As P'an-chang was about to die, he asked the monks: "Is there anyone among you who will produce my likeness?" All the monks tried to do their best, but none of their sketches pleased the master. Then one of his disciples, P'u-hua, came up and said, "I can produce your likeness."
"If so," said the master, "why not present it to me?"
P'u-hua performed a somersault and left the room.
"When this monk becomes a teacher, he will be a lunatic!" exclaimed P'an-chang.
---Zen mondo
A hole in the bridge---
the horse remembers it
in the evening mist.
---Issa
"Just ask, just ask!"
says the dew,
and rolls away.
---Issa
My dear online friend, BebopAuthor aka Lady Haig aka Grange Rutan, asked me to put up this photo of her. Newly invited and graciously accepting, she still is feeling her way around our august establishment---somewhat more difficult without the wise Bartender to lend a hand. Lady already has posted a couple of comments, and one of them describes her in her blue wig. She noticed our comment facility doesn't allow for images and worried a bit that people wouldn't understand what she was talking about. Being a lady top to toe, she asked for a bit of assistance.
Now you may wonder, Isn't this rather elegant for a bebopper? I mean, don't they ram around all night, getting blasted and playing any riff that pops into their twisted heads? And anyway, isn't bebop some old music from a vague past? Well maybe it is, but the vague past is why The Wulfshead is here...so let's be respectful.
And actually bebop was a stately music, more akin to Haydn than to Satchmo---which may be why bop made that jazz master a bit nervous. Eddie Condon, 1920s and '30s Chicago wildman, called it "Chinese music," and given the whole tone scales Thelonious Monk used he may have been closer to the truth than he realized. The people who invented and played the music were virtuosos of their instruments and could have been great classical musicians...but they weren't schooled that way, nor did they see the world as a relaxed chamber for pipe and slippers. And so in their personal lives, many of them stumbled and fell.
Enter the bebop wife. It still was the case that most jazz musicians were men---but that was changing fast even in the 1940s. (Certainly vibist Margie Hyams from George Shearing's first quintet qualifies as a bopper, and MaryLou Williams' compositions from this period still are a stretch.) So when a jazz player needed taking care of, it was a special kind of lady who was by his side. Long suffering perhaps, but they were devoted beyond anything most people can imagine. For some it just was not possible to stay because the dangers were many. There are some who did and most of them are memorialized in song and memory among players and fans. Lady Haig could not stay with Al, but everyone knows and remembers her anyway...and understands. Wasn't it Dizzy Gillespie himself who gave her the name?
So there's her picture, and I'm sure she'll be around as her pleasure allows. Since she's been a bebop wife, we need to realize (as we do with Utah, Nausicaa and the other ladies in here) that she loves a good time...but lines and boundaries are very clear in her head. After all, BebopAuthor also is a staunch Presbyterian. (Has anyone ever met an un-staunch Presbyterian?) So Saturday night is one thing, and Sunday morning is another. That's how the great beboppers kept going, with ladies like this one looking after them. She keeps track of me too, and it is a great privilege for me that is so.
Now, this is all swell and good, but who is bobjanuary, that's what I want to know. Is he a Presbytarian too, like Lady Haig? And, if so, what business does a staunch Presbyterian have getting involved with a band called the Satan Swing Orchestra? Hmm...?
ReplyDeleteThat's SATIN, sweetie. The Satin Swing Orchestra. Satin from Manhattan. You West Coasters are so CRRAAAAAZZY.
ReplyDeletePray tell is Bob January still among the living or is his Satin Swing Orchestra playing in the windmills of your mind?
ReplyDeleteI was supposed to meet him for drinks at The Stork Club and he never showed, however, he was at The United Nations honoring Mr. LeFreck and the music was steller.
Did the lovely Nausicaa meet him while shopping for elegan oils?
Snips 'N snails, and puppy dogs tails! For a minute there my fevered imagination had conjured for me an image of Bob January as some kind of Baron Samedi, or one of the Loa, and I had a Twilight Zone picture of the band that had very little in common with ballroom dance music.
ReplyDeleteI haven't yet made up my mind as to whether I am relieved or disappointed.
Meet Bob January
ReplyDeleteleader and composer
Bob January
Born in York, Pennsylvania, Bob graduated from Ohio State University, and taught public school music in Ohio. He moved to New York City, where he played tenor saxophone with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Charlie Mingus, and Al Haig.
Bob January actually does seem like a likable fellow. San Miguel de Allende has quite a large American community: many expatriates have moved there over the last 80 years to reinvent their lives.
