The Cool School
Page 13
When Murray awoke, perhaps only seconds later, the pressure of Buddy’s leg on his own was quite strong. Without looking at Buddy, he slowly sat up, raising his legs as he did, sitting now with knees under his folded arms. He looked at the glass of cognac still in his hand, and finished it off.
“That sort of thing,” said Buddy quietly, “doesn’t interest you either.” It was not put as a question, but as a statement which required confirmation.
Murray turned, an expression of bland annoyance on his face, while Buddy lay there looking at him pretty much the same as always.
“No, man,” said Murray, then almost apologetically: “I mean, like I don’t put it down—but it’s just not a scene I make. You know?”
Buddy dropped his eyes to a blade of grass he was toying with; he smiled. “Well, anyway,” he said with a little laugh, “no offense.”
Murray laughed, too. “None taken, man,” he said seriously.
MURRAY HAD risen at his more or less usual hour, and the clock at Cluny was just striking eleven when he emerged from the hotel stairway, into the street and the summer morning. He blinked his eyes at the momentary brightness and paused to lean against the side of the building, gazing out into the pleasantly active boulevard.
When the clock finished striking he pushed himself out from the wall and started towards the Royale, where he often met Buddy and Jackie for breakfast. About halfway along Boulevard Saint-Germain he turned in at a small café to get some cigarettes. Three or four people were coming out the door as Murray reached it, and he had to wait momentarily to let them pass. As he did he was surprised to notice, at a table near the side, Buddy and Jackie, eating breakfast. Buddy was wearing dark glasses, and Murray instinctively reached for his own as he came through the door, but discovered he had left them in his room. He raised his hand in a laconic greeting to them and paused at the bar to get the cigarettes. Buddy nodded, but Jackie had already gotten up from the table and was walking toward the girls’ room. Murray sauntered over, smiling, and sat down.
“What are you doing here, man?” he asked. “I didn’t know you ever came here.”
Buddy shrugged. “Thought we’d give it a try,” he said seriously examining a dab of butter on the end of his knife. Then he looked up at Murray and added with a laugh, “You know—new places, new faces.”
Murray laughed too, and picked at a piece of an unfinished croissant. “That’s pretty good,” he said. “What’s that other one? You know, the one about—oh yeah, ‘Old friends are the best friends.’ Ever hear that one?”
“I have heard that one,” said Buddy nodding, “yes, I have heard that one.” His smile was no longer a real one. “Listen, Murray,” he said, wiping his hands and sitting back, putting his head to one side, “let me ask you something. Just what is it you want?”
Murray frowned down at where is own hands slowly dissected the piece of croissant as though he were shredding a paper napkin.
“What are you talking about, man?”
“You don’t want to play music,” Buddy began as though he were taking an inventory, “and you don’t want . . . I mean just what have we got that interests you?”
Murray looked at him briefly, and then looked away in exasperation. He noticed that Jackie was talking to the patron who was standing near the door. “Well, what do you think, man?” he demanded, turning back to Buddy. “I dig the scene, that’s all. I dig the scene and the sounds.”
Buddy stood up, putting some money on the table. He looked down at Murray, who sat there glowering, and shook his head. “You’re too hip, baby. That’s right. You’re a hippy.” He laughed. “In fact, you’re what we might call a kind of professional nigger lover.” He touched Murray’s shoulder as he moved to leave. “And I’m not putting you down for it, understand, but, uh, like the man said, ‘It’s just not a scene I make.’” His dark face set for an instant beneath the smoky glasses and he spoke, urgent and imploring, in a flash of white teeth, almost a hiss, “I mean not when I can help it, Murray, not when I can help it.” And he left. And the waiter arrived, picking up the money.
“Monsieur désire?”
Still scowling, staring straight ahead, Murray half raised his hand as to dismiss the waiter, but then let it drop to the table. “Café,” he muttered.
“Noir, monsieur?” asked the waiter in a suggestively rising inflection.
Murray looked up abruptly at the man, but the waiter was oblivious, counting the money in his hand.
Murray sighed. “Oui,” he said softly, “noir.”
