Milestones and Landmarks - A Few Reflections

I have fought a good fight,

I have finished my course,

I have kept the faith

(II Timothy 4:7, Douay-Rheims version)

Finishing a race, or coming through a struggle, doesn't mean that you have permanent retirement.  As a matter of fact, the success with which one finishes the last race or overcomes the last fight prepares and sets up one for the next race or battle.  In this life, there is a constant journey, which at times is like walking, but can also be a race in itself in which one's future depends on the successful completion of the race itself.  This is where I have been at the past couple of months.  2018 opened up with one of the most intense courses of my life, as I embarked upon finishing up a long-overdue Master's degree by preparing for my comprehensive exams in my program, which I took at the end of January.  Although most of the results of that test have come in, I am still waiting for the entire grade on the exam, which then determines if I will be awarded the degree.  It is not as ominous as it sounds, being I actually knew my material better than I thought, so I don't anticipate a problem.  But, sometimes the "waiting game" is the most difficult course to tackle, and that is where I am at as I write this today.  But, I had the idea of a good devotional, which also comes at a good time in the Church calendar as well, being Lent starts tomorrow - Lent too is a race to run for all of us, especially faithful Catholics, in that it pushes us to grow in our own spirituality.  The arrival of Lent and the completion of my comprehensive exams correspond also to another landmark in my life - 32 years ago this past Friday, I was baptized.  All of this together is a reminder to me personally of both how far I have come on my journey of faith, and how much I still have to travel.  And, so it is with all our lives. 

Back a few weeks ago, as I was preparing to take my exams, I had an unusual dream one night.  In it, I was in what looked like a dormitory of some sort, and a teacher I remembered from high school was sort of watching over all of us in it.  I was instructed to first partake of a light meal - a nourishing soup of some nature and a blood orange - and then was told I needed to rest, and therefore I was to lay in a small cot and just rest.  It was in this dream I was also anticipating the same bit of anxiety that I was feeling over my upcoming exams, and there was a message in the dream that spoke to me and has stuck with me.  The following Scripture sums it up:

In peace I will lay down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety

(Psalm 4:8)

The message God was trying to send me in that dream, at least I believe, was that He was telling me that all is going to be fine because He is in control of things, and now I need to just rest.  In combining it with the earlier Scripture, a clear message appears - by taking the effort to fight the good faith and prevailing, one needs to rest and enjoy the overcoming they have achieved, and also be assured that God is granting rest from a fight that was well-fought.  Taking these exams was a race, a struggle, for me, and as such it was something I have done with all my strength and God has seen it.  Now, He is telling me to rest.  I still have a little anxiety about the final numbers when they come in, and the wait can be excruciating, but I also know that I have got this.  More importantly, God has this.  A milestone, in other words, will soon be a landmark, and let me explain that further.

The purpose of a landmark is to commemorate something, while a milestone is an achievement.  Milestones are reached, while landmarks are established.  They can have the same meaning, but there is also an important difference.  A landmark sets a sort of standard for one thing - it is something we commemorate by going back to on occasion, and it stands as a monument to achieving a victory over something. A milestone, in other words, is an achievement that is based on an established set of goals.  A milestone is reached when the goal is achieved, or a step toward the goal is achieved.  To turn a milestone into a landmark, the path of the goal must be completed - the completed goal then becomes a landmark with many milestones leading to it.  Getting an advanced degree in school in essence qualifies as both - it takes a number of milestones to achieve the goal of a graduate degree, and those milestones include other degrees earned, what is learned, etc.  The accomplishment then becomes a landmark as it then is permanent and becomes a point of reference in one's legacy.  Landmarks are also identified by tangible symbols - a diploma, the hood that a person with a Master's or a doctorate earns, and the letters that can now be carried as a suffix to one's name.  Milestones are identified by other things - the grade transcript, the test scores, etc.  Those are milestones toward a greater objective.  Like an academic achievement, the Christian life is characterized by similar things.

Milestones of the Christian life are the Sacraments, but the identification of one as a Christian is embodied in a landmark - the Cross of Christ.  All of the Sacraments lead to the ultimate Landmark, the Lord Jesus Christ, and everything we believe, practice, and profess points to Him, as the late Josef Jungmann affirmed with the imagery of Jesus as the hub of a wheel in his seminal 1936 text The Good News and the Proclamation of Our Faith.  Jungmann notes that the doctrines of the faith radiate from the hub - Jesus - like spokes from a wheel, and in the same way the spokes extend from the hub, they also lead one back to the hub as well.  Jesus's by the Apostle St. Paul as the "Chief Cornerstone" in Ephesians 2:20 is a way of saying Jesus is that ultimate Landmark of our faith.  He is the source of our faith, and He is also its destination.  This is why all we believe, teach, and proclaim must always point back to Christ, and that is something I learned very thoroughly in four years of intense study at Steubenville.  Lent serves to remind us of that too - it shows us that we need to put aside those distractions and use this time to focus on our walk with Christ, thus placing Him back at the center of our faith.  The sacrifice of abstinence and fasting during Lent then serve as milestones leading us to the Landmark, the Chief Cornerstone, Jesus Christ. 