ReplyDeleteTom told me once about an old African proverb that says that "When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground."
There is also a proverb from Ghana that says that "If you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate a family."
I think that to some degree there may still be some measure of truth to this. Books, of course, have changed that somewhat (that is, in countries and places where books are available and people can read---and where reading is valued). And, in more recent date, so has the internet!!! (That new revolution is still unfolding, and too many people still do not have access to the World Wide Web.)
Jazzolog mentions, here, how he's been experiencing a number of synchronicities lately.
Here is another one for him. What about this comment about a comment about...San Miguel de Allende (!)...left on an old post ("Change is Coming" dated Nov.28, 2008) on jazzolog?!
It is indeed a "small world," after all. And so, here is hoping that as the world grows smaller, it may also grow bigger.
Bob January is a nice guy and once upon a time wore the moniker of Robert George Slenker, long before his stroke, Satin Swing Orchestra and San Miguel de Allende.
ReplyDelete"When I was in high school, trying to learn to play jazz, I went to the record store next door to the Teen-Age Club in York, Pennsylvania and bought the Royal Roost recording of Stan Getz playing "Hershey Bar" backed with "Gone with the Wind.' I still have the the record. I played it the other day and it still sounds good. The piano player on the record was Al Haig." (CHAPTER 43, page 223: DEATH OF A BEBOP WIFE by Grange Lady Haig Rutan: Cadence Jazz Books.
"Twenty years later, on a Saturday morning, I was in my piano store at 8624 Parsons Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens, attempting to sell Yamaha pianos, and Al Haig came into the store. He had phoned first, for directions, and I believe he came to Jamaica by subway. Al Haig comes in; he's checking out the Yamaha pianos. He'd played one someplace and he wanted to buy one. I said, "Great."
"The genius piano player, who needed a piano and didn't have any money to speak of, was about to become my friend."
" So when I read in the paper that all went down with AL and Bonnie,and then, when Al was arrested, it was in all the papers all I could think was, "There goes my piano."
Ah yes, thanks Lady for that trip back into the book. I remember that part and how I admired Bob's quiet response. So jazz musicianly.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank too Nausicaa for reminding me of the wonderful comments Anonymous makes at blogs honored with Anonymous presence. I'm presuming there's only one Anonymous, and not Anonymous Four. Would Anonymous be interested in The Wulfshead do you think? Or is Anonymous already here...anonymously of course? I wonder if anonymity is the foundation of all our traditions.
Would you believe Anonymous got in touch with me on my unlisted telephone?
ReplyDeleteI went into an outer body experience as I am a newcomer at this place, hence I allowed myself to accept that this strangely hypnotic voice knew who I was, where I was and did not dare question why he/she/it was on the phone, especially when this melodic voice started singing to me with a full orchestra in the background a tune I had never heard and lyrics which were brand new. The moment was unreal and had a pulse beat and a life of its own. And then the line went dead. I knew it was not a figment of my imagination in a penthouse of my memory, Anonymous is the real thing.
"BEEN READING A-BOUT A BE-BOP WIFE
AL HAIGS LADY, EX ‘TROUBLE AND STRIFE’
‘TROUBLE’ WAS THE WORD THAT SUMMED IT UP
‘STRIFE’ BECAME A ‘STRIKE’ FROM A ‘LINKED UP’ CUFF
(CHORUS OR HOOK) (TO BE REPEATED DURING THE SONG)..
