Body and Soul: Prehawk

We've put a tied up a coupla knots in this B&S thread already. Let's now get to the start.

"Body and Soul" is a pop tune, from back in the day when pop tunes came from musical theater. It was a feature song in Three's a Crowd. The versionologist to takes it from the stage, samples it, makes it new by putting it into the tradition. Again and again. That's how we begin.

To this end, let's load a crowd of bullets in the clip from 1930. It's a straightforward case:

• Ruth Etting, "Body and Soul." Etting was not above living the blues. Check that portion of her bio where her husband shoots her lover and gets a year upstate.
• Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, "Body and Soul." The vocal is by Whiteman's trombone player, Jack Fulton. No need to tell you that Whiteman was the Elvis or Eminem of his day, grinding hits that more proper people wanted curbed 'cause they were creating bad habits among the youth. But that's all in the tradition, too.
• Louis Armstrong* and His Orchestra, "Body and Soul." Odd man out. Here's where the story begins.

J Y E A H

* We have so much things to say about the man. We'll be back at it. He basically made the 20th century up from mud and straw in the streets. We're still living under that spell.

Digging

All over that Quincy Jones OST. Ready to look through the crates and move on to The Italian Job. We are already everywhere.


J Y E A H

Note added 12 hours later: there is something to be said about creating menace w/ what at the time was an "urban" sounding soundtrack in a movie bout terror far away from any city. A future remake should consider using Dock Boggs tunes to make the point. Think on it.

Upcoming Reading

We're behind in our readings. Just wanted to show you that we'll get to it.

In the mean time, we're opening up another front here: commonplace. We think of it more as a copybook, but it's all part of the same on and on and on and on.

P E A C E

Body and Soul -- Reference Version

A few days ago we mapped up a project to go through our stacks of "Body and Soul." We loaded a clip of 38 bullets and began walking the streets of the Diamond, our ear to the ground. At that moment, this project, like every one, became bigger just as we began. We look up. We look down. We get case of the vertigo. For us this means we gotta keep on, even tho the work is so high we can't get over it, and so low we can't get under it. Isn't that the way it is, all the time and any way you choose it. You can find it. You just can't lose it.

So let's lay down the next mark, one that will hold our gaze as we listen to e/thing else.

• Coleman Hawkins, "Body and Soul."
  

Constant readers will predict that when we first spun this hit up, it was from the Smithsonian text book. We started listening to it 37 years after it hit the jukebox, and we been listening to it for 33 years. That makes it one of the foundation stones, at least in our pile.

We put these marks down on the first of two days of the martyrs (w/ the other coming in February). As we keep marking this thread up, we'll be putting down what we learn from studying the versions. This versionology is an occult science.

Here, tho, is all we can say today: there is something in the spell cast by a foundation stone. It's not the first. It's not the last. It's the one that holds other to the building. We think that on a day like today, Martyr's Day, this is something to think on. Body and soul.


P E A C E

Something Sweet, But No Twankle

We'll get back to the Body and Soul thread before long.

In the mean time, we were up before the break of dawn, listening to the other J5 and we found more proof of the one and on and on and on. Therefore a couple of bullets:

• San Juan Government School Girls, "There's a Brown Girl in the Ring." Old school. Direct to tape demo. No overdubs. No sampling. Unnaneath the street. Right from the crossroads.*
• Jurassic 5, "Brown Girl." The Jurassics were certainly dub scientists, and were signifying in every direction on this cut.
  

It's a great abundance, even w/out Boney M. Too much to keep it to ourselves.

Find peace in this holy week, kings and queens, and if you stop step in the circle, show me your motion.


* Don't neglect the Girls greatest hit, "Sammie Dead-O."