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October 20, 2006
TT: Much obliged
Hugs and kisses to the many readers who responded promptly to last week's queries, much obliged. Herewith, the answers.- Did Art Blakey really say this?
Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that's it. No America, no jazz. I've seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn't have a damn thing to do with Africa.
He sure did. The source is the interview with Blakey published in Art Taylor's book Notes and Tones.
- Did Betty Comden and Adolph Green really write a song whose lyrics succinctly summarized famous books? Yes, indeed. It's a revue number called "Reader's Digest." Nobody came up with the complete lyrics, but here are some pertinent excerpts:
Les Misérables:
Jean Valjean, no evildoer,
Stole some bread ‘cause he was poor.
A detective chased him through a sewer.
The end.
Henrik Willem Van Loon's Story of Mankind:
The rule was eat or you'll get ate.
Man came along and stood up straight.
The end.
Gone With the Wind:
Scarlett O'Hara's a spoiled pet,
She wants everything that she can get.
The one thing she can't get is Rhett.
The end.
For the record, the other books "digested" in the song are Romeo and Juliet, War and Peace, Mein Kampf, Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, and the complete works of Sigmund Freud.
Posted October 20, 2006 12:00 PM
