The record changer (Jan 1955-Dec 1957)

to regard what the author construes to be the tension-relaxation elements as polar tendencies whose opposition can result in an equilibrium. Hodeir understands "hot manner of playing" to mean certain inflection peculiar to jazz such as the growl, exaggerated vibrato, etc. Swing, which is the relaxation factor, and jazz inflections which are the tension factor, are no more opposites than the white of snow and the black of evil deeds. A proper tension relaxation duality might be the tension of polyrhythmic relationships within a rhythm and the breezy character of the total rhythmic effect. I think that it is also a mistake to identify swing exclusively with the quality of relaxation. An up tempo can have a swing and drive that is tensing; the swing of a moderated tempo can have the quality of resilience. Mr. Hodeir has some difficulty in pinning jazz down to a set of essential properties. He understands that the essence of jazz must be a set of properties which any example of jazz must have and that this set must be such that it enables us to distinguish jazz from other kinds of music. Mr. Hodeir is forced to exclude blues, improvisation, and counterpoint from the essence of jazz because these properties are not present in all of jazz. He is even forced to recognize that the tension factor is not essential because it is not present in some of cool jazz. This leads the author to say that the essence of jazz is changing. I believe that anyone who tries to look for the set of properties essential to jazz will experience similar difficulty. The reason is that all jazz does not share the same essential properties: Jazz is not a homogeneous class which has an essence. Music does not come to be called jazz only because it has certain specific properties. The term "jazz" was probably first applied as an epithet to the music played in the red light district of New Orleans. Bands that subsequently borrowed from the style of this music were called jazz bands. When the style and locale of the music changed it was still called jazz. Because of the imprecise usage of the term, jazz has not come to have a meaning which can be strictly defined in terms of a specific set of properties. Jazz is, nevertheless, an identifiable music with boundaries that are more or less determinate. While jazz does not have an essence it does have a continuity, but even that continuity is imperfect. The continuity is not exclusively musical. It is also cultural and historical. It includes such things as repertoire, personalities, night clubs, jazz books, and record labels. Often one of these factors alone is sufficient to endow some music with jazz identity. If the Budapest String Quartet should appear at Birdland and play a program of compositions by Teo Macera this conceivably could have a profound effect on jazz theory. Often when jazz musicians "experiment" the strongest tie their music has with jazz is the record label or the fact that the experimentors are known as jazz musicians. The heterogeneity of jazz does not mean that we cannot talk about it. It rather means that we cannot talk about all jazz at once or jazz qua jazz; we cannot discover the universal principles of jazz as we can discover the universal principles of freely falling bodies. While looking for the vital core of jazz Mr. Hodeir seems to have missed the face of it. And the author's discovery that the metaphysical and psychological forces behind the evolution of jazz are attuned to his favorite gramophone records can hardly be of general interest or have any significance for jazz. STAR STUDDED SHELLAC john mc andrew Returning once more to the early female torch singer, the most famous in the early days of the century probably was Nora Bayes. Of recent years, while much has been written of many popular singers of bygone eras, somehow Nora has been largely bypassed. There was a movie musical turned out several years ago which purported to be her biography, a horrible thing in the very worst tradition of Hollywood and cut to the pattern of most every other glamorized version of some poor, hapless singer now deceased or would be on viewing the celluloid delineation of his or her career. Nora's included a brand new theme song, reprised with every clinch and cliche, which the intrepid producers undoubtedly recognized as far superior to Shine On Harvest Moon, and besides, since they owned it, it would bring them more revenue. When you speak of Nora, you must also include Jack Norworth, her vaudeville partner, husband, co-composer, sometime recording partner and soloist. They were a perpetual hit as a team, playing clubs, vaudeville, musicals