When I wrote the first book in the Charles Lauchlan mystery series, I spent about six months obsessed with finding the absolute right title. I was convinced that somewhere, out in the ether, there was exactly the right title if I could only find it.

I read reams of poetry, combed through the King James Bible, found every nursery rhyme I could lay my hands on. I looked at other titles for mystery novels and discovered that short and snappy was fashionable. Out of all this research, I developed a list and finally selected The One.

“Astray.” That was it. Short and snappy and meant to suggest the phrase from the book of Isaiah, “All we like sheep have gone astray.” I rested on my title searching laurels.

Then, at the very last minute when the book was about to go to press, Emma Donoghue came out with a book of short stories entitled—you guessed it—Astray. I don’t consider myself in the same league as Donoghue but there was going to be confusion for book buyers. So, in a lather, I found another title and my book became, Put on the Armour of Light, also from the Bible, in this case from Paul’s letter to the Romans. From short and snappy to long and hard to remember. But I was happy with it and breathed a sigh of relief that titular disaster had been averted.

While writing the second book—very soon to be at a bookstore near you—I was more casual about the title. Since the book is set in Scotland and the Scots have many words for rain in all its guises, “Fifty Words for Rain” was it. Well satisfied, I turned to other tasks.

Then, at the very last minute when the book was about to go to press, a New York Times bestseller hit the shelves entitled—you guessed it—Fifty Words for Rain. Apparently, they also have rain in Japan. I don’t consider my books to be in the same league as New York Times bestsellers. But, in a lather, I found another title and my book became So Many Windings which refers to the Lancelot Andrewes poem that starts the book and also to the character of the roads that my fictional cyclists travel.

It just goes to show you that if you come up with a title that seems just right, chances are good that somebody else thought so too.

Don’t forget to register for the zoom launch of So Many Windings on May 27, 2021 at 7pm CDT. And remember that I’ll be signing books at Whodunit Bookstore, 163 Lilac St. in Winnipeg on May 30 from 3pm to 5pm.

Register for the zoom here

I’m very excited to announce that my second book in the Charles Lauchlan Mystery series, So Many Windings, will be published at the end of May by At Bay Press. 

So Many Windings picks up the action where Put on the Armour of Light left off. It’s August of 1900 and Charles Lauchlan and his fiancé, Maggie Skene are on their way back to Winnipeg from Germany, where Maggie has been studying for a year. Friends that Maggie met while in Germany invite them on a bicycling tour of the Scottish Highlands. Bicycling through the Highlands! What could possibly go wrong?

The launch will be virtual via zoom from Whodunit Mystery Bookstore in Winnipeg on May 27, 2021 at 7pm CST. Please register for the zoom, put it in your datebook and tune in. 

Register for the zoom launch here

I will also be signing copies in front of Whodunit Mystery Bookstore, 163 Lilac St., Winnipeg, on Sunday, May 30 from 3pm to 5pm. We can have a socially distanced chat! (Rain location: inside the store).

You can pre-order So Many Windings at these fine locations: Whodunit Mystery Bookstore, McNally Robinson Booksellers, or Chapters Indigo. Or order direct from At Bay Press.  If you haven’t yet read the first book in the series, Put on the Armour of Light, you can order it at the same time from the same sources. 

My family roots are in Scotland and, for those of you who also have Scotland in your DNA, I’m hoping the book will be a special treat. It’s dedicated to my father, Donald Bruce Macdonald, who, though a patriotic Canadian, was also an unabashed Scotophile. We were the only family on our block to have a tartan doorbell. I like to think that my own attitude to Scotland is more nuanced and less sentimental than his, but I’m probably just kidding myself. In any case, I learned a lot about Scotland while writing the book, some of which I will talk about in subsequent posts. I also learned a lot about the golden age of bicycling at the turn of the Twentieth Century and I’ll be posting about that, too. 

If I say the word “bookbinder”, do you picture a grizzled craftsperson, glasses perched low on the nose, attaching a beautifully-tooled calf binding to a classic text, say, an edition of T. S. Elliot’s collected poems, in a workroom heavy with the smell of exotic leathers?

If you do, Matt Joudrey will blow that picture right out of your head. Matt, when not attending to his day job as publisher of At Bay Press here in Winnipeg, is a bookbinder/designer who is expanding our ideas about the book as an aesthetic object. Take At Bay Press’s most recent limited edition publication, Chris Macalino’s long poem, Winnipeg Graffiti. Matt designed and fabricated all of the copies, which feature hand-made paper and a binding made of stained glass. At the very least, this is an amazing technical feat. I had to know more about Matt’s take on bookbinding and book design as 21st century arts and I’m delighted that he agreed to sit down to an e-interview with me.

 

But first, here’s a bit more about the many other hats worn by Matt Joudrey.

M.C. Joudrey is a Canadian writer, award winning artist and designer. He is the publisher of At Bay Press. His second novel Of Violence and Cliché was released September 2013, followed by his collection of short stories Charleswood Road: Storiesin August 2014, which was nominated for a 2015 Manitoba Book Award. His novel Fanonymous was released in 2019 and was nominated for two Manitoba Book Awards, including the Margaret Laurence Award for best work of fiction. M.C. Joudrey has been a member of the submission selection committee for the CBC Short Fiction Prize and a jury member for the Manitoba Book Awards. His titles reside in permanent legislative and national government collections. He is also a bookbinder and a number of his works are held in galleries internationally.