Sometimes though it is important between the trek between two of these milestones to just rest.  The Christian life is one that has at its core a struggle - it is the struggle of our will, the influences of a godless society, and God's will, and Lent serves to challenge us that we are to submit our will to God's, since Christ has now made us part of the kingdom through the sacramental life of the Church.  Much like the rigorous study for an exam, Lenten abstinence and fasting serves as preparation for us to know Christ better.  Some Protestants ignorantly and perjoratively condemn Lenten observance as being somehow a carryover from some imagined pagan ritual or something, but their accusations are baseless and devoid of common sense when they fail to realize that we all should strive toward closer communion with the Savior we claim to follow.  So, since my own conversion, I find it very disconcerting to hear Protestant fundamentalists bash Lent, yet they boast of their own "walks with Jesus."  It is our responsibility to pray for the ongoing conversion of the ignorant, and hopefully one day many of the people making these false accusations will understand that much of their own misconceptions are based more on anti-Catholicism than they are on actual truth.  We need to be careful of letting our own likes and dislikes color our faith, because we end up in doing so denying some very precious aspects of the Christian faith that can enrich us spiritually.

As this is the Tuesday before Lent, many of my fellow Catholics are finishing up their paczkis and pancakes, as they prepare for the Lenten season.  Let us remember though that Lent is not about giving up social media and eating fish sticks and cheese pizzas for the next few Fridays - it is about much more than that.  It is about a time of both pressing toward milestones, and for some it may be God calling them to rest - putting aside the craziness of our over-technicalized world and seeking to find Christ in the quiet place is a great rest for many of us, so we should consider Lent a time God is also calling us to rest in Him.  May we take that call seriously.

Likewise, for those of us facing other challenges, we need to remember something very important - God has this!  We have put in the hard work to get to that milestone, so now time to sit back and relax for a while.  I speak to myself as well as others, and hope too that through writing this I can even take my own advice to heart.  Hope to see you all again soon. 

The Granddaddy of the Big Band

Still continuing on this musical commentary, this week I wanted to touch on the African-American (Black) contribution to the big bands/dance bands.  The Black experience as far as the large orchestra is concerned is also intertwined with the emergence of the jazz and ragtime genres at the turn of the last century.  Looming above all this is the figure of one man, who rightly can be called a "granddaddy of the big band," and that individual is Will Marion Cook (1869-1944).  We will deal more with his legacy momentarily, but even with a figure like Will Marion Cook, there has to also be a background, and that background is in the minstrel show.

Minstrel shows were largely made up of either Black performers or of White actors and musicians who performed in "blackface," and often they reinforced the stereotype of the slow-talking, lazy, happy-go-lucky Black man from the South.  Among the earliest of these performers were Frank Johnson (1792-1844) and Joseph Postlewaite (1837-1889).  Predating Cook by many years, Johnson and Postlewaite were among a number of Black and other orchestra leaders who played society dances and minstrel shows alike, and they would be the embryonic influence of what would be called the "big band" over a century after their time.  Johnson was a prolific composer who played both the bugle and the violin, and among his compositions were The New Railroad Gallop, and in the 1830's he led a small orchestra that played in the UK ("Francis Johnson (composer) at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Johnson_(composer) - accessed 2/12/2017).   This definitely puts him as an early forerunner of both jazz and dance bands, although much of the repertoire such groups played was standard waltzes, quadrilles, and other dances of the times which primary entertained White audiences. 

Frank Johnson (1792-1844)

Joseph W. Postlewaite (1837-1889) was a much younger contemporary of Johnson, and his composition, "Concert Hall Grand Waltz" published in 1845, launched a lucrative musical career for Postlewaite as a composer, as well as leading several society parlor orchestras in the 1860's and 1870's.  Like Johnson before him, he catered to a primarily upper-crust White clientele, and his legacy would also contribute to the rise of later large dance bands in the following century ("Joseph W. Postlewaite," at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Postlewaite - accessed 2/12/2018).  

A variety of Black minstrel and dance orchestras also proliferated during the 19th century, including groups such as the Malara Minstrels (1896), the Hicks and Swiger Minstrels, the McCabe and Young Minstrels, and the Richards and Pringle Minstrels, among others.  Not much is documented as to what influence Postlewaite, Johnson, and others had on a young Black composer named Will Marion Cook, who was also a student of Czech composer Anton Dvorak.  However, as Cook was a product of his times, I would theorize that these earlier bandleaders and composers had some bearing on Cook, as again he didn't emerge from a vaccuum.  It is now the point where Will Marion Cook is to be discussed.