such as the "Ziegfeld Follies," and of course everyone knows Norworth wrote their biggest hit, Shine On, Harvest Moon for their "Follies" stint, although through the years his Take Me Out to the Ball Game has done even more to keep his name alive. Not long ago Jack Norworth did a song-and-dance medley of his own hits on TV, and the sight of the frail little old man shining once again in his own Stardust brought a lump to many a throat. Nora died in 1927, and although her record output was quite extensive, covering a period of more than fifteen years, the quantity of sides was less than some equally popular singers spanning a similar time. Her recording career was about evenly split between Victor and Columbia, as far as releases were concerned, although she was with Victor first and for several years more than with Columbia. Many early Bayes hits were single-faced : the old 60000 series on Victor. Among them were Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly (60013), That Lovin' Rag (60023), You Can't Get Away From It (60014) and The Good Ship Mary Ann (60113). Norworth also recorded solo for the same series, usually his own numbers, such as Back To My Old Home Town (60020), For Months and Months and Months (60030) and Parody on College Airs (60014). Together, they were usually on the 12" 70000 series, and most of these were Norworth efforts also: Come Along My Mandy (70016), Rosa Rosetta (70019) and Turn Off Your Light, Mr. Moon Man (70038). This last is av;l today, having been incorporated in a vtc LP LCT 1112: "Old Curiosity Shop,", [he contains in addition groovings by | Wi Rogers, Helen Kane, DeWolf HopperM Barrymore, Fanny Brice, Helen Morgajjffl others and is far superior to Victor's'!^ more successful "Show Biz." "Victor subsequently inaugurated a dihk faced blue label series for their outstaH personalities not quite in the classical^) and Nora made many of these, inc!H Broken Doll/Please Keep Out of My Dim (45136), Homesickness Bl./For Dixi\M Uncle Sam (45100), Over There/1M Boy (45130), Cheer Up/ Ragging the \ni Mother Used to Sing (45108) and M Hawaii, How Are You/When Old Bill im Plays (45099). When Nora became an exclusive Col Uj star, Norworth was no longer in the rm ing picture, but she was at her best and many memorable sides for this coniB Some of these are: The Argentine tli Portuguese and the Greeks/Sally fet (A2980), Cow Bells/ Atta Baby (A«m Cherie/In Indiana (A3443), Freckles/ '.ili body Calls Me Honey (A2816), //owH Tomorrow (A3711), How Ya Gonna \\A 'Em Down on the Farm/ When I iM Doodle Sails (A2687), All Over Notfoil All/ Kindness (A3601), Make Believe'ifi I Lay Me Down to Sleep (A3392), Prjdt tion Blues/Taxation Blues (A2823), R'rn ful Blues/ A Little Bit of Sunshine (A(M Dearest/You Know You Belong to Sorr,\oi Else (A3862), Who Did You Fool Aftt M Come On Home (A3771 ), Running iU Keep Off My Shoes (A3826), The Jaf^Ji Sandman/ You're Just as Beautiful At x^j (A2997), Tea Leaves/ Wyoming, (AiM and my own personal favorite, whiclJB Nora as the composer as well as the jtl preter, Just Like a Gipsy, which sheia with much warmth on a 12" relea J A6138, backed with In Your Arms. )U voice was sweet, rich and slightly bluijal not given to personal tricks that som>.H spoil even the best singers. She had n of the qualities of Fanny Brice ai j 1 Marion Harris, who was also with Col' m toward the end of Nora's tenure. :;l In the early twenties, Jack Norworth M a few sides for the Pathe-Actuelle labe ai a particularly good one was Ain't W'U Fun/Singin' the Blues (020553). Nothing was heard of Nora on rim since 1924, and it is most unfortunati ■ she did not return to discs at least once|i after early 1925, when electrical reccJ first appeared and the microphone br m out the nuances and depth impossible 1 acoustical horn. Victor and Columbia\M already put out many LPs of Person ■ of the Past: Victor has devoted much ,11 material to vocalists thus far, Columbum ing concentrated almost exclusively! Golden Age Jazz, Ruth Etting being cm the few pop singers represented on LP ul that not because of the singer but soli, I cash in on the recent Etting story tc n MGM's Doris Day musical, "Love Vl Leave Me." Some day, no doubt, some reccfl executive will be told there once vl singer named Nora Bayes and his conn has a lot of her masters around somevH and since the nutty public has inert! been paying good money for a lot of infl recordings by all sorts of defunct enterujfl that nobody ever heard of, he may as ■ find out how many more suckers thericB whose memories also include Nora IM and maybe we'll have a Nora Bayes LI ■ thankfully bestow credit where no <m may be due.