SHEP JAZZ–LOST AND FOUND
Logs and “An Interview With Some All-Stars”
Regarding Shepherd’s early interest in and broadcasting contemporary jazz, radio logs from 1950 at Cincinnati’s WSAI have recently surfaced, courtesy of his son Randall to Jim Clavin, Jim to me. They intensify and significantly expand our understanding of Shepherd’s enthusiasm for jazz and the early date in which this manifested itself in his broadcasts:
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A recently found Shepherd published piece indicating his knowledge and enthusiasm for contemporary jazz has been found by Steve Glazer, whom I especially thank. Jim Clavin of www.flicklives.com also has a copy and will soon post it on his site.
It appeared in the November, 1955 issue of Playboy, and is said to be a complete transcript of Shep’s daytime radio show of June 11, 1955, before he began his overnight broadcasts in early 1956. It further emphasizes Shep’s strong interest in jazz—which would seem to be a contributing factor in his jazz-like improvisational radio style.
Playboy not only consistently misspelled “Shepherd” in introducing the 1955 article, but did not even list his name on the Table of Contents for the article, or with the article’s title on the opening page!
The accompanying photo in the article is the only one I know of
that shows Shepherd with jazz musicians, and they are jazz greats:
Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, and J. J. Johnson.
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Shepherd’s interest in and broadcasting of contemporary jazz can be found in his WOR overnight shows (if only someone will come forth with them for the historical record). His enthusiasm is evident in his various articles in music magazines and his acting as master of ceremonies for a variety of jazz performances, including one in Central Park, NYC, which he promoted on his radio broadcasts, and which I attended because he was to MC it, and which featured Billie Holiday. I posted on this blog my chart of Shep/jazz on 1/21/2014 (it now needing updating) and re-post it here:
Who knows what important and informative material may arise some day?!!!
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SHEP–ARTSY SCRIBBLES
NEW YORK TIMES SCRIBBLES
Recently the New York Times has been printing much larger and more dramatic photos, and also many very dramatic and fascinating graphic pieces along with their articles and Book Review Section. I’ve commented on this before, but I’m so impressed with the art that accompanies their editorial on Sunday, May 12, 2019, that I’m compelled to point it out. It’s so easy to glance at what appear to be scribbles and not realize how a well-crafted scribble can make an important point regarding the accompanying editorial. In this case, it has to do with climate change.
I nearly missed the gorilla, tiger, and panda in the scribble.
That’s probably part of the point.
They are immersed in a chaotic scribble environment.
A prediction of our future that’s frightening.
The entire image suggests the coming chaos that we face.
Thus making the art a significant illustration of word-content.
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The second scribble, lower down in the editorial indicates the terrible
cause and devastating result of our human folly.
Sometimes we can learn from art—from scribbles!
EXCELSIOR, YOU FATHEADS!
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SHEP–ARTSY Walt Whitman
WALT WHITMAN—“Good Gray Poet”
May 31, 1819-March 26, 1892
May 31, 2019 is the two-hundredth anniversary of his birth
Walt Whitman published the first edition of Leaves of Grass in late June of 1855. He had just turned 36. The poems express his youthful vigor and enthusiasm for life, for all people, and for the United States of America. Despite adding hundreds of poems to the book in subsequent years, this first, slim edition (with, in my opinion, only the later “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” his elegy for Lincoln, rising to that initial standard). The frontispiece of that first edition is an engraving based on the recent photo of him. The un-traditional-for-a-poet, jaunty, open-shirted pose suggests what he writes in the opening poem:
Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.
Frontispiece of Whitman, 1855.
Whitman anonymously sent a first edition copy to Ralph Waldo Emerson, who found Whitman’s address and responded with what’s probably the greatest letter of praise in American literature. It starts:
I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of “Leaves of Grass.” I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.
Whitman, who surreptitiously wrote some printed reviews of the book himself, and published Emerson’s letter without permission, was a constant self-promoter. In later years, after working on his reputation with O’Connor, a government worker and friend, O’Connor wrote an extended essay in praise of Whitman titled “The Good Gray Poet.” The epithet stuck–Whitman seemed to revel in the image of himself as the good gray poet. Despite the unusual poetic form and bold expression of his feelings, who could be upset by such a polite, conservative, old gentleman?
Unfortunately, “Good Gray Poet” is how Whitman is most thought of and promoted today in photos chosen, a U. S. postage stamp, and statues sculpted: even at the Walt Whitman Birthplace site and museum in Huntington, NY; Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington, NY; Bear Mountain Park, NY; Philadelphia; Rutgers Camden site; and even at Moscow State University, in the statue which Hillary Clinton helped inaugurate in 2009. Inevitably at these sites and many, many others, the old, harmless, bearded man is the image—as though he wrote and, indeed, only existed at the age of 60 or 70. (Many of the bronze statues, based on a well-known photo, show Whitman with a butterfly on one finger—how sweet!)