CM: Welcome to portage and slain, Matt. First of all, should I be using the term “bookmaking” instead of “bookbinding” for what you do?

 MJ: For me, yes. Bookbinding, if I had to generalize it, focuses on the binding or rebinding of books. This is a true art form unto itself. Many top bookbinders have settled on that craft alone and often these bookbinders are called upon by collectors and libraries to restores old books when their original bindings have deteriorated. I would fall into that other category of “bookmaker” because I not only bind the book, I am also designing the book, doing the layout, and printing the book. In some cases, like Winnipeg Graffiti for instance, partnerships with other artists happen.

CM: How did you come to be interested in book binding and book design?

MJ: I just wanted to create things. I love books. It was a natural evolution.

CM: Do you have some favourite examples of bookmaking from other artists?

MJ: There are a number of book artists creating work that I really admire. My last trip to Minneapolis brought me to the Minnesota Centre for the Book Arts. It’s such a wonderful place, with a very respectable collection of handmade books in their store, by some of the best bookmakers in the United States.

I would be remiss not to mention the gorgeous bookmaking of artist Charles Van Sandwyk. He has set a standard for paperback books sewn by hand and his illustrations that decorate his books are delightfully charming.

Here in Winnipeg we have some great bookmakers. I love the bindings that Deb Frances Plett is making. She recently finished a collection where she partnered with 20 ceramic artists entitled the Stone Diary Project. It’s the third installment that she has done in the series. Erwin Huebner makes some exceptionally well crafted books that push the boundaries of what a book can be. Erwin is a Professor Emeritus at U. of Manitoba and his passion for bookmaking has brought about some intriguing creations. Karen Clavelle is another book artist in Winnipeg. I loved her handmade Mother Goose letters so much that I decided to publish her hardcover book entitled The Mother Goose Letters, the original handmade letters were a direct inspiration for the larger work we published to the trade.

CM: In addition to your commercial titles, At Bay Press regularly brings out limited editions of hand-bound books where the accent is as much on exploring the aesthetics of the book as it is on the text. Tell me about that.

MJ: Oh, that has everything to do with my need to make something by hand and to constantly test myself on the limits of what can be done. I love problem solving. I love mystery and discovery. Making books by hand, the sourcing and selection of materials, the design, illustration, and finally execution is a painstaking process. But, seeing it all come together in the end, the beauty and satisfaction of the finished object, after labouring for long periods of time is very satisfying. Plus, something permanent now exists that has been brought into the world, often by a number of contributors, it may seem like a romantic notion, but it does feel magical.

CM: Tell me about the technical and design challenges you faced in your design and binding for Chris Macalino’s long poem, Winnipeg Graffiti.

 MJ: First, I want to say that working with Matthew McMillan at Prairie Studio Glass was an excellent experience and his stunning glass plate covers are the showpiece of the work.

The biggest issue, after the glass was made, was the realization of just how heavy each plate of glass actually was. This meant the final design needed to address that problem. One of the most important aspects of bookbinding is longevity. The idea that the final piece could live forever, well beyond its creator. I had serious concerns about the weight of the glass tugging and pulling at the paper binding from the simple force of opening and closing the book. I solved the problem with folds and a thin sheet of foam core carefully tucked away and hidden within those folds. This allowed for the book to rest safely on a cushion when not in use. This also afforded the book the opportunity to stand up on its own, with stability.

A bookbinder’s job is to produce something exceptional, but the design and craftsmanship must be mindful of the fact that, after all is done, it is still a book and meant to be handled by a reader and book lover. So, to that end, quality of craftsmanship is equally as important as visual eye appeal. I expect that good design, the visual appeal, and craftsmanship will likely show as a married effect to the beholder.

CM: How does what you do relate to the long tradition of the book design and bookbinding in Europe and North America?

MJ: While it does seem that there can be a zeitgeist of sorts that has the appearance of being regional, the art of bookmaking does tend to be a very solitary endeavour, for the most part, at least. This seems to support my theory that the work being produced overseas and in North America tend to be singular in scope, design, and execution.

I will say that certain technical aspects of the craft have reached a level of near perfection by some individual bookmakers. This could be attributed to region, but that’s likely not the case and has more to do with the individual’s long-suffering practice.

CM: You bring a very urban, modern and hard edge sensibility to your bookbinding and design. Are there artists and illustrators who you consider to be major influences?

MJ: My influences come from all aspects of my long passion for books and collecting art. I am a true collector at heart, and I love acquiring pieces that catch my eye. My collecting is by no means limited to just books. I love all forms of creation, both made and naturally occurring.

 

 

 

I’ll be on hand at Whodunit Bookstore on Saturday, April 28, from 10:30 am to 11:30 am to help the Bumsteds—and you—celebrate Canadian Independent Bookstore Day (formerly known as Authors for Indies). Canadian Independent Bookstore Day gives you an opportunity to acknowledge all the good that the indies do in our community by coming out and buying a book or two. This year you’ll find several local authors like myself taking part throughout the day. So if you miss me, you’ll encounter Michael J. Clark or Jonathon McPhail or Doug Whiteway—all with books of their own to tempt you and tips on other great reads.

Whodunit is Winnipeg’s only bookstore specializing in crime, thriller and mystery books, and is therefore very worth celebrating.  Hope to see you on Saturday. (Come on, you know you want the latest Ian Rankin or the new one by that unpronounceable Norwegian guy.)

