In Service of Music

I caught Frank Vignola a few nights ago at the Ark in Ann Arbor. The tickets for the show, sticking in my bedroom mirror frame, had been tantalizing me for over a month – and Frank and confreres delivered on my expectations. His band – comprising the leader, rhythm guitarist Vinnie Raniolo, double bassist Gary Mazzaroppi and guest accordionist Julien Labro – opened with an almost misleadingly relaxed "Stardust" and, without pause and employing the instantly recognizable intro to the Django Reinhardt-Stephane Grappelly recording of "Honeysuckle Rose," went into a spirited treatment of "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" (perhaps a nod to Birthday Boy Tommy Dorsey).

In making mention, early in the proceedings, of the 2010 Django Reinhardt Centennial, Vignola set the tone for the evening. The legacy of the Belgian guitarist, like a convival, vivid and colourfully-garbed ghost settling comfortably in the best armchair, was very much in evidence throughout the set. Still, though the Long Island-born Vignola, capable of tossing off patented Reinhardt licks and creating heady Gypsy jazz atmosphere, is unmistakably a Django disciple, he's no clone. Frank Vignola is his own man – virtuosic, vibrant, vital and enclopedically informed on jazz. And blindingly fast. Apart from the distinctive manner of bending the strings, if there's one thing in Vignola's playing that, for me, conjures Reinhardt, it's the dazzling, dizzying speed. Like Django (and "Django's Tiger"), Frank flies through the changes, deftly, cleanly and with clever detours from the expected course. The velocity, though, is not without artistic purpose; Vignola's speed on the strings is always used in service of the music. Again acknowledging Reinhardt with a soulful and nuanced "Nuages" and then the recent passing of guitar-slinging giant Les Paul with a respectful "How High the Moon," Vignola verbally commented on the langourous lope into which the band had fallen with a jocular "Old guy's tempo." This guy, though often loud and fast, knows when and how to employ such.

I discovered the guitar-playing of Frank Vignola, a chronological contemporary of mine, a good 15 years ago when, intrigued by unusual instrumentation, a diverse song list and a Gatsby-esque CD cover, I grabbed a copy of the second album of Travelin' Light. Having been not just instantly awestruck by his technical skill but delighted by his unique "voice," I've been a Vignola follower ever since. The highlight of Thursday evening, for me, was perhaps an appropriately ferocious, and – yes – fast, trek through Django's "Rythme Futur" (spoken of, in Relative Esoterica, here); Frank and his fine crew took me places – in the past as well as the future – with that one. The night, or Frank's part of it (the miraculous Hot Club of Detroit took the stage next), neared its close with that perennial showpiece, "Flight of the Bumble Bee": remember, this is one of the things Harry James got critically stung for buzzing on his trumpet back in the 1940's. It was flashy, without musical substance, just a display of prowess – or so the snobby "they" said. Modest in dimensions and unassuming in manner, Vignola vindicated the Rimsky-Korsakov piece (he gave the composer credit), the artistic application of speed ... and maybe even the oft-maligned (among "purists") Harry James with a zealous and yet effortlessly-winged flight. "Serve the song," I always say (see, I'll even quote myself): playing fast or slow ... and always extremely well, Frank Vignola does just that.

Dig Italian-American Frank, unabashedly ethnic (like a certain Mr. Lang), on the 'tube:

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.

An Anniversary: More and Less

With the passing of time, some things – such as my appreciation of the artistry of Bunny Berigan, my favorite trumpeter, born 101 years ago today – grow greater; other things – such as my attention to Relative Esoterica, my web journal, begun 3 years ago today – diminish. A subjective view of subjectivity.

Please dig the one and only Bunny, unchanging in his revelance, timeless – and yet who, with the passing of time, has attained giant dimensions:

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 ...

