Odds & Ends: News/Humor (with a "Who Lost the Week?" poll)

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— an exhibition entitled Devotion and Fantasy, Witchcraft and the World's End— paintings and prints from the Low Countries and Germany between 1440 and 1590 — will be at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina through June 27, 2021.

PROGRAMMING NOTE  #1— I’ll be busy for the Yuletide: thus, there will neither be a Friday C&J post, nor a normal Sunday Odds & Ends next week (though I will have a “Who Lost the Year?!?” poll, see #2 below). If you celebrate either: Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah. And I’ll see you all on the New Year’s first week.

THURSDAY's CHILD is named Koko the Hero Cat— a Japanese kitteh who alerted passersby (six months ago) to a man lying in a ditch — and the police honored the five neighbors (who pulled him out) with certificates of commendation, while Koko was presented with cat food for her effort.

LAST WEEKEND on CBS Sunday Morning, a story by Faith Salie celebrated the 90th anniversary of Nancy Drew— with one fan club president noting, “Nancy would often best the local police force .. and solve cases they couldn't solve."

As a boy I recall reading, "We're Joe & Frank, the sons of Fenton Hardy: the famous detective". Yet all Fenton ever did … was cart-off the criminals his sons cracked-the-case on (not unlike Commissioner Gordon and Chief O’Hara, as I think of it).

PROGRAMMING NOTE  #2— while I will not be posting a normal Odds & Ends next Sunday (as noted above) — I will have a simple "Who Lost the Year?!?" poll for those who seek to vote against the Trumpster (and select others).

YOUR WEEKEND READ is this essay by a Swedish analyst on what went wrong with its pandemic strategy— due in large measure to, “It can’t happen here”.

FRIDAY's CHILD is named Grace the Cat— who has lived her entire life in a North Carolina Humane Society (due to having tumor surgery and having a standoffish nature with most humans) — yet has won her shelter $10k after being chosen as one of three cats (from more than 2,000 entries) to be a national winner of Arm & Hammer’s Purrfectly Impurrfect Cat contest.

THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at the annual gift by the province of Nova Scotia (to the city of Boston) of a Christmas tree— in remembrance of its assistance in the wake of a devastating 1917 harbor ship collision/explosion (killing 2,000 people) in its capital city of Halifax.

BRAIN TEASER PALOOZA— try this Quiz of the Year's News from the BBC, in four (chronological) parts with thirteen questions each quarter = 52 weeks.

Part One  —  Part Two—  Part Three— Part Four

Or, simply the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times weekly quiz (neither of these quizzes will be online next week).

GRANDMOTHER — GRANDSON?— the late Frances Bavier may not be amused.

And finally, for a song of the week ...........................… my annual tribute to a performer that one reviewer declared to be "the most listened-to jazz pianist of all time" and with the Yuletide season upon us: if true it should be noted that Vince Guaraldi achieved that status - in a quiet way - due to a certain comic strip of note.

His breakthrough hit (in more ways than one) was the 1963 Grammy-winning tune Cast Your Fate to the Wind - a gorgeous melody that eight years later the guitarist Joe Walsh - later to join The Eagles - worked into a medley (most improbably) with a hard rock song with the James Gang entitled The Bomber in 1971.

In the early 1960's, Vince Guaraldi was successful in the jazz world — first as a sideman in  vibraphonist Cal Tjader’s band— yet comparatively unknown to the general public. But that changed - dramatically - with a 1965 cab ride that TV producer Lee Mendelson took across the Golden Gate Bridge. He had already contacted Dave Brubeck and also vibraphone player Cal Tjader about composing for his project (and turned down by both for lack of time).

Just as The Sopranos producer David Chase decided upon his show's theme song - by hearing the UK band "Alabama 3" perform it on the radio - Lee Mendelson heard "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" on the radio in that fateful cab ride.

He asked for help from the noted San Francisco music writer Ralph Gleason (who helped co-found Rolling Stone magazine later that decade) and was thus able to contact Guaraldi about composing for the upcoming Charlie Brown Christmas special. In 2018, the Jersey City Ballet Theater did a dance version of the special.

Sixteen TV shows (and one feature film) later, the music of Vince Guaraldi is an integral part of the Peanuts experience - with the theme song Linus and Lucy plus the irresistible song Skating among his best-loved Peanuts music. One reviewer noted that Linus and Lucy borrows its syncopation and A-flat key from “Cast Your Fate”. And Guaraldi was a later influence for Gary Burton and Pat Metheny.

As a child, my mother bought the Vince Guaraldi album for me … mistakenly believing it was the soundtrack of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” (and apologizing to me for it) — but I was delighted to be introduced to his music, and it was a stepping-stone (among other recordings) to becoming a piano trio lover. When people say there is no Thanksgiving music to speak of — while instrumental (and quite short), Guaraldi wrote Thanksgiving Theme to offer a possible gift to us.

Vince Guaraldi died in 1976 (at only age 47) in-between sets of a gig in Menlo Park California. The musician David Benoit cites Guaraldi as an inspiration, and it's difficult to imagine Peanuts with any other music backing it. If you are a fan of George Winston: he had a meeting with Guaraldi in 1971, saying "He was very gracious and encouraging when I occasionally had the opportunity to play intermission piano between his sets” (a common practice at jazz clubs then).

Some long-lost film archives of Guaraldi were discovered in Ralph Gleason’s attic, and his son has helped restore them for a new documentary The Anatomy Of Vince Guaraldi— seeking to bring it to home video at some point.

For the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis,"Peanuts" was the only chance to hear jazz on television in his youth. Wynton also loved that his late pianist father Ellis— the patriarch of the Marsalis musical family whom we lost to Covid — knew Guaraldi. "Our father knew somebody who was connected to television!", he exclaimed.