Friedwald"s Fifty-seven

• Will Friedwald, The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums.  Pantheon Books, 2019

 Will Friedwald is one of the finest writers about music today.    He is erudite and obviously more than familiar with literally hundreds of jazz and pop vocal albums.  His book is intelligent, resourceful, and a treat to read.  I already was well-acquainted with sixteen of the fifty-seven albums it extolled, so I had at least a good start in the records I owned.

The book therefore serves me well as a detailed buying guide to records I otherwise would likely never hear.  It prompted me to order some of them, including Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife,  Lena Horne at the Waldorf Astoria, Every Grain of Sand: Barb Jungr Sings Bob Dylan, Annie Ross Sings a Song with Mulligan!, Peggy Lee's Black Coffee, and Anita O'Day Sings the Winners.

I have enlarged my collection from advice of this book.  There have been no outright disappointments, so far.

In his preface Friedwald describes his way of determining his "playlist." Along with his editor, Robert Gottlieb, the author outlines a rather odd methodology:

[M]ost of these albums just jumped out at us without our having to give the question a lot of soul-searching thought.  We began by listing the albums that absolutely had to be in here, most of which immediately leapt to mind.  What we didn't need to do was study lists of artists and proceed from there; in other words, we thought at once of Lullabies of Birdland and Mack the Knife, rather than ask ourselves, "What are the essential albums by Ella Fitzgerald?"

Such a method is bound to become restrictive and exclusive in many ways.  Judging from the albums listed, a large majority of Friedwald's choices date from the 1950s and early '60s, with a smattering from the years following, all the way up to two albums from 2002.   With one only exception, Friedwald's choices are designed to play as albums, rather than compilations.  Almost all his selections consist of music from the "Great American Songbook," the music of our parents' generation.   (My quibbles can't be a matter of generations, because Friedwald is thirteen years younger than I.)  Likewise, all the artists he chooses sing in the English language:  hence no Brazilian, Afro-Cuban, or any other foreign-language pop.  Friedwald lists no Broadway or Hollywood cast albums.  Such restriction leads one to challenge his nominees, but perhaps that is part of his intention.

One huge problem in this book is its lack of definitions fo "jazz" and "pop."  My list is also subjective, but among pop singers, I couldn't fail to include albums from the 1970s through the 1990s.  More puzzling still is Friedman's chapter on the aforementioned album by Barb Jungr, Every Grain of Sand, a Bob Dylan tribute from twenty years ago (Friedman begins the chapter comparing Jungr's version of "It Ain't Me Babe"to Dylan's original, but this particular song is not included on the album.)  A more pertinent question is why Friedman chose to spotlight an English cabaret singer of whom most Americans have never heard, instead of an album by Bob Dylan himself.

However, I believe this book's main flaw is the sin of omission. Here, therefore, are a few albums and artists, from my own "playlist," that Friedman either ignored or overlooked, presented via Youtube:  

• Judy Collins, In My Life (1966)

This album was one of the best of the 1960s.  Her next album, Wildflowers would be a gigantic step up in Collins's career (helping launch Joni Mitchell's career as well).  But previously with In My Life, she brought to my attention for the first time Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" and Leonard Cohen's lovely"Suzanne."  Collins's eclectic tastes also admit Bob Dylan, Donovan, and Brecht and Weill, with "Pirate Jenny"from the Threepenny Opera.  The album properly ends with a remarkable reading the Beatles' "In My Life," after which the album itself is titled.  I prefer Collins's rendition, framed by a single acoustic guitar, to that of the Fab Four. 

• Sam Cooke, Night Beat (1963)

Sam Cooke, "the man who invented soul," was famous mainly as a singer of hit singles, nearly all of which he wrote himself.  Before his tragic death the following year, he recorded a bona fide album, Night Beat, an album with a strong after-hours ambience.   Here all songs are by other songwriters.  The performances, which included a young Billy Preston at the organ, are very informal and laid back.  Best are the final two tracks, "Fool's Paradise" (one of my favorite songs) and Joe Turner's rollicking "Shake, Rattle and Roll."

• Harry Nilsson, A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (1973)

Nilsson's voice was one of the most admired in the late '60s and early '70s.  Although he was a prolific songwriter, I chose this album of standards, one of the first ever by a rock-era singer, with lush string accompaniment by Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra.  These are the songs Harry loved from childhood, on an album that must have perplexed the money men at RCA Victor.  Of all the vocal albums I've heard, this one stands out.  The CD reissue adds many great tracks not found on  the original LP.

• Bette Midler (1973)
  

The same year of Nilsson's brilliant look into the American Songbook another immense talent mines the same ore.  Here are ten tracks, each a home run, from an eclectic group of songwriters, from Hoagy Carmichael to Bob Dylan on the first side alone.  A classic, I think better than her first release, The Divine Miss M.

