Jazz Spectrum Blog - 2/28/25 - 3/2/25

Song of the Week – “She’s/He’s Funny That Way” – Music by Neil Moret; Lyrics by Richard Whiting.

By Fritz Byers

Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.
 

Dear Aly,

    Work flurries have for too long kept me from initiating our weekly exchanges about songs, music, and how we’re feeling about our respective worlds.  Although not all of the things that impoverish my spirit these days can be so easily cured, I can address this one: As I said to myself early this morning, Just get up, make the time, and write.  Okay, self.

    The recent declaration of an official federal position not only on sex-at-birth but on the complex social and psychological construct of gender is both performative and violent.  Not to mention the hypocrisy of such a declaration’s being paired with prideful paeons to personal liberty.  (Hypocrisy in political posturing is, of course, nothing new.  It will be interesting, or at least revealing, to see how Jeff Bezos’s refashioned Washington Post editorial page, avowedly bi-focused on the twin pillars of free markets and person liberty, will tiptoe its way through these minefields.)

    Last weekend I took the best vaccine I could think of to inoculate myself against this assault on individual autonomy: I watched Some Like It Hot.  I think you and I have agreed, more than once, that it’s a masterpiece. I’ve little doubt you know it by heart, and this is a rare instance in which I can very nearly match you.  

    No summary can limn the minute-by-minute brilliance of this movie, which blends elements of screwball comedy, romance, and gangster-noir film genres.   Here’s a partial synopsis: Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) are struggling musicians who work at a speakeasy that fronts as a funeral parlor.  (If that sentence by itself doesn’t draw you in . . ..)   They accidentally witness a gangland execution.  The unimprovably named gang boss, “Spats” Columbo, knows they saw it and puts out the word that they have to be eliminated.  

As they say, hilarity ensues.  Joe and Jerry disguise themselves as women and join a traveling all-female band, the again-perfectly named Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopators.   (This movie is so full of charms that I’m going to elide a central story line, which involves the pair meeting and falling for the Sugar Kane Kowalczyk, played memorably by Marilyn Monroe.)

    Once in Florida, Jerry, disguised as Daphne, draws the amorous attentions  of the wealthy Osgood Fielding III, played by Joe E. Brown, who owns the, yes, perfectly named yacht, the New Caledonia.  (I once read that the funniest place to be in Hollywood was in the office of Jed Apatow when he was riffing with Seth Rogen.  Maybe, but can you imagine how much fun Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond had plotting out this movie?  They also collaborated on The Apartment, among the best screenplays ever written.)

    After a few more complications – including Joe and Jerry’s witnessing Spats himself get rubbed out by an even-more-senior mobster – it all works out.  Jerry convinces Osgood to deploy his yacht to abet Jerry and Joe’s escape.  

This leads to the film’s famous concluding scene:

    Aboard the yacht, Jerry/Daphne offers Osgood reason after reason why they can’t marry (not a natural blonde; smokes; has a terrible past.).   Osgood persists.  Finally, Jerry removes his wig and declares “I’m a man.”  

    Osgood responds: “Well, nobody’s perfect.”  And scene.  

    The movie’s humorous and progressive exploration and subversion of gender roles and identity, and the concluding hint of Osgood’s continuing interest in Jerry, were scandalous in 1959 and would likely be forbidden today, at least in the eyes of the current membership of the Kennedy Center board.  

    With these themes on my mind, it was but a small step to choose “She’s/He’s Funny That Way” as this week’s song of the week.  Neil Moret (a pseudonym for Charles N. Daniels) composed the music in 1929, with the lyrics by Richard Whiting.   It’s a tender ballad, with a bit of whimsy leavening the genuine affection expressed by the singer.  Because the lyrics are gender-neutral, the song can, so to speak, go either way.   Anyone can sing it to anyone else they love, which is a beautiful thing that, let’s hope, no police state can outlaw.

    Ted Lewis had a hit with the tune the year it was written.  I would have chosen this as our starting place even if Ted had not been born in Circleville, Ohio, down in Pickaway County along the Scioto River.  His vocal stylings on the tune are delightfully understated and conversational, which works perfectly.

    Right after that you’ll hear Thelma Carpenter, who sang it in 1939 as a teenager, in the company of the tenor saxophone master, Coleman Hawkins.  To my ears, Coleman’s solo echoes several of his lauded innovations on his landmark recording of “Body and Soul” that same year.

    Then the guitarist and bandleader Eddie Condon and his orchestra present an instrumental version from 1946.  Billy Butterfield and Max Kaminsky share the trumpet role, which is particularly prominent, with Joe Bushkin at the keyboard.

    Billie Holiday recorded the tune several times, and, as was her wont, put her permanent stamp on it.  I chose her 1937 recording with the tenor saxophonist Lester Young.  If you wonder why, just listen to Lester’s opening theme statement, which immaculately sets the table for Billie’s vocal.

    The first set concludes with Dizzy Gillespie from 1952 in a lovely, surprisingly low-volume treatment of the melody and a few of its implications.  

    Nat King Cole starts the second set.  I mostly prefer Nat’s 1940s trio versions of standards, but this recording is from his mid-50s Stardust Sessions, which are lushly orchestrated.  No matter – his vocal is, as ever, flawless.

    Delfeayo Marsalis produced a perfect miniature of the tune on his terrific release, The Last Southern Gentleman with his always-tasteful father Ellis at the piano.

    Frank Sinatra recorded the song multiple times across his career.   My favorite of his versions is the sloooow one from the Capitol-era classic, Nice ‘n’ Easy, with Nelson Riddle’s arrangement, which uses Cappy Lewis’s trumpet as an affecting counterpoint to Frank’s voice.

    And we conclude with a trio led by the bassist Red Mitchell, with Kenny Barron on piano and Ben Riley at the drums, from the 1991 release Talking.  Red opens the recording with a remarkable two-minute-and-forty-second unaccompanied solo.  This tour-de-force reminds me of a story Red told – he received a last-minute call to show up at the recording studio for a gig.  When he got there, he asked the producer why he’d called Red.  The producer responded, “The leader told me to find me a bassist who sounds like Red Mitchell.  So I called you.”  This opening solo explains that request about as well as possible.