[Dixielandjazz] OKOM (does a funny turn)

[Steve Voce]

Harry James tore me apart when  I interviewed him in his dressing room 
and asked him about 'the more commercial things'

'WHADDAYA MEAN, COMMERCIAL?' he roared.

'Well, Sleepy Lagoon and things like that,' I stammered. 'Commerical is 
when I stand on my head and wear a funny hat,' he said 'I'm proud of 
everything we ever recorded.' The interview didn't go too well after 
that. (The whole thing is quoted in his biography).

I seem to be recovering. I can go out on my own for a few minutes at a time.

Steve Voce







On 19/09/2017 20:06, Marek Boym wrote:
> Harry James denied playing schmaltz, although he did, a lot - he 
> either really liked it or needed the dough.
> But listening to Lunceford uncovers some schmaltz, too - and Willie 
> Smith was with his band.  Besides - why is this worse than Latin music 
> so many swing musicians had to play in later years?
> Cheers
>
> On 19 September 2017 at 20:48, ROBERT R. CALDER 
> <serapion at btinternet.com <mailto:serapion at btinternet.com>> wrote:
>
>     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!)
>
>
>
>
>
>
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