 

• Joni Mitchell, Blue (1971)

Blue is one of the most-heard albums of its time and one to which millions still listen.  For a very personal songwriter, this is one of Joni Mitchell's most intimate, with more memorable music and lyrics than many of her later releases.

• Bobby Darin, The Legendary Bobby Darin (2004)

It would be unthinkable not to include Bobby Darin among any roster of best performers.   This album is an anthology of his Capitol recordings.

• Willie Nelson, Red Headed Stranger (1975)

I admit to being a late convert to so-called outlaw country music, but this album is the sub-genre's progenitor.  Nelson knows how to put emotions into a song, without emoting.  I could have chosen many other album's, including his own forays into the Great American Songbook, but this song cycle of murder and its aftermath serves well as a primer.

• Betty Carter, Feed the Fire (1994)
  
  
  Betty Carter was a firecracker for more than forty years, a jazz singer among jazz singers.  How could any great albums list omit her?  She was at her best with an enthusiastic live audience, and my choice is one of her best, released just a few years before her untimely death.
  
  

• Laura Nyro and LaBelle, Gonna Take a Miracle (1971) 

As is the case with A Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, this album features a prolific, hugely talented songwriter singing songs from the Great American Soul repertoire.  As with Nilsson's inspiration, these are the songs Nyro most treasured from her childhood, classics that propelled her own music.  She could not have found better background singers than Patti LaBelle & co.  Production by Gamble & Huff is also top-notch.

• Carole King, Tapestry (1970)

A superior songwriter for many years previously, Carole King finally found her own voice with this album, a great spark for the late-'60s singer-songwriter trend and a hugely popular album in its own right.  It's certainly her most popular album of the past fifty-odd years.  Many of the tracks feature King's take on songs that already had been big hits for other artists.

• Ray Charles, The Genius Sings the Blues (1961)

When I want to listen to Ray Charles, almost any of his '50s albums for Atlantic are ahead of his '60s ABC-Paramount/ Tangerine productions, including his Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Friedman's choice.   In other words, I choose Charles the songwriter over Charles the interpreter.

• Bob Dylan, John Wesley Harding (1967)

As I've already asked, why choose a Dylan tribute recording over any of Dylan's own, especially from the 1960s, when his influence on popular music was at its greatest.  John Wesley Harding is usually my go-to Dylan album, for all its puzzling lyrics.  I prefer Dylan's version of "All Along the Watchtower" to Jimi Hendrix's more widely known recording.

• Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, Sing Along with Basie (1958)

I  prefer this L, H & R album to their earlier Sing a Song of Basie, Friedman's pick, because it offers much more:  the actual Basie band with Joe Williams and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis.  My favorite track is the last, "Li'l Darlin'."  Despite its extremely slow tempo, performance is for me the album's climactic track.

• Elis Regina, Saudade do Brasil (1980)

Elis is not only my favorite Brazilian singer but also (maybe) my favorite vocalist, period.  I chose this particular album, a studio version of her live show, mostly because it spreads the music over two discs, doubling the content of any other of her many fine recordings.   As usual, the very best of Elis's contemporary songwriters are featured Her performance of Jobim's "Sabia" is breathtaking in itself and probably my favorite track.

• Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, Orange Crate Art (1995)

This Wilson-Parks collaboration, the only one since the Beach Boys' aborted SMiLE album in 1967, was my favorite recording of any genre in 1995, despite its poor sales.  I was most happy to receive a new 2022 edition, with three recently recorded tracks and a separate disc presenting a backing-track only rendition, on the Omnivore label.

Brian Wilson, by his own admission, wrote none of the arrangements for this album.  Still, it is uncanny how Parks's vocal arrangements, performed and overdubbed perfectly, resemble what Wilson might have done himself.  The orchestral arrangements, including Parks's version of Gershwin's "Lullaby," are outstanding.  No one but Parks could have produced this recording.

 The two-disc, edition is worth hearing also for its three added tracks:  a stacked, a cappella version of the theme from Rhapsody in Blue, a Four Freshman-styled of "Our Love Is Here to Stay,"and a touching "What a Wonderful World."  Brian's voice here isn't what it was on the original tracks, but effective nonetheless.

• Johnny Cash, At_San_Quentin (1969)

I can't fathom how Johnny Cash could be omitted from any great-albums playlist.  The San Quentin performance, a huge seller among '60s recordings, also boasts Shel Silverstein's wry "A Boy Named Sue."  Shame on Friedman for ignoring this album!

• Sinatra at the Sands (1966)

I am not knocking Friedman's Sinatra chapter,  but Sinatra at the Sands, with its appreciative live audience, Count Basie's band, and Quincy Jones's arrangements, is my go-to.

