As I saw that Chet Baker clip, I couldn't help but to add another jazz tune that popped up in my feed today. Not the honeymoon romance of Valentine's Day, but the eyes of 9 months later. The first 50 seconds of this link as good a 'love poem' as any ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egL3Ha-MB0o
Fan-tass-stick stuff! So back in my "salad days" I studied in Par-ee an' Wayne Shorter would join' Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers cuz I think he had a gig in town too! (an' of course they used ta play together anways)-- in this great no-cover night club on the Left Bank... I think it wuz called "New Morning" (?) I guess the French were generous & appreciative enuf ta make it happen! (Likely fed 'em well too!) We poor stew-dents just chipped in with the hat pass ;-) This brings back mem'ries! (an' misses of all that talent... both Blakey & Shorter are no longer with us... nobuddy ta fill their big ol' shoes... tho' there yet is a lotta talent out thar yet! Much hidden in the bullrushes an' we just see the fool twerkers who cain't play their instru-mints) An' yup, 9 months later, a little human valentine too ;-)
What a nice, feel-good post! It's easy to cynically dismiss Valentine's Day as a commercialized "Hallmark holiday," but anything that encourages us to turn our attention away from FUD and towards love is okay in my book.
Many thx Alex! Also gives me an xcuse ta share adorable ol' greetin' cards & some nice songs 'bout love which we know there's been "just too little of!" (cue Bacharach & David thar).
POP Culcha' hist'ry: so Hallmark once wuz quite the hallmark of eggcellence!--if ya look waaaay back ta the 50's they produced some great top-notch entertainment fer teevee: Hallmark Television Playhouse--real plays or moosicals, many originals, they hired GREAT writers, directors, performers! Watch 'em!
Most of America didn't have any teevee yet even! They kept it goin' an' the shows are fantastic thru the 60's--I've only seen fuzzy free online copies online but they are REALLY TRULY worth checkin' out! I think by the 1970s they went thru the cracker mill...an' all we got wuz crumbs & SAPpy stuff. Go back tho! The Hallmark stamp once wuzn't a joke. PLUS they have one the most fantastic REAL private art collections in the whole USA! It's in MA an' I've wanted ta go... NEARLY as good as Saachis! America...had it all. Why they went downhill an' the name became a joke's beyond me...
Some'a these old cards come from American Greetings. Back in the day they were fun an' hired REAL live illustrators. Now it's all crapupla done on 'puters. (Formulaic too). My angle is if we SEE where were WERE we'll remember what we're capable of (I sure hope so!)
an' of course the humor ;-) folks fergit what made us laff...the funny chews that made us laff...still do! (tho' that Joan Crawford quote's a hoot too!)
Thanks muchly Elsa, I'd never note such a "feature" in typical times--'cept the haters keep tellin' their minions ta point us out, literally it's a whole movement (I gotta write about it!) fer people to "Name the Jew," indicate us, humiliate us. SO I'm'a turnin' it on it's hind end. Sure I'll name 'em alright--an' in so-doin' Ill note their contributions too. These talents were HAPPY ta work with anyone 'round 'em--blacks, whites, Christians... admittedly there ain't too many Muslims on the concert circuit but "da joos" were just happy ta be a part've it all an' (it's a kultural thing) we all have ta play piano or violin (seriously it's a "mandate" or used ta be at least!). Those that keep tellin' us we ARE NOTHIN' an' we've DONE NOTHIN' an' we should DIE (die die die...an' we say dayenu which means ENOUGH!)--all think that "we are all Jeffery Epstein." Their mindset! An' the famous Wedding Song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0ccqHlCfts) played at their Christian weddin's is an Al Jolson/Saul Chapin song (two joos). These haters dunno 'bout George Gershwin, Leonard Copeland, Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Bernstein, Johann Strauss, Jacques Offenbach, Felix Mendelssohn, 'er Kurt Weill an' THAT's just the OLD SKOOL ONES. It gits mah goat! (scape goat!)
