[Dixielandjazz] Is the gravy good

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

As somebody professionally connected with Scots vocabularY I must deny any connection with Mr. Tegler. 
Taigle is a Scots word meaning tangle or confuse.....
Perhaps the Mr. Tegler who referred to "Is the Gravy Good?"  -- just the sort of song Cleanhead Vinson could have made many meals of -- was with the word "tender" alluding to the fact that this comical or ironical love-song begins with an allusion to the chewiness or minimally palatable character of non-vegetarian viands or victuals served at table by the addressee? 

If you want to parody academic schools of over-interpretation of text you could relate it to one of those metaphorical songs in which the late lamented George Melly used to emulate more than two more than fat ladies at 78 rpm, some of them called Smith -- like Laura in that, though she might not have been so large. Mention "meat" in this connection, and there is all that and no potatoes (referring rather to a Jones than a Smith)  as well as the invitation songs, not composed by W.C. Handy but intended to attract a "handy man".  Slenderer ladies did seem to want someone to "mow their front lawn" (Victoria Spivey precociously, Alberta Hunter at an advanced age).  

Anyway, Bill and the few others who can share these allusions, the words of "Is the Gravy Good!" suggests (cf. "I Want a Little Girl" ) that even if she can't cook she would suit the singer to a T, or tee, or tea (something else to debate, even with "Come with me and smoke some tea" as sung and indeed yodelled by Pete Brown and Frankie Newton at the Onyx Club). 

and may your gravy ever be grand!
Robert R. Calder 


   
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