• Bette Midler (1973)

Midler's second album, her best, is life-changing.

IN ROTATION:

• The Kinks, Preservation, Acts 1 and 2

• The Beach Boys, Sail On Sailor

• The Essential Alan Parsons Project

NEXT:  Louis Armstrong

Twentieth Century Piano Genius

 Art Tatum:

• Twentieth Century Piano Genius (TCF/Verve 2-CD set, 1950, 1955)

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This is my favorite among all Tatum's recordings, and that's saying a lot.  His performances here confirm the album's title:  I've never heard a better demonstration than these, recorded at private parties at the Beverly Hills home of Ray Heindorf on two occasions set apart by several years.

As always, I marvel at Tatum's complete mastery of the keyboard, his advanced harmonics, his knowledge of seemingly all contemporary popular music, and his resourcefulness at every turn.  In these particular recordings, there are the additional assets of a fine instrument and the relaxed atmosphere of a private party, an ambience not present on his studio or concert recordings.

Twentieth Century Piano Genius has an interesting history.  It first came out on the Twentieth Century Fox label with barely half of what this double-CD contains, and some of the originally released tracks were incomplete.  The remaining tracks came out in dribs and drabs overs the years, including a  Smithsonian Records release (Pieces of Eight) in the 1970s. The Verve CD reissue adds 11 more to comprise the full 29 tracks. 

The collection begins with an attractive but all-but-forgotten ballad, "Just Like a Butterfly (That's Caught in the Rain)."  I hear an unusual degree of dissonance in this performance, as in Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood" a few tracks later.  On the most-frequently played tunes, Tatum early on developed set routines; long-time admirers always knew what to expect in a performance, yet no performances were exactly alike (compare, for example, the 1951 version of "Body and Soul"to the one played in 1955).

I recall Charles Mingus once opining that Art Tatum might have become a composer himself, were his mind not so occupied with almost every pop song ever written during his lifetime.  His death came in 1956, a few months after the later of the dates was played.  I'd like to have been there.

lightly and politely...

• The Art Tatum Collection, 1932-1947 (Acrobat 4-CD box)

Ancillary to all the above; these great, imaginative Decca recordings were early Art for me.

• Charles Lloyd, Forest Flower (Atlantic, 196?)

• Charles Lloyd, Love-In (Atlantic/ Collectables, 1967)

• Hank Mobley Sextet (Blue Note, 1956)

• Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band, En Concert Olympia 19 Novembre, 1960 (Europe1 2-CD)

• Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weill:  Berlin & American Theater Songs (Columbia, 1955 and 1957)

• The Great Ray Charles (Atlantic, 1959)

• Here's Lee Morgan (VeeJay, 1960)

• Don Cherry, Mu- First Part and Mu- Second Part (Charley/ BYG, 1969)

• Earl "Fatha" Hines, Classic Jazz Archive (Membran 2-CD compilation, 1928-1947)

• Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd, Monk's Dream (Verve, 1999)

NEXT:  Will Friedwald

Censors and Critics

 Every now and then I post something old, in this case an academic (shudder) paper I submitted in 1990.  I know that a great part of this inclination is sheer laziness, but if it was good then, it's probably good now.

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You can speak as you openly like against... tyrants, as long as you can be understood differently, because you are not trying to avoid giving offense,  only its dangerous repercussions.  If danger can be avoided by some ambiguity of expression, everyone will admire its cunning.

--Quintilian, Institutes

Perhaps owing to our twentieth-century legacy of "new critical" assumptions, Elizabethan literary criticism has rarely come to grips with the impact of official censorship upon writers and their works.  Yet it is hard to escape the fact that few other historical periods have matched the repression inaugurated by the Tudors, who within fifty years of the introduction of print into England began to devise a censorship apparatus which required two hundred years and two revolutions to dismantle.  Such repressive machinery was bound to affect not only the authors and readers o9f printed texts, but the institutions of public address-- sermons, parliamentary speeches, theater-- and private   correspondence and conversation as well.

The institution of modern censorship properly began with the response of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to the pamphlets and broadsides of Martin Luther and his supporters in Germany.  The emperor's Edict of Worms promulgated in 1521 contained a "Law of Printing," which prohibited the printing, sale, possession, reading, or copying of Luther's works or other material deemed contrary to the Catholic religion or directed against the pope, prelates of the church, princes, or university faculties.  Any libelous material already in. existence was to be confiscated and publicly burned.  Charles appointed professors of theology as censors and empowered local. municipal councils within the empire to administer censorship. Printers were forced to take an oath of compliance with the strictures of pre-publication censorship, with penalties ranging from heavy fines to exclusion from their profession.  In 1530 the existing censorship mechanisms, having proved ineffective in stopping the spread of Lutheran ideas, was supplemented by the Edict of the Diet of Augsburg, which required the printer's imprimatur and identification of the city of publication, and by the Edict of Speyer in 1570, which legally confined the press to free imperial cities or towns that had a princely court or university.

