jazz ambassadors - cold war hot war

Recently I downloaded an i-Player app for BBC radio and immediately searched for “jazz.” The first programme catching my ear was a 30 minutes’ slot about jazz musicians acting in ambassadorial roles for the USA government in the 1950s and 60s.

The USA at the time had a poor image internationally and the government hit upon the bright idea to polish off the tarnish by exploiting its most popular export – jazz. The US organised a series of goodwill concerts around the world, sending orchestras led by such luminaries as Ellington, Gillespie and Armstrong. Primarily they went to those places which could be regarded as trouble hot-spots, usually where the US government was frightened the USSR could gain a foot-hold. This was the era of cold war. Musicians travelling were troopers holding back a perceived rising red tide. Unlike Joshua, they were gifted with the task of maintaining walls, such as they existed.

For many musicians, the tours were life-changing experiences. They were appalled by the poverty, brutalism, hypocrisy and corruption of some of the places they visited. And mostly these were musicians having to fight their own battles for equality at home, but in the meantime they visited places such as Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Congo, Pakistan – and many others in their roles as jazz ambassadors extraordinary.

What hit home for me was that I recognised all the places where they performed not from the Times Atlas of the World, or from history lectures, but from yesterday's news. In other words, in over 60 years nothing has altered, unless conditions have worsened. Perhaps ideologies have changed; different mantras and slogans are chanted, but these places are still being torn apart by nothing but senseless self-interest. Shame! Shame on the international community. Shame on leaders and politicians world-wide. Shame on religions. Shame on you and me. Shame on the human race.

joe harriott - charles mingus

I'm a little vague about law of copy and intellectual rights, so I hope I'm not trespassing where the more knowledgeable fear to tread.

A fairly recent purchase is "Chan," a book of poetry by Hannah Lowe.

Among the poems is one titled "Mingus"

                            Charles Mingus on the ward at midnight, come
                            through rain and hail in dripping gabardine
                            to matron, standing firm and handing him
                            a pen. A note? Say what ma'm? Please. Goddam.

This short verse puzzled me. I know Mingus was in and out of hospital himself but I couldn't quite put this forlorn picture of him into any context until I found notes in the back of the book.

Quote - Charles Mingus broke off his UK tour to travel to Southampton to visit Harriott in hospital. They had never met but Mingus arrived late in the night and was refused entry. Harriot died shortly afterwards. Unquote.

The great die young. Joe Harriott was 44. A thrusting southpaw pioneer, he probably upset quite a few jazz purists in his day. Chris Barber recorded his composition "Revival" in (I think) 1962, quite a surprise for me steeped as I was in British Trad and swing at the time and only recently discovering that I quite enjoyed 'modern' jazz. After playing bebop, he teamed with Shake Keane (flugelhorn) and started to develop free form jazz (which then I didn't understand and still struggle with) and also produced a fusion of jazz and traditional Indian music. Harriott refused to be constrained by ropes; he fought outside the ring.

Even Hannah Lowe, obviously an admirer of Harriott's work, wrote in her poem "What Is and Isn't Jazz?" (a question I ask repeatedly) the following closing stanzas:

                             Mr Harriott's laboratory tests
                             are in the early stages
                                                 and though
                                  he should be admired
                                                                  (perhaps)
                             does jazz need constant broadening?
                                              Are fresh kicks desired daily?

                              Mr Harriott, stop crying
                                             through your horn
                                                     and start playing again,
                                                                   please!

I've been listening to jazz in most incarnations for over 60 years - and in my opinion Ms Lowe's question is one of the most pertinent I've ever encountered in the genre - does jazz need constant broadening?  What is the answer?

strollin' by charles mingus

The title is a deliberate misrepresentation. This entry has nothing to do with Charles Mingus, but everything to do with strolling, being a sequel to my last post about coddiwompling.

To coddiwomple means to travel in a determined fashion towards an indeterminate destination, and in conversation with a friend of equal abstraction, a few more words for walking began to seep into my frontal lobes. "Flaneur," for example, a word with provenance attributed to Baudelaire, meaning a person who saunters urbanely, a stroller at leisure. "Boulevardier" another French word, this time implying a socialite, strolling around town not for the purpose of seeing but in order to be seen presumably dressed in expensive finery.

This led to a more detailed examination of words in popular use to describe walking or walkers. The list below can't pretend to be exhaustive, but what came out of this casual anecdotal study is that no word is a precise synonym of another; they all hint at something slightly different, a bit like the claim, perhaps apocryphal, that Eskimos have a vast lexicon of terms to describe snow.

Here's a few, verbs and nouns mixed randomly:

Wanderer; pedestrian; wayfarer; tramp; nomad; promenade; peregrinate; roamer; rambler; ambler; hike; rover; trekker; cruiser; noctivagent; trudge; traipse; divagate; perambulate; potter; march; stride; travel; journey.

If anyone can add to this list, especially obscure and foreign words, I'd be delighted to hear.