While reading Baugh and Cable's History of the English Language, I was both surprised and a little annoyed to find no mention of the Yiddish language in either of the two places I had expected to find it. I searched the first chapter for the relationship of Yiddish to the Indo-European family of languages, which has since medieval times shaped and nurtured it; I perused the final chapter on the development of American English, hoping to find at least a word on the impact of Yiddish. Both times I came up empty, and my conclusion is that Yiddish is difficult to classify and subtle in its influence upon American English.
My own knowledge of Yiddish has never been extensive, though I grew up in proximity to Yiddish speakers. I remember hearing from my parents such choice tidbits as "Gei kochen ahfen yom," "Is nisht gefiddelt," "A kocher nemt a pisher," and "Ich hab dir in bud," but only later came to realize how much of it was obscene. My parents, both first-generation American-born Jews who ordinarily used garden-variety midwestern American English, used Yiddish as a code that their children could not understand, so we picked it up only in dribs and drabs.
My mother's parents, however, brought Yiddish with them from Europe as their primary language, though both of them could speak Russian and became proficient in English. My grandmother would sit at her kitchen table, sipping her tea through a sugar cube as in the Old Country, reading her copy of Vorwarts with column upon column of strange Hebraic characters without vowels.
For second-generation American Jews such as myself, religious education was in Hebrew, not in Yiddish. Hebrew, moreover, was the revived language of the modern state of Israel, while Yiddish appeared to be an idiosyncratic expression of survivors of the European shtetl and ghetto. Clearly, there was a generational pattern at work pertaining to Yiddish in America.
Perhaps the major reason for the reluctance of our textbook authors to discuss Yiddish is that it appears to be a linguistic and historical anomaly. It did not receive its distinctive characteristics before the eleventh century, when Jews were invited from the Rhineland to Poland and Russia as a merchant class in between the nobles and the serfs. Yiddish developed as a peculiar amalgam of Indo-European and Semitic languages, Hebrew ion its orthography, Low German in much of its vocabulary and syntax, with a leavening of Hebrew and Aramaic from the Scriptures and Talmud, and later a heavy overlay of Slavic and a few Romance elements. Until quite recently, it was regarded as essentially a folk-tongue without a written grammar and a language that seemed to defy strict grammatical analysis.
Over the centuries between the Middle Ages and the Second World War, Yiddish produced a very rich literature of folksongs, tales, and folklore. German-Jewish literature, except for the Hebrew lettering, differed little from its gentile milieu, unlike its counterpart in Poland and points east. It was the spoken language of the masses of European Jewry up until the Holocaust, surviving even the Haskalah, the mass enlightenment movement of the late nineteenth century led by Moses Mendelssohn, which translated modern European literature into Yiddish. The 1860s and '70s brought a temporary decline of Yiddish, as Russian schools and culture were opened to Jews, but by the 1880s Russian pogroms facilitated its revival. The flowering of Yiddish literature, in both Europe and America, took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Yiddish theater, influenced by the works of Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, and Chekhov, likewise flourished for many years.
The nemesis of Yiddish language and culture, particularly in America, has been the acceleration assimilation of Jews into the mainstream of modern secular society. Aside from the shrinking immigrant generation served by the Vorwarts, the chief medium for the transmission of Yiddish language in America has been show business, particularly the work of Jewish stand-up comedians of the second or third American-born generation. Through them there has come about in this country a hybrid, which some have dubbed "Yinglish," wherein the expressiveness of the Yiddish language is used to pepper English for mass-media consumption. It is primarily through show-business usage that some five hundred Yiddish expressions-- such terms as schmaltz, goyish, and goniff have entered the English language and earned listings in the Oxford English Dictionary. Ironically, many of the individuals who helped familiarize America with such Yiddishisms, such as the comic Lenny Bruce, learned them only at second-hand and used them onstage in place of taboo English expressions.
The decline of the Yiddish language has occupied the past half century and has inspired clamorous debate in Jewish publications for at least that long. Between the large-scale emigration of surviving European Jews to Israel and the ongoing process of assimilation, the question has often been posed whether the end of Yiddish as a living language might mean as well, the disappearance of the Jewish people, at least if we define "Jewish" in terms of the traditional lore of Judaism accumulated during the past millennium. Efforts are ongoing in many parts of the world to preserve the literature and traditions of Yiddish for the generations to come, but the time seems to have passed when anyone can seriously expect Yiddish to occupy the place it once did in Jewish life. It may well be that whatever Yiddish is heard on a mass scale in the next century will be understood because of its present penetration into English.
Thank you, Lenny Bruce.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Birnbaum, Solomon A. Yiddish: A Survey and a Grammar. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1979.
Fishman, Joshua A. Yiddish in America: Socio-Linguistic Description and Analysis. Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1965.
-------, ed. Never Say Die! A Thousand Years of Yiddish in Jewish Life and Letters. The Hague: Mouton, 1981.
Kogos, Fred. A Dictionary of Yiddish Slang and Idioms. New York: Citadel, 1966.
Rosenbaum, Samuel. A Yiddish Word Book for English-Speaking People. New York: Van Nostrand, 1978.
Samuel, Maurice. In Praise of Yiddish. New York: Cowles, 1971.
Turan, Kenneth. "They Told Me That Yiddish Was a Dead Language,"Smithsonian 21: 10 (January 1991), 60-71.
