Cab Calloway Stars in “Minnie the Moocher,” a Trippy Betty Boop Cartoon That’s Ranked as the 20th Greatest Cartoon of All Time (1932)

in Animation, Jazz, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | June 2nd, 2017

The cast of Dave Fleis­ch­er’s 1932 car­toon, Min­nie the Moocher, above, are a far cry from the can­dy-col­ored ponies and sim­per­ing drag­ons pop­u­lat­ing today’s car­toon uni­verse.

There’s not much of a nar­ra­tive, and the clos­est thing to a moral is an unspo­ken “don’t be cokey.”

Who cares?

The lyrics to band­leader Cab Cal­loway’s crossover hit were ample excuse to send a rebel­lious Bet­ty Boop and her anthro­po­mor­phized pal, Bim­bo, on a trip­py jaunt through the under­world.

While there’s no evi­dence of Bet­ty or Bim­bo hit­ting the pipe, one won­ders what the ani­ma­tors were smok­ing to come up with such an imag­i­na­tive palette of ghouls.

The ghosts are pris­on­ers sport­ing chain gang stripes.

A witch with an out­sized head pre­fig­ures Miyaza­k­i’s com­mand­ing old ladies.

A blank-sock­et­ed mama cat, leached dry by her equal­ly eye­less kit­tens, con­jures the sort of night­mare vision that appealed to Hierony­mus Bosch.

The most benign pres­ence is a phan­tas­magoric wal­rus, mod­eled on a roto­scoped Cal­loway. The Hi De Ho Man cut a far svel­ter pres­ence in the flesh, as evi­denced by the live action sequence that intro­duces the car­toon.

Betty’s home sweet home offers near­ly as weird a land­scape as the one she and Bim­bo flee at film’s end.

Its many inor­gan­ic inhab­i­tants would have felt right at home in PeeWee’s Play­house, as would a self-sac­ri­fic­ing flow­er­ing plant, who suc­cumbs to a sam­ple of the hasenpf­ef­fer Betty’s immi­grant moth­er unsuc­cess­ful­ly urges on her. As for Bet­ty’s father, Fleis­ch­er struck a blow for teenagers every­where by hav­ing his head morph into a gramo­phone on which a bro­ken record (or rather, cylin­der) plays.

Min­nie the Moocher was vot­ed the 20th great­est car­toon of all time, in a 1994 sur­vey of 1,ooo ani­ma­tion pro­fes­sion­als. We hope you enjoy it now, as the ani­ma­tors did then, and audi­ences did way back in 1932.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Harlem Jazz Singer Who Inspired Bet­ty Boop: Meet the Orig­i­nal Boop-Oop-a-Doop, “Baby Esther”

Duke Ellington’s Sym­pho­ny in Black, Star­ring a 19-Year-old Bil­lie Hol­i­day

Hear 2,000 Record­ings of the Most Essen­tial Jazz Songs: A Huge Playlist for Your Jazz Edu­ca­tion

Bam­bi Meets Godzil­la: #38 on the List of The 50 Great­est Car­toons of All Time

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  She’ll be appear­ing onstage in New York City this June as one of the clowns in Paul David Young’s Faust 3. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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An Aging Louis Armstrong Sings “What a Wonderful World” in 1967, During the Vietnam War & The Civil Rights Struggle

in Jazz, Life, Music | May 1st, 2017


It’s not uncom­mon to have a knee jerk response to Bob Thiele and George David Weiss’ now-ubiq­ui­tous “What a Won­der­ful World.”

The qual­i­ty of your reac­tion is like­ly deter­mined by your world­view.

A misty-eyed bride-to-be brows­ing tunes for her upcom­ing reception’s father-daugh­ter dance will not be com­ing at things from the same angle as the direc­tors of Bowl­ing for Columbine, Good Morn­ing, Viet­nam, and—unexpectedly—Mada­gas­car.

The first ver­sion, sung by an aging Louis Arm­strong, remains defin­i­tive, though it was dis­missed at first by record execs, who hoped for anoth­er rol­lick­ing chart top­per along in the “Hel­lo, Dol­ly!” mod­el.

