Termagant Tuesday

Termagant Tuesday: “Jolie Coquine,” Caravan Palace

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Let’s list the things I want and can’t have, because that’s fun and healthy:

  • longer legs
  • thousands of dollars in disposable income per month for clothes
  • a bi-monthly trip to Europe (Paris, Prague, Munich, London, Barcelona, and Rome – on rotation)
  • internal organs that regenerate every night so I can indulge my vices scot-free
  • feet that can handle four-inch heels without pain
  • a mint green Vespa (I can’t have this because I would absolutely get pasted onto the side of a bus)
  • be best friends with Stephen Fry, P.G. Wodehouse, Dorothy Parker, Fred Astaire, George Plimpton, and David Rakoff, and have them over for dinner weekly
  • lots of glamor and very little responsibility
  • a metabolism like a bullet train so I can finally have a fettucine alfredo-centric diet
  • fluency in the theories of particle physics and epistemology
  • a microwave that doesn’t sound like a Zamboni when it heats up my turkey meatballs (I could have this if I didn’t have a fundamental belief that home appliances should cost about $10)
  • a castle
  • be guest conductor of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra
  • be able to play the shawm (my neighbors would kill me)
  • basically be the most interesting woman in the world.  With really long legs and undead friends and absolutely incredible clothes.

I can’t have any of that.  But I can listen to this song and daydream about it.  That’s something.

Termagant Tuesday: “Big Noise from Winnetka,” Cozy Cole

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB-s-pMt-9U

A Western, a Tarantino film, a Dragnet episode, and a burlesque show walked into a bar.  Cozy the bartender put them in a blender, added some rum, and poured the results into some instruments and called it “Big Noise From Winnetka.”  This song makes me want to race out to the nearest store and get some leopard-print horn-rimmed sunglasses, cigarette pants, a pack of smokes, and a guy who calls me a “broad.”  This song sounds so raunchy – I mean the whistle sounds like a cat-call, for one thing.  But there’s a real disconnect between this song, written in 1962, and American culture at the time.  For one thing, fashion.

Oooh...how alluring.

Oh baby.

Does that woman look like this song sounds?  Correct!  Not even close.  That’s a Doris Day woman.  What does her family look like?

Oh stop - stop - you're driving me crazy.

Oh stop – stop – you’re driving me crazy.

Yep, like that.  What television shows do they watch?  The Andy Griffith Show, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Red Skelton, and Danny Thomas.

So there is some serious cognitive dissonance going on between saucy Cozy Cole’s jazz track and “normal” American life.  This is another reason, Tuners, why music is my favorite art medium.  It’s always ahead of the curve, carving out space for new ideas and feelings and emotions.  Without Cozy Cole, there could be no Prince.  Without Prince, there could be no Common.  I would also argue, without Cozy Cole there could be no feminist movement, but that’s another argument for another day.  People get so wrapped around the axle about time-travel when really, all you have to do is turn on your stereo.

Termagant Tuesday: “Dixieland Kickoff!” Pee Wee Hunt

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Ok, so it’s possible – if you get your news from such godless rags as the National Inquirer or the London Review of Books – that you might have heard that I like college fight songs.  A lot.  And Dixieland jazz.  A whole lot.  So you can imagine that, when I found out that some enterprising jazz genius who shares one of my longest-held nicknames in life made an entire album of Dixieland jazz versions of college fight songs, I was a little excited.

Me, a little excited.

Me, a little excited.

I know, I know, it isn’t football season, but I mean come on.  What puts you in a happier mood than a jazzified version of a song celebrating a game that most closely approximates the culturally acceptable physical mauling of a human being in combat?  I know.  Nothing.  Nothing puts you in a happier mood.

Here are the fight songs in order:

  • Illinois Loyalty
  • Written by T. H. Guild
  • 0:00
  • Notre Dame Victory March [Note to Dad: You’re welcome.]
  • Written by John F. Shea, Rev. Michael J. Shea
  • 2:37
  • As The Backs Go Tearing By
  • Written by C. W. Blaisdell, Charles J. Roberts
  • 5:28
  • The Victors
  • Arranged by Bill Stegmeyer
  • 7:34
  • The U. Of M. Rouser
  • Arranged by Bill Stegmeyer
  • 10:12
  • Across The Field
  • Written by William A. Dougherty, Jr.
  • 12:22
  • Down The Field
  • Written by C. W. O’Conner, Stanleigh P. Friedman
  • 14:31
  • Iowa Corn Song
  • Written by Riley, Botsford, Hamilton, Lockard
  • 17:05
  • Fight On For U.S.C.
  • Written by Glen Grant, Milo Sweet
  • 19:12
  • Our Director
  • Arranged by Bill Stegmeyer
  • 21:50
  • The Princeton Cannon Song
  • Written by A. H. Osborn, J. F. Hewitt
  • 24:42
  • On Wisconsin
  • Written by Carl Beck, W. T. Purdy
  • 27:53

Termagant Tuesday: “Ghost of Stephen Foster,” Squirrel Nut Zippers

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Sorrysorrysorrysorry, Tune-Up Fans, I know I’m a little late.  Have a zippy Zippers track.  This is probably my favorite Zippers song because it just so very, very weird and unsettling and just sort of, “…what?”  I mean, “Camptown ladies never sang all the doo-dah day, no no no.”  Well, sure…I mean…yes?  They didn’t?   Wait.  That doesn’t make sense.  I’m so confused.  And yet…I’m dancing!  Whee!

REMIX WEEK! Termagant Tuesday: “Suit and Tie,” Justin Timberlake meets The Stepkids

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I won’t lie – I’m not the biggest Justin Timberlake fan anyway.  I think he’s a great vocalist and a great dancer, but his songs…meh.  I am a big fan of barbershop-style harmonizations and jazz covers of pop songs.  The Stepkids bring some Tony Bennett and Rat Pack-era Sinatra to an otherwise bland pop song; the guitarist even throws in a “Sweet Georgia Brown” lick at 2:56.  They also look like accountants having a blast.  And – it honestly sounds like this is the original song, and Timberlake covered it.  Dig it.

Original Timberlake song:

Termagant Tuesday: “Your Mind Is On Vacation,” Mose Allison

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The Office of Personnel Management, in its infinite sagacity, closed the federal government yesterday because the District got a bit of weather.  So, I and my fellow govvie types got to spend the day entertaining ourselves, either with work at our kitchen tables (hello), or feverishly filling out March Madness brackets, or having snowball fights, or getting terrifically soused at a “bottomless brunch,” or all four.  This was just gravy as far as I was concerned.  The older I get, the more I enjoy spending the entire day at home.  Not because my place is amazing, which it is, or because I hate the outdoors, which I don’t, or because I neither own nor know how to operate a pair of pants, both of which are incorrect.  No – it’s just, sometimes…people.  I mean, seriously.

I was strolling to my favorite coffee shop this weekend when a woman turned from the upcoming corner onto my street and came to be walking in front of me.  She was solitary, dressed in as normal an outfit as you’re likely to find in D.C., and all of a sudden, she started to laugh.  Loudly.  Then, started talking as if she were interrupting someone.  Except, there was no one else around for a city block.  Was she insane?  Was she some sort of yuppie reincarnation of Teresa of Avila having her own private confab with God?  Was she a one-person flashmob?  An acting student?  I sped up considerably to pass her in case she had a shiv and a plan, and in so doing noticed that she had one of those little blinking in-ear widgets.  She had been on her phone.  It’s entirely possible she was insane and on her phone.  And somehow, I was supposed to accept this blithely and without comment, or – get behind me, Satan – conform and get my own little blinking in-ear widget so to numb the minds of others with one-way conversations about the pointless intangibles of my own life.  No wonder Putin grabbed Crimea so handily.  We were all on our cell phones talking about Swiffer Wet-Jets.

Things like this happen all the time now.  It is a defining characteristic of the modern urban human condition.  And it drives me absolutely mental.  I should like there to be little quizzes administered after I run my errands, otherwise all my knowledge of a visiting man’s proclivity for miniature biscotti, a man whose chatty grandmother has just spent the past eight unhappy minutes trailing me around Trader Joe’s (does she have magnets in her skull? Go. Away.), will have gone to waste.  Perhaps there could be gate-side therapists with Xanax-scented sound-proof booths for deplaning passengers so they can cleanse themselves of the knowledge of the woman in 13C – that she just landed, that her flight was on time, that it was a little bumpy, and that she plans to get home the usual way and will arrive at the appointed time because, I mean, at this time of day – well, you know – right, exactly.

I’m fully aware that I’m having a full-blown, unfettered “get off my lawn” moment, but I don’t care that, in this aspect, I’m turning into a crank.  So pardon me if I don’t jump at the opportunity to be out amongst the great muttering unwashed when I have a day to myself.  If you need me, I’ll be at home. And it’s extremely unlikely I’ll let you in.