In 1564 the papacy itself undertook the business of censorship in decisive fashion by publishing its first Index librorum prohibitorum (known as the Tridentine Index, because it had been authorized by the Council of Trent).  The Index included a long list of authors whose entire output was prohibited, an additional list of banned individual titles, and rules for the expurgation of books whose "chief matter" was deemed good, though they contained isolated offenses.  The promulgation of the Index provided the last of sixteenth-century European censorship's essential components, along with a process of pre-publication screening to halt the printing of offensive works and the establishment of international and local interdiction of contraband publications.  In spite of such formidable weaponry, however, neither church nor state was able to stem the tide of Reformation literature on the continent.

To England, then, belongs the dubious distinction of inventing the first truly effective model of state repression in modern history.  Consisting of the same basic components as the apparatus taking shape on the continent, the main difference in the English system was that the state took the leading role in censorship.  Taking censorship ougt of the hands of conscience-stricken, lax, or corrupt ecclesiastical officials, the English crown now defined heresy, issued censorship regulations, and relied on civil agencies to enforce its decrees.  The Tudor repression was relatively uniform and compliance by English publishers and readers relatively general, at least until the appearance of widespread Puritan dissention late in the. sixteenth century.

Printing was at first not deemed a social or political threat, and there was no attempt in England to control it forr nearly half a century after the introduction of Caxton's press.  The impetus for the rise of censorship in England, as in the rest of Europe, was the spread of Lutheran ideas.  Luther's works were burned by order of the church of Cambridge in 1520 and in London the following year.  Then in 1529, anticipating the papal index by 35 years, Henry VIII promulgated his own list of 85 prohibited book titles, including 22 by Luther, eleven by Zwingli, nine by Oecolapadius, and two by Wycliffe.  Without a reliable machinery of enforcement, however, censorship did little to stop the production, importation, or sale of these books.  Henry responded in 1530 by proclamation of a licensing system, at first applied only to religious publications, which for the first time put censorship firmly under secular control.  Well aware of the power of the printed word in all aspects of policy, Henry would henceforth follow a strategy not only of eliminating undesirable texts, but also of stimulating the circulation of printed matter that supported his cause.

The early 1530s witnessed further book-burnings, along with the execution by burning of those convicted of circulating Reformation literature.  The turning point of Tudor history, and the point of no return for English censorship, came in Henry's Act of Supremacy in 1534 and the ensuing Proclamation of 1538, in which the "Great Bible" united king, church, and censor into one absolute ruler whose powers now extended to all kinds of printed texts.  Henry's Privy Council now replaced the inefficient hierarchy of ecclesiastical examiners and re-aimed its weapons against the adherents of Rome with a wave of executions, most notably of Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher.

Censorship under the reigns of Edward VI and Queen Mary, probably the most lenient in Tudor history, proceeded under the desire to reconcile the sharp divergences in matters of polity and religion.  Soon after the accession of Mary, however, it became apparent that a policy of national consensus was doomed, and the stringent censorship of Henry was resumed by Mary's  1555 prohibition of 26 named authors, as well as any book in a foreign language "containing false doctrine contrary and against the catholic faith, and the doctrine of the catholic church" (Gillett 28, citing John Foxe, Actes and Monuments, 1563).  Mary's other refinement upon the machinery of censorship was the establishment in 1557 of the Stationers Company, a trade organization of printers under royal charter, which functioned as the official publishing monopoly.

Queen Elizabeth undertook the manifold strengthening and sophistication of the represssive system already in place.   Her injunctions of 1559 brought into the business of censorship, alongside those put in place by her predecessors, the Anglican Church hierarchy.  Later her Star Chamber decree of 1586, giving the Stationers Company express authority to conduct inspections of print shops for contraband throughout the realm, became the capstone of a legal edifice which stood more than a century.

Book burnings under Elizabeth continued the by now customary persecution of religious nonconformists (including, among others, books by Thomas Cartwright, Walter Travers, Henry Nicholas, Robert Brown, Robert Harrison, Henry Barrow, John Greenway, Francis Johnson, John Udall, and the Martin Marprelates tracts), but significantly they began to include works by such advocates of popular liberty as George Buchanan (De jure regni, 1579) and Hubert Languet (Vindiciae contra tyrannis, 1579).  The intense controversy of 1579-1581 over the question of royal succession was quelled by the wrath of Elizabeth against those who dared to express their opinions in print, particularly the gruesome punishment meted out to John Stubbs.  The final years of Elizabeth's reign were marked by yet another wave of bannings and burnings, this time mainly directed against satires which "offended against morality," leading to an outright decree by the bishops against offensive histories and printed plays, along with satires.

