Jazz music: jazz vocals Mildred Bailey
by Warren
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Bessie Smith’s Overtones: Everybody Should Enjoy Mildred Bailey Every So Often
I acquired Henry Pleasants’ wonderful book, “The Great American Popular Singers” at Manny’s Books in Pune, where it rested, long-ignored, on a small shelf with other publications about Western music. The books on Indian music were in another section of the store; the only customer who went routinely to both shelves was me. I bought the book and began reading it in the rickshaw to Deccan Gymkhana. By the time I got home I’d learned things I never knew about Bessie Smith, Al Jolson and Bing Crosby (all of whom I’d heard, and heard of), and about Mildred Bailey, an unfamiliar name. Pleasants rhapsodized about her musicality, whetting my appetite.
Opportunities in India to hear Mildred Bailey’s music were nonexistent….so it wasn’t until a couple of years later that I found a 10″ lp in the collection of my friend Gene Nichols, and taped it for my own enjoyment.
And enjoyment was definitely what resulted. Bailey’s pitch, her sense of swing, her deceptive melodic simplicity, the subtlety of her ornamentation and phrasing…she sounded like a trumpet, or an alto saxophone.
Leonard Feather: “Where earlier white singers with pretensions to a jazz identification had captured only the surface qualities of the Negro styles, Mildred contrived to invest her thin, high-pitched voice with a vibrato, an easy sense of jazz phrasing that might almost have been Bessie Smith’s overtones.”
(Feather — The Book of Jazz)
Or, as Leonard Feather says, like Bessie Smith’s overtones.
Thanks for the Memories
environment Politics: buffoons James Inhofe
by Warren
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Month 2, Day 16: To The Dwarves Who Attend The Evil Buffoon
A DailyKos diarist named “Historian” produced a wonderful piece a few days ago, called “Ninety-Seven”. I admired it greatly, and wondered about incorporating parts of it into one of my letters. This is the first pass, and I decided to send an email/fax/letter directly to the Evil Moran himself, James Inhofe. Or, rather, to the people who answer his email, read his faxes, open his envelopes.
Because I figure my letter will never reach him, but it might actually get read by a human in his office. And who knows? Somebody might actually do some thinking. Stranger things have happened, albeit not very many.
Dear Staffers in Senator Inhofe’s Office —
Let’s say a hundred health inspectors went over a restaurant. And ninety-seven of them said, “This food is unsafe; it’ll probably make you sick.” Would you eat there?
Or let’s say you were buying a house, and a hundred home inspectors looked at it — and three of them said, “It’s probably okay,” while the other ninety-seven said, “This building is definitely unsafe.” Would you buy the house?
Or let’s say you found a lump. And a hundred oncologists looked at it. And ninety-seven of them said, “It’s cancer. Let’s get started on treatment.” Would you get started on treatment, or would you go with the three who said, “Maybe not?”
Or let’s say you’re the President, and a hundred C.I.A. counter-terrorism experts came to you…and ninety-seven of them said “Al-Qaeda is going to carry off a major operation,” while three of them said “It might not happen.” Would you put our national security system on high alert?
I’m asking you this question rather than Senator Inhofe himself, because I don’t believe this letter will reach him…but there’s a chance one of you will read it, and perhaps wonder:
Given that the answers to the first four questions are pretty obvious, why is it that when ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that humans are causing climate change, Senator Inhofe is so strongly in favor of doing nothing?
He wouldn’t want to eat tainted food, or buy a house that was going to fall down around him, or ignore a cancer diagnosis…or put the nation at risk by ignoring a warning of a terrorist attack. Would he?
Then why is he putting our nation (and our planet) at risk now?
And, more to the point, why are you helping him do it?
Our grandchildren will not be kind to the memory of Senator Inhofe and those who assisted him.
Just ask yourself this question: What if the ninety-seven percent of climatologists are right?
Think about it. Please. For all our sakes.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders