Reflecting on Stafford Style

A few months ago – if you weren't aware – the UK's Jasmine label added to its catalogue a third Jo Stafford entry, "Reflections: The Ultimate Collection." Well, naturally, I had to buy – in scanning the track listing, I'd spotted several previously unreleased records (and you know that one is all it takes, for me). Well, the 4-disc set turned out to be something of a hodge podge – even for an artist billed as "America's Most Versatile Singing Star": some of the later things from Jo's first Capitol stint ('43-'50), including duets with Gordon MacRae and Johnny Mercer; the Columbia hits, Great American Songbook and Americana interpretations and Mitch Miller-initiated dross; several religious hymns; the entire "A Portrait of New Orleans" EP, with Frankie Laine's two sans-Stafford sides as well as the duets and the solo Jo's.

Oddest – and, for me, most revelatory, perhaps – of all among these 100+ tracks, though, are the records from late in Jo's Columbia tenure, a time when Rock & Roll had supplanted big band, swing and jazz as pop music. Dopey sing-along cycle aside, A & R man Mitch Miller was a trend follower – when sparser, guitar-prominent accompaniment became the fashion, he wanted even the by then middle-aged orchestra alumni signed to the label to don the musical clothes of the day and sell records to the kids. Jo herself admitted that to some extent she was willing to go along with the program in trade-off for being one of a very few artists who didn't have to pay for their own recording sessions. Such songs, represented in Jasmine's "Ultimate," as "Hibiscus," "I'll Buy It," "What's Botherin' You Baby," and (the egregious) "Underneath the Overpass" do not bear the Kern or Gershwin pedigree and the Rock & Roll-tinged rhythms and instrumentation applied to them seem unlikely Stafford surroundings – but Jo triumphs. An amazing feat when you consider the intrinsic worth of the material.

Today, Jo's birthday, as I've listened, I've thought about the quality that preceded her celebrated versatility – adaptability: without the capacity first to gain an understanding of the environment and then to adjust and conform to and fit it, while retaining your identity, you can't acquire versatility. In those garish late '50's years, Jo didn't turn into a pony-tailed Teen Queen chanteusie – no. But she again displayed the elasticity of her contemporary outlook, so essential to her musical style.

I Haven't Forgotten

Here I am: stuck in '38-'39. Well, I shouldn't say "stuck" – I mean, I'm thrilled to be planted at this point in the 20th century, surveying musically, with the aid of my CD collection, the waning years of the Great Depression. Today, I spun, among other platters, Disc 7 of Mosaic's magnificent Mildred Bailey set (out-of-print, as eventually become all things Mosaic), from which played, at the command of the mindless but benevolent random buttom, "Have You Forgotten So Soon," a treatment that I'm mad about of a now undeservedly forgotten ballad.

The song was put together by a distinguished lyricist team, Edward ("Body and Soul") Heyman and Sam ("My Old Flame") Coslow, and a considerably more obscure Tin Pan Alley composer, Abner ("On the Beach at Bali-Bali") Silver. I am touched by its plaintive, lilting melody and still more deeply affected by its picturesque and (like most everything else I adore) at once both timeless and capturing-the-period words. Who better to deliver this combination than the hip Rockin' Chair Lady, Mildred Bailey? Similar in tone to but more vivid in its details than 1940's "At Least You Could Say 'Hello,'" this 1938 offering presents an eternal question, posed yet today by hurt and disbelieving jilted lovers, against a backdrop of distinctly '30's images.

I first came across Mildred's 9/29/38 interpretation, in which she is accompanied by the band of her xylophone-playing husband, Red Norvo, and fell in love with both song and performance thereof and later reacted with equal enthusiasm to the Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra 9/22/38 take, featuring the sensitive vocal of the scandalously underrated Jack Leonard.

I couldn't find Mildred's version on youtube but came across TD's. Though Jeri Southern isn't a musical direction that I've taken, when, in scrolling down the list, I happened upon her record, on which I saw she is joined by Johnny Smith, a guitarist whose playing I greatly admire, I decided to veer off there and was rewarded by a probing exploration, which includes a verse I hadn't known. Jack and Mildred double up here and there and each has his/her own choruses . Jeri's reading, taken at a crawl, follows, in part, the Mildred lyrics. Wonder if it was La Bailey who introduced this later singer to the extremely beautiful, sentimental but not lachrymose song?

Have You Forgotten So Soon?
Music by Abner Silver,
Words by Edward Heyman and Sam Coslow

I find it difficult
To think that once you cared for me at all.
I can't believe
That you refuse to speak to me
Each time I call.

Have you forgotten so soon –
That lovely night in June;
Our graduation dance;
The glorious beginning
Of a beautiful romance;
All those gay diversions
We planned in advance –
Have you forgotten so soon?

Have you forgotten so soon –
The sun upon the sand;
The moon of yellow gold;
The things at Coney Island
That the fortune teller told;
Air-conditioned movies
That gave us a cold –
Have you forgotten so soon?

Don't you still remember
The Witches' Party
On Halloween?
And that grand December –
The whitest Christmas
We've ever seen.

Have you forgotten so soon –
That loving cup we made
Of old Italian wine;
That New Year's Eve at Tony's
When the gang sang "Auld Lang Syne";
All those nights in Heaven
That used to be mine –
Have you forgotten so soon?

Have you forgotten so soon –
My birthday party cake;
The sandwiches you made;
The kisses that I borrowed
And so eagerly repaid;
And the day we walked
In the Easter Parade –
Have you forgotten so soon?

Have you forgotten so soon –
The winding country lane;
A little wayside inn;
And sipping tea while list'ning to
A muted violin;
Thrilling to the old songs
By Irving Berlin –
Have you forgotten so soon?

Don't you still remember
The moonlight hayride,
The Beaux Arts Ball?
And that grand September –
The crimson woodland,
The waterfall.

Have you forgotten so soon –
The concert in the park;
The Army-Navy game;
The time I lost my money on
A horse that bore your name;
The day I snapped your picture
That's still in my frame –
Have you forgotten so soon?

I'll admit – this is a song that really starts the tears going with me.

Doggone!

Ah, what the heck ... I feel like following up a post about two dogs that I love with a little tribute to a record whose title features a canine exclamation: doggone! – as in "Doggone, I've Done It."

Chronologically touring the CD collection, I today found myself easing into 1933; it's been a '32-'33 day: think Roosevelt defeating Hoover and Repeal the following year. One of the highlights of my day surely has been The Sisters, accompanied by The Brothers, jiving (as only they can) through an exceedingly cute number by a Dave Franklin, whom I can't, at the moment, recall having encountered elsewhere. This record, cut 6/17/32, is truly one of my all-time favorites:

Eight sprightly little introductory bars, setting the perfect tempo, and then the girls are off, drawling away. The Dorsey Bros., Mac (Tommy) and Lad (Jimmy), play an uncharacteristically minor role in this one but, still, that no one gave the Boswells better (or as fine) support is highly evident. The line-up is Tommy, trombone; Jimmy, clarinet, Bunny Berigan (yeah!), trumpet; Joe Venuti, violin; Dick McDonough, guitar; Artie Bernstein, bass; Stan King, drums. ... Oh, and that's Martha, the eldest of the sisters, providing that fine piano comping; I love her on this side. A harmonious and inimitably swinging chorus and verse by Martha, Connee and Vet en masse and then Connee – the middle sister, vocal arranger for and heart and soul of the vocal trio – gets a chorus to herself; dig the accent and the Armstrongian sense of what's right for the moment. Next, Four String Joe, the michievous Mr. Venuti, serves up sixteen sassy bars (check out Martha behind him). ... And now – Bunny! Hear him getting on mike; the sudden increase in his volume gives the record an immediacy that you have to relish – you're right there in the studio. I love the way he negotiates the diminished chord in bar 9 of his spot. Listen hard for the great, too-soon-gone (from the planet) Dick McDonough. Fine, well-placed accents from Stan King.

