no, i'm not joking

I've always loved this song. I think "Brandy" is a great record.

There were a great many bands of the early seventies who had a great single or two, but for whatever reason never had much else. To wit, the movie That Thing You Do was depicted a very usual phenomenon the rock era: the one hit wonders.

Each of us has his favorite one-hit wonder bands. My favorite was the Looking Glass, a band from the North Jersey shore whose only huge hit was this, despite a great follow-up single called "Jimmy Loves Marianne". Both songs were written by Elliot Lurie, who also sang greatlead. I think "Brandy" is a small masterpiece. The background vocal part is very good. "Midnight Train To Georgia" good.

Recently, Spanglish was on cable, and I saw the name "Elliot Lurie" in the end credits, for music supervision. I hadn't thought of his name in ages, despite playing "Brandy" every so often on a gig or even singing it at karoake now and again.

I grew up near a river, and often would see boats moored, or coming in, or going out of port along the Delaware River, usually while my family would be crossing the Walt Whitman Bridge. The lights of the bars along the South Philadelphia waterfront indicated a world by and for the people who worked on/for the boats. Stevedores, longshoremen, all those folks. I knew they existed, but my family didn't have friends in those trades. My father's friends were mostly transit workers he knew from his job, my mother's were largely women her own age from her church. We didn't really know anyone who left town for a living. I don't think I saw a real steamer trunk until I was in high school.

I knew South Philly's streets and neighborhoods pretty well, so it was easy for me to hear this song and picture Brandy walking home from work. As a kid, I would hear this song and think of her as a kind of worldly, beautiful hippie earth mother, with a braided leather chain around her neck, walking home down Two St from her job at a bar full of merchant marines and longshoremen.

Hearing it now, the whole memory -- the worldly fiction concocted by a ten year old boy -- comes back, as if on videotape.

(The Philadelphia waterfront as characterized by David Goodis in Cassidy's Girl is in there somewhere, too. Go figure.)

If I ever meet Mr Lurie, I have no idea what to say. But I will likely ask if there was a specific bar he had in mind. If not, I'll point out a couple to him where they could go back and shoot a video.

Elvis

"You know, Bush is always comparing me to Elvis in sort of unflattering ways. I don't think Bush would have liked Elvis very much, and that's just another thing that's wrong with him."

-- Bill Clinton during the 1992 presidential campaign

No wonder George Bush wasn't a very good president. He wasn't the kind of guy who likes Elvis, and Elvis says as much about America as can be said.

Today, it is 33 years since Elvis Presley went to his final reward. He passed the day before Groucho Marx, as major an icon as I can name. But nobody remembers where he was standing when Groucho died.

Several years back, my friend Mike Rocke (he used to play piano in my group) and I were listening to Leonard Bernstein's second symphony. There's a fast pseudo-jazz movement, and it's really a highlight in Bernstein's canon, even if it's not one of his hits. It's over-amped and gaudy. It makes its points broadly, even after its point is made. It's even joyously vulgar.

It coulda been Elvis.

I doubt anyone could ever sum up the American outlook and condition more than Elvis. Or Leonard Bernstein, Willie Nelson, or Louis Armstrong.

Jim Cavender pointed out (last night on the phone) that the truly American cultural giant never distances himself from his cheesiest moments. Instead, he invests them with a character we can't look away from, which can be pretty awful. Seeing Louis Armstrong singing to Barbra Streisand in Hello Dolly is fascinating and kind of terrifying. He's pitching it with the same intent that he did when he pitched the blues of W.C. Handy in the fifties. And -- nobody wants to admit this -- the Elvis that cut "Mystery Train" at Sun is the same Elvis who cut "There's No Room To Rhumba In A Sports Car".

But the Herbie Hancock who cuts "Rockit" etc is not the same Herbie who played on the on Henderson Double Rainbow disc. There's a palpable divide between the two. You don't get that from an Elvis, a Bernstein, a Louis, or a Willie. Or a Stevie. That "I Just Called To Say I Love You" comes from the same genius that gave us "Superstition" speaks worlds.

