The Day The Music Died…Again

   It happens so quickly yet slowly in what appears to be surreal time. We were warned so I should have been cautious but living through it many times I did not expect what happened to happen to the extent it did. The hurricane known as IRENE, August 21, 2011 arrived as predicted and took its toll as the streets were flooded, the sewer is backed up, and then the electricity went out. We evacuated to my son’s inland home, safe, away from the rising tides. With the electricity going out in the area my sump pump would be inoperable, therefore my basement would flood but how high, I did not know. We arrived back home after the storm subsided to 18 inches deep of water.

   Prior to the storm and having been in this scenario a few times before, we, my lovely bride and I moved as many items of personal value as far from the basement as we could. However, we never expected 18 inches and rising. Now, we quickly moved everything else to higher ground as best we could. Fortunately, our heating unit, hot water heater, washer and dryer were all on double cinder blocks but the water was getting close to the mechanisms which keep those items going.

    Then, it happened, the horrendous sound of metal twisting. The three metal shelves started to bend under the weight of the water  which was over the bottom shelves of my extensive record collection. The bottom housed mostly supplies in cardboard boxes, a few trays of “mixed” tapes, nothing of any collectable value. We grabbed what we could from the upper shelves and hoped for the best. Unfortunately ,the water got the best of the cardboard and a few hundred blank record inner sleeves. The shelving crashed to the ground. Thousands of vinyl records, 45’s, 33’s, picture sleeves, all hit the water. Magazines, newspaper clippings, archives, lesson plans, family photos all in the water. The water was still 18 inches high and without electricity the pumps were still not working. Nothing was covered by insurance.

   I’ve been collecting records for as long as I can remember. I had “Sugar Shack” by JIMMY GILMORE, an album by JOEY DEE and The STARLITERS. I had THE RIVINGTONS “ Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow,

hundreds of pictures sleeve including many of THE BEATLES first issues. All were lost. What I saved was minimal but significant. I quickly hand-picked before the crash whatever I could save never thinking that the shelves would collapse. After the water subsided and the pumps were pumping, the mildew and mold destroyed almost everything else in my basement. It took weeks to bag and remove what we could. At my expense I hired a company to remove the mold from the walls, floor and ceiling. 

   Losing my records is minimal in life’s scope of things, no one was hurt, no one died. Over the next few years I gave up collecting vinyl concentrating on CDs. Many of the vinyl records that I had previously purchased were now re-issued on the CD format. I thought that to be a plus. However, I was seriously mistaken. Nothing, Nothing replaces the sound of Vinyl. I’m a snob, I’m proud of it, so I went back to collecting just Vinyl.

   What does this effort to do with “the day the music died, again”. Well, simple put its historical as on June 1, 2008, three years before IRENE hit Long Island, a blow torch is used to adhere asphalt shingles to a façade in the Universal Studios back lot. The worker never checked to see if the area cooled off as he headed out for the night. A three alarm fire ensues. It is later, many years later admitted that the fire destroyed up to 175,000 master tapes belonging to the UMG group. UMG was renting warehouses in the Universal Studios Backlot. It was stated, “in no case was the destroyed material the only copy of a work,” a claim attributed to Universal Studios officials. However, in the March 2009 “Vault Loss Meeting,” the company described the damage in apocalyptic terms. “The West Coast Vault perished, in its entirety, Lost in the fire was, undoubtedly, a huge musical heritage.”

   Losing “The Master Tapes” is sinful. “A master is the truest capture of a piece of recorded music,” said Adam Block, the former president of Legacy Recordings, Sony Music Entertainment’s catalog arm. “Sonically, masters can be stunning in their capturing of an event in time. Every copy thereafter is a sonic step away.”