Doggone, I've Done It
Music and Words by Dave Franklin

Doggone, I’ve done it – I’ve fallen in love;
Doggone, it hit me from heaven up above.
The day I met him, I knew I was gone;
My heart went kerplunk – oh boy, I was sunk.
Doggone, I’ve done it – I fell with a thud;
It must be springtime, ‘cos it’s in my blood.
Mr. Cupid sneaked behind and gave me a shove;
Doggone, I’ve done it – I’ve fallen in love.
Oh, you dog!

I don’t use strong expressions;
I’m known for my repression;
Nobody ever heard me swear.
But something’s gone and changed me;
It’s really disarranged me –
I’m cuttin’ loose and I don’t care.

Doggone, I’ve done it – I’ve fallen in love;
Doggone, it hit me from heaven above.
The day I met him, I just knew I was gone;
Heart went kerplunk – oh boy, I was sunk.
Doggone, I’ve done it – I fell with a thud;
It must be springtime, ‘cos it’s in my blood.
Mr. Cupid sneaked behind and gave me a shove;
Doggone, I’ve done it – I’ve fallen in love.

Doggone, I’ve done it – I’ve fallen in love;
Doggone, it hit me from heaven above.
The day I met him, I knew I was gone;
My heart went kerplunk – oh boy, I was sunk.
Doggone, I’ve done it – I fell with a thud;
It must be springtime, ‘cos it’s in my blood.
Mr. Cupid gave me a shove;
Doggone, I’ve done it – I’ve fallen in love.

It's The Girls!

Bunny ... Who else?

Oh, you dog ...

Not Gone

"[A]nd with you gone, life just doesn't seem half so fine."

Jo Stafford, making a not insignificant change to the Sy Oliver-Jimmie Lunceford-Edward P. Moran "Dream of You" (On the 10/29/34 Lunceford Orch. record, Sy sings "[...] life no longer seems quite so fine.")

Jo still makes life seem fine.

A Getz Pastorale

Making my way along in my continuous, looping chronological tour of my CD collection, I find myself cruising aurally through the 1950's. Today, as I was mentally zipping about in my two-toned, aqua and white, tail-finned, white leather-seated affair, which runs on sonic fuel, taking in the reedy musical landscape of the early years of Eisenhower (Mom often remarked, "He never really said anything in his speeches"), I paused in my actual physical movements at the sound of The Sound, Stan Getz, who himself was pausing, "Down by the Sycamore Tree." When Stan reflects, aloud, you have to stop and listen. Really listen.

I was introduced to Getz's recording of "Down by the Sycamore Tree" several years ago through the Verve CD, "Stan Getz Plays," which is the digital version, onto which this track and three others were tacked, of the LP of the same title. Well, it just knocked me out. And I must say, I'd already been reeling from the insinuatingly socko first few bars of this stunningly lovely set's opener, the perfect "Stella by Starlight." Stan's "Down by the Sycamore Tree," one of several languid, pensive performances in this grouping of twelve 1952 and four 1954 takes, simply stands out on its own, unique terms; it's just another devastatingly beautiful, singular moment in the electronically recorded life of one of the greatest players ever to approach a musical instrument.

Stan and son, Steve

I wasn't familiar with "Down by the Sycamore Tree," before hearing Stan's tender reading, so I had no point of comparison. I was inclined to believe that the song had words; there seemed a very compelling verbal story linked to this sweet melody. The liner notes credit the song – erroneously, I discovered – to that fellow, Public Domain, indicating a very old piece, possibly of "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair" vintage. Some years after falling instantaneously in love with Getz's go at the number, I encountered the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra's treatment and, by the CD on which it appeared, had the record set straight for me. Composer Pete Wendling and lyricist Haven Gillespie, recognizable denizens of pop music's renowned Tin Pan Alley, put together the song, typical in its bucolic quality of material of its period, in 1931. Both the Bros. Dorsey, who took a whack at "Tree" 12/9/31, and the, to me, barely bearable Rudy Vallee offered contemporary impressions.

By The Sycamore Tree
Music by Pete Wendling, Words by Haven Gillespie

Heaven seemed to be a little closer,
When you smiled for me,
On the night when you gave me your love
By the sycamore tree.

There we drew a lot of pretty pictures –
Babies on my knee;
Maybe one, two or three or four,
Down by the sycamore tree.

Sweetheart, keep on dreaming,
As you did before.
We found love by dreaming.
Tell me, who could ask for more?

We will be a lucky pair of lovebirds,
Honey, can't you see?
In a cute little two-by-four,
Down by the sycamore tree.

Phrasemaker Haven Gillespie, didn't exactly outdo himself here, I have to say. In incorporating domesticity as well as the afore-mentioned rusticity, he followed rather than bucked the then current trends in churning out little songs for the hoi polloi. The two-by-four, always "cute," turned up in many an early '30's number, presumably to remind the folks facing those lean, mean times that if a couple or a family has love, they need not aspire to a palace. ('Course there's nothing wrong with that message.) For my Depression dollars, it's tunesmith Pete Wendling who made the most intriguing contribution to the finished product, with his superficially nonchalant-sounding melody, set to "sycamore" eighth notes in bars 5-6, 13-14 and 29-30 of the chorus.

The Dorseys' record, with which I, as a follower of both Tommy and Jimmy (or, respectively, Mac and Lad) and Depression-era pop, have become intimately acquainted, is elevated from a sort of mildly pleasant mediocrity by the elegant and vital muted and open statements of jazz trumpet giant, Bunny Berigan.

Twenty-two years after the Dorseys committed their interpretation to wax – by which time, by pop standards, the "Tree" had become fossilized – Stan, in company of pianist Jimmy Rowles, bassist Bob Whitlock and drummer Max Roach, took a fresh look at the song. Where did our tenor titan dig up "Sycamore Tree"? For sure, he'd already made apparent a fondness for evergreens – but this was something different, not of "Stardust" or "Night and Day" status. Did Rowles, who knew everything, famous or obscure, bring the song to the 1/23/54 session? I can't help but wonder. "Down by the Sycamore Tree" is a song about the past, present and future: what happened, what is happening and what the first-person protagonist hopes will happen as time inevitably unfolds. Unlike Bunny, who – with his impassioned full-throttle bridge – made, it appears, an importunate plea for the future, Stan chose to focus, it seems, on the irrevocable past, describing it in delicate detail. Listening to this exquisite, quiet side, I have a strong sense of what is irretrievably gone – for Stan, for me, for all of us.

Much as I love endlessly inventive, unsurpassably facile "Stanley the Steamer" (so dubbed by an admiring Oscar Peterson) swinging hard, I love even more "Stanley the Dreamer" (my humble designation) talking softly. It's fascinating to consider that one month before the "Sycamore" date, the lavishly talented tenorist had been arrested for drug possession (for which he would do six saxless months behind bars). In his Nobody Else but Me, Getz biographer Dave Gelly had these observations to make:

In the middle of all this (two days after his court appearance, in fact), Getz recorded four three-minute numbers with Rowles, Roach and bassist Bob Whitlock, which sounded as blithe and untroubled as a May morning. "Nobody Else But Me," "with The Wind And The Rain In Your Hair," "I Hadn't Anyone But You" and "Down By The Sycamore Tree" are performances as serene as any he ever recorded. They stand as a powerful caution to anyone tempted to read a musician's autobiography in his music. It all depends on the musician. Getz, it seems, stepped into a whole different world when he picked up his instrument, a world of order and light and softly breathing passion. By contrast, Lester Young's playing unfailingly betrayed his day-to-day feelings, his state of health, his forebodings, his whimsical passing thoughts and gently ironical cast of mind.

The "Down by the Sycamore Tree" of this ballad "singer" is a thing profoundly poignant in its wistful rumination. Getz, a city boy, takes you to the country.

Don't miss it.

An Order of Jo on CD, Rare

I've been listening to my recently arrived copy of the DRG label's new "The Capitol Rarities," the latest compact disc collection to present unreleased recordings of my favorite singer, Jo Stafford. Is this CD what it purports to be? Well ... yeah. Is it great? (More positively and enthusiastically) Oh, yes! I suppose I have to remember that not every Jo Stafford admirer would, as I would, snatch up (a hypothetical) "Jo Sings the Beverly Hills Directory, Live from a Phone Booth during Rush Hour" and, in which case, might not be aware that, really, all but three of the "Rarities" tracks have been available on CD for some time. Not a caveat – merely a clarification. Beautifully remastered and accompanied by insightful and informative liner notes by the dean of pop/jazz vocalist essayists, Will Friedwald, this well-chosen sampling of undeniably (as well as undeservedly) obscure sides from Jo's first Capitol stint offers something to win the uninitiated and satisfy the well-experienced. (I have to admit that I'm sort of put out by the absence, in the booklet, of recording dates but, hey, there's always Jim Marshall's Jo discography, clearly a labor of love.)






Shall we go through "Rarities" track-by-track? We shall:

"Out of This World" 9/13/44 Well, we discussed it before, but there's always much to say about Jo's records, which, themselves, speak volumes. Pretty and celestially evocative as the arrangement, by then future Stafford spouse, Paul Weston, is, I agree with WF (author of "Rarities" notes, of course) – it's a bit dramatic; so, Jo, of the flawless instincts, holds back even more than usual, for appropriate contrast. No one understood so well as Jo the potency of restraint. As I recall, I first caught this cosmic treatment of the minor-keyed Mercer-Arlen nugget on the Memoir label's (now out-of-print) "Too Marvelous For Words."

"Conversation While Dancing" 9/13/44
Another Mercer lyric – this time, with hep cat rather than egg head jargon and paired with a Weston rather than an Arlen melody. Jo is, perhaps, primarily thought of as a ballad singer, but as this track – on which she is teamed with her idol and boss, wordsmith extraordinaire and Capitol co-founder, John Henry Mercer – demonstrates, she could dish rhythm and jive with the best of them: JM, for example. The gap-toothed gent from Savannah "loved Jo Stafford," observed another Capitol contractee, the hardly talentless Margaret Whiting, and we can see this too in all the Johnny-Jo collaborations. Memoir's "For You" first allowed me to eavesdrop on the "Conversation."

"Alone Together" 11/29/44
You want rarities? You got 'em! Jo's 7/12/44 JM Music Shop-rehearsal performance of the Arthur Schwartz-Howard Dietz stunner, released back when WWII was raging as a for-servicemen-only V-Disc, has been available on compact disc for more contemporary civvy-wearing folks for some few years now. Her yet more nuanced, still more devastating commercially-issued take of a few months later is just making it to CD on 2009's "Rarities." Applied to Schwartz's exquisitely somber melody and Dietz's stark lyrics and layered on Weston's spare and stately orchestra animation, Jo's haunting voice is at its barest, conveying powerfully the bleakness ("the blinding rain") and nothingness ("the starless night"), indeed "the great unknown" in which the two (of whom she is steadfastly one) "cling together." Here, I strongly suspect, is Jo singing one of her favorites.

"Gee, It's Good to Hold You" 6/29/45
This hitherto unissued take contains a slightly muffed (concert) Bb from trumpeter Billy Butterfield and is a little less punchy than the V-Disc version (lauded, in RE, here), which was recorded a few days later and has been kicking around, in digitized form, for a while. Darn cute song and Jo was the girl to put it over properly.

"You May Not Love Me" 11/21/45
I was introduced to the Johnny Burke-Jimmy Van Heusen number through the 1950 Nat Pierce and His Orchestra version with a Teddi King vocal, and I must admit that I was impressed by neither song nor interpretation initially. Though both eventually grew on me, I was unprepared for the reaction I had to Jo's take – even being aware of my fondness for her singing – when I encountered the side on the Stafford-Gordon MacRae "Stars of the Summer Night." Whew! Working with quiet material, albeit such made interesting by an opening gambit, "You may not love me but you may," of an intriguing ambiguity of meaning (on which WF perspicaciously comments), and before a muted Weston-fashioned backdrop of brass and strings, Jo comes up with an reading of controlled intensity. "I only hope tomorrow won't be just another day" seems an unlikely lyric climax, but Jo makes of the line a shining zenith.

"This Time" 8/1/46
Hate to say this of material composed by Weston and to disagree with Will who finds the song "stunning" but "This Time," inherently, is a snore. The lyrics, written by someone with the surname of Benton, remind me a bit of those of "A Sunday Kind of Love." "This time, I'm taking no chances on summer romances that fade in the fall," falls, I'm afraid, though, far short of "I want a Sunday kind of love, a love to last past Saturday night" from the far superior Belle-Leonard-Rhodes-Prima collaboration of the same year. The best thing in the world to happen to "This Time," as far as I'm concerned, is Jo, who sings it for far more than its worth. The record was digitized for 2007's "The Ultimate Capitol Collection."

"Promise" 9/16/46
As WF clarifies in the notes for Sony's: "Jo Stafford: The Portrait Edition," Jo is "hardly the girl next door." Your neighbor doesn't sound like Jo; she never does; yours (and mine) sounds like Marion Hutton. In the "Promise" record, we do, though, get a confiding Jo – full of unselfconscious gee's and revelations about the "grand" and "swell" boy, from whom she hopefully awaits a marriage proposal – sounding as close as she ever did to that girl we view, from our lace-curtained window, swinging on the veranda on starry summer nights. Here the sweet-toned Miss Stafford is everything we imagine of and idealize about post-War, pre-McCarthyism America. An unassumingly charming ditty, most winningly rendered. I like the way Weston scores the reeds, too. This one first appeared on CD, some years back, on ASV's fine "Coming Back Like a Song."

"It's as Simple as That" 10/18/46
WF sees the material as "a bargain basement 'She's Funny That Way'" – while acknowledging that Jo "treats it like a first class song." Well, I heartily agree with the second part of the analysis. Being not a paean to a slavishly devoted gal/guy but, rather, a celebration of love oblivious of and immune to adversity, "Simple" strikes me more as a kind of "two against the world" number along the lines of 1938's equally undistinguished "Never Felt Better, Never Had Less." Jo indeed shows complete commitment to this modest ballad, making me believe and relate.

"Through a Thousand Dreams" 11/4/46
Jo dips into her rich lower register, dazzling with those seamless legato lines, for this Arthur Schwartz-Leo Robin beauty, the type of yearning satisfied song at which she excels. You can always tell a Stafford side for which Paul Weston did not provide the arrangement: musically, something just seems impersonally different. The pizzicato strings somehow seem to belong on somebody else's record.

"Give Me Something to Dream About" 12/20/46
So snazzy! Instead of Jo's trusted Paul Weston, it's Lloyd Schaffer, the conductor for the Chesterfield Supper Club leading the orchestra but, despite the anomaly, the proceedings are, in the parlance of the comparatively innocent day, dreamy. Jo, with her perfect but never over-precise diction, always says words so prettily; lovely gets my attention on this. Very nice electric guitar obbligato placed here and there. Wonder who that is!

"It's Monday Every Day" 12/17/47
The muted compressed-sounding trumpet in the opening sets the tone beautifully for Jo's rueful, reflective reading of a nifty number by the lesser known Robin – Sydney Robin, the guy who set words to Charlie Shavers' "Undecided." Our always sensitive interpreter of music and lyrics makes effective use of that (afore-mentioned) "California-modified Tennessee accent." Marvelous Weston-scripted saxes provide strong support on this bluesy doozy.

"It was Written in the Stars" 12/31/47
Well, if there was ever written a Jo Stafford kind of song, it's this Harold Arlen-Leo Robin amber gem. Against the composer's dark sky of minor chords, pinpointed at times by major chord stars, Jo sings stirringly of destiny (it's nice to believe, sometimes). "It was written in the skies that the heart and not the eyes shall see" is, I think, highly representative of the Jo we encounter most frequently in song. Hear her soar on "so it shall be."

"Jolly Jo" 4/1/49
WF considers the Dave Lambert (later of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross) composition, "Jolly Jo" – or, in long form, "m + h + r x 3ee - oo (over) 4/4 aa3 x (times) 32 + bop (Jolly Jo)" – "easily the furthest out thing she [Jo] ever did." Well, who can say, when you look over the variegated material covered by the unmatchedly and unmatchably diverse Miss Stafford? No question, though – this platter (the flip of the ultra groovy, more widely known "Smiles"), on which Jo appears alongside the author and his Vocal Choir is a must-be-heard-to-be-believed, even for admirers of "America's Most Versatile Singing Star." Jo never took on anything she couldn't handle; truly, she could do it all exceedingly well. Hear the voice that Billie Holiday thought "sounds like an instrument" trading fours with Lambert; scroll down and click on "Jolly Jo" – here.

"If I Ever Love Again" 8/29/49
"[E]ssentially like a retread of 'I'll Never Smile Again'" is how WF sees this material. I look at it more as a sequel, but I suppose that's only because I'm aware that Ruth Lowe, author of "Smile," wrote her big song after, and in reaction to, the death of her husband. I picture the protagonist of "If I Ever Love Again," (both songs incorporate again, you've noticed, I'm sure), in the process of moving beyond the grieving phase, thinking, If I feel able to give my heart again, it will be you to whom I give it: "If I ever love again, it will be you." Actually, I find the song itself by far superior to "Smile"; it was the Tommy Dorsey, with Sinatra and The Pipers, and later solo Jo interpretations that made "Smile" appear something special. Jo and the always superb Starlighters, backed by romantic reeds and brass, give a very pretty song the deluxe treatment. Jo applies vibrato very sparingly in her singing; when she does, as here, on the last two words of her sans Starlighters, "No one else's charms can fill my empty arms," the effect is powerful.

"Open Door, Open Arms" 12/21/49
This record could be seen as either a companion to Jo's folkie Capitol sides like "Red River Valley," "Smilin' Through" and "Goodnight, Irene" or something that presages the country terrain she explored during her Columbia stint that followed. Melodically and harmonically, the song itself doesn't sound terribly Continental, but WF calls it a "European import"; English words were added by Buddy Kaye, of "Till the End of Time" fame. In any case, Jo, supported by The Starlighters and very spare instrumentation, treats this rather slight piece respectfully, singing it with obvious sincerity.

"Pagan Love Song" 4/27/50
Jo may be widely labeled a "pop singer," but as this devilish disc – on which she is ably assisted by Paul Weston's Dixie Eight, which includes, among others, Bob Crosby-ites Eddie Miller and Matty Matlock and ex-Miller man, Clyde Hurley – attests, she is a very fine jazz singer, too. She really digs in on the Arthur Freed-Nacio Herb Brown warhorse. What a tone! I much prefer this sizzling B-side to the A with which it was paired, "Play a Simple Melody."

"Our Very Own" 7/13/50
This is one of those songs that I strongly suspect I wouldn't be able to take emanating from any other throat or what appears to be heart. Separating the song from this rendition, I find the Victor Young melody just OK and the lyrics downright drippy. Jo, with no help from Harold Mooney's Orchestra (Paul Weston had just left to work for Columbia; his future wife would follow him shortly), makes of the intrinsically lackluster "Our Very Own" something radiant and lovely.

"Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" 12/21/49
WF is right – his point, in essense, being that this Leo Robin sparkler from Gentleman Prefer Blondes doesn't really seem like Stafford territory. Jo and Paul, indeed, can be found "trying gamely" with this statement of a golddigger's philosophy but, here, as they do elsewhere on occasion, they rely on their amusement rather than engagement with the material to do the work. I like Jo's street-wise "Yeah, but where can you hock it?" and the xylophone's downward glissando on the final word in "He's your guy, when stocks are high/But beware when they start to descend." The big-top accompaniment is kind of dorky but intentionally so, I imagine.

"Prisoner's Love Song" 12/19/47
Every bit as hilarious as Jo's first outing as hillbilly chantoosie Cinderella G. Stump, "Tim-tay-shun." Is this nasal neigher the same girl who makes you cry and your hair stand on end? Yup! Here, unlike on "Diamonds," she's totally immersed in character; with Red Ingle and His Natural Seven wheezing jauntily (they prove that such is possible) behind her, our gal's hollerin' about how she "can't ecscape." Probably not what crooner/"Prisoner of Love" co-author Russ Columbo had in mind, but I like to think he would have been amused.

