordings have been archived, and when you go through the house, you get to hear recordings that were made in the very rooms you’re in. Stand in the dining room, and the young neighborhood lad leading the tour flicks a switch, and you are hearing Louis and Lucille have a dinnertime conversation of no particular consequence. Ah, but stand in Louis’ study, and the flick of the switch plays for you an a cappella vocal recording he made in that very study, singing “Blueberry Hill.” It is a wonderful performance—and one that only those who tour the house will ever get to hear. His having made that private recording in the very room in which you stand makes you feel his spirit.

Why did he make that recording? It certainly wasn’t a rehearsal. He’d had a hit record with the song already. I guess he was just playing with his new toy, the tape recorder. But it is a fine, fully-committed performance of “Blueberry Hill,” maybe the finest you will ever hear, ending with the trademark-Satchmo scatting.

You should hear it.

Correction: Scott Merrell of the Songbirds List points out that the Louis Armstrong House is not the only place to hear the a cappella “Blueberry Hill” recording Louis made on the Tandberg tape recorder built into the wall of his study. (As a tangent, I noticed, for you hi-fi buffs out there, that there are two Tandberg tape decks built into that wall, side by side, but one is a playback-only deck.) The following press release came out this year from Queens College, City University of New York:

CORONA, NY, July 31, 2008—Never-before-released recordings of the renowned Louis Armstrong, including legendary radio broadcasts and excerpts from Armstrong’s home-recorded tapes, are now available on a two-CD set from Jazz Heritage Society.

Disc One features the finest performances from a historic series of radio broadcasts. From April to May 1937, Louis Armstrong was the guest host of Rudy Vallee’s Fleishmann’s Yeast Hour, one of the most popular shows on radio. Armstrong was the first African-American to host a national network variety show—one of his many “firsts.”

In 1987, four years after Lucille Armstrong’s passing, David Gold, Executor of the Armstrong Estate and President of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, selected Queens College to be the repository of Louis and Lucille Armstrong’s vast collection of memorabilia. Discovered in the archives were 18 fragile acetate discs of the legendary 1937 Fleishmann’s Yeast broadcasts. The recordings have now been meticulously remastered by Doug Pomeroy, a notable audio engineer who specializes in historic jazz recordings.

Disc Two provides insight into Louis Armstrong’s private moments. Carefully stored by Lucille Armstrong in Satchmo’s den were 650 reels of home-recorded tape. One of Louis Armstrong’s favorite hobbies was recording into his Tandberg tape deck—he would simply push the “record” button, visiting with fans and friends, at home or backstage, or while practicing his trumpet. Excerpts from Louis Armstrong home-recorded tapes on the CD include Pops singing and playing “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries” and “Blueberry Hill” a cappella.

Louis also reminisces about Bix Beiderbecke and Big Sid Catlett. Louis describes in great detail the early decades of his career and—of immense delight for jazz enthusiasts—plays trumpet along with a 78 RPM recording of “Tears” (a disc he made in 1923 with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band).

The two-CD set—conceived of and authorized by the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation—comprises more than one hour of Armstrong’s performance with his big band, more than one hour of excerpts from Armstrong’s home-recorded tapes, illuminating notes by Dan Morgenstern (an NEA Jazz Master who has received seven Grammy Awards for liner notes and two ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards for best writing on jazz), and rare photos from the collections of the Louis Armstrong House Museum.

This set, released by Jazz Heritage Society, is currently available on CD exclusively via retail at www.JazzStore.com, and via membership in the Jazz Heritage Society at www.jazzheritage.org . Visitors to the Louis Armstrong House Museum can purchase the CD at the Museum’s shop.

On August 12, this unique recording will be available digitally at iTunes, and on August 19 all digital downloading sites worldwide will be authorized to sell this title. (Note: many international sites will determine their own release date.)

For review copies, please contact Greg Barbero at greg.barbero@musicalheritage.org.

For a preview of this release, visit: www.jazzstore.com/stash/louis-armstrong/index.php

Incidentally, for those who want to reach the Louis Armstrong House by train from Manhattan, satchmo.net provides these directions:

Take the 7 train to 103rd Street-Corona Plaza. Walk north on 103rd Street. After two blocks, turn right onto 37th Avenue. Walk four short blocks, and then turn left onto 107th Street. The Louis Armstrong House is on the left, 1/2 block north of 37th Avenue. The exact address is 34-56 107th Street.

Olive Riley, the world’s oldest blogger, passed away on July 12.

You can read her 74 blog posts here.

Olive’s passing probably doesn’t make me the official titleholder of World’s Oldest Blogger now. Hey, let’s face it, she had fifty years on me. I’m kind of young, in those terms! I might have fifty years of blogging still ahead of me, and, doing the math, I might be at most middle-aged!

But I’ve moved up one.

