This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 12/13-12/15

Song of the Week – “It’s Magic” – Music by Jules Styne, Lyrics by Sammy Cahn

By Fritz Byers

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

Dear Aly,  

 Yesterday while enjoying the ritualized mid-day traffic gridlock in old Maumee, I took respite in pondering the implications of the bumper sticker immediately before me: “Big Foot doesn’t believe in you either.”  

    Fair point, really.  And it set me to a-pondering’ about the ways the phrase “magical thinking” has radiated from Joan Didion’s book title through the culture in ways both banal and profound.  Maybe that came to mind because the other night, while talking to a friend about whether one can any longer believe the fairy tale that the moral arm of the universe bends toward justice, I thought of Joan’s astringent reflections on what it had been like to be a child of the Fifties, inhabiting Cal-Berkeley before the campus firestorms that were soon to come.  And I quoted her acid observation on “the historical irrelevancy of growing up convinced that the heart of darkness lay not in some error of social organization but in man’s own blood.”  

So well-conceived.  Her memoir of grief and mourning after the sudden death of her husband was undeniably powerful and I find that, while its intricate details have fled, its mood and sentiment remain with me.  Yet I find myself wishing that the cascade of Didion acolytes her memoir produced would go back to her earliest essays, most especially the title essay in The White Album, a piece that exemplifies the paired adages that style is philosophy and technique is vision.  I’m not sure I know a more impactful and emblematic piece of short non-fiction.

But yes, there IS magic, and not just in our escapist thinking or in how we use magical thinking in the hope of conjuring the spirits of those who’ve departed.  I’m told that this particular form of magical thinking dates back to at least 100,000 BCE – archaeological evidence from the period suggests belief in an afterlife whose splendors are made accessible by magical practices that fashion grave relics, amulets, and the incantations of various burial rituals.  I don’t always believe what I’m told, but that checks out; by which I suppose I mean it’s no surprise.

As to the various suggestions humans have made about where one can most profitably search for magic, I vote for Loren Eiseley, who in his essay collection The Immense Journey wrote “If there is magic in this planet, it is contained in water.”  

    Also, I’d venture to add, in music.  So I guess that means that this week’s song – “It’s Magic” -- is more meta than I’d realized.  It’s not exactly a song about the magic of music, but you can think about it that way if you want to, and then you can feel super-modern.  But even in more conventional terms, it’s a wonderful song.

    Aly, you and I have exchanged thoughts a few times about Doris Day, so I’m happy to be able to tell you truthfully that Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn wrote “It’s Magic” for her.  In 1948.  By then, Doris was already a sensation, having established her chops as a big-band singer with Les Brown and, in the way of the world, having left the band to fashion a solo career as a singer.  In some ways, she was just a Cincinnati girl at heart but she had a yen for bigger things.  In another familiar way of the world, Hollywood beckoned, of course, and she was a natural for the ravenous star machine that sought and consumed comely ingenues like Doris.  Her transformation into America’s virginal sweetheart was a decade away.

    Her first movie was Romance on the High Seas, and that’s the vehicle for which Jules and Sammy wrote “It’s Magic.”  We begin our survey with her September 1948 recording of the tune, which was a national sensation, going all the way up the charts to number 2.  You know I can’t get enough of her singing, and even though this tune doesn’t capture some of her more winsome stylings, it’s a wonderful place to start.

    I’m not sure why – maybe because of the time I recently spent talking about the mythology of progress – but this week I’m eschewing the chronological approach we usually take to the SOTW.  So up next is a 2008 recording by the pianist Ahmad Jamal in his comfortable trio setting.  This is a notably restrained performance, but with the occasional flourishes and percussive force that we look for in Ahmad.  While you’re here, check out the precise bass work of James Cammack, who makes playing the instrument at this slow tempo sound much easier than it is.

    Third in the first SOTW set is Beverly Kenney.  I’m not sure anyone remembers her or much listens to her anymore.  But for the second half of the 50s, she was a brightening star, celebrated by Miles Davis, endorsed by Lester Young, and adored by influential critics.  A stream of superb albums abetted the buzz.  Foremost among her releases is the one from which this track is taken, Beverly Kenney Sings for Playboys, a 1958 release that finds her accompanied by only the great pianist Ellis Larkins and the bassist Joe Benjamin.  My favorite recordings of Ella are the ones she made with only Ellis, and he is equally resplendent here.

    And the set concludes with the saxophonist Sonny Stitt on a quartet date that produced one of the wonders in the music – Constellation, a late-in-career thunderclap of brilliance from 1972.  The pianist Barry Harris shines on this track, as does the drummer Roy Brooks, especially with his light-touch cymbal work.  Sonny’s keening tone somehow finds a bit of melancholy in the tune, and then casts it as the prevailing mood of the piece.  A stunning performance.

    We open the second SOTW set with Abbey Lincoln – it’s the title tune of her 1958 recording.  The tenorist Benny Golson is on the date, but in addition to Abbey’s striking vocals check out the understated trumpet of Art Farmer, playing counterpoint against Abbey’s singing.  

    Next is the undersung pianist Eddie Higgins, with the tenors Ken Peplowski and Scott Hamilton.  Again, the tune is the title track, from a 2006 recording, and Eddie’s playing, on its own and accompanying the two markedly different tenor voicings, is precise, relaxed, and evocative.  

    Sarah Vaughan’s 1954 version, with lush strings, has the nice restraint that characterizes her work from this phase of her career.  This recording reminds us, if we needed reminder, that Sarah’s voice is an incomparable instrument.

    And finally, from one of my favorite records, we’ll hear Eric Dolphy’s tour-de-force on bass clarinet, from the 1960 recording that produced Far Cry.  Booker Little, the trumpeter who adds so much to this album, sits out.  This tune features a couple of the best solos Eric ever recorded, and his dexterity across the full range of the instrument, is marvelous and unparelled in the music.

    It IS magic, Aly.  Every note.