As Jack Doyle notes on the Pop His­to­ry Dig, Arm­strong dug the song, and per­formed it often, hop­ing to strike a chord of hope and opti­mism dur­ing a peri­od of great civ­il unrest:

Seems to me it ain’t the world that’s so bad but what we’re doing to it, and all I’m say­ing is: see what a won­der­ful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance. Love, baby, love.  That’s the secret…

The song’s white authors shared his view, and hoped his crossover appeal would pro­mote feel­ings of racial har­mo­ny on all sides of the record-buy­ing pub­lic. It was a hit in the UK, but a slow starter in the US, not real­ly catch­ing on until its appear­ance on Good Morn­ing, Viet­nam’s sound­track (1987).

Half a cen­tu­ry after its release, “What a Won­der­ful World” has entered the pan­theon, as any­one with a tele­vi­sion and ears can attest.

Its sim­ple lyrics involv­ing ros­es, rain­bows, and babies have result­ed in a num­ber of hideous­ly syrupy cov­ers. With so many choic­es, it’s almost impos­si­ble to pick a least-favorite. Their gooey­ness does a dis­ser­vice to the pow­er of the orig­i­nal.

What’s so poignant about the per­for­mance, above, are the moments where the dark­ness cuts through the trea­cle, ever so briefly. Check out Armstrong’s expres­sions at :25, :50, and 1:49, and inter­pret it how you will.

It’s worth not­ing that the night­ly news was monop­o­lized by reports of the war in Viet­nam and the strug­gle for civ­il rights at home. Arm­strong’s health was in decline. The real­i­ties of his own New Orleans child­hood were far more com­plex than the cray­on-bright vision paint­ed by the lyrics.

A mon­tage of bomb­ings and peace­ful demon­stra­tors being stomped under­foot would’ve seemed pre­ma­ture at such an ear­ly stage in the song’s his­to­ry, so Arm­strong smiled through, as he laid the ground­work for lat­er per­form­ers’ lay­ered inter­pre­ta­tions. Some of the ones we find most com­pelling are below:

Nick Cave & the Pogues’ Shane Mac­Gowan unhap­pi­ness has them reel­ing off their stools, even as they shake hands to com­ic effect.

Ministry’s sin­is­ter take opens with a love­ly lone­ly piano that, like the listener’s eardrums, gets plowed under by a mas­sive attack of indus­tri­al noise.

Joey Ramone had already been diag­nosed with the can­cer that cut his life short when he record­ed his ver­sion, that ends on a note of unabashed pop-punk joy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Clean­est Record­ings of 1920s Louis Arm­strong Songs You’ll Ever Hear

The Only Known Footage of Louis Arm­strong in a Record­ing Stu­dio: Watch the Recent­ly-Dis­cov­ered Film (1959)

“What a Won­der­ful World,” Louis Armstrong’s Clas­sic, Per­formed with Tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese Instru­ments

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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John Coltrane Draws a Picture Illustrating the Mathematics of Music

in Jazz, Math, Music | April 12th, 2017

Physi­cist and sax­o­phon­ist Stephon Alexan­der has argued in his many pub­lic lec­tures and his book The Jazz of Physics that Albert Ein­stein and John Coltrane had quite a lot in com­mon. Alexan­der in par­tic­u­lar draws our atten­tion to the so-called “Coltrane cir­cle,” which resem­bles what any musi­cian will rec­og­nize as the “Cir­cle of Fifths,” but incor­po­rates Coltrane’s own inno­va­tions. Coltrane gave the draw­ing to sax­o­phon­ist and pro­fes­sor Yusef Lateef in 1967, who includ­ed it in his sem­i­nal text, Repos­i­to­ry of Scales and Melod­ic Pat­terns. Where Lateef, as he writes in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, sees Coltrane’s music as a “spir­i­tu­al jour­ney” that “embraced the con­cerns of a rich tra­di­tion of auto­phys­iopsy­chic music,” Alexan­der sees “the same geo­met­ric prin­ci­ple that moti­vat­ed Einstein’s” quan­tum the­o­ry.

Nei­ther descrip­tion seems out of place. Musi­cian and blog­ger Roel Hol­lan­der notes, “Thelo­nious Monk once said ‘All musi­cans are sub­con­scious­ly math­e­mati­cians.’ Musi­cians like John Coltrane though have been very much aware of the math­e­mat­ics of music and con­scious­ly applied it to his works.”

