I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Laramie, Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES — during the upcoming Netroots Nation conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ... I recommend the Barnes Foundation museum— (new to downtown this decade, and was part of a Top Comments diary of mine from 2018) — with the world’s largest collections of works by Renoir and Cézanne.
Open 11 AM — 5 PM (except Tuesday)PROGRAMMING NOTE — as I will be attending Netroots Nation, there will be no Odds & Ends diary next Sunday — will return on the 21st. If you attend, I hope we have the chance to meet! …. the Cheers & Jeers team can direct you.
And for those in the region: if you cannot afford the full registration — or do not have the time for the full conference — there are day passes on sale, and the evening events are usually open to the public. Either way, join us for a spell.
One travel tip (from Adam Bonin) for those arriving on Amtrak: your Amtrak ticket will enable you to ride free on all the commuter rail lines from 30th Street station to either Suburban or Jefferson stations (depending upon where your hotel is located) in Center City — just show your ticket to the commuter rail conductor.
THURSDAY's CHILD is a kitteh from southern India, who became a hero cat by taking on a lethal cobra snake, and winning … with the homeowner (who saw this on CCTV) saying, “There are kids who crawl on the ground, some kids from my neighborhood visit my place too. It could have bitten them. I always knew my cat was funny and intelligent, it is just now we came to know that it is brave.''
Southern India cat takes on a cobra .. for the winPOLITICAL NOTES — the center-right in France years ago renamed itself the Republican Party— yes, after our friends across-the-aisle — finally shaking verbal links to the country’s de Gaulle past, and electing Nicolas Sarkozy as president. Today, the party is on life support: with one analyst saying, “The Republican party is left with those who are not liberal enough to support President Emmanuel Macron but find far-right Marine Le Pen’s strident nationalism distasteful — and there do not seem to be enough of them”.
HAIL and FAREWELL to the Laugh-In stalwart cast member Arte Johnson— with the German soldier and Tyrone the dirty old man — who has died at the age of ninety. That was a show where at junior high on Tuesdays I could ask a classmate, “What did you think of ‘Laugh-In’ last night?” — and 4-out-of-5 times would receive a critique, and on the fifth time, “Darn, I had band/basketball practice”. And Arte’s old cohort had this farewell … citing his most memorable dirty-old-man opening:
xThank you for a wonderful half-century of friendship. I could not have shared the spotlight with a nicer guy. Rest in peace. And yes, Arte Johnson, I believe in the hereafter...
— RUTH BUZZI (@Ruth_A_Buzzi) July 3, 2019FRIDAY's CHILD is named Frances the Cat— who is the First Cat of the state of Kansas …. brought to Topeka by Democratic governor Laura Kelly.
Frances — the First Cat of KSHAPPY TRAILS to MAD Magazine, which will no longer publish original material. I wonder what will become of the work of the magazine’s late, great stalwart comic Dave Berg and his alter-ego … Roger Kaputnik?
CHEERS to the incomparable Digby— who makes a point that I have been trying to make about the (false) influence of Bastille Day on you-know-who:
One of the more insignificant myths of the Donald Trump presidency is the one that claims he was inspired to order a magnificent military parade in Washington after viewing the Bastille Day celebration in France in 2017. It's true that Trump was excited by that parade — was very excited by it — and started making plans for a D.C. version on his way to the airport in Paris. But Trump had wanted the big tanks and marching soldiers and flyovers well before that. He had requested a full-dress military parade for his inauguration— and was told it couldn't be done because of the infrastructure in D.C.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
YOUNGER-OLDER SISTER? — ESPN reporter/radio host Sarah Spain and …….
Sarah Spain (born 1980)... Gavin Newsom’s ex, fired Fox panelist, and now Don Jr. beau Kimberly Guilfoyle.
Kimberly Guilfoyle (b. 1969)...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… someone who had a career in the big band era that managed to continue after WW-II made it economically difficult was the trumpeter Louis Prima— who combined his native New Orleans sound with boogie-woogie, jump blues and even early pre-rock sounds over the course of his career. A master showman/ham, his use of novelty music and on-stage clowning often left critics wanting ... in reality, he was a good trumpeter and had his hand on the pulse of the times. In many ways, he helped make ethnic music palatable to middle America … and some forty years after his death, he deserves a fresh look.
Born in New Orleans in 1910 to Italian immigrants (who had first settled in Argentina) he began playing professionally by age seventeen in the local clubs. His big break came when he was performing in 1934 during Mardi Gras when a visiting Guy Lombardo saw him and convinced him to move to New York. After some time finding-his-way, he had a hit with Way Down Yonder in New Orleans and leading bands in the famous 52nd Street jazz clubs.
