The Information Super-Frog

Via mmcirvin:

LOL cats of 1913

benzai_ten "tagged" me to do a "six current favorite songs" meme.

I don't know about "favorites", that changes very regularly, but here are some that have been on my mind in the last few days:

1)"Carolina in the Morning" It's one of the old standards that even those who generally have no contact with pre-rock music sort-of know ("Nothing could be finer/Than to be in..."). For whatever reason, dispite the affinity for '20s pop tunes in the trad jazz repertory, I seldom hear it here in New Orleans-- perhaps because we have so many good tunes on local themes bands don't feel a need to plug some other state (except for "Indiana"). I hadn't thought about the song for years, then I heard a banjo player do it and I brought out an old EP of Brad Gowans band and played his recording on my radio show. It really is a good song. And the lyrics...

Strolling with my girlie
Where the dew is pearly
Early in the morning

Butterflies all flutter up
And kiss each little buttercup
At dawning

...Mmmm, that's good Tin Pan Alley.

And if you're going to sing it, it's one that just begs to be hammed up.

2)Won't You Be My Lovin' Baby? Another 1920s number, this one an obsurity by The Half-way House Orchestra, one of the top white jazz/dance bands in New Orleans in the decade. This was one of the band's original numbers; they made a recording of it for Columbia but it was rejected, but a test pressing survived.

I suspect someone at Columbia thought lyrics like the below were a bit much for commercial issue at the time:

Won't you be my lovin' baby,
Just for tonight?
Let's pet under the moon so bright
Come and hold me tight.
Press your lovin' lips to mine
You'll feel that funny feeling up and down your spine
If you be my lovin' baby
Just for tonight,
I'm askin'
Come be mine tonight.

Hey, if they couldn't get band groupies with that one...

The tune is just a slight variation on the old Buddy Bolden standard "Don't Go 'Way Nobody" with a turn around added. Lots of the "originals" recorded by local bands in the '20s were just slight reworkings-- if any changes were made at all-- of numbers that had been in the local repertory for years or decades already by that time. "Don't Go 'Way Nobody" was one of the most reworked, and also appeared in such national Tin Pan Alley Hits as "You Gotta See Mama Every Night Or You Can't See Mama At All". Two groups I occasionally sub or sit in with do "You Gotta See Mama", and I thought the two songs could go together very nicely, with a male vocalist singing the above verse, then the female going into:

You've got to see mama every night
Or you can't see mama at all.
You gotta kiss mama
And treat her right
Or she won't be home when you call.
I don't want the kind of Sheik
Who does his sheiking once a week,
You gotta see your mama every night
Or you won't see mama at all...

By the way, Bolden's "Don't Go 'Way" from 1904 seems an unusually early example of the AABA pop tune structure. Anyone known of earlier/other examples from around that time?

3)Ballin' The Jack. Not a 1920s tune: A standard from 1914. It's on my mind as at last practice the band decided to switch who does the vocal on it to me. Okay, though I'm unsure I wish to do the dance steps that go with it. The other trombonist does a good job at that. I agree with him that the rest of the band should learn the verse in addition to the chorus.

4)Naked Town A 21st century number from Paul Gailiunas of The Trouble Makers. It's one of the numbers the Trouble Makers did at the wedding reception where I played with them; its not on their cd. I asked Paul to email me the lyrics as I didn't catch them all, but as I havn't gotten them, I filled some in while singing to myself. Probably not quite right as composed, but it's something like this:

Come on honey, grab my hand
Let's go on a trip.
We're going to a special place
You're sure to think it's hip.
Take off your shoes,
Take off your hat,
Take off your ribbons and bows.
We're going down to Naked Town
Where we won't need any clothes.

Naked Town, Naked Town,
Let's go down to Naked Town
No one ever wears a frown
Down in Naked Town...

I sang it to a few members of the Ramblers Jazz Band at a pool party, and we might wind up doing a trad cover of it. Just the thing to play at skinny-dipping and certain Carnival events...

5)When My Baby Smiles At Me, a 1920 number by the masterful Harry Von Tilzer. A clarinetist at the Jazz Club jam called this one out; the banjo player and I were the only others who knew it. The three of us got away with playing it anyway. I invited the clarinetist to play with the new small band, for which we need to find a better name than "The Spanish Fort Jazz Band" as even most locals who aren't up on minutia of local history seem puzzled by the "Spanish Fort" reference. (Spanish Fort was an amusement park on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain with notable jazz bands in the 1920s at the location of the ruins of a small colonial era fort. Our banjo/guitar player lives near there. Suggestions of better names for a 1920s style New Orleans jazz band welcome.)