Winnipeg writer Sherri Smith’s debut crime novel, Follow Me Down, is as gripping a book as I’ve read in a long time. It’s a great gift to be able to dole out suspense at exactly the right pace and Smith’s got it. She also writes so vividly about Wayoata, North Dakota, a fictional town located in the most obscure corner of the American mid-west, that the reader feels the same icky ambivalence toward it as the book’s protagonist. These qualities earned Smith a contract with Forge Press, Macmillan’s U.S. mystery and thriller imprint.

In Follow Me Down, Mia Haas, who has successfully escaped Wayoata, is forced to return there to deal with the fact that her twin brother Lucas, a high school teacher, has disappeared. Worse news greets her when she finds out that Lucas is wanted for the murder of one of his students.

When not writing, Sherri Smith spends time with her family and two rescue dogs, and restores vintage furniture that would otherwise be destined for the dump. She finds that Winnipeg’s long, cold winters nurture her dark side.

Follow me Down is available at Whodunit, McNally Robinson Booksellers and Chapters Indigo.

Here is my e-conversation with Sherri.

CM: I’m filled with writer’s envy when I read sentences like, “She was exceptionally tall, almost six feet, with broad rounded shoulders and a very bad Blondissima dye job that was almost blue, making her dark inky eyebrows pop like a punch line.” Does that kind of writing come fairly easily to you or do you sweat for every syllable?

SS: Why thank-you!! Those kinds of sentences come easily enough to me, but there’s a dark side because I also have trouble culling all of those sentences. I have a tendency to write through issues, so I basically write two or three books to every one book (I am not a fast writer) and so that’s a lot to wade through. For me, writing is definitely rewriting and rewriting and rewriting!

CM: What attracted you about using first person narration, and did you find that it had some downsides too?

SS: First person comes most naturally to me. I love the feel of really slipping into someone else’s head for a while but yes, first person can also be really frustrating too because you’re so hindered on what you can reveal. You also lose out on using shifting perspectives to balance out your character’s tics (and Mia has plenty of those,) it’s also especially difficult when your first person narrator is not a detective, and she needs to use her own wits to unravel the mystery.

CM: Mia is a wry and dead-on observer of the world around her but she doesn’t always have an equal degree of insight into her own behaviour. Sometimes the reader wants to shake her. Was writing her a difficult balancing act?

 SS: Good question! I just wanted Mia to be realistic. She’s conflicted and she’s in an incredibly stressful situation and struggling with her own addiction and so yes, I think she absolutely lacks insight into her actions (as most addicted people do) but I also feel it’s part of her charm. She’s doing the best that she can, in the given circumstances. I love how flawed she is, how her gummy brain works, how she can twist things to suit whatever she’s chasing down. I admire her loyalty and how she keeps her snarky humor going because I think it’s true of how a lot of people cope with their dark childhoods.

CM: The differences in language and culture are pretty subtle between the American mid-west and the Canadian prairies. But your Wayoata seems bang on to me. How did you get the American details so right?

SS: Google. And I like to go to Grand Forks and go shopping, so that too. All of my research trips were really just shopping trips at Target and Gordman’s.

CM: Who are the writers that you most admire and why?

SS: There are so many, too many and I am always discovering new writers to admire but my go-to list of writers who never disappoint are:

• Laura Lippman
• Gillian Flynn
• Chevy Stevens
• Peter Swanson
• Tana French

CM: What are you working on now?

SS: I am currently writing another suspense novel. I don’t want to say too much about it at this point other than it takes place at a wellness retreat, involves psychotropic tea and murder. Its scheduled release is Winter 2019.

CM: I’m fascinated by the process of choosing a title. Is there a story behind the choice of “Follow Me Down”?

SS: The original title was Dickson Park, but my publisher thought it was too quaint and Brit sounding, so I changed it to “Follow Me Down”. I think it aptly represents where Mia takes the reader; down the rabbit hole, into her pill-addled brain, and her downward spiral.

I get to play host and ask Gail Bowen all the questions I’ve been storing up for years when Gail launches the latest book in the Joanne Kilbourn series, The Winners’Circle. The launch is at 7pm at McNally Robinson on Thursday, Sept. 14, co-presented by the bookstore and the Winnipeg International Writers Festival as part of their collaborative fall literary series. Come out and join the conversation.

Find out more by clicking here

With the Jazz Festival in full swing, I asked jazz history buff Brian Chipney to wax eloquent on the Duke Ellington band as it was on Nov. 6, 1940, when it first played in Winnipeg. We don’t know all the tunes the band played on that date but fortunately the concert they played in Fargo the next night was recorded in its entirety, an amazing snapshot of the Ellington band at what many regard as its peak.

Now, what to say about Brian? Brilliant…. handsome…. debonair. These words don’t begin to describe Brian Chipney. They don’t even resemble Brian Chipney. In fact, they have nothing to do with Brian Chipney. But he does play pretty good soprano saxophone and has read a couple of books about jazz. He also thinks Johnny Hodges was the best soprano saxophone player who ever lived—all the qualifications needed to talk about the Ellington band.

Brian Chipney is in his tenth season as producer and performer in the Thursday evening jazz series, “Jazz at the Station” at Resto Gare on the corner of Provencher and Des Meurons, where some of Winnipeg’s finest French cuisine can also be had. On July 27th Brian’s trio will be on hand with special guest Brad Shigeta (former trombonist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra under the direction of Mercer Ellington) to celebrate the official tenth anniversary of jazz at Resto Gare.