Termagant Tuesday: “Bistro Fada,” Stephane Wrembel

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPN7J369RNI

The weather is warming up, the days are getting longer, the breeze smells like new growth instead of mud and road salt – ah, je me languis d’être à Paris!  (Not like that’s anything new, of course.  Hi there, Sidney Bechet!)  Here is a delightful gypsy jazz track from Stephane Wrembel used in the movie “Midnight in Paris.”  Wrembel is a modern French jazz guitarist for whom Django Reinhardt has clearly been a strong influence.

Termagant Tuesday: “Roses on the Platform,” Yulia Pashkovska

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Man, I wish I had Yulia Pashkovska’s voice.  Her tone is so full and warm without being overwhelming.  Pashkovska was a major Ukrainian jazz singer in the 1960s.  I can’t find much on her, at least in English, so if you have any background on her, *please* share; I’m dying to learn more.

Speaking of more, here’s what’s happening in Ukraine now.  Ukrainian soldiers have rejected Russian demands that they pledge allegiance to the Kremlin, gold and oil prices rose as a reaction to the crisis, and the U.S. has suspended trade and investment talks with Russia.

Location of Russian troops and weaponry, as of Monday, 3 March

Location of Russian troops and weaponry, as of Monday, 3 March

Termagant Tuesday: “Tokyo Traffic,” Dave Brubeck

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp5kGqhyysc

Classic Brubeck sound meets classic Japanese tonality = super cool.  This song is off the 1964 album “Jazz Impressions of Japan,” and while it obviously draws on international sounds, it wasn’t the first Brubeck record to do so.  That record was “Time Out,” and was released five years earlier in 1959.  The idea for “Time Out” came from a trip Brubeck took around Eurasia in (I believe) the late ’50s, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.  Evidently, he heard a group of musicians in Turkey playing in 9/8 time, filed it away, and came back determined to devote an entire album to odd time signatures – hence the title, “Time Out.”

I know, you’re wondering why I didn’t post a song from that album, and when I’m going to get back to “Tokyo Traffic.”  Hang with me, Tune-Up fans.

Columbia Records was extremely leery of letting Brubeck issue an album only in wacky time signatures and made him do an album of Southern folk standards first.  You know what the biggest hit off of “Time Out” was?  You guessed it – “Take Five.”  That song off that album launched a whole oeuvre of globally-inspired jazz music – Brubeck in Amsterdam, Brubeck in Berlin – which brings us to “Tokyo Traffic.”   (Told you this would all make sense.)

As much as I love “Take Five,” and I adore it (it’s on my Funeral Music list), there’s something really fun and exciting about “Tokyo Traffic.”  It’s the first song off the album so it sounds like his very first day off the plane, wandering around.  Brubeck in the liner notes talks about how overwhelming and wonderful it was to be in Japan, and I feel that when I hear this piece – it’s the musical equivalent of a guy being unable to stop swiveling his head around to look at everything.  It makes me want to travel.

Imagine if the State Department hadn’t organized that trip for Brubeck; that he’d never heard Turkish musicians playing in 9/8 time; that, for whatever reason, the idea of doing an album of odd time signatures hadn’t occurred to him.  No “Take Five,” no “Tokyo Traffic.”  Pretty lame.  And now imagine if way, way more people got out into the world a whole lot more.  One guy wrote “Take Five” – what would you be inspired to do?

Termagant Tuesday: “Atomic Power,” The Buchanan Brothers

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[Editor’s Note: Viewers, take warning – this video shows some fairly difficult visuals of people who survived the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]

What a bizarre historical relic this song is.  Chester and Lester Buchanan wrote this song in, unsurprisingly, 1946.  The lyrics are a pretty interesting mash-up of war protest and church revival, the tune a blend of 40s/50s-era kitsch and “She’ll Be Comin’ Round The Mountain When She Comes.”  The song on its own is weird, but when put against the visuals of the actual bombing campaign that the song describes, it’s very unsettling.  The movie is “Atomic Cafe,” a documentary made in 1982.  I deliberately chose this YouTube video to portray the song because it hammers home the reality of the lyrics.

Why am I posting this today?  Because today is the first day of seven-party talks in Vienna on the future of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.  The seven countries – Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China (basically the permanent five members of the Security Council, plus Germany and Iran) – hope to arrive at an agreement that will ease sanctions on Iran if Iran agrees to limit uranium enrichment and allow international inspectors, among other more complicated stipulations.  Keep your eyes peeled, Tune-Up fans; this could be interesting.  (More information on what’s going down can be found here and here.)