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editor
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 Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:47 pm Post subject: |
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Louis Armstrong's New Orleans
Hardcover
By Duke Professor Thomas Brothers
| Quote: | | Armstrong took the dance steps he had been practising in front of Funky Butt Hall and tried to make some money with them on the streets, as teenage boys still do in New Orleans. By 1910 he was also selling newspapers as a helper to a white boy named Charles, who had realized that he could make more money by farming out delivery to younger children. Armstrong picked up copies of the New Orleans Item at the corner of Canal Street and St. Charles Avenue and peddled them from streetcars. But newspaper boys were supposed to be white, according to Jim Crow, so the arrangement got him in trouble with the law, perhaps for the first time but not for the last. Running with older boys, he learned how to multiply his earnings through gambling, shooting dice, coon can, black jack, and African dominos. Gambling gave him change enough for a new pair of short pants. (From Street Hustler, p. 90) |
| Quote: | | Honky tonks or 'tonks' as the musicians usually say - were simple places that thrived on illegal gambling. Most tonks had a pool table with blocked pockets so that the surface could be used for shooting craps. When the police made their rounds, the table was instantly converted back to shooting pool. In addition to gambling, a tonk usually had some combination of prostitution, alcohol, food, and at least one musician, often an ear-playing pianist. Many, many ear pianists drifted in and out of the tonks, playing nothing but blues. Their names likewise float in and out of the oral histories - Jasper Black Pete, Birmingham, Game Kid, Stack O. Lee, Leon Alexis, Tink Baptiste and so on. Cornets were not typical, though around Liberty and Perdido the tonks were a little more elaborate and sometimes rbought in small bands. Armstrong remembered one gambler calling his cornet a "quail" - "Listen to that cat blowing that quail." (From Lessons with Oliver, p. 112) |
| Quote: | | Bold clothing was part of the image of the hustler, a social designation that conflated pimping and gambling. Assertive clothes symbolically contradicted Jim Crow subservience, marking the hustler as a man who did not play by the common rules, an outsider immune to the normal racial, domestic, and economic pressures. The hustler was someone who had escaped the curse of endless unskilled drudgery and poverty. Baby Dodds said that in 1918 Armstrong dressed like a 'low class hustler' because "that's what Louis wanted to be in those days." He wore a tight collar that kept popping when his neck sweled from the pressure of playing the cornet. All of his earnings disappeared through gambling. Hustlers liked tight trousers, tailored, if possible, by Burtenard and Wager's - "They knowed how they wanted their clothes and they'd fit em that way," said Jelly Roll Morton. Gold belt buckles and gold initialing flashed alongside diamonds inserted in teeth, ties, garters, and socks. As a special attraction, a little light bulb, energized by a pocket battery, flashed in the toe of a shoe. The hustler's walk, known as "shooting the agate," advanced at a slow tempo, one suspender lifted off the shoulder, arms stiffly out to the side and index fingers pointing down; this was the look that helped keep a "fifth class whore" under control. Flashy visual display was an integral part of the musical scene surrounding early jazz, which was an extroverted, ostentatious kind of music - "brassy, broad and aggressively dramatic," as poet and critic Amiri Baraka has described Armstrong's playing of the 1920s and 1930s. (From Musicians as Men, pgs. 200-201) |
| Quote: | | Far from irrelevant, Storyville caused a huge spike in the music business during the 1910s. Musicians were drawn to it for the simple reasons that the work was steady and the money good. "The sporting district come to have all the best musicians because the pay was every night," said Big Eye Louis Nelson. "Just take the corner of Iberville and Franklin - four saloons on the four corners, the 25s, 28, The Pig Ankle and Shoto's. Those places had eight bands amongst them. Four on day and four on night." There were also lots of tonks, gambling traps for the visiting plantation owners, sailors, and even wealthy New Orleanians who enjoyed slumming alongside longshoremen. Jelly Roll Morton witnessed an occasional dash of biological class warfare in thse tonks when lower-class'bums' discreetly flicked lice on the fancy-suited rich men from St. Charles Avenue. (From Movin' On Up, p. 258) |
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Last edited by editor on Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:47 am; edited 2 times in total |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 11:39 am Post subject: |
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From the PokerPulse Gambler's Guide to the Blues:
Deep River of Song
Mississippi: Saints & Sinners
From Before the Blues and Gospel
Audio CD
Featuring Big Charlie Butler, It's Better to Be Born Lucky
| Quote: | It's Better to Be Born Lucky
(Troubled in Mind)
Performed by Big Charlie Butler (vocal)
Recorded by John A. Lomax and Ruby T. Lomax at Parchman Penitentiary, Mississippi, on May 24, 1939.
This tune is from the field or levee camp-holler tradition, with lyrics adapted to prison conditions. Here the "long time" man is hoping for a visit from his woman. The strident, melismatic singing and pentatonic scale (becoming hexatonic in the last two stanzas) are found in many blues from Mississippi, which draw upon this solo work-song tradition.
Big Charlie Butler had recorded for John A. Lomax at Parchman Penitentiary in 1937, and he reimbered Lomax when the folklorist returned two years later. This song of longing for someone in the free world takes on added poignancy when we learn that Butler was the 'gate man' at Parchman Camp No. 1 and therefore the inmate closest to freedom. He was released in July 1942, perhaps to be reunited with his Sal.
Oh, Lordy -
Lord, it's better to be born lucky
than be born blind.
Lord, I'm looking for Sal, baby, on the first thing down.
First thing down, on the first thing down.
