swell party

I like to wear my tux New Year's Eve & I'm donning it tonight for a wedding reception that's also a new year's party.



At the end of the piece, Satch says, "Now we're get'n warm."

Here's a bit of Anthony Lane's piece on Grace Kelly in the New Yorker:

It is customary to denigrate “High Society” by comparing it with its parent, “The Philadelphia Story,” but I knew the child first, when I was a child, too, and nothing can undo the movies that we are led to in our youth, or the skein of impressions that they leave. I remember my mother explaining to me, drawing on who knows what store of apocrypha, that Prince Rainier had watched the scene of his wife-to-be, droopy with drink, being lugged through the moonlight in Sinatra’s arms, both of them in towelling robes, and that His Serene Highness had bridled at the outrage and declared that her works be outlawed, henceforth and on pain of death, within the bounds of his kingdom. This struck me as precisely how a jealous monarch should behave, and the twin sense of Kelly as both sovereign and subversive was planted in my brain. I was told how remarkable it was that Kelly had deigned to sing, and therefore how natural it was that her yacht-borne duet with Crosby, “True Love,” should have sold a million copies on record. She fondles the end of his squeezebox as they harmonize, but that, I suspect, went over my head, as did their bizarre exchange beside the swimming pool:

“Gee, I didn’t know that you wanted a husband who would be kind of a high priest to a virgin goddess.”
“Oh, stop using those foul words.”

Best of all, my mother pointed out that when Crosby sang “I Love You, Samantha” he did everything—folded his handkerchief, tied his bow tie, wound his wristwatch, filled his cigarette case, and donned his tuxedo, crooning all the while—without a cut. I had never heard of a cut before, or a take. (And, if there is any actor alive today who could reach that extreme pitch of relaxation, I’ve yet to see him.) When the cut finally comes, it is to Kelly, listening at the window of her bedroom. She walks away, overwhelmed; we follow her, then pause, and pull politely back, as she turns and stands there, sheathed in her Oriental robe of yellow-gold. Downstairs, Louis Armstrong laughs and says, “Now we’re gettin’ warm.”
-- Two sides of Grace Kelly

High Society intro part 1

High Society intro part 2

High Society - Well, Did You Evah?

What a Swell Party this is

Who Wants to be a Millionaire

Now You Has Jazz

True Love

Original Trailer 1956

You're Sensational

save the bones for henry jones

I should have posted this on Thanksgiving. In an interview with Nancy Grace, Hettie Jones says she used to sing a Johnny Mercer tune, "Save the bones for Henry Jones, 'cause Henry don't eat no meat."

Update: For $0.89 Amazon will sell you an mp3 of the song as performed by Johnny Mercer and Nat King Cole. Here are details: Original Release Date: April 6, 1942; MP3 Release Date: January 12, 1999; Label: Capitol; Song Length: 3:04 minutes.

Here's a recent, abbreviated version by the Jumpin' Joz Trio.

The song was written by Danny Barker and Vernon Lee and the version most people know is performed by Nat King Cole & Johnny Mercer.

Here's the full lyric

SAVE THE BONES FOR HENRY JONES
(Danny Barker / Vernon Lee aka Michael H. Goldson)
Nat King Cole & Johnny Mercer

We’re gonna have a supper
We’ll eat some food that’s rare
And at the head of the table
We’ll place brother Henry’s chair
Invite all the local big dogs
We’ll laugh and talk and eat
But we’ll save the bones for Henry Jones
‘Cause Henry don’t eat no meat

Today I’ll go to market
Buy up a lotta fish
Well, that will thrill brother Henry
‘Cause fish is his special dish
Get a large can of molasses
Have something really sweet
But we’ll save the bones for Henry Jones
‘Cause Henry don’t eat no meat

Henry is not a drinker
He rarely takes a nip
He don’t need a napkin
‘Cause the things he eats don’t drip – blip!
One day we had a banquet
It really was a bake
They started off with short ribs
Then finished off with steak
But when the feast was over
Brother Henry just kept his seat
And we served the bones to Henry Jones
‘Cause Henry don’t eat no meat

Our banquet was most proper
Right down to demitasse
From soup to lox and bagels
And pheasant under glass – class!
We thought the chops were mellow
He said his chops were beat – reet!
We served the bones to Henry Jones
‘Cause Henry don’t eat no meat
He’s an egg man
Henry don’t eat no meat
He loves a pullet
Henry don’t eat no meat
A vegetarian
Henry?
Coming mother!
Soup’s on

Here's the Q & A from the interview of Jones:

NG: Do you think your own poetry and fiction somehow manifests, as does some other Beat poetry and literature, the black street language of the time? For example, there's some in your memoir, but not as much as, say, what we see in Diane di Prima's early poetry,.

Jones: Yeah, I don't mean to accuse Diane wrongly, but think I wouldn't have done it that way. She was just being hip. I feel that hers was really an adaptation, in a way. Mine comes out of the language of my young adulthood that I have always used. I'm always surprised that people laugh at the things I say. For instance, once in response to a friend of mine I said, "Yeah, you just ain't bumpin' your gums!" And she said, "What? What is that? Did you learn that from your children?" But, no, that was just an old 40s expression that became a part of my language. I also know and am more intimately involved with what we-I guess-call black culture than most adults of my age. I was at a conference last week, and began to sing, "Save the bones for Henry Jones, 'cause Henry don't eat no meat." And people looked at me like I just stone crazy! "What is that" they said. And I said, "It's a song from the 40s." Then I told this story to an older black man, and he laughed and laughed. He understood. So, that's that what I know, and it comes out in my language. I don't feel it as an adaptation.

Paul Desmond

Paul Desmond died thirty years ago, May 30, 1977 -- Memorial Day in the US. A web site called puredesmond.ca has a biography, discography, and other good stuff. The interviews are interesting because Desmond's conversation was a lot like his playing: there's an overall appearance of modesty and self-deprecation on top of an obviously massive talent. There's surface humor beneath which is a deep and serious commitment: wit in the service of high art.

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In 2001, Dave Brubeck reminisced about Paul during a show about a PBS documentary. At one point Brubeck tells an anecdote that shows Paul's combination of wit and virtuosity. The interviewer is Hendrick Smith.

SMITH: Paul had this thing about quotes, and he had this thing about telling stories uh, in music. And wasn't there one night when you guys were riding in Pennsylvania and…and the cops pulled him over the side of the road for speeding - I can't remember the story. What….what happened? Do you remember what I'm talking about?

DAVE: The cops pulled us over and Paul was driving and I guess speeding a little. And, [the cop] told us to follow him and he took us down across the railroad tracks to a farm house where there was a judge. And we had to pay a certain amount of cash to this judge. Well there wasn't time to rehearse or even talk about this and the next night at the concert, in the middle of a tune, Paul laid out the whole sequence in quotes. Titles of songs that would tell the story. The first place the cop was supposed to be wearing a broad rim hat like they do in Pennsylvania, kinda, you know like the Canadian Mounted Police. The first quote he played was "Where did you get that hat?" The next thing was "Down by the railroad station, early in the morning." All wove into another tune -- quote after quote after quote that made absolute sense as a jazz chorus. And of course Paul just strung out these quotes -- he could do that.

SMITH: You told me he would even do that on stage playing with you and sometimes he'd play, I don't know, Don't Fence Me In, I mean he'd…I mean he'd play things that were sorta, you know, giving you the elbow.

DAVE: Oh yeah, he had some good quotes. We'd be playing in the middle of a song and I might hit a chord that was too far out and the next thing he would play would, you'd hear "You're driving me crazy." What did I do? (laughter)

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Dave Brubeck Quartet, "These Foolish Things"


Some Desmond quotes:

Complexity can be a trap. You can have a ball developing a phrase, inverting it, playing it in different keys and times and all. But it's really more introspective than communicative. Like a crossword puzzle compared to a poem.

I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted it to sound like a dry martini.”

I would also like to thank my father who discouraged me from playing the violin at an early age.

We used to get on planes, and they'd ask who we were, and we'd say, 'The Dave Brubeck Quartet', and they'd say, 'Who?' In later years they'd say, 'Oh', which amounts to the same thing.

Writing is like jazz. It can be learned, but it can't be taught.

I have won several prizes as the world's slowest alto player, as well as a special award in 1961 for quietness.

I was unfashionable before anyone knew who I was.

I tried practicing for a few weeks and ended up playing too fast.

I discovered early in life that if you take gym first period, you can go into the wrestling room and sit in the corner and sleep.

On the secret of his tone: "I honestly don't know! It has something to do with the fact that I play illegally."

He was an English major in college. His reason for not pursuing a literary career, "I could only write at the beach, and I kept getting sand in my typewriter."

Desmond's fondness for scotch was well known. So in early 1976 when a physical examination showed lung cancer, he was ironically pleased that his liver was fine. "Pristine, perfect. One of the great livers of our time. Awash in Dewars and full of health."

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If you're still with me, check out PAUL DESMOND interviews CHARLIE PARKER. It's a transcript from a radio broadcast from early 1954. The announcer is John McLellan. I particularly like the section in which Desmond gets Parker to tell about the hard work he devoted to the development of his skill.