Larry Kart

Pretty much.

I saw the lyric of "I Remember" as a little challenge -- how to make it utterly vulgar rather than archly poetic, while retaining much of the shape of the original. No doubt I failed. As for crassness and sarcasm -- for me Sondheim invites this, but again I probably failed to bring it off.

Oh. My. God.

Grateful for the post of the "I Remember" lyrics. IMO they epitomize Sondheim's coyness. I remember shit. It was warm and stunk Or at least I thunk I remember shit. I remember piss, Slowly streaming, Just can't stop it, Trickling down my thigh, and I'd often sigh at this flow of whizz. And come, like vinyl, on my cheeks, Cold as ice-cream, White as snow, Snot-like strings and changing things Like sheets Etc.

Just to be clear -- Chuck's account is far from the only true tale of that sort he could tell. The Madame Curie thing just popped into my head, it struck me as funny/goofy, and I couldn't resist. But no intent on my part to raise doubts -- because I have none.

Of course the world doesn't stop turning, but I think there are obvious benefits in possessing/retaining the ability to see the past through its own eyes whenever possible. That doesn't mean that how any chunk of the past might have regarded itself in its own time automatically trumps what we might think of that chunk now, but it's an approach that can give us potentially useful information -- a "stereoptican" view, so to speak. As for there being a "user's manual" somewhere -- no, there is not one right way, but more information can be enlightening, especially when it comes to styles of performance. And not in an antiquarian way -- for example, John McGlinn's "restored" recording of Kern-Hammerstein's "Show Boat" easily is the most effective recording of "Show Boat." Your willingness to sacrifice your "own natural instinct and intellect" has been taken note of and is appreciated.

Anthony Powell on Thomas Love Peacock (I know, "Who he?" -- but there we are): "One of Peacock's worst failings ... was that he thought the past funny in relation to the present. I find it hard to conceive a more detestable literary characteristic...." About "Dancing in the Dark," from the title on the cues seem abundant to me: "and it soon ends" "Time hurries by, we're here and we're gone" "Hear this heart of mine Wailin' all the time Dear one, tell me that we're one" About "Alone Together," as I said before, the slight enforced-by-Schwartz's-music pause between "alone" and 'together" in the final line (different in this respect than all previous appearances of the title phrase in the song) suggests to me that the couple will end up alone in their togetherness. If so, there are ample, logical reasons for this -- in particular, the lines "We're not to proud to cling together, we're strong as long as we're together" suggest that we've got two threatened (by "the great unknown") people who think they can't make it on an "ev'ry tub" basis. It's a romance of clinging in order to survive; the long-range prognosis is not hopeful.

I would never have imagined that song as a dream/fantasy/whatever. It has never struck me that way at all. It's always seemed me as a hard-won victory song, a song of triumph, not despair. Just goes to show, yet again, that what you get out of anything is directly relevant to what you bring to it, you're looking for in the first place. It might be me, too, Jim, but it ain't just me. The element of doubt about romance and the success of romantic pairings-off in the face of a hurly-burly world is a common theme for Dietz/Schwartz, witness two of their more famous songs, "You and the Night and the Music" and Dancing in the Dark": You and the night and the music fill me with flaming desire, Setting my being completely on fire! You and the night and the music thrill me but will we be one After the night and the music are done? Until the pale light of dawning and daylight, our hearts will be throbbing guitars, Morning may come without warning, and take away the stars. If we must live for the moment, love till the moment is through! After the night and the music die, will I have you? Dancing in the dark 'til the tune ends We're dancing in the dark and it soon ends We're waltzing in the wonder of why we're here Time hurries by, we're here and we're gone Looking for the light of a new love To brighten up the night, I have you love And we can face the music together Dancing in the dark What -- though love is old What -- though song is old Through them we can be young Hear this heart of mine Wailin' all the time Dear one, tell me that we're one Looking for the light of a new love To brighten up the night, I have you love And we can face the music together Dancing in the dark, dancing in the dark Dancing in the dark Triumph? I don't think so. Dramatized doubt/anxiety? Tons of it. Also, as Dietz's entertaining autobiography "Dancing in the Dark" makes clear, the several-times-married Dietz, also a man of many dalliances, didn't get things straightened out personally in the realm of romance for a long time, not until his mid-50s when he married celebrated theatrical designer Lucinda Ballard. I met her once by chance, after Dietz's death, and we corresponded for a while. Classy lady.

Unfortunately, Chuck failed to mention lead underwear.

Posts on this thread that engaged in name-calling have been deleted. Got it?

Few know the story about Chuck and Madame Curie.

"Mr. Davidson is the great-grandson of one of the founders of Schlumberger Ltd., a Houston-based multinational oil-field-services company that posted revenue of about $23 billion last year...." Voila!