Few critical studies of recent years have undertaken to assess the impact of censorship as a factor in shaping either the form or content of Renaissance English literature, probably because the majority of critics retain the notion of literature as somehow immune from the vicissitudes of politics.  One significant exception has been the study, published posthumously in 1987, by William Empson of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.  Empson's investigation compares versions of the Faust legend in German and English with the extant versions of Marlowe's play and concludes that the institutions of Elizabethan censorship were responsible for the wholesale mutilation of the play.

In the background of Empson's discussion are the ghastly contemporary events on the European continent, as a French traveller reported in 1590:  "Germany is almost entirely occupied with building fires for witches.  Switzerland has been compelled to wipe out many of her villagers on their account.  Travellers in   Lorraine may see thousands and thousands of the stakes to which witches are bound (49).  Small wonder that the German Faust-book of 1587 was one of the first international best-sellers.  Faust seized the popular imagination as a particularly evil witch, but at the same time magicians, well-received by many rulers including Elizabeth, claimed to work via the Middle Spirits, neither of Heaven nor of Hell.  The drastic mangling of Marlowe's text, amounting to one quarter of the play's original length, is traced by Empson to its probable entanglement with the Star Chamber on the volatile issue of magic and the propensities of the English public toward the kind of witch phobia gripping thee continent.

Of still more interest to scholars than such an explanation of the impact of censorship upon an individual text is the question of its general effects upon Elizabethan literature and literary careers, and especially the problems of interpretation that arise from the critic's recognition of these effects.  Annabel Patterson's Censorship and Interpretation is perhaps to only recent study to address these concerns.  In her examination of a wide range of political pamphlets, royal proclamations, published speeches and other records of parliamentary proceedings, sermons, plays, histories, editions and translation of classics, familiar letters, pastoral romances, and neo-Pindaric odes, Patterson explores the conventions of "oblique discourse" characteristic of the English Renaissance and sets forth her own theory of "functional ambiguity," in which "the indeterminacy inveterate to language was fully and knowingly exploited by authors and readers alike" (18).  It is to censorship, she insists, "that we in part owe our very concept of 'literature,' as a kind of discourse with rules of its own," and further, that acceptance of her thesis "might require a review of that other set of unexamined assumptions, about the freedom of the literary, or the critical, or the textual, from historical concerns" (4).

The starting point of Patterson's argument is the banishment in 1535 of the French poet Clement Marot by King Francis I and his subsequent complaint against the government agents who had seized the manuscripts from hnis private study in Blois.  In Marot's remonstrance to Francis, Patterson finds a "symbolic paradigm of a profoundly mistaken relationship between culture and authority" (5), the idea that both the artist's creative "space," sanctified by the poet's historical privilege, and the reader's right to interpretation are inviolable.  "Central to [the Marot incident and its textual consequences] is the equivocal and fragile relationship... between writers in the early modern period and the holders of power, a relationship whose maintenance was crucial to all writers who aspired (as who did not?) to have some influence, either on the shape of the national culture or more directly on the course of events" (7).  On the one hand, this relationship is expressed as a "cultural bargain between writers and political leaders"; on the other, Patterson perceives "another binary relationship," that between writing and interpretation, or between author and reader" and asserts that "censorship united writers and readers in a common interest as to how interpretation in fact worked" (7).

In the body of Renaissance literature, Patterson finds "a highly sophisticated system of oblique communication, of unwritten rules whereby writers could communicate with readers or audiences... without producing a direct confrontation," a ubiquitous "system of communication in which ambiguity becomes a creative and necessary instrument, a social and cultural force of considerable consequence" (45).  Whatever the efficacy of direct application of the draconian censorship laws, she asserts, "there is a whole range of publishing in England that can be better accounted for by assuming some degree of cooperation and understanding on the part of the authorities themselves...: there were conventions that both sides accepted as to how far a writer could go in explicit address to the contentious issues of his day, how he could encode his opinions so that nobody would be required to make an example of him [by punishment]" (11). 

  

The bulk of Patterson's book is devoted to a careful reconstruction, by analysis of a broad range of selected texts, of this cultural code in England of the late sixteenth century.  In her discussion of ambiguities and conflicting interpretations over time of Sidney's Arcadia, she quotes a telling remark from Fulke Greville's Life of Sidney to explain the tendency of Renaissance authors to conceal their "serious" intentions:  "that hypocriticall figure ironia, wherein men commonly (to keep avove their workes) seeme to make toies of the utmost they can doe" (cited 43).  Another device widely employed by Renaissance authors to accommodate their works to the demands of the censor, one that has perplexed literary critics ever since, was the use of inexact analogies as a deliberate strategy to allow the author an "escape route" from accusations of libel.  In certain authors she marks the tendency to hide behind the opinions of classical authorities, and she cites the use of such introductory materials as dedicatory epistles, epigraphs, and emblematic title pages to "alert the reader to his special responsibilities."  The central predicament of censorship, says Patterson, became a search for (in the words of one bemused commentator) blatantly offensive "buggeswordes."  Hence the indeterminacy of language so characteristic of English writing in the sixteenth century becomes essential to the hermeneutics of censorship; hence the question of authorial intention, hidden beneath the give-and-take of political life, begins to acquire a problematique of its own.

