Of jazz, violets, gardenias, skies of blue and a weeping willow

Last Thursday, the 30 April, was International Jazz Day.

On that day, all of the jazz greats I know and their exceptionally special legacies came to my mind. Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker, Billie Holiday aka ‘Lady Day’, Louis Armstrong aka ‘Satchmo’ and Ethel Waters are but a few captured by Janine Robinson @janinekrob generations later in her mural above. There are so many. Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Thelonius Monk, Betty Carter, every musician who I’ve ever heard play with Betty Carter, Miles Davis … so many.

Jazz. Born of the indomitable spirit of my people, who invoked the fluid, improvisational language, the story-telling, and the symbolism of the musical and oral traditions of Africa, using their voice and instruments they fashioned themselves, and later otherwise acquired, in the new lands they found themselves in North America, through the blues and gospel, to develop the great expression that is JAZZ. They laid the foundations for a musical form that today has been embraced by many peoples in many countries the world over. In turn, those people have made have made it their own, and keep the fire burning.

For all of the reasons I know, this is jazz …

In my garden, 2016

I see parallels between jazz and living languages. Take the language and culture of my Yoruba people of West Africa as an example. I’m still a learner, but I find it to be rich, creative and progressive, incorporating the essence of the times in ways that I find fascinating. Faminora*! I tell you, the human spirit in full flight, whether we recognise it or not, is a thing of marvel. It has no borders. No limits. It will be. It will fly.

A Yoruba drummer. No doubt, part of a group, but free! He will have his say. This is jazz.

I know the effect the sight and sound would have had on the woman in the background …

Photo by Shutterbouy Photography

@shutterbouy_unsplash

I love jazz. I breathe it. I feel it. I know it.

Listening to original recordings of some of the greats can be overwhelming for me at times. I feel transported back to the time when the recording was made and the historical context - the conditions the artistes lived in, the move from the field to the city, the precarious and broken family relationships, good love, twisted love, segregation, poverty, invention, re-invention, ‘travellin’ light’, hopefulness, FUN, hopelessness, resignation, the unskilled low-paid labour, ‘other’ labour, exploitation and abuse. The colour! The sharp dressing! The exuberance! Stoicism, poignancy and irony in abundance. Church was a balm for many, at the root of many of their lives in some shape or form. But at some point many would have been considered too far fallen - riddled with other types of balm - to be embraced by the church’s human fold … Too many tragic and pathetic lives, and yet many continued grafting until their very end. All too often, a squalid end - lives cut short. Sometimes it’s all too much.

My parents used to play Louis Armstrong’s records when I was a child, probably bought by my father. My mother loved Mr Armstrong, and has actually told her youngest grandchildren all about him, as she did her children. She has always been proud that the late Queen Mother liked him too. We had a family Covid-19 lockdown Zoom video call only two weeks ago. Guess who my mother brought into the call …. Louis Armstrong himself! She sang ‘Hello dolly … looking swell dolly …’ for her youngest grand-daughter, K! The rest of us chipped in with whatever words we knew.

I was completely mesmerised by Louis Armstrong and his music as a child. His garrulous voice and big watery eyes. At 5. ‘What a wonderful world’, was my song. I’d ask my mother to play it over and over again. Even then, it was too much. I saw the blue skies, the sun shining bright, and felt the irony of Mr Armstrong’s wonderful world … I’d cry my eyes out until they stung and I’d get a headache. At 5.

At 5, I saw Louis Armstrong’s skies of blue. I knew the world was wonderful. I also knew that it was not …

My Red Hawthorn Crataegus laevigata ‘Paul’s Scarlet’ tree coming into bloom against the blue blue skies and fluffy clouds. Wonderful. The flower clusters are showy - beautiful, cerise-pink, and double. The leaves are handsome. But watch out! The branches have very sharp spines …

In the Christian tradition, hawthorn is associated with the crown of thorns worn by Jesus. Not so wonderful. But then, wonderful.

At 14, I could play the piano a little. Somewhat. My father bought me a book with simplified scores of blues and jazz standards. ‘Stormy Weather’ was the first standard I learned, one hand at a time. Stormy Weather was written in 1933 by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler. Ethel Waters was the first singer, the first African-American singer, to perform the song at the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York in 1933. She recorded it that same year too. Many jazz greats, including Billie Holiday later rendered their own versions of the song. And Etta James! I perfected my version, and other songs like ‘Basin Street Blues’, and in the process imbibed a dose of disappointment, sadness and irony, and a touch of resilience and swank too.