Esquire, 1952; Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tales, 1967
Annie Ross
(b. 1930)
Born Annabelle Short in London, Annie Ross appeared as a child singer and actor under the name Annabelle Logan. As a teenager she changed her name to Annie Ross and split for Europe to become a jazz singer. In 1952 Ross wrote lyrics to a composition by bebop saxophonist Wardell Gray and this novelty song was released on the album King Pleasure Sings / Annie Ross Sings by Prestige Records. The vocalese trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, formed in 1957, was enormously successful until 1963, when she quit the group and moved to London. Ross opened a jazz club there and branched out into acting. Her lyrics for “Twisted,” a send-up of psychoanalysis and neurosis, were a wry anthem for hipsters who spurned normality or healthy adjustment.
Twisted
My analyst told me that I was right out of my head
The way he described it, he said I’d be better dead than live
I didn’t listen to his jive
I knew all along he was all wrong
And I knew that he thought I was crazy but I’m not
Oh no
My analyst told me that I was right out of my head
He said I’d need treatment but I’m not that easily led
He said I was the type that was most inclined
When out of his sight to be out of my mind
And he thought I was nuts, no more ifs or ands or buts
Oh no
They say as I child I appeared a little bit wild
With all my crazy ideas
But I knew what was happenin’, I knew I was a genius
What’s so strange if you know that you’re a wizard at three?
I knew that this was meant for me
I heard little children were supposed to sleep tight
That’s why I drank a fifth of vodka one night
My parents got frantic, didn’t know what to do
But I saw some crazy scenes before I came to
Now do you think I was crazy?
I may have been only three but I was swingin’
They all laughed at A. Graham Bell
They all laughed at Edison and also at Einstein
So why should I feel sorry if they just couldn’t understand
The reasoning and the logic that went on in my head?
I had a brain, it was insane
So I just let them laugh at me
When I refused to ride on all the double decker buses
All because there was no driver on the top
My analyst told me that I was right out of my head
The way he described it, he said I’d be better dead than live
I didn’t listen to his jive
I knew all along he was all wrong
And I knew that he thought I was crazy but I’m not
Oh no
My analyst told me that I was right out of my head
But I said, Dear doctor, I think that it’s you instead
’Cause I have got a thing that’s unique and new
It proves that I’ll have the last laugh on you
’Cause instead of one head, I got two
And you know two heads are better than one
King Pleasure Sings /Annie Ross Sings, 1952
Lord Buckley
(1906–1960)
Richard Myrle Buckley had a long career as a comic before styling himself Lord, an “immaculately hip aristocrat” monolog
ist. Mixing jive talk with grandiloquence, he seamlessly blended classical rhetoric, stand-up schtick, scat, and Surrealism into a language he called “hipsemantics.” Lord Buckley looked the part with his waxed moustache, pith helmet, and proper evening clothes. His record albums and live performances won him a devoted following in the fifties—City Lights published a collection of his monologues as Hiparama of the Classics—but Buckleys penchant for marijuana (sometimes smoked onstage) led to revocation of his cabaret card by New York’s police commissioner in 1960. He died of a stroke shortly thereafter, but his monologues live on. “The Naz,” from 1952, is one of the Lords earliest recordings; its subject is another Lord, Jesus of Nazareth.
The Naz
in modern reverence
LOOK AT all you Cats and Kitties out there! Whippin’ and wailin’ and jumpin’ up and down and suckin’ up all that fine juice and pattin’ each other on the back and Hippin’ each other who the greatest Cat in the world is! Mr. Melanencoff, Mr. Dalencoff and Mr. Zelencoff and all them Coffs, and Mr. Eisenhower, Mr. Woosenwiser, Mr. Weesenwooser and all them Woosers, Mr. Woodhill and Mr. Beachill and Mr. Churchill and all them Hills, Gonna’ get you straight! If they can’t get you straight, they know a Cat, that knows a Cat, that’ll Straighten you!
But, I’m gonna’ put a Cat on you, who was the Sweetest, Grooviest, Strongest, Wailinest, Swinginest, Jumpinest most far out Cat that ever Stomped on this Sweet Green Sphere, and they called this here Cat, THE NAZ, that was the Cat’s name.
