We’re staying out West
this morning. I moved from Bud Shank
over to Teddy Edward’s tenor, another mainstay of the West Coast jazz
sound. Born in Jackson Mississippi in
1924, he moved out to Los Angeles in the mid 1940s. Unlike his friend Dexter Gordon, he never
moved out to New York. His assessment
about pacing between the two places, seems hard-earned and sensible:
''This tempo out here fits me a
little better,'' he told The Detroit Free Press in 1996. ''New York is pretty
fast and a little too nervous for me. But I know my career would've bloomed
faster if I'd been in New York.''
He is credited with having recorded the first be
bop solo on 'Up in Dodo's Room,'' and for both recording and courting
cutting contests. Most notably on the
track “The Duel” where he squares off against the formidable Dexter
Gordon. Apparently he was a regular
Arron Burr on stage, as well, calling out people to test his metal on stage,
wherever he toured. He recorded with my other big Brine favorite, trumpet player Harold McGhee. I’ve got a
collection of Mr. Edward playing with Les McCann in 1960 on now. The tune, “I Hear a Rhapsody” is both assertive,
and gentle, like his comment above. Perhaps his perception of L.A. changed over
second half of the century. Perhaps
not. He lived there till the age of 78,
where he passed in 2003.
Early Saturday morning. Only half the family are awake yet. I was out with the young guards at the front
gate who let me in the gym each morning.
They work the night shift from eight to eight, which must be dreadful,
unless they allow one another to crash out during the wee-hours. These young guys all hail from the
countryside. Some are from Shanxi, or Shaanxi,
and this young guy with a doughboy face and the cute soft-spoken lisp laden accent hails all the way from Guangxi in the south. I was chit chatting and I didn’t catch what
he was asking me about my time at the gym, he repeated the phrase over again
and then it struck me what he was trying to say. He was asserting that I must be fifty years
old. “Ahh. No. I’m forty-seven. Trust me if I didn’t go to the gym every day,
it would be worse.” Would that I could
have fired off: 老当益壮[1] in real time. That would have earned a chuckle, or at least
a nod. I chalked the padding up to not
looking my best at that hour of the morning.
My young friend, I discovered, was a mere twenty-one.
Coffee is brewing in the kitchen. My younger
daughter is reading “Prince Caspian” the fourth book in the Narnia series in
the other room. I’ve had to incent her
with every flavor available at the local Basken & Robbins to lure her
toward the goal of finishing them all.
Chinese soap operas are simply more seductive, every time. “Treasure Island” which I read to her at
night is preparing its trap, as the captain has voiced his concerns about the
crew of the “Hispanola” before she even sets sail. Meanwhile, my other daughter we made it a bit
further through “The Stranger” which I probably read rather quickly when I was
the age of the guard from Guangxi, but is certainly even stranger, to read as
someone who looks fifty. The protagonist
just shot the Arab youth last night. My
older daughter didn’t understand. I’m not sure the Stranger did either.
My book, “A Time of Gifts” meanwhile, with
Patrick Leigh Fermor has trod us all the way to Salzburg I’ve never really traveled in the Rhineland,
but once we hit Munich and now in Austria I'm more able to reflect personally
on what he’s seeing. He’s on one of his
many informed tangents, this time about German art:
It had struck me in Holland,
that an average, non expert, gallery- sauntering inhabitant of the British
Isles would know the names and a little of the work, of scores of Dutch,
Flemish, and Italian painters and of twenty Frenchman at the very least. Equally, certainly, of half-a-dozen
Spaniards. All thanks to geography and
religion, the Grand Tour, and the vagaries of fashion. But his total - mine that is – for the entire
German speaking world is three: Holbein,
Durer, and palely loitering, Cranach.
It’s the kind of passage that challenges one – me
that is – into action. Leaving aside
that the earlier part of the challenge as it concerned Dutch and Flemish painters which would also need to lie fallow, I felt silly that I couldn’t visualize anything
by Holbein, Durer, or Cranach. My mind is busy instead cataloging west coast
tenor players, rather than western European portraitists. And where as Fermor
would have to saunter on over to the museum to do his bit of verification, I
can, of course reacquaint myself with these gents on the web.
OK. Hans Holbein
is the Renaissance portraitist who is responsible for the famous portraits of
Henry VIII and Thomas Moore that I’ve seen a thousand times on one hundred book
jackets. I wouldn’t have recognized his
self- portrait, he looks a bit severe to have to sit for, but his work, I’m
familiar with. Right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Holbein_the_Younger
Phew.
Albercht Durer’s self portrait is more mystical,
than strict. With his long wet locks and
far away eyes he could have been in the rhythm section of Jethro Tull or
Hawkwind. On to his work. Ahh, right.
He is behind the famous pen and ink of Adam and Eve and that Renaissance
drawing of the Rhinoceros. I’d prefer to
be able to say I did, but at a quick glance of some of what’s easily found on
line, I do not, truthfully recognize any of his remarkable portraits, save
perhaps the other two self portraits, one when he was young and the other, in
his waning years. He should have spent
more time at the gym, it appears.
The final name, let alone work, I would have been
completely in the dark about who “Lucas Cranach” was, where at least I’d have
had a dull “right” associated with Hans Holbein and Albrecht Durer. Looking over his work now there are, of
course the ah-hah moments of recognition.
He is behind the famous Luther portrait.
Of course. He also has a
rendering of Eve pushing fruit on Adam that is immediately familiar. With all his religiosity, perhaps not
surprising he also seems to have painted his share of saucy young late
Renaissance frauline, as well.
Well, I’m glad I took the time for this modest
segue to rise up to the challenge that Paddy Fermor threw my way. But it saddens me that I don’t have access
to the Met or the British Museum, here in town.
This is one area where Beijing certainly still struggles in its quest to
be “world city.” Even the world’s
seminal Chinese collection isn’t here, but rather across the Taiwan
Straits. What a perfect thing to
otherwise do on a cold, sooty day, but saunter a while, watching the “rebirth”
take shape before ones eyes. Perhaps I’ll
do what I can to expose my daughters to these Renaissance Germans through the
internet.
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