"... Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountaintop. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land...."
As a kid I was never a big Doris fan. I was not a fan of the "romantic comedies" that she cranked out in the Sixties with James Garner and, more famously, Rock Hudson. Truth be told I just don't care for most Hollywood fare from the Fifties through the mid-Sixties. Too much of it was just not interesting, and I painted Doris Day in that too-big-of-a-brush.
I've reconsidered her since. She was awesome in PILLOW TALK. She was terrific in CALAMITY JANE. She was even pretty good in some of those Rock Hudson movies. :-)
I always liked her music, though. "Sentimental Journey" was on one of my parents' BEST OF COLUMBIA record albums I listened to all the time. "Secret Love" was awesome. And of course, "Que Sera, Sera" is a favorite.
I remember seeing her on television, but again, she was never a favorite. For one thing, I never knew what kind of show I was going to get when I caught an episode! The first year she was a widower living on a farm with her Uncle Jessie (Denvery Pyle) and two sons. From the second year she lived on the farm but worked for Mclean Stevenson and Rose-Marie. After the third year Denver Pyle was gone and the boys were around some. For the last two years she worked for "meanie" John Dehner as a swinging single with no boys anywhere!! Talk about mixed up!
Doris Day was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in PILLOW TALK in 1959, and has hundreds of best-selling albums. She truly is a legend.
Here are the five different TV openings used for THE DORIS DAY SHOW (1968-1973).
See for yourself how totally different they are!
If you remember at the FORWARD to last issue, I was explaining how I had bitten off more than I could chew in one issue. I had set myself up as having to show the nightmares of every JLAer, and that filled up the 40 pages I had to work with pretty quickly. So I made the decision to continue the story instead of having Hawkman and Elongated Man rally to actually save the JLA on their own. Looking back at it now, I think I should have had that happen. Instead, we get a story starring characters my readers had never heard of before! Not the brightest decision.
However, there are a few fun things going on. Just because the story doesn't go in the direction it *should* have doesn't mean there isn't anything worthwhile here, haha.
Translation was still being done by my friend Shoko. This would have been the end of the 1994-1995 educational year, which means it would have printed and distributed in February or March 1995.
April is Jazz Appreciation Month. I am not a *huge* Jazz fan, but I do like some of it...mostly the happy stuff (ie not "the Blues.") I'd like to share some of my favorite Jazz artists with you this month.
Louis Armstrong, besides being a legendary Jazz trumpeteer and band-leader, is also the oldest artist to ever hit Number One. He was 63 when his tune, HELLO, DOLLY topped the Billboard charts the week of May 9, 1964.
Not only that, but his song was the hit that stopped the Beatles from monopolizing the top spot. They had three number one songs in a row for a total of 14 weeks at the top....but Louis stopped them from having 15. Can you imagine a less likely person to do this? I can't! However, I can't imagine a more deserving person, either. :-)
Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong was born on August 1, 1901 in New Orleans, but always claimed July 4, 1900 as his birthday. He took to the trumpet as a 13-year old at Waif's Home for Boys and never looked back.
He is best known in pop culture today for this song and for "Wonderful World," which he sang in 1968 but was not a hit in the US until it was used in the 1987 film, GOOD MORNING VIETNAM.
Armstrong has too many jazz songs to mention, but a few of his most famous or inspirational songs include "West End Blues," "All of Me," "When The Saints Go Marchin' In," "St. Louis Blues," and "Mack The Knife." Personally I'm partial to his duets with Ella Fitzgerald from 1956 ("Ella and Louis") and 1957 ("Ella and Louis Again."). I looked high and low for a video of any of their duets, but it looks like they did no live concerts to plug these recordings. That is a shame, as they are wonderful records. They were so successful that they teamed up again in 1958 to sing songs from the musical "Porgy and Bess."
Louis Armstrong died on July 7, 1971. He had recorded "We Have All the Time In The World," for the James Bond movie ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. To this day I can not listen to that song without tearing up: it was one of the last songs he ever recorded, AND if you know the movie, obviously we *don't* have all the time in the world. :-(
Wow, I do a pretty good steal of Perez/Giordano, but my add-ons of Aqualad and Speedy SUCK. This is my absolute least-favorite cover of all thirty-one. I didn't even get the title at the bottom centered.
April is Jazz Appreciation Month in the United States. I had never heard of this, but when I did a little bit of digging it turns out that this was started by the Smithsonian National Museum on Natural History in Washington DC. Turns out that they have quite a collection of jazz-related items in their archives, and as jazz is largely considered an American form of music, the Smithsonian decided to help celebrate it.
They have jazz-related events during the entire month of April. No fooling!
You can learn more at their site, www.smithsonianjazz.org
When I went to do research on this theme, I kept thinking, "What is jazz? I don't like jazz, do I?" But of course I found Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, and of course, Louis Armstrong, and then I found myself saying, "Hell yes, what was I thinking, I LOVE jazz!"
On the other hand, I also saw Kenny G and other "smooth operators" like Sade and I don't particularly like that stuff at all. So for every Anita Baker who I could listen to all day, there are "blues" artists like Billie Holiday who I never liked at all. So what the hell IS "jazz," anyway??
Is THIS jazz? This is one of the first times I ever heard anything actually calling itself jazz....and I love this...even though it's sung by a white British lady!?!?!
You gotta admit, this is pretty good stuff. (Even though I NEVER understood anybody mistaking Julie Andrews for a guy! "He" needed to be a little bit more masculine to convince me, haha).
Anyway....What about this? Is THIS jazz?
Or is this a "standard"? When I was growing up in St. Louis I heard a lot of Nat "King" Cole and Marvin Hamlish' theme from THE STING (actually based on Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer"). So I guess I never equated African-American music with jazz *necessarily.* (I wouldn't say MONA LISA is jazz, but maybe there are jazzy versions of it...?) And of course, "the blues" (such as "St. Louis Blues" and Scott Joplin ragtime songs were always around. I never liked any of the sad stuff, but I loved me some honky-tonk piano-laying, mean saxophone, and wild trumpeting. Ragtime, big-band tunes, bebop, "cool" jazz, dixieland, "soul" music...were all of these jazz, but not "standards"? Was there a difference?!
Now that I'm older and I've seen just how international jazz is and just how many types of music can (and do!) fall under the header of "jazz" my answer to this question is....."Jazz is anything it wants to be. It's hot, it's cool, it's fun, it's blue, it's what you need to hear at any given time...."
To start us off this month, here's Tony Bennett (not necessarily a "jazz" artist) and the wonderful Count Basie from their 1959 recording, PLENTY OF MONEY AND YOU. I love this song, so I guess I love me some jazz. :-)