My interest in the L.A. pianist Carl Perkins began with the WBEZ-Chicago broadcasts of jazz d.j. Dick Buckley back in the 1990s. Buckley, a native of Indiana himself, used to recall the times he heard Perkins play in his own hometown, Indianapolis, and eventually fulfilled my request to hear him play this album in its entirety.
Perkins died of a heroin overdose at the age of 29, and Introducing, from February 1956, turned out to be his only recording as a leader (discography). Here he is joined by his Indianapolis homey, bassist Leroy Vinnegar and the lifelong Los Angeles drummer Larance Marable. Of the eleven tunes on the record, six are popular standards and the remaining five Perkins originals: "Way Cross Town" (later renamed "Mia"); "Marblehead,"a relaxed blues; "Westside," another blues, uptempo; "Why Do I Care," a brisk and memorable AABA tune that effectively employs block chords; and "Carl's Blues," at a bright, medium tempo, probably his best-known composition. On ballads ("You Don't Know What Love Is," "It Could Happen to You"), Perkins usually takes a dreamy, rhapsodic approach modeled on Bud Powell's and Erroll Garner's, but generally a bit faster and with more swing.
It is a pity that Perkins's work both here and under the leadership of a who's who of other musicians, is not better known and appreciated, not to mention that his name is often mistaken for that of the rockabilly writer of "Blue Suede Shoes."
Perkins's odd posture at the keyboard, using his left hand and elbow in a crablike fashion, has often been remarked upon. I wish I'd been around to see him play in person.
A more recent CD release on the Phono label includes an additional eleven additional tracks from sessions recorded in 1954 and 1957, plus an informative booklet. There are four unaccompanied solo performances of standards and and a selection of tracks Perkins recorded as a sideman with Oscar Moore and Jim Hall.
I seldom play this album, though it is often praised. The title track is mesmerizing; hardly a day goes by without my humming the guitar line or mouthing the lyrics. Most of the rest bores me, especially compared to Beef's immediately previous release, the double LP Trout Mask Replica. But "Space Age Couple" ("whyn't you flex your magic muscle") has become one of my mantras. A few of the tunes seem just plain silly, but all the instrumentals are good.
Here's another record I've neglected for quite some time, having had nothing but a needle-drop CDR to listen to. but hearing at last the actual CD in all its glory, I have a new appreciation for it. The Kinks' lineup included, besides the Davies brothers, John Gosling on keyboards, John Dalton on bass, and longtime drummer Mick Avory. The liner notes inform that Ray and Dave were able to maintain some brotherly harmony through the recording sessions, and it shows here.
Schoolboys is a kind of prequel to the Preservation dramas from a few years back, with the principal characters being young versions of themselves. Unlike some of that, this album stands well on its own, without a narrator, because of the strength of its songs. "Education" has possibly Ray's finest vocal performance and a female chorus well used. "The Hard Way" is introduced by Gosling's piano solo, almost a sublime moment itself. "No More Looking Back," a perennial theme for the group, is perhaps the album's finest track, boosted by Ray's cherished horn section.
This recent double-CD release is an important find. This performance took place on June 23, 1958, at Gene Norman's Crescendo nightclub in Hollywood.
Ari Barroso, ???? (???, 1930-1942)
Lightly and Politely
Carl Perkins, Memorial (Fresh Sound, 1956, 1957)
Pianist Perkins could boast a huge discography as a sideman, but only one studio album and a handful of singles under his own name. This release is a welcome addition to that discography in the form of excerpts from three Los Angeles television appearances, most from the KABC Stars of Jazz series popular in the late '50s. Perkins appears here as sideman to the Leroy Vinnegar Quartet, the Herbie Mann Quartet, and the Curtis Counce Quintet, wherein he participated memorably in studio sessions for the Contemporary label, as well.Short as they are, these selections nevertheless provided ample opportunity to strut his stuff.
Truth to tell, there really is no romantic, exotic history behind Caine, no illustrious pedigree which I might claim. When people occasionally ask whether I am related to the British actor Michael Caine, I tell them that he's the one with all the money, but the fact is neither of us received the name Caine at birth. The famous Caine was born with the name Mickelwhite in a Cockney slum, while I was born Daniel Cohen in Indianapolis in the year 1948. In my own opinion, the idea of the name change, which took place when I was less than a year old, was a consequence of the fact that persons with Jewish surnames were often discriminated against, particularly in the army during the Second World War. While my family kept its Jewish identification and practice, our new name was not so readily recognized as Jewish. *
[*My parents would disagree, claiming that there were too many "Jack Cohens" in the phone book, and the name change was a consequence of the potential confusion.]
Cohen, of course, is a Hebraism indicating descent from the priestly caste, Kohanim, of biblical times (Kaganoff 24), and so common a name among European Jews would seem to simplify the search of my genealogy. The matter of my father's name, however, does not rest there. While he was born Jacob Cohen in 1916 in Lafayette, Indiana, his own father did not adopt the name Cohen until he arrived in the United States. Harry Korchak (1875-1927), my [paternal grandfather, like so many other American immigrants, changed his surname at Ellis Island. In Harry's case, so the story runs, the decision was urged by his cousin, also just off the boat, who insisted, "You're an American now. You should take an American name-- like Cohen!"