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Where is the much more appropriate statue and memorial to Walt Whitman which better depicts him, as he wrote–“One of the roughs”? This is the young man who created the rough, revolution that is the first edition of Leaves of Grass. Are we still too afraid of that unruly, forthright image of our national poet?
SCULPT US A STATUE OF THIS AUTHENTIC GUY!
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Birthplace Mall Bear Mount Philly Rutgers Moscow
SHEP/ARTSY The mown baseball landscape
As a baseball enthusiast, would Jean Shepherd have cared about this issue?
(Years ago my letter to the editor [NYT] was printed. My argument was that Astroturf was bad for baseball. My understanding is that in recent years, this artificial abomination was, by most major league stadiums, tossed in the dumpster.)
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WHAT’S WRONG WITH MOWING BASEBALL GRASS INTO PATTERNS
The baseball field is a kind of metaphor and
expression of nature stylized/simplified
for the purpose of playing the game:
THE DIRT is devoid of stones and other roughness that would give a false bounce to the ball, and it’s configured to allow runners to run and slide safely. The form it’s given is a visual uniting of the whole infield into a neat shape—but the dirt is just there, not dappled in colored polka dots or stripes or in any other distracting way.
THE GRASS is mowed low to allow a reasonably consistent bounce and roll—the grass is there to remind us of the natural outdoors in which the game is played, not to be a decorative, man-made contrivance—as a symbol it’s just there.
MOWING the grass into formal patterns—visible lines and so forth–gives it a contrived, useless effect that only distracts from simple metaphor, and says to the viewer, “Look how clever we mowers are.” These patterns distract from the baseball metaphor and give a digressive effect of fancy cloth—suits, dresses, and jacket material (non-grass). We do not go to baseball to see someone’s decorative skills. It’s an inappropriate decoration, distracting the eye and mind from the elegant rightness of the playing field’s stylized/simplified nature—and distracting the eye and attention from the action of the game itself.
(sing lustily)
Root, root, root for the real grass!
If they don’t care it’s a shame!
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Finding Shep and Artsy
HANDY DANDY LOCATOR GUIDE
There are a couple of ways to locate Shepherd subjects on this blog. In the left column, find ARCHIVES BY SUBJECT that covers such matters as “I, Libertine hoax,” “intrinsic nature of his art,” etc. One will also find “Kid Stories,” that transcribes all my unpublished book manuscript of his kid stories I chose and arranged, and my transcriptions of my unpublished Shepherd travel narratives under “Travel” (starts 10/21/14). If you have an idea of when you read a particular blog post, you can go to the right column and click on MONTHLY ARCHIVES, and scroll through.
It is my fervent hope that individuals with significant heretofore unknown Shepherd materials will eventually come forth with them so that the material will become part of the preserved Shepherd creative world, and so that I might be able to comment on the materials in this blog.
These individuals include a family with a potential trove of Shepherd materials in an unopened closet, and a jazz authority with a stash of early (“overnight”?) Shep recordings—they and others of their ilk should get off their “ifs, ands, or butts.”
For my ARTSY FARTSY posts, a selection of which I hope will someday be published in book form, go to the left column and search for subjects under ARTSY titles, or by their specific subject names. The dates in red in the “ARTSY FARTSY subject locations” below indicate dates—in the MONTHLY ARCHIVES column. Click on the month/year and scroll down for the specific date.
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Below is my selected-for-possible-publication compilation of
ARTSY FARTSY subject locations
keyed here to the book’s truncated table of contents.
I would imagine that a publisher would choose about 70-90.
Enjoy the quest.