Here follows my e-conversation with Brian.

CM: The Duke Ellington band of 1940 has been described as the greatest band that ever was. Do you agree?

BC: I think labeling anything as the “best ever” is a fruitless exercise. The choice is always going to be subjective, dependent on the qualities one is looking for. And those qualities can vary wildly from one person to the next. For example, some would maintain that “best” band was the early Count Basie group, the band with Lester Young, Dickie Wells, Buck Clayton, Sweets Edison, and of course the All-American Rhythm Section of Basie, Freddie Greene, Walter Page and Jo Jones. This Basie band frequently used a loose framework to showcase the various soloists. It swung like crazy and was tremendously influential on other bands, probably even more so than Ellington’s. Duke’s was more of an arranger’s band, generally more tightly structured than Basie’s. Can we say that the Basie orchestra was “better” than Ellington’s? It’s all a matter of opinion.

I think what we CAN safely say is that the Ellington band might have been one of the most UNIQUE big bands ever. It had a remarkable collection of solo voices and an arranger (Ellington himself) who consistently framed those soloists in brilliant fashion. The Ellington band could play any sort of style, from smooth, danceable ballads to roaring swingers. It could also create subdued moods that were beyond most bands. Certainly Ellington was also one of the great composers in jazz. So, fabulous music, brilliantly arranged, and featuring some of the best musicians ever. That’s a pretty winning combination! The Ellington band was arguably at its peak in 1940 and 1941 thanks largely to the presence of the great tenor saxophone soloist Ben Webster and Jimmy Blanton, a young man who was instrumental in making the bass a viable solo instrument. Is all this enough to make the Ellington band “the best”? I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters. Any way you look at it, this was without question ONE of the best bands of all time. We’re fortunate in the Fargo recordings to have a complete and unique record of one night out of many in the life of this group. To the guys in the orchestra this was just another gig, but the recordings give us a wonderful snapshot of the Ellington band in its prime.

CM: The Ellington band hit Winnipeg at a pivotal moment in its history. Trumpeter Cootie Williams had just signed on with the Benny Goodman band and had left the Duke. How important was Cootie Williams to the Ellington band’s sound as it was in 1940?

BC: Cootie had become so much a part of the Ellington sound by 1940 that bandleader Raymond Scott even wrote a composition called “When Cootie Left the Duke”! The parting was amicable though. It came out in later years that Ellington had actually helped Williams negotiate a good salary with the Goodman band. Interestingly, Cootie himself said that his time with BG was his most enjoyable in music … lots of solo space with a disciplined, well-rehearsed orchestra that played fabulous arrangements. And Cootie starred with the Sextet that featured Charlie Christian. As Williams liked to say, that Sextet would romp! But back to the question at hand… Ellington was known for writing to the strengths of his players. Williams was a unique voice, a player who could play powerful open-horn and who could express a variety of emotions through the use of the plunger mute. He was a wonderful musician and was certainly a large part of the Ellington sound. We have to remember too that the Ellington band had a great deal of stability. By 1940 his main soloists had been together for a number of years. The band had achieved a unity that was truly remarkable. Williams was I think the first of these stars to leave the fold. At the time it must have seemed to some to be an insurmountable loss. But history has shown us that Ellington, like any bandleader, would bring in new players to replace those who had departed. In Duke’s case, he’d figure out what the new man brought to the table and would then write to that man’s best qualities. Williams himself came to the band as a replacement for Bubber Miley, one of the first great growl trumpet players. Miley was featured extensively on early Ellington classics like “The Mooche” and “Black and Tan Fantasy”. Ellington credited Miley with a large part in creating what would become known as the Ellington sound. Cootie Williams became a master of the mute, but he started using it because he had to fill the role Bubber Miley had previously played in the band.

The replacement for Cootie Williams was Ray Nance. Nance wasn’t to my mind anything like the equal of Cootie Williams as a trumpet player, though he certainly wasn’t a bad player. But Nance did other things that Ellington could make use of. He was a good violinist, which naturally gave Ellington a new colour to work with. Nance was also an entertainer, someone who could go down front and entertain the fans with a vocal and a little dancing. In fact, his nickname in the band was “Floorshow”. We should keep in mind that it was Ray Nance who originated the classic trumpet solo on the Ellington recording of “Take The ‘A’ Train” …. which Cootie Williams would replicate when he rejoined the band years later!

As time went on, other key players would leave the orchestra. Blanton took sick. Ben Webster went out as a single. Barney Bigard decided to stay in California. Joe Nanton died. Johnny Hodges left to start his own band, taking trombonist Lawrence Brown with him. And on it went. But Ellington persevered. The band might slump for a time, but Duke would find other unique voices to feature and inevitably things would pick up again. Many of the men who’d left would ultimately return, so that Hodges, Brown and even Cootie Williams would one day be back in the Ellington band.

CM: The Winnipeg Tribune referred to the band as, “the first nationally famous colored band to appear here.” and the Free Press called it, “the most original negro dance band in the states.” Can you talk a bit about how Ellington dealt with the bewildering complexities of race in the music business?