It's great to be an American.

Nothing teaches you about your country more than going to another country, and no country could be more 'other' than India. And when you talk music with Indians -- educated Indians -- Elvis is their touchstone. Part of it is definitely because India's pop music is the spawn of bad musical movies. But it is also because of his stardom and its ability to transcend the medium itself, so that everything he touches takes on his charm, even if the thing itself isn't very good. India embraces this. India is a culture that embraces everything, discards nothing, and ruminates on it all.

The number and range of books written about Elvis Presley is staggering. Everything from cookbooks to explorations of his involvement with eastern religion. He remains as fascinating a subject to Americans as has ever been. He has been venerated and ridiculed, often in the same breath, and analyzed out to here, but little is really known. He wasn't posessed of an intellectual process, nor did he do interviews, keep journals, write letters. and he never spoke of music in terms of his role in the picture of art -- his art or anyone else's. Instead, he made all kinds of records and movies, good and bad. He punched the clock and went into work like a total pro. On this best days, "Suspicious Minds". On his worst, "Ito Eats". That's an extreme dichotomy but any standard.

Americans, on our best days, are smart, vulgar, gregarious, and a little bit lonesome. We curse and swagger. Our literature -- film, music, books -- takes in low, middle, and high brow tastes almost all at once. That doesn't mean it's always good. It just means we're not snobs by nature.

Thirty-three years after his death, Elvis still embodies this -- for better and for worse -- more accurately than anyone else we have. It's hard to imagine anyone eclipsing him for this.

duosonic

Well, last night, Jim Cavender texted me and told me our album, A Cellarfull of Noise, is all done. Mixed and mastered even. Told me to check my email. Which I did.

As some of you might know, I've made several duet dates -- one each with David Anderson, Uri Caine, Bob Dorough, and Heath Allen. But those have all been live in the studio 'blowing date' sessions, strictly duo improvising, generally jazz (except the one with David, which had as much country music as jazz). The records with Heath and David have long been my favorites among my own work. With David, you hear the musical basis for our fast friendship. With Heath, you hear two guys moving through a mutual musical language we've cultivated over decades.

Cavender and I met in Huntsville six years ago, and he immediately became my surrogate big brother and one of my heroes. He produced Along The Anchorline: The Skip Heller Trio At Sun Studios (played on it in a couple spots, too) and recorded our Liberal Dose disc as well.

About a year or so back, the inevitability of a Jim/Skip duo record got to the point where we started planning things. I remember talking on the phone from the parking lot of a Starbucks in Ventura.

Finally, this spring, I got to Huntsville, and I won't even tell you how that came to pass and almost didn't. Rita Burkholder picked me up at the Greyhound, and, before you could say "WaylonandWille", I was in Jim's basement, surrounded by a cast of guitars etc sublime and ridiculous enough to turn Deke Dickerson's head. Jim played drums, and we split all the other duties, hunkering down for five days and late nights of overdub singing and playing. Jim's wife Terri did the percussion overdubs, I wrote a flugelhorn arrangement for Ken Watters to play, Rita sang behind Jim on a Jumpin' Gene Simmons obsciruity Jim unearthed, and Amy McCarley sang behind me on a great Roger Miller song.

Here are two songs. The first is from an Elvis movie, and features Jim on electric sitar.

This is a new original of mine, called "I Hate You". I don't usually go this bitter, but every now and then you gotta write a breakup song. Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs. I provide a different service.

So this should all be out soon one way or another. This is one of those things I'm glad we did, and I think it includes some of my best work ever. There's nobody I'd rather duo with than Jim, and I hope we do this again every so often. There should be a lot to come back to.

Al Perry: you're next.

bob dorough, hero

Those of you who have known me since I was too young to vote will likely remember that I learned the basic crafts of jazz largely from a singing piano player called Eric Spiegel, who went to Jesus a few years back.

Eric was one of the most amazing and natural musicians I've encountered even to this day. His heroes were Mose Allison, Tom Waits, and Bob Dorough.

