BASSIST/VOCALIST/COMPOSER HAS LAST LAUGH

i’m sure she doesn’t feel that way about it. but i do.

having been vilified for not selling enough after being voted 2010′s Best New Artist by Grammy voters Esperanza Spalding, shamefully an unannounced cameo on the ACADEMY AWARDS telecast, radiant in a white gown and crowned by an over-the-top ‘fro, sang, on camera, the tribute section for recently deceased Academy members. the song she sang was “What A Wonderful World,” which was notably made famous by Louis Armstrong. i’m sure certain Grammy execs would not have approved. sales are down for the song.

in your face NARAS!

-© arnold jay Smith

February 2012

IMPORTANT GOSPEL-TINGED SOUL & POP VOICE STILLED

journalist Eugene Holley, Jr., from his hometown of Wilmington, DE, called to commiserate on the tragic passing of Whitney Houston at 48. his take was that “you get out of Newark as quickly as you can; she waited too long.”

while still a record company exec Barbara Harris remembered telling Whitney’s dad, John, that his then-very young daughter was a real talent. he concurred. Harris called Houston’s life and death “a terrible tragedy indeed.”

a friend and a fellow jazz traveler a retired air-traffic controller from Boston left a massage asking, “Is it true? i just can’t believe it.”

Gospel and blues singer/percussionist and cable tv host Fran McIntyre (Mrs. Smith) praised her as an actress. “she should have pursued that part of her career more,” McIntyre said.

such was Whitney’s reach. she was a product of her environment both good and evil. Newark, NJ was and is a hotbed for blues and Gospel singing, organ groups and proud church-goers. it is also home to America’s #1 jazz radio station, WBGO. classical WQXR is also there. but then there are the Streets, among the highest crime-ridden.

Whitney’s mother, Gospel-singer and sometimes back-up folkie Cissy protected her, bringing Whitney with her when Cissy played in New York and elsewhere. once-upon-a-time in the 1980s i frequented a room on the Upper West Side of Manhattan called Sweetwater’s. good food for your soul, musically as well as gastronomically. it was a side of the music which Down Beat, for whom i worked, and Billboard for whom i strung, did not cover much.

Sweetwater’s drew from the deep talent pool that is the Apple.  Cissy was already quietly a legendary singer but there were others who stopped by either as sitters-in or hired hands, all r & b and the then fledgling “soul.” vocalists and vocal groups to be sure, but instrumentalists as well. i saw Gloria’s Gaynor and Lynn and Donna Summer during comebacks. local talent were showcased but established stars such as George Benson popped in. their budget was small but there was a warm “come on in” atmosphere. you never knew with whom you might be sharing ribs on any given night. Sweetwater’s in the Bronx is the successor room.

one weekend Cissy was booked and she brought along this gangly youngster girl-in-a boy’s-body. Whitney was all legs but once the light hit her she was all pro. this teenager belted Gospel and the blues from her soul reaching deep down. gave us the chills from one so young. we cheered. once her cousin Dionne Warwick sat in with the family. another time her Godmother Aretha Franklin stopped by. i believe she played the piano.

“fame kills the mind, the spirit and (eventually) the body,”McIntyre concluded.

as for the patrons at Sweetwater’s we just knew that this Houston chile was destined for stardom; she exuded confidence to go along with that powerful rangy yet controlled instrument. what a shameful loss.

-© arnold jay smith

February 2012

MERDE. SCHEISSE, MIERDA. SHITTE.

it’s something we all do, in private. as Groucho might say on his quiz show, You Bet Your Life, “it’s something you find around the house.” in fact, some of us are in deep doo-doo as you read this. others are constantly being admonished to get our shit together. yet on television or radio the word is taboo no matter what the context, no matter what the reference, no matter if we are referencing our stuff, or expressing something complementary, or distasteful, or venting, or checking out something of which we are in awe, or bullshit, as some of you may think of this post, or as Robin might say, “Holy shit, Batman.” (is that religious?)

i find it most annoying and puritanically disconcerting when i’m watching a Brit  program such as MI-5, or New Tricks on American tv to find the word blotted out.  tits (as slang), bastard (as expletive), son-of-a-bitch (not referring to a male puppy) are all acceptable. why? are the religious right involved? don’t think so as it’s been going on for decades long before their ascendancy, in fact, when Fox airs re-runs in syndication it excises words used on the original network shows. (but then Murdoch is a special case.) PBS has been doing it for some years. but it wasn’t always thus.

i remember when PBS not only left the defecation word in –it’s in the dictionary, as you know; spell check doesn’t even highlight it– but also displayed nudity, frontal at that. i pay dues to my local PBS and tolerate (sometimes) their ever more frequent and lengthening beg-a-thons; i don’t appreciate expurgation, censorship, nor being treated as a child being scolded in school. as they constantly remind us. it’s our station. so leave it the fuck alone.

THE REAL DEAL

i expect more realism from PBS programming. in their fine series on the western mythical persona, Billy The Kid, Jesse James, Geronimo, Wyatt Earp, et cie, we were enlightened as to their brutality, their viciousness, their treatment of the citizenry, women and American Indians, idols with feet of clay, indeed. but you never heard the word. and those war docs. shit, man! did you ever hear sailors, soldiers, marines, whatever, not pepper their specch with vulgarities? the movies have grown up; Broadway and dance have come about. but on tv they’re still squeaky clean.

there was a tv series by Amistad Maupin based on his Tales of the City (San Fransisco) truly adult material with nudity, transsexuals, transgenders, drug use, homosexual and heterosexual behavior. the script contained liberal use of the vernacular. it was one of Laura Linney’s early star turns. Tales worked because that was the way the inhabitants of Haight-Ashbury spoke and comported themselves in the social revolutionary ’60s & ’70s. when the sequel was aired in the U.S.A. “Goddamn” became “gosh darn,” “shit” became “shoot.” it waa laughingly ludicrous and embarrassing actually making it worse than if the original script had been left intact. nudity? fugetabahdit!

Victoria’s Secret proves the point that scantiness is sexier than nudity. all the censoring just highlights the “dirty parts.” our imagination takes care of the rest.

your comments are always appreciated.

- © arnold jay smith

February 2012