I came across jazz again in a big way in the early 90s. A colleague at work lent me a Betty Carter cassette tape (anyone remember those, with the two spools?). I heard Ms Carter sing ‘Dropping Things’ for the first time and I was in awe. The musicians! I dropped things.

I fully immersed myself in jazz. I attended live concerts, and was a regular at Ronnie Scott’s, London’s famous jazz club, and the other smaller jazz venues in London. I saw the late great Betty Carter and the late great Abbey Lincoln. I have every recording that’s ‘out there’ that Betty Carter has ever made. I can say that the musicians on every recording and especially at her live performances, have been excellent. Impeccable AND free!!! The interactions between Ms Carter and her band members live were a thing to behold. I went to hear Sonny Rollins and Wynton Marsalis too - each, twice. I missed Sarah Vaughan - unfortunately, I was too skint to afford the ticket to attend her last UK concert before she passed away.

Then I could not listen to jazz for some years. A good 10 years. It was all too much. Even more so than it was when I was 5.

I’d forgive you if you thought I felt that jazz was ALL doom and gloom. I know it isn’t. Just listen to Lady Day’s version of ‘Let’s call the whole thing off’ written by George and Ira Gershwin for the 1937 film ‘Shall we dance’.  Fresh, upbeat, playful - FUN! Think Dizzy Gillespie! As it is for all lives, there’s the good and the bad. There’s gaiety, there’s happiness, there’s pain. It’s life. That’s jazz. There is genius, mastery and wit - just think of Charlie Parker or Charles Mingus improvising in full flight. The showy jocularity and camaraderie that belied a serious spirit of competition and defiance invoked displays of improvised brilliance that SPEAK to you, just as the African talking drummer did and does. Knowing. And known by those who hear.

Then there is love, romance, pure and twisted too. Knowing. I invite you to find and watch an old film recording of Billie Holliday and Lester Young (she called him ‘Pres’) performing. You will FEEL what I’m talking about. An example is ‘Fine and Mellow’, written by Billie Holiday, who first recorded it in 1939.  Betty Carter scatting is exhilarating. Boy, she sure could play! Fanimora.

Notwithstanding, for me with jazz, and unlike the talking drum, there is sometimes an underscore of pain and depression - except when Betty Carter scats, of course. It is never far away. Between the shores of Africa and Miles Davis, the King of Cool, and beyond, something else, which I cannot name right now, has got in there. I knew this at 5.

The jazz greats. Genius. Ebullient. Flawed. Wonderful. Weak. Strong. Broken. Irrepressible. Those greats are gone. Long live the greats. Their legacy is indisputable.

Now, I delve into the world I love with some caution, sparingly - and only when I feel I can ‘take it’. Even at 55.

I know my limits and try not to let it get to a point where it becomes too much.

When I took notice that 30 April 2020 was International Jazz Day (for the first time, I must say), I wondered what I might do to commemorate it. A song immediately came to my mind. ‘Violets for Your Furs’ written by Tom Adair, and set to music by Matt Dennis in 1941. The song was first recorded in that year by Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra with vocal by Frank Sinatra. Many jazz greats have since given the world their versions.

It was Billie Holiday’s rendition that came to my mind on International Jazz Day though. She’s the only person I’ve heard sing it. And boy did she sing it on the ‘Lady in Satin’ album of 1958. I don’t feel the need to hear anyone else’s version, thank you very much. I read that there has been some criticism of the arrangement of the song at the time, heavy with violins, the more ‘acceptable’ classical style, that took it away from Ms Holiday’s jazz roots. I will admit that I hated the album the first time I listened to it. I couldn’t understand what was going on, why swirling violins? But I came to love it, because the real Lady Day still shone through. She could not be ‘sanitised’ by the classical arrangement. The rawness and grit of her, by that stage, drug and alcohol-addled voice, was there. Her spirit was there. Lady Day died of cirrhosis of the liver the next year at the age of just 42, on July 17 1959.

My violets

For me to admire. Bought by me and planted by me.

I ain’t got no furs …!