ARTSY LOCATIONS
TABLE OF CONTENTS 5/3/2019
1. INTRODUCTION (epigraphs= 11/13/18)
2. ART
ART CRAZY— Van Gogh and other artists are not “crazy,”4/7/16 (“art joy”2/11/19)
LANDSCAPE ART: Seeing Originals. Vermeer, Van Gogh—9/19/16
SITES TO BE SEEN in two parts. A sad description of some art pieces 10/7/16
PICASSO and “GUERNICA COLORIZATION KIT” “annex”= 5/18/16, 8/11/17, 4/20/18, 9/13/17, 10/7/16, 5/13/16, 6/30/16, 3/14/16 3/8/16
MINOR DISPARATE PICASSOS My two artsy-like Picassos. 8/11/17, 4/20/18
MOMA PICASSO MISTAKE 3/14/16
THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS How to see this Bosch 5/22/16
CEZANNE’S ANGRY PATCH my revolutionary discovery! 8/17/16
CEZANNE & MARIN My John Marin watercolor, compared to Cezanne 8/20/16
TURNER & WYETH 2 fine artists with expressionist tendencies. 7/6/17
EMOTION OUTRANKS TECHNIQUE What are the differences 5/1/16
IS IT FOR REAL? Having encountered an image of a drawing, 11/6/16
RAVEN RATTLES Acquiring a better-than-authentic replica 2/4/16
VENUS DE SANTA How dare I conflate the Greek goddess with Santa? 12/28/15
CHALK DRAWINGS–KEITH HARING and RUDOLF STEINER 4/25/16
CLOTH ART Sun-bleached mola, and my original Huichol art. 5/31/17, 8/28/17
PRIMITIVE 8/26/17, ashante=8/20/17, canopa=8/17/17
ART OR CRAFT? Works of craft that are elegant, 5/31/17, 1/16/17
HOW SOME THINGS HAPPEN—Sketchbook, T. Thomson, painter. 3/19/19
GRAFFITI VANDALISM/ART Is it or isn’t it? Looking at art/vandalism 3/7/19
LEGAL ACQUISITION OR ART-THEFT? I coulda stolen a Gaudi 12/8/16
ARTSY MISCELLANY Picasso, Alechinsky, primitive, etc. 9/13/17
DEVOTIONS-Devoted to Art and Ice Self-mocking poem. 10/1/16
3. JAPANISME
MICHENER= 2/5/19 “Three ways”= 6/12/16
HOKUSAI’S “Views Along the Sumida River” 6/24/16
SHUNGA Japanese erotica—books, expurgated examples. 10/28/16
“MONS V.” My shunga” tribute—an original for general audiences. 10/31/16
NETSUKE Paean to a major Japanese artistic expression. 6/18/18, 6/11/18, 9/28/17, 8/11/17, 8/25/17
4. ABSTRACT VISUAL RELATIONSHIPS
ROWENA REED KOSTELLOW Tribute to a design instructor 11/15/16
JUGGLING My flying Penguinis and Michael Moschen. 4/2/18
5. LANDSCAPE AND DESIGNED ‘SCAPES
VILLAGE CHURCHES experiences in religious spaces 11/30/16
SCULPTED LANDSCAPE (gardens = 2/4/18) (sculpted= 2/24/17)
LA LA LAND Watts Towers. Wright’s Hollyhock House. 2/27/17
6. BOOKS INTRO—bookshelf headboard.
Unpublished Testament, Pomegranate Conspiracy, Rio Amazonas 12/17/16
UNPUBLISHED BOOKS Bound, anguishing on shelves. 1/30/19
READING POETRY, WRITING POETRY—A visual “poem.” 12/17/16
TRUE/FICTION 1/24/19
VARIOUS POETS—REAL AND NOT QUITE 3/6/18 3/3/18, 12/17/16
LOLITA, NABOKOV, & BUTTERFLIES A literary mystery solved 8/2/17
7. ARTISTS’ BOOKS INTRO.
Mex Codexes, Books/Hours, T.Shandy. Blake.10/23/18, 10/17/18, 6/9/16
WARJA LAVETER—In 2 parts: Sketchbook—8/8/16, 8/11/16
FOUND IN TRANSLATION Part 1 “A Throw of the Dice”— 8/23/16
FOUND TRANS Part 2 “La Prose du Transsibérien 11/3/16
FOUND IN TRANSLATION Part 3 A Humument. A “treatment” 12/5/16
FOUND IN TRANSLATION Part 4—Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban, 11/21/16
ALCHEMY & MARCO BULL by Tim Ely & by Lois Morrison: 11/9/16
WILLIE MASTERS & TURN OVER words and using no words at all. 12/2/16
ACCIDENTAL ARTISTS’ BOOKS A Scottish lady’s augmented fishing diary & a fake Native American Indian’s ledger book-history of his people. 11/18/16
ARTISTS’ BOOKS IN CD JEWEL BOXES Small artists’ books: 8/29/16
POP-UPS Robots, horrors, a large, empty cardboard box, etc.. 1/22/17
FLUX WORK A no-words, no-image book, a pure, intellectual concept 1/26/17
8. GRAPHIC NOVELS INTRO—
What are they and why? 1/28/17 10/23/18
Will Eisner, Sienkiewicz’ Stray Toasters; Sim, &Gerhard, 1/31/17
McKean; Drooker, Massereel, Ward,; He Done Her Wrong; Mea Culpa; Peter Kuper’s Chris Ware; Art Spiegelman’s Maus— 2/3/17
Frank Miller, McKeever, David Mar k, Harvey Pekar’ 2/6/17
More of the Unexpected: Shatter, computer; and Beanworld, 2/9/17
Not Graphic Novels But Graphic Short Stories: in several parts.