"This is the Moment" 12/10/47
Well, I talked about this beautiful one before, but I'll add here that it's one of my favorite Jo records. Everyone who has yet to fall in love as well as all, cynical and hard, who believe they can't fall again, should hear this. ... And it's more than just the pretty Frederick Hollander tune and sweet Leo Robin lyrics – it's, most importantly, the voice, of understanding and reassurance, telling you not to pass up that true "moment"; you can't help but believe.

"The Stanley Steamer" 6/30/47
Never having seen Summer Holiday, the MGM Mickey Rooney-Gloria DeHaven-starring extravaganza from which the Harry Warren-Ralph Blane number comes, I just decided to check Amazon for a sound sample of the soundtrack version of "Steamer" – for comparative purposes. Well, I'm afraid I wasn't buoyed or made to smile by the DeHaven warbling – as I am by the Stafford-Starlighters belting. Too bad this absolutely terrific take on a very cute song wasn't in the film! Jo's always great on stuff with an old-fashioned theme, like this and "The Trolley Song."

"Candy" 12/6/44
I'm not quite sure what this Number 2 on the charts Mercer-Stafford-Pipers side, which has been available on Jo collections for years, is doing here, on a CD entitled "Rarities." ... Ah, who cares! This confectionary offering, which Mom told me you couldn't miss hearing if you stepped into a juke joint in '45, is something to be enjoyed slowly – like a chocolate-covered caramel. It's a hit that deserved to be a hit. I've always imagined that Johnny had kind of a musical crush on Jo; this is the record on which I first detected it.

"Tell Me Why" 12/31/47
Well, here we find another genuine rarity! This intended-as-but-never-issued-as-a-78 is showing up here for the first time! WF doesn't have a darn thing to say about either the record or the song itself, written by a team identified as "Gold/Alberts," so we're left to our own devices. This "Tell Me Why," unlike the better-known one which showed up seventeen years later in the groundbreaking musical, A Hard Day's Night, may not have a famous pedigree, namely "Lennon-McCartney," but it's, nevertheless, a very fine song. We could spend considerable time in talking about the two identically-titled ditties and treatments thereof! The Beatles' "Tell Me Why," from Ringo's first bomp of tom-toms, bashes you over the head, while the Stafford-Weston record takes a low-key song and, with orchestration and vocal interpretation, makes it yet more insinuating and subtle. John Lennon demands of his love a reason for shabby treatment, while Jo asks of hers an explanation for the joy-inducing effect he has on her. ... Stately and passionate seem odd words to apply to the same thing, but the mysteriously withheld Jo-Paul record is both simultaneously – potently so. Jo's final "Suddenly I'm feeling happy/So happy, I want to cry" is supernal. Here, on "Tell Me Why," is "that tone" I'm always talking about.

"White Christmas" 9/19/46
Well, I still think Bing owns the Berlin mega-standard, but I consider Jo my favorite among the song's many lessees. Somehow, this California girl, born and raised, makes you see the whole scene – the treetops glistening and the children listening ... and, of course, the snow – and makes you believe in the magic of Christmas. Even the Lyn Murray Singers can neither weigh her down nor yank her skyward: Jo, surrounded by drifts, we can imagine, and, tender and imperturbable, radiating good will, gifts us with a perfect reading of this homey, hope-inspiring hymn.


WF goofs in a couple of instances: neither "Give Me Something to Dream About" (available on "Stars of the Summer Night") or "White Christmas" (present on "Coming Back Like a Song") were previously unissued. ... And there are other Jo CD's, containing Capitol material, out there that I would consider more worthy – on the basis of including more of the genuine article, obscurities – of the description, "Rarities." Still, this latest effort toward transferring the Stafford recordings, in their entirety, to compact disc boasts both a wonderful sound and program and is a boon to collectors. Between you and me, it takes only one new Jo side to get me to buy.

Another Time, Another Place

In One Way Passage, surrounded by lush dance music and revelers, before the bar of a Hong Kong nightclub, Joan Ames, played by the incomparable Kay Francis, and Dan Hardesty, played by suavity personified, William Powell, bump – literally – into each other. The attraction is immediate, intense – and as jarring as the bump. They share a few drops, those not spilled – in the bump – from Dan's glass, of an exotic concoction, romantically labeled a "Paradise Cocktail." Jarred, again, this time from paradise and back to reality, Joan asks if Dan would care to meet the people in her party; Dan demurs with a courtly, poetic and, we later discover, prophetic comment about the few drops of paradise allowed them by Fate. Smiling and gracious, Joan attempts a conventional good-bye; Dan counters with an exquisitely pronounced "Auf Wiedersehen," on which vocabularic premise the film's remaining sixty-some minutes proceed. It is a profoundly touching moment in one of Cinema's most poignant offerings.

Those of us who converse in English get the idea of auf Wiedersehen; absent the input of a certain German-born gentleman, a fellow web-journalist, I shall attempt an Americanized translation, aided by The Free Dictionary's explanation: see/dig you later; so long. Auf translating to until and Wiedersehen to seeing again communicates a temporary, rather than a final, goodbye. In 1932, the year of release for One Way Passage, as the Great Depression was tightening its grip on the United States, songwriters Al Hoffman, Al Goodhart, Ed Nelson and Milton Ager offered a tender reassurance for a beaten populace that had found itself bidding, to concepts and possessions as well as to people, too many permanent goodbyes – the beautiful "Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear." Interestingly, the film that directly preceded One Way Passage for both William Powell and Kay Francis, the naughtily delightful Jewel Robbery – glaringly, gloriously Pre-Code, with its marijuana cigarettes (I'm shocked!) and casual attitude toward the bonds of matrimony – features prominently the lilting, lovely "Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear" amid the struttings of impudent and debonair jewel thief Powell and not fanatically married baroness Francis. Though One Way Passage employs the equally sentimental Al Dubin-Franke Harling "Where Was I?" as the love theme for doomed lovers Dan Hardesty and Joan Ames, Powell's delicate dropping of the German version of the French à bientôt is, we can be sure, a nod to "Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear" the popular song.

These last few days, with my recently purchased Epiphone (OK, scoff, Gibson snobs) acoustic, I've been kicking "Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear" around the parlour. I love its melody – importunate but gentle. Though I don't croon the now sadly archaic, other-worldly words, "Come, let us stroll down Lover's Lane ..." I feel as if, in merely plucking the notes, I'm speaking in a foreign tongue. Does anyone relate to such sincere, sensitive sentiment today? I don't imagine many, if any, would care to hear my rubato renderings of '20's, '30's and '40's romantic ballads – so I don't take to the trail, guitar case in hand.

Italian-American crooner and musical prodigy (and, at the time of his death, fiance of Carole Lombard) Russ Columbo introduced me to "Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear." I've since heard no interpretation of this song to equal his. Dead, at 26, in 1934, Russ, like me, "Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear," William Powell, Kay Francis, Pre-Code Cinema ... and a lot of other things, belongs to another time and another place.

Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear
Music and Words by
Al Hoffman, Al Goodhart, Ed Nelson
and
Milton Ager

It happened in Vienna;
If you were there, you'd see
Two lovers in the moonlight,
Beneath a linden tree.