Korchak, according to Kaganoff (166-7), derives "Either from the Ukrainian word "eagle"... or from Korczak, which in Polish is 'wine glass.' This may indicate a sign on a tavern or roadside inn and the name was assumed by its owner." To confuse matters even more, it seems my father was once told by a Polish acquaintance that the name meant "rooster."
Part of the problem in pinning down the name is rooted in the frequent shifting of the Polish-Ukrainian border in modern history. Harry Korchak came to America with his wife and first four children from Klevan, a Polish village in the state of Rovno (The atlases I have at hand unfortunately do not list Klevan at all, but Rovno, since World War II appears on the map as a town in Ukraine, about eighty miles east of the Polish border.) Also from Klevan was Harry's wife Dora Krushen (1877-1946), after whom I received my first name, according to our family custom of naming children in memory of the departed. Interestingly, for the derivation, presumably German, of Krushen Jones offers Kraus, Krauss, Krause, Krauser, Kruse, Krusen, and Krosor as variants of a root meaning "curly-haired."
Kaganoff (24) explains further that "a popular belief that both curly-headed people and kohanim are quick-tempered has mad Kraushaar (curly-haired) a name for those of priestly descent." Thus, by a rather odd route, we seem to have arrived at Cohen, after all, albeit not strictly along the paternal line.
My mother, Mollie Litvak, was born in 1921 in Indianapolis, the second of three children born to Louis and Bertha Litvak. Litwa means Lithuania in Russian and Polish. "This has given us the names Litwack, Littauer, Litwin, Littman, Litant, all of which mean 'a Jew from Lithuania'" (Kaganoff (1720. Although Louis and Bertha met only after they had both arrived in America, they came from nearby towns in Ukraine. Bertha (1896-1974) grew up in Zitomir, a small city about eighty miles west of Kiev, while Louis set out from Svera, a nearby village.
My grandmother's name Bertha was an anglicized form of Borucha, which means "prayer" in both Yiddish and Hebrew. Here parents were Abram Smyrtenko (d. 1898) and Molly Zeldman (1852-?). Of Smyrtenko, little is known, except that the name retains a typical Ukrainian ending. Smyrtenko was rendered Smith by the immigration authorities at Ellis Island. The name Zeldman derives from slide, the German word for silk. "Zeidner, Seidner, Zeideman, Seidman, are all associated with the occupation of silk merchant" (Kaganoff 209)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jones, George F. German-American Names. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1990.
Kaganoff, Benzion C. A Dictionary of Jewish Names and Their History. New York, 1977.
Title refers to the pianist's return to public performance after two years being sidelined by chronic fatigue syndrome. live recording for a concert at New Jersey Cultural Center (?) in 1998, but not released until 2010 on CD.
SIDEMEN: Gary Peacock, bass; Jack DeJohnnette, drums.
a superior performance overall, my reintroduction to Jarrett, et al.
No Jarrett originals in the set. Of the twelve selections, six are popular standards; some of the rest-- e.g., "Scrapple from the Apple" "Doxy," or "Bouncin' with Bud"-- could be called "jazz standards." Along with these come compositions new to my ears from Paul Desmond, Noel Coward, and John Coltrane.
Opening track, "The Masquerade Is Over" (Herb Magidson, Allie Wrubel) is a relatively-unknown tune that should be performed more often. At over fifteen minutes, it is the longest track on the program. A long, unaccompanied piano solo leads off; at about two and a half minutes, bass and drums join in and kick up the tempo. The group recalls some of the great Bill Evans trios.
Jarrett is one of those pianists who "sing" off-mic to his own accompaniment.
Coward's "I'll See You Again" is taken at a swinging waltz tempo.
"Doxy" struts with aplomb, magnificent ensemble parts.
... [T]hey say it is the fatal destiny of that land, that no purposes whatsoever which are meant for her good will prosper or take good effect; which, whether it proceed from the very genius of the soil, or influence of the stars, or that Almighty God hath not yet appointed the time of her reformation, or that He reserveth her in the unquiet state still for some secret scourge, which shall by her come unto England, it is hard to be known, but yet much to be feared. 11
Historian Cyril Falls rightly emphasizes the qualitative disparity between the societies of England and Ireland in the sixteenth century, maintaining that there was "scarcely a point of contact" between them.12 Irish society at the time ranged from herdsmen in the remote "desert" interior of the country, through Irish freeholders and a few, generally hibernicized, Englishmen settled upon confiscated Irish estates, to the residents of the English Pale of villages and towns in garrisoned districts. The citizens of Dublin, in contrast to the great majority of the Irish, were greatly dependent on the English Crown, and the English-Irish nobility there were loyal to English law.
Spenser's commentary on the Irish countryside serves to illustrate Falls's observation on the sharp division between English and native Irish culture, for it proceeds entirely from the point of view of a Renaissance entrepreneur:
And sure it is yet a most beautiful and sweet country as any under heaven, being stored throughout with many goodly rivers, replenished with all sorts of fish most abundantly, sprinkled with many very sweet islands and goodly lakes, like little inland seas, that will carry even ships upon their waters, adorned with goodly woods, even fit for building of houses and ships, so commodiously, as that, if some princes in the world had them, they would soon hope to be lords of all the seas, and ere long of all the world. Also full of very good ports and havens opening upon England, as inviting us to come unto them, to see what excellent commodities that country can afford; besides the soil itself, most fertile, fit to yield all kind of fruit that shall be committed thereunto. 13
It may come somewhat of a surprise to find the father of English pastoral measuring the rural landscape in terms of its naked cash value, but the most consistent pattern of A Viewof the Present State of Ireland is to counterpose to the Irish pastoral economy the prospect of economic development and transformation to an English farm and mercantile system. Throughout his treatise, Spenser sets the English planter against the Irish herdsman and employs negative pastoral imagery for an explicitly anti-pastoral purpose, a point of view typical of the English generally and in the aspiring Spenser particularly. His argument contains a very learned (if sometimes mistaken) account of Irish legend, etymology, and history, but everything is set forth under the rubric of a Providential mingling of heathen and Christian nations.
