[Dixielandjazz] OKOM (does a funny turn)

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

OM of course means Order of Merit, one of the highest exclusive honours or honors available (though only to a dozen people, including Henry James, not to be confused with a brilliant jazz trumpeter who must have had a hide two elephants thick to stand in front of a band playing the superslithery Schmalz I suffered when sifting out -- for ace Williesmithophile Dick Lee -- some brilliant solos. Poor Willie, that his last years came so early and he was in a band playing THAT!).

'tis fifty years this 2017 year since the great altosaxophonist Willie Smith departed, among other wonders perhaps the final influence on Benny Carter's alto playing -- a point which might be argued, though the hunt for evidence through all those recordings ought to keep people if not their music rooms quiet, if interested in the possible influence of WS on BC.  A cat can influence a King. 

And it's a century and a year since the mordant comment was passed around London literary circles that Henry James was still alive only because resolutely, stubbornly waiting to be preceded -- aloft, says the old song Tom Bowling -- by the member of the Order of Merit whose exit from this vale of tears rendered available the letters OM to follow the name Henry James on his tombstone. 
And sixteen days after the departure of Henry, Harry was born and given his famous decaffeinated middle name.  

If you want some rubbish of even less worth than the above -- but it's always worth reminding people of Willie Smith, and the marvel that is her performance on Jimmy Lunceford's UPTOWN BLUES -- I am happily not planning to produce some Goonery on the topic of Henry James's philosopher-psychologist brother William, and the 1930s blues guitarist Willie B. James, greatly accomplished as Willie B. was. 
Anyway I've mentioned why OM is appropriate. 

OK? 

In that wonderful genre OKOM 
the drummer did not drop the bomb 
and the chords weren't daft --fifths were properly quaffed ... 
and, dear Bill Haesler, cheers! says this Pom. 
(phew!)



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ml.islandnet.com/pipermail/dixielandjazz/attachments/20170919/5f8cf12d/attachment.html>