THUS, I'm startin' ta note this b/c everyone is tellin' the whirled that chews "hate" America, hate the Christians, have done /contributed "nothin' but greed!" This is so untrue! It makes me sad (not ta mention hated) ta hear it. But most folks don't know better, so they believe it! I'll add that old Hollywood was mahvelous--this new era of turrible me-dia ain't the fault of da chews--it's a long story, I hope ta tell it!
MEANTIMES, I grew up with a musical fambly (I live with my gran'parents & my gran'pa wuz a big band musician, played fer famous bands like Harry James's--Kate Smith too!). Turrible that most folks don't know that the American Songbook wuz mostly written by Joos! In fact, there'an ol' joke 'bout Cole Porter--the FABULOUS Cole Porter--who 'fore he got successful wuz given advice to "write jewish" even tho' he wuzn't--an' THAT started his career off like hotcakes (it's a known tale in da biz)(https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/songwriters/4/)
So while sharin' stuff I enjoy (much that even pre-dates me cuz I love it all!) I feel obliged ta "name da joos" as my own FOIL fer those that deny the GIFTS so many GAVE to folks of all faiths, non-faiths, colors, ages, stages & creeds. Music is fer everybuddy of course! (Humor too! I'll call it a gift as well ;-)
You write: Al Jolson/Saul Chapin song (two joos). What!!! Al Jolson was Jewish??? I (mis)remembered him as black - and then I did a search. He did that utterly non-PC thing of putting on blackface!!! (I know - a very different time - not like when the Canadian PM did it.)
Yup, indeed, blackface BUT then there were a lot of white performers (many non-joos) that performed in blackface--of course it's VERY wrong today unless/'cept ta point out historical irony but the history is complex as Jolie and others worked with black performers who ALSO performed in blackface!
Black performers also rubbed greasepaint on their skin to darken it an' play "in character."
The complex history the "woke folks" don't git is that it wuz a tribute (misguided of course) an' mutual--to ERASE the entire history of musical performance in blackface erases musical history in the USA an' long after Jolson stopped doin' it... he continued ta be an important performer--the star of the first sound film / talkie "The Jazz Singer"--so it's complicated... It sounds SO "racist" but he wuz nothin' of the kind... entire tradition was baked inta old thee-ate-'er. "Indians" were also played by white guys in dark makeup, Chinese in yellow-ish makeup... TODAY wrong (unless again, there are reasons that make sense such as satire--if ya know the film Watermelon Man it's about a black guy that wears White Face! An' Eddie Murphy did that too--an' played a joo--thus "Jew Face" which was also a thing)
I like much of Jolson's music--he has a cantorial flair. Tho' I don't dismiss 'im fer his regrettable theatrical conceit (far more imho "wrong" for Turd-o who was born more 'n half a century later), I UNDERSTAND it in context.
Jolson NEVER said a mean word 'bout black people--he loved their music! He worked with black folks on stage an' in films at a time when higher powers were tryin' ta separate / segregate 'em. THAT sez a lot fer the guy.
Worth a read 'fore dismissin' him as "only" a shameful racist (not sayin' you would but many DO"--
Today just displayin' a Confederate flag is considered hateful but even tho' white nationalists that "hate" us joos used it, I'm a fan--that flag represents half the USA... I bring it up as "revisionist history" thru a "LENS" really distorts the reality that wuz on the ground (plus there were joos that fought in the Civil War on the SOUTHERN side too!)
PLS Watch this short viddeyo to see WHO THIS MAN WUZ... in 1945...notta racist...a dear lovely man who SPOKE 'bout acceptance & tolerance:
pps not sayin' you yerself would write off Jolie but many do... The Jazz Singer was remade by Neil Diamond (fwiw)... the tale is timeless, the "blackface" not of consequence in the bigger story :-)
Ps Ted Gioia, who writes a "mean stack" on music (highly rec'o'mended) penned this on Jolie 'bout 25 years ago... worth a read but I highlight just one example where he, unprompted, extended a kindness ta his fellow black performers... the story also describes how his use of cork/blackface allowed him ta hide behind a mask... with no relation at all ta racism....