To my generation, Bob Dorough is known mostly for his pioneering work as the music director and chief songwriter for Schoolhouse Rock.

To jazz fans since the fifties, Doro is be-bop's answer to Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, and Jack Teagarden. Dorough came from Arkansas and Texas. Despite his stone be-bop delivery, he's very much of the South and Carmichaelean Midwest. He communicates everything that ever had love for this world the same way Teagarden did.

He's the only singer ever to record in a band led by Miles Davis ("Blue Xmas").

To me, he's one of the most interesting figures to come of the be-bop age. During a period of extreme alienated low-key cool, Doro was always hyper-congenial and energized. He was as invigorated as Lord Buckley, and just as cool and friendly. He is one of jazz's most loving interpreters. He's also one of the great songwriters of the form -- "Devil May Care", "I've Got Just About Everything", "I'm Hip", "Nothing Like You", "Blue Xmas"... and "Three Is A Magic Number" all from his pen.

Into the 1980's, he had really only made three full albums as a singing pianist, but he's since recorded more regularly although not exactly prolifically. He has recorded as well with John Zorn, Richard Butler, Blossom Dearie, and many others in addition. He's one of those guys who can play or sing with anyone.

I recorded with him about four years ago, as a tribute to Eric. That old hippy wiped the floor with me, in a few cases on tunes he'd never played that I thought I owned. I forgot to mention: he's a ridiculous piano player, an improvising machine.

He's a national treasure. Along with Jack Sheldon, he is the strongest tie we have to a beautiful tradition of American song. Stop and check him out, right now.

You're welcome.

where it really got interesting, for me, anyhow

When I was about 18 or 19, my friend Dean Schneider, a wonderful piano player and already accomplished out to there, hipped me to The Ahmad Jamal Trio's But Not For Me: Live At The Pershing, and I was as revolutionized as a generation of players (then) 25 years before me had been, as much as I had been by Bill Evans. cut one, side two -- "Poinciana". It was like having a scud drop in the front yard.

This was Jamal's second trio under his leadership. The first was Jamal, bassist Israel Crosby, and guitarist Ray Crawford, replaced within a few years by drummer Vernell Fournier.

Israel Crosby was the oldest member of the band, born in 1919. he took arguably the first recorded bass solo, in 1935, on "Blues For Israel" by Gene Krupa, predating Jimmy Blanton, whose equal I think he was.

In the forties, the modern piano trio really came to full bloom, between Errol Garner and Bud Powell. I might get in trouble for saying this, but the notion of interactive trio playing didn't come into it under those pianists, great as they were (and they were).

In 1957, New Orleans drummer Vernell Fournier replaced the guitarist Ray Crawford, and a quiet and beautiful revolution took place. Jamal's use of rhythmic density, space, comedy, drama, and singable lines (so singable that they belied his astonishing technique) presented a truly viable alternative to Powell and Silver's hard bop and Shearing's overly-arranged quintet.

Instead, here was a trio that breathed, mixing very arranged stuff with very free improvising where Crosby's bass and Fournier's drums gave a depth of character to the group unlike any small jazz group had realized before. The could turn the folk song "Billy Boy" into a tour de force.

(Miles' literally covered it, too. Look close at Miles' repetiore, and it becomes very clear that he had a lot of love for Jamal. He was vocal about it throughout his life, too.)

Jamal would have other trios after this trio, mostly this good, too. The next major one, with Jamil Nasser and Frank Gant kept Jamal at the forefront of the trio art. In the 1980s, he took bassist James Cammack under his wing and the fruits of his art are still flowering, even as Jamal turned 80 this year. He is a fantastic creative wellspring even now, still powerful.

This is the 1959 Jamal/Crosby/Fournier version of the trio, and it truly shows their greatness. They weren't filmed much -- I get the sense they mostly stayed home in Chicago during this period -- and we're lucky to have the two songs I've found. But there's no unrewarding footage of Jamal. I saw him play at least five times in 1985-86, and he was as invigorating during that period as he is in this clip. He still is.