Lord, get to thinking about her, get trouble in mind.
Trouble in mind, oh Lordy, get trouble in mind.
Lord, get to thinking about her. I get trouble in mind.
John A. Lomax (spoken): Talk to your horse. Talk to your mule. Go ahead. Sing 'em at 'em.
Trouble in mind, oh Lordy, gets trouble in mind.
Oh, get to thinking about her, I can't keep from crying.
(From the copious liner notes) |
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editor
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| Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 8:45 am Post subject: |
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To Kill a Mockingbird
Hardcover
By Truman Capote's pal, Harper Lee
| Quote: | Early one morning as we were beginning our day's play in the back yard, Jem and I heard something next door in Miss Rachel Haverford's collard patch. We went to the wire fence to see if there was a puppy - Miss Rachel's rat terrier was expecting - instead we found someone sitting looking at us. Sitting down, he wasn't much higher than the collards. We stared at him until he spoke:
"Hey."
"Hey yourself," said Jem pleasantly.
"I'm Charles Baker Harris," he said. "I can read."
"So what?" I said.
"I just thought you'd like to know I can read. You got anything needs readin' I can do it..."
"How old are you," asked Jem, "four-and-a-half?"
"Goin' on seven."
"Shoot no wonder, then," said Jem, jerking his thumb at me. "Scout yonder's been readin' ever since whe was born, and she ain't even started to school yet. You look right puny for goin' on seven."
"I'm little but I'm old," he said.
Jem brushed his hair back to get a better look. "Why don't you come over, Charles Baker Harris?" "Lord, what a name."
"'s not any funnier 'n yours. Aunt Rachel says your name's Jeremy Atticus Finch."
Jem scowled. "I'm big enough to fit mine," he said. "Your name's longer 'n you are. Bet it's a foot longer." (-- pgs. 6-7) |
Yes, apparently humorist P.G. Wodehouse wasn't just whistlin' Dixie:
| Quote: | | Dill was from Meridian, Mississippi, was spending the summer with his aunt, Miss Rachel, and would be spending every summer in Maycomb from now on. His family was from Maycomb County originally, his mother worked for a photographer in Meridian, had entered his picture in a Beautiful Child contest and won five dollars. She gave the money to Dill, who went to the picture show twenty times on it. (-- p. 8) |
Beauty and brains, too, it seems:
| Quote: | "Ma'am?" asked Jem.
Atticus spoke. "Where're your pants, son?"
"Pants, sir?"
"Pants."
It was no use. In his shorts before God and everybody. I sighed.
"Ah - Mr. Finch?"
In the glare from the streetlight, I could see Dill hatching one: his eyes widened, his fat cherub face grew rounder.
"What is it, Dill?" asked Atticus.
"Ah - I won 'em from him," he said vaguely.
"Won them? How?"
Dill's hand sought the back of his head. He brought it forward and across his forehead. "We were playin' strip poker up yonder by the fishpool," he said.
Jem and I relaxed. The neighbors seemed satisfied: they all stiffened. But what was strip poker?
We had no chance to find out: Miss Rachel went off like the town fire siren: "Do-o-o Jee-sus, Dill Harris! Gamblin' by my fishpool? I'll strip-poker you, sir!"
Atticus saved Dill from immediate dismemberment. "Just a minute, Miss Rachel," he said. "I've never heard of 'em doing that before. Were you all playing cards?"
Jem fielded Dill's fly with his eyes shut: "No sir, just with matches."
I admired my brother. Matches were dangerous, but cards were fatal. (-- p. 61) |
Listen:
| Quote: | To Kill a Mockingbird
Audio CD
Narrated by U.S. actor Sissy Spacek, a Southerner herself
There are others but this would be our version of choice. |
View:
| Quote: | To Kill a Mockingbird
DVD
Featuring Robert Duvall in his break-out role and Gregory Peck, reminding us of a time when Hollywood still had leading men - so long.
ESL students need have no fear of the mild southern colloquy in this film classic. It was made at a time when elocution was still an important asset in the acting trade. As Robert Graves so neatly put it, goodbye to all that. |
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editor
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:57 am Post subject: |
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Summer Moonshine
Hardcover
By P.G. Wodehouse
| Quote: | The terrace terminated in a low stone wall, along the top of which were dotted busts of the Caesars and other ancient worthies, placed there in the spacious days of Sir Wellington, when people liked that sort of thing. The one nearest Joe was that of the censor Cato, an unpleasant-looking man who suffered from having a long nose and no eyeballs, but had the saving virtue of possessing a very large bare upper lip, the sort of upper lip which calls imperiously to every young man of spirit to draw a moustache on it with a pencil.
Joe, fortunately, had a pencil on his person, and was soon absorbed in his work. So absorbed, indeed that it was only a moment or two after it had been uttered that he heard the curious, sharp exclamation in his rear. ...
He turned again to Cato. The moustache was coming out well - a fine, flowing affair with pointed ends, not one of those little smudges. Cato now looked like a Mississippi gambler, and Jane was not proof against the spectacle. Her dignity, always easily undermined, suddenly collapsed. She uttered a little squeal of laughter.
'You are an idiot!'
'That's more the tone.'
'It's no good being furious with you.'
'I wouldn't try. How does that strike you?'
'A little more body to the left side,' said Jane surveying Cato critically.
'Like that?'
'That's better. Oughtn't he to have whiskers too?'
'Whiskers most certainly. What flair you have in these matters. I will attend to it immediately.' (-- pgs. 144-149) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=4570#4570 |
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