BC: If we go back to the early years of the band, Ellington achieved some of his first great success at the Cotton Club in New York. The Cotton Club featured a southern motif. The floor shows at this whites-only establishment played up the “savagery” of the Negro race, often with a jungle setting. It was all designed to titillate the well-healed customers who journeyed to Harlem, playing to the racial stereotypes of the time. But this milieu was important to the sound of the Ellington band. Duke arranged much of his music to fit into this setting, featuring growling brass and moody saxophones. It gave the band an identity, as Ellington became known for this so-called “jungle music”. He’d go on to feature plunger trombone and trumpet for the rest of the band’s existence, though naturally the players changed over the years. Bubber Miley was his first great growl trumpet star, and the wondrous Cootie Williams was with Ellington for many years. Joe “Tricky Sam” Nanton was the all-time master of the plunger trombone. So, we see the Ellington band in what was basically a racist setting, but Ellington managing to turn this into a positive.

Life on the road for a black band was, shall we say, not fun. The day-to-day indignities must have been crushing, but that was the reality of the time and one had to find a way to function. Ellington was not a confrontational man. He was able to use his status as a star to isolate himself and his musicians to some degree from the travails of the road. Before the war, the Ellington band traveled from city to city in its own personal train cars. The cars would be left in a rail yard in each new city the band appeared in and the men lived in them. They were thus assured of decent accommodation and good food, two things that black men traveling through America could seldom count on in the 1930’s. This luxury made a tremendous impression on other musicians. Ellington was fascinated by trains and composed some remarkable “train pieces” over the years, like “Happy-Go-Lucky Local” (later ripped off by the saxophonist Jimmy Forrest and made into a hit under the title “Night Train”). Again we see Ellington taking the racial restrictions of the time and turning them to his advantage.

Ellington was indeed very conscious of race. He certainly knew that he was a black man moving through a largely unfriendly America. As many black musicians said, the fans would cheer you while you were on the stand but many of them wouldn’t dream of shaking hands or associating with you socially. Ellington celebrated his race in his music. He composed an extensive series of tributes to black performers over the years; eg. “Black Beauty”, “Bojangles”, “Portrait of Bert Williams” and many others. In 1943 he made perhaps his first major musical statement on race with the debut of “Black, Brown and Beige – A Tone Parallel to the History of the Negro in America” at Carnegie Hall. Decades later he wrote a revue called “My People” in which he addressed the positive contributions Black culture had made to society. Ellington stated repeatedly to other musicians that he considered this Black culture to be the inspiration behind everything he played and wrote. But of course Ellington was an entertainer, one who came of age at a time when “rocking the boat” could not only end your career but potentially your life. While his heritage was of paramount importance to him, Duke largely refrained from making overt political statements. But it was all there in his music.

CM: We only know a few of the tunes the band played at the Winnipeg date. But happily we have access to almost the whole concert in Fargo the next night. What strikes you about the Ellington “book” as it was on display at these two concerts?

BC: To be honest, I don’t think there’s anything especially remarkable about what the band played. It’s primarily a selection of pieces recently recorded for Victor along with older Ellington hits that had already become staples of his book. There are also a few current pops scattered into the Fargo set list (eg. “Ferryboat Serenade,” “Call of the Canyon”), the kind of things all bands played to satisfy the dancers. A number of the pieces on the Fargo recording are extended beyond what could fit into the limits of the 78 rpm records of the day, but again many bands, certainly the jazz oriented outfits, would do the same thing. One thing that’s of some note is that Ellington wasn’t afraid to program something like “Ko-Ko” into his dance sets. This minor key blues has become a favorite of jazz scholars. There certainly weren’t many other bands playing pieces like that in 1940!

CM: The local Tribune reviewer commented that, “no band ever was so much the voice of one man.” How did Ellington mould the band into a tight unit that expressed the sound he wanted?

BC: Excellent question Catherine! But I’m not sure that “tight unit” is exactly the right phrase! The Ellington band was long known as one of the loosest bands around. Cootie Williams in later years said that one of the things he enjoyed about playing with Benny Goodman is that the band was disciplined and well-organized. He contrasted that with the Ellington band, which could be remarkably sloppy at times. Critic George Simon also remarked on the fact that the Ellington band could be wildly inconsistent … terrific one night and disinterested the next. But there was method to Ellington’s seeming lack of discipline. He wanted the band to be relaxed and loose, feeling that this was the best way to get the kind of results he was looking for. Clearly it worked for him. The result was a virtually uncontrollable band of prima donnas, but you can hardly say it was a mistake considering the decades’ worth of classic recordings Ellington produced.

This isn’t addressing the real point of your question though, which is why did the Ellington band reflect Duke’s own personality so thoroughly. I think the answer is fairly obvious … Ellington composed much of the music his band played and arranged a great deal of it himself. There weren’t many other bandleaders at that time who could make that claim. As a result Ellington had unparalleled control over the sound of his orchestra. Of course Ellington did use outside arrangers from time to time, but he certainly had long since established the sound and style of the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

CM: Ellington’s long musical partnership with composer/arranger Billy Strayhorn was still in its infancy when the band played Winnipeg in 1940. Looking at the tunes played in Fargo, and the few we know they played in Winnipeg, do you see Strayhorn’s influence at work? 