A master.

early aggressive steps toward a willfully american music

"In most countries, the people who live there are descended for hundreds of years from their forefathers, and their forefathers' forefathers, who all sang the same little tunes and sort of own them; so when the Russians hear a Tchaikovsky symphony, they feel closer to it than say, a Frenchman does, or than we do.

Now, how about us, here in America? What's our folk music? What did our forefathers sing? That's the problem. We all have different kinds of forefathers. For example: Mr. Corigliano, there, has Italian forefathers. And Varga has, Hun ... Varga's forefathers were, what were they? Hungarian. And mine were Jewish. Mr. McGinnis's were Scotch-Irish, and Mr. Wummers were Dutch, I believe, Dutch. And what about your forefathers? What about yours? "

-- Leonard Bernstein

One of the composers who most successfully tackled this was Charles Ives (October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954), born and bred in New England. He was far from the first composer in this country, but he was approximately to American concert music what Elvis was to rock'n'roll -- the distillation and template for what followed. Ives is one of the masters, right up there with T-Bone Walker, Bill Monroe, and anyone else that high and heavy.

Ives was raised in the church, so church music figures heavily into much of his composing, as do marches, art songs, and typical classical forms (he wrote symphonies, sonatas and all the usual stuff. In 1922, he self-published 114 Songs, which was his own anthology of his own songs. It's defiant DIY-ness prefigured the Buzzcocks' Spiral Scratch by five decades. It included art songs, reworkings of hymns, a great cowboy song, and a number of gorgeous songs about New England and New York (including "The Housatonic At Stockbridge").

They reveal a songsmith who would have recognized the worth of a Dave Alvin (for sheer breadth of musical and lyrical embrace) as well as a pioneer of dissonance. Ives composing was largely finished by 1927. But he was tight with all kinds of young American composers -- Henry Cowell, Nicholas Slomnisky, Bernard Herrman -- and his life had strong ties to new music until his death in 1954.

Ives music was hardly ever played in his lifetime. He was hardly known, despite his genius, which was true and noble. He was -- by day -- also a pioneer of the modern insurance business and became wealthy from that. He gave money to young and struggling composers (Henry Cowell among them). Once, when given some award for composing later in life, he dismissed it by saying, "Awards are badges of medoicrity."

And he was right.

Here are two slices of Ives' musical life.

The first is the beautiful and majestic "Housatonic At Stockbridge". This is the art song version. He also did an orchestral non-vocal rendering of it. Both are gems. I chose this one because the lyric is so well-crafted. I could also have put up "The Things Our Fathers Loved" or "Autumn", both of which have this same fantastic dignity.

The other clip is from the middle movement of his 4th symphony, which is more typical of the type of writing for which Ives is known. The orchestra here is divvied up into three sections, each with its own conductor (I only count two here, but it's generally three). The point of this is to get multiple themes colliding at once. This is Ives at his most punk rock.

Ives these days seems to occupy a weird netherworld, a composer a lot of people refer to but whose music few seem to have heard.

Raymond Scott, Frank Zappa, John Zorn, Spike Jones, Leonard Bernstein -- these are Ives' progeny. Check him out and be thankful. Very thankful.

even before devo...

... Akron, OH has a few cultural exports of note, note least of which was the vocal group Ruby and the Romantics, whose "Our Day Will Come" is a stone perfect classic record. They had a few other R&B chart records, lower rung stuff, but "Our Day" was clearly their score.

Shame. Ruby Nash had a fantastic voice, and the ability to sing the light "Our Day" stuff as well as big dramatic stuff (think Timi Yuro with gravitas). I think they recorded Bacharach/David's "I Cry Alone" first, but I could be wrong and I can't get Tom Ardolino on the phone for conformation.

I found out that the music biz made Ruby what I am today -- gifted to the point of needing a dayjob. She works and a thrift store near Akron and sings in church. She's been married to the same guy for about forty years.

Her day came. And she seized it, with some beautiful work and came out of it with a great marriage, I guess.

Good for her.