And I'm at least as equally baffled as how you can't see that one is about facing the difficulties of life truly alone, and the other with a partner. One is I'm alone in this world, the other we're alone, and if you can't see what a fundamental difference that makes, then I'll see your "baffled" and raise you 2000 "you gotta be kidding me"s. Yeah, it seems clunky to me too, and it no doubt is, but as seeline aptly points out, with the right delivery in the right voice, it could be transformed. Could be... (if you ever make it down here, we can do a tour and hear extrremes of this on both ends, possibly by just crossing the street from one joint to another...) But really, I'm defending the notion of the line much more than the line itself. And believe me, I in no way underestimate "so-called plain people". Most of them I've known (hell, I'm one myself, who am I kidding) are anything but "plain", if by "plain" one means lacking fire and a healthy appetite for the life they have... There's a reason why not everybody aspires to be Dietz/Schwartz, ya'know. Not every shoe fits all feet, even the most beautiful shoes and the most beautiful feet. Yes, but you said that you saw no more relationship between "By Myself" and "Alone Together" than you did between "Gloomy Sunday" and "All The Things You Are." You gotta be kidding me. Further, I think that the final return of the title phrase of "Alone Together," given the way words and music interact there, pretty clearly is meant to introduce doubt that the singer's stated dream of being "alone together" with his partner is anything but an unsustainable fantasy. In other words, while the song is a plea to a partner that together they flee the world, the guy (if the singer is a guy) probably is going to end up "by himself." Didn't say and don't think that everybody should aspire to be Dietz/Schwartz. I wasn't attacking the notion of the "house/garden" line but saying that craft (I prefer "paying attention to what you're up to") knows no boundaries.

Assuming that the house/garden metaphors were intended as suggested earlier, why the condescending tone? It's a metaphor to which many people can relate to their own life experience, probably at least as many as can relate to "The starless night were not in vain"...that it's not "artfully constructed" assumes that it is even concerned with working the same "technical" turf as Dietz/Schwartz, which I seriously doubt is the case. That it for whatever reason "should" be so concerned is a conceit which I do not share. This specific instance is hardly a "glorious" example, but I have a very difficult time justifying why anybody "should" strive for one mode of expression over the other, especially when somebody is communicating effectively to/with whom they are attempting to communicate about that which they are attempting to communicate. I have an even greater time assuming "superiority" when I myself may very well not be able to communicate effectively with that target/group/audience/whatever. What I have no difficulty in saying is that my wife enjoys gardening, that my heart would have to ready be very hardened for me to even try to take that from her, and that if I did, her heart would be irrevocably hardened, and that, yes, that would be a pretty damn sad thing to have happen, no matter how you express it, the bottom line is that it would pretty much suck as hard as anything could suck. There's an infinite number of ways to express that, but none of them would make it suck any less. Jim -- How you can't see that both "By Myself" and "Alone Together" are powerfully about aloneness baffles me. It makes me wonder whether we can even continue to talk about this stuff, though of course we can and will continue to talk about a whole lot of other things. I'm kind of baffled, too, about your use of the phrase "linguistic ploy," as though constructing a song in which the interplay of words and music, sound, sense, and accent, were some kind of elitist lifted-pinky game. Surely it's quite common in music in general, and in jazz in particular, to set up a framework of structural expectations (harmonic, rhythmic, etc.) such that a deviation from those expectations give a particular phrase or note a meaning that comes in part from its novel "position" within that structure, a meaning different from what it would have had otherwise. That's what I'm talking about. In particular, and you do know those songs, here's where some the accents fall at key moments "By Myself" and "Alone Together": I'll face the unknown, I'll build a world of my own; No one knows better than I, myself, I'm by myself alone. Alone together the blinding rain The starless night were not in vain For we're together and what is there to fear together And we can weather the great unknown If we're alone [pause] together Surely you can see, for example, that the enforced pause between "alone" and "together" in the final line of the song gives that final repetition of the title phrase a new darker meaning, one that is set up above by the chime between "we're" and "fear." As for your "Words don't mean a whole helluva lot. Sentiments do, a little bit more..." forgive me if I mention the famous conversation between Degas and Mallarme, as related by Paul Valery: "[Degas] told me that, dining one day...with Mallarme, he gave vent to his feelings about the agonies of poetic composition. 'What a business!' he lamented. 'My whole day gone on a blasted sonnet, without getting an inch further.... And all the same, it isn't ideas I'm short of ... I'm full of them... I've got too many....' "'But Degas,' said Mallarme ... 'you can't make a poem with ideas... You make it with words.' Go tell the shade of Lockjaw that his solo on "Whirlybird" was made of sentiments, but its notes "don't mean a whole helluva lot..." Sure -- Jaws, and you and I and everyone and his uncle know about and feel the sentiments, but the actual notes matter immensely, no? As for my condescending tone about "he got the house and he got the garden, and their hearts began to harden," I have no problem with the house-garden metaphor or with the sentiment, but its verbal expression seems awfully clunky to me, rhythmically and otherwise. And if you're going to do a "but that's the way plain people talk" number, I think you'll be under-rating so-called plain people terribly. No, they may not talk in the same way Howard Dietz's lyrics do, but Johnny Cash's I keep a close watch on this heart of mine I keep my eyes wide open all the time I keep the ends out for the tie that binds Because you're mine, I walk the line" or the lyric of Patsy Cline's "Crazy" Crazy, I'm crazy for feelin' so lonely, I'm crazy, crazy for feelin' so blue... I knew, you'd love me as long as you wanted, And then someday, you'd leave me for somebody new. Worry, why do I let myself worry? Wonderin', what in the world did I do? Oh, crazy, for thinkin' that my love could hold you... I'm crazy for tryin' and crazy for cryin' And I'm crazy for lovin' you. or Clarence Ashley's version of "The Coo-Coo Bird" Gonna build me a log cabin On a mountain so high So I can see Willie As he goes passing by. Oh, the coo-coo, she’s a pretty bird She wobbles as she flies She never says coo-coo Till the fourth day of July. I’ve played cards in England I’ve played cards in Spain I’ll bet you ten dollars I beat you next game. Jack-a-Diamonds, Jack-a-Diamonds I’ve known you from old You’ve robbed my poor pocket Of my silver and my gold. My horses ain’t hungry They won’t eat your hay I’ll drive on a little further I’ll feed ‘em on my way. are crafted IMO in ways that "he got the house and he got the garden, and their hearts began to harden" are not. Craft does matter, even though styles of craft obviously vary a great deal. "Obstacles ... prompt despair in some, while they only convince others that there is something beyond."