Will Marion Cook was born on January 27th, 1869 (just a little over a hundred years before my own birth!) as William Mercer Cook, and his father, John Hartwell Cook, was an educated Black alumnus of Charles Finney's Oberlin College who worked for the newly-organized Freedmen's Bureau, which had the task of helping to educate and integrate freed slaves into American society.  Where Cook was born was the location of what would become the "Black Harvard," Howard University, in Washington, DC.  His father was a law student at the fledgling university, and wanted his son to have a well-rounded experience, thus causing him to be sent to Tennessee to be raised with his maternal grandparents.  He later followed his father's footsteps and attended Oberlin and he studied music there from the age of 14 (Marva Griffin Carter, Swing Along: The Musical Life of Will Marion Cook. New York:  Oxford University Press, 2008. pp. 5-13).  It was in 1885, when the National Conservatory of Music was founded by wealthy socialite Jeannette Meyer Thurber on Manhattan, that Cook's legacy reached an important milestone.  Thurber managed to attract Dvorak to her new Conservatory, and also took on a number of bright Black young people, including Cook, and here he was exposed to Dvorak's influence.  It also opened doors to his Broadway debut, where his scores, notably In Dahomey, made the stage in 1903, although Cook was directing and leading orchestras long before that.  (Carter, pp. 29-35).  This is not meant to be a complete composite of Cook's life, but rather provides a background to his founding of a very important orchestra that would impact the development of jazz both in America and in Europe.  

Will Marion Cook (1869-1944)

Cook's founding of the Southern Syncopated Orchestra around the year 1919 was pivotal in introducing some major figures of jazz to the world, including Eubie Blake, James Reese Europe, Sidney Bechet, and he would later become a mentor to a young Black pianist in Washington by the name of Edward Kennedy Ellington, better known to us as Duke Ellington, who affectionately called him "Dad Cook."  The 50-piece Southern Syncopated Orchestra doesn't appear to be Cook's first venture with wielding a baton, as he had led smaller orchestras since the 1890's.  He used the influences he learned from Dvorak and others, redefining them in the American Black experience, and a uniquely American form of serious music was founded, although due to segregation at the time Cook (much like his contemporary, composer William Grant Still) never was able to achieve what he had the potential of being.  Nonetheless, his contributions to the development of both American jazz and the dance band genre cannot be underestimated, but more importantly his legacy as an American composer was only realized many years after his passing. Many big band enthusiasts overlook Cook's legacy, which is unfortunate, and that is why I wanted to include it here.  He was one of the earliest big dance bandleaders, and thus is important to the history of the dance bands for his legacy.  Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any recordings of Cook's orchestra, and indeed the only recording I am aware of that showcases Cook is a recording from around 1923 of a young Black female singer named Ethel Waters entitled "I'm Coming, Virginia," accompanied by Will Marion Cook's "Singing Orchestra," on which Cook also plays piano.  Waters of course became a legend in her own right - her devout Christianity, many years association with Rev. Billy Graham, and her classic rendition of the old spiritual "His Eye is On the Sparrow," all speak for themselves - but this record is significant because one hears Cook's own playing.  It is really tragic that Cook's great orchestra was not recorded, as that would have been something amazing for collectors.  Perhaps - one can hope for miracles! - something could still show up in Europe where maybe Cook made some obscure recordings in the early 1900's.  If so, I definitely would love to know about those.  

Cook's Southern Syncopated Orchestra in 1919 in Europe

The legacy of Will Marion Cook as well as of those who preceded him, such as Johnson and Postlewaite, shed new light and appreciation on the evolution of the big band as a musical tradition, and it shows that these roots do run deep.  It also fairly acknowledges that the Black contribution to this development is integral, but at the same time many of those Black musicians were playing music that they learned from their White contemporaries - in the case of Cook, he was directly impacted by Antonin Dvorak.  However, like any good musician does, these talented Black pioneers took something they learned from their European neighbors, and they expressed themselves through it, thus adding another ingredient to a rich multicultural stew that would become the distinctly American art form called jazz later.  As we continue this discussion, we are going to talk later about the contributions of many immigrant communities - Jews, Slavs, Italians, etc. - to this rich tapestry.  Big bands/dance bands, in other words, have a rich family tree, and like any good genealogist we need to explore the whole tree rather than focusing on a part of it and creating a division.  And, that is the whole point of my own discussion in this area.  We'll see you again soon. 

