Monthly Archives: April 2023

Duke Ellington, 1899-1974

29 Saturday Apr 2023

Posted by in Jazz, Those we remember

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A friend emailed last night and reminded me that today, April 29, is Edward Kennedy Ellington’s birthday. The composer was born in Washington, D.C. on this date in 1899. I think I have said this before, but I have always wondered by artists in other genres such as Matisse (1869), Picasso (1881), and Braque (1882) are still considered Modern while jazzmen also born in the nineteenth century are regarded with nostalgia. Intellectually Ellington has had more influence on me than any other creative person. The reason I say this is because I internalized something he once said about the audience never knowing how hard you work to pull it off. I don’t compare myself to Duke Ellington, but I like to think those who read my work take from it what they do without thinking about the effort on the back end. What it takes to make it happen, the reader should never know. I remember seeing “Beyond Category: The Musical Genius of Duke Ellington,” a traveling exhibit sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution, when it was on view at the African American Museum of Dallas in 1996. When I visit Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx his modest resting place there on Jazz Corner is one of the places I alway visit.

Here is a little something for your Saturday.

The Triumvirate

28 Friday Apr 2023

Posted by in American Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War memory

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John Morin Scott resting place, Trinity Chuech

They have my article about the triumvirate of William Livingston, William Smith Jr., and John Morin Scott up and running at The Journal of the American Revolution. I am fascinated by the way New Yorkers have remembered and forgotten their colonial and revolutionary history and hope to delve deeper in the coming years during the 250th.

Sunday morning coffee

16 Sunday Apr 2023

Posted by in Revolutionary War memory

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When people know of your interests in certain things they start sending news articles relating to those interests. Yesterday one came through my inbox about a dozen American American Revolutionary War soldiers whose remains were recently discovered in South Carolina. These were veterans of the Battle of Camden and likely from Maryland and Delaware. Those locales aren’t far from the Palmetto State, but to a young man who had likely never been more than 4-5 miles from the family farm it all would have all been distant and alien. For one thing, prior to the Revolution colonists paid more attention to events in London and the West Indies than they did to what was happening in the other North American colonies.

This is actually the second such story from the past year. Last August the remains of thirteen Hessians killed in the Battle of Red Bank were discovered in New Jersey. At the South Carolina battlefield, the remains of two soldiers fighting for the British—a Loyalist from North Carolina and Highlander from Scotland—were also discovered. Whether they were from the Carolinas, German principalities, France, Great Britain, the Six Iroquois Nations or somewhere else, one can only imagine what it’s like to lose your loved one so far from home. How much did the families ever even come to know?

One thing they have started doing with this more recent discoveries is taking DNA and other forensic samples in hopes of sharing the news with the descendants. Read more here and watch a brief video as well. Officials are having a ceremony this coming week. If there is coverage online, I will share it.

(image by Pi3.124 via Wikimedia Commons)

The Roosevelts’ New York

12 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by in Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Isaac Roosevelt, Richard Varick

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Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 19, 1929

I am off today enjoying the waning days of spring break. The Mets are playing a get-away game this Wednesday afternoon against the Padres, which I have on the radio. I’m tidying up some notes, moving files around, and poking around in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle while listening to the game. Last week a friend and I went to Albany to take in a few museums. While there we encountered a woman working in a particular cultural institution whose family dates back centuries to the earliest days of the Dutch settlement in New Netherland. I was telling my friend that going to Albany expanded my sense of time and place for New York City and State history. In my newspaper queries I came across this fascinating small article from the February 19, 1929 edition of the Eagle in which officials gave to Governor Franklin Roosevelt deeds dating to the colonial and Federal periods for property owned in Lower Manhattan by his own Dutch ancestors. In an aside, I wrote an article about Isaac Roosevelt for the Journal of the American Revolution in 2019. I love how these things connect and wonder where these two deeds are today.

“Come along, everybody come along”

03 Monday Apr 2023

Posted by in Country & Western

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Shreveport Municipal Auditorium / image by Michael Barera via Wikimedia Commons

Today is a big date in country music history: it was on April 3, 1948—seventy-five years ago—that the Louisiana Hayride debuted on KWKH out of Shreveport, Louisiana. By this time Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry was already firmly entrenched as the radio home of country & western music, which ironically created an opening for enterprising competitors. Detractors viewed the Opry as the staid powerhouse unwilling to put newcomers on the air or otherwise take risks. Opry management simply did not want to stray from the formula that had been paying dividends for so long. Radio, not television, still very much controlled the airwaves in the years immediately after the Second World War and there was no shortage of challengers to the Opry’s artistic orthodoxy. Into this breach stepped the 50,000 watt KWKH. The talent pool in the Hayride’s earliest weeks and months was somewhat weak, though Kitty Wells was a regular throughout the spring and summer of 1948. Things changed when a still relatively unknown Hank Williams made his Louisiana Hayride debut on August 7 before quickly moving on to greater heights elsewhere.

Slim Whitman, 1968

Many of the performers who graced the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium stage were mediocre at best, and Hayride shows were notoriously hit or miss. The program’s weakness however was also its greatest strength. The bean counters at the Ryman might never stray too far from the tried-and-true, but the Hayride management—with nothing to lose—was more than happy to take a chance on an unknown. The young Elvis played the Hayride numerous time. So did Johnny Cash, Slim Whitman, and scores of other innovators. Essentially anyone on the way up—or down—came through Shreveport and played the show. When the Opry let Hank Williams go due to his unreliability, it was back to the Hayride that he came. The Hayride was a weekly radio staple for a dozen years. On August 27, 1960 a pre-Hee Haw Grandpa Jones played an inspired cover of Jimmie Rodgers “Waiting for a Train” on the final night of the radio program. The Hayride did carry on in various incarnations and under different names for another decade or so, and even hosted such figures as Marty Robbins, Tex Ritter, Loretta Lynn, and the Louvin Brothers to name a few. Still, it was the period from 1948-1960 that holds the most cultural relevance.