Benny, Tram and My Little Dog, Too

Listening exclusively to BG, born 100 years ago today ... and being reminded that a musical organization under the direction of no other leader has provided me a more satisfying aural experience than have the many outfits captained by this incomparably dedicated instrumentalist, Benjamin David Goodman

... and thinking about Tram, born 108 years ago today ... and hoping that, some time, my music and artistic "voice" will move someone as I have been moved by such assets of the great Frank Trumbauer

... and walking about the neighborhood with Nelson, born 12 years ago today ... and watching him open, with tremendous terrier determination, his birthday presents ... and reflecting that I'm very lucky to have such a fine friend as my little canine companion, Nelson Eddy:

That's how I spent my day.

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.

Redigging Donovan

A few of months ago, if you had expressed interest, I could have told you about my fascination, occurring through my British '60's-obsessed teenage years, with Donovan. I would have talked about having heard the chart-toppers, by then not contemporary, when I was a small tot but not really becoming curious until I sat down, at thirteen or so, with my eldest sister's well-worn, oft-played LP copy of "Donovan's Greatest Hits" and tuned in. This is how it went:

I was enormously intrigued by the almost discordant -seeming, slightly disorienting "Epistle to Dippy," with its thudding electric guitar and bass opening, harpsichord, strings and hipster lyrics ("elevator in the brain hotel" particularly delighted me). "Sunshine Superman," "Season of the Witch" and "Wear Your Love like Heaven" transported me to the first past – in which I, born in 1966, was not a significant participant – that I idealized, the Psychedelic Era. The closing track, "Lalena," struck me as beautiful but almost unbearably poignant. Sitting in a corner of my basement, surrounded by my stereo equipment, records and, of course, guitar, I looked at the picture booklet included in the "open-out" album; seeing the shot (shown above) of the very young, pre-fame Donovan, parked at a piano but chording on a twelve-string guitar, his hair so closely-cropped that his trademark waves are not apparent ... and the one, now iconic, in which he, barefooted, clothed in a long gown and holding a peacock fan, gazes out to sea from where he reposes, enclosed front, back and above by a stone structure, I wondered What sort of person is this Hurdy Gurdy Man, who creates vivid and enticing pictures with his song poetry, sings sometimes in a reverb-simulating voice, and gently but not at all tentatively – just masterfully – strums and picks an acoustic?

For the next several years, still loyal to what can came from the British Isles in the '60's and can loosely be termed rock and folk, I listened to Donovan, as enchanted as ever by his imagery and the sort of trill, not at all precious, with which he often presented it. I bought copies of "Mellow Yellow" and "The Hurdy Gurdy Man" as well as an album representing his introductory period (in which he was labeled, by a label-obsessed press, "The British Bob Dylan"), which, I was to find, contained tracks from both his first, "What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid" and second, "Fairytale" LP outings. The cover of a Shawn Phillips composition, "Little Tin Soldier," from the early collection made me sad; I listened least of all to the record on which it appeared, which I acquired last. I logged countless hours with "Mellow" and "Hurdy" – from the former, I especially loved "Writer in the Sun," "Sand and Foam," "House of Jansch" (I didn't know then who Jansch was; thanks, Tom, for enlightening me), "Young Girl Blues," "Hampstead Incident" and "Sunny South Kensington"; from the latter, the title track and "Get Thy Bearings."

In short, I could have told you much, composed of both minutiae and superficialities, about my long-held passion for Donovan – but I could not, in these more recent times, have expressed my intensity of feeling about his music, because it's all but impossible, perhaps genuinely impossible, to reheat, re-experience, and then accurately communicate an emotional response, even one sustained over a period of years. I can, though, tell you now about my present rediscovery of Donovan and my new interpretation of his music and its magic.

Last October, having been inspired by Will Hodgkinson's funny-as-heck, illuminating and "it's never too late"-themed Guitar Man, I returned to the six-string guitar (so much for this). A great deal had happened in my music listening life since I first was playing this instrument in earnest and digging Donovan. I had discovered jazz and swing! One of the reasons, in fact, that I had abandoned the guitar is that I felt unable to adapt myself to the greater demands of playing jazz after years of strumming harmonically simple barre chords in a rock setting. Anyway, all of a sudden back to my first love (and seemingly overnight in possession of some new guitars, bought with savings), I started thinking about what I wanted to do this time around with the six-string. I had realized in my tenor-playing days that I had a yen to become proficient as a solo guitarist in the chord melody style ... and also that I had no desire to sing (I'm not bad – I mean, I sing in tune ... but I'm no Jo Stafford.) Since being turned on to Davy Graham's staggeringly diverse music, I've been making an effort to expose myself to more ... stuff and people – to allow myself to be influenced as well as to enjoy that thrill of discovery. Sometimes, I've learned, discovery can actually be rediscovery. I found myself, in considering what can be done with one little ol' guitar, remembering the Donovan concert – just the man and his guitar – that I attended in ... oh, I guess it was '87, and how impressed I'd been by his ability both to suggest, with just that one guitar, some of the complex arrangements that were used for his records and breathe new life into songs he'd surely performed thousands of times. This, I understood now more deeply, was something by which to be inspired.

... Well, I can't say it was déjà vu all over again, as I'm no longer quite so starry-eyed about some of the aspects of the time in which the Scottish singer/songwriter/musician rose to fame, once very much caught up in my appreciation of his music, but I am, yet again – decades after I thought I was moving on to something else – an ardent admirer of the great Donovan. Funny thing is, I see now that way back when, before I was officially a jazz fan, I was grooving to the snazzy arrangements that John Cameron cooked up for Don's hits and album cuts, which contain elements, now unmistakable to me, of both jazz and swing. I hesitate to use the word, as it somehow seems to impart something much less, cheaper, than what I want it to, but Donovan, regarded at least at first primarily as a folkie and later as a prime exponent of psychedelic music (whatever that, technically, is), was "jazzy." ... Ah, I hate labels. It wasn't apparent to me when I was a young fan, as I knew nothing about jazz, but Donovan, I've realized in this rediscovery, dug jazz – I didn't need the confirmation I've found in reading up on the guy in these past weeks.

Donovan, both then was and now is, associated with a positive message – which might best be represented musically by major chords – but I've been pleased to note again all that minor chord melancholy – "Sand and Foam," "Young Girl Blues," "Hampstead Incident." I love those moody, ruminative minor chords, and Donovan employed them most effectively.

I've been on a regular Donovan buying spree lately, securing compact disc copies of "Fairytale," "Sunshine Superman," "Mellow Yellow," "Donovan in Concert," "A Gift from a Flower to a Garden," "The Hurdy Gurdy Man" and "Barabajagal." The extremely familiar as well as the entirely new, which includes all those lovely, spare demo recordings that have been so generously included in the CD reissues, are thrilling me. I await the arrival of "Sunshine Superman – The Journey of Donovan," the three-hours-plus documentary of whose 2008 release I just learned. Whew ... much material to absorb. Last night, I watched my newly acquired copy of "Donovan Live in L.A. at the Kodak Theatre," which captures a master musician, singer and songwriter (in the company of a fine double-bassist and percussionist) nodding to a magical musical past that seemed to represent infinite possibilities; speaking, with total relevance, in the present and looking optimistically toward the future. Before launching into "Happiness Runs," for which he, as he had when I saw him over twenty years ago, instructed the "boys" and "girls" in their parts for the sing-a-long, Donovan made an acknowledgment of the song's use in a Cheerios commericial: He mentioned that the Wall Street Journal had (clearly chidingly) inquired if he was "selling-out" by leasing his song for the purpose of hawking something and then explained that he was "selling in" – "The songs must go to the largest audience," he succinctly put it .

Happiness runs in a circular motion.
Thought is like a little boat upon the sea.
Ev'rybody is a part of ev'rything, anyway.
You can have ev'rything if you let yourself be.

It's a good message – for ev'rybody.

Do watch Will Hodgkinson's excellent, probing interview with Donovan – begin here.

Serenade for a Forgotten Maverick

The name Reginald Foresythe first came to my attention, in the relative infancy of my love affair with jazz and swing, as that belonging to the composer of a harmonically intriguing, amusingly titled song that was winningly rendered by Fats Waller and His Rhythm, "Serenade for a Wealthy Widow." The artist behind the unmistakably British handle remained, for several years, a man of mystery – until a few days ago, when I listened for the first time to the BVHAAST label's recently released "The New Music Of Reginald Foresythe" – which I purchased entirely on the strength of the fascination that the aforementioned "Serenade" held for me – and read its accompanying notes.