EC COMICS: Were they comics, what were they? 2/12/17
TALES CALCULATED TO DRIVE YOU MAD. 2/15/17
THE ARTISTS OF EC COMICS—WALLACE WOOD. 2/18/17
9. THE MUSEUM
SYMBOLIC DESIGN—AMNH Classification & Continuity 10/20/18, 5/31/16
ROSE W. Coordinator and simultaneously, a clever, elegant artist. 1/8/16
VIVIAN AND FROGS Getting a frog-o-phobe to paint cycle of a frog. 7/15/16
MUSEUM LEGERDEMAIN 1 of 2 Ray.M. behind the scenes. 8/2/16
MUSEUM LEGERDEMAIN 2 of 2 Ray.M. More believable tales 8/5/16
SOUTH AMERICAN HALL Designed with ramps. The intihuatana. 11/24/16
PACIFIC HALL AND MARGARET MEAD, Easter Island head! 7/9/16
CONFISCATED! Endangered species and a chain-link fence. 7/12/17
CHIEFLY FEASTS Northwest Coast potlatch. 7/15/17
AMBER ROOM Design tour to St. Petersburg, Russia 7/27/17
PLANETARIUM & STAR TREK Where no exhibits have gone 7/6/16
CAVE ART Holding original fertility goddesses in my hand. 10/13/16
10. MUSIC’S CHARMS 2/1/18
INTRO—THE MUSIC WALL Tin ear, but I love music all the same. 6/27/16
GUITAR What is the form that produces the function? My guitar=6/30/16
FLUTES—Shakuhachi and a hose clamp. Breath on the fingertips. 3/8/17
SUZANNE FARRELL Farrell, Balanchine, and signed ballet slippers. 3/5/17
SHALL WE DANCE? Art of figure skating—Torvill & Dean, John Curry. 1/5/18
SUBWAY VIOLIN BUSKER Classical violin amid the subway roar. 4/7/17
EMOTION OUTRANKS TECHNIQUE—DYLAN & DIEGO 5/1/16
GLEN GOULD 4/19/15, 4/13/15
DEE SNIDER & TWISTED SISTER “W. Not Gonna Take it” “The Price” 5/17/16
BILLY STEWART & BILL BAIRD “Summertime” and Baird puppets 12/39/17
PRINCE Honey, I think you and I were wrong! 4/22/16
PLASTIC HARMONICAS Variations on a theme. World’s greatest. 3/2/17
11. SPAIN & PERU
SPAIN 10/22/17, 10/19/17, 10/16/17, 10/13/17
GRANADA “Pomegranate,” Gaudi 12/21/17, crypt=12/18/17, arch.12/15/17)
BULLS I’ve gone to the bulls on three continents. 10/25/17
PERU The intihuatana, the truth/fiction of Rio Amazonas.1/30/19
12. THE NEW YORK TIMES—
SPECIAL DELIVERY!—Whitman, Bosch, Louis Kahn— 5/10/16
MEMORABILIA— Dickinson & Hemingway—5/25/16
FULL COLOR NEWSPAPER WARS Has anyone else ever noted—5/28/16
COMPOSED HERMAPHRODITE –The NYT likes to tease us 7/3/16
BOOK ILLUSTRATION and ELEPHANT ART —1/20/16
TO THE EDITOR Astro Turf and Muriel, a film about an insipient artist. 7/30/17
BOOK REVIEW IMAGINARY INTERVIEW –interview in NYT Books? 3/12/18
13. SHEPQUEST
ACCOLADES What—You never heard of Jean Parker Shepherd? I, LIBERTINE Great literary hoax transmogrifies into the real thing, 6/15/16
ETTORE BUGATTI And the greatest car in the world. 10/5/18
PROMOTING A SHEP BOOK Twain, Fields, Kafka: 4/7/16
BOBBLEHEAD Not really a celebrity until one has one’s own bobblehead. 4/19/16
GENE B’s RANT –where are Shep enthusiasts now?! 11/10/15
14. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS
TERESA BREWER My teenage heartthrob, and what happened. 5/16/17
BOB DYLAN Never heard of the guy–he sang a one-note tune at F.Hills 5/13/17
NORMAN MAILER He answered my questions and wrote me a letter. 5/19/17
MARILYN MONROE How I eventually admired her from afar. 9/1/16
HENRY MORGAN How I got the rascal to laugh on live television 5/22/17
LOIS NETTLETON The actress who called me from The Coast! 8/16/14
JERRY SEINFELD Jerry: loved your book.” Gene: “I loved your TV show.” 12/4/18
THE VAMPIRE LADY Visiting her Wash. Square penthouse 9/30/14
HAