Archives for 2009

Like most columnists, I try to keep up with anniversaries, but the centennial of Art Tatum’s birth–October 13–slipped past me. No wonder, since scarcely anyone seems to have taken note of it, whether in print or on stage. Yet Tatum, who died in 1956, is still the most admired pianist in the history of jazz, and it seems likely that he will hang onto that status for decades, even centuries, to come. On the other hand, he isn’t especially well known to the general public, at least not by comparison with Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington.
Why isn’t Tatum a household name? Is it because jazz itself is no longer as popular as it used to be? Or might there be something about his elaborately virtuosic style that has kept him out of the public eye? I’ll be exploring this question in my “Sightings” column for Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. If you’re curious, pick up a copy of tomorrow’s paper and see what I have to say.
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UPDATE: Read the whole thing here.
Art Tatum plays his jazz interpretation of Dvorak’s “Humoresque” on The Faye Emerson Show in 1950:

“A difference in taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.”
George Eliot, Daniel Deronda

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong just got a rave from Shelf Awareness: Daily Enlightenment for the Book Trade, an influential e-mail industry newsletter:

An exhilarating biography of an American original that also charts the way the U.S. and popular entertainment changed from 1921 to 1971….
With wit, authoritative musical knowledge and solid research, Terry Teachout lovingly chronicles Armstrong’s career delivering happiness from his emergence in 1921 as a premier New Orleans jazz musician through his later fame as a popular entertainer…
In public, Armstrong ignored his critics because, as he stated, “showmanship does not mean you’re not serious.” In the privacy of his own home, though, he was more candid. Using Armstrong’s personal writings and hours of tape recordings, Teachout reveals the scathing opinions Pops held of those knocking him and his success.
Audiences may have seen Armstrong as perennially happy and uncomplicated, but Teachout makes us aware of many crises behind the scenes. He discusses the influence of mobsters in jazz clubs and dance halls, the demeaning daily reality of segregation during Armstrong’s early touring years and the in-fighting among leading jazz performers….

Read the whole thing here.
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More bookshelf sightings: as of this morning, you can find Pops at Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, Massachusetts, and five copies were on the shelves last night at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C., where I’ll be speaking in January. Watch this space for details.

A reader writes to say that he saw Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong on sale in Pleasantville, New York–the first bookstore sighting that’s been reported to me. (I’m out in the woods of Connecticut’s “quiet corner” with Mrs. T and haven’t been near a bookstore for the past week.)
If you should see Pops in a bookstore, would you kindly shoot me an e-mail? I’d like to monitor how quickly it starts to turn up across the country.

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway and off-Broadway shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:

• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, suitable for bright children, closes Jan. 10, reviewed here)

• Finian’s Rainbow (musical, G, suitable for children, dramatically inert but musically sumptuous, reviewed here)

• God of Carnage * (serious comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 3, reviewed here)

• Oleanna (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, violence, reviewed here)

• South Pacific (musical, G/PG-13, some sexual content, brilliantly staged but unsuitable for viewers acutely allergic to preachiness, reviewed here)

• A Steady Rain * (drama, R, totally unsuitable for children, closes Dec. 6, reviewed here)

• Superior Donuts (dark comedy, PG-13, violence, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

• The Emperor Jones (drama, PG-13, contains racially sensitive language, extended through Dec. 6, reviewed here)

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

• Our Town (drama, G, suitable for mature children, reviewed here)

• The Understudy (farce, PG-13, closes Jan. 3, reviewed here)

Over the weekend I read an interview with an eighty-nine-year-old trumpet-playing World War II fighter pilot named Jack Tueller. In 1939 he played for Louis Armstrong, who gave him the following piece of professional advice:

Always play the melody, man. Look at them, see their age group, play their love songs, and you’ll carry all the money to the bank.

I wish I’d been able to put that quote into Pops!

“Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.”
Benjamin Disraeli, Contarini Fleming

William Schuman’s “When Jesus Wept,” the second movement of New England Triptych, performed by Thomas Lee and the 2008 5A Texas All-State Symphonic Band. The tune is by William Billings:

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)