Sunday, November 29, 2009

Biographies “Biographies illuminate the lives of jazz giants Louis Armstrong and ... - Kansas City Star” plus 2 more

Biographies “Biographies illuminate the lives of jazz giants Louis Armstrong and ... - Kansas City Star” plus 2 more

Biographies illuminate the lives of jazz giants Louis Armstrong and ... - Kansas City Star

Posted: 28 Nov 2009 08:39 PM PST

It's increasingly difficult today to comprehend the fame attained by Louis Armstrong, the first great soloist and superstar of jazz.

Armstrong's world was not like ours: the pre-Internet engines of celebrity — radio, TV and movies — were new or did not yet exist when he made his first recordings in the late 1920s, though Armstrong eventually became a staple of all three.

Plus, Armstrong was black, a fact that in itself might have made his renown impossible during the first half of the 20th century.

Wall Street Journal drama critic (and former Kansas Citian) Terry Teachout's new biography of Armstrong is a mostly joyful account of the ways Armstrong's musical genius, work ethic, luck and surprising passivity at the hands of his white managers combined to make him one of America's most famous entertainers.

This book, one of two big biographies of major jazz figures this season, will give newcomers to Armstrong's music, as well as curious fans, the most comprehensive and pleasurable account yet of the trumpeter's complex life and personality.

Born poor in 1901 in New Orleans, Armstrong began playing coronet in brothels as a teenager to supplement the money he made delivering coal. The young Armstrong helped support his family because his father was lazy and mostly out of the picture, which instilled in the budding musician a disdain for anyone unwilling to earn his keep.

Armstrong apprenticed on the back streets of New Orleans and played on Mississippi River pleasure boats. He eventually moved to Chicago to join the band of Joe "King" Oliver. Along with figures like Jelly Roll Morton, he refined the language of the "hot music" that spread across the country from New Orleans. His early Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings, made in Chicago, remain to this day a kind of Rosetta Stone of early jazz.

While Teachout illustrates how some later musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie, expressed frustration with what they perceived as Armstrong's pandering to white audiences, he also quotes Miles Davis saying, "I can't even remember a time when he sounded bad playing the trumpet. Never."

Teachout's Armstrong was hard-working above all things. He toured the world until, in his late 60s, heart trouble forced him to stay home in Queens with his fourth wife, Lucille. He blew his horn night after night until his chops literally bled. He was exacting about his own playing but content to let a series of corrupt white managers choose less-talented sidemen and run his career.

His last manager, Joe Glaser, the engine behind Armstrong's fame, saved him from entanglements with Al Capone and other mobsters, possibly by creating further entanglements that Armstrong never knew about — "always have a White Man (who like you)" was one of Armstrong's maxims.

Armstrong thought of himself as an entertainer. Despite accusations of "tomming," he said, "I have always done great things about uplifting my race."

He was wildly generous, often giving money away, and also prone to unpredictable fits of rage.

Teachout's vivid and accessible portrayal of Armstrong is one of the book's great pleasures: He will make a fan of the most skeptical reader.

Another pleasure is the glimpse it affords of a bygone era.

Armstrong's career had its ups and downs as first bebop and then rock took center stage, but it's hard not to celebrate each comeback with Teachout.

Craig Morgan Teicher is a board member of the National Book Critics Circle who lives in New York.

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Art Over Easy auction benefits School of Art and Design - The Southern

Posted: 29 Nov 2009 03:35 AM PST

CARBONDALE — Friday's Art Over Easy 5 auction and gala gives new meaning to the phrase "art for art's sake."

More than 150 works of art and art-related items will be auctioned for the sake of the Southern Illinois University Carbondale School of Art and Design. The school hopes to raise at least $30,000 to benefit the goals of the programs that teach and nurture art and design students.

Funds raised will be used to match grants awarded by the Wingate Charitable Foundation for scholarships and creative research.

The auction features works of art donated by a variety of artists, from current and emeritus faculty to distinguished alumni to students, school director Peter Chametzky said.

"The gala also gives local artists the opportunity to have their works side by side with those of nationally known artists. We have what I think is a great collection," he said. "Virtually every medium is represented — photography, ceramics, glass, fiber, prints, drawings, metal, sculpture, woods, paint, jewelry."

The gala was organized by the school's art advisory board consisting of members of the community and faculty, Tracee Norris, director of development for the College of Liberal Arts, said and is co-chaired by Larry Weatherford and Rona Kay Cradit.

The event includes silent and live auctions as well as "buy it now" items, which range in price from about $20 to $100 each.

"This is a little different from other auctions. It's a much more casual affair," Cradit said. "You aren't tied to tables. You can grab a glass of wine, see your friends and enjoy art. The goal is of course to raise money, but it's also about showcasing the talent of our faculty and alumni."

A catalog of items to be auctioned is online along with short biographies of the contributing artists.

beckymalk@gmail.com

618-927-5633

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St. Saturninus - Catholic Online

Posted: 28 Nov 2009 11:53 PM PST

Feastday: November 29

St. Saturninus Bishop of Touloise and Martyr November 29 A.D. 257     St. Saturninus went from Rome by the direction of pope Fabian, about the year 245, to preach the faith in Gaul, where St. Trophimus, the first bishop of Arles, had some time before gathered a plentiful harvest. In the year 250, when Decius and Gratus were consuls, St. Saturninus fixed his episcopal see at Toulouse. Fortunatus tells us, that he converted a great number of idolaters by his preaching and miracles. This is all the account we have of him till the time of his holy martyrdom. The author of his acts, who wrote about fifty years after his death, relates, that he assembled his flock in a small church; and that the capitol, which was the chief temple in the city, lay in the way between that church and the saint's habitation. In this temple oracles were given; but the devils were struck dumb by the presence of the saint as he passed that way. The priests spied him one day going by, and seized and dragged him into the temple. declaring that he should either appease the offended deities by offering sacrifice to them, or expiate the crime with his blood. Saturninus boldly replied: "I adore one only God, and to him I am ready to offer a sacrifice of praise. Your gods are devils, and are more delighted with the sacrifice of your souls than with those of your bullocks. How can I fear them who, as you acknowledge, tremble before a Christian?" The infidels, incensed at this reply, abused the saint with all the rage that a mad zeal could inspire, and after a great variety of indignities, tied his feet to a wild bull, which was brought thither to be sacrificed. The beast being driven from the temple, ran violently down the hill, so that the martyr's scull was broken, and his brains dashed out. His happy soul was released from the body by death, and fled to the kingdom of peace and glory, and the bull continued to drag the sacred body, and the limbs and blood were scattered on every side, till, the cord breaking, what remained of the trunk was left in the plain without the gates of the city. Two devout women laid the sacred remains on a bier, and hid them in a deep ditch, to secure them from any further insult, where they lay in "wooden coffin" till the reign of Constantine the Great. Then Hilary, bishop of Toulouse, built a small chapel over this his holy predecessor's body Sylvius, bishop of that city towards the close of the fourth century, began to build a magnificent church in honor of the martyr, which was finished and consecrated by his successor Exuperius, who, with great pomp and piety, translated the venerable relics into it. This precious treasure remains there to this day with due honor. The martyrdom of this saint probably happened m the reign of Valerian, in 257.

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