This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 6/28-6/30
Each week, Fritz exchanges thoughts with Aly Krajewski about the Song of the Week featured on Jazz Spectrum Saturday.
Song of the Week – “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” – Music by Tommy Wolf, Lyrics by Fran Landesman
Dear Aly,
Last week at dinner, a friend and I were talking about Salman Rushdie’s new book, Knife, an extended and moving reflection on an extremist’s demented attempt to stab him to death, thirty years after the fatwa that was decreed against him for the act of publishing a work of imaginative fiction. Paired with Joseph Anton, Salman’s memoir of how his life was transformed by the fatwa, these two books are a stunning defense of art and liberty and reason and humor.
But all that is for another day. The conversation brought to mind Salman’s devoted friend, Christopher Hitchens, and the brilliant impressionist profile Christopher wrote about Salman, which appears in Christopher’s memoir, Hitch-22. It recounts Salman’s brainy playfulness and his irreverence toward the pretensions of high art, and it is paradigm of how to pay tribute to a dear friend with wit, sincerity, depth, and evident love.
That, too, is for another day. Rereading Christopher’s piece, and his description of a game that he, Salman and others played with book titles, got me thinking about lines or phrases that have become indelibly associated with their authors, and how silly and reductive it can all be.
Everyone knows F. Scott Fitzgerald said “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” Like most of Fitzgerald’s familiar aphorisms, the saying is complete nonsense. And what a shame that this empty bromide is what so often readily surfaces from the cultural cauldron (along with the image of Daisy Buchannan dressed in gossamer white), rather than Fitzgerald’s ravishing, crystalline prose, or some of the tormented passages in Tender is the Night.
Likewise “April is the cruelest month,” the famous opening line of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland.” (To come full circle before we move on, at that dinner last week my friend and I riffed on identifying a book that is both omnipresent on bookshelves and completely unread. My friend chose Infinite Jest; I chose A Brief History of Time. Had we talked about shorter works, I would have chosen “The Wasteland.”)
You can take my word for it – the line isn’t as vacuous as it sounds, although using the cycles of vegetative birth, growth, death, and rebirth as a metaphor for the larger themes of the poem can be, and has been, ruthlessly mocked. But let’s grant that T.S. had larger things in mind than can be discerned solely from that opening line.
Aly, even I’m asking, “What’s your point?”
Fair question.
Earlier this week, I asked my friend, the trumpeter and stalwart jazz advocate Scott Potter, to choose this week’s Song of the Week, and, without hesitation, he said “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most.” (Another friend who was in the room went right to the piano and played the opening chorus. Amazing – a much-appreciated impromptu exposure to some of the lovely harmonies that frame the melody.)
The first time I heard the song was my first listen to Irene Kral’s rendition, backed by the pianist Alan Broadbent, on their masterwork, Where is Love? This record, from 1974, is an unrivaled presentation of ballad singing and subtle, suggestive piano accompaniment. It has been a favorite since.
Not long after is when I learned that the lyricist Fran Landesman wrote the song as a self-imposed challenge to translate into hipster argot the stark declaration that opens “The Wasteland.” Thus, “April is the cruelest month” became “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most.”
I remember thinking, first, Man, I never would have guessed. And then I thought, Okay, I get it. And then I got back to thinking about how poignant the verses are, and how they blend imagery and verbal play into a powerful expression of ennui that, regardless of its origin, is more enduring than seasonal.
The lush poetics of the lyrics really define the song, so it took me a while to realize how beautiful the music is. I probably didn’t fully get that part of the song’s appeal till I heard Stan Getz’s spare version with the pianist Albert Dailey. But I’d say I do now. So selecting this weeks’ versions was pure joy, and although it did hang me up a bit, that’s only because almost every one of the nearly fifty versions I test-drove has something to commend it.
Here’s where I ended up. (By the way, something about my listening to all those tunes led me to scrap my usual habit of chronological ordering. Let me know what you think about that.)
We open with the first prominent recording of the song, Jackie Cain and Roy Kral’s 1955 version. (Yes, Roy is Irene’s brother.). Jackie and Roy were a thing back then – they were television stars, a premiere act in Vegas, and a reliable foundation for commercial success for their label. They also sang great, and they did so for nearly 60 years. Their version is a great introduction.
Then we bounce forward nearly thirty years to a pairing of two Basie saxophone veterans, Frank Foster and Frank Wess, from their 1983 date, Two for the Blues. Kenny Barron, the wizard, is on piano. He provides an up-tempo rhythmic structure that, by revving up the melancholy pacing of the usual tempo, puts into focus the intricacy of some of the chord changes, and just how inventive the melody is.
Then the vocalist Jeanne Lee, paired with the quirky pianist Ran Blake, from their marvelous 1966-67 sessions that, at long last, were released in full in 2019 as The Newest Sound You Never Heard. Jeanne sang wonderfully with Carla Bley’s big band, but I prefer her all by herself, displaying her stylistic quirks with a similarly idiosyncratic accompanist like Ran.
The first set ends with Kenny Burrell’s solo-guitar version, which he recorded in 2011 at age 80. By then, he’d shown everyone that he could do whatever he wanted to do on the instrument, which makes this spare version all the more affecting, a lovely showcase for Wolf’s tune.
Irene’s transcendent version opens the second set. If you can get past her singing, listen to Alan Broadbent’s immaculate voicings.
Then Stan Getz’s 1983 recording with Albert Dailey, from their release Poetry. This is among Stan’s greatest ballad statements.