TINKLIN’ THE IVORIES, SEDUCING WITH THE SOUND
BEBOPPING WITH THE GREATS
'
HAIG'S BABYS’ BEEN AROUND
WHILE READING THIS TRUE STORY
THE BEATS BEGUN TO BITE
BEBOP HAS CAUSED A RIOT
SO WRITES AL HAIG'S YOUNG WIFE
BEEN READING ‘BUT HIS BONNIE
SHE DIDN’T GET AWAY
THE BEAUTY COULDN’T SMILE
SHE’S SINKING DAY BY DAY
A TRUE ACCOUNT, THIS STORY
OF MUSIC GREATS OF OLD
THEIR INSPIRATIN’ MUSIC
STRUCK CHORDS OF BEBOP GOLD
TINKLIN’ THE IVORIES, SEDUCING WITH THE SOUND
BEBOPPING WITH THE GREATS
HAIG'S BABY'S BEEN AROUND
W’RE CURIOUS TO VISIT
THIS JAZZY BEBOP VIBE
TO FIND OUT HOW IT WAS THEN
INVESTIGATE THEIR MINDS
THE AUTHOR HOW SHE LIVED IT
A PASSION UNSURPASSED
SHE SHARES WITH US HER JOURNEY
AND WE’RE SO GLAD WE ASKED
TINKLIN’ THE IVORIES, SEDUCING WITH THE SOUND
BEBOPPING WITH THE GREATS
HAIG'S BABY'S BEEN AROUND
AS NOW THE BEBOP HISTORY
IS SOMETHING FINALLY LEARNED
NOW KNOWING AL’S FLAWED GENIUS
AS PAGE BY PAGE IS TURNED
ADMIRING YET DESPISIN’
HAIG’S MAGIC MOVING FINGERS
HIS LEGACY, WRITTEN BY GRANGE
THE STORY HOW IT LINGERS
TINKLIN’ THE IVORIES, SEDUCING WITH THE SOUND
BEBOPPING WITH THE GREATS
HAIG'S BABY'S BEEN AROUND - REPEAT AND FADE OUT … (WITH TINKLING PIANO..)
DRAFT OF ‘BEBOP LADIES’
BEEN READING A-BOUT A BE-BOP WIFE
AL HAIGS LADY, EX ‘TROUBLE AND STRIFE’
‘TROUBLE’ WAS THE WORD THAT SUMMED IT UP
‘STRIFE’ BECAME A ‘STRIKE’ FROM A ‘LINKED UP’ CUFF
My first reaction was exultant disbelief...and congratulations to Anonymous for figuring out all that had to be done and, I guess, writing a song---and to BebopAuthor for not calling the FBI. But then, like the Lady, I tend to think the best of the Fates and the natures of the figures here at The Wulfshead.
ReplyDeleteMy second reaction was Anonymous is Tom Bombadil. Of everyone in here that I don't know personally (or close to it) Tom has known me for a while and communicated somewhat directly. One time he even left a comment at jazzoLOG about a guy named Jorn Barger, whom I actually knew at one time. http://jazzolog.blogspot.com/2007/02/blogs-of-iraq.html (The first comment there is not by the same Anonymous we're talking about. This all is so maddening!) Tom has popped up all over my Internet life and, I think, always has been the kind of delight he may have spread into BebopAuthor's life with a phone call and song.
But here's the third reaction...and the rub. "Tom Bombadil" is a Tolkien character---and I've never been a Rings fan...at all. Nor do I have much patience with enigmas within enigmas. But I'm trying to learn the faerie world and to dance with it in my old age. I'm flattered the magical beings have some sort of interest in me which I hope goes beyond trapping me inside something I won't like. Hope and humor always have been helpful so far.
Anyway, we're all naked and transparent these days so we may as well make the best of it. Unlisted numbers? Passwords? Child's play for the adept. And ambiguity as to who's who and what's what in The Wulfshead? One of my favorite entries here is a video by Lady F. Do watch it if you've never seen it. http://wulfshead.blogspot.com/2009/03/it-is-me-ive-just-been-abbreviated.html
But BebopAuthor, we can get vague too. After all who invented more secret language than beboppers? Uh waiter, Lady and I don't want french fried potatoes or red ripe tomatoes. Bring us an order of the frim fram sauce with some ausen fay and chafafa on the side. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovk-0gVe-_E
Ah yes, I need the frim fram sauce with some ausen fay and chafafa on the side as we speak dear Dr. C. and Nina's muse, please understand that I'M NOT THE WORLD'S EXPERT ON BEBOP! However, there are many Experts On Jazz...with a few true sages on the "Birth of the Cool"... BUT - very few LIVING BOPPERS actually have Bebop Credentials learned and earned in "THE LAND OF OOOBLADEE"...Who REALLY understand Bebop Music...AND the Bebop Men and the Bebop Women...WHO COLLECIVELY CREATED SOMETHING BRAND NEW IN JAZZ...sometime during the post WW-II era...out of the Ashes of Global Cacophony...and into the Phoenix of BEBOP......and onto THE NOW NEOBEBOP JAZZ WORLD......
ReplyDeleteThis is not me speaking but a recorded voice of someone who has hung out in the windmills of our minds, from days ago, who do believe in fairies and the likes of the Lord of the Rings...we aim to stir the pot of course but are willing to hang with the YOUNGBLOODS of today of that you can be sure...but, I'm standing on the corner and waiting for oh blah dee to give me a ride.
