Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Happy Birthday, Clora Bryant
"Hello, Central. . .:A Legendary Thoroughfare is Heading for a Comeback" was the title of a long article I wrote that was commissioned by Los Angeles magazine in 1995 on the occasion of the release of the film "Devil in a Blue Dress." Somehow, though, it fell the through the cracks during a change in ownership of the publication and has never been published. The new staffers couldn't even find the paperwork for the article, but took my word for it and paid me the rather handsome fee---I seem to recall that it was several thousand dollars--- that had been agreed upon. After the opening paragraph below, written by me, are the quotations in the article from today's birthday girl, jazz "trumpetiste," as she prefers to be called, Clora Bryant. I recycled some of this and other material from the magazine article into my 1998 book, "Hot from Harlem: Profiles in Classic African-American Entertainment."
Once upon a time there was a street in Los Angeles that had all the excitement of New York's Broadway. Chicago's South Side. and Rome's Via Veneto with a little of the Las Vegas strip thrown in for good measure. A jumping thoroughfare that ran from downtown all the way out to intersecting streets numbered in the low hundreds in the then sparsely-populated environs of Watts: a paradise lost of high life and low, hipsters and movie stars, black and white happily sharing the same space, freely celebrating the joy and passion of America's signal musical art form-jazz. The time was the 1940s. The place was Central Avenue. And to hear it from jazz trumpeter Clara Bryant:
"It was an ooo-wee situation. I'd been to New York, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Florida, but I never had the feeling I got the minute I stepped off the Q street car onto Central for the first time. I get goosebumps just thinking about it."
"You could hardly get down Central on a Saturday night for all the big cars. and limos, and the chauffeurs with the hats and jodhpurs and black boots. I mean they were sharp, they were clean. And movie stars like Lana Turner and Rita Hayworth with their beads and diamonds. I could never get over the fact that 'I'm here. Me!' Clora Bryant from little old Denison Texas. Ooo-wee!'"
"I was heavy into be-bop. That was my generation's music. It was a challenge, something new and different, and I was gung-ho to find out what it was about. So when I got off at Central, my brother took me to the musician's union to get my card at the black local. I started walking up to this building and it was like somebody was walking me there. You see from the time I was little, my father indoctrinated me and my brothers about California about coming here. So that first day I knew I was where I wanted to be and where my dad had wanted me to be. All these emotions were just going through my body."
"The movie stars went to Central because it was mysterious, it was adventurous. But Central wasn't dangerous. I could walk up and down the avenue any time day or night. Guys would whistle at you, but they didn't follow it up with stuff like today. You had the pimps standing out on the sidewalk of course, with their fine women to service the white guys. But things wouldn't get nasty the way they do now."
"I was very young, and very aggressive. I had the nerve to get up on stage with AI Killian---a trumpeter who'd played with Basie and Dizzy. I forget now what song we were playing, but he played, then I played, and then the saxophone player laid out and then I started trying to challenge him with high notes. He was courteous enough to let me have the last note, though I know he could have gone three octaves higher."
"Places like the Mocambo, Ciro's, and all those places, they were losing a lot of business with the people coming down in there, coming south to see the shows over there. That hurt. The businesses. . .that's what happened. The businesses were hurting up in Hollywood, so it got to city hall. They couldn't have that, and they closed.. . .That's what helped close Central Avenue down is when they started insulting the whites when they came over."
"It became more than a street, you know. . .It was a spirit.. . .Central Avenue closed down, but I didn't feel any distress or sadness because, by the time it stopped going, we'd moved on over here, and Western Avenue became Central Avenue. Then Crenshaw became Central Avenue, Vine street was Central Avenue. . .Central Avenue was my heaven on earth."
Once upon a time there was a street in Los Angeles that had all the excitement of New York's Broadway. Chicago's South Side. and Rome's Via Veneto with a little of the Las Vegas strip thrown in for good measure. A jumping thoroughfare that ran from downtown all the way out to intersecting streets numbered in the low hundreds in the then sparsely-populated environs of Watts: a paradise lost of high life and low, hipsters and movie stars, black and white happily sharing the same space, freely celebrating the joy and passion of America's signal musical art form-jazz. The time was the 1940s. The place was Central Avenue. And to hear it from jazz trumpeter Clara Bryant:
"It was an ooo-wee situation. I'd been to New York, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Florida, but I never had the feeling I got the minute I stepped off the Q street car onto Central for the first time. I get goosebumps just thinking about it."
"You could hardly get down Central on a Saturday night for all the big cars. and limos, and the chauffeurs with the hats and jodhpurs and black boots. I mean they were sharp, they were clean. And movie stars like Lana Turner and Rita Hayworth with their beads and diamonds. I could never get over the fact that 'I'm here. Me!' Clora Bryant from little old Denison Texas. Ooo-wee!'"