He eventually became a showman as well as bandleader, with a gravelly voice not too unlike Louis Armstrong. He was unfailingly polite to fans, always signing autographs. To record companies/agents … not so much, rejecting possible movie roles not just due to salary but also wanting creative control. He went through five marriages, with much infidelity (as well as road life) taking its toll on all of them.
As noted, he often featured novelty songs as well as ethnic ones: “Please No Squeeza Da Banana”, “Baciagaloop”, “Chop Suey, Chow Mein”, “Buona Sera”, “Josephina, Please No Leana on the Bell” and “I Beeped When I Should Have Bopped”. Throughout it all, he seemed to adapt: with at least twenty-five years in the limelight. And unlike others of his generation (Sinatra, Gleason) he accepted rock-n-roll (which derailed many musical careers) saying, “The kids had an instinct for the kind of music that’s fun to listen to and dance to”.
In 1948, he hired a sixteen year-old Keely Smith as his new female singer, which helped lead to the most successful dozen years of their career. Her cool, calm demeanor paired with his bubbly clowning made their stage act a hit, and she married him five years later at age twenty-one.
By 1954, though, their touring act was struggling due to the advent of rock music and jazz clubs embracing its new bebop emphasis, so Prima hit upon a two part-solution: the first was obtaining an extended stay at the Sahara in Las Vegas, which grew into a residency lasting the rest of the decade. The other part: hiring as his new band New Orleans saxophonist Sam Butera and his Witnesses: who had a modern jump-blues and R&B sound, more in tune with the decade.
His recording career took off then, too: with his 1956 album The Wildest! (followed-up the next year with Call of the Wildest) which resulted in his winning Best Vocal Performance at the 1958 inaugural Grammy Awards with the Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer classic That Old Black Magic. Frank Sinatra later invited Prima to perform at the 1961 inaugural ball for JFK.
His marriage to Keely Smith fell apart (the infidelity again) in 1961, and she continued to perform as a solo artist for many years: earning a Grammy nomination in 2001 for Keely Sings Sinatra in the Best Traditional Pop Vocal category. Keely Smith died in December, 2017 at the age of eighty-nine.
While Louis Prima replaced her with singer Gia Maione (whom he also later married), his time in the limelight had faded. He did continue to find success in Las Vegas and in 1967 was hired as the voice of King Louie in the Disney animated version of The Jungle Book, with I Wanna Be Like You his last noted chart success.
By the 1970’s, he and Sam Butera moved back to New Orleans, playing hits in the French Quarter for tourists. Prima suffered a heart attack in 1973 and while he did return to performing: had to retire two years later (at age sixty-five) due to a brain tumor. Louis Prima died in August, 1978 at the age of sixty-seven. Sam Butera continued to perform Prima’s hits on the oldies casino circuit before his death in 2009, two months before his eighty-second birthday.
Louis Prima’s musical legacy has been revived by those born after his heyday over the years, including two from his landmark The Wildest! album. In 1985, David Lee Roth had a hit with his cover of Just A Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody and in 1998, the Stray Cats guitarist Brian Setzer won a Grammy for his rendition of Jump, Jive an' Wail. If, like me, you are enough of a geezer to recall the musical cartoons with “Just follow the bouncing ball” — you may recall a rendition of a Broadway tune (that Prima did not write) called Civilization— with its memorable chorus of, "Bongo, Bongo, Bongo (I Don't Want to Leave the Congo)" — which both Prima (and later Danny Kaye with the Andrews Sisters) had hits with. And a song his firm published in 1946 (with three other songwriters) was A Sunday Kind of Love— covered by many and is my single favorite song ever recorded by Etta James.
Louis Prima in the 1930’s ... …….. and later on in lifeOne of the most famous big-band era songs is Benny Goodman’s live recording at Carnegie Hall in January, 1938 of the song Sing, Sing, Sing— with Gene Krupa’s frenetic drumming as the centerpiece. It made the NPR 100— National Public Radio’s 100 most significant works of American music from the 20th Century — for big band jazz now being accepted into concert halls like Carnegie Hall.
It was much later when I learned that the song was a Louis Prima original that he had recorded two years earlier — and below you can hear it (with the simple lyrics that were omitted from the Goodman performance as an instrumental).
Sing, sing, sing, sing Everybody start to sing La dee da, ho, ho, ho Now you're singing with a swing
And when the music goes around Everybody goes to town But here's something you should know Ho ho baby ho ho ho
Sing, sing, sing, sing Everybody start to sing La dee da, ho, ho, ho Now you're singing with a swing
x xYouTube Video