Coltrane was also very much aware of Einstein’s work and liked to talk about it fre­quent­ly. Musi­can David Amram remem­bers the Giant Steps genius telling him he “was try­ing to do some­thing like that in music.”

Hol­lan­der care­ful­ly dis­sects Coltrane’s math­e­mat­ics in two the­o­ry-heavy essays, one gen­er­al­ly on Coltrane’s “Music & Geom­e­try” and one specif­i­cal­ly on his “Tone Cir­cle.” Coltrane him­self had lit­tle to say pub­li­cal­ly about the inten­sive the­o­ret­i­cal work behind his most famous com­po­si­tions, prob­a­bly because he’d rather they speak for them­selves. He pre­ferred to express him­self philo­soph­i­cal­ly and mys­ti­cal­ly, draw­ing equal­ly on his fas­ci­na­tion with sci­ence and with spir­i­tu­al tra­di­tions of all kinds. Coltrane’s poet­ic way of speak­ing has left his musi­cal inter­preters with a wide vari­ety of ways to look at his Cir­cle, as jazz musi­cian Corey Mwam­ba dis­cov­ered when he infor­mal­ly polled sev­er­al oth­er play­ers on Face­book. Clar­inetist Arun Ghosh, for exam­ple, saw in Coltrane’s “math­e­mat­i­cal prin­ci­ples” a “musi­cal sys­tem that con­nect­ed with The Divine.” It’s a sys­tem, he opined, that “feels quite Islam­ic to me.”

Lateef agreed, and there may be few who under­stood Coltrane’s method bet­ter than he did. He stud­ied close­ly with Coltrane for years, and has been remem­bered since his death in 2013 as a peer and even a men­tor, espe­cial­ly in his ecu­meni­cal embrace of the­o­ry and music from around the world. Lateef even argued that Coltrane’s late-in-life mas­ter­piece A Love Supreme might have been titled “Allah Supreme” were it not for fear of “polit­i­cal back­lash.” Some may find the claim ten­den­tious, but what we see in the wide range of respons­es to Coltrane’s musi­cal the­o­ry, so well encap­su­lat­ed in the draw­ing above, is that his recog­ni­tion, as Lateef writes, of the “struc­tures of music” was as much for him about sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery as it was reli­gious expe­ri­ence. Both for him were intu­itive process­es that “came into exis­tence,” writes Lateef, “in the mind of the musi­can through abstrac­tion from expe­ri­ence.”

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Secret Link Between Jazz and Physics: How Ein­stein & Coltrane Shared Impro­vi­sa­tion and Intu­ition in Com­mon

John Coltrane’s Hand­writ­ten Out­line for His Mas­ter­piece A Love Supreme

John Coltrane’s ‘Giant Steps’ Ani­mat­ed

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Rufus Harley, the First Jazz Musician to Make the Bagpipes His Main Instrument, Performs on I’ve Got a Secret (1966)

in Jazz, Music, Television | February 17th, 2017

Musi­cian Rufus Harley did the peo­ple of Scot­land a great favor when he took up the bag­pipes. Like the Loch Ness Mon­ster and hag­gis, out­side its coun­try of ori­gin, the nation­al instru­ment has evolved into a hack­neyed punch­line.

What bet­ter, more unex­pect­ed ambas­sador for its expand­ed pos­si­bil­i­ties than a cer­ti­fied Amer­i­can jazz cat?

He cer­tain­ly stumped the all-white celebri­ty pan­el when he appeared on Steve Allen’s pop­u­lar TV game show, “I’ve Got a Secret” in 1966.

Politi­cian and for­mer Miss Amer­i­ca Bess Myer­son’s open­ing ques­tion feels a bit impolitic from a 50 year remove:

Is it how well you play it that’s unusu­al?

“Yes, def­i­nite­ly,” Harley agrees.

Hav­ing quick­ly sussed out that the instru­ment in ques­tion is a wood­wind, the pan­el cycles through a list of can­di­dates — flute?

Oboe?

Clar­inet?

No?

A…sweet pota­to?