Sweet violins were playing;
And to his love, the lad was saying:

Come, let us stroll down Lover's Lane,
Once more to sing love's old refrain.
Soon we must say, "Auf Wiedersehen,
Auf Wiedersehen," my dear.

Here in your arms I can't remain,
So let me kiss you once again.
Soon we must say, "Auf Wiedersehen,
Auf Wiedersehen," my dear.

Your love will cling to me,
Through the lonely daytime.
Each night will bring to me
The magic memory of Maytime.

I know my heart won't beat again
Until the day we meet again.
Sweetheart, goodbye, auf Wiedersehen,
Auf Wiedersehen, my dear.

The Look ... and Lonely

Taking in my usual high quotient of late '40's flicks, I've run into the redoubtable team of Bogie and Bacall twice this week – re-screening (yet again) two of my favorites, 1947's romantic noir, Dark Passage (spoken of, in Relative Esoterica, here), and the following year's gangster drama, Key Largo (discussed, in RE, here). Perhaps with solitariness – volitional or circumstantial – on the brain, I've found myself thinking about what struck me through these closely held viewings of the two films: Dubbed, upon her introduction to the world at large, "The Look" for her cool, in-control, eyes-at-half-mast gaze, Bacall, in her cinematic aspect, is a loner – and this is one of the chief reasons why she paired so exquisitely in celluloid with quintessential lone wolf Bogart. Yes, opposites, we know, attract – both each other in the real world and, projecting themselves from the make-believe of the silver screen, audiences. The same, though, can be said for sames.

In Dark Passage, when Bogart's escaped convict Vincent Parry, asks Bacall's artist-heiress Irene Jansen, "Don't you get lonely up here, all by yourself?" she – desirable and desired – responds, "I was born lonely, I guess." Through the actress' delivery, the character, clearly, is both resignedly lonely and at once naturally and preferentially a loner. Irene Jansen, despite the dissimilarity between her circumstances and Parry's (both those on display in the present and those we must imagine for the past leading to his incarceration), is just the right girl to come to the aid of a fleeing, emotionally beaten man who, for a chatty cabbie's benefit, comments on his own dislike for talk with a dry, matter-of-fact "Yup, that's why I don't have many friends." Irene and Vincent are star-crossed lovers – and loners.

In Key Largo, Captain Frank McLeod and Nora Temple are both just meeting and – through their connection, the now dead George Temple, Nora's husband and Frank's army buddy and underling – well-acquainted. Seeing the quiet, hard-working young woman's current situation – companion to and caretaker for her father-in-law and proprietess of an island hotel, with no man in sight – Frank (echoing Vincent Parry) inquires "You're never lonely?" and Nora offers a slight and ambiguous shake of the head. Sketching her past, she follows with, "George tell you, I met him at a USO dance. He was lonesome, and he wanted company. I was working in a defense plant; I knew lots of people, but I was lonesome, too." Like Irene Jansen, Nora is both separated by her nature from the hordes and in need of the understanding of one person. Frank, another in a long line of Bogart rugged individualists, venturing that now, the War over, he might take to the sea as a "hand on a fishing boat," declares, "Life on land's become too complicated for my taste." Though Nora explains her sense of place and rootedness with "Now, I'm like one of these mangroves" and Frank, conversely, is, at this time, feeling footloose, having had enough of pre-War and War ties, roots and responsibilities, they are alike: lonesome loners. In a nice, twins-over-as-well-as-under-the-skin touch, they even wear matching white button-down shirts through the entire film.

Bacall, almost immediately iconic upon her mid-'40's slink to fame, was the perfect female counterpart to the great Bogart. The two, individually, were cool; as a screen team, bringing to mind the lyrics of the beautiful, noiresque "Alone Together," they were cooler.

Alone Together
Music by Arthur Schwartz, Words by Howard Dietz

Alone together, above the crowd;
Beyond the world, we're not too proud –
To cling together;
We're strong as long as we're together.

Alone together, the blinding rain,
The starless night were not in vain –
For we're together.
And what is there to fear together?

Our love is as deep as the sea;
Our love is as great as a love can be.

And we can weather the great unknown
If we're alone together.

Of Lamplighters

Having finally gotten 'round to reading Niven Busch's 1948 novel, The Furies (my copy of which came with Criterion's DVD release of the film by the same title, starring the great Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Huston), a few days ago, as I neared the book's conclusion, I happened upon an especially pleasing paragraph:

In the street the lamplighter was going from pole to pole, turning on the gaslights; fog rolled in from the harbor, shrouding each light in a soiled halo and wrapping the home-going crowds in mystery.

In reading Busch's painterly passage, I was instantly reminded of Paul Francis Webster's poignant lyrics for "The Lamplighter's Serenade," which were set to Hoagy Carmichael's wistful melody.

The Lamplighter's Serenade
Music by Hoagy Carmichael,
Words by Paul Francis Webster

My, how times goes flying back;
It's eighteen ninety-three.
As from a one-horse open hack,
There steps a grand old memory.

A moment after dark, around the park,
An old-fashioned gent comes parading.
Dressed in funny clothes, but singing as he goes
"The Lamplighter's Serenade."

The old boy loves to talk with couples on the walk;
But when it's half after love time,
He reaches for his sticks and from his bag of tricks,
He lights ev'ry star in the sky.

And if a lady or a beau should answer, "No,"
He sprinkles their hearts with his magic.
Then he steals away to sing another day,
"The Lamplighter's Serenade."

This morning, remembering that today, this first day of March, is the one hundred and fifth anniversary of the birth of bandleader, arranger and trombonist Glenn Miller, I thought again of the beautifully nostalgic Carmichael-Webster collaboration; the Glenn Miller Orchestra, that Swing Era aggregation which, perhaps more than any other, brings to vivid life, through its recordings, a somewhat distant past, produced my favorite version of "The Lamplighter's Serenade." The appropriately slow and dreamy side ranks easily among my favorites by Miller. In my travels, upon printed page and through cyberspace, I haven't been able to locate an arranger credit, but I want to attribute this lovely chart to Bill Finegan, an immensely talented chap who did his painting with black dots. I love the Ray Eberle and Modernaires vocals; particularly nifty, I think, is the way in which, in the introduction and coda, the quartet, anticipating doo-wop, echoes the trombone choir's figure.

In one way, Glenn Miller, like the lamplighter, is part of a time capsule, someone enclosed and suspended in an irretrievable past. In another, he is – again through his recordings – a part of a perpetual now.

Speaking of the continuing relevance and power of popular music recordings of one period in the 20th century, the ever-opinionated Artie Shaw had this to say, in an interview for George Simon's The Big Bands:

[...] But then, take the energy and ferocity of what was going on in the late thirties and early forties. That's hard to beat. It's hard to top what a Basie does or an Ellington does at his peak. It's hard to top what I was doing at my peak, or what Benny [Goodman] was doing at his peak, or Tommy [Dorsey] at his. You see, I didn't mention Glenn [Miller], because Glenn, too, was the recipient of an enormous amount of mass publicity—the fact that he died in the mysterious circumstances that he died in, and all that. But musically, his was essentially ground-out music—ground-out like so many sausages. [...]