The Parlor Orchestra as Precursor to Big Bands/Dance Bands

I had mentioned in my last article that I was going to be sharing many of my own perspectives on a musical genre I have loved and have also collected extensively for almost 40 years, and that is what is commonly known as "big band" or "dance band" recordings.  In the many years that I have enjoyed, collected, and studied this great music, I have come to several conclusions, and the purpose of many of my insights here have much to do with my own conclusions.  Of course, there will be some who disagree, and they are certainly allowed to do so - I am not presenting this as scholarly discourse, but rather as personal theory based on a few things I have observed.  So, if you are one of those people who gets your knickers in a knot over things, that disclaimor is for you.  It is really sad, as a side note, that one has to post disclaimors about everything these days, due to the "entitlement" culture of "political correctness" and other such drivel, and a person is unable to have an opinion about anything unless some internet "troll" comes along, gets butthurt by it, and wants to pick fights.  And, that leads to a second disclaimer - I know there exists the chance that even the most innocuous of comments will raise the hackles of some nasty individual, and if that happens here, that person need not post their rants, as they will be censored by Yours Truly - this is not a democracy, and I am the king of this domain.  In other words, crap will get flushed.  However, if you really want to learn about theories and such, and maybe do some comparison research of your own, you are more than welcome to - I also will welcome the exchange of ideas too, and if you know of any vintage orchestras I may not have heard of (the 1890's are new territory for me) from the period I will be discussing here, I am always eager to learn about them.  Therefore, with the preliminaries out of the way, let's get started.

Thomas Alva Edison is credited with inventing the phonograph and thus launching the "recorded sound era" in 1877, although some other sources say he was not the first to invent it but rather to patent it - that debate is beyond the scope of this article though, so we won't venture into that territory.  With the dawn of recorded sound, the following decades launched a plethora of recordings of various musical genres and other things, and they would revolutionize popular entertainment for over a century.  The earliest recordings were canister-sized shellac cylinders that were played on a sort of spindle with a needle, and these were manufactured well into the 1930's even.  At the end of the 1890's, a new format called the 78 rpm record disc was introduced, and would be the primary recording medium for almost 50 years, before the vinyl 33 rpm made its debut in the late 1940's.   Sound recordings introduced to the general public a new convenience of hearing one's favorite music without the effort of attending concerts, and the convenience of hearing music in the home was something that many musical artists capitalized on, and it also created a whole new breed of performing artist.  It was particularly convenient as far as organizing social events such as dances and parties, in that a sound recording was far cheaper than hiring a group of live musicians.  And, in that day and age, a group of live musicians could be substantial, as beginning in the 18th century we have what were known as "parlor orchestras," "chamber orchestras," and "salon orchestras," and these would have a significant bearing on popular music for decades to come. 

In order to avoid confusion, for the sake of this discussion I am going to limit the terminology to "parlor orchestra," and first it is important to understand what a parlor orchestra was.  In days past, many upper-crust folks - the aristocracy in Europe, as well as well-to-do families in the US - would throw various types of soirees, and these could range from cotillion dances, debutante parties, and other affairs to small, intimate gatherings.  In many estates of such individuals, these affairs would be held in a cozy but spacious room called a "parlor," which had the sole purpose of entertaining guests.  Today, when we think of a "parlor," we often envision a small room with quaint furniture and a wet bar, and that image evolved from what the actual parlor was.  In days past, the parlor was a large room with a dance area, and also a bar of sorts as well, and there were settees and other comfortable furniture for guests to lounge and socialize while nibbling on hors d'oevres and sipping drinks.  The size of the room was also to accommodate entertainment, and often this was in the form of the parlor orchestra.  The size of a parlor orchestra varied from a trio to a 50-piece ensemble, and its purpose was to play dance music as well as light music to set the atmosphere of the soiree being celebrated.  Many of these ensembles were operated by talented musicians who also had a shrewd business sense, and they capitalized on this to create permanent ensembles to play these events.  In the 20th century, several families of dance band leaders - the Lanins, Meyer Davis, and others - would employ this same formula to create dance-band empires.  Therefore, one source of the dance band tradition does come from these intimate parlor orchestras.

It is also worth mentioning that especially in the US in the 19th century, many of these parlor orchestras were often the enterprise of immigrant communities - Jewish, Italian, German, Irish, and other communities which were noted for talented musicianship marketed that talent in lucrative ways that appealed to the rich upper-crust clientele they would in time entertain.  This meant that elements of the folk music of these immigrants - such as klezmer, polkas, the tarantella, the tango, etc. - would enter American society and be integrated into the musical tastes of the public being entertained by them.  Black musicians, as well, were often scouted out for their talents, and this led to an interesting but necessary fusion between the Black "minstrel show" and the parlor orchestra, and the evolution could be seen of that later in the rise of jazz and ragtime.  All of these elements created a rich stew that also would be why many dance bands of the "Big Band Era" had diverse charts and played a variety of musical styles - it all started here.