In 1934, as Reginald Foresythe's fame approached its height, his "Serenade for a Wealthy Widow" outdistanced the competition in sheet music sales (the cleverly constructed charmer, originally an instrumental piece, eventually received the additional pedigree of a Dorothy Fields lyric), then a more accurate indicator of song material popularity than record sales – and yet the pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader's artistic vision ultimately proved too avant garde for a Depression-era general public accustomed to more straightforward, easily categorizable music.

Born, in 1907, to an African father (a lawyer, from the Sierra Leonean community in Lagos, Nigeria) and an English mother of Scottish and German ancestry, Reginald Foresythe – his racially mixed background, alone ahead of its time, would give rise, among provincial fans, to confusion about his ethnicity, which the adult entertainer playfully did nothing to dispel in interviews – grew up in West London, where he received piano lessons as a child. Not yet fully grown, Foresythe got his professional start working dances as a member of the band of a neighbor, a veteran of the Boer War and composer of marches. The talented young pianist found himself in demand to play locally but, at this point, rather than attempting to make a career in music, chose to utilize his language skills under the employment of a translating bureau.

In 1929, Reginald Foresythe got his first substantial musical opportunity when he signed on to accompany blues singer Zaidee Jackson, popular among the day's chic set, for Paris engagements. The pianist then teamed with vocalist Walter Richardson and headed for Australia; though, owing to the light tenor's stylistic dissimilarity to the highly esteemed Paul Robeson, this sojourn proved less successful, the pair's eventual migration to California, via Hawaii, led to Foresythe's entrance into privileged musical circles. Intriguing with his accent and cultured background, the handsome musician was welcomed into black nightlife; he performed at smart soirees and dances and recorded with bandleader Paul Howard, whose aggregation included Lionel Hampton and future Ellingtonian, Lawrence Brown. In Hollywood, Foresythe thrived – meeting and then arranging for Duke Ellington himself; the two later would collaborate on material for a Cotton Club revue. Too, the pianist applied his emergent compositional skills to film, writing for, among other projects, D. W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln.

Foresythe then moved on to the mid west's jazz mecca, Chicago, homebase to pianist Earl Hines; the two newly acquainted aces of the 88's cooked up the Hines Orchestra's moody theme song, "Deep Forest." The author of the BVHAAST CD's liner notes, Val Wilmer, believes that a musical exchange took place when Foresythe came to America, wherein the Englishman, now in jazz's homeland, absorbed the defining elements of our New Orleans-born improvisational music as well as influenced – through his admiration of, for example, Delius, and his knowledge of the classics – American pianists, such as Hines, Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson, who themselves were to exert tremendous influence.

In addition to arranging for Hines and Ellington, Foresythe provided charts for a big band led by Wild Bill Davison; unfortunately, these scores have not survived, but the cornettist himself fondly recalled "all that screaming brass and wonderful chords." Before ending his rewarding stay in the States and returning to England to launch his own bandleading venture, Foresythe met with smiling baton waver and shrewd judge of talent, Paul "King of Jazz" Whiteman, who commissioned new works from the pianist.

In 1933, Reginald Foresythe's New Music, featuring the uncommon lineup of saxophones, two clarinets and a bassoon in place of the more familiar brass-reed combination, opened at London's Café de la Paix. Ironically, though the orchestra's debut met with great anticipation, English audiences, finding Foresythe's music not conducive to dancing, revealed themselves not ready for Foresythe's outre ideas. Fortunately for future generations (a minute percentage of which might be enjoying the BVHAAST Foresythe disc today), listeners in the States received Foresythe's progressive sounds warmly and looked upon the sophisticated bandleader as an artist in the Ellington mould.

Foresythe returned to New York in 1934 to appear, as featured soloist, with Paul Whiteman's orchestra; given the segregation firmly in place both in and out of the entertainment industry of the times, the significance of this honor accorded the black musician cannot be overstated. The following year, Foresythe was back in America to record, as leader, in the company of future swing stars Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa and John Kirby, among others.