   Non- original tapes, transfers, n-th generation copies, or worse, even cheap vinyl reissues is what the consumer is left with.Think about what is missing: jazz, blues, country, pop of the pre-rock-’n’-roll period, light classical and even spoken-word selections. This was  a huge archive containing multiple copies of audio and video recordings, documents ranging from legal papers to liner notes, and packaging materials and artwork, unreleased recordings such as outtakes and alternative versions, all lost. DECCA masters from the 1930-1950’s, including those of Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and some IMPULSE RECORDS masters of JOHN COLTRANE. Whew…and I thought I just lost my records to a hurricane and they could be replaced.

to be continued…

TICKETS TORN IN HALF: June 21,1975 BETTE MIDLER ON BROADWAY@The Minskoff Theatre

TICKETS TORN IN HALF: June 21,1975 BETTE MIDLER ON BROADWAY@The Minskoff Theatre

I knew this girl (circa 1971) who raved about seeing BETTE MIDLER in the Continental Baths, a gay spa in Manhattan. For the life of me at that time I had no idea who or what she was speaking about, but that gal was always interesting and fun to be around so I listened. Slip in time to a 1973 visit to a local record store on there on the rack of new releases is BETTE MIDLER “The Divine Miss M”. I peruse the songs and lo and behold I find my buddy, BUZZY LINHART and his writing co-partner MOOGY KLINGMAN’S song “Friends” listed, along with a few other known covers.Hmmm…further along in the time machine, stopping in 1975 and we find THE DIVINE MISS M starring on BROADWAY in “Clams On The Half Shell Review” starring Bette Midler, Lionel Hampton, and The Harlettes.

We nab 4 good seats for a Saturday night performance, get all dressed up, and away we go.During the intermission I was in the lobby having a smoke, dressed in my off-white suit with a TODD RUNDGREN t-shirt underneath. An elderly woman comes over and asks for my autograph to which I give her. While she walks away my brother laughs, shaking his head and said ,“Who does she think you are?” to which I replied “How the hell do I know”.

Oh, yeah the show was great and LIONEL HAMPTON is the plus here.

R.I.P.-Lorraine Gordon- VILLAGE VANGUARD

(NYTIMES) Lorraine Gordon, who took over the Village Vanguard, New York’s oldest and most venerated jazz nightclub, in 1989 and remained its no-nonsense proprietor for the rest of her life, died on Saturday. She was 95.

The cause was complications from a stroke, said Jed Eisenman, the longtime manager of the club.

“Wherever I happened to be,” Ms. Gordon said in a 2007 interview with The New York Times, “music was always with me.”

Ms. Gordon was married for 40 years to the Vanguard’s founder and owner, Max Gordon. But she had been a jazz fan long before she met him. She fell in love with jazz as a teenager in the 1930s, listening to it on WNYC radio. The music pierced her soul, she said, “like a spike in my heart.” It was the start of a lifelong romance.

ROCK’S IN MY HEAD: CHAPTER 4- The Heart of American Music

 

Looking for “THE HEART OF AMERICAN MUSIC” one needs to look no further than the infectious sounds of Rhythm and Blues music. New musical styles develop as a reaction to what previously transpired musically so in the case of R&B we can hear the traces of New Orleans jazz, gospel, spirituals, jump blues and more.

Originally called RACE MUSIC Jerry Wexler ( check him out) coined the more appropriate term R&B as a marketing tool for BILLBOARD magazine which could then track R&B sales without offending people (politically correct before their time).

At first, R&B was considered “low brow” when compared to “high brow” jazz. In the phrase R&B the rhythm part refers to the backbeat (on the 2 and 4) and the blues part is from the lyrics which usually depicted life as being “blue” or sad.

With its forefather the blues this new rhythm and blues music inspired so many British teenagers who as musicians attempting to emulate their  American musical heroes revamped this American music and made it their “own” sound which strangely became popular to American teens. The fact was these Brits just rehashed America’s original music.

In a nutshell rhythm and blues music is the heart of American music. If one truly scratches the surface of rhythm and blues music you can hear jazz, old gospel, and spiritual music. When mixed together with a little kick it becomes rock n roll.

