This Week on Jazz Spectrum - 8/30-9/1

Song of the Week – “Over the Rainbow” – Music by Harold Arlen; lyrics by Yip Harburg

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

Dear Aly,

For a lengthy but indeterminate stretch of time following 1973, when I departed Kansas for college, I was asked by virtually everyone I met when I was far from my home state if I had a dog named “Toto.”  (I would routinely say, “No, but I have one called ‘Terry,’ which usually took the air right out of the conversation – Terry, of course, was the Cairn Terrier who played Toto in The Wizard of Oz.  Terry was a regular in movies of the time, but I believe her star-turn as Toto is the only time she was ever credited on film.  I’ve not been able to determine if she had an agent; when World War II beckoned, her trainer, Carl Spitz, abandoned the Hollywood Dog Training School he founded in 1926 to lead America’s War Dog Program.  I’ll avoid deriving the obvious truths from that slight saga.)

But it’s been years since I’ve been asked that waggish question about Toto or any variation that alludes to The Wizard of Oz.  This has me wondering about cultural half-lives, how a culture’s prevailing frames of reference evolve (or devolve), and the fleeting pleasures of surfing the zeitgeist.  There was an interlude in America – I can’t say exactly when it might have been, but I’m certain of this – when it was almost impossible to find someone who had not seen The Wizard of Oz, likely multiple times.  The movie was telecast annually; the weeks before the telecast were filled with the thrum of anticipation, produced by omnipresent teasers. I know this because I was repeatedly forced to watch the movie even in my early years, when the sight of the Wicked Witch of the West’s army of winged monkeys swooping down from the sky in pursuit of Dorothy and her companions through the unwelcoming forest guaranteed I would have nightmares for sleeps on end.  It's scarcely an exaggeration to say that in those days EVERYone knew the movie nearly by heart.

Not so much anymore.  This is anecdotal, but I take it as proof: I recently responded to a jokey threat from a relative youngster (an increasingly expansive category of person) by saying “You have no power here.  Be gone, before somebody drops a house on you, too.”  I might as well have made a quip in Sanskrit.

Ah well.  

The movie may be receding, but not the music.  At least – again this is anecdotal – not in heartening world of jazz singing, where each generation extends, revives, and renews the enduring classics of The Great American Songbook.  Last weekend, at her dazzling show at Lucille’s, we heard April Varner sing “Over the Rainbow.”  And as best I could tell, every person in the sold-out club was hip to the tune.  Of course you were – was that the slightest glint of a tear in your eye?  Not for nothing do you consistently refer to Judy Garland as “my girl.”  But everyone, the whole span of generations represented in the crowd, knew the song.

In case you needed proof that studio executives are the living (?) embodiment of the Peter Principle: MGM executives initially considered cutting the song from the movie, thinking it dragged the pace.  Good decision: it won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1940.  Oh, I almost forgot: it was also named the greatest song of the 20th Century by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Harold Arlen wrote the music, and Yip Harburg the lyrics.  The Wizard soundtrack is full of their collaborations.  “Over the Rainbow” demands vast range, which April Varner handled with her otherworldly aplomb.  I have a private preference for “If I Only Had a Brain,” a refrain I’ve sung, or at least spoken, to myself ten thousand times.  Harold and Yip also gave us “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” “Last Night When We Were Young,” and “Old Devil Moon,” among others. Well-done, fellas.  

Even if I weren’t trying to engage with you over this song, I would have opened the Song of the Week tour with Judy’s version from the movie.  There are other recordings of her singing it, including a vaguely haunting one from her fabled performance at Carnegie Hall in 1961.  But I am pretty sure you would want to hear your girl Judy’s defining version.  So that’s where we begin.

Then Art Tatum.  Art recorded the song many times.  For our show, I chose a somewhat obscure version, privately recorded in 1948 at the home of a pianist friend of Art’s.  You can hear Art’s usual and always mind-bending pyrotechnics, but throughout this version there are moments of halting melancholy that I find deeply affecting. 

In the last several years, I’ve become a fanboy of the singer Lorez Alexandria. I’m not sure how I missed her all these years, but no longer.  From 1959 to 1964, she released eight albums, and I’m not sure there’s a single track on any of them that falls short of at least excellence.  She included “Over the Rainbow” in her 1964 release, Alexandria the Great, which is currently my favorite.  (She also wrote the liner notes.) The album is a tour through some of the best songs in the jazz repertoire.  

The first set ends with the tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, recorded in 1964 in London at Ronnie Scott’s venerable club with the pianist Stan Tracey.  By this time, Ben had wearied of the United States and was living and working as an expatriate in Europe, where he spent the last decade of his life, playing as he pleased.  On any given night, he could still thrill with his breathy ballad tone and his occasional harmonic flights.  This is a nice document from that era.

The second set begins with a rarity, maybe a novelty: I believe it is the only jazz vocal that Austin Cromer ever recorded.  Austin was for a while a member of the R&B singing group, The Ravens, although truth be told he didn’t cut a particularly broad swath there either.  But I don’t have any sense that, other than this version of “Over the Rainbow,” on which he is backed by Dizzy Gillespie, Austin ever forayed into jazz singing.  That’s pretty much why I included it.