Sausages. Hmmm ... Well, that's one way of looking at it. If this were so, however, I don't believe we'd be talking today about Miller's late '30's-early '40's recordings any more than we would about last Thursday's pot roast. When I hear Glenn Miller's music, I think not of sausages, to be ingested, digested and forgotten, but both of lamplighters and their gas lights, icons illuminating the past – and the timelessness of the romantic emotions that this music stirs.

A Strange Loneliness

Four large commercial fans and an imposing dehumidifier whirred noisily, drying the carpet, and the furniture was disarranged (a bit of a plumbing disaster having dispersed large quantities of water on part of the floor) in the lower level room in which I normally take my evening snack and visit my virtual haunts. Gloomy machine drone and disorder denying us our wont, Nelson and I took to the library (in which my beloved noir charcoal hangs and Nelson has posed fetchingly for a journal post). Nelson parked expectantly beside his filled water bowl, on the rug, and I deposited my coffee, a glass of milk and one of those huge and ridiculously over-frosted and sprinkle-adorned cupcakes that Costco sells on the small table next to the chair in which I planned to install myself, handed Nelson his Milkbone and selected, almost instinctively, from one of the bookshelves Margaret Forster's Daphne du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller. Since first reading the book a few years ago, I have returned to it, a few pages or a chapter at a time, often – not because Daphne du Maurier is my favorite author (as regular readers might know, Cornell Woolrich holds that distinction) but because I identify strongly with the Rebecca writer's violence of emotion, revealed in the Forster book through a sampling of du Maurier's correspondence with her close (and ever-unattainably distant) friend, Ellen Doubleday, wife of the English novelist's US publisher.

My scanning included, yet again, this passage, which I find especially resonant:

It was, she realized, a strange kind of loneliness from which she sometimes suffered—not the loneliness which comes from having 'loved but lost' but rather from 'feeling the loneliness of a loved one never known'. She felt there was an experience of loving and being loved that she had never attained, and it had nothing to do with sex. It was to do with being perfectly in tune with someone, which might involve the body, it was true, but was more to do with the fusing of mind and spirit.

(The above items in quotations come from a 2/22/50 letter from du Maurier to Doubleday.)

I, yet to know what I shall call a "conventional loneliness," one derived from either a temporary or consistent lack of what some might quaintly label "company," feel frequently this "strange" emotion, which Daphne du Maurier channeled so successfully into her work. ... In any encounter with Forster's description of Daphne's "strange kind of loneliness," (not strange but familiar to me), I am reminded of the similarly titled, melodically undistinguished and lyrically interesting ditty that the Bunny Berigan Orchestra waxed 10/7/37:

A Strange Loneliness
Music by Sammy Mysels, Words by Johnny Burke

A strange loneliness was in my heart
For someone I never knew.
A strange tenderness was in my heart –
And no one to show it to.

Then you came along with sunshine and roses to share.
Then you came along with kisses that taught me to care.

A strange loneliness has turned into
A strange happiness with you.

If only the condition could be so simply and pleasantly alleviated.

Who Comes Down Your Chimney – Santa or Santy?

I have been fascinated by the word Santy – a variant of Santa, as in Santa Claus – since first I heard it, some years ago, uttered by the most recognizable child actress of all time, in one of her films. Why Santy and not Santa? I wondered. Encountering Santy again, in other vintage movies, but still not in real life, I imagined the word to be a colloquialism fallen out of favor in these homogenized times in America. (Since forming this conclusion, I have happened upon, in song and verse, the rather rustic-sounding "chocolate [substitute flavor of your choice] sody" for "chocolate soda," which seems confirmation.)

Whence Santy and does anyone in this day exercise this pronunciation option? This from "The History of Santa Claus" at NorthPoleSantaClaus.com:

In the 1600's, the Dutch presented Sinterklaas (meaning St. Nicholas) to the colonies. In their excitement, many English-speaking children uttered the name so quickly that Sinterklaas sounded like Santy Claus. After years of mispronunciation, the name evolved into Santa Claus.

According to Wikipedia, Santy Claus is one of a few designations used by the Irish for the jolly, bearded one.

I kind of like the air of informality in "Santy," with its t softer in emphasis than that in "Santa." I find myself keeping track, in my movie-viewing, of who says "Santy" and who says "Santa":

Clark Gable says "Santa" in It Happened One Night
Ginger Rogers says "Santy" in I'll Be Seeing You
Kay Francis says "Santy" in In Name Only (this floored me, by the way)

Shirley Temple and James Dunn say "Santy" and Jane Withers (playing Shirley's inappropriately named nemesis, Joy) says "Santa" in Bright Eyes

Betty Grable and Robert Cummings trade choruses on Robin and Rainger's jauntily romantic "You Started Something" – Betty singing "I believe in Santa Claus" and Bob singing "I believe in Santy Claus" – in Moon Over Miami



In popular music, (the ill-fated) Joe Harris baritones "Santy Claus came in the spring" in Benny Goodman's version and Cliff Weston tenors "Santa Claus came in the spring" in Tommy Dorsey's version of the winning Johnny Mercer concoction.

A New Deal-era Santy
(Some viewers may find certain images, reflecting racial stereotypes, offensive)

For whom are you leaving out milk and cookies tonight?

Five Questions

Listening today, Jo Stafford's birthday, to the music of my favorite singer, I remembered an interview I heard for the first time a few months ago, shortly after the incomparable vocalist's passing. In this conversation between Jo and a California DJ – which took place in 2006, some time before Jo's eighty-ninth birthday that year – Jo responded in her usual thoughtful and intelligent manner – to the same tired, old questions that I, in my capacity of audience had encountered many times before and she, in her capacity of subject, surely must have encountered hundreds of times before. As I listened, back in July, I thought, This is the latest interview with Jo that I've heard; most likely, I'll never run across a more recent one – now she's gone ... and I'll never know the answers to the questions that have burned in my mind since I discovered that voice.

The interview – conducted by musician and Standards Era historian, Michael Feinstein – that concludes the 2003 CD debut of Jo's 1959 concept album, "Ballad of The Blues," is, by far and away, the best with Stafford that I've come across. Because Michael talked to her musician-to-musician. He posed questions that allowed Jo to reveal aspects of the musical miracle that was/is Jo Stafford. There was none of that "Well, what was the young Sinatra like?" (Why ask Jo Stafford about Frank Sinatra when you can ask her about Jo Stafford?) ... Still, the exchange with Feinstein serves to intrigue rather than satisfy fully.

Now, in 2008, like in the late '80's when first I heard that voice, that tone, Jo seems to have come out of nowhere. I'm sure that all whose initial exposure to the Stafford sound came in 1940 reacted as I did – and musician/composer/arranger Johnny Mandel did: "Who is THAT!?" Where did she come from; what did she evolve from?