The Irish revolt of Elizabethan times originated in the remote mountain wilderness areas of Munster, Connaught, Ulster, and the potions of Leinster that lay beyond the English Pale. The Norman Conquest had laid the basis of common law in both England and Ireland; its success in England had been due to the willingness of the English to accept authority under force of arms. But the Irish, "being a people very stubborn and untamed-- or if it were ever tamed, yet now lately having quite shaken off their yoke and broken the bonds of their obedience," were never "made to learn obedience unto laws, scarcely to know the name of law, but instead thereof have always preserved and kept their own law, which is the Brehon law..." 14
The English disliked and despised the native Irish law of the Brehons as much as they understood it," Falls elaborates. Brehon law was both civil and criminal. "The remarkable feature of the criminal side is that it was law virtually without sanctions, since there existed no machinery to enforce the decisions." Its civil aspect was mostly concerned with matters of succession and tenure. As " remarkably pure Aryan law, untouched by Roman," Brehon law was foredoomed by the Norman invasion, although traces of it would survive into the reign of James I. 15
A particular stumbling block to the English colonial administration, according to Spenser, was the fact that many Irish did not recognize the laws of primogeniture, the very keystone of the English patriarchal system but only one of several modes of inheritance prevalent in Ireland. The Irish tanist laws, for instance, directed inheritance to "not the eldest son, nor any of the children of the lord deceased, but the next to him of blood, that is the eldest and worthiest." 16Spenser mocks taints ceremony as superstitious barbarism.
That the English, "at first as stout and warlike a people as ever the Irish... are now brought unto that civility, that no nation in the world excelleth them in all goodly conversation and all the studies of knowledge and humanity." 17 Spenser ascribes to the "the continual presence of their king" as a symbol of national unity, unlike the Irish, whom "no laws, no penalties, can restrain, but that they do, in the violence of that fury, tread down and trample under foot all, both divine and human, things, and the laws themselves they do specially rage at and rend in pieces, as most repugnant to their liberty and natural freedom, which in their madness they effect." 18
The life of the kern and gallowglas represents "the most barbarous and loathly conditions of any people, I think, under heaven... [They] oppress all men; they spoil as well the subject as the enemy; they steal, they are cruel and bloody, full common ravishers of women, and murderers of children." 19 The conflict between the barbarism of Ireland and the "civility" of England is often expressed in images of animals. "But what boots it to break a colt and to let him straight run loose at random?"
So were these people at first well handled, and wisely brought to acknowledge allegiance to the kings of England. But being straight left unto themselves and their own inordinate life and manners, they eftsoons forgot what before they were taught, and so soon as they were out of sight, by themselves shook off their bridles and began to colt anew, more licentiously than before. 20
With only a rudimentary level of tillage, sixteenth-century Ireland's principal source of wealth and major spoils of war derived from herding. In addition to cattle, there were also great herds of brood mares, swine, and goats, and sheep were plentiful in some districts. From their wild animal nature, it is but a short step for Spenser to condemn the entire range of Irish pastoral life, "to keep their cattle and to live themselves the most part of the year in boolies, pasturing upon the mountain and waste wild places, and removing still to fresh land as they have departures the former..., driving their cattle continually with them and feeding only on their milk and white meats."21 Spenser here refers to the Irish herdsman in Tyrone, living in "creet" communities and moving with their cattle from one pasture to another. The basic social unit of Irish herdsmen, the creaght, consisted of nomadic communities of cowherds and their families living in temporary sod and branch huts. Such a system provided military advantages to the Irish lords at war with the English, as Spenser was well aware. "Any outlaws or loose people," he complains, "are evermore succoured and find relief only in these boolies... whereas else they should be driven shortly to starve, or to come down to the towns to seek relief, where by one means or other they should soon be caught." 23 Equally obnoxious is the herdsman's customary wearing of a mantle and glib, a long lock of hair often used for purposes of disguise. In Spenser's reckoning, the glib is "a fit house for an outlaw, a meet bed for a rebel, and an apt cloak for a thief" and the mantle for women "a coverlet for her lewd exercise; and when she hath filled her vessel, under it she can hide both her burden and her blame." 24
From these and scores of other abuses in pastoral society, the English imperative at all times is to establish the husbandry of the plough over that of the herd, "for this keeping of cows is of itself a very idle life and a fit nursery for a thief." It is therefore "expedient to abridge their great custom of herding and augment their tillage and husbandry... for look into all countries that live in such sort by keeping of cattle and you shall find that they are both barbarous and uncivil, and also greatly given to war." 25 Prerequisite to the English objective of "civil society," the building of roads, bridges, forts, and fencing, and the establishment of secure market towns in the Irish interior, is the utter destruction of the pastoral economy and society.