Once they start bat­ting around sax­o­phones, Allen issues a brisk cor­rec­tive:

He wouldn’t be here tonight if he, you know, just played the sax­o­phone and that was his secret because that wouldn’t be too good a secret. 

Point tak­en.

Some­thing tells me a white guy in a suit and a tie would have elicit­ed less won­der from the pan­el upon the rev­e­la­tion that the instru­ment they failed to guess was the bag­pipes.

On the oth­er hand, here is a per­son of col­or com­mand­ing atten­tion and respect on nation­al tele­vi­sion in 1966, two days after the Black Pan­ther Par­ty was offi­cial­ly found­ed.

Harley had had pro­fes­sion­al train­ing in the sax­o­phone, oboe, trum­pet and flute, but as a bag­piper he was self-taught. As the com­ments on the video above demon­strate, his unortho­dox han­dling of the instru­ment con­tin­ues to con­found more tra­di­tion­al pipers. No mat­ter. The sounds he coaxed out of that thing are unlike any­thing you’re like­ly to hear on the bon­ny, bon­ny banks of Loch Lomond.

At the end of the seg­ment, Harley joined his back up musi­cians onstage for a live, Latin-inflect­ed cov­er of “Feel­ing Good.”

Spo­ti­fy lis­ten­ers can enjoy more of Harley’s dis­tinc­tive pip­ing here.

And just for fun, check out this list of bag­pipe terms.There’s more to this instru­ment than its asso­ci­a­tion with Groundskeep­er Willy might sug­gest.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear What is Jazz?: Leonard Bernstein’s Intro­duc­tion to the Great Amer­i­can Art Form (1956)

A Young Frank Zap­pa Turns the Bicy­cle into a Musi­cal Instru­ment on The Steve Allen Show (1963)

John Cage Per­forms Water Walk on US Game Show I’ve Got a Secret (1960)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and the­ater mak­er whose lat­est play, Zam­boni Godot, is open­ing in New York City on March 2. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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How to Respond to the Challenges of Our Time?: Jazz Legends Herbie Hancock & Wayne Shorter Give 10 Pieces of Advice to Young Artists, and Everyone Else

in Art, Creativity, Current Affairs, Jazz, Music | February 7th, 2017

Some moments in his­to­ry strike us as dra­mat­ic rup­tures. Cer­tain­ties are super­seded, thrown into chaos by a seis­mic event, and we find our­selves adrift and anx­ious. What are artists to do? Gripped by the same fears as every­one else, the same sense of urgency, writ­ers, musi­cians, film­mak­ers, painters, etc. may find them­selves unable to “breathe with uncon­di­tion­al breath / the uncon­di­tioned air,” as Wen­dell Berry once described the cre­ative process.

We might remem­ber the rad­i­cal break with tra­di­tion when the shock­ing car­nage of World War I sent poets and painters into fright­en­ing places they had pre­vi­ous­ly left unex­plored. Vir­ginia Woolf summed up the sit­u­a­tion in her essay The Lean­ing Tow­er: “sud­den­ly like a chasm in a smooth road, the [Great] war came.” Shat­tered as they were, her gen­er­a­tion over­came their paral­y­sis. Mod­ernists of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry were able to speak to their bro­ken age in ways that con­tin­ue to speak to ours.

But we should tem­per our belief that bad times make good art by not­ing that the most vision­ary cre­ative minds are not sim­ply reac­tive, respond­ing to tragedy like reporters on a crime scene. As Wayne Short­er and Her­bie Han­cock— two of the 20th century’s most con­sis­tent­ly inno­v­a­tive musicians—suggest, artists at all times need a set of guid­ing prin­ci­ples. (See the two play “Mem­o­ry of Enchant­ment” above in 2002.) There is always a lot of per­son­al work to do. And in “tur­bu­lent and unpre­dictable times,” the two jazz greats advise, “the answer to peace is sim­ple; it begins with you.”