I’ve stopped going to jazz clubs. So to commemorate International Jazz Day, I looked at pictures of my violets. The botanical name for violets is Viola, from the family Violaceae, which are native to Asia and Europe. Violas are mound-forming, short-lived perennials that flower in spring and summer in the UK. They come in a vast array of colours and colour combinations, including purple or violet. Many gardeners use violas as bedding plants, ripping them out and replacing them the minute they stop flowering. They are relatively cheap, so easy come easy go. I leave mine be and while they make look a bit straggly for a time (nothing a trim won’t fix) they will flower again the next year. Violas also self-seed if allowed to. I have patches of newly germinated self-seeded violets on one of my allotment plots but they are not in flower yet. I didn’t pick any violets, and I don’t have any furs to pick them for. I don’t live in Antarctica or Siberia so I don’t wear animal furs. What I did do was listen to Billie Holiday singing ‘Violets for Your Furs’ a few times and smile at my potted violets. That was good.

Lady Day’s signature flower was the sweetly-scented Gardenia jasminoides, which she often wore in her hair. Gardenia jasminoides  syn. Gardenia augusta or Cape Jasmine, is a large evergreen shrub with deep glossy green, elliptic leaves and broadly funnel-shaped white flowers 8cm across in summer and autumn. Gardenias are actually native to China and Japan.

A Gardenia jasminoides flower, just like one Lady Day would have worn …

Photo by Alpsdake - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27269413

I have a gardenia plant, which, in June will bring forth beautiful pure white, double white flowers. The scent! It is called Gardenia jasminoides ‘Crown Jewels’, and is one of the hardier new varieties that can be grown by a warm wall outside in the UK. I checked on my small gardenia plant in my greenhouse (15% of the panes are gone). I’ve kept it there as opposed to outside even though it is hardy just in case. I lost a plant some years ago and but come to think of it, it had been severely attached by vine weevil … Looking back, I think that was the cause of death, and not the cold. I will plant this one into the ground soon. Gardenias like moist but well drained, slightly acidic soil and will bloom in full light (may need protection from sun scorch) or partial shade. I’ve read that they can be tricky plants to grow in the UK. The air humidity and soil acidity and wetness have to be right. Let’s hope this plant fares better than my last one. I’ve got to watch out for chlorosis and scorch.

For now, it’s looking good, flower buds forming nicely.

Gardenia jasminoides ‘Crown jewel’

Flower buds are forming. When it blooms, I’ll pick a flower and wear it like Billie Holliday for a day

I also sat in my chair on my allotment plot, listened to some jazz on my iPod in the warm-ish sunshine.

Billie Holiday recorded ‘Willow, weep for me’ in 1956. The music and lyrics were written by Ann Ronnell in 1932. We have a majestic weeping willow Salix × sepulcralis tree at the bottom of our allotment site. Well, it isn’t really ours (the trunk is in a neighbour’s back garden) but many glorious branches spill over the fence. I hope the owners never cut it down. The tree thrives in the wet soil in the vicinity. The plan is to create a sustainable eco-friendly mixed orchard and permaculture garden in the area, further upstream, where the land is drier. We have planted 12 fruit trees so far. I went to check on them. While doing so, I paused I by the willow tree, admired it’s gracefulness and felt it’s sympathy and compassion, and listened to Lady Day’s rendition of the ‘Willow, weep for me’ in my mind. Magic. Sad magic. Then I sang it.

Yesterday, I sang Lady Day’s ‘Willow weep for me’. I wept with this willow, but not just for me …

I remembered the unimaginable suffering of too many people all over the world and the bravery and big hearts of those who work so hard, risking their lives even, to help. Mo juba!

Through gardening, I seem to have learned how to practice mindfulness - naturally, without having to employ any ‘artificial’ devices. I was able to ‘weep’ along with the willow tree, for Billie, for myself, for the greats, for humanity, without it getting too much. Now, for me, that’s jazz …

I made my way back to my plot. Then I raised a bottle of Lucozade original to Billie Holiday and all of the jazz the greats. Thank you for your irrepressible resilience against the odds and for letting your creativity flow. FANIMORA! You were and are SO fanimorous! **

Mo juba, eyin gbogbo! Ese pupo!***

You took the broken keys of your broken lives and tuned them into the great expression that is jazz. Inspiring!

Photo by Matthew T Rader @matthew_t_rader

*Fanimora means ‘fascinating’ in the Yoruba language.

** Fanimorous, derived from the Yoruba word ‘fanimora’. Someone or something that is fascinating or enthralling.

***I hail you all! Thank you very much!