Among the texts Patterson analyzes are plays by Ben Jonson and Phillip Massinger, Shakespeare's King Lear, a court masque by Thomas Carew, John Donne's sermons, the seventeenth-century roman a clef, and the new genre, under the Stuarts, of the publication of private letters.  In the English Renaissance she finds the "one period in European history before our own in which there was only one kind [of censorship] that really counted; in which political censorship was so pervasive that it rose to the forefront, as least among intellectuals and to some degree all literate people, as the central problem of consciousness and communication."  In the more recent critical methods of Marxism and Freudianism and their twentieth-century offshoots, Patterson posits the possibility among the "subtle intersections of state censorship with self-censorship, as fear shades into caution, caution into prudence, and prudence into more self-serving emotions and motives" (17).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Empson, William.  Faustus and the Censor:  The English Faust-book and                                         Marlowe's "Doctor  Faustus".  Oxford and New York:  Basil Blackwell, 1987.

 Gillett, Charles Ripley.  Burned Books:  Neglected Chapters in British History and Literature.  Port Washington, NY:  Kennikat P, 1964.

Patterson, Annabel.  Censorship and Interpretation:  The Conditions of Writing and Reading in Early Modern England.  Madison:  U of WI P, 1984.

Siebert, Fredrick Seaton.  Freedom of the Press in England, 1476-1776.  Urbana:  U of IL P, 1965.

IN ROTATION:

• Hampton Hawes, Three Classic Albums Plus (Contemporary/ Avid Jazz, 1955, 1956)

Hawes's sheer velocity is a challenge to the rest of the quartet in the three-volume All Night Session series, especially to guitarist Jim Hall.  Bassist Red Mitchell and drummer Bruz Freeman complete the rhythm section for a studio session lasting an entire November night in 1956.

The Plus in the compilation's title refers to the first of three Hampton Hawes Trio outings the previous year, minus one track.

• Miles Davis, The Columbia Years, 1955-1985 (Columbia 5-LP compilation, released 1987?)

In the late 1980s, this was the largest Miles Davis compilation one could purchase, though its size has been surpassed many times since.  Still, I like this collection; there are the usual advantages of the LP over the CD, not least that the enclosed booklet, containing an extensive appreciation by Nat Hentoff, is legible and beautiful to look at.

The arrangement of the set is interesting:  instead of ordering the selections chronologically or according to genre, each disc is representative of a single aspect of Davis's playing.  Thus the first LP is devoted to blues, followed by those representing standards, Davis originals, moods, and latter-day electric performances.  One of the reasons I've kept the set for so many years is that fifth disc, covering music that is not as appealing to me without having to listen to entire albums.  Nevertheless, I first found here "Honky Tonk" from Get Up With It, a collection from the early and mid-1970s, and enjoyed it enough to buy the album many years later.

Though Davis has been derided for "selling out" for this sort of music played in big arenas, one must also understand that he was looking for a new audience, beyond the largely white club-goers who were aging.  He especially wanted to attract a young, black audience by getting into the styles with which they were already familiar.

Other highlights of the Box set include "So What" in the version recorded live at Carnegie Hall with the Gil Evans Orchestra in 1961.  The first disc gave me my first opportunity to hear two of the themes from the soundtrack of Ascenseur Pour L'échafaud from 1957.  This time through I enjoyed the "moods" disc most.

• Ralph Sutton and Jay McShann, Last of the Whorehouse Piano Players (Chiaroscuro, 1989)

• Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny, Beyond the Missouri Sky (Verve, 1996)

• The Very Best of Sheryl Crow (A&M compilation, 2003)

• Sheryl: Music Featured in the Documentary (A&M 2-CD set, 2022)The entire Sheryl Crow phenomenon from the 1980s on took place largely without my notice.  It was my kids' musical era, along with Alanis Morriset, The White Stripes, and Prince.
  
  
  I finally have taken a chance on her music, and I like what I heard, a real rock 'n' roll woman, a singer-songwriter cut from the same fabric as Bonnie Raitt, whom I have also come to appreciate in recent years.
  
  
  
  
  
  

Here's a little taste:

• Larry Young, Unity (Blue Note, 1965)

An absolutely essential listening in jazz.

