Program notes from Bellows & Squawk Jazz Recital at PSU, Nov 14, 2024
(This recital can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRZhNRVplw&t=2617s )
Repair the World
Written mostly by Gerson Robboy. There are spoken footnotes within the piece itself crediting other composers.
Doodlin'
Horace Silver composed and recorded "Doodlin'" in 1954. Jon Hendricks wrote vocalese lyrics to the piece, including Horace Silver's entire piano solo. ("Vocalese" is the art of putting lyrics to an instrumental jazz solo). The great vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross recorded this piece with three-part vocal harmony. We have rearranged their arrangement for two voices. Betty and Gerson divide Annie Ross' vocal solo between them.
I Left My Heart in San Francisco (1954). Douglas Cross, George Cory /
I'll Be Seeing you (1938) Irving Kahal, Sammy Fain.
The two songs were assembled into a duet by Lynn Jackson and Mike Palter on their 1983 album "Rememberings" (Redlyn Ltd.). The intertwined lyrics make a whole new lyric.
Tango-Ballade from The Three Penny Opera (1928), Kurt Weill / Bertolt Brecht.
The music and this English translation were transcribed from the 1963 album "A Kurt Weill Cabaret," (MGM Records – SE-4180 OC), sung by Martha Schlamme and Will Holt. The 1989 movie "Mack the Knife," sung by Raul Julia and Julia Migenes, uses the same translation. According to imdb.com, the translator was Marc Blitzstein, who also did a severely sanitized translation of the song for Broadway.
The story: Mackie, on the lam from the law, visits a whore house where he runs into his old lover Jenny. They reminisce about days gone by.
Where is My Pants. Mickey Katz (1953)
Mickey Katz, who did parodies of popular songs, was one of my (Gerson's) important musical and cultural influences. The jazz clarinetist Don Byron called Mickey Katz "one of the most important artists America has produced." (quoted from liner notes to "Don Byron plays the music of Mickey Katz," Elektra Nonesuch 79313-2). When I first heard "Where Is My Pants," I recognized the melody from my junior high school orchestra in 1960 as "The Song From Moulin Rouge." I was amazed by the seemingly abstract stream-of-consciousness leap from Moulin Rouge to Pants. Later I discovered that "Moulin Rouge" was a 1952 movie with music by Georges Auric, including this song, which was called "It's April Again" in the movie. The melody, with a new lyric, later became "Where Is Your Heart." Recorded by Percy Faith's Orchestra, "Where Is Your Heart" was the No. 1 hit song of 1953. Mickey Katz's parody is a mini-opera, portraying a domestic drama in under 3 minutes.
Wild Duck Fantasy.
"The Cry of the Wild Goose" was written in 1950 by Terry Gilkyson. Frankie Laine's recording that year was a number one hit. Mickey Katz recorded a parody, "Geshray of De Vilde Kotchke," (Cry of the Wild Duck). In Gilkyson's song, a man with commitment issues escapes from a cabin during the night, leaving behind his sleeping female partner. In Katz's parody, a duck in a butcher shop hears the butcher negotiating his price, and we hear the duck's soliloquy on his imminent death, in English and Yiddish. We generally followed the form of the Mickey Katz parody, but our version is different enough that we gave it a new title. We wrote English lyrics to some of the Yiddish parts and we quoted from the original Gilkyson lyrics. We also borrowed from Prokofiev and other sources for some instrumental interludes.
In A Mellotone:
Duke Ellington composed and recorded the song with his band in 1939. Jon Hendricks wrote a vocalese arrangement of the Ellington band arrangement, remarkable not only for the extended lyric, but that it captures the essential elements of a big band arrangement distilled down to three voices. It was recorded by Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross. In our arrangement, Betty sings Cootie Williams' trumpet solo and Gerson sings Johnny Hodges' alto saxophone solo.
Tonight You Belong to Me (1926), Lee David, Billy Rose.
This 1926 song was recorded at least 15 times over the years up to Frankie Laine's recording in 1952. In 1956, the child sisters Patience and Prudence recorded the song with a new (and improved) melody and chord changes. This became the standard version after that, and it was recorded by many others, including Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters in the 1979 film "The Jerk," accompanying themselves on ukulele and cornet. We have added a little something from George Burns and Gracie Allen.