AND SO, THE MYRIAD "REVELATIONS"...that I did not know about Bebop Jazz or Jazz Bebop...started immediately...as I was hooked on the Book's Cover (which I DID USE as one reason to purchase the 534 page chronicle)...and intuitively...correctly...judged the Book's Superb Contents...by the hauntingly BEAUTIFUL WOMAN'S EYES...and...Book's Mysterious Title - words: "DEATH"..."WIFE" -
plus the Author's jazz familiar name - Lady HAIG...Grange...Rutan.
I guess Im just a "Human Big Easy"...'cause I do LOVE A GOOD MYSTERY...A
TRUE STORY WHO-DUNIT...with layers of plots and hidden meanings in and
between the lines...LIKE A GREAT SHAKESPEAREAN PLAY...and...LOTS of things I did not know...about great jazz pianist AL HAIG...and BEAUTIFUL BONNIE - the murdered wife - AND the book's forever silenced...all enveloping victim...and the trial and acquittal of Bebop Jazz Pianist AlHaig...and later "self revelations" (I won't say what to keep from prematurely breaking "secrets")...ALSO...OTHER MAJOR REVELATIONS IN THIS BOOK...WHICH I APPLAUD AS A PUBLIC SERVICE...ARE THE NUMEROUS DOCUMENTED CASES OF DOMESTIC ABUSE...MOST CANDIDLY REVEALED BY THE "OTHER" WIVES OF AL HAIG...WITH ALL OF THE PAINFUL TRUTH...............................
ON THE UPBEAT, this book is also new jazz history on the friends of Al Haig...the # ONES for whom he was CHOSEN pianist ...ALL THE JAZZ DOCTORS FROM CHARLIE PARKER TO DIZZY GILLESPIE TO MILES DAVIS TO MANY MANY MORE...and their historic music...and jazz lives.....WHICH WERE EYE- WITNESSED...AND RECORDED...and finally given to the world...after over 15 years of Exhaustive FIRST CLASS ACADEMIC RESEARCH...and commendably objective historiography WHILE BECOMING HIGHLY CREATIVE PAR EXCELLENT PRIZE WINNING WRITING.....By internationally acclaimed author - LADY HAIG - GRANGE "Rudie" {her Centenary College aka} RUTAN. Please Note:
I believe that this book, which has been criticized as "not well edited"
IS QUITE TO THE CONTRARY!...it was edited brilliantly!...AND reads exactly as a reflection of BEBOP, ITSELF...verbalized/written Bebop notes visited over and over again...each time with NEW, even more creative improvisation of TRUTH in the both sad and beautiful song saga of "Death of a Bebop Wife"...
There is SO MUCH MORE which THIS BOOK revealed to me...for the very first time...but..I'll simply close with some personal statistics...to date, I've read this book THREE times (and each time learn more)...and so far...I have bought FIVE copies of the book as gifts for some SPECIAL FRIENDS....Why???...I simply LOVE this book...AND HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT TO YOU...because this refreshingly unique book will excite your imagination AND become your own Inner Bebop Jazz Festival!
Robert (Dr. Bob) Morrissey, Dean Emeritus of Graduate Studies and Research, State University of New York, College at Oneonta -
Also, Lifetme Jazz Afficionado -
Morrissey is a figment of my imagination and I'm really not trying to sell my book, my enigma made me write this and she/he is a very focused muse, especially on Sunday. Please forgive him as he is out and about looking for a gig as he does not have the credentials to come into this place...but
ReplyDeleteI don't know about the figment part, as there's a Dr. Bob's Jazz Boppin' Bebop Quartet at Soundclick---and the writing on it is as oopoppadow as that above. http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandid=921521 Oh well, I'll head over to MySpace and see if I can locate the dude.
ReplyDeleteJazzolog has a way of going where the wild goose goes from 'round midnight to early dawn when whipper-wills are coming home from a night out,confusing to say the least as he always looks so bright-eyed and bushy tailed. I think he takes special vitamins and has the biggest compost pile in the state. Actually he's fearless and knows many VIP's all over the world,not just here at Wulfshead. I'm told he still mixes mean martini when no one is looking and his special friend from days gone by, this handsome and intellectual professor, when he begins to skat. Is skating allowed at the bar or do we wait for the bartender to return?
ReplyDeleteWe probably need a double "t" in our question about skat at the bar. BebopAuthor is dealing with 2 English teachers when she invites in my old friend John Holt, the handsome professor. We beboppers invent our own spelling, I know, but skating on the bar definitely would be frowned upon by the Bartender. Dancing's OK up there, but we have to draw the line somewhere. I'm sure skatting is always welcome here.