"Was Jolson a racist? Although he was guilty of many faults, Jolson showed no overt signs of ethnic hatred. Indeed, the songwriter and performer Noble Sissle, a longtime partner of the ragtime pioneer Eubie Blake, recalled Jolson's unprompted act of kindness after a Hartford restaurant refused to serve the two black musicians.
A local newspaper mentioned the incident, and, Sissle later recalled: "To our everlasting amazement, we promptly got a call from Al Jolson. He was in town with his show and even though we were two very unimportant guys whom he'd never heard of until that morning, he was so sore about that story he wanted to make it up to us."
The next evening, Jolson treated Sissle and Blake to dinner, insisting that "he'd punch anyone in the nose who tried to kick us out."
Jolie as he wuz called...means pretty of course in French...a pretty good egg he wuz...
A bit more on his kindness towards his fellow black performers...
Jolson would be shocked by this vilification (i.e. his legacy as a racist -ed). During his lifetime, he was never the object of pickets or protests.
Indeed, James Weldon Johnson, a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, praised Jolson for helping to promote the production of Garland Anderson's Appearances, the first play by a black writer to reach Broadway.
Among the 20,000 mourners who showed up for his funeral in 1950 was Noble Sissle, a black songwriter and performer who came as the official representative of the Negro Actors' Guild.
Jolson was empathetic toward black people, as difficult as that might be for Lee (Spike-ed) or others to believe.
Reared in Washington, D.C., a city of Northern charm and Southern bigotry, Jolson crossed the color line to perform in the streets with black friends. Later in life he would publish an admiring article about Jack Johnson, shoot craps with Bill Robinson, haunt black cabarets in Harlem, and golf with Joe Louis.
For Jolson, then, blackface was a way of bonding with the African American world, not ridiculing it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the-ate-'er imitation used ta be the BEST form of flattery--now in the land of snap judge-ments, good folks are trampled an' uplifted are a lotta folks with little substance but they present" as havin' the "RIGHT" inclusive/diverse attytudes... just sayin' ;-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OH an' the black audiences in Harlem LOVED 'im in The Jazz Singer where he again wears his iconic "blackface"--
"When the movie was shown at the Lafayette Theater in 1928, the New York Amsterdam News, a black newspaper, called it "one of the greatest films ever made" and noted that during the "dramatic moments" there were "sobs heard all over the theater."
Folks don't react that way if they feel insulted. Black folks then knew what white folks today cannot (sadly) grasp... they look beyond the surface into the substance...
Adore heartily the groaner puns and the charming images and the musical offerings!
My favorite song for this time of year is 'My Funny Valentine'.
The origins of Valentine's day in early Christian Rome is all about martyrdom and paying the ultimate price to celebrate love and defy the war machine of that era.
Same back yer way Amy! Yes, "My Funny Valentine" is SUCH a lovely song ain't it? A lotta good covers of it too by the crooners & chantoozies!
I know of the crazy Christian/Roman origins (an' 'bout that St. V's massacre--yikes!) but today it's lost that "Roman Feeling" (ha!) an' from sweet songs, ta groaners, ta corny-but-heartfelt imagery (by real illustrators, not AI!) I feel that capturin' that sweet an' surely scenty-mental feelin'--as it wuz... feels more "right" than today's "slicked up" version on tight control... with canned "presentations"--I'll take the more homespun version any day! Glad ye enjoyed!
Great holiday post, Daisy.
As I saw that Chet Baker clip, I couldn't help but to add another jazz tune that popped up in my feed today. Not the honeymoon romance of Valentine's Day, but the eyes of 9 months later. The first 50 seconds of this link as good a 'love poem' as any ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egL3Ha-MB0o
Thanks again from Japan!