• Larry Young, In Paris:  The ORTF Recordings (Resonance, 1964, '65)

• Kenny Burrell, Ellington Is Forever, Volumes 1 and 2 (Fantasy, 1975)

• Jimmy Giuffre 3, 1961 (ECM 2-CD rerelease)

• Elliott Caine Sextet, Orientation (EJC, 1998)

• Charlie Haden Quartet West, Now Is the Hour (Verve, 1995)

lightly & politely

• The Beach Boys, 50 Big Ones (Capitol 2-CD, 2012)

• Joe Henderson, Our Thing (Blue Note, 1963)

• The Klezmer Conservatory Orchestra, Klez! (Vanguard LP, 1984, '87)

• The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour (Capitol, 1967)

Don't You Just Know It?

• Beausoleil, La Danse de la Vie (Rhino compilation, 1993) 

NEXT:  Art Tatum

Lost and Found with Hite Morgan, The Beach Boys, and The Four Freshmen

N.B.:  The following is a piece I wrote for esq in the spring of 1991. 

The bulk of The Beach Boys' earliest material was not released until 1969, and from then until now collectors have had to put up with a succession of shodily- packaged LPs and bootlegged CDs that left the group sounding like rank amateurs.  This compact disc, featuring the pristine sonic clarity of the original studio masters, is the first reissue of the Hite Morgan productions really worth owning.*  Among its treasures are five alternate takes and a complete audition session consisting of three tracks the Boys performed two weeks before their studio debut, while still calling themselves The Pendletones.  This release is also the first to provide extensive session notes that, together with the music, help to clear up some hoary mythology and mistaken discography.

In the interest of accuracy here are some notes on the group's first four sessions.  The CD program duplicates my order of presentation, with the exception of "Lavender" from the initial rehearsal tapes and Session #4, which I insert before the February session.

SESSION #1:  The Pendletones, September 15, 1961, Hite Morgan home studio audition.

1.  "Lavender" (Dorinda Morgan)

2.  "Luau" (Bruce Morgan)

3.  "Surfin'" (Brian Wilson, Mike Love)

Unbelievable as it seems, the tape reel of this session was stashed away and forgotten for almost thirty years among the memorabilia of Hite Morgan's son, Bruce.  Now released for the first time, these demos recorded in Morgan's living room reveal a well-rehearsed and adventuresome vocal quartet (Dennis Wilson apparently was not present).  While "Surfin'" and "Luau" are accompanied by acoustic guitar rhythm, "Lavender" is performed a cappella.  As the notes point out, this track puts to rest the supposition that The Beach Boys did not attempt a jazzy, Four Freshmen-style vocal arrangement until Brian had time to experiment in the studio.  If there is one shining jewel in this collection, "Lavender" is it.

SESSION #2:  The Beach Boys, October 3 , 1961, World Pacific Studios, Los Angeles.

1.  "Surfin'"  (12 takes)

2.  "Luau" (10 takes)

Most sources give the date October 4 and the venue Keen Studios in Beverly Hills, so there are still some questions about this session.  Some myths, however, can be put to rest.  One of them, that "Luau" was sprung on the group as a surprise flip-side, is refuted by the fact that the Boys had auditioned it in September.  Another, that "Surfin'" was done in one quick take for the Candix single and later rerecorded for Capitol, is given the kabash here.  Brian plays snare drum, and again Dennis is not present (Some accounts have Brian playing upon a plastic trash can lid, but the improved sound quality here clearly reveals wire brushes on a snare).  Carl Wilson and Al Jardine accompany on acoustic guitar and string bass.  The CD includes takes 1 (false start), 2, and 7 (master take) of "Surfin'."  The first complete take is marred by a squeak and by Brian's loss of the beat in the last chorus.  On "Luau," we hear takes 1 (fs), 2, and the master.

SESSION #3:  The Beach Boys, February 8, 1962, World Pacific Studios.

1.  "Surfin' Safari" (Brian Wilson/ Mike Love)

2.  "Surfer Girl" (Brian Wilson)

3.  "Judy"

4.  "Beach Boys Stomp," aka "Karate" (Carl Wilson)

On all previous issues, these sides have been distinguished by their crude, "garage-band" sound; here it seems as if a gray veil has been lifted.  The personnel this time is Brian on Fender bass, Carl on electric guitar, and Dennis on drums.  As before, the tunes are performed "live," vocals and instruments together.  For "Surfin' Safari," the CD includes takes one and five, the selected master.  On both the tempo is rushed, Mike's vocal is slightly breathless, and the muffled drum is out of sync with the guitar.  Carl, however, turns out two little gems in his solos turns.   (The hit version that later appeared on Capitol caught on, I'm convinced, largely because of Carl's guitar break.)