As part of his purpose to deny such "customs of the Irish as seem offensive and repugnant to the good government of the realm," 26 Spenser launches a "scientific" attack on their primitive folk-belief. He refutes the basis in antiquity of Irish Gathelus mythology (viz. Gadelus, Gaedhal, whose Scythian father became son-in-law of the Pharaoh of Exodus. Named "lover of learning," Gaedhal founded the Irish tribe of Gaedels, or Gaels). 27 As if to frustrate the scientific historian, the obscurity of Irish origins is compounded by distortions by "bare traditions of time and remembrances of bards, which used to forge and falsify everything they list, to please or displease any man." 28
Spenser deems Irish verse to savor "of sweet wit and good invention, but skilled not of the goodly ornaments of poetry; yet were they sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their natural device which gave good grace and comeliness unto them."29 His main complaint is that the Irish bard's gifts are abused, an objection very much in keeping with the Puritan drift of Spenser's general argument that Ireland's vice is the perversion of English virtue. He pours contempt upon the bard, "whose profession is to set forth the praises or dispraises of men in their poems or rhymes; the which are had in so high regard and estimation amongst [the Irish], that none dare displease them for fear to run into reproach through their offence, and to be made infamous in the mouths of all men. For their verses are taken up with a general applause, and usually sung at all feasts and meetings."30
Sir Philip Sidney
This seems to be the very reasoning for the perfection of society expressed by Sidney in his Defense of Poesy, but Spenser explains that "these Irish bards are for the most part of another mind." Instead of worthy heroes, they celebrate "whomsoever the find to be the most licentious of life, most bold and lawless in his doing, most dangerous and desperate in all parts of disobedience and rebellious disposition... 31 The verse if the bard celebrating the legendary exploits of famous cattle-raiders causes the Irish youth to "waxeth most insolvent and half-mad for the love of himself and his own lewd deeds":
And as for words to set forth such lewdness, it is not hard for them to give a goodly and painted show thereunto, borrowed even from the praises which are proper to virtue itself. As of a most notorious thief and wicked outlaw... one of the bards in his praise will say that he was none of the idle milksops that was brought up by the fireside, but that most of his days he spent in arms and valiant enterprises; that he did never eat his meat before he had won it with his sword; that he lay not all night slugging in a cabin under his mantle, but used commonly to keep others waking to defend their lives; and did light his candle at the flames of their houses to lead him in the darkness; that the day was his night, and the night his day; that he loved not to be long wooing of wenches to yield to him, but where he came he took by force the spoil of other men's love, and left but lamentation to their loverss; that his music was not the harp or lays of love, but the cries of people and clashing of armour; and finally, that he died not bewailed of many, but made many wail when he died that dearly bought his death. 32
For Spenser, the Irish question, originally posed in terms of legal reform, finally emerges as the imperative to uproot the pastoral mode of existence and all its contemporary forms of expression. The Norman laws, he notes, took effect only among English settlers on estates abandoned by Irish early in the fourteenth century, and the Irish returned as vassals to Englishmen, whose own "will and commandment' became law to the Irish. 33 The Irish, however, turned from base humility to rebelliousness when the Wars of the Roses monopolized the resources of the English nobility during the following century. With the cessation of English civil strife and the establishment of a stable and vigorous national government, the opportunity was now at hand for the long-desired transformation of Ireland. The note of modernity in Spenser's prescription rings ominous and distinct: "When they are weary of wars and brought down to extreme wretchedness, then they creep a little perhaps, and sue for grace, till they have gotten new breath and recovered their strength again. So as it is in vain to speak of planting laws and plotting policy till they be altogether subdued." 34
IV.
Evil people, by good ordinances and government, may be made good, but the evil that is of evil itself will never become good. 35
There were two thousand English troops in Ireland at the time of Desmond's rebellion in the early 1580s. By the height of Tyrone's rebellion in the late 1590s, that number had swollen to fifteen thousand, and much of the countryside from Munster to Ulster had been largely depopulated, as Spenser himself bore witness:
notwithstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle,... yet ere one year and a half they were brought to such wretchedness as that any stony heart would have rued the same. Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they looked like anatomies of death; the spake like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find them; yea, and one another soon after, insomuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and, if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue there withal; that in short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man and beast. 36
One way to measure the historical distance between England and Ireland is by their contrasting modes of war narrative. To the Irish bards and chroniclers, wars were the occasion for the derring-do of individual champions and heroes. For the English, including Spenser, war was now a matter for the application of military science, theories to be buttressed by transport, logistics, and economics. From the start Spenser argues that a scorched-earth policy, had one been implemented even under Henry VIII, would have prevented the present Irish problem. 37 In the end, he insists upon the impossibility of a peaceful solution in Ireland, "for all these evils must first be cut away by a strong hand before any good can be planted." 38 He envisions the deployment of "such an army that should tread down all that stander before them on foot, and lay on the ground all the stiff-necked people of that land." 39
Spenser's plan calls for the mobilization of ten thousand infantry and one t thousand cavalry for a period of a year and a half, divided into garrisons strategically placed, the bulk of which are to be sent against Tyrone's strongholds in Ulster, with the strategy of restricting the enemy's creaght and starving him into submission, ideally during winter. After the end of a twenty-day ultimatum, the English war machine-- infantry, cavalry, and artillery-- would be unleashed.
