Amph SuperWatto Thrashes Through A Century In Popular Music

the chronology doesn't quite work out for her being reincarnated as Ethel Merman

 

Twas the time of Ethels and Irvings.

 

SuperWatto loses it!

1922



Here we go, the first beautiful pop record. I love this song. My daughter loves this song. Trying to make my mother love it. I wonder if my grandparents loved it. Maybe they didn't know it. They weren't Irish.

The song is an air (song type) that originated in Londonderry. It is popular among the Irish diaspora as "Londonderry Air", and is now well-known throughout the world as "Danny Boy". The tune is played as the victory anthem of Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games, and is used in TV and film as a musical cue for anything Irish.

And for those too jaded or too modern: if the above doesn't give you goosebumps, I dare you to try this interpretation:

 

Oh, you lose it because you enjoy it. That's so underwhelming.

 

it's like Eva singing her own requiem. Truly music to die to.

 

I guess that was a bit of stream-of-consciousness copywriting. Rather apt

 

1923



Enter the number 1 musical performer of this list. You didn't think it'd be so soon, did you? But he's here already. Louis Armstrong. Sure, he's not as pronounced as he will be later (he is only playing second cornet here), but it's his very first recording. He'll leave the band a year after this, and start recording under his own name a year after that.

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band was one of most important bands in early jazz. It was made up of the cream of New Orleans hot jazz musicians, instrumental in bringing it to Chicago, and the world, after Storyville closed. Now the real deal would spread, not just the Paul Whiteman ballroom jazz.

Three reasons why Armstrong is in my opinion the most important musical performer of the past 100 years:
1 - He made all the difference for black show people
2 - He basically single-handedly invented the notion of the jazz solo
3 - He introduced allowing a well-rounded personality into the vocals, thus bringing more emotion to them

In the words of Joe Jackson:
He was certainly more ahead of his time than I ever suspected until a few years ago. One small example: I always thought Frank Sinatra was the first singer to figure out that a microphone enabled you to sing in a new, softer style, and to create a feeling of intimacy, while still reaching a lot of people. Later I learned that Bing Crosby did it earlier, but now I realise that Louis Armstrong did it first, at a time when a singer couldn't even count on having a microphone, and had to be able to sing loud (which he could do too). As it turns out, there isn't much, in the field of jazz and popular music, that Louis didn't do first.

So that's my #1 performer; I have a #1 producer and a #1 songwriter lined up, too. We need to wait a bit for the producer, I'm not sure such a position even existed in 1923. But that year, Louis Armstrong did shake hands with the #1 songwriter... more on that next year.

 

I would have given Crosby credit for that too, but it's great to know Armstrong was there first. One small step for man, one giant leap for the recording industry.

 

Bing has an awesome legacy of his own.

 

1924
The year of Rhapsody In Blue. Also the year of the first record penned by my favorite songwriter, Hoagy Carmichael.

Carmichael's autobiography made me see the world of jazz in a whole new (old) light. I saw it the way it was witnessed the first time around.

I used to think most jazz was either really boring doodly music for grandparents, or overwrought stuff for pretentious intellectuals. Same with blues: endlessly boring or mere muscle-flexing. But as I heard more music and found some stuff out about scales, chords, and harmonies, I realized it's the jazz chords and the blue notes that elevate a lot of pop and rock above the mundane. Hoagy's description of the discovery of those chords and notes matches the description of a revolution. It was wilder than punk, more adventurous than prog. All popular music had been ballads or marching bands - and suddenly, all bets were off. Hoagy was trained by a black piano player who used to tell him "You have to play it wrong, then you play it right."

He was acquainted to a young, promising cornet player called Bix Beiderbecke. Bix would sometimes swing into town and play with his band The Wolverines, which - according to Hoagy - was 'the band that played the hottest jazz'. He thought they were even better than Louis Armstrong's band, because the notes sounded clearer, purer. Especially the notes Bix played. The guy was ecstatic with that sound. Sadly, Bix Beiderbecke died at 28, his promise largely unfulfilled and underrecorded.

So picture this scene - 1924, prohibition era, Bix and Hoagy and a whiskey jar, listening to "Firebird" in a dorm room at Indiana University (now called "The Hoagy Carmichael Room").



"Guy used to be a lawyer", Bix said.

"Who?" I asked, feeling guilty about my law course.

"Stravinsky. Rimsky-Korsakov touted him off the law."

We passed the jug. There was a long silence.

"Why don't you write music, Hoagy?"

A week later, I got a phrase of what became 'Riverboat Blues'. I played it and played it again. I had it! Well, I had something.

 

I love what the trumpet does at around 1:20-1:24, assuming that's a trumpet, and the "clarinet" about a minute later at about 2:24. The guitar, if it's a guitar, has these promising little moments in the first 45 seconds or so, but then we're dropped into that ukelele-ish strum for the remainder of the song, which is a bit disappointing, but I've listened to the song 5 times through now and like it more every time.

Also, I've been to an event in the Hoagy Carmichael room in Bloomington. It's been a few decades, but I still remember it. I don't know if he's still alive, but IU used to have a professor who was a famed jazz cellist, to the extent that fame is possible for someone who plays jazz on the cello.

 

I didn't know anybody had bothered to reply! You've been there? I'm jealous. Better than Graceland. In fact, Graceland, meh.

I have the whole list up until 2015. Is anybody interested in the continuation of this thread?

 

Sure! It's lovely.

 

Yes!

