The Jazz Review - Jazz Studies Online

certain age must have taken cognizance
of them when ihc\ were fn,t
issued. (The sound, incidentally, has
paled in the transfer.) What was not
so apparent when they were released
two by two was their expressive
variety: the cold dismissal of No
More, the contorted pathos of You
Better Co Now the oerhans excessive
virtuosity of Ain't Nobody's Bust,
I'll Look Around is a lesson for
all who would be jazz, singers, the
line sustained from first to last,
the annroarh to it hist susnense
ful enough to make it live the
wnrds fnrrpd tn urnpratp rpal mean
mfrBul"therew^eSpIanE
n 1 how R ie ran make ,m, teTom
m in7„v»l sat I I
Zem an uniuaf an^ difficult kip!
in her lyrics counterwords
This unique method—of course
the word is misleading; I do not
suggest any gnawing consciousness
that the words are trash—of battling
the weakness of the material is only
intermittently successful. So are the
attempts of writers to break away
from the greeting-card accomplishments
of the ordinary popular song
and create something the average
intelligent adult stomach: No escape
has heen devised so icir Stive
into a oretentious rhetoric (see' Deeo
Sons I or a sunner-rhib smartness
the onlv true merit of which is an un¬
Intended status he navoff il Mabel
Mercer Worst 'of all nerhaos is a
te*H ke RernsJn's ftV Stnff a nost
F.df»« .t^nTtn «oV*£A?,«
Ink llss in drinl tZT thderZ'
c^se k is happilyrbrie?
The failure of lvricists to keep pace
with the refinement and development
of jazz may be one reason why so
few singers of jazz exist, ft is the
more surprising when one considers
the affinity of jazz with poetry or
with any sort of spoken word 'jazz
instrumentalists are complimented
for making the horn talk, and the
two arts are alike in their approach
to rhvthm- thev both delidit in
stress variation and in substituting
lensth for accent It is not neressarv
to dance at Hookins' sorum? rhvthm
(which of course he didn't sav he
invpiitrHl tn nnHprstand this r*l«i
tionshio even the heroic couolet in
hehand", of Pone h^omes a flex
hie measure Tnd one rarT hear thai
tbrnnffh rfw hrnlTn L T n S
he Claimed hkp Rill nnt Rnv Har
ris Haldeal 1,X at last VW
"'• „ a'jI a Wf nf it
Tr, »rf I . 't represented
rhythmic complexity^ f om the d
length of phrases and from the timing
of instrumental entrances; it
seeks to establish a larger structure
than jazz does and is less concerned
with instantaneous excitements. For
this reason classical songs that have
a care for poetic declamation appear
more fragmentary than songs that
merely use the texts to suggest
a mood: more fragmentary, but more
venturesome.
This digression attempts to hint
at a possible reason for the most recent
experiments in combining jazz
with spoken poetry. The experiments
need not be faddy, though it is tempting
to dismiss them as that. On the
contrary they seem a seasonable way
of trying to cope with the suggested
difficulties.
MGM's release of "The Weary
Blues" with Langston Hughes (the
title could have been spared) is the
first recorded fruits of the idea. It
comes off easily, perhaps too easily.
The poetry of Hughes I his reading
is too offhand) never strays far from
the blues form and the blues idea,
though occasionally it attempts with
success, to reflect a conscious social
attitude with an oblique delicacy that
is no part of the intention of a real
blues. Since William Fmpson, we
have learned to call this a form of
nastoral noetrv • it is reallv a defen
sive tvoe of diettoism the in zrouo
counteroart to which is sav aPerel
man buXsoue The trouble with
sorh verse fs that it does not attemnt
r« d« ,eb haniZ ,3
lan dna H, lk« ^rS^WlZZ
Av.n,?; J r P i n t RST i~ —
Avenue, or to.Count Basie, is. equiv
sT» , tV •„ 51 t i l ? \1ZJ
Squeeze Me in which Louis beautifully
interpolates a phrase from High
Soctety or to a hundred such interpolations.
Poems which mean to
evoke a jazz expressiveness are even
less likely to be enhanced by competing
with the very source of their
inspiration. Six Bits Blues, accompanied
by a boogie-woogie tram
piece, cancels itself out, and the
music behind Weary Blues suffers
from being talked about—more accurately,
the listener suffers in both
instances from having his own re¬
sponse anticipated and confined.
The blues" I have mentioned form a
part of the less effective collage, in
which Hughes goes snacks with a
"traditional" group—Red Allen, Dickenson*
and so on* Hinton has a good
solo, the best moment on the side, as
well as the most imaginative use of
words and music. It was an excellent
idea to brine in a contrasting erouD
-the Mingus unit—for the other
side, if the results show us nothing
new There has been more of an
attempt to integrate the words and
music, though in no mimetic way:
"the boogie-woogie rumble of a
dream deferred" is not accompanied
by anything of the kind, and the brief
reference to Basie is really witty, not
a misguided literalism. The requirements
of the situation appear to curb
Mingus somewhat, though his Double
G Train figure is a good thing, reminiscent
of Ellington as the notes sugeest
and once or twice everybody
lets'hot.
There are hound to be many more
recordings of this sort in the future,
but it seems doubtful that either
poetry or jazz will benefit from the
association. After all, no art can feed
on another this way however many
successful momentary matches are
arranged. It would be interesting to
try reading some highly formal verse
to iazz accompaniment- the French
stanzas or even the complicated syllabic
patters of Welsh verse which
have occasionally been tried in English
And someone oudit to trv cueinYin
the spoken words as another
rhythmic instrument. But however it
is done the words will have to he
subordinated to the music as thev
are in the few elas!iral ex^r.ments
of this kind • T « r 3 8 T t o !
Facade »n t h / L m S n v i n b
UiZL d, Snl L IVr 11 11it i' i' -ill
ZllZ]] hp E t f - S h ^ n
having served its purpose
P P
—Glenn Coulter
T H E J O H N LEWIS PIANO, (Atlantic
1272)
In case the reader has a limited
amount of time I shall sav initially
that, without reservation, 'this is a
superb album, front, back and middle.
Well paced, sensitive, subtle, accessible
and befitting its leader it
contains a gentle nobility that seems
to pervade the soul of almost every¬
one who plays with him. The instrumentation
varies but the continuity
stavs for dinner Partieinants are
Percv Heath Connie Kav lira Hall
and Barry Galbraith.
The first piece, Harlequin, appears
to be a completely improvised duet
between piano and drums and was
recorded at the Music Barn (Lenox,
Mass.), complete with a few pianissimo
cricket chirps. Alternating between
a repeated, percussive pair of
eighth notes and a rolling, legato