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That said, it's okay (maybe) not to care- for all the goddamn dullness and
rapacity in the world, there are still many other interesting other words and lives and places to care for- but if the proverbial you do (or did then or might later)
care, then remember there are many depths left to the digging. The real-time
documentation of and attentiveness to the thing as-it-happens is rarely enough
(there being, conversely, many examples where the attentions- bought and paid
for with no greater intent than to sell their sorry ass- are far too fucking much...
but I bitterly digress.) and even a fraction of the original creative gush (flow)
spent it listening (researching), is likely to reveal more than a few discrete
moments and gestures (perhaps later seen as patterns) of revelation, transcen-
dence, inspiration, poetry, a little leg (a little more), you-tell-me: choose your
passion, sister.

...

13 February 1928: the Paul Whiteman Orchestra records "Monday
Morning" in New York for the Victor label (BVE 41689-3); they'd re-record it
fifteen days later and it's second of the two surviving takes from that session that
was chosen as the master. You can argue the respective of merits of each of 'em,
and received wisdom tells us that the primary interest of all is the blowing of
Leon "Bix" Beiderbecke, Whiteman's 24-year-old star cornet player from
Davenport, Iowa. The more you listen, however, the more you begin to realize
that, far from being merely Bix plus alot of wheezing nostalgic pop claptrap,
like much of the Whiteman band's too often derided work, every one of these
performances is at least a half-mad and as much again brilliant amalgam of...
stuff. Weird stuff. So in the three minutes or so a 78 rpm record allows we get, in
sequence: a sickly intro from Sweet Vocal Trio leading into a similarly jive but
very short solo vocal; some hot shit loop-de-loop ba-di-ba-ba scatting by The
Rhythm Boys; an incredible Bix Beiderbecke solo over orchestra; an excellent
Bing Crosby vocal with more curlicue Rhythm Boy harmonies backing; a
surprisingly hot fiddle break; and Bix leading a very hard driving ensemble out
until a brief return of the strings, now in syrupy reflection of the tune's sorta
putridbeginning. Listen to all three takes 25-30 times each and still can't quite
figure any 'em out. (It stands, man!) And there's Bix and still that sound.

14 February 1928: A Negro laborer from Carroll County in northwest
Mississippi named John Hurt records "Frankie" and "Nobody's Dirty Business"
in Memphis, Tennessee for the Okeh label. Released as OK 8560, the record
does well enough that Hurt is invited to the Okeh studios in New York City
where on December 21 of the same year he cuts four sides and, a week later,
seven more. The third tune Hurt cut on this trip was titled "Avalon Blues," the
lyrics of which would fortuitously lead to the septuagenarian Hurt's rediscovery
in 1963. (Tho' I like its "New York's a good town but it's not for mine" even
more right now.) I'll put the introduction of "Frankie" up against almost any
burst of you-name-it solo brilliance: Earl Hines, Bill Monroe, John Coltrane.
(Almost: even in a virtuoso music, Charlie Parker is still off the map as techni-

Spring 2001 29

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