To follow the Irish surrender, Spenser appends a detailed plan for a Pax Britannica, 40 a garrison state of 6000 troops to remain as a permanent force in Ireland. The plan provides general amnesty to civilians, with the Ulster rebels reduced to tenants on English estates. The administrative center would be moved from Dublin to Athy in the interior, while an influx of English and loyal Irish freeholders would remodel the Irish nobility by creating baronets and maintaining a pro-English majority in the Irish House of Lords, at the same time breaking the loyalty of the Irish commonality toward the old nobility. The regime would be supported by tithing the population. Spenser would disperse concentrations of native Irish among the English settlers and redivide the land according to the English system of wards and shires under the political control of a Lord President and council. Rather than continuing the long-standing policy of maintaining a "segregated" Pale, Spenser would increasingly mix the English with the Irish, with the aim of eventually anglicizing the country.
Spenser here reconstructs Ireland as utopia, uniting English and Irish, "to bring them to be one people and to put away the dislikeful conceit both of the one and the other." At the top of his social pyramid he places a platonic order of men of "special assurance," under the overall guidance of English aldermen 'of special regard, that may be a stay and pillar of all the borough under him." 41 At the base, he w ould appoint all non-freeholders "a certain trade of life, to which he shall find himself fittest and thought ablest, the which trade he shall be found to follow and live only thereupon," 42 Three social classes are to be established, what Spenser calls "manual trades" (peasantry), "mixed trades" (merchants), and intellectual trades" (nobility and gentry). All three classes are necessary, "but the realm of Ireland wanted the most principal of them, that is the intellectual: therefore in seeking to reform her state it is specially to be looked into."
ruins of Kilcolman Castle
Spenser, significantly, would revive
that old statute which was made in the reign of Edward the Fourth in England, by which it was commanded, that whereas all men then used to be called by the name of their septs, according to the several nations, and had no surnames at all, that from thenceforth each one should take upon himself a several surname, either of his trade and faculty, or of some quality of his body or mind, or of the place where he dwelt... And wherewithal would I also wish all of the O's and the Macs, which the head of septs have taken to their names, to be utterly forbidden and extinguished. 43
In short, Spenser would utterly destroy the old Irish nation and substitute a kingdom of reformed Englishmen. The political reform would begin with the viceroyalty itself. Spenser would retain the offices of Lord Deputy and Lord Justice, but the head of government, with absolute power and authority, should be "a Lord Lieutenant of some of the greatest personages in England." In an obvious reference to the popular Earl of Essex, he continues, "Such a one I could name, upon whom the eye of all England is fixed and our last hopes now rest." 44 Spenser's own last hopes for preferment were centered upon Essex, but again without result. Essex received just that appointment, but delayed until the end of 1598, by which time Spenser's fortunes in Ireland were in ruins.
A View directs its heaviest artillery against the administrations succeeding Lord Grey's, particularly the viceroyalties of Sir John Perrot (1584) and Sir William Fitzwilliam (1588). Spenser recalls the calumny of Lord Grey and insists that the lenient policies of Grey's successors had disrupted a strategy that would have brought the Irish rebellion to an end. He reserves his greatest scorn for the "degenerate" Englishmen in Ireland who have betrayed the civilizing mission of England.
"The chiefest abuses which are now in that realm are grown from the English," writes Spenser, "more lawless and licentious than the very wild Irish," especially in areas beyond the "reasonable civility" of the English Pale. The chief culprits are the English lords who combined with the Irish against the Crown to become "uncivil," "uncouth," and "strange," who speak the Irish language, intermarry with Irish women, and whose children are fostered by Irish culture. "The mind followers much the temperature of the body, and also the words are the image of the mind; so as they proceeding from the mind, the mind must needs be affected with the words; so that, the speech being Irish, the heart must needs be Irish..." 45
"And is it possible that an Englishman, brought up in such sweet civility as England affords, should find such liking in that barbarous rudeness that he should forget his own nature and forego his own nation?" Spenser asks. The state of Ireland, he concludes, has been undermined by English colonists who are "degenerated and grown mere Irish; yea, and more malicious to the English than the Irish themselves."46 He cites the evils of "rake-hell horse boys" ("only fit for the halter"), itinerant gamblers, jesters, ("notable rogues, and partakers not only of many stealths... but also privy to many traitorous practices and common carriers of news"): In short, "all this rabblement of runagates"47 c erupted by the laxity of colonial administration. Spenser demands an end to the private quartering of English troops in the countryside, with authority to confiscate foodstuffs and practice extortion upon the local peasantry, leading to a justifiable hatred of the royal soldiery. He condemns as well the English landlords' super exploitation of Irish peasantry via short-term tenancies and the institutions of coigny and livery, all of which served to shatter the peasant's loyalty to the system and made of him a poor subject.