Fan-tass-stick stuff! So back in my "salad days" I studied in Par-ee an' Wayne Shorter would join' Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers cuz I think he had a gig in town too! (an' of course they used ta play together anways)-- in this great no-cover night club on the Left Bank... I think it wuz called "New Morning" (?) I guess the French were generous & appreciative enuf ta make it happen! (Likely fed 'em well too!) We poor stew-dents just chipped in with the hat pass ;-) This brings back mem'ries! (an' misses of all that talent... both Blakey & Shorter are no longer with us... nobuddy ta fill their big ol' shoes... tho' there yet is a lotta talent out thar yet! Much hidden in the bullrushes an' we just see the fool twerkers who cain't play their instru-mints) An' yup, 9 months later, a little human valentine too ;-)
What a nice, feel-good post! It's easy to cynically dismiss Valentine's Day as a commercialized "Hallmark holiday," but anything that encourages us to turn our attention away from FUD and towards love is okay in my book.
Many thx Alex! Also gives me an xcuse ta share adorable ol' greetin' cards & some nice songs 'bout love which we know there's been "just too little of!" (cue Bacharach & David thar).
POP Culcha' hist'ry: so Hallmark once wuz quite the hallmark of eggcellence!--if ya look waaaay back ta the 50's they produced some great top-notch entertainment fer teevee: Hallmark Television Playhouse--real plays or moosicals, many originals, they hired GREAT writers, directors, performers! Watch 'em!
Most of America didn't have any teevee yet even! They kept it goin' an' the shows are fantastic thru the 60's--I've only seen fuzzy free online copies online but they are REALLY TRULY worth checkin' out! I think by the 1970s they went thru the cracker mill...an' all we got wuz crumbs & SAPpy stuff. Go back tho! The Hallmark stamp once wuzn't a joke. PLUS they have one the most fantastic REAL private art collections in the whole USA! It's in MA an' I've wanted ta go... NEARLY as good as Saachis! America...had it all. Why they went downhill an' the name became a joke's beyond me...
Some'a these old cards come from American Greetings. Back in the day they were fun an' hired REAL live illustrators. Now it's all crapupla done on 'puters. (Formulaic too). My angle is if we SEE where were WERE we'll remember what we're capable of (I sure hope so!)
an' of course the humor ;-) folks fergit what made us laff...the funny chews that made us laff...still do! (tho' that Joan Crawford quote's a hoot too!)
So many songs to listen to (coming up). So many fab and fun quotes to read fast.
The most unusual thing - noting which of the singers and song-writers were Jewish. Quite note-worthy.
Thanks muchly Elsa, I'd never note such a "feature" in typical times--'cept the haters keep tellin' their minions ta point us out, literally it's a whole movement (I gotta write about it!) fer people to "Name the Jew," indicate us, humiliate us. SO I'm'a turnin' it on it's hind end. Sure I'll name 'em alright--an' in so-doin' Ill note their contributions too. These talents were HAPPY ta work with anyone 'round 'em--blacks, whites, Christians... admittedly there ain't too many Muslims on the concert circuit but "da joos" were just happy ta be a part've it all an' (it's a kultural thing) we all have ta play piano or violin (seriously it's a "mandate" or used ta be at least!). Those that keep tellin' us we ARE NOTHIN' an' we've DONE NOTHIN' an' we should DIE (die die die...an' we say dayenu which means ENOUGH!)--all think that "we are all Jeffery Epstein." Their mindset! An' the famous Wedding Song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0ccqHlCfts) played at their Christian weddin's is an Al Jolson/Saul Chapin song (two joos). These haters dunno 'bout George Gershwin, Leonard Copeland, Arnold Schoenberg, Leonard Bernstein, Johann Strauss, Jacques Offenbach, Felix Mendelssohn, 'er Kurt Weill an' THAT's just the OLD SKOOL ONES. It gits mah goat! (scape goat!)