Art Pepper’s recording legacy is vast and full of exceptional music.  Among my favorites of his records are the two he produced, late in life, with the pianist George Cables – Goin’ Home and Tete-a-Tete.  Art passed away the month after these sessions.  They are a stunning valedictory.  Listen closely to their version.

Then, Melody Gardot, from her intriguing 2009 record, My One and Only Thrill.  This is the only non-original on the date.  I’ve had more unproductive discussions about whether Melody is a jazz singer than I care to count.  Regardless, I like listening to her caress the lyric here against the accompanying band’s South American rhythmic patterns.

Finally, one of my favorite instrumental balladeers: Louis Smith.  I first encountered Louis, shortly after I moved to these parts in the early 1980s, at a small club in Ann Arbor.  As of that time, he’d put out only a couple of recordings as a leader, but he was directing the University of Michigan Jazz Ensemble (and, dig this, teaching in the Ann Arbor public-school system.)  That night in Ann Arbor he did a version of “Time After Time” that made clear how deeply he could feel, interpret, and convey the meaning of great songs.  He went on to release about a dozen classic records on SteepleChase.  And he became a friend of Jazz Spectrum, a relationship I cherish.  He passed in 2016.   This version is from the recording Once in a While, from 1999, with Doug Raney on guitar providing the chordal support.  I miss Louis.

This show’s for you, Aly.

F

Aly's Response

Fritz,

Though I don't subscribe to any staunch belief system, as you know, I do find myself experiencing some severe moments of kismet this season. Is it purely coincidence that we're discussing the MGM goldmine that is The Wizard of Oz almost exactly 85 years to the release date (August 25, 1939)? Is it left to chance that I had a dog named Terry way back in my younger and more vulnerable years? Can it just be happenstance that earlier this week, I turned to a familiar pastime activity and began to sift through bins of old photographs, smiling at images of my family trick-or-treating during some early 2000s Halloween, where I was dressed as Dorothy? 

My mom had set my blonde hair in braids, dad had painted a pair of old shoes ruby red, and though my family pet at the time was a huge German Shepherd named Bear, I would have crammed him into my little wicker basket if I could have. I was a Wizard of Oz devotee as a child. Like the color blue and chicken noodle soup, it was one of my uncontested favorites. My parents love to lament that they purchased collector's edition Oz Barbie dolls for me when I was young as a Christmas gift, which I promptly showed my love for by essentially destroying them. Come on — you give a 5 year old some pretty dolls and ask her NOT to act out narratives on par with Shakespeare's The Tempest, and you think she'll listen? (I did check eBay, and those Wizard of Oz Barbies are selling for a cool $325.00, so maybe my parents were right to be a little perturbed.)

It goes without saying that even before I was acutely aware of what would become my fixation on Judy Garland, I was in love with this film. Writing this response to you now, I actually couldn't tell you the last time I've watched the movie all the way through; it might be longer than a decade at this point. I guess that's the rub with growing up: something you so fiercely love in your youth can become a memory, more often than not. Though I haven't experienced the half-life you wrote about with this movie, I dread the day someone doesn't get the "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" quote. I look forward to indoctrinating your granddaughter with many things, so to ensure the legacy of the film lives on, I will add a Wizard of Oz watch party to the list (just below "take her to gamble in Reno", but just above "teach her to play the theremin"). 

Why should I care about this movie's legacy among the youths, though? Why does anyone? And in particular, what is the national (international?) fixation withOver the Rainbow? I do think there's an inherently American quality to Over the Rainbow's essence in the pop culture lexicon now, which can't be overlooked; lyrically, the melancholic optimism (how's that for a paradox) that it emanates rings just as true now as it did at the beginning of World War II. Melodically, it sighs regardless of instrument, an exhale of longing that is oh so resonant. Like a magic elixir, the tune drips emotion directly onto the listener and instantly sets you at ease - a miasma of nostalgic peace.  

Truthfully, I don't know if there is a better answer to why the song is so prolific than the fact that it's an ingrained part of so many childhood memories for so many people. For some, it may just be the joy of the technicolor world of Oz; for others, maybe it's a connection to family members across generations who also hold the film in high regard. I would love to say that it was always Judy for me, but let's not kid ourselves – that love affair didn't start until a little later in my youth. Though my penchant for Judy will inevitably always cloud my opinions of certain songs, I must admit that there is a certain magnetic quality to Over the Rainbow that makes it so delightfully applicable to a variety of timbres, tones, and versions. Of this week's SotW selections, I'm so glad you included Ben Webster's & Art Pepper's versions, as they're both incredibly classic interpretations that I hold very close to my heart. I love that this song is so prolific that, with the right musicians, it can transcend lyrics and still retain all of its beauty. What a gift in sharing Louis Smith's version, too – a new one to add to the rotation.

Regardless of the changing tides of popular culture, I think there will always be an indelible connection for modern humanity to The Wizard of Oz, and I would argue that one of the main threads of that connection is surely Over the Rainbow. I can't wait to see who else takes the challenge of covering the tune in the next fifty years, because it's without question that the song will remain as important and relatable as it is today. (My fingers are crossed that we'll get a version by Oasis with their new tour announcement. What do you think the odds are?)

Thanks for strolling down a golden-colored road with me this week Fritz. I hope you have similar glittering memories when you think of this tune; at the very least, I hope it inspires you to go find those ruby-red shoes in the back of your closet and take a walk down memory lane. 

From one Good Deed Doer to another,
Aly