In the words of a twentieth-century Irish rebel, James Connolly, the Irish peasant by the nineteenth century had been "reduced from the position of a free clansman owning his tribelands and controlling its administration in common with his fellows" to "a mere tenant-at-will subject to eviction, dishonour and outrage at the hands of an irresponsible private proprietor. Politically he was non-existent, legally he held no rights, intellectually he sank under the weight of his social abasement, and surrendered to the downward drag of his poverty. He had been conquered, and he suffered all the terrible consequences of defeat at the hands of a ruling class and nation who have always acted upon the old Roman maxim of 'Woe to the vanquished'... The seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries were, indeed, Via Dolorosa of the Irish race."48
In 1597 Spenser returned once more to Ireland, where he was appointed sheriff of Cork on September 30, 1598. October brought the onset of Tyrone's Munster uprisings, the burning of Kilcolman Castle, and the financial ruin of Spenser. On December 9 he was dispatched from Cork to London, where he died on January 16, 1599, bearing a proposal similar in content to A View. He is of course best remembered for his antique verse of knights errant and plaintive shepherds, but, in spite of the failure of his vision, he might be thought a significant voice of political modernity and an unrecognized prophet as well.
FOOTNOTES
1. This essay was the recipient of the Anne Hopewell Selby Award, given by the English department of the University of Illinois at Chicago.
2. See Annabel Patterson, Censorship and Interpretation: The Conditions of Writing and Reading in Early Modern England (Madison: U of Wisconsin Press, 1984), pp. 44, 47.
3. Edmund Spenser, A View of the Present State of Ireland, under Elizabeth and James the First, ed. Henry Morley (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1890), pp. 144-5.
4. Ibid, p. 101.
5. The issue of Spenser's presence at the Smerwick massacre is discussed in Rudolf Brand Gottfried, "A View of the Present State of Ireland by Edmund Spenser: The Text of the Bodleian MS Rawlinson B 478, Edited with and Introduction and Notes.; [Volume I: Text]" (Ph. D. dissertation, Yale University, 1935), Dissertation Abstracts International 49 (1989), p. 1089A.
6. Spenser, op. cit., p. 147.
7. Renaissance Self-Fashioning from More to Shakespeare (Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 185.
8.Ibid., p. 186.
9. Outstanding applications of "new historicist" principles to topics touched upon here can be found in Louis Adrian Montrose, "'Eliza, Queene of shepherd's,' and the Pastoral of Power," English Literary Renaissance 10 (1980), pp. 153-82; "Interpreting Spenser's February Eclogue: Some Contexts and Implications," Spenser Studies 2 (1981), pp. 67-73; and "Of Gentlemen and
10. David L. Miller, "Spenser's Vocation, Spenser's Career," ELH 50 (1983), p. 216.
11. Spenser, op. cit., pp. 54-5.
12.Elizabeth's Irish Wars (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1950), p. 17.
13. Spenser, op. cit., pp. 54-5.
14. Ibid., pp. 38-9.
15. Falls, op. cit., p. 31.
16. Spenser, op. cit., p. 42.
17.Ibid., p. 47.
18. Ibid., pp. 47-8.
19.Ibid., p. 110.
20. Ibid., p. 41.
21.Ibid., p. 87.
22. See Falls, op. cit., p. 32.
23. Spenser, op. cit., p. 87.
24.Ibid., pp. 89-90.
25.Ibid., pp. 198-9.
26. Ibid., p. 74.
27. Ibid., p. 76.
28.Ibid., p. 78.
29.Ibid., p. 114.
30. Ibid., p. 111.
31. Ibid., p. 113.
32. Ibid., pp. 113-14.
33. Ibid., p. 49.
34. Ibid., p. 48.
35. Ibid., p. 134.
36. Ibid., pp. 143-4.
37. Ibid., p. 45.
38. Ibid., p. 134.
39. Ibid., p. 135.
40. Ibid., pp. 161 ff.
41. Ibid., pp. 193-4.
42. Ibid., p. 197.
43.Ibid., p. 196.
44. Ibid., p. 209.
45. Ibid., p. 106.
46. Ibid., pp. 85-6.
47. Ibid., p. 116.
48. Labour in Irish History (Dublin: New Books Publications, 1971), pp. xxvii-xxix.
Feldman vibes, with Frank Rosolino, tb; Harold Land, ts; Carl Perkins, p; Leroy Vinnegar, b; Stan Levey, d.
This band is a tight sextet that seems to have had much experience playing together. Feldman himself contributes four tunes: "Fidelius," a punchy blues line on which Perkins plays particularly well; "Bass Reflex," a cleverly constructed AABA chart on which piano and drums contribute during the vibists rests in the melody; "Wilbert's Tune," showing Land to special advantage; and "Evening in Paris," a medium uptempo AABA with a Latin groove.
Among the standards remaining is "Sweet and Lovely," in which Feldman alone solos, his vibes' echoes contributing to a gauzy haze of love. It should be noted that, contrary to the credits given, "Squeeze Me" is not the well-known tune by Fats Waller, but rather "Just Squeeze Me" by Duke Ellington, in a relaxed, swinging performance with a clever solo by the leader.
Don Cherry, Complete Communion (Blue Note, 1965)
Cherry, pocket tp, with Gato Barbieri, ts; Henry Grimes, b; Ed Blackwell, d.
This is an album of particular significance to me, as it was among the first jazz LPs I ever owned, thanks to the recommendation of Aaron Leve 'way back when. Each side of the album contains a suite, "Complete Communion" on Side One and "Elephantasy" on Side Two, in which melodic motifs appear to spark a truly free series of improvisations, finally resolving to the original melodies.
The bassist, Henry Grimes, took a thirty-year hiatus from music post-1970, returning to performance in 2002. I was sad to learn he died earlier this year of the COVID-19 virus.