The backbone of good ole RnR music is The BACK BEAT, hitting the snare on the 2 and the 4 sometimes slightly late in a 4/4. As Chuck sang:

Rock`n`roll music just, let me hear some of that rock ‘n’ roll music

Any old way you choose it

It’s got a back beat, you can’t lose it…

So what is THE BACK BEAT,  just look to the drums, aka  the “skins”. At one time drum heads were animal skins. Search any time period, in any location, and one will find artifacts of what can be construed as drums, usually made of stretched animal skins. These “drums” were played in ceremonies, both solemn and celebratory, and as a way to communicate (Talking Drums). Bronze cymbals can also be found in ancient greek tombs and later in Turkey where The Turks perfected the process.

Before rock drumming, before jazz, no drum “kits” existed. In the late 1800s, separate percussionists in military and concert bands were assigned to one specific drum or cymbals. As these ensembles typically played in parades, there was plenty of space for a large percussion section to roam about. Indoor concerts, on the other hand, had obvious physical constraints and therefore percussionists often had to do double duty, a drum or two. The drummers performing with The Second Line processions in New Orleans, after the parade would head to the local spot for a drink and to play some tunes.The drummer (one) would have a snare and a bass drum. The bass drum which was “kicked” sometimes had a cymbal attached to its top. A clever solution to this issue, that is to get the drummers feet in on the action occurred in 1909. William F. Ludwig, Sr helped drummers when he pioneered a foot pedal for the bass drum. One drummer could then play multiple parts simultaneously—kind of a big deal at the time. THE CONTRAPTION as the drums were now known was shortened to THE TRAP KIT.

Back to THE CORE of RnR, THE BACK BEAT is the progression of 2&4 accents in Western (American) popular music. It probably starts with Swing Jazz and Big Bands where the drummers emphasized these beats and played 2 & 4 with the High Hat. Next, this style moved over to the snare drum in very early Rock n’ Roll and Blues. Once it was on the snare drum, virtually all styles of American popular music using drums feature snare on 2 & 4. Calling this a “Rock” beat is probably just a historical nod to the early rock n’ roll songs.

So what is this Rock and Roll or better yet HOW DID IT GET IT’S NAME?

Rock and roll, the phrase itself is a euphemism for sexual intercourse. A simple euphemism that appeared in song titles since at least 1914 (Trixie Smith’s “My Man ROCKS Me With One Steady ROLL”)

Disc jockey Alan Freed is widely credited with coining the term “rock and roll” to describe the uptempo black R&B records he played as early as 1951 on Cleveland radio station WJW.

This Rock and Roll music grabs from musical styles such as gospel, jump blues, jazz, boogie woogie, and rhythm and blues, along with country music. Determining the first actual rock & roll record is a truly impossible task. But you can’t go too far off when citing Jackie Brenston’s 1951 Chess waxing of “Rocket 88”, which has all the prerequisite elements firmly in place: practically indecipherable lyrics about cars, booze, and women, booming tenor sax, and a churning, beat-heavy rhythmic bottom.

See you next time….ROCK’S IN MY HEAD Chapter 5: DRUNKS, THIEVES and SCOUNDRELS.  Comments? Jazzbus@gmail.com

Chapter 3: AMERICANA or How Democracy Fathered Rock n Roll

AMERICANA or How Democracy Fathered Rock n Roll

The title is simplistic as most of my musing are and this one is also meant as an attention grabber, oh well, onward we go.

Previously I wrote about the CULTURAL MELTING POT and using Elvis as our guide as through our musical (historical) endeavor. ELVIS PRESLEY as a developing artist sampled from the diverse musical palette of gospel, hillbilly, and virtually everything available to his young ears. Now let’s look at what was available to young Elvis and how it came to be so.

The UNITED STATES of AMERICA experienced a great cultural upheaval especially during its formative years. This young developing nation was participating in what is known as the GREAT EXPERIMENT (democracy) and within a few short years was at the same time expanding its borders from “sea to shining sea” (MANIFEST DESTINY). And to that we find a new (AMERICAN)  culture (music, arts, etc) developing. Specifically in music we find a new sound which when broken down one can hear pieces from all the great musical ERAS that preceded it.