A plat­i­tude, per­haps, but one they illus­trat­ed near­ly a year ago in an open let­ter at Nest HQ with some pro­found, if chal­leng­ing, pre­scrip­tions for our present cul­tur­al ill­ness­es. Short­er and Hancock’s coun­sel is not a reac­tion to the rup­ture of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, but a response to the events that pre­ced­ed it, “the hor­ror at the Bat­a­clan… the upheaval in Syr­ia and the sense­less blood­shed in San Bernardi­no.” Not pas­sive­ly wait­ing to find out where the past few years’ vio­lence and unrest would lead, the two have made eth­i­cal, philo­soph­i­cal, and spir­i­tu­al inter­ven­tions, pre­sent­ing their phi­los­o­phy and ethics through jazz, Bud­dhism, sci­ence, art, and lit­er­a­ture.

Below, you can read their ten pieces of advice “to the next gen­er­a­tion of artists,” or at least excerpts there­of. They begin with a reas­sur­ing pref­ace: “As an artist, cre­ator and dream­er of this world, we ask you not to be dis­cour­aged by what you see but to use your own lives, and by exten­sion your art, as vehi­cles for the con­struc­tion of peace…. You mat­ter, your actions mat­ter, your art mat­ters.” That said, they also want to assure read­ers that “these thoughts tran­scend pro­fes­sion­al bound­aries and apply to all peo­ple, regard­less of pro­fes­sion.”

First, awak­en to your human­i­ty

You can­not hide behind a pro­fes­sion or instru­ment; you have to be human. Focus your ener­gy on becom­ing the best human you can be. Focus on devel­op­ing empa­thy and com­pas­sion. Through the process you’ll tap into a wealth of inspi­ra­tion root­ed in the com­plex­i­ty and curios­i­ty of what it means to sim­ply exist on this plan­et.

Embrace and con­quer the road less trav­eled

Don’t allow your­self to be hijacked by com­mon rhetoric, or false beliefs and illu­sions about how life should be lived. It’s up to you to be the pio­neers.

Wel­come to the Unknown

Every rela­tion­ship, obsta­cle, inter­ac­tion, etc. is a rehearsal for the next adven­ture in life. Every­thing is con­nect­ed. Every­thing builds. Noth­ing is ever wast­ed. This type of think­ing requires courage. Be coura­geous and do not lose your sense of exhil­a­ra­tion and rev­er­ence for this won­der­ful world around you.

Under­stand the True Nature of Obsta­cles

We have this idea of fail­ure, but it’s not real; it’s an illu­sion. There is no such thing as fail­ure. What you per­ceive as fail­ure is real­ly a new oppor­tu­ni­ty, a new hand of cards, or a new can­vas to cre­ate upon.

Don’t Be Afraid to Inter­act with Those Who Are Dif­fer­ent from You

The world needs more one-on-one inter­ac­tion among peo­ple of diverse ori­gins with a greater empha­sis on art, cul­ture and edu­ca­tion. Our dif­fer­ences are what we have in com­mon…. We need to be con­nect­ing with one anoth­er, learn­ing about one anoth­er, and expe­ri­enc­ing life with one anoth­er. We can nev­er have peace if we can­not under­stand the pain in each other’s hearts.

Strive to Cre­ate Agen­da-Free Dia­logue

Art in any form is a medi­um for dia­logue, which is a pow­er­ful tool… we’re talk­ing about reflect­ing and chal­leng­ing the fears, which pre­vent us from dis­cov­er­ing our unlim­it­ed access to the courage inher­ent in us all.

Be Wary of Ego

Cre­ativ­i­ty can­not flow when only the ego is served.

Work Towards a Busi­ness with­out Bor­ders

The med­ical field has an orga­ni­za­tion called Doc­tors With­out Bor­ders. This lofty effort can serve as a mod­el for tran­scend­ing the lim­i­ta­tions and strate­gies of old busi­ness for­mu­las which are designed to per­pet­u­ate old sys­tems in the guise of new ones.

Appre­ci­ate the Gen­er­a­tion that Walked Before You

Your elders can help you. They are a source of wealth in the form of wis­dom…. Don’t waste time repeat­ing their mis­takes.

Last­ly, We Hope that You Live in a State of Con­stant Won­der

As we accu­mu­late years, parts of our imag­i­na­tion tend to dull. Whether from sad­ness, pro­longed strug­gle, or social con­di­tion­ing, some­where along the way peo­ple for­get how to tap into the inher­ent mag­ic that exists with­in our minds. Don’t let that part of your imag­i­na­tion fade away.