Speaking of Von Tilzer tunes, that calls back into mind 6)My Little Girl by the other great Von Tilzer, Albert. I've sung it elsewhere on LJ a while ago. It is another number that jazzes up real good, though the Last Straws are the only group I recall doing so any time recently.

Most other numbers in my head currently are instrumentals, not songs.

I don't "tag" others to answer. Reply to this meme yourself if you'd like, otherwise don't.

I'm modifying the LJ meme from "10 things I've done that you havn't", as I think the list is more interesting with some items that a few others have likely done as well.

1) Participated in New Orleans Carnival parades as a spectator, a costumed marcher, a float rider, and a musician.

2) Sent telegrams.

3) Ridden a in train drawn by a steam locomotive that was in regular passanger service, not a tourist attraction.

4) Slept in a hammock. "Slept with" someone in a hammock.

5) Excavated an archeaological site.

6) Visited towns where my appearance was so alien that local children ran away screaming.

7) Lived in a country with no television stations.

8) Performed marriages.

9) Repaired wind-up phonographs.

10) Borrowed a ladder to climb in a window in order to do a radio show.

Meme via schwa242, with extra years ago added because I am an ancient fossil by LiveJournal standards.

25 Years Ago, I:
Was studying in Antigua Guatemala, learning anthropology, hoping to become an archaeologist specializing in the ancient Maya.

20 Years Ago, I:
Was back in New Orleans, working at the bookstore on Canal Street and living with viola gal, and already doing some part time radio on WWOZ.

15 Years Ago, I:
Was living in 1/3rd of a house on Napoleon Avenue. I was married to horror writer gal, and working at the Tulane University Jazz Archive.

10 years ago I was:
Still living on Napoleon, but happily dating the lovely & tallented mshollie.

5 years ago:
I was getting settled into my new house in New Orleans' Carrollton neighborhood, and had the hot-tub set up in the back yard.

1 year ago:
I was disgusted with the George W. Bush regeme

Yesterday:
I worked in my garden. The day before yesterday was much more interesting, so I'll write about that instead. I spent the morning over at Ms. Hollie's, and ate hootcakes, which were better than Eva Gabor's on Green Acres. I then went shopping, picking up some Eucalyptus mulch and a new scanner.

In the evening had a jam/rehersal at Ms. Beth's place. Beth named us "The New Gloryland Jazz Band"; this is a different group from the Sycamos, the other group of Carroltonians starting a band. We had 3 sax, 2 trombone, bass (electric, alas), and drum (very good fellow, keeps good time, on the bass drum not the high hat, yay!). Except for the bass player we went over to Justin & Annie's for their Easter Egg coloring party that night. "The New Gloryland" made its public debut there -- I would have said we weren't ready for it, but it went surprisingly well, especially considering the instrumentation we had with neither of the trumpets and no string or chord instrument. Our best number was "Creole Love Call", which the saxes have an arrangement of (we tramboners play by "air"). By request I sang "5 Foot 2". My doing that number with another band developed something of a following, but I'd prefer not to do it again without a banjo (or keyboardist), as everyone but the drums dropped out when I sang. Justin joined us on banjo for a couple more numbers then. I hope he'll play with us regularly, as his musical tastes are even more retronian than mine (I think the 1905 number "Everybody Works But Father" is the most recent number I've head him do while playing on his own). One guest came in and said that from the other end of the house she'd thought we were a recording. It was a nice debut, I think we have a potential band.

Today I:
Opened the wooden shutters I closed last night as some severe weather with potential hail predicted passed through. I made myself some Mexican chocolate, set up my new scanner, was midly annoyed that some sports game cut short the vintage radio shows on WTIX, and updated my LiveJournal.

Tomorrow, I:
Will do my radio show.

Froggy joins in the memefest on his friends page:

1) As a child, who was your favorite superhero/heroine? Why?

H.G. Wells' Time Traveler. 'Cause time travel would be way cool.
(Note: Young Froggy took his $ to used book shops rather than comic book shops.)

2) What was one thing you always wanted as a child but never got?

Uh... Respect?

3) 3. What's the furthest from home you've been?

That would be in Greece, Bob.
(According to the Distance Finder, 6092 miles / 9805 km / 5294 nautical miles from New Orleans.)

4. What's one thing you've always wanted to learn but haven't yet?

To speak multiple other languages fluently.

5. What are your plans for the weekend?

Two carnival krewe meetings, a funeral, and playing trombone at a party.