The first predominant style of AMERICAN “popular” music is RAGTIME, 1899-1917. Tossing a mix of European music while adding to it the stylings of The Mississippi honky-tonk pianists, throw in parts of the minstrel shows, plus the banjo styles of the times, blend it altogether with the syncopated dance rhythms of the CAKEWALK,….and we get RAGTIME, an accented left hand versus right hand melody. …SCOTT JOPLIN is considered the “KING OF RAGTIME”. (Give him a listen when you can)

Same era as RAGTIME (1903) but in another region of the USA is  one W.C. Handy working on what will be identified as THE BLUES, another form of original American musical expression. The basis of the blues is a musical form using the vocal melodies of AFRICAN-AMERICAN folklore with call and response phrasing. Handy’s works helped develop the harmonic framework for musical IMPROVISATION. The “blues” is noted for its use of a flattened seventh note AKA “the blue note”.

And in 1904 Buddy Bolden fused Ragtime and Blues which becomes the basis for early JAZZ (thefamouspeople.com) which leads us to 1910,

New Orleans Jazz according to (npr.gov) “The early development of jazz in New Orleans was connected to the community life of the city, as seen in brass band funerals, music for picnics in parks or ball games, Saturday night fish fries, and Sunday camping along the shores of Lake Ponchartrain at Milneburg and Bucktown. There were also red beans and rice banquettes on Monday’s, and nightly dances at neighborhood halls all over town. The New Orleans sound was “good time” music, delivered in a rollicking, sometimes rough manner, which suited everyday people seeking music “with a feeling.” This spirit or emotional content connected the performer to the audience. It offered a musical communication in which all parties could participate (as with the “second line” dancers who turned out for brass band processions).”

The other “spices” of the roots of AMERICAN MUSIC included the mixing of (circa1920) COUNTRY music (thoughtco.com), and American Folk music. Also called “roots music” American Folk music developed from the traditional songs of previous generations coming from many different countries …with bluegrass, gospel, jug band, Appalachian folk, blues, Cajun and Native American stylings thrown in.

Continuing on with our timeline into the history of music one must focus on pre Big Band era of music, that is, music recorded prior to the “BIG EVENT” of  AUGUST of 1935, that being the appearance of BENNY GOODMAN at THE POLAMAR in Los Angeles, the specific date and show which music scholars consider the BIRTH OF THE SWING ERA.

Jazz music was recorded before 1935, in fact the ORIGINAL DIXIELAND JASS BAND record of 1917 sold over a million copies, a feat which enabled jazz music to be heard and experienced nationwide. (radios and joke boxes). Steamboats traveling up and down the Mississippi River helped to spread the jazz rhythms as many jazz musicians and bands were hired to entertain passengers. Hotels along the Mighty River also hired these “dance bands”.

The dance bands of the day were more intricate than their smaller combo predecessors.While small group jazz had previously allowed a group of musicians the freedom to basically just “blow,” structure became necessary with these larger gatherings of musicians, hence the need for an “arranger”. Improvisational solos were allowed but only when the score dictated to take the solo. This “arranged” solo and easy flowing style of jazz would become known as SWING and with it came a new, exciting style of dance.

SWING took the country by storm in the mid 1930’s and with it came new dances, one in particular was a dance popularized in the SAVOY BALLROOM in Harlem, the LINDY HOP, named in honor of CHARLES LINDBERG’S (May 1927)Atlantic “hop”.

In 1933 Homer Capehart sold the Simplex record changer mechanism to the Wurlitzer Company and The jukebox was born, the biggest tool of its time in promoting big band music. By the late 1930s one could find “jukeboxes” located in speakeasies, ice cream parlors, and even drugstores. The jukebox was at least part of the reason record sales began to show a tremendous increase toward the end of the decade.

And then, the 1940’s we have the beginnings of RnB (Rhythm and Blues) which to me is also the “BIRTHPLACE OF RnR”.

More to come….next  Chapter 4:THE HEART OF AMERICAN MUSIC. Comments? (jazzbus@gmail.com)