Finding another vocal version to place into a set that Irene kicked off wasn’t easy, so, as I did in the first set, I digressed a good ways from conventional singing, which means I landed on Cassandra Wilson, who has made a career of transforming familiar tunes into deeply personal statements. This track, from her recording Loverly, is a great way to dip into her singing.
Finally, the pianist Brad Mehldau, whose signature style involves lavishing endless care on a fragment of melody, and teasing out nearly infinite harmonic variations. He does that and more here, and then gives space to the Spanish saxophonist Perico Sambeat, who finds some aspects of the song that strike me as entirely separate from those that Stan Getz dwelt on, and as equally valid.
Aly, I texted you earlier this week that this week’s song was a meaningful one to me, and one I thought you’d find intriguing. I’m even more eager than usual to read your thoughts.
F
Aly's Response
Fritz,
What a note you've provided me this week. Where do I even begin to permeate? You've given me layers upon layers of entry points, and though I will sadly have to only pick one path to follow, please know that this response could have manifested in about half a dozen different ways with half a dozen different points. Lucky for us, the path I stumbled onto is a winding gravel ribbon that cuts through a beautiful mental park–nay, it's actually a beautiful cemetery, with gravestones and willow trees dotting either side of the road.
You know me fairly well, Fritz, but Jazz Spectrum's readers might not; as such, I hesitate to share the macabre fascination–enjoyment?–I find in the peace of a stroll through many of Toledo's cemeteries. But my excitement to talk about the amazing topic of cemeteries, mausoleums, and (particularly) gravestone epitaphs ultimately outweighs any reservations I feel about the judgement of our readers.
Epitaphs may feel like just another tangent to tack on to your note this week; but, when I read your musings on Fitzgerald and Eliot in particular, I couldn't help but think of our discussions over the curiosities that lay within so many mausoleums and nearby tombstones. This is likely also due to the walking tour I hosted at Woodlawn cemetery this week (remind me to tell you about that the next time we have lunch, as it involves heckler, a comically large speaker, and someone shoving dollar bills in my pants). I have, as you know, hyperfixation on interesting gravestone carvings and strange epitaphs. Technically, these pictures and words are the final intonations a person can choose to make before they go. What a seemingly insurmountable task to accomplish. What do you want your last words to be? Not just the ones you utter; rather, the ones that will outlive you for generations. I find immense excitement when I come across gravesites that very obviously took this personal challenge seriously. And in this way, I think that your commentary on authors' famous lines mimics the same sentiment that I'm feeling about epitaph writing.
Your musings on what sentiments are most remembered by prolific authors got me thinking. On one hand, I think I agree with a lot of your points on these "misplaced" rememberings. Anyone who says their favorite T.S. Eliot line ISN'T "Let us go then, you and I/where the evening is spread out against the sky/like a patient etherized upon a table;" is an enemy of the state in my book. On the other hand, I wonder if my staunch beliefs on the superior prose of these long-gone writers is more a reflection of my own biases. If the majority of a group finds "April is the cruelest month" to be the largest marker of Eliot's genius and success, am I the crazy one for disagreeing? Should I feel like I'm missing some secret, hidden ideal in not agreeing with the crowd? Questions to mull over for another day.
Further down the mental path I take us– of course, we need to visit our friends' F.Scott and T.S. to see what they had to say posthumously. Eliot's memorial stone at Westminster Abbey contains a line from his poem Little Gidding: 'the communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living". Almost cruelly, Fitzgerald's stone reads the most obvious Gatsby quote you could name: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." I doubt either of them selected these lines to be placed at their burial sites; do you think they're pissed that they didn't get the chance to pull a fast one on their fans by putting some random musing that they never published on their stones? I wonder if they wanted to be buried at all, if they even wanted to be one with the earth again. I bet they're so mad that they didn't pull a Hunter S. Thompson and have their ashes fired out of a cannon. No stone words are really needed when you do that as your last hurrah.
Perhaps my appreciation for a perfectly-executed epitaph really stems from my own personal worries about my last words. Though I likely won't be able to plan for that day, I still find myself concerned that I won't get to go out on a high note, intellectually speaking. And what do I even have to say, really? I could pick someone else's words, maybe–something bright and green from Whitman, or a lyric from the Beatles' catalog, or a line or two from Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. But that's a bit of a cop-out, isn't it? Those aren't my words. But if I respond and resonate so intensely with those words, do they not make up the parts of me that make me, me?
Ow, my head hurts.
I suppose that it was this extremely long line of thinking that put me in the headspace to listen to this week's SotW set. Whether it was Cassandra's unreal depth and tone; or Stan's dampened and slow coloring of the horn; or Kenny's soft guitar, like a lullaby; or Irene's presence and smooth goosebump-inducing vocal beauty; or any of the other selections this week, I couldn't help but feel that these versions of "Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most" all hold their own in their own unique ways. All of the artists selected this week hold their own and transform this song into their own personal creation, transcending just the lyrics and crafting completely different vibes. It shows that you can take something that isn't 100% your own genesis, and still make it feel so entirely "yours".
The words we speak every day hold the same amount of volume in our lives. It's a self-imposed curse to worry yourself wondering what the last things you say might be someday. But by the same measure, lyricists and authors both face the beautiful, diabolical challenge of weaving words together in such nuanced ways as to make people feel something. How could you not think about the words you'll be remembered for if that's your job? I think we'll have to keep discussing this the next time we visit a cemetery–maybe there's a long-winded gravestone somewhere that will unlock all the answers for us.
Walking in the park (cemetery) to kill the lonely hours,
Aly