Zoot Sims, The Rare Albums Collection (Enlightenment, 1953-1963)
Harold Land, The Early Albums (Enlightenment, 1953-19??)
Another fine four-disc collection on the Enlightenment label. Among the eight albums represented, my favorites are as follows:
The Enlightenment set includes only part of the jam session recorded on August 14, 1954; the remainder was issued on Dinah Jams. My collection includes a two-CD compilation which runs a little over an hour and a half. The entire set seems to be a live performance done in a studio, with a small audience in attendance.
It's odd to include this material on a Harold Land collection. Besides Dinah Washington, the main attractions here are the three trumpeters, Clifford Brown, Clark Terry, and Maynard Ferguson. In tow with Brown is the entirety of the famed quintet of Max Roach, Richie Powell, George Morrow, and Land himself. But even in a supporting role, Land manages to perform a lovely, breathy chorus in the manner of Ben Webster on ??? before Dinah takes over.
On the medley at the beginning of the session, pianist Junior Mance distinguishes himself on the first chorus of "My Funny Valentine," spoofing the song. in good humor. At the first chorus of the second medley, Land, the only soloist, shines on "Alone Together," as he does after the vocal on "Crazy, He Calls Me."
Most of the Beach Boys' bootleg material I amassed in the 1980s came in the form of tape cassettes other collectors shared with me through the mail, including this one, which my brother kindly sent to me. Upon receiving it, I was flabbergasted: Who knew such wonderful material had languished in the vaults of Brother Records for so long? Later I came to realize that the source of all this was a bootlegged vinyl LP Landlocked, supposedly the projected title of the group's second release for Warner/ Reprise before the title was changed to Surf's Up, which included the song of the same name.
As it happened, not much of the original album lineup made it to the album that finally came out, both tunes featuringAl Jardine's tunes, "Take a Load Off Your Feet" and "Lookin' at Tomorrow." Another Jardine song, "Susie Cincinnati," had already appeared as the B side of the group's first Warner (or, rather, Brother/ Reprise, their new custom label) single"Add Some Music to Your Day" in 1970, while "Good Time" would eventually appear in 1977 on The Beach Boys Love You. Mike Love's "Big Sur" was released in altered form on Holland in 1973. "Lady" (aka "Fallin' in Love") had appeared earlier on Dennis Wilson's UK-only single, as the B side of "Sound of Free." Finally, "When Girls Get Together," an oddly arranged speculation about what the female sex talks about among themselves, finally came out in 1980'sKeepin' the Summer Alive. Other than these, all the material on Landlocked was "fresh" to the public.
The particular album version I possess includes some additional material used to fill out the record, the foremost being a gorgeously-assembled three-part recapitulation of "'Til I Die."
A good deal of this heretofore unreleased material is of immense interest. "Loop de Loop," replete with airplane sound-effects, originated in 1969 as a song from a planned Jardine solo album. "San Miguel,"which eventually appeared on the Ten Years of Harmony compilation ten years later, was co-written by Dennis Wilson and Greg Jakobson. "HELPIs On the Way," penned by Brian Wilson, paid homage to a health-food restaurant in LA, while "Carnival" was a familiar ditty sometimes known as "Over the Waves." Of special appeal is "I Just Got My Pay," for its intricate chord progression on the chorus, similar to one used on the unreleased "All Dressed Up for School" back in 1964.
Landlock's "'Til I Die"
The Beach Boys, Adult/Child ("Brother" bootleg, 1976)
I did manage to snag this LP, which was comprised of tunes that didn't make the cut for The Beach Boys Love You, recorded in 1976 and '77; under the circumstances, this was not the best of times for Brian Wilson: it marked the beginning of the entry of Eugene Landy into Wilson's life.
As on Love You, the songs here featured the extensive use of synthesizers. Four of them included orchestral arrangements written by Dick Reynolds, the The Four Freshmen's perennial collaborator who had contributed to The Beach Boys' Christmas Album in 1964. Reynolds's work on the ballads "It's Over Now" (a poignant duet featuring Carl Wilson and Brian's wife Marilyn) and "Still I Dream of It" is particularly noteworthy. In addition, Reynolds arranged the jazzy track for "Life Is for the Living" and the standard, "Deep Purple.""Hey, Little Tomboy" reappeared on the group's M.I.U. Album in 1978, blessedly shorn of such embarrassing lines as "Now shave your legs for the first time!" HELP is on the Way, for unknown reasons, was resurrected from the Landlocked sessions and included here. Other tracks included such worthy efforts as "Everybody Wants to Live," "Lines," the rock and roll classic "On Broadway," "Games Two Can Play" (inspired by the hit song, "Games People Play"), and "It's Trying to Say" (aka "Baseball") with Dennis's gruff vocal. But perhaps my favorite of all is Brian's take on the time-old "Shortenin' Bread," with Carl's exuberant vocal on the verses.
As on the bootleg Landlocked, my recording of Adult/ Child adds to the original line-up several additional tunes, the best being a killer version of "Calendar Girl."
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-10980300-1507587955-3310.jpeg.jpg)
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2133482-1343184756-9314.jpeg.jpg)
![Art Blakey and the "Jazz Messengers": Live [ LP Vinyl ] - Amazon.com Music](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51QjUh1hTyL.jpg)