Whether you’re a jazz fan, musi­cian, artist, writer, accoun­tant, cashier, truck­er, teacher, or what­ev­er, I can’t think of a wis­er set of guide­lines with which to con­front the suf­fo­cat­ing epi­dem­ic of cyn­i­cism, delu­sion­al think­ing, ram­pant big­otry, hatred, and self-absorp­tion of our time. Read Short­er and Hancock’s full open let­ter at Nest HQ.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Her­bie Han­cock Presents the Pres­ti­gious Nor­ton Lec­tures at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty: Watch Online

Philoso­pher Jacques Der­ri­da Inter­views Jazz Leg­end Ornette Cole­man: Talk Impro­vi­sa­tion, Lan­guage & Racism (1997)

Jean-Paul Sartre on How Amer­i­can Jazz Lets You Expe­ri­ence Exis­ten­tial­ist Free­dom & Tran­scen­dence

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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The Harlem Jazz Singer Who Inspired Betty Boop: Meet the Original Boop-Oop-a-Doop, “Baby Esther”

in Animation, Comics/Cartoons, History, Jazz, Music | January 30th, 2017

Jazz Age car­toon flap­per, Bet­ty Boop, inhab­its that rare pan­theon of stars whose fame has not dimmed with time.

While she was nev­er alive per se, her ten year span of active film work places her some­where between James Dean and Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe. The mar­ket for Boop-col­lectibles is so vast, a defin­i­tive guide was pub­lished in 2003. Most recent­ly, Bet­ty has popped up on pre­paid deb­it cards and emo­ji, and inspired fashion’s enfant ter­ri­ble Jean Paul Gaulti­er to cre­ate a fra­grance in her hon­or.

As not­ed in the brief his­to­ry in the video above, Bet­ty hailed from ani­ma­tor Max Fleischer’s Fleis­ch­er Stu­dios and actress Margie Hines pro­vid­ed her voice.

Phys­i­cal­ly, she bore a close resem­blance to pop­u­lar singer Helen Kane. Their baby­ish vocal stylings were remark­ably sim­i­lar, too. But when Bet­ty put the bite on a cou­ple of Kane’s hits, below, Kane fought back with a law­suit against Para­mount and Max Fleis­ch­er Stu­dios, seek­ing dam­ages and an injunc­tion which would have pre­vent­ed them from mak­ing more Bet­ty Boop car­toons.

The Asso­ci­at­ed Press report­ed that Kane con­found­ed the court stenog­ra­ph­er who had no idea how to spell the Boop­sian utter­ances she repro­duced before the judge, in an effort to estab­lish own­er­ship. Her case seemed pret­ty sol­id until the defense called Lou Bolton, a the­atri­cal man­ag­er whose client ros­ter had once includ­ed Harlem jazz singer,“Baby Esther” Jones.

Two years before Bet­ty Boop debuted (as an anthro­po­mor­phic poo­dle) in the car­toon short, Dizzy Dish­es, above, Kane and her man­ag­er took in Baby Esther’s act in New York. A cou­ple of weeks’ lat­er the non­sen­si­cal inter­jec­tions that were part of Baby Esther’s schtick, below, began creep­ing into Kane’s per­for­mances.

Accord­ing to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press, Bolton tes­ti­fied that:

Baby Esther made fun­ny expres­sions and inter­po­lat­ed mean­ing­less sounds at the end of each bar of music in her songs.

“What sounds did she inter­po­late?” asked Louis Phillips, a defense attor­ney.

“Boo-Boo-Boo!” recit­ed Bolton.

“What oth­er sounds?”

“Doo-Doo-Doo!”

“Any oth­ers?”

“Yes, Wha-Da-Da-Da!”

Baby Esther her­self did not attend the tri­al, and did not much ben­e­fit from Kane’s loss. Casu­al car­toon his­to­ri­ans are far more like­ly to iden­ti­fy Kane as the inspi­ra­tion for the ani­mat­ed Boop-oop-a-doop girl. You can hear Kane on cds and Spo­ti­fy, but you won’t find Baby Esther.

