Occasional Jazz Conjectures

The poet Larry Fagin, a wonderful jazz observer among other things, is a major proponent of what’s called the “list poem.” According to Fagin, “Lists and catalogs are among the oldest written documents and occur in the literature of most cultures. The desire of the ancients to classify and memorize all of the world’s contents in order to gain full knowledge culminated in the great library at Alexandria.”

Example: Write a poem consisting of favorite words or phrases collected over a period of time; pick your favorite words from a particular book or subject or consisting entirely of a list of “things”, either homogenous or heterogeneous (things to do, lists of colors, inventory lists, lists of events, names, etc.)

Below is a list poem in memory of Frankie Laine (March 30, 1913 – February 6, 2007), the great Italian-American popular singer known for penning the beautiful ballad standard “We’ll Be Together Again,” as well as being the swaggering, muscular voice of frontier virility behind such hits as the echo-rich “Mule Train,” “High Noon,” “Rawhide,” and “Gunfight at the OK Corral.” Born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio to immigrant parents, Laine hit his stride in the late 1940s-early ‘50s alongside the pomade-bedaubed, luminous swarth of vocalists like Dean Martin and Tony Bennett—romantic singers who satisfied the postwar penchant for three-coins-in-a-fountain exotic love, flashbulb glamour, and an anti-Van Johnson, feral masculinity. One foot in the silken lyricism of jazz, one foot in the vulgar sensuality of blues-laden, adrenal early rock, Laine produced over 20 gold records ranging from guilty pleasures like “Jealousy (Jalousie)” and the devastatingly swinging “Jazz Spectacular” (with jazz trumpet great Buck Clayton) to a truly enjoyable gospel confab with The Four Lads, the luscious “Reunion In Rhythm” (with Michel Legrand), and a series of powerhouse duets with among others, Patti Page, Doris Day, and the sublime Jo Stafford. He was really the last of the original American idols.

That Lucky Old Sun: List Poem for Frankie Laine

Al Jolson: “The Singing Fool”

5,000 at The Merry Garden Ballroom
106 days dance-crazed in Baltimore
3,501 hours with Ruthie Smith at Atlantic City ’s Million Dollar Pier
11 different New York hotels.
4 tiny Baby Ruth candy bars rationed
2 weeks with Freddy Carlone
14-year old Anita O’Day
Size-12 feet stomping in joints like Billy Berg’s, Club Hangover and the Bandbox
East 17th and Euclid
11/16/59 : William Bendix, Jack Kerouac, Louis Nye, Don Knotts
3:10 To Yuma

Satan Wears A Satin Gown

A Bouncer
Dance instructor
Used car salesman
Agent
Machinist

Look at that big hand move along
Do not forsake me O my darlin’

Crooners, Belters, Exciters:
“Russ” Ruggiero Eugenio di Rodolpho Colombo : The Romeo of Song
Francis Albert from Hoboken
Louis Prima
Tony Rags to Riches Bennett
Bobby Darin nee Walden Robert Cassato
Supper club superstar Jimmy Roselli
Vic Damone
Al Martino IS Johnny Fontaine

Magnificent Obsession
It Ain’t Gonna Be Like That

Italian Barbers as American as streamlined chrome, jazz, and skyscrapers:
Dino Paul Crocetti aka. Dean Martin aka Kid Crochet
Jerry Vale singing Innamorata
Perry Como

Some day
Some way

intermission act
Hoagy Carmichael ’s “Rockin’ Chair”
McVouty Slim Gaillard
Put Yourself In My Place

Look at that big hand move along
Nearin’ high noon.

Hadda Brooks

We both have a lifetime before us

“Jezebel”/”Rose, Rose, I Love You”
Hell Bent for Leather
Cyd Charisse: “Hell Hath No Fury”

For parting is never goodbye
We’ll be together again.