THUS, I'm startin' ta note this b/c everyone is tellin' the whirled that chews "hate" America, hate the Christians, have done /contributed "nothin' but greed!" This is so untrue! It makes me sad (not ta mention hated) ta hear it. But most folks don't know better, so they believe it! I'll add that old Hollywood was mahvelous--this new era of turrible me-dia ain't the fault of da chews--it's a long story, I hope ta tell it!
MEANTIMES, I grew up with a musical fambly (I live with my gran'parents & my gran'pa wuz a big band musician, played fer famous bands like Harry James's--Kate Smith too!). Turrible that most folks don't know that the American Songbook wuz mostly written by Joos! In fact, there'an ol' joke 'bout Cole Porter--the FABULOUS Cole Porter--who 'fore he got successful wuz given advice to "write jewish" even tho' he wuzn't--an' THAT started his career off like hotcakes (it's a known tale in da biz)(https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/songwriters/4/)
So while sharin' stuff I enjoy (much that even pre-dates me cuz I love it all!) I feel obliged ta "name da joos" as my own FOIL fer those that deny the GIFTS so many GAVE to folks of all faiths, non-faiths, colors, ages, stages & creeds. Music is fer everybuddy of course! (Humor too! I'll call it a gift as well ;-)
You write: Al Jolson/Saul Chapin song (two joos). What!!! Al Jolson was Jewish??? I (mis)remembered him as black - and then I did a search. He did that utterly non-PC thing of putting on blackface!!! (I know - a very different time - not like when the Canadian PM did it.)
Yup, indeed, blackface BUT then there were a lot of white performers (many non-joos) that performed in blackface--of course it's VERY wrong today unless/'cept ta point out historical irony but the history is complex as Jolie and others worked with black performers who ALSO performed in blackface!
Black performers also rubbed greasepaint on their skin to darken it an' play "in character."
The complex history the "woke folks" don't git is that it wuz a tribute (misguided of course) an' mutual--to ERASE the entire history of musical performance in blackface erases musical history in the USA an' long after Jolson stopped doin' it... he continued ta be an important performer--the star of the first sound film / talkie "The Jazz Singer"--so it's complicated... It sounds SO "racist" but he wuz nothin' of the kind... entire tradition was baked inta old thee-ate-'er. "Indians" were also played by white guys in dark makeup, Chinese in yellow-ish makeup... TODAY wrong (unless again, there are reasons that make sense such as satire--if ya know the film Watermelon Man it's about a black guy that wears White Face! An' Eddie Murphy did that too--an' played a joo--thus "Jew Face" which was also a thing)
I like much of Jolson's music--he has a cantorial flair. Tho' I don't dismiss 'im fer his regrettable theatrical conceit (far more imho "wrong" for Turd-o who was born more 'n half a century later), I UNDERSTAND it in context.
Jolson NEVER said a mean word 'bout black people--he loved their music! He worked with black folks on stage an' in films at a time when higher powers were tryin' ta separate / segregate 'em. THAT sez a lot fer the guy.
Worth a read 'fore dismissin' him as "only" a shameful racist (not sayin' you would but many DO"--
https://jolson.org/man/racism/blackface.html
Today just displayin' a Confederate flag is considered hateful but even tho' white nationalists that "hate" us joos used it, I'm a fan--that flag represents half the USA... I bring it up as "revisionist history" thru a "LENS" really distorts the reality that wuz on the ground (plus there were joos that fought in the Civil War on the SOUTHERN side too!)