I want to also make another observation - much of what we now call "classical music" was also at one time the creation of parlor orchestras, and indeed there is not a large leap from the parlor to the concert hall in many instances.  One notable example in this regard is the renown Strauss family who in essence created the Viennese waltz.  The patriarch of the family, an Austrian of Jewish heritage by the name of Johann Strauss I, began that legacy at the beginning of the 19th century, to be carried on later by his sons Johann II, Josef, and Eduard.  It was Eduard's son, Johann III (1866-1939), though who would be impacted by the coming of the era of recorded sound, and the family orchestra he conducted from Vienna did record extensively up until his passing - some of those early recordings were made in the 1890's and are available on cylinder records, although the most noted of the recordings were a series of sides he made for Deutsche Grammofon in 1903 ("Johann Strauss III" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Strauss_III - accessed 2/7/2018).  This is important as it established a direct link, in my theory, between Strauss and the later dance bands - Strauss led his own orchestra, and recorded under his own name, and although classified as a type of "classical music" by many, in reality it was formal dance music (waltzes and polkas) that he recorded.  That is also why he is included here as an important forerunner of the genre

Johann Strauss III (1866-1939) in 1900

That was in Europe.  Back in the US, the parlor orchestra was a little less formal and less high-profile than the legendary Strauss dynasty in Vienna, and it is not as specifically identified with "classical music" as is Strauss's.  One of the earliest of these orchestras was an ensemble led by Edward Issler (born 1855) that began to make records in 1888.  For me, it is obvious that Issler was in essence the first early popular dance orchestra to record and also one of the first to have a permanent roster of personnel (although Art Hickman is often credited with doing that in 1913).  Issler's orchestra started out as a parlor orchestra of four musicians (a cornetist, a flutist, a violinist, and Issler himself at piano).  Later, he added more instruments - a trombonist and clarinetist as notable - and his recording career was approximately 12 years, with his last recordings being made in 1900.  All of the Issler recordings are on cylinder as well, and even after he ceased recording he was said to have performed with his group into the early 1900's ("Issler's Orchestra," at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issler%27s_Orchestra - accessed 2/7/2018).  Many of Issler's recordings can be heard at www.archive.org.  

Edward Issler (1855- 1942)

Another important musical figure and leader of a noted parlor orchestra from this period is the personage of Frank P. Banta (1870-1903).  Banta's legacy was carried on by his son, Frank E. Banta (1896-1968), who was also a ragtime piano legend.  Banta's orchestra was an outgrowth of the elder Banta's work at accompanying vocalists beginning in the early 1890's. and around the year 1893 he began an orchestra called Banta's Parlor Orchestra that recorded in the period.  Banta was also an early collaborator with famed ragtime banjoist Vess Osman during that period, and is often included on Osman's recordings as well ("Frank P. Banta and Frank E. Banta," at http://ragpiano.com/comps/fbanta.shtml - accessed 2/7/2018).  

Frank P. Banta (1870-1903)

A fourth person of mention is the orchestra of Charles Fischer (1879-1948).  Fischer was a popular musician and orchestra leader around his native Kalamazoo, MI, along with his brother Burton.  They formed their first professional orchestra in 1896 after Charles had played for years with the symphonic orchestra of Chester Bronson, and in essence Fischer bridged the era of the parlor orchestras of the earlier eras and the jazz and dance bands of the 1920's.  However, they didn't make their first recordings until 1917, at around the same time the Original Dixieland Jazz Band recorded "Livery Stable Blues," which is considered the first commercially-recorded jazz record.  Evidence suggests that the Fischer Brothers were performing well into the 1930's when they eventually went into the music publishing business.  (Information taken from "Charles L. and Burton E. Fischer," at http://www.kpl.gov/local-history/biographies/charles-and-burton-fischer.aspx - accessed 2/1/2018).  Kalamazoo seems to be, much like New Orleans, a hub for many of these early parlor orchestras, including White's Quadrille Band in the 1880's, as well as many before the era of recorded sound, including Pierce's Band, the Hull and Arnold Band, and L.L. Harris and Company, dating as far back as the 1850's - L.L. Harris was apparently an early band broker similar to the Lanins and Meyer Davis later (information from "Social Music in 19th-Century Kalamazoo," from http://www.kpl.gov/local-history/arts-entertainment/social-music.aspx - accessed 2/7/2018). 

Fischer's Orchestra in 1904

Hull-Arnold Quadrille Band, 1875

White's Band, 1880

There were also tons of other groups like these throughout the nation too at the time, notably the Peerless Orchestra and the Columbia Orchestra, among others.  And, of course, among Blacks there was the legendary Will Marion Cook, who will be the subject of a later discussion.  Also for another discussion were the dozens of ethnic orchestras - klezmer outfits, polka bands, and other such groups - that also contributed to this whole story.  All of them deserve mention, as they all contributed to the greatness of the genre many now know today as "big bands." 