He was a carpenter kitty. Now the Naz, was the kind of a Cat that came on so cool and so wild and so groovy and so WITH IT, that when he laid it down WHAM! It stayed there! Naturally, all the rest of the Cats say:
“Dig what this Cat is puttin’ down! Man! Look at that Cat Blow!”
“Let the Cat Go!”
“Hey, there, Get out of the way, don’t bug me lad, Get off my back, I’m tryin’ to dig what the Cat’s sayin’ Jack, Cool!”
They’re Pushin’ The Naz! ’Cause they wanted to dig his Lick, you see, Dig his Miracle Lick!
So the Naz say, “Wait a minute Babies, tell you what I’m gonna do, I ain’t gonna take two, four, six or eight of you Cats, but I’m gonna take all twelve of you Studs and Straighten You All at the same time. You look like pretty Hip Cats, You buddy with me!”
So the Naz and his Buddies was goofin’ off down the boulevard one day, and they run into a little Cat with a bent frame. So the Naz look at the little Cat with the bent frame and he say:
“What’s de matter wid you baby?”
And the little Cat with the bent frame say, “My frame is bent, Naz. It’s been bent, from in front!!!”
So the Naz looked at the little Cat wid the bent frame, and he put the golden eyes of love on this here little Kitty and he looked right down into the windows of the little Cat’s soul, and he said to the little Cat, he say:
“STRAIGHTEN!!”
Up, Zoom-Boom! The Cat went up straighter than an arrow and everybody Jumpin’ Up and Down and they say:
“Look What The Naz Put On That Boy. You Dug Him Before, Dig Him Now!!”
Now you see the Naz is comin’ on so strong and so fine and so Great. They is talkin’ about when he’s gonna appear next. What did he do there? How he swung thru the land with great ribbons of love sounds. How he laid down the truth and made it live, just like a jumpin’ garden of king size roses. How he stomped into the money changin’ Court and kicked the short change all over the place. Knocked the corners off the Squares! How he put the truth down once for the Cat, he dug it, didn’t dig it; put it down twice, the Cat dug it didn’t dig it; Put it down the third time, WHAM, the Cat DUG IT! WALKED AWAY WITH HIS EYES, BULGING, Bumping into Everybody!
The Naz is comin’ on so fine and so strong they is pullin’ on his coat-tail. Wanting him to sign the autograph, they want him to do this gig here, they want him do that gig there, play the radio do the video and all the JAZZ, he can’t make all that Jazz, Like I explained to you, cause he’s a carpenter Kitty and he’s got his own lick. But when he knows he should show to blow and cannot Go ’cause, he’s got some strain on him, Straightenin’ out the Squares, he sends a couple of these Cats that he’s Hippin’!
So came a little sixty cent gig one day and the Naz was in a bind so he put it on a couple of his Buddy-Cats.
“Say Boys, will you straighten that out for me?”
“Take it off you wig Naz, we’ve got it covered!”
And they swung out to straighten this gig for The Naz when they run into a little olde twenty cent pool of water. And when they got in the middle of the pool in the boat, All of a Sudden, WHAM — BOOM!! The Storm is Stormin’ and the Lightin’ Flashin’ and the Thunder Roarin’ and the boat goin’ up and down and these poo’ cats figurin’ every minute gonna be the Last! When all of a sudden! One Cat look up and Here Comes The Naz, Stompin’! anyone you ever seen, Right Across the Water—Stompin’!
There was a little Cat on board, I thank his name was Jude and he yelled:
“Hey Naz, Can I make it out there withcha?”
And the Naz say, “MAKE IT JUDE!”
And ole Jude went stompin’ off that boat, took about four steps, dropped his hole card and ZOOT, Naz had to stash him back on board again. So The Naz look at these Kitties and he say:
“What’s the matter with you Babies now? What’s goin’ on here boys? What’s takin’ place? You knockin’ on that S.O.S. bell pretty hard! You’re gonna bend that bell knockin’ on it like that!”
One Cat say, “What seems to be the trouble? Can’t you see the Storm Stormin’ and the Lightin’ Flashin’ and the Thunder Roarin’ and the waves flippin?”
And The Naz say, “I told you to stay COOL, didn’t I?” (To stay cool means to Believe in the Magic Power of Love.)