More later, Jim, especially about the play of sound and accent here (it would help to have clips of a recording or two of those songs; I'll see what I can find), but right now I've got to leave the house for the evening. As for how these songs/lyrics are similiar in feeling, though, how about the theme of "aloneness"?

It ain't "he got the house and he got the garden, and their hearts began to harden," but the play of sound and accent in these two similar-in- feeling songs by lyricist Howard Dietz and composer Arthur Schwartz is something else IMO: BY MYSELF The party's over, the game is ended, The dreams I dreamed went up in smoke. They didn't pan out as I had intended; I should know how to take a joke. I'll go my way by myself, this is the end of romance. I'll go my way by myself, love is only a dance. I'll try to apply myself and teach my heart to sing. I'll go my way by myself like a bird on the wing. I'll face the unknown, I'll build a world of my own; No one knows better than I, myself, I'm by myself alone. I'll go my way by myself, here's how the comedy ends. I'll have to deny myself love and laughter and friends. Grey clouds in the sky above have put a blot on my fun. I'll try to fly high above for a place in the sun. I'll face the unknown, I'll build a world of my own; No one knows better than I, myself, I'm by myself alone. ALONE TOGETHER Alone together beyond the crowd Above the world we're not too proud To cling together we're strong As long as we're together Alone together the blinding rain The starless night were not in vain For we're together and what is there to fear together Our love is as deep as the sea our love is as great as a love can be And we can weather the great unknown If we're alone together

Why not ... some times? Oh, right -- The Great Wave of History Is Blowing In The Wind, So Get Out Of The Way, Mr. Jones, If You Know What's Good For You ... Mop Mop. Jim, I think you're becoming some sort of totalitarian "progressive." Also, Hi Moms: IMO Sondheim can be a clever lyricist, but he suffers from the same problem Benjamin Britten does -- no not that one ... very little melodic gift. The melodies of most Sondheim songs are generated ass-backwards by their lyrics and harmonic shifts. It shows.

A must, though my recollection is that Richmond is notably (though not greivously) less well-attuned to and less well-equipped to deal with Nichols' music than Blakey or Roach were. But then, that's Art and Max...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfQlV6maOfk

Used to have the album, but it's done gone away. I suspect Leon Levitt.

You're a funny man, Jim. Intense Basie piano, too, and some serious Harold Jones. Boy, was the band in fine shape. Of course, that's "Whirlybird," not "The Kid from Red Bank." Jaws forever!

Don't know if it's been mentioned elsewhere here (and I know the clip has been taken down on YouTube at the request of MLB), but here's an active (as of a few minutes ago) link to Tony Bennett's IMO quite stirring rendition of "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch last night: http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/

That's what I was thinking of, but IIRC he went into more detail somewhere. But then my memory is full of gaping holes and imaginings.

Maybe I'm in a third place. By no means is Jamal's music IMO dismissible as "useless space, mannerism, gimmick ... crap," and I sure have to take account of how other talented pianists (in particular) feel about him (IIRC Hal Galper wrote in some detail about the specific pianistic/harmonic things Jamal did that guys tried to pick up on). But against that there's the fact (which may just say something about me) that not that many Jamal performances hold my attention after a while. I think I get the set-up and feel the subtle, sly shifts and variations, but eventually I begin to zone out. And normally, I think I'm in the top 10 per cent when it comes to paying attention to music, and of a whole lot of different styles.

Used to have that record back in my teens.