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#1— an exhibition entitled The Wyeths: Three Generationswill be at the Tucson, Arizona Museum of Art through May 9th.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #1 is this minute-by-minute account of the January 6th riot by CBS reporter Grace Segars.
ART NOTES#2— the story of Thomas à Becket— the Archbishop of Canterbury murdered by King Henry II’s knights in 1170 — may have been mis-stated due to a faulty sequential arrangement of ….. stained glass windows.
THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at the long-demolished Polo Grounds stadium in upper Manhattan — which had had four iterations (the last involved rebuilding after a 1911 fire) — and how it had as tenants not only the (current-day) San Francisco Giants, but also (for a time) both of the NY area baseball teams (the Yankees and Mets) as well as the football teams (Jets and Giants). Interestingly, only in its first incarnation (1876) ... was polo ever played there.
THURSDAY's CHILD is an Oregon kitteh who was rescued having survived a Labor Day wildfire and a local shelter is trying to reunite him with his family (obviously someone’s pet, having been neutered and declawed) yet four families who lost pets have determined he is not theirs).
YOUR WEEKEND READ #2 is this take-no-prisoners account by a founding editor of Jezebel who spent time as a server at a fancy Washington, D.C. restaurant…. with lots to say about her treatment by political figures, especially the Trumpers.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Elsa the Cat— a Virginia kitteh found outside during a major snowstorm (and near death), being revived by a local Humane Society … and if unclaimed will be up for adoption.
BRAIN TEASER— try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier New York Times quiz (no common questions, and the BBC this week is quite UK-centered).
GRANDFATHER — GRANDSON? — the late country musician Conway Twitty and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… while I've always considered the 'founding fathers' of rock-n-roll to be Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bo Diddley: if there is such a thing as a 'grandfather of rock-n-roll' - then very likely it is Louis Jordan who broke out of big band jazz to help found the idiom of R&B, and lay the groundwork for the rock-n-roll that followed. Except for a 1990's Broadway play, he is little known today - yet left his mark not only in music but in acting as well. And you can see his influence in many performers who followed, right up to today.
The Arkansas native was born in 1908 and attended Arkansas Baptist College. He was a prolific instrumentalist, with the alto saxophone his primary one. He moved with his family to Philadelphia in 1932, and later to New York. There, he joined the Chick Webb Orchestra for whom a then-unknown Ella Fitzgerald was his featured vocalist. Quickly Louis Jordan's voice and showmanship led to his being seen as a co-bandleader, and his duet singing with Ella Fitzgerald helped shape his own bandleading, which he began after a two-year stint with Webb in 1938. He was, in fact, fired by Webb: for trying to convince Ella to join Jordan's proposed new band (Webb died shortly thereafter, with Ella assuming leadership of his orchestra).
The new band he formed - Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five - was one of the most successful bands of the 1940's. Some of their features: (a) they helped hasten the post-war demise of the big band in favor of smaller ensembles, (b) they helped popularize jump blues - a swinging, dance-oriented mix of jazz, blues and boogie-woogie, (c) their use of electric guitar and organ was followed by many other bands, and (d) their call-and-response vocals (often with humor) - as well as the extended story-telling Jordan did - foreshadowed later works from Bob Dylan to Grandmaster Flash to modern hip-hop. His recordings for the Armed Forces Radio helped introduce his music to a white audience who may never have heard him otherwise.
From 1942-1951, Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five had 57(!) hit singles in the R&B charts, with several crossing-over into the mainstream pop charts. After Duke Ellington and Count Basie: there was no more successful African-American bandleader of the time. Some of his most popular songs (noting which also made the pop charts) were Ain't That Just Like A Woman (#6 on the pop charts), "Five Guys Named Moe", Choo Choo Ch'Boogie (#7), Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens (#6), G.I. Jive during the war years (#1), Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby? (#2) ... and the song Caldonia (#6) with its memorable chorus, "Caldonia! Caldonia! What makes your big head so hard?!?" which has been covered by many performers.
He also had a #6 hit in 1949 with a duet of Frank Loesser's Baby It's Cold Outside which had him reunited with Ella Fitzgerald. Not for nothing was he known as the Jukebox King during the 1940's.
Jordan also appeared in many wartime-era short films: "Look Out Sister" and "Reet, Petite and Gone" (which was the inspiration for the Jackie Wilson hit Reet Petite of the 1960's) as well as the feature-length film Follow the Boys from 1944. His energetic, humorous self came across on screen as much as it did on-stage or on vinyl.
Yet the very types of music that he helped inspire (R&B and the new rock music) would be what brought down his career later in the 1950's. Although he still found work performing live, his record sales began to slide by 1953 and he was dropped by Decca Records (where his label-mate Bill Haley started his rise to stardom, very much influenced by Jordan). Years later, Jordan expressed some bitterness about rock music supplanting his own (which B.B. King noted wasn't uncommon amongst his peers, at least at first).
But for awhile, he tried to adapt. A young Quincy Jones produced a 1956 album, with rousing versions of "Let The Good Times Roll", with Mickey Baker (of Mickey & Sylvia's "Love is Strange" fame) on guitar. Ray Charles always cited Jordan as an influence (and in gratitude signed him to his Tangerine label in 1962). And Jordan also returned to his jazz roots and released some critically acclaimed albums during modern jazz's heyday from the latter half of the 1950's to the early 1960's. Yet in the end, his time had passed him by. His last album was recorded in 1972 - now, with the Mac Davis tune I Believe in Music as the title track, if you can believe that.
Louis Jordan died in February, 1975 at the age of 66. His legacy is quite extensive:
(a) The play Five Guys Named Moe helped bring Jordan's name to a contemporary audience in Britain as well as Broadway.
(b) He was named by Billboard Magazine as the 5th most popular African-American recording artist of the 20th Century. And he spent more weeks at #1 on the R&B charts than anyone else (113 vs. Stevie Wonder's 70).
(c) Besides Bill Haley and Ray Charles: others citing him as a career influence were Little Richard, Chuck Berry and James Brown - who said "Jordan influenced me in every way".
(d) There is a 1997 biography of him entitled Let The Good Times Roll - the same title as a tribute album to Jordan from B.B. King - as well as a US postage stamp issued in 2008: the centennial of his birth.
(e) And finally, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as an "Early Influence" in 1987.
One of his last hits on the pop charts (as well as the R&B charts) was late 1949's Saturday Night Fish Fry— which he adapted from the jazz musician Ellis Walsh — a six-minute song (epic-length for the time) that had to be released on two sides of a 78 rpm record. It has been (plausibly) argued as possibly the first rock and roll record: containing many of the genre’s key ingredients: a distorted electric guitar, an early use of the word rocking, party-themed lyrics, and danceable, uptempo music.
I wouldn't go quite that far (as the lyrics are aimed clearly at an adult African-American audience, rather than at rock's generic youthful audience) but you sense that it helped blaze a trail that Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bo Diddley would soon follow.
Now, if you've ever been down to New Orleans Then you can understand just what I mean All through the week it's quiet as a mouse But on Saturday night: they go from house to house
You don't have to pay the usual admission If you're a cook or a waiter or a good musician So if you happen to be just passing by Stop in at the Saturday night fish fry!
But all of a sudden the lights went low And everybody made straight for the front door And way up above all the noise they made Somebody hollered, "Better get out of here; this is a raid!"
Now my chick came down and went for my bail And finally got me out of that rotten jail Now, if you ever want to get a fist in your eye: Just mention a Saturday night fish fry!
It was rocking! It was rocking! You never seen such scuffling and shuffling till the break of dawn!