Olive as a Girl

It is impossible to be in London, looking at Westminster Abbey and the tower Big Ben,

and not have Roger Miller’s catchy ditty wrap itself around your brain with the tenacity of a boa constrictor crossed with Hillary Clinton.

And the little children really do have rosey-red cheeks! As incontrovertibly proved by this artist’s rendering.

When the Steve and Eydie show at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora (about 40 miles west of Chicago) was announced, I resisted. I said, “We saw them in 1997–how different is their act going to be now?” And, “Ten more years have passed. Time will surely have taken its toll on them.” And, last but not least, “It’s Aurora. Who wants to go to Aurora?!?“

But about two weeks ago, another voice piped in. It said, “You idiot. If you don’t see them now, you may be forfeiting your chance to see them ever again. None of us is guaranteed to be on the planet tomorrow, let alone a year or two from now. You might be gone, either of them might be gone…The only thing we know is you’re here, and they’re here.”

So I carpied the diem, and scored a good seat. I’m glad.

The show opened with a montage of TV clips of S&E separately and together from the 50s through the 70s. You came away awed at the contribution they made to the mainstream culture all those years, making popular music popular at impossible-t0-take-for granted-now levels of artistry. Not to get cosmic about it, but the montage made me deeply grateful that so much of my time on the planet has coincided with so much of theirs.

At the close of the montage, Steve and Eydie came out on stage and sang a snappy piece of special material called, I’m thinking based on the lyric, “We’re Still Here” (not based on Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here”). The very first line of the song was funny. Making reference to the video just seen on the big screen, they sang, “We don’t look like that anymore.”

It was a shrewd lyric line to open with, because it disarmed an issue that had to be dealt with. Eydie doesn’t look like that anymore. She’s a bit rounder. She still looks great, and, my God, at 76, and with her recent knee surgery, if she’s rounder, she’s entitled. But she’s looks great in a different way than you might be expecting. Steve, thanks to the miracles of modern science and/or clean living and/or genetic luck, looks pretty much the same as always!

“We’re Still Here” turned out, as it went on, to stimulate cosmic thoughts similar to those I had while watching the montage. The song wasn’t just about that they were still here. It was about that all of us, we the audience as well as they, were still here. It was a celebration of survival. Not in the Sondheimian sense of having made it through Herbert and J. Edgar Hoover; rather in the sense that every day you wake up not dead yet is a gift. By virtue of the fact that they were on the stage, and we were in the audience, not one person there was dead yet! And that is something to thank the universe for. It was the unspoken theme of the entire show. Not to exaggerate, but the show was a religious experience.

And the show was a celebration of the survival of pop music excellence. It is just hanging on by a thread in this world, breathing its last breaths, but it is still here, for just a little while longer anyway. It is not dead yet. And this spirit, as beautiful as it is tragic (for we know what the future has in store), informed the entire show. When Steve and Eydie duet on Rodgers and Hart’s “Where or When” (a staple for them for many years), the song is no longer about a couple who meets for the first time with a sense of deja vu–it’s about all of us who love the Great American Songbook, performers and audience, meeting over and over again to share it with each other. And it takes on new qualities of the eternal, as we allow ourselves to imagine doing so in the next world when this one is through for us.

As an experiment, I closed my eyes at times and tried to imagine a young Steve and Eydie on stage, to determine if the sounds I was hearing would make sense with that picture. My rough guess is that the answer was yes about 75% of the time–which I think is amazing, and (getting all spiritual again) inspiring. The other 25% of the time there were signs of wear. But their musical instincts are sharp and they were able to “work around it” much of the time. When Eydie sang some of her hits, she employed some sensible melodic inversions in order to stay out of difficult territory. Yet at times she went for the high notes–and nailed them.

In their patter, Steve and Eydie didn’t miss too many chances to plug their website–steveandeydie.com–and neither will I. If you click on those words in this post, you’ll be taken right there. You’ll find many of their albums, separately and together, remastered for CD. I particularly commend to you the twofer composed of Two on the Aisle and Together on Broadway. The music of Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme exists at some kind of nexus of jazz and Broadway anyway, so the program of these two albums, tunes from Broadway shows of the midfifties through midsixties arranged by Don Costa and Pat Williams, is right in their wheelhouse, and they knock it out of the park.

Why post about Steve and Eydie now? Who doesn’t know about them, or, at least, of them? Well, while it’s important and exciting to talk about Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition (as Down Beat used to put it), it’s also a good thing now and then, for the sake of perspective, to reaffirm the Talent That Once Received So Much Recognition That It Now Receives None At All. To reaffirm, for the record, the phenomenality of phenomenons.

After the show, in the garage where I had parked a couple blocks from the theater, I shared an elevator with one of the musicians, a guy in his early forties. I complimented him on the show, and he said thanks. He said, “So what did you think of them?” I said, looking him straight in the eyes, “I think it’s a miracle.” He looked back at me and paused, struggling for something to say, and then replied, nodding, with awe in his voice. “I think that’s right. I think that’s the only word for it.”