The mid-1930's was a period of high activity and visibility for Reginald Foresythe. In England, he accompanied singers (one of whom, Judy Shirley, rhapsodized, "[E]veryone knew he'd always make you sound good."), wrote for the theatre and films and recorded a series of duets, which garnered accolades, with the Scottish Arthur Young. In 1937, Foresythe was back in New York; he provided scores for a pioneering effort, a "Negro ballet," and attended white-tie affairs, at which he duetted with the formidable Fats Waller. As the decade wore down, so too did Foresythe's productivity; maintaining his creative momentum began to take a backseat to keeping up a frantic social pace. The Englishman, still admired by the musical cognoscenti but now drifting professionally, opted to drink and revel with friends in Harlem dives. After suffering a street-attack, he recuperated in Duke Ellington's apartment.

The Second World War having commenced, Foresythe was drafted into the RAF, with an officer's ranking. The Britisher served at remote Scottish air-bases and then, following VE Day, entertained troops throughout the Continent. Upon his return home, Reginald Foresythe was attached to an official film unit in the capacity of composer. The remainder of the 1940's saw the pianist touring Europe as a solo concert artist for the British Council, recording show tunes with a modernist quartet, working in Paris and, finally back at home, playing out the summer seasons at a West Country hotel.

On the eve of the Rock & Roll Era, Reginald Foresythe was living in London but belonged to the dead past. He worked for a music publisher and continued to compose music – but nothing of import; once musically ahead of the times, he had become something of an an anachronism, an artifact of a sophisticated day long gone. He spent the last of his all too small allotment of years suffering from heart trouble and existing in genteel poverty – according to Val Wilmer, to whose illuminating liner notes I am deeply indebted, "eking out a living" and "playing background music in seedy rooms barely deserving of the name 'clubs,'" for an audience undoubtedly ignorant of his past accomplishments. Reginald Foresythe died, at the close of 1958, at the age of 51.

As might be expected, the CD, "The New Music of Reginald Foresythe" is made up entirely of performances of compositions of the forward-thinking Foresythe. The first fifteen tracks come from the bandleader's own The New Music of Reginald Foresythe, the self-explanatory name he gave to the instrumentationally unusual outfits he captained in the 1930's. The remaining eleven tracks present various '30's interpretations of Foresythe songs; the bands of Lew Stone, Fats Waller and Paul Whiteman in turn take on "Serenade for a Wealthy Widow"; Hines delivers his signature, "Deep Forest"; and the King of Jazz, leading a '35 crew that includes Jack Teagarden and Frank Trumbauer, offers, in addition to "Widow," fine readings of the Hines theme and "Dodging a Divorcee," "The Duke Insists," and "Garden of Weed." In my opinion, most conventional – though dramatically and effectively delivered by Louis Armstrong – is "Mississippi Basin," with a South-extolling lyric by Fats Waller's most frequent collaborator, Andy Razaf. Apart from the Waller recording, it is the New Music sides that really interest me. This, I must say, is not the sort of stuff I'd put in the car's CD player or use as a background to light conversation; the Forseythe records are, in my little world, for library listening. There are the shifting moods of "Berceuse for an Unwanted Child" (Foresythe's witty titling pre-dated Raymond Scott's whimsy by a few years); the mysterious atmosphere of one of my favorites, the enigmatically named "Bit" and the sad stateliness of "The Autocrat Before Breakfast." Most beautiful of all, perhaps, is the piano solo "Because It's Love," a song Foresythe dedicated to his friend, the American singer, Elizabeth Welch. The last four New Music sides, recorded at the beginning of 1935, are obscure must-hear's for swing aficionados: Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa lend their unmistakable sounds to the Foresythe's sonic pallette. It could be said that Reginald Foresythe was an Impressionist, using soft hues, in a landscape of Realists.

