Good evening, Kibitzers! May you all be well!
So, here’s the sort of weird free association that brought forth a diary of jazz covers starting from nowhere near that. Yesterday, I was reading Dartagnan’s diary about the bizarre and offensive “high school commencement speech” delivered online by Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE). Among the many people Sasse found room to insult in his address, at one point he apparently said, "Everybody named Jeremy is the worst."
Not unreasonably, someone in the comments wondered what the hell that was all about. In the ensuing thread, all kinds of speculation was offered, including whether “Jeremy” might be a new slang term, like “Karen”, for a stereotypical sort of person. Someone said a male “Karen” is a “Chad”, so it wasn’t that. Well, at that point, it became what one might call a stochastic YouTube post — boomers gonna boom, and you know someone would have to put up a Chad and Jeremy song.
They posted A Summer Song, but you know, I memorized that whole album when I was ten, so once I played that, those earworms weren’t going away. Willow, Weep for Me got started in my skull, and then it lodged there because the end so naturally flows right back into the bridge. Eventually, I had to stop what I was doing and find it and listen to it. And then I listened to a few more people’s versions, and pretty soon, I had way too many for a diary. It happens.
First, here’s Chad and Jeremy’s version. I’m posting a performance from 2015, because they are the closest of anyone I’ve heard recently to sounding vocally the same as they did fifty (50) years earlier. They’re even singing in the same key they did then, although I notice some of the very highest harmony notes have dropped an octave. Here’s a 1964 performance if you’re interested in comparing (cued up after Dick Clark is done talking. You’re welcome.)
As mentioned, I was ten, or not quite, when that record came out, so this was my first exposure to the song. It has a much longer history, as I bet you know. The composer, Ann Ronell, is described in the notes of one of the other YouTubes I looked at as "the first woman to compose and conduct for films" — she was also the co-composer/lyricist of Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? She had a little trouble finding a publisher for Willow, Weep for Me, nominally because it had such a complex structure for a popular song ::cough:: woman ::cough:: . Irving Berlin accepted it for publication in 1932.
This 1932 version, by Paul Whiteman and his orchestra with vocal by Irene Taylor, was actually the second one recorded, by a few months (first one here), but the styles of the two are similar. You get to hear the verse, never sung any more, and also what they meant by “complex structure” — it goes along here for four bars as a nice foxtrot, and then in measure five, all hell breaks loose, only to smooth out again in measure six. The way that measure is written allows you to do that, but you don’t have to, and it’s another thing, like the verse, that soon got sanded off.
So, that’s probably more talking than this really needed. The song became a jazz standard in short order, so I’ll just put some really good versions here, and I invite you to listen now or later. Here’s Stan Kenton in 1946 with June Christy on vocal.
Art Tatum, 1953:
Billie Holiday, from her iconic 1956 Lady Sings the Blues album:
Oscar Peterson, 1954, with Lionel Hampton, Buddy Rich, and Ray Brown:
Sarah Vaughan, live at Mr. Kelly’s in Chicago, 1957:
Duke Ellington, 1957:
Louis Armstrong with Oscar Peterson, 1957:
Frank Sinatra with Nelson Riddle, 1958:
Nina Simone, 1959. They’re all awesome, but this one is awesome:
Dexter Gordon, 1963:
Keely Smith, 1963. She had just gotten done being married to Louis Prima at this point, and was seeing what she could do on her own; quite a bit, it turns out.
Sam Cooke, 1963.
George Benson, 1966:
Aaaaand, people are still covering it! Diana Krall, 2006:
And finally, Dr. Lonnie Smith and the Original Grooves, live at Bimhuis in Amsterdam, 2007. (Smith also played on that George Benson 1966 track above; he played with Benson’s quartet for a couple of years.) It’s worth noting that Smith was dubbed “Dr.” by other musicians, in recognition of his mastery of improvisation.
Here’s part 9 of Crashing Vor’s ongoing documentary about New Orleans in the time of Covid-19, When Care Remembered. His diary for it is here; the direct YouTube link is here. The YT playlist with all episodes is here, and here are his diaries in which the earlier videos appeared. He’s planning to take a week or two off from doing this, but says he’ll be back.
John Krasinski’s weekly Some Good News series (full list is here) will also be taking some time off after this week’s episode. However, in the interim they’ve provided a collection of merch with the colorful SGN logo and some fan art, 100% of whose proceeds go to several good causes — you can select your favorite.
You need to know, though, there’s a new Randy Rainbow song that taps into Fiddler on the Roof:
Rocky Mountain Mike has a new one too:
Stay safe! 💙💙💙💙💙
🦠 COVID-19 🧫
(I’ve compressed this box by removing some older links, which are still in older diaries. Newest links here are bolded.)
The Paradox of Preparation: “The only way to get ahead of the curve is to take actions that *at the time* seem like overreactions.” ~ Chris Hayes
Social Distancing
Hand Washing
Shopping for people 60+ and/or with other risk factors
Dealing with Illness
This is a roundup of items that may be of interest. I am not an MD and this post is not medical advice. Please use your judgment and/or consult your doctor.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (The Borowitz Report)—A new test of the drug hydroxychloroquine suggests that it may cause delusions, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned on Monday. In a conference call with reporters, Fauci indicated that his findings were based on a preliminary test involving one white male subject in his seventies. [snip]
Fauci said that, if someone you know is taking hydroxychloroquine, “Broach the subject with him very carefully and diplomatically. Based on my findings, this person will not like being contradicted and is likely to fly off the handle.”
Additionally, because of the mind-altering effects of the drug, “It’s important never to do what someone taking hydroxychloroquine tells you to do,” Fauci said. ...
— The Borowitz Report, at The New Yorker
Sewing Face Masks
If You’re Bored, Part 2:
- If you worry that everyone at Harvard is studying full time to be an evil
genius idiot, you might like the work of HarvardTHUD, a student percussion group that plays pretty much anything one can percuss with. Here, they offer a Here Comes the Sun medley played on Boomwhackers.
- For NASA fans, their NASA JPL channel posts all kinds of interesting content. Here’s a video posted today, about how two astronauts upgraded the Cold Atom Laboratory aboard the ISS.
- The Frick Collection, a NYC museum/library based on the art collection of robber baron Henry Clay Frick and housed in his 5th Avenue mansion, is offering a weekly feature (live at 5 pm ET on Fridays, but viewable thereafter) called “Cocktails with a Curator”, in which a Frick curator discusses a work in the collection and also shares a cocktail recipe (the week’s recipe posted in advance). They run around 15-20 minutes. (See also the Frick’s “Travels with a Curator” series, posting Wednesdays at 5 pm ET.)
- List of 30 virtual tours of museums, zoos, aquariums, and theme parks.
- Tours of New York City museums.
- Samples of free art courses from the Museum of Modern Art.
- Free online drawing class from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Virtual-reality tours on YouTube of the Met’s impressive spaces.
- The Metropolitan Opera is still streaming operas daily.
- For kids, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan will email you a fun activity every day — sign up at their website.
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🌟 GOTV 🌟
🌟 VOTING BY MAIL: Some states (New Jersey is an example) don’t have vote-by-mail as their standard procedure, but issue absentee ballots with no questions asked. Now would be a good time to check into that for your state and those of your Democratic friends and relations — Google can help. In the case of NJ, one has to download, fill out, and mail in an application. I plan to switch over to automatically getting a mail-in ballot for every election from now on, which is one of the options here. No one who does not have to touch buttons in a voting booth should be doing so!
🌟 POSTCARDING: If you are looking for a way to help and can’t do things like canvassing or phoning, consider hand-writing postcards asking people to vote. It’s easy because you’re given specific talking points from the campaign you’re working with, so you don’t have to think up what to say, and no one will be coming back at you with questions. And if you like to color, you can get creative decorating the cards. Note that you are responsible for buying postcards (and stamps if you don’t use pre-stamped ones.) Postcard stamps are 35 cents each; pre-stamped postcards from USPS are 39 cents each; two different pretty designs. If you can spend a little more, the two postcarding sites below sell their designs; or, searching the phrase “postcards to voters” on Amazon will show you many designs.
To get started:
🌟 PERSONALIZED LETTERS: Similarly, you can do more good than you might expect by writing personalized letters (from a template) to Democrats who are unlikely voters, adding a brief personal statement about why you VOTE EVERY TIME. Studies have shown this can boost turnout by enough to make a difference. As with postcards, you get names/addresses for these voters in targeted districts from the website, fill in the letters, address/stamp/fill the envelopes, but then, you hold them and mail them on Oct. 27, a week before election day! Note that, as with the postcards, you are responsible for buying envelopes, paper (no special paper required), and stamps. First class letter stamps are 55 cents each. (A new Gwen Ifill stamp came out recently!) You can also buy pre-stamped business-size envelopes, also two designs.
For more info:
THESE MAIL PROJECTS ALSO HELP SUPPORT THE USPS, THE LATEST GOP TARGET!
🌟 CONFIRM YOU ARE REGISTERED, REPEAT REGULARLY, AND GET YOUR FAMILY AND OTHERS TO DO THE SAME!!! FIGHTING VOTER SUPPRESSION STARTS AT HOME!
- Many folks here have been surprised to find that their or a family member’s registration has mysteriously disappeared, even though it had been active. Don’t wait until too late to catch and correct this bullshit.
- HEADCOUNT.ORG will direct you to your state’s Department of State/Division of Elections (or similar) webpage, which is the horse’s mouth, as it were.
- Or, google something like “am I registered to vote” plus your state, and go to your state government’s page directly.
🌟 If you can do more, do it! These are just things you can do at home at 3 am. Some of us have the wherewithal to do more, and we should! No one is coming to save us. Act accordingly.
Remember we need the House and Senate, or no president will be able to help us. If you’re sad your presidential candidate wasn’t nominated (I was), please find some downticket races to get excited about. We all need each other.
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It’s been 972 days since Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017. Full power has never been restored there, and many homes still have blue tarps for roofs. Earthquakes and now coronavirus have made recovery still harder. Sadly, this is the Trump model for handling any kind of disaster.
If you can help one of the organizations working to help the people of Puerto Rico or any of the subsequent disasters, please check out the diary of links.
⛈️ 🌊 💥 HURRICANE MARIA AND EARTHQUAKES 💥 🌊 ⛈️
🐨 🔥 AUSTRALIAN FIRES 2019-20 🔥 🐨
🚒 🔥 CALIFORNIA FIRES 2019 🔥 🚒
⛈️ 🌊 HURRICANE DORIAN 🌊 ⛈️
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