PLS Watch this short viddeyo to see WHO THIS MAN WUZ... in 1945...notta racist...a dear lovely man who SPOKE 'bout acceptance & tolerance:
https://youtu.be/zhvA6E7Ojhk
ps Bert Williams was a FAMOUS Black Performer that did BLACKFACE for a livin'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Williams
pps not sayin' you yerself would write off Jolie but many do... The Jazz Singer was remade by Neil Diamond (fwiw)... the tale is timeless, the "blackface" not of consequence in the bigger story :-)
Ps Ted Gioia, who writes a "mean stack" on music (highly rec'o'mended) penned this on Jolie 'bout 25 years ago... worth a read but I highlight just one example where he, unprompted, extended a kindness ta his fellow black performers... the story also describes how his use of cork/blackface allowed him ta hide behind a mask... with no relation at all ta racism....
https://jolson.org/man/racism/nyt.html
"Was Jolson a racist? Although he was guilty of many faults, Jolson showed no overt signs of ethnic hatred. Indeed, the songwriter and performer Noble Sissle, a longtime partner of the ragtime pioneer Eubie Blake, recalled Jolson's unprompted act of kindness after a Hartford restaurant refused to serve the two black musicians.
A local newspaper mentioned the incident, and, Sissle later recalled: "To our everlasting amazement, we promptly got a call from Al Jolson. He was in town with his show and even though we were two very unimportant guys whom he'd never heard of until that morning, he was so sore about that story he wanted to make it up to us."
The next evening, Jolson treated Sissle and Blake to dinner, insisting that "he'd punch anyone in the nose who tried to kick us out."
Jolie as he wuz called...means pretty of course in French...a pretty good egg he wuz...
A bit more on his kindness towards his fellow black performers...
https://jolson.org/man/racism/bamboozled.html
Jolson would be shocked by this vilification (i.e. his legacy as a racist -ed). During his lifetime, he was never the object of pickets or protests.
Indeed, James Weldon Johnson, a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, praised Jolson for helping to promote the production of Garland Anderson's Appearances, the first play by a black writer to reach Broadway.
Among the 20,000 mourners who showed up for his funeral in 1950 was Noble Sissle, a black songwriter and performer who came as the official representative of the Negro Actors' Guild.
Jolson was empathetic toward black people, as difficult as that might be for Lee (Spike-ed) or others to believe.
Reared in Washington, D.C., a city of Northern charm and Southern bigotry, Jolson crossed the color line to perform in the streets with black friends. Later in life he would publish an admiring article about Jack Johnson, shoot craps with Bill Robinson, haunt black cabarets in Harlem, and golf with Joe Louis.
For Jolson, then, blackface was a way of bonding with the African American world, not ridiculing it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the-ate-'er imitation used ta be the BEST form of flattery--now in the land of snap judge-ments, good folks are trampled an' uplifted are a lotta folks with little substance but they present" as havin' the "RIGHT" inclusive/diverse attytudes... just sayin' ;-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OH an' the black audiences in Harlem LOVED 'im in The Jazz Singer where he again wears his iconic "blackface"--
"When the movie was shown at the Lafayette Theater in 1928, the New York Amsterdam News, a black newspaper, called it "one of the greatest films ever made" and noted that during the "dramatic moments" there were "sobs heard all over the theater."
Folks don't react that way if they feel insulted. Black folks then knew what white folks today cannot (sadly) grasp... they look beyond the surface into the substance...
Adore heartily the groaner puns and the charming images and the musical offerings!
My favorite song for this time of year is 'My Funny Valentine'.
The origins of Valentine's day in early Christian Rome is all about martyrdom and paying the ultimate price to celebrate love and defy the war machine of that era.
Blessed Belated Valentine's Day to you and yours!
Same back yer way Amy! Yes, "My Funny Valentine" is SUCH a lovely song ain't it? A lotta good covers of it too by the crooners & chantoozies!
I know of the crazy Christian/Roman origins (an' 'bout that St. V's massacre--yikes!) but today it's lost that "Roman Feeling" (ha!) an' from sweet songs, ta groaners, ta corny-but-heartfelt imagery (by real illustrators, not AI!) I feel that capturin' that sweet an' surely scenty-mental feelin'--as it wuz... feels more "right" than today's "slicked up" version on tight control... with canned "presentations"--I'll take the more homespun version any day! Glad ye enjoyed!
Baruch HaShem! Everything was lovely 🥰