In addition, there is an interesting but crude attempt to create a stereo "Safari" by overdubbing a separate channel of electric lead guitar and a full drum kit.  It doesn't quite work out, mainly because the drummer (presumably Dennis) can't seem to find the beat.

There can be no more eye-opening comparison than between this "Surfer Girl" and the one released by Capitol in 1963, nor any better measure of what Brian learned about producing records in the meantime.  In the studio chatter before the performance, we can hear Brian's request that the bass part be omitted and overdubbed later, but the man in the booth nixes the idea.  The result is an echo-chamber mishmash with a droning bass line, not at all the kind of sound Brian had in mind.  It is probably not too wild to assume that The Beach Boys' move to Capitol was the direct result of his dissatisfaction with the sound on these versions of "Surfin' Safari" and "Surfer Girl."

 The remaining tracks are more successful rhythmically, though not important to the group's catalogue.  "Karate" has been described as an edit of the longer "Beach Boy Stomp," but close listening will confirm that two choruses of Carl's guitar solo were simply repeated at the end to create the "Stomp" version.  The first of a long series of Carl Wilson blues instrumentals, "Stomp" is a rudimentary nod to Dick Dale, but it has never before sounded so crisp.  Likewise, the rhythm on "Judy" really pops.

  

SESSION #4:  Kenny and the Cadets, March 8, 1962, unknown studio in Los Angeles.

1.  "Barbie" (Bruce Morgan)

2. "What Is a Young Girl Made Of" (Bruce Morgan)

The Kenny and the Cadets session seems to be a  consolation gesture from the Wilsons to the Morgans for having broken their management contract to sign with Capitol.  The chronology here is tricky, though: Murry Wilson's "letter of intent" agreement with Hite Morgan is dated March 29, nearly a month after this session took place.  If these dates are correct, the rationale given for the session appears strange.  In addition to Brian's lead, on backing vocals we hear Carl, Al we and Audree Wilson, the mother of Brian and his brothers.  Both sides were performed over a pre-recorded instrumental track.  The stereo release on this CD allows isolation of the vocals.  On "Barbie" the backing vocals are on the same track as Brian's lead, but on "Young Girl" they are done with the instruments, and we can hear the nineteen-year-old man child Brian singing alone.  His octave leap on "Young Girl" is something to behold.  "I almost started laughing," he confesses after the take.

*A two-disc set, Becoming The Beach Boys, was issued in 2016 and presented the sessions in their entirety.

The following piece first appeared in esq, summer 1991.  (I was submitting them hand-over-fist that year.)

CD REVIEW:  THE FOUR FRESHMEN

CAPITOL COLLECTORS SERIES CDP7931972

In the 1950s The Four Freshmen were considered a "Jazz" group, vocally by way of singing groups like Mel Tormés Mel-Tones and Stan Kenton's Pastels, and instrumentally out of the tradition of jazz big bands.  By the time of the rock boom of the '60s, they would be called "MOR," and in 1991, you'll probably find this CD, a 21-track compilation of the their best-known work, stuck in the "Easy Listening" corner of your local music store.  Don't let industry labels fool you, though:  Freshmen vocal arrangements have always been right on the cutting edge.

From the first notes of the first track on this CD, it becomes abundantly clear that the Four Freshmen were the very paragon and inspiration for The Beach Boys' sound, and Beach Boys fans will be especially gratified to find here both "Graduation Day" and "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring" as Brian Wilson first heard them in his teens.  Brian modeled his own voice upon Freshmen lead singer Bob Flanigan and his own group arrangements after Freshmen timbres, voicing, and phrasing.  If you love the vocal sound of The Beach Boys, your first experience of The Four Freshmen may come as a revelation.

From their beginning in 1948, The Four Freshmen set precedents, as Scott Shea's excellent notes to the CD explain:  "They were the first four-part group to sing sophisticated jazz arrangements, redefining vocal harmonies:  they were among the first artists to use the long-playing album to express a consistent musical theme."

This CD affords an ideal introduction to the quartet's work, and for those already familiar, it offers the pristine clarity of digital sound.  The material is presented in chronological order, beginning with the group's signature tune, "It's a Blue World" (1952), and ending with "And So It's Over" (1962), a number the Freshmen used to close their live sets.  In between there is a good balance of ballads, up-tempo performances, and Latin rhythms, with accompaniment both by the Freshmen alone and by various studio combinations.  As a "greatest hits" anthology, it leaves the listener yearning for more, and there is plenty where this one came from:  The Four Freshmen have released 41 LPs to date, 28 of them on the Capitol label.  Let's hope that the response to this CD will lead to more digital reissues in the future.

Bing Videos:  Link to Elton John/ Leon Russell HBO documentary, The Union.

lightly and politely...

• Don Byron, Bug Music (Nonesuch, 1996)

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