"I was heavy into be-bop. That was my generation's music. It was a challenge, something new and different, and I was gung-ho to find out what it was about. So when I got off at Central, my brother took me to the musician's union to get my card at the black local. I started walking up to this building and it was like somebody was walking me there. You see from the time I was little, my father indoctrinated me and my brothers about California about coming here. So that first day I knew I was where I wanted to be and where my dad had wanted me to be. All these emotions were just going through my body."
"The movie stars went to Central because it was mysterious, it was adventurous. But Central wasn't dangerous. I could walk up and down the avenue any time day or night. Guys would whistle at you, but they didn't follow it up with stuff like today. You had the pimps standing out on the sidewalk of course, with their fine women to service the white guys. But things wouldn't get nasty the way they do now."
"I was very young, and very aggressive. I had the nerve to get up on stage with AI Killian---a trumpeter who'd played with Basie and Dizzy. I forget now what song we were playing, but he played, then I played, and then the saxophone player laid out and then I started trying to challenge him with high notes. He was courteous enough to let me have the last note, though I know he could have gone three octaves higher."
"Places like the Mocambo, Ciro's, and all those places, they were losing a lot of business with the people coming down in there, coming south to see the shows over there. That hurt. The businesses. . .that's what happened. The businesses were hurting up in Hollywood, so it got to city hall. They couldn't have that, and they closed.. . .That's what helped close Central Avenue down is when they started insulting the whites when they came over."
"It became more than a street, you know. . .It was a spirit.. . .Central Avenue closed down, but I didn't feel any distress or sadness because, by the time it stopped going, we'd moved on over here, and Western Avenue became Central Avenue. Then Crenshaw became Central Avenue, Vine street was Central Avenue. . .Central Avenue was my heaven on earth."
Monday, May 29, 2006
Email to a friend, with reptile and fowl mp3 attachments
Clark:
I once told you that I had recordings of Japanese vocal groups singing animal (bird, reptiles, etc) noise songs. You expressed interest in hearing such a thing. So in the immortal words of the late, great Art Baker, “You Asked For It.“
Here are the only two I own: "Ducky" * by Time Five, and Frogs * (not sure of exact title) by Duke Aces. Both of these groups have been going in Japan for more than three decades with minimal replacements. The first is more jazz-oriented, while Duke Aces probably began more in emulation of the Four Aces.
Can't you see a barbershop quartet doing "Ducky" and the audience just having to be carried away on stretchers en masse? Not to mention the Japanese, who just love this kind of stuff!
I have actually seen the group, Duke Aces (1 replacement in 35 years), perform the Frog song in person in Tokyo. They KILLED with it. Yes, they did! To reiterate, Japanese are krrrrazzzeee for this kind of stuff.
I’m not passing along so much for your musical enjoyment as for your edification. If you tied someone to a chair and made them listen to these two tracks for an hour, even the youngest and healthiest would perhaps experience a fatal seizure. Still, I think the tracks are fun. . .in limited dosage.
* mp3 links for a limited time only
I once told you that I had recordings of Japanese vocal groups singing animal (bird, reptiles, etc) noise songs. You expressed interest in hearing such a thing. So in the immortal words of the late, great Art Baker, “You Asked For It.“
Here are the only two I own: "Ducky" * by Time Five, and Frogs * (not sure of exact title) by Duke Aces. Both of these groups have been going in Japan for more than three decades with minimal replacements. The first is more jazz-oriented, while Duke Aces probably began more in emulation of the Four Aces.
Can't you see a barbershop quartet doing "Ducky" and the audience just having to be carried away on stretchers en masse? Not to mention the Japanese, who just love this kind of stuff!
I have actually seen the group, Duke Aces (1 replacement in 35 years), perform the Frog song in person in Tokyo. They KILLED with it. Yes, they did! To reiterate, Japanese are krrrrazzzeee for this kind of stuff.
I’m not passing along so much for your musical enjoyment as for your edification. If you tied someone to a chair and made them listen to these two tracks for an hour, even the youngest and healthiest would perhaps experience a fatal seizure. Still, I think the tracks are fun. . .in limited dosage.
* mp3 links for a limited time only
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Disc o the Day
Regarding the current distressed state of U.S. vernacular music, as pluperfectly exemplified by the aural swill on American Idol, I would reiterate the immortal words of the great jazz drummer Max Roach: "Those who voted for defunding of music education in U.S. public schools are getting what they paid for." (I tend to quote that a lot.)