The purpose of documenting these ancient parlor orchestras is now going to provide a wrap-up to my discussion.  I realize that much of what I am proposing here will probably invite disagreement from big band purists, many of whom unfortunately think the whole thing began when Benny Goodman recorded "King Porter Stomp" in 1934.  My contention though is that nothing comes out of a vacuum and that these parlor orchestras provided a foundation upon which Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and even "sweet bands" such as Lawrence Welk would rise from later.  I am also not content any longer to accept that the term "big band" was somehow linked to Fletcher Henderson's first usage of it in 1923, or Art Hickman's founding of the first permanent roster of orchestral employees ten years earlier, and although until recently I held the view that Will Marion Cook was the "grandfather" of the big bands, I cannot in good conscience say that either.  A lot of things came together, developed, and then evolved into the music many are familiar with (well, not so much with younger generations today) that inundated the airwaves in the 1920's into the early 1950's.  The music, I argue, has deep roots that even stretch back before the era of recorded sound, and evidence suggests that archetypes of the dance orchestra may have existed as early as the late 1600's.   Also, much of what is called "classical music" had its roots in these parlor orchestras as well as the genres that preceded them, and therefore that has to be taken under consideration as well.  They also seem to be regional phenomena as well, with cities such as Kalamazoo, MI; Savannah, IL; and New Orleans having prolific parlor orchestras forming and performing in the time period.  That too would bear more research and discussion as well.

As this is an informal series, I will be writing periodically about this subject, and I want to next address the role of Will Marion Cook and the Black "minstrel show" as far as it relates to both the development of the big band as well as the evolution of jazz in general.  So, I will see you next time.  

Perspectives on Music - An Introduction

Over the course of the coming year, I want to begin talking more about one of my biggest passions, and that is collecting vintage dance band records and early jazz.  I have discussed various aspects of my hobby before, as it is a very defining part of my own identity as well as being something I have been into for about 36 years now.  I am not going to set a timetable for when I visit this topic, but there are a few things I am working on this year which more or less involve some new dimensions to it that have caught my interest, and some of them relate to the current socio-political climate in this nation as well.  I also have an objective at some point during the year to embark on a project of my own documenting the history and evolution of what is often called the "big band," and this will serve as kind of an introduction to coming attractions.

There are two topics I want to discuss as sort of an opening to this subject, as both of them are things I have pondered on personally over the years.  First, it is the term "big band" itself - is it appropriate terminology for this genre of music, or should a better designation be given to it?  Second, I want to also tackle the common mythos that jazz as a musical phenomenon is the exclusive creation of the Black community - research has shown that in its earliest days, jazz had other influences too that contributed to its sound, and many researchers (namely the late Richard Sudhalter, to whom I will be referring a lot, as his massive tome Lost Chords addresses this issue in detail) have begun to document that.  Mind you, it doesn't diminish the Black contribution, nor does it take away from appreciating such stellar talents as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, or Dizzy Gillespie, but it does show that more than one ethnicity contributed to the growth of what is in reality a truly American art form.  As I am still compiling my own material and research, this will be something ongoing that I will be dealing with.

Let us take the first topic first, the name "big band."  "Big band" is a common and generally accepted term, as are terms such as "dance band," "swing," etc.  The dictionary definition of a big band is simply an ensemble of typically 8-10 musicians, divided up into three sections (brass, reeds, rhythm) that play arrangements of jazz and other popular music.  A "dance band" is a broader definition, in that it is defined as an instrumental ensemble of any size that plays music for dancing.  "Swing" is a music that is played primarily by more jazz-oriented big bands featuring "hot" rhythms, improvised solos, and riffs and other musical devices.  In the strictest sense though, none of these terms for me truly capture the music.  For instance, as far as the term "big band" goes, there were many small groups of the era that played the same genre of music (notably John Kirby's sextet, Fats Waller, and early "lounge" groups such as the Three Suns), and by strict definition they were not big bands - some of them were even soloists.  "Dance band" is a little more inclusive, but a problem exists there too - many large ensembles, such as Paul Whiteman's, Fred Waring's, Horace Heidt's, and Stan Kenton's, were show bands (or, in the case of Kenton, more progressive large jazz ensembles) who rarely played dances, and in Whiteman's case there is also the phenomenon of "symphonic jazz" to consider.  In recent years, another type of orchestra, the "documentary orchestra," (such as the Netherlands-based Beau Hunks Orchestra) is of the same genre but doesn't play dance music necessarily either.  The third term, "swing," also has some problems, as this term is often associated with more "hot" jazz-oriented bands such as Benny Goodman and Count Basie and would omit some pretty popular orchestras - Guy Lombardo, Sammy Kaye, Lawrence Welk, etc. - who were also part of the era.  All of this leads to a very important question I have been pondering, as an aficionado of all this type of music - what DO you call it then?   As of yet, I have not come up with any takers, but in time there may be something that encapsulates the music as a whole without exclusion.  For many people who love this music as is though, there is really no problem with the terminology - older fans easily refer to both Glenn Miller and Guy Lombardo as "big bands," and also often include the Three Suns and other small groups in the description.  Unfortunately though, when it comes to something like this I tend to be a little more anally retentive, and want to find that right name that encompasses the entire musical form on this.  There is also eras to consider - for instance, being Paul Whiteman was the orchestra of the 1920's and terms such as "swing" often are relegated to a timeframe that spans roughly from 1935-1945, yet Whiteman was considered a "big band" leader as well; what exactly does one do with that??  Then, let's broaden the net further - this music didn't just appear out of a vacuum either, as prior to 1920 there were large bands around too - James Reese Europe, Art Hickman, Harold Yerkes, and others come to mind.  Some are even 19th-century bands which foreshadowed this great music, and deserve inclusion as well - Edward Issler, Will Marion Cook, and even Johann Strauss III come to mind here.  As a serious collector with the genuine love for the music, I am also one of those types of people who wants to dig back as far into its roots as I possibly can, and as I am also a history buff, I understand logically that nothing just appears out of a vacuum either - there are predecessors, contributing factors in the development of phenomena, etc., to consider.  In due time, I want to actually write something on those 19th-century roots of these large bands, and it should prove interesting to see.  Any rate, terminology is something that will continue to be a question for me personally, and maybe by looking more into it I can begin to formulate a solution.