BC: The answer is…. not really. But that’s part of what made Strayhorn such a good collaborator for Ellington … he was willing and able to submerge his own musical personality in order to keep the Ellington sound uppermost. And we shouldn’t forget that it WAS the Ellington sound! There are times when I read about the Strayhorn/Ellington partnership and am astonished that the author makes it sound as though Strayhorn was somehow carrying Ellington; that Strays was the guy with all the talent and Duke was riding on his coattails. By the time Strayhorn joined the organization, Ellington had long since established his own unique world of sound. Strayhorn no doubt studied Duke’s work and absorbed his methods before making his own contributions. Of course I don’t want to minimize Strayhorn either. No question he had better training than Ellington, who was self-taught as an arranger/composer, and I’m sure he was able to show Duke a few things of his own. But by and large Strayhorn seems to have been content to fit into the established Ellington style without calling attention to himself. Some of the guys in the band used to say that they could tell Strayhorn’s work apart from Ellington’s. Perhaps Strayhorn was using some different harmonic ideas or voicing the sections differently. But you’d have to be pretty intimate with that music in order to tell the two men’s work apart. By 1940 Strayhorn hadn’t had a lot of time to start making his own contributions, and even if he had one would be hard-pressed to figure out exactly what they were. So no, I don’t hear Strayhorn’s influence in the 1940 Fargo recordings … but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there to some degree!

CM: It’s clear from the local reporting of the Winnipeg date that the Ellington band was still very much regarded as a dance band, though the crowd that just wanted to listen was increasing. How did the necessity of playing for dancers affect Ellington’s writing and the band’s style?

BC: Playing for dancing was the primary job of all big bands in 1940. Though there had been occasional jazz concerts since about 1936, big bands on one-nighters like the ones Ellington played in Winnipeg and Fargo in 1940 were mostly concerned with pleasing the dancers. There were occasions when bands would take part in stage shows in theaters, at which time they could trot out certain material that might not be suitable for terpsichorean interpretation. But the bread-and-butter of the big bands was and would remain the dancing crowd.

One of the primary impacts this made on all big bands was in the area of tempo. One had to keep the music danceable, and that meant staying mostly within a certain range of tempos. Some bandleaders made use of this limitation to create certain effects. For example, Tommy Dorsey was well known for playing a flag-waver during a dance set, an up-tempo piece that was too fast for all but the most determined jitterbugs. This would cause the dancers to stop twirling and crowd around the bandstand. Dorsey would then follow this up with a slow romantic ballad or two. The contrast would always have the desired effect of getting the kids (much of the audience for the big bands consisted of young people; this was after all the pop music of the day) snuggling happily away. No doubt many bandleaders engaged in similar practices. Certainly when programming a set any good leader would have to include a range of tempos, as well as perhaps remembering to throw in a Latin number or two (eg. “Caravan” or “Pyramid”) so that dancers could show off some of their fancier steps.

It’s interesting to see how tempos changed over the years. When Bix Beiderbecke recorded “I’m Coming, Virginia” in 1927 with the saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer it was considered a ballad. Listened to today, the performance is a rather jaunty medium tempo. Ballads did get slower over the years, though when we listen today to bands playing their slower numbers for dancers they don’t seem all that slow. Again, one had to keep it danceable. If you didn’t, chances are the public wouldn’t come out to your dance dates. We sometimes like to think of Ellington creating great art for its own sake, but if you wanted to keep your band going you had to please the people. Particularly during the heyday of the big bands, that meant pleasing the dancers… playing tempos people could dance to, playing a selection of current popular hits, featuring a vocalist because people would rather hear the words instead of listening to abstract “jam sessions”. All bands were subject to these limitations. The amazing thing is that so much music of lasting worth was created, sometimes because musicians like Ellington would push the boundaries from time to time, respecting their audiences enough to challenge them occasionally instead of keeping the music simple.

One might get the impression that playing for dancers was an imposition on the bands. I’m sure it was at times (Artie Shaw for one hated it), but many of the great bandleaders preferred playing for dancing to playing concerts. There was feedback from the dancers, an energy that the musicians picked up on. As the bands would dig in and start swinging, so would the dancers. This often had the effect of inspiring the players. It was a synergy, something that simply didn’t exist in the same way with an audience seated in a concert hall. Much of the music Ellington created was written with the dancers in mind.

One limitation that playing for dancing imposed on Ellington and others was the need to keep a constant tempo going. One could sometimes play games with the dancers by going fast/slow or slow/fast within a song in the same way that Dorsey did it within a set, but in the main once you started a given tune the idea was to keep the tempo settled from start to finish. When Ellington began writing extended concert pieces he was able to make use of more variety in this area.

An interesting aspect was the way Ellington began writing these extended pieces so early, even at a time when playing for dancing was still the primary function of the band. In 1940 it was still a three-minute world, the approximate length of one side of a 78 rpm record. In 1931 Duke recorded his “Creole Rhapsody”, a piece that extended over both sides of a 78. Shaken by the death of his mother in 1935, Ellington recorded “Reminiscing in Tempo”, a twelve minute piece which covered four sides. It’s a mark of the respect Ellington enjoyed that he was permitted to record something so personal and outside the mainstream. A piece taking up two sides of a record was still a great rarity; a four-sided composition by a so-called “popular performer” may well have been unprecedented. By 1943 Duke was well and truly embarked on his extended pieces, premiering “Black, Brown and Beige” at the first of his annual Carnegie Hall concerts. It’s disappointing but instructive to note that critical reaction to each of these early extended compositions was less than positive. Even respected writers fell into the “it isn’t jazz” trap. Perhaps it wasn’t, but then who said it had to be? And how did they define what jazz was? I suppose anything so different from Ellington’s standard output invited these puzzled reactions. Success can be a prison, as the public and the critics bridle when a performer explores new directions. Often, once you’ve done something people like, they’d prefer that you simply give them more of the same…. until they tire of it and tune you out. Having an extended career in show business is always a tricky balancing act, keeping the public happy while at the same time exploring one’s creative urges. Duke Ellington was continually creative right up to end of his life while carving out a legendary career. He was truly one of the towering figures in the history of music.