With a bit more dig­ging, how­ev­er, you will find Gertrude Saun­ders — the giv­en name of “Baby Esther” — belt­ing it out on Spo­ti­fy. Some of her into­na­tions are a bit rem­i­nis­cent of Bessie Smith… who hat­ed her (not with­out rea­son). Saun­ders appeared in a few movies and died in 1991.

via Urban Intel­lec­tu­als

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Vin­tage Car­toons: Bugs Bun­ny, Bet­ty Boop and More

A 103-Year-Old Harlem Renais­sance Dancer Sees Her­self on Film for the First Time & Becomes an Inter­net Star

Cab Calloway’s “Hep­ster Dic­tio­nary,” A 1939 Glos­sary of the Lin­go (the “Jive”) of the Harlem Renais­sance

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her play Zam­boni Godot is open­ing in New York City in March 2017. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Acclaimed Japanese Jazz Pianist Yōsuke Yamashita Plays a Burning Piano on the Beach

in Jazz, Music | December 19th, 2016

Unlike­ly as it might seem, the Japan­ese jazz scene has for decades and decades pro­duced some of the finest play­ers in the world, from tra­di­tion­al­ists to exper­i­men­tal­ists and every­thing in-between. One might say the same about oth­er jazz-inclined coun­tries (those of north­ern Europe, for instance, hav­ing devel­oped par­tic­u­lar­ly robust scenes), but those coun­tries have to do with­out enliven­ment by “only in Japan” moments like the one we have above: jazz pianist Yōsuke Yamashita, acclaimed on both sides of the Pacif­ic, play­ing piano on the beach — a piano on fire on the beach, to be pre­cise.

This was­n’t even the first time he’d done it. In 1973, famed graph­ic design­er Kiyoshi Awazu asked Yamashita to appear in his short film burn­ing piano, play­ing the tit­u­lar instru­ment. Watch­ing it again 35 years lat­er, Yamashita wrote, “See­ing myself engaged in that extra­or­di­nary per­for­mance, I felt this wave of emo­tion that was like, ‘What was that?’

In one sense, I had per­formed as an ‘object’ in a Kiyoshi Awazu art­work. In anoth­er, how­ev­er, I had per­haps expe­ri­enced a form of artis­tic expres­sion that no one before me had ever expe­ri­enced before, as the result of a sit­u­a­tion that could only have hap­pened at that time. ‘What was that?’ There was only one way I could recon­firm this for myself—by doing it one more time.”

The oppor­tu­ni­ty arose at the behest of Kanaza­wa’s 21st Cen­tu­ry Muse­um of Con­tem­po­rary Art, who staged Burn­ing Piano 2008. You can read the even­t’s pro­gram as a PDF, which con­tains Yamashita’s reflec­tions lead­ing up to the event. It also con­tains remarks from an Awazu Design Room rep­re­sen­ta­tive who wit­nessed the orig­i­nal burn­ing piano shoot, a local piano deal­er (who assures us that long after the piano “began to appear in Japan­ese homes in the era of high-lev­el eco­nom­ic growth,” some “must be destroyed amid reluc­tant feel­ings”), and the may­or of Shi­ka Town, on whose Masuhogau­ra Beach Yamashita donned his sil­ver pro­tec­tive suit and played a funer­al requiem on the flam­ing instru­ment until it could pro­duce not a sound more.

“I did not think I was risk­ing my life,” Yamashita lat­er said, “but I was almost suf­fo­cat­ing from the smoke that was con­tin­u­ous­ly get­ting into my eyes and nose. I had decid­ed to keep on play­ing until the piano stopped mak­ing sounds, so though I did not mean it, but it end­ed up hav­ing a life-or-death bat­tle between the piano and myself.” Ded­i­cat­ed jazz play­ers know what it means to suf­fer for their art, as do all the par­tic­i­pants in the age-old inten­sive Japan­ese con­cep­tion of mas­tery, but who would have guessed that those cul­tures would inter­sect so… com­bustibly?