The second issue is a little more controversial.  As we live in a society that is increasingly capitulating to the mindset of "political correctness," it seems that almost anything that anyone says or does can be misconstrued as "bigoted," "racist," etc.  It is to the point that civil discourse is not even a possibility anymore, being that an opposing view can easily be shut down if the person opposing it finds it in some weird way "offensive."  The area of music, and in particular jazz, hasn't escaped this nonsense either.  One particular example of this involves the personage of Richard (or "Dick") Sudhalter (1938-2008), a very outstanding musician and historian who did much to preserve the classic orchestral jazz of the 1920's and 1930's, in particular the legacy of Bix Beiderbecke.   Sudhalter, in the early 1970's, was so into this that he organized a fantastic ensemble called the New Paul Whiteman Orchestra, and if you have the opportunity, you can check out videos of this on Youtube and other venues.  In 1999, Sudhalter authored a massive tome called Lost Chords, and its primary focus was on the "unsung heroes" of early jazz who happened to be White musicians, of which there were many.  The book was excellently documented, and actually did quite a service to a lot of forgotten legends of both the "Jazz Age" and the "Swing Era."  However, the ever-vigilant lapdogs of "political correctness" also took notice of this, and they attacked Sudhalter's book as being "Eurocentric," "racist," and other stupid and ridiculous allegations.  He was called "the Pat Buchanan of Jazz" (which was also unfair, since Buchanan is not a racist either), and even respected Black jazzmen such as Branford Marsalis said "This book does not deserve the dignity of a response.  It's not an argument I'm prepared to devote five minutes to." (Matt Schudel, "Musician Richard Sudhalter: Jazz History Left Bitter Note," Sept. 20, 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/19/AR2008091903832.html - accessed 2/1/2018).  Another pundit of "political correctness" under the guise of being a reviewer, Jason Berry, said that "This is a mountainous, flawed vast reach of a book that promotes a color-blind interpretation of jazz history." (Jason Berry, "White Men Can Jam," July 11, 1999 at http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/07/11/reviews/990711.11berryt.html - accessed 2/1/2018).  Another writer, Gerald Early, is a little more charitable but no less critical when he asserts that Sudhalter is trying in desperation to over-inflate the worth of the subject matter (seriously??) (Gerald Early, "Multiracial Roots - Clearing a Larger Space for Whites in the History of Jazz," March 7, 1999 at http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1999-03-07/entertainment/9903070152_1_richard-m-sudhalter-jazz-lost-chords - accessed 2/1/2018).  There are tons more of these types of reviews, and the reviews themselves need a critical analysis too, as they are doing what they accused Sudhalter of doing but that he was not even guilty of - viewing jazz through the eyes of race rather than fact.  Sudhalter's book, at almost a thousand pages, is a bit to tackle - I am still slogging through it even as I write this.  However, by what I have read so far, there is no evidence in Sudhalter's writing that even suggests that Blacks were less important, nor does anything suggest that he is in any way "racist" against Blacks and thus guilty of "White revisionism."  On the contrary, anyone who is familiar with Sudhalter's work knows for instance that he rightly acclaims Duke Ellington's genius (and who doesn't - Duke was phenomenal!) as well as always giving credit to the tremendous talents of great Black jazz legends such as Louis Armstrong.  Credit is given, in other words, where it is due.  But, here's the rub - Sudhalter didn't want to tread a well-worn path of writing yet another "history" of jazz with the same narrative.  That road was already paved, and many good works are out there which document the Black contribution quite thoroughly - therefore, instead of nitpicking Sudhalter's book the "critics" need to eschew "political correct" dogfighting and just read the other works available!  The focus of Sudhalter's book is the same as any great scholarship would encourage - he is dealing with a particular aspect of jazz history, one overlooked a lot, and there is nothing wrong with that at all.  For those who insist that jazz is an exclusively Black art form somehow "hijacked" by the White man, to me they are fostering a narrative that is racist, as anyone who collects records understands that jazz was not only full of White musicians in its earliest days, but they were even multicultural - of those "White" musicians, many were Jews, Italians, Spaniards, Mexicans, other European immigrants, and others; jazz, like America itself, was birthed in a "melting pot," and this included as well the valuable Black contributions too.  And, let's look at those Black contributions and where they came from - mostly, they were borrowed from Europeans, tweeked with the touch of the musicians themselves, and there you have it!  Bottom line, no one "stole" jazz from anyone - many ingredients went into the pan to create the recipe, and that is what Sudhalter's actual premise in the book was.  If the politically-correct "critics" really wanted to pursue this, the same could also be said of rock and roll - rock and roll was as much the creation of Appalachian Whites as it was Black rhythm-and-blues, and most honest historians of rock music will tell you that the earliest rock and roll recordings were in reality more like country and western music (Bill Haley, etc.) than they were like Black rhythm and blues.  That assertion should raise the hackles of the "thought police," to be sure!  This Balkanization and fragmentation of American society needs to stop, people - many people of all backgrounds made contributions to this nation, and jazz is a microcosm of America in general - Blacks, Latinos, Whites....they all gave something to what is America!  If some idiot considers that "racist," then I would suggest such a person make an appointment with their physician for a cat scan, as you need one - people like that have some unresolved issues, seriously.  I personally believe Sudhalter did a great service to those of us who appreciate jazz as an American art form, and much of the nit-picking and race-baiting done against his work is extremely unjustified.  This crucifixion of Sudhalter's work by ding-dongs who want to politicize everything is starting to get very old, and to be honest I would like to tell these morons to just enjoy the music and SHUT UP!  I will have more to say on that too as the year progresses and I am able to do a more thorough reading of Sudhalter's work.