Here are links to two 1940 performances by the Duke Ellington Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDtBsBX7KoY Ellington in Fargo featuring Ben Webster on “Stardust”. Four minutes of inspired improvisation. The debt to Coleman Hawkins is obvious, but we all have to start somewhere! Webster was also learning a lot by listening to his Ellington section-mate Johnny Hodges. By 1940 Webster was well on his way to synthesizing his various models and becoming one of the great tenor saxophone voices of all time. Webster especially liked this recording from the famous Fargo date and got a copy on an acetate disc from Jack Towers, one of the men who recorded the dance. He’d play it for friends for the rest of his life. Whenever a copy of the acetate wore out, Ben would contact Towers and get a new one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7onbib31S0 “In A Mellotone”. Ellington live in Chicago a few months before playing Fargo. Cootie Williams was still in the band and is featured to advantage here along with Johnny Hodges on alto. This shows off the kind of casual virtuosity that was everywhere in the big band era. And what a wonderful loping tempo! This must have been a real pleasure to dance to. And yet it’s a great piece of music that stands on its own merits, an example of how the need to create music for dancing was no hindrance to creative minds like Duke Ellington’s.

 

 

Storyteller/artist Bob Haverluck uses stories, art and music to inspire community groups in their engagement with issues of conflict and violence against the earth and her creatures. His stories and drawings spring from a deep encounter with the Bible but they go to some pretty wild places. If the prophet Jeremiah mated with the entire cast of Monty Python, the miraculous child of this union would be someone like Bob.

His book of stories and drawings, When God was Flesh and Wild; Stories in Defense of the Earth, has just been published by Liturgical Press. He’s launching it at McNally Robinson Bookstore on Wednesday, May 31, at 7PM and he’s bringing along some actor and musician friends to help him out. Should be a unique evening.

See more info here: http://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/event-15753/Bob-Haverluck—-Book-Launch#.WRI2SVLMyi4

I’ve known Bob a long time and I’m delighted that he agreed to have a conversation with me.

CM: Welcome to portage and slain, Bob. Tell me about what you’re trying to do with these stories.

BH: I thought—you being you—that you were going ask me why I thought the Bible was a hell of a murder mystery. And I wasn’t going to tell you. But now I am.

Predictably, it begins with a murder. We are there at the edge of the garden when Cain pulverizes his brother Abel’s head with a rock. Cain, our mythic ancestor, murder weapon in hand. The smoking rock. Murder solved. But wait, even with Cain sidelined, other bodies begin piling up. Killing after killing with music in the background, compliments of the first maker of musical instruments, the grandson of the first murderer. And the murderers keep coming. Until, as the story goes, Love itself comes down from heaven playing hide and seek in the form of some kind of beer drinking shepherd. Soon, he is nailed to a man made tree in a little forest of man made trees. One more carcass like the rest.

Even before then, the careful reader begins to feel increasingly uneasy. And long before it all ends the reader realizes that she, he is implicated…and has something red and sticky on their hands. Something like a victim’s blood.

Like you said Cathy, I’ve known you for a long time. But I didn’t know you weren’t going to ask that question about the Bible as a murder mystery. And I knew you back when you were Howie Morenz and played forward for the Montreal Canadiens. You were five foot ten then, had black hair and could skate like Barbara Ann Scott. “But things aren’t like they used to be,” to quote the mayors of Sodom and Glockamorra.

CM: Um…Let’s get back to firmer ground, shall we? Now, is there really that much comedy in the Bible?

BH: Okay, Okay, you done give me other questions and I will try to circle round and answer them without the use of mind altering drugs or references to your earlier lives. Such as when you went by the name of Bridie Murphy.

Clever boots Cathy, you ask questions about why I am busy reading and writing the Bible as a comedy. Taking Northrop Frye’s course on the Bible as a romantic comedy (1967-68) did help get things going. In part the comedy aspect is perhaps a quirk, a kink in my nature nudging me. Maybe, it is because as I read scripture I see it is about re-reading the world in ways that see the world as often haywire, upside down. Mary’s Magnificant singing the Christ child into the World is about a world downside up. Red Rover Red Rover, we call Samson over: “with the jawbone of an ass, he ass ended them.” Much of this is a donkey’s business, the stuff of comedy when it is not bloody tragedy. So the Hebrew Christian scriptures themselves invite, no, demand a comic, no, a tragical comical reading . Yes?! Of course they do, don’t be silly.

CM: Uh, Bob, could we get back to—

BH: Okay, Okay. You ask me, “what are you trying to do with these stories?” To best live wisely as part of this watery animally earth, methinks, we need to have a better sense of our many companions. Among them are many aunts and uncles, sisters, brothers found in the great spiritual traditions who knew we have a peace treaty with the earth. Wild and crazy many of them.

I’m betting that we can well rejoin with our kin with the help of parable-like stories. Why? The round about comic business of confronting the ruling orders’ destructive “common sense” with nonsensical ways of being and doing may well entangle us with our greater kindred. The stories might even help us better realize our kinship with feathered, hairy, bark encrusted or ten miles long and home to turtles, cat tails and frog choirs. If the stories help that happen, I’ll buy beers all around or my name isn’t Macbeth, Thane of Cawdor.