Cybergod Knows What I Like (Sometimes)

Well, I don't usually do this – build a post around a link, that is – as when the link vanishes, what have you got? Ah, well ... except for the "our love" of the Bros. Gershwin's "Love is Here to Stay," it's all ephemera, is it not? Anyway, checking in, as is my wont, at youtube this evening, I discovered, among my "Recommended for You" videos (have to say that not infrequently Cybergod, interpreting my tastes rather loosely, comes up with some unendurable doozies) something heralded, accurately enough, as "Anita O'Day Live in Tokyo '63." Well, naturally, I clicked – I mean, I love Anita! Well, what should this clip turn out to be but the inimitable Ms O'Day doing her thing to one of my favorite songs, Sammy Fain and Lew Brown's "That Old Feeling" (extolled, in Relative Esoterica, here) Well, what a combination – one of the finest jazz singers of all time and one of the most romantic songs ever written; for sure, Anita – even with her sassy and swinging air of irreverence – knew how to sing a love ballad. I dug everything about this video, including, as one might expect, the band and arrangement – except its premature ending; our chanteuse was barely into her second chorus when the screen faded to black. Enterprising lass that I am, I did a search for "Anita O'Day That Old Feeling" and got the entire performance – not much longer, as she does only two choruses (with no instrumental break between them), but satisfyingly complete. Comments for the abbreviated presentation led me to google "Anita O'Day Live in Tokyo '63"; it seems that the full concert in which she does the dreamy standard is available on DVD. In this appearance, the great O'Day is accompanied by an Japanese all-star orchestra, with Bob Corwin on piano, and the arrangements are provided by Buddy Bregman, whose bold, trombone-showcasing charts I have always highly fancied.

Read about it!


Dig Anita; experience "That Old Feeling":

The jazz vocalist had, of course, taken on this scorcher with Russ Garcia's orchestra in 1960, for her superb "Waiter, Make Mine Blues" album, but she can always be relied upon to bring a fresh interpretation, with her spontaneous feeling, to a previously visited tune.

CD, Sixteen Bucks; Dorsey, Priceless

Chapter Six, "Swing High: More White Bands," of Bruce Crowther and Mike Pinfold's The Big Band Years begins, beneath the sub-header, "DANCING ON THE CEILING," with a quote from The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing, Tommy Dorsey: "They paid $1.75 to get in; let's give 'em $3.50 worth."

Today, on the 103rd anniversary of TD's birth, with five Dorsey discs shuffling around in the CD player upstairs and "Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra, 1938" pouring from the computer speakers before which I sit, I consider the tremendous kick given me by the music of the Irish-American Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr., my favorite musician. Dorsey, peerless legit player and facile hot man; his arrangers, my favorite, Sy Oliver, and Paul Weston, Axel Stordahl, Deane Kincaide, Bill Finegan; his musicians, my favorite trumpeter, Bunny Berigan, and Ziggy Elman, Bud Freeman, Charlie Shavers, Buddy Rich, Joe Bushkin, Dave Tough, Johnny Mince, Don Lodice; and his vocalists, my favorite, Jo Stafford, and Frank Sinatra, The Pied Pipers, Jack Leonard, Dick Haymes, Edythe Wright, Stuart Foster, could deliver – something for everybody. The Dorsey crews had no weak spots, no holes; all of the many aggregations fronted by Dorsey in his 20-plus year bandleading career were able to alternate between quiet, crawl tempo romantic ballads and blazing, pounding killer-dillers with ease, assurance and authority.

Tommy Dorsey died – one week to the day after his 51st birthday – not quite ten years before I was born, so I never got that $3.50 value live performance for a $1.75 admission. (Oh, how I wish I had been around in the '30's and '40's!) I have gotten, though, something from that trombone and those bands, on records, now transferred to compact disc, whose worth is inestimable.

Dig Dorsey today!

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.

Bunny and Me

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of my favorite trumpeter, Bunny Berigan. I've been celebrating his genius in listening to some of the many recordings to which he lent his unmistakable tone, formidable technique, boundless creativity and matchless vitality.

Today, also, is the 2nd anniversary of the inception of Relative Esoterica, the web journal I'm keeping, after a fashion.

"... 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.