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

CERN’s Cos­mic Piano and Jazz Pianist Jam Togeth­er at The Mon­treux Jazz Fes­ti­val

Hear the Exper­i­men­tal Piano Jazz Album by Come­di­an H. Jon Ben­jamin — Who Can’t Play Piano

Park­ing Garage Door Does Impres­sion of Miles Davis’ Jazz Album, Bitch­es Brew

Hunter S. Thomp­son Sets His Christ­mas Tree on Fire, Near­ly Burns His House Down (1990)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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The History of Spiritual Jazz: Hear a Transcendent 12-Hour Mix Featuring John Coltrane, Sun Ra, Herbie Hancock & More

in Jazz, Music, Religion | September 12th, 2016


Jazz has inspired a great many things, and a great many things have inspired jazz, and more than a few of the music’s mas­ters have found their aspi­ra­tion by look­ing — or lis­ten­ing — to the divine. But that does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean they sub­scribe to tra­di­tion­al reli­gion. As befits this nat­u­ral­ly eclec­tic music that grew from an inher­ent­ly eclec­tic coun­try before it inter­na­tion­al­ized, its play­ers tend to have an eclec­tic con­cep­tion of the divine. In some of their inter­pre­ta­tions, that con­cep­tion sounds prac­ti­cal­ly all-encom­pass­ing. You can expe­ri­ence the full spec­trum of these aur­al visions, from the deeply per­son­al to the fath­om­less­ly cos­mic, in this four-part, twelve-hour playlist of spir­i­tu­al jazz from Lon­don online radio sta­tion NTS.

“Dur­ing the tumul­tuous ’60s, there was a reli­gious rev­o­lu­tion to accom­pa­ny the grand soci­etal, sex­u­al, racial, and cul­tur­al shifts already afoot,” writes Pitch­fork’s Andy Beta. “Con­cur­rent­ly, the era’s pri­ma­ry African-Amer­i­can art form reflect­ed such upheaval in its music, too: Jazz began to push against all con­straints, be it chord changes, pre­de­ter­mined tem­pos, or melodies, so as to best reflect the pur­suit of free­dom in all of its forms.”

This cul­mi­nat­ed in John Coltrane’s mas­ter­piece A Love Supreme, which opened the gates for oth­er jazz play­ers seek­ing the tran­scen­dent, using every­thing from “the sacred sound of the South­ern Bap­tist church in all its ecsta­t­ic shouts and yells” to “enlight­en­ment from South­east­ern Asian eso­teric prac­tices like tran­scen­den­tal med­i­ta­tion and yoga.”

It goes with­out say­ing that you can’t talk about spir­i­tu­al jazz with­out talk­ing about John Coltrane. Nor can you ignore the dis­tinc­tive music and the­ol­o­gy of Her­man Poole Blount, bet­ter known as Sun Ra, com­pos­er, band­leader, music ther­a­pist, Afro­fu­tur­ist, and teacher of a course called “The Black Man in the Cos­mos.” NTS’ expan­sive mix offers work from both of them and oth­er famil­iar artists like Alice Coltrane, Earth, Wind & Fire, Her­bie Han­cock, Gil Scott-Heron, Ornette Cole­man, and many more (includ­ing play­ers from as far away from the birth­place of jazz as Japan) who, whether or not you’ve heard of them before, can take you to places you’ve nev­er been before. Start lis­ten­ing with the embed­ded first part of the playlist above; con­tin­ue on to parts two, three, and four, and maybe — just maybe — you’ll come out of it want­i­ng to found a church of your own.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Coltrane’s Hand­writ­ten Out­line for His Mas­ter­piece A Love Supreme

Dis­cov­er the Church of St. John Coltrane, Found­ed on the Divine Music of A Love Supreme

Sun Ra’s Full Lec­ture & Read­ing List From His 1971 UC Berke­ley Course, “The Black Man in the Cos­mos”

Sun Ra Plays a Music Ther­a­py Gig at a Men­tal Hos­pi­tal; Inspires Patient to Talk for the First Time in Years

The Cry of Jazz: 1958’s High­ly Con­tro­ver­sial Film on Jazz & Race in Amer­i­ca (With Music by Sun Ra)

Space Jazz, a Son­ic Sci-Fi Opera by L. Ron Hub­bard, Fea­tur­ing Chick Corea (1983)

A Huge Anthol­o­gy of Noise & Elec­tron­ic Music (1920–2007) Fea­tur­ing John Cage, Sun Ra, Cap­tain Beef­heart & More

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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