ReplyDeleteWhy, I would never presume... I know my place. Everyone comes here, good and bad and in between. People never notice the other guys because they always mix with their own crowd, and they all mix with theirs. That's what makes the club's truce workable. The Wulfshead crowd understands the need for discretion and the occasional blind eye.
ReplyDeleteIs he back? Are you back? The sign still sez you're away. Can you stir up a flaming punch bowl for us all? Put it on my tab!
ReplyDeleteThe drink is made of a combination of five different ingredients: spirit, sugar, lemon, water, and tea or spices (or Lightning Grass - at The Wulfshead). The word punch is a loanword from Hindi panch. The original drink was named paantsch, which comes from the Parsee word panj (and ultimately from the Sanskrit panchan-s) for "five."
ReplyDeleteI'm only a newcomer here but the panache and joi de vivre of this Bartender is my kind of guy.
ReplyDeleteTruly a class act. When I was very, very young and called Rudie, in my other life, I met my first bartender. It was an elegant place, totally devoid of people as they were all, in the belly of the whale so to speak, down at the speak easy, while this handsome lad, dressed in a Harris tweed jacket with just the right amount of white cuff showing and an FBI cuff link, blinking warm and mellow by the candle glowing, bouncing off the mahogany patina of the bar ... I never noticed he was a one armed bandit as his spirit was so hip and his voice so full of bop. I was honored to be the only one at the bar as everyone else was getting "sloshed." Besides my friend Paul had sent me, by Morse Code, a very interesting message for "my eyes only" and this blond haired wonder was deciphering the code.
I know I told you my favorite tune is an Eddie Clean-head Vinson tune attributed to Miles Davis; a real cooker that the two professors and I love (I heard John Holt do a number on this and I fell in love with his bob "ability) and Carlson and I adore Anita O' Day singing "The Winners" - but FOUR's lyrics only hold me in their grip because I had heard FIVE before...and since the Bartender is invisible, perhaps, just maybe, because I have sung for famous people, and he seems to be a celebrity of sorts, I will do what Carmen McCrae and Al Jarreau used to do and maybe the Bartender will appear with a bag of lemons, strutting (WITH TWO "T's") and join me on the chorus. Strange as it seems, I'm missing this guy who makes it all come together with his wit and savvy. I see the microphone, let me check the sound..."hello, hello"...good, it's a battery mic, the best kind for my warm, mellow and hip, jive singing...I'm fearless so come out wherever you are Mr. Bartender or I'm going to just keep singing, as I do, only for famous people.
Won’t you stop and take a little time out with me, just take five;
Stop your busy day and take the time out to see I’m alive.
Though I`m going out of my way,
Just so I can pass by each day,
Not a single word do we say,
It`s a pantomime and not a play
Still I know our eyes often meet,
I feel tingles down to my feet,
when you smile that’s much too discrete,
sends me on my way.
Wouldn’t it be better not to be so polite, you could offer a light;
Start a little conversation now, it’s alright, just take five, just take five.
(Are you hiding behind the swinging door? Or is that Carlson that I see?)
Though I`m going out of my way,
Just so I can pass by each day,
Not a single word do we say,
It`s a pantomime and not a play
Still I know our eyes often meet,
I feel tingles down to my feet,
when you smile that’s much too discrete,
sends me on my way.
Wouldn’t it be better not to be so polite, you could offer a light;
Start a little conversation now, it’s alright, just take five, just take five
-
As Ellington would say, "Of course everyone in this room is famous."
ReplyDeleteI had a 3:00 a.m. conversation with the Bartender last night, he found me, and wanted to share a tasty historical jazz morsel, ready jazzolog?
ReplyDeleteWednesday, April 29th, was the 110th anniversary of Duke Ellington's birth. The great composer and band leader died in New York in 1974 at age 75.
Told me he is up in Harlem looking for "Frim Fram!"
dear hearts, until the Bartender returns, no sense in depriving us of our groove, besides, we don't need his expertise as long as we have our flasks....let us fly in imagination to Sweden where the weather, people and jazz can be cool but the nite spots are hot. Things are just getting warmed up Round Midnight, a classic which seems to keep popping into our universal thoughts......we enter the club, trying to accustom our eyes to the low blue lighting and wondering whether just another small Jack Daniels will heighten or blur the enjoyment....the Trio are spreading their magic and the evening is just beginning....damn, where is da man? You have pull around here, use it.
ReplyDelete