 

Hell yes!

 

Alright but first:
It's not a trumpet, it's a cornet. The subtle difference is explained in this very educational video by none other than our good friend Ender Sai:


Louis Armstrong started out on the cornet as well, but he switched to trumpet and I can see why. The cornet sound just a bit more metallic, perhaps even more regal. The trumpet sounds more like something a person can relate to.

Also:

That's my trusty old rule for judging a song fairly. You can only say something worthwhile about it if you've listened to it at least 5 times.

 

1925
On January 1st, 1925, the Norwegian capitol Kristiania reverted to its original name of Oslo. Two days later, Mussolini started his dictatorship in Italy. Another two days later the US gets its first female governor.
Pol Pot and Malcolm X are born on the same day, as are Lenny Bruce and Margaret Thatcher.

Before we get to the music of 1925, I'd like to share a scene from a 1933 film, "Rufus Jones For President".

A black woman is hanging up the laundry on the porch.
A cute little way, scared away by a bully, comes running towards her.
"Don't you worry, honey. Old Sinbad Johnson sure is going to be sorry when he find out what a great man you is!", the woman reassures the boy.
"Is I going to be a great man, mammy?", the boy asks.
"You sure is, you's going to be... president!"
"Me?"
"Sure! They has kings your age, I don't see no reason why they can't has presidents! Besides, the book says anybody can be president."
"Ain't that something!"
And the woman launches into a bluesy hymn while coddling the kid.



The boy was Sammy Davis Jr.
The woman was Ethel Waters.

Ethel Waters (1896-1977) started out in vaudeville, went to the Cotton Club, became a Broadway succes, then found God and ended up touring with Billy Graham.

She rose to fame in 1925 with the hit song "Dinah", but I don't like it much. It's a nice ditty, but 'Dinah/is there anyone finer/in the state of Carolina' is just not good rhyme for my taste.
I chose "Sweet Man", because it highlights Water's great vocals, features some good playing, and is a fun progression from the previous song.

 

this could have been a million times better. hopefully we will see a vast improvement with songs in the key of o.

 

So tidy and neat man, the hotter-than-heat man, with oceans of style.

pretty much how I think of myself, but I don't enunciate as well as Ethel.

 

1926

The jazz gets low-down and dirty.
"Beale Street Blues" had been a filth song, but only in words. Duke Ellington first put filth to actual music.



From redhotjazz.com:
Duke Ellington brought a level of style and sophistication to Jazz that it hadn't seen before. Although he was a gifted piano player, his orchestra was his principal instrument.

Duke began playing music professionally in Washington, D.C. in 1917, in a group called The Washingtonians. Trumpet player Bubber Miley joined the band, bringing with him his unique plunger mute style of playing. This sound came to be called the "Jungle Sound", and it was largely responsible for Ellington's early success. The song "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo" is a good example of this style of playing.

Ellington's Orchestra became the house band at the Cotton Club after King Oliver unwisely turned down the job. Unlike many of their contemporaries, the Ellington Orchestra was able to make the change from the Hot Jazz of the 1920s to the Swing music of the 1930s. The song "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" even came to define the era. This ability to adapt and grow with the times kept the Ellington Orchestra a major force in Jazz up until Duke's death in the 1970s.

The band continued to produce Jazz standards like "Take the 'A' Train", "Perdido", "The 'C' Jam Blues" and "Satin Doll". In the 1960s Duke wrote several religious pieces, and composed "The Far East Suite". He also collaborated with a very diverse group of musicians whose styles spanned the history of Jazz. He played in a trio with Charles Mingus and Max Roach, sat in with both the Louis Armstrong All-Stars and the John Coltrane Quartet, and he had a double big-band date with Count Basie.

Nearly a century later, it's easy to see Ellington as a serious, great statesman of jazz, and his nick doesn't help. But he had what later would be called the funk, and he had what later would be called soul, and he injected it into jazz. And he was funny. There's a great story about Duke Ellington in Quincy Jones' autobiography - Jones was at one time the arranger in the Ellington Orchestra. They'd play a show with famous jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, who was apparantly very shy and found it hard to find her stage persona. But Ellington knew that if they'd start with "Mack The Knife". she would get into it. Even better, the longer they extended "Mack The Knife", the more she would get into it! So Ellington would keep swinging his arm at the end of sixteen bars, to whip the band into another sixteen bars one note higher, and then another sixteen bars one note higher, and on and on. Until Ella was extatic, and hollering it out.
And that was over forty years after the above tune was recorded.

 

I can't access that video, but I saw Count Basie in concert, which puts me into indirect contact with Duke Ellington.

 

I love Basie. You are only in this thread to make me jealous, aren't you.

You must have been in your teens. I remember my music teacher introduced me to Basie and I thought it was the most boring, dusty, cobwebbed music he'd been able to dig up. But I guess it makes a better impression on a kid when it's live.

 

yes. Count Basie was wheeled onto stage, shriveled and ancient. He stuck out a bony claw and plunked out a few notes on the piano. Then they wheeled him back off stage. It was very sad. Band was great though.

 

so you mentioned thrashing. can you estimate when we might find ourselves at the genesis of this particular subsubgenre? i may go to sleep until then. actually no, i'll definitely be up for the mid-sixties onward.

 

So nobody mentioned Steely Dan.

Come on JCC!



Don and Walt will be rolling in their graves if they hear the sound quality of this video but it's all I could find online.
Get the album, Pretzel Logic.