Now the fame of The Naz is jumpin’! How he lays it down the same way every day, how he Hipped the Cats to fo-give and fo-get and how he say:
“Dig, and Thou Shalt be Dug!”
“Drag Not, and Thou Shalt not be Drug!”
And many other Hip truths! The Beauty Sparks shootin’ out the grapevine are sixty-five feet long till there is now Five Thousand Cats and Kitties in the Naz’s little home town, where the Cat Live, Lookin’ to get STRAIGHT! Well, The Naz know he kain’t straighten them there, it’s too small a place, don’t want to hang everybody up, so nobody can make it!
So The Naz back away a little bit and he looked at the Cats and Kitties and a great Love Look came on his face and he say with the bird bell tones in his voice:
“Come on Babies, let’s cut on out down the pike.’
And there went The Naz with his Five Thousand Cats and Kitties behind him stompin’ up a great necklace of beauty. Flocks of Blue Birds were flyin’ along his side riffin’ up a high orchestration of Bird Love. And it’s brother to brother, sister to sister, and a great river of love is chargin’ and super chargin’ thru these Cats and Kitties, and The Naz is a talkin’ and a swingin’ with:
“How pretty the hour, how pretty the flower, how pretty you, how pretty he, how pretty she, how pretty the tree!”
Naz had them Love Eyes, he wanted everybody to see thru his Eyes, to Pin the Golden Rosetta of Reality. And they is havin’ such a Wailin’, Swingin’ Glorianna style stompin’ hike that before you know it, it was Scoffin’ Time and these poo’ Cats is Forty miles out of town and ain’t nobody got the first biscuit. Well, The Naz look at all the Cats and Kitties kickin’ and sand and he say:
“You Hongry, Ain’t Ya, Babies?”
And one tall Cat say, “Yea, Naz, we were so busy diggin’ what you puttin’ down, that we didn’t pre-pare; Naz, we Goofed!”
The Naz say, “Well, We got to take it easy here, We wouldn’t want to go ahead and order up sumpin’ you might not like, would We?”
And the tall Cat, kickin’ the sand say, Sweet Double Hippness, You put it Down, and we’ll pick it Up!”
So The Naz backed away a little bit and his head turned slowly to one side
and then to the other, diggin’ all these Cats and Kitties and he laid down a Sound of Great Love:
“Oh, Sweet Swingin’ Flowers of the Field!”
And they answered, “Oh, Great Singular Non-Stop Singular Sound Of Beauty!”
And he said, “Stomp Upon the Terra!” And they HIT IT!!!!!
And he said, “Straighten your Miracle, The Body!” And the Body WENT UP!!
“Lift Your Glorious Arms to Heaven!” and he said, “Higher!” And they went Higher!!
And he said, “Lift Your Love Eyes To The Skies!” And they Did!! And he said, “Widen Your Eyes and Look HARDER!” And they Did!!
And the Naz say, “DIG INFINITE!!!” And they DUG IT!!
And When they did, WHAMMMMM!! Just then a Great flash of Lightin’ and a Roll of Thunder HIT the Scene! And the Cats looked down and in one hand was a Great bit of swingin, juicy stuffed Smoked Fish, and in the other a big thick gone loaf of that honey tastin’ ever-lovin’, good, groovey Home-lovin’ made Bread! Why, these poo’ Cats FLIPPED!!!
The Naz Never Did Nothin’ Simple.
When He Laid It, HE LAID IT!!
1952; Hiparama of the Classics, 1960
King Pleasure
(1922–1981)
Born Clarence Beeks in Oakdale, Tennessee, King Pleasure moved to New York City where he was a part of the bebop scene, first as a fan, then as a performer. He became popular for covering “Moody’s Mood for Love,” a vocalese performance by singer Eddie Jefferson based on James Moody’s saxophone solo on “I’m in the Mood for Love.” “Parker’s Mood” followed in 1954, with lyrics to Charlie Parker’s sax solo on his 1948 recording. The words seem prophetic, as Parker died the next year and the graffiti BIRD LIVES soon became prevalent in Greenwich Village and other hip enclaves.
Parker’s Mood