In 1995, I wrote to Jo. I didn't ask for an autographed picture; I didn't ask any questions – I just rhapsodized, without expectation of acknowledgment. A couple of weeks after I sent my missive, I got a reply from her, which opened with, "Thank you for one of the nicest – if not the [she underlined the – twice] nicest letter I have ever received." Well, did I smile. .. Perhaps such was merely this gracious lady's standard response to a devotee's outpouring of enthusiasm, but I like to imagine that I met my objective of communicating to my favorite singer my tremendous admiration for her talent and music.

If I had had the opportunity that many others had (and, it seems to me, squandered) to speak with that musical enigma, Jo Stafford, I would have asked:

Who and what were your musical influences?
What did you listen to when you were growing up?
What do you listen to now?
Who is your favorite composer?
Does an identification with the lyrics aid you in your interpretation?

Banal? Maybe. Yet, I believe these five questions might have helped me to understand. ... Jo's parents came from Tennessee. Her mother played banjo. Jo had five years of operatic training and took piano lessons. She spoke of having listened, in the '30's, to Glen Gray and Benny Goodman. She dug the Mercer-Teagarden duets with Paul Whiteman's orchestra. The Stafford Sisters, the vocalizing trio in which Jo made her professional debut, took their stylistic cue from the jazzy New Orleanians, The Boswell Sisters. "Our talents — his and mine — fit the music of the time,” she said, of herself and her husband, bandleader/composer/arranger, Paul Weston. “And the music fit us." ... Still, where the heck did Jo Stafford come from? How do you take the environment and the times and get Jo Stafford? Recently, I was listening to her Reader's Digest recordings from the late '60's; Jo, at the time these sides were made, was a 30-year veteran of the music business. And the musical landscape had changed considerably since her heyday. She, singer-trombonist Warren Covington and the then current edition of The Pied Pipers were doing, among other things, that easy-listening '60's anthem "What the World Needs Now," (penned by the then ubiquitous Burt Bacharach), in a take, extremely late '60's in manner, on the quasi-spiritual "Yes, Indeed" approach of Dorsey arranger, Sy Oliver. I could just envision the vocal assemblage swaying, on a variety show (Ed Sullivan; The Smothers Brothers), before a mod, bold, colorful backdrop. The one timelessly hip element of the record was Jo's delivery. That cool tone and laidback style. Jo was hip and modern in 1940. She's hip and modern today. She will be so, long after we, of this moment, are gone. Perhaps the simple, one-word explanation for the newness, the unprecented quality that Jo brought to her environment and times – or anybody else brought to his/hers, for that matter – is uniqueness. Just the same, I would like to have heard her responses to those five questions.

The People's Choice

Well ... for Election Day: a Swing Era favorite introduced to me by The First Lady of Swing, Ella Fitzgerald, with Chick Webb and His Orchestra

Vote For Mr. Rhythm
Music by Ralph Rainger, Words by Leo Robin, Al Siegel

Vote for Mr. Rhythm –
Raise up your voice,
And vote for Mr. Rhythm,
The people's choice.

You'll be happy with him –
Take my advice,
And vote for Mr. Rhythm;
I'm voting twice!

Ev'ryone's a friend of his;
His campaign slogan is,
"Change Your Woe
Into a Wo-De-Ho!"

Vote for Mr. Rhythm –
Let freedom ring,
And soon we'll all be singing,
"Of thee I swing!"

Have you exercised your right to choose today?

"... thinking over Sunday"

I've never been crazy about Sunday. It seems that, since childhood, I've always been too preoccupied with the fact that the dreaded Monday would follow to enjoy the traditional day of rest. I am, however, mad about the 1926 published "Sunday," the first hit for Jule Styne, who, in those days, was spelling his name differently. I like the song's chord changes and upbeat melody; "Sunday" is a very good vehicle for improvisation.

Sunday
Music and Words by Ned Miller, Chester Cohn,
Jules Stein, Bennie Krueger

I'm blue ev'ry Monday, thinking over Sunday –
That one day when I'm with you.
It seems that I sigh all day Tuesday, I cry all day Wednesday –
Oh, my! how I long for you!

And then comes Thursday;
Gee it's long; it never goes by.
Friday makes me feel like I'm gonna die.

But after payday is my fun day;
I shine all day Sunday –
That one day when I'm with you.

Playing "Sunday" this Sunday evening, I thought of an interesting anecdote involving the song, in Rhythm Man: Fifty Years in Jazz, guitarist Steve Jordan's autobiography:

The 1973 Chiaroscuro album Buddy Tate and His Buddies was recorded on a Sunday because of me. Producer Hank O'Neal called to say that Buddy Tate wanted me for the date with Roy Eldridge, Illinois Jacquet, Mary Lou Williams, Milt Hinton and Gus Johnson. But the only night off I had from a regular gig in Washington was Sunday, and I told him it would be tough for me to take it and, anyway, there were a lot of good guitar players in New York. "No, no, Buddy wants you, not anybody else," O'Neal told me. So, the date was scheduled for a Sunday, and six prominent jazz musicians had to rearrange their schedules to fit mine. That was nice of them and good for my ego. That's also the reason why the old standard, Sunday, is on the album. After we had finished recording the special tunes for the date, a new piece by Buck Clayton, two by Buddy, and one by Mary Lou, we had time for one more. I suggested Sunday simply because it was a Sunday and because I knew it was a tune all these jazz veterans knew and would be comfortable with. Or so I thought. Mary Lou, a veteran of countless jam sessions and one of the best pianists of the swing era, insisted she didn't know Sunday. I couldn't believe it. Nor could Roy. "Everybody knows Sunday," Roy kept telling her, "Mary Lou, I know you know Sunday!" But she said she didn't, and when we decided to go ahead with it I wrote out the chord changes for her. And if you listen closely to the lengthy solo by Mary Lou on the recording I think you will notice that she doesn't play the melody of the song. I guess she really didn't know it. But it's a marvelous solo, anyway, as her solos always were, and conceived only from the chord changes, a kind of conception all good jazz players are able to achieve.

Both of us having read Rhythm Man, my mom and I one time discussed this story. I expressed my amazement at Mary Lou's not being familiar with "Sunday," but, like Roy Eldridge, Mom insisted that the pianist could not have not known the jazz standard. I like my mother's romantic theory – that "Sunday" held for Mary Lou some unpleasant association and, for this reason, she wished to avoid playing it. We'll never know, I'm sure, but this does seem a plausible possibility.

Having heard this treatment of "Sunday" since initially reading the amusing tale, I have to say that I am certain that Mary Lou's hesitation to make the recording had nothing whatever to do with a lack of acquaintance with the song. Jordan's right – she doesn't play the melody; she does, however, dance around it here and there, and her paraphrases, though brief, are close enough to indicate that she knew the ditty. Besides, she followed Eldridge who stated the melody in the opening chorus; any jazz musician would have taken off after the song was introduced. Maybe Mary Lou just wasn't especially fond of "Sunday." You'd never guess this, though, from the way she goes through the jaunty tune, tinkling brightly and throwing in the occasional modern alternate chord. Only Jordan's story would arouse your suspicions.

Ok, we'll imagine that Mary Lou didn't really dig "Sunday." Surely, though, she, who became an extremely religious person, loved Sunday. Me, I'm just the other way around.