I know that I may have gotten a little impassioned in writing this, but to be honest politicizing of almost every subject under the sun has been a personal pet-peeve of mine for a long time.  In regard to this great music, we need to think about this nugget of wisdom - would Louis Armstrong, Red Nichols, or any other legendary musician of that era have really cared who created the music??  Probably not - they loved playing it and making sure their audiences - Black, White, and everyone in between - enjoyed it, and many of us do; it is great music to be loved, preserved, and passed on to the next generations.  Maybe that is a big problem that is contributing to America's decline these days - we are so damned polarized and politicized about everything that we cannot enjoy the simple pleasures of life.  You can't watch a TV program for instance without some aspect of either the feminist mindset or the "gay agenda" being rubbed in your face, and people who like sports cannot enjoy a football game without some overpaid, spoiled athlete making political statements by "taking the knee" whenever the national anthem is sung.  This is insanity, and the average person is getting kinda sick of it.  We cannot even surf the internet or participate on social media in anything unless some dumb "troll" takes offense and tries to start fights and stir up trouble.  What did it for me recently though was the new Star Trek -Discovery series.  I have been an ardent Star Trek fan for many years, and have watched practically every series and every movie, so like many fans I was elated to see a new series.  And then, I watched it - in pushing political agendas, the new "writers" of this series made it so sloppy that it was hardly recognizable; the story was disconnected from the rest of the legacy, and all the writers seemed to want to do was push agendas by introducing gay characters and other crap at the expense of the story line. Two episodes of that claptrap was all I could stomach honestly.  And now, the "political correct" Nazis are trying to even re-write past material now by attacking jazz and other music - many of these people are unemployed, probably have a substance abuse (or Tide pod consumption) problem, and they have nothing better to do with their time than to grouse about alleged "injustices."  They need to leave my music and interests alone, and allow free expression and history to be what it is without "offense" and alteration to accomodate pansies.  You will find me addressing this more as I go along, as I will have a lot more to say about it too.

The legacy of the orchestra in American music is a rich one, and with the tampering of "thought police" aside, I have found collecting recordings of this music to be a fulfilling hobby for many years, and hope to continue to do so.  I want to share this interest with others, but in doing so, I have a dire warning - in writing these articles, I am sure to draw some disagreement, and for those that disagree, that is your right to do so.  But, one thing I will not tolerate is slander and censorship of my perspective - I don't do that to you, so leave me alone too.  Also, the best advice I have for those who take issue with my perspective on things is this - don't read it!  Some of these people have better things to do with their time than to troll what I and others write or say, and perhaps they could make themselves more useful if they got their own hobbies.  And, I refuse to engage such idiocy anymore personally - if I "offend" you, suck it up, buttercup!  That being said, I will be back soon with more on this subject and others.