My mother used to say, "Willie, you've got a real truth to tell the people and you've got a God-given right to scream it at them. But you must remember -- that sometimes the screaming won't do any good."
She spoke the truth. This world is full of chirpers, belchers, and flips from the funny papers who like to go out on the town. I learned to go home when my antennae picked up vibrations from the off-key kids and the whisky tenors. You might as well try making love to each member of a girl quartet at the same time as to try playing your music when the vibrations are wrong. The Lion knows. He was born under Saturn, the get-it-the-hard-way planet.
A man's music comes from his heart and soul, flavored by the spiritual inspirations derived from the stars and his environment. When those bad vibrations reach you, you've either got to dominate them or give them silent treatment. I've learned it is better to duck than to hurry yourself out of this world by thinking you can roll with the punches. Loud people are like a bad drink of whisky -- you either fight them or join them. Either way, it's a bad idea.
O song, what will become of me when spring
brings its sweet renewals, every part
of heaven down-raining love on all the earth,
if, in this frozen dearth,
love, that spares all the rest, still wrings my heart?
Hullo, all. I'm not exactly out of my cave, but poking my head through the entrance now and then.
My winter? A glimpse of it over at chrysanthemum.
One of my favorite revelations from Nat Hentoff's At the Jazz Band Ball is chapter 34, which is devoted to "The Jewish Soul of Willie 'The Lion' Smith." I haven't listened to the show yet, but this NPR writeup covers the basics of Smith's music career. Hentoff zooms in on a memory of seeing Willie's business card, which was printed in English and Hebrew -- which Hentoff later discovers is not "Willie's antic wit at play" but a manifestation of the pianist's Judaism, which included a bar mitzvah in Newark, a stint as a cantor in Harlem, and being fluent enough in Hebrew to become irate at a guest singer. From page 173:
An unexpected benefit of becoming interested in The Lion's story was finding his biography in Harlem Renaissance Lives via GoogleBooks, which led me to the realization that the book also contained my essay on Frederick Ashbury Cullen. A new item for the brag shelf and resume! (The piece was written for hire for a larger project, which is still soliciting writers for the online edition...)
brings its sweet renewals, every part
of heaven down-raining love on all the earth,
if, in this frozen dearth,
love, that spares all the rest, still wrings my heart?
- - Dante, Canzone XI, translated by Dorothy L. Sayers
Hullo, all. I'm not exactly out of my cave, but poking my head through the entrance now and then.
My winter? A glimpse of it over at chrysanthemum.
One of my favorite revelations from Nat Hentoff's At the Jazz Band Ball is chapter 34, which is devoted to "The Jewish Soul of Willie 'The Lion' Smith." I haven't listened to the show yet, but this NPR writeup covers the basics of Smith's music career. Hentoff zooms in on a memory of seeing Willie's business card, which was printed in English and Hebrew -- which Hentoff later discovers is not "Willie's antic wit at play" but a manifestation of the pianist's Judaism, which included a bar mitzvah in Newark, a stint as a cantor in Harlem, and being fluent enough in Hebrew to become irate at a guest singer. From page 173:
Once Duke [Ellington] said to me: "You ever heard an Irish woman sing 'Eli, Eli'?"
"No."
"You're going to hear it."
I've forgotten her name, but she was Irish and I could never figure the tongue she was singing the number in, because it sure wasn't Hebrew. She would sing "Eli, Eli" (O Lord, why has thou forsaken me?), but I got in a fight with her because I told her she shouldn't be singing the song if she didn't know what the words meant. I talked Jewish to her but she didn't understand a thing.
An unexpected benefit of becoming interested in The Lion's story was finding his biography in Harlem Renaissance Lives via GoogleBooks, which led me to the realization that the book also contained my essay on Frederick Ashbury Cullen. A new item for the brag shelf and resume! (The piece was written for hire for a larger project, which is still soliciting writers for the online edition...)