Inasmuch as some nations still consider music education to be of utmost importance, we bring you herein a typically sophisticated recording by a typical (well, almost) Japanese Top Ten vocal group, Rag Fair. I'm not making monumental claims about the greatness of this sexet, but alas, you're not likely to ever hear anything even remotely as musically advanced (or toe-tapping) on American Idol as this track (mp3 links for a limited time only) by the group. One would hazard that perhaps one in ten participants in that Fox Net dog and pony show can even read music. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Rag Fair, consists of six young vocalists, late teens and early twenties, who began recording together about five years ago. They are quite often joined at the top of the charts these days by another hot Nihonjin vocal group, Gospellers, and, lately, by a new cooperative known as Gosperats, consisting of two members of the Gospellers, and three others from the popular 80s-90s Japanese vocal quintet, Rats & Star. Yes, that really is the name of the group!
Rats & Star was, in turn, the outgrowth of another popular 70s and 80s singing outfit in Japan, The Shanels. The latter, if remembered at all in this country, is recalled because they performed in blackface. Even at a 1981 date at L.A.'s Whiskey a Go Go where, more than a trifle ironically, the vocal quartet was backed instrumentally by a quintet of some of the city's most prominent African-American jazz players: William Green, Jeff Clayton, Oscar Brashear, Raymond L. Brown and. . .the great Buddy Collette. But I guess if the blackface was alright with Buddy (he's not exactly starving for gigs, and is something of a final historical arbiter as to what qualifies as racist), then it should probably pass muster with the latter-day PC Police. Somewhat surprisingly, the new "supergroup" Gosperats, also corks up before going on stage.
Here's part of a recent TV interview with one of the members of Gosperats:
Q: "It's been a while since you guys put on blackface. How does it make you feel?"
A: "Strong. Like a light that's been turned on."
Q: "But back in the old days, you were the only guy who didn't put on make-up."
A: "Yeah. I was supposed to be the white guy."
Japanese are krrrrrazzzeeee!
As fustion as Gosperats music might seem, still it is a damn sight better than similar retro musical recreations on American Idol.
The Gosperats CD from which this video, "Hurricane," is culled has recently been at the very top of the Japanese sales charts. I'm not quite sure how racist, if at all, their blackface routine ultimately is---I'll leave that question to a PC Rabbi. After all, Japanese, too, are "people of color." But I do know for certain that this gesture is far less demeaing than most racial stereotyping rap --with its drugs and byaches and ho's and crack rhetoric. Yes! I am certain of that!
Inasmuch as some nations still consider music education to be of utmost importance, we bring you herein a typically sophisticated recording by a typical (well, almost) Japanese Top Ten vocal group, Rag Fair. I'm not making monumental claims about the greatness of this sexet, but alas, you're not likely to ever hear anything even remotely as musically advanced (or toe-tapping) on American Idol as this track (mp3 links for a limited time only) by the group. One would hazard that perhaps one in ten participants in that Fox Net dog and pony show can even read music. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Rag Fair, consists of six young vocalists, late teens and early twenties, who began recording together about five years ago. They are quite often joined at the top of the charts these days by another hot Nihonjin vocal group, Gospellers, and, lately, by a new cooperative known as Gosperats, consisting of two members of the Gospellers, and three others from the popular 80s-90s Japanese vocal quintet, Rats & Star. Yes, that really is the name of the group!
Rats & Star was, in turn, the outgrowth of another popular 70s and 80s singing outfit in Japan, The Shanels. The latter, if remembered at all in this country, is recalled because they performed in blackface. Even at a 1981 date at L.A.'s Whiskey a Go Go where, more than a trifle ironically, the vocal quartet was backed instrumentally by a quintet of some of the city's most prominent African-American jazz players: William Green, Jeff Clayton, Oscar Brashear, Raymond L. Brown and. . .the great Buddy Collette. But I guess if the blackface was alright with Buddy (he's not exactly starving for gigs, and is something of a final historical arbiter as to what qualifies as racist), then it should probably pass muster with the latter-day PC Police. Somewhat surprisingly, the new "supergroup" Gosperats, also corks up before going on stage.
Here's part of a recent TV interview with one of the members of Gosperats:
Q: "It's been a while since you guys put on blackface. How does it make you feel?"
A: "Strong. Like a light that's been turned on."
Q: "But back in the old days, you were the only guy who didn't put on make-up."
A: "Yeah. I was supposed to be the white guy."
Japanese are krrrrrazzzeeee!
As fustion as Gosperats music might seem, still it is a damn sight better than similar retro musical recreations on American Idol.
The Gosperats CD from which this video, "Hurricane," is culled has recently been at the very top of the Japanese sales charts. I'm not quite sure how racist, if at all, their blackface routine ultimately is---I'll leave that question to a PC Rabbi. After all, Japanese, too, are "people of color." But I do know for certain that this gesture is far less demeaing than most racial stereotyping rap --with its drugs and byaches and ho's and crack rhetoric. Yes! I am certain of that!
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