Bent Notes

I give a lot of thought to why I find old, old-school R&B so moving.  It’s technically a type of rock & roll, about which I’m having ever-more mixed feelings the older I get.

There’s something about it that resisted the juvenilization that beset most other forms of rock that have come down the pike since 1951.  Beginning with the jump blues of Louis Jordan, Johnny Otis, Big Jay McNeely, Tiny Bradshaw et al, continuing through the great doo-wop of the early-to-mid-50s - The Robins, The Clovers, Billy Ward and the Dominoes, The Moonglows, The Drifters - and on into the golden age of soul - Ray Charles, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett, O.V. Wright, Sam & Dave, Ike & Tina, etc. - it sounds like music made by men and women, human beings who have not only accumulated some experience, but felt that experience work a lasting effect on their worldviews.

The gospel rasp that comes through all this music ties it to the sanctified strain in American music, so that there’s an undeniable acknowledgement of spirit in even the most secular, slinky, grinding examples of it.  Its fervor is the most direct and raw articulation of that tension between the devil’s music and the inclination toward the sacred that had characterized blues going back to the days of Son House and Ishman Bracey.

It’s unmistakably American music, in a way that does us all proud.  For all its immersion in a particular ethnic identity (something that was achieved without any self-consciousness or political overtones), there’s a white contribution to it that infuses it with a backwoods twang.  See my Suite 101.com article “What Country and Southern Rock Owe To Classic Soul Music” for an in-depth look at this.  Syd Nathan, Jerry Wexler, Sam Phillips, Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, Quentin Claunch, Chips Moman and Steve Cropper were as important to the making of this music as anybody.

Finally, it’s one of the last forms of American music that is rooted in a sense of community.  For all the waywardness and antics of many of the genre’s most legendary figures, they lived and worked in a milieu still defined by standards and norms tha came from bedrock civic institutions, beginning with the family (a much more intact unit in those days), and including the church, the school, and the neighborhood YMCA.

In my novel, High C at the Sunset Terrace, there’s a scene in which the protagonist, Marvin, is back in his hometown, off the road for a couple of days for Thanksgiving.  He and his nephew Donny are standing in Marvin’s sister’s kitchen after the holiday dinner:

“So, is New York happening?  A lot of good times?” asked Donny.

“What do you mean?” asked Marvin.

“Well, like parties, you know, lots of people, like The Avenue, only bigger,” replied Donny.

Marvin looked at Donny.  “If you mean can you get anything you want any time of the day or night, the answer’s yes.  But you need to know that most of it’s no damn good for you, and the rest of it yu need to keep a level head about.  Now, I hope that answers your question.”

“Yes, Uncle Marvin.”

So the music is a thread in a social fabric.  It doesn’t lend itself to solitary ipod consumption.

Oh, to see that kind of groove return to our culture.

Tutto Bene’s chow was the stuff of all-day raves: grilled smoked sausage, cheddar grits, black-eyed pea salad, with green and red bell pepper, onion, and vinaigrette, sliced watermelon.

Melvin Rhyne and company were loose, natural, funny, musically eloquent and appreciative of the vibe.  Avenue archivist David Williams was touched that so many people wanted to puruse his exhibit and learn more about that magical, long-gone world.

I sold some books and met some great folks.

I hereby declare Barbecue at the Sunset Terrace a great success. 

Photo 2: Melvin Rhyne, keys Cliff Ratliff, trumpet, David Young, tenor sax, Billy Meyer, bass, Larry Clark, drums

Photo 1: Keyboardist / musical bud / JfB founder Monika Herzig, WFIU jazz programmer and announcer David Brent Johnson, JfB publicist Chris Schleicher

I’ll be a guest on Joe Bourne’s weekday-afternoon jazz show, Just You and Me, on WFIU-FM at 4 PM today to discuss Barbecue at the Sunset Terrace.

That event is shaping up to be gala indeed.  Melvin Rhyne has put together a stellar quartet.  Marci, the proprietor of Tutto Bene gave me the finalized menu last night.  I got in a fresh supply of copies of my novel for signing.  Some cool stuff is showing up for the silent auction.  An artist friend of mine specially painted a work called “Feels Like Jazz.”  I haven’t seen it yet, but some folks have told me it’s really evocative.

Somewhere around here I have a chart I made showing which people and places in my novel are of my own devising, and which ones are historical.  Discerning between the two should be fairly easy for those (ever-fewer) readers who actually lived in Indy’s Indiana Avenue area or their descendants, but general readers from elsewhere might want clarification.

This has come to mind in the last few days as I’ve had conversations with - and sales to - people from out of town at my booth at Black Expo.  If my story is their first acquaintance with the entire subject, they ought to have a way to get that straight.

From time to time I go looking for that chart, but it’s obviously in the middle of some densely packed stack of research materials.

Herewith is a partial list to get the general reader started.

ACTUAL PLACES MENTIONED IN HIGH C AT THE SUNSET TERRACE

The Sunset Terrace Ballroom

The Sky Club

Perkins Grill

The Senate Avenue YMCA

Henri’s

The Walker Theater

The Coffee Pot

Crispus Attucks High School

FICTIONAL PLACES

The Rhythm Room

Reggie Williams’s shoe store (and his opther businesses)

The barber shop where Marvin gets his hair cut

The various houses where the characters live

This is a start, but I really would like to find that chart. 

Got this nice note from Linda Taylor of Threshold in response to this Indie-music.com review of the band’s CD Sum Blues.  In my reply I told her about High C at the Sunset Terrace, since Threshold’s singer, Angela Carole Brown, has also published a novel.  Linda passed on my High C link to Angela and also ordered a copy for herself!

I just sent out a flurry of press releases about next week’s booksigning at Indiana Black Expo.  Trying to decide what I shoud do to pull people toward my booth.  I get a six-foot skirted table, two chairs and two ID badges.  What I’d like to find is a bud with a laptop and Powerpoint software.  I have some cool old photos of Indiana Avenue on disc.  That would be cool to show, and play some late-40s, early 50s music in the background, some honkin’, squealin tenor saxes and some slick bebop.

Had a meeting with the hospitality manager at Tutto Bene the other day.  We began formulating a menu for Barbecue at the Sunset Terrace, the Sunday-brunch Jazz from Bloomington fundraiser, and also a ball-park ticket price.  I think, with the silent auction as a revenue source along with the tix, we can keep it to thirty-something.

The fundraiser for Jazz from Bloomington, Barbecue at the Sunset Terrace, is coming together in a most exciting way.  It will be a Sunday brunch at Tutto Bene, a supremely enchanting wine bar at the corner of Third and Rogers in Bloomington, Indiana, on September 16, from 11 AM to 3 PM.    A special menu geared toward the kind of cuisine one would have found on Indy’s Indiana Avenue circa 1948, plus moi signing books, plus a silent auction of jazz memorabilia and art.  The big news I can now reveal, though, is that Melvin Rhyne (bio here and discography of his stuff under his own name on the Criss-Cross label here) will front a quartet to provide the music.

When I spoke to him to line this up, he was most enthused that someone wanted to celebrate the rich musical legacy of that time and particularly that place.  “Those guys played their hearts out,” he told me.  “They played real American music.”

There may be some other cool highlights of this must-attend occasion to announce soon.

I’ll be doing a combination book-signing and solo gig at the Fig Tree Gallery and Coffee House in the charming hamlet of Helmsburg, Indiana, in a fertile valley in northern Brown County, about halfway between Bean Blossom and Lake Lemon, on Sunday, June 10, at 1 PM.  Counting on the BN faithful to put the word out to all those who like some cultural enrichment with their dark roast and balmy breezes.  (I think they may have iced tea, too.)

For those who like to do their book-buying in the offline world, there are now several retail outlets around contral Indiana where one can obtain High C at the Sunset Terrace.

Howard’s Bookstore - 111 W. Kirkwood, Bloomington, IN

Viewpoint Bookstore - Commons Mall, Columbus, IN

Borders at Circle Centre - corner of Meridian and Washington Streets, Indianapolis

Indiana Historical Society Gift Shop - 450 West Ohio Street (or enter by the canal), Indy

The cover story in the latest issue of INTake Weekly is on the glory days of Indiana Aveue and devotes several paragraphs to my novel.  Some great photographs, too, for those non-Indy-area readers.  Also some nice coverage of David Williams, whose collection of posters, photos, and records is the most comprehensive documentation of this rich musical scene to be found anywhere.

Posting has been scant lately, as you know.  I’ve been paying bills - book signings, magazine assignments, private-function gigs, rehearsals. 

 A real cool gig came up last Saturday.  At 3:30 in the afternoon, I got a call from a guy who said the music for his corporate function to be held that evening at 6:30 had bailed.  He was in a real pinch.  He asked what I did.  I told him I was a jazz guitarist and that, yes, I was available to at least play solo.  I said, “But let me make a call or two and see if I can put together something a little bigger.”  I enlisted violinist Carolyn Dutton, my frequent collaborator, and we did the gig.  Hour and fifteen minutes, very nice bucks (and free eats and bar offerings).

The books signings are a gas.  I’m selling lots of copies that folks are disseminating as Christmas presents.

I have to finish my next Republic column (on the evolution of my sense of the meaning of Christmas over the years) before the weekend is over.  Then I should be able to get back to more frequent observations on the human parade.

It’s called High C at the Sunset Terrace.  You can order it here.  It’s set in Indianapolis in 1948, in the jazz clubs along Indiana Avenue.  My main characters are fictional, but I bring in lots of historical figures as well.  It’s an outgrowth of an article I wrote for Arts Indiana in the early 90s on Indy’s jazz legacy.  At the time, several of the great figures of the glory days of the Avenue were still alive, and I had the priviledge of meeting them and hearing first-hand about nights on the bandstand years before.

Not only is it a great read, it’s a swingin’ Christmas present!