CM: Aha. Right. Now, in Genesis, it seems that God gives humans dominion over the fish of the sea and all the plants and creatures of the earth. Your stories and 50 odd, I choose my words carefully, odd drawings and four stories argue that “dominion” is not at all as it seems to many.

 BH: Dominion? Sure dominion, a lover’s dominion…attentive to the beloveds’ ways, wants, well being. We have a paradox here and a pair of ducks and every kind of creature kin attended to. This understanding has both its yeas and nays and neighs in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures’ mélange of stories, myths, historical dramas, poetry, teachings, songs and parables. My stories play among the clusters that see humans as essentially inseparable from the well being of the rest of creation. We are tragic and comical creatures in an often tragic but ultimately divine comedy.

CM: I see. Well, I don’t really, but let’s just suppose I do for the moment. Aren’t you afraid no one will take you seriously?

BH: The push to comedy comes from my sense of the world, of life and of scripture’s own frutata of delights and sorrows, sweet, sour and savory. Inside, outside, all around the town, there are pulls and pushes in that direction. As proposed in the book’s introduction, comedy at its best is serious about the rights things. But not all the time. Much of our life is being serious about the wrong things most of the time.

Also, living in a cultural era much wired to irony, comedy has a certain tactical function. However, recognizing that irony must ultimately feed upon itself, unless it has a standpoint outside itself that discloses, exposes its deserving targets. (Knew my old philosophy lecturing on comedy in Hegel and Kierkegaard would get a rerun. Or my name isn’t Jean Paul Sartre, Thane of Glamis.)

CM: I could swear I was in control of this interview when we came in. Oh well. Can you pick a drawing from When God was Flesh and Wild and comment on it?

BH: No. Or to phrase that differently, yes. The cover drawing for the book might work for us here (see above). Years ago in an article for Border Crossings entitled “Why a Pig”, l did a drawing of Jesus kissing a pig. The fish, like the pig is not a bad metaphor for the losers, the write-offs, those made least by the ruling order which the Christly Jesus insisted on identifying with. They were often called the “anawim” meaning the dirt, the poor, the shit. This drawing also opens the story “God is Flesh and Wild” which rightly precedes the story “Little Sparrows see God Fall”. Jesus’ baptism in the wild river in the company of turtles and trout is portrayed. It sees Jesus’ time in the wild place as playing out the child lying down with the lion and lamb, bear and cow (Isaiah). Jesus is understood to be initiating and bodying forth the anticipatory enactment of the peaceable “kindom”. This christly booze artist—who is later infamous for hanging out with, identifying with, the sex trade workers, squeechy kids, and petty civil servants, all restless for a world downside up—here smooches with one more creature of no stature. A wild thing, here a representative of all that is not domesticated. Not within the dominion of “domination”. What this disturber of the false peace does in the world of nature, he will do in the social political economic and religious realms. Lovingly embrace the untouchable, the hidden away good possibilities of a peaceable commonwealth.

Sweet, soon soured. Now, to portray the seeming rule of death. But how? In this drawn place perhaps a “gotcha” fish hook could say it? So there it is coming up from the side. As sure as bad bad Good Friday needs come before the Sunday of eastering forth. Or my name is not Haverluck, Thane of Burnam Wood and supplier of rubber gloves to her Majesty the Queen.

CM: Let’s drink to that—but pour me the first glass.

Catherine Hunter’s novel, After Light, is a brave, big-hearted book. It’s also the best book I’ve read so far this year.

Hunter made her name first as a poet but has also published several slender, clever and genre-bending mystery novels. (See the July 16, 2014 post below.) After Light, at 442 pages, is a more ambitious book and probably her most personal yet. The character Frank Garrison is based on her father, who fought in the Canadian Army during World War II and was blinded as a result of wounds sustained in Holland after the D-Day invasion.

The story takes up a lot of territory in both time and space. The action runs from 1916 to the present and ranges through Ireland, New York City, Toronto, Winnipeg and Holland. Time slips back and forward but Hunter handles these flashbacks deftly so that the reader is never lost.

After Light is the story of the Garrison family and of how betrayals, small and large, reverberate down the generations. Life is hard for the Garrisons. A girl is forced into marriage with an older man; a boy’s artistic ambitions are stifled by poverty and war; a father’s PTSD blights the life of his family; a child experiences a life-changing disfigurement. The tragedy of these characters is that, in their attempts to overcome these circumstances, they take actions that seem to solve an immediate problem but have dire consequences down the road.

There are whiffs of Yeats and doom-laden Irish mythology here. It can be no accident that Hunter named the matriarch of the Garrison family Deirdre, who, in the legend, avoids marriage to the aging King Conchubor by fleeing with her lover Naoise. Escape, for both Deirdres, sets off a chain of sorrows.

But this is not a dreary book. The story telling is compelling. The writing is well crafted but not showy. Alongside the frailties of her characters Hunter places the healing and transformative power of art. It is this transcendent vision that you’re left with at the end of the book.

 

 

 

I enjoyed guesting on Carmelo Militano’s P.I.  New Poetry show on CKUW 95.9 FM. (And I learned that those initials in the show title stand for “Private Investigator”, entirely apt for my appearance.)

Here’s the link to the podcast:

https://ckuw.ca/programs/detail/p.i.-new-poetry

Please also consider subscribing to the podcasts of the show. Carmelo has a relaxed interview style and is good at taking the conversation down whatever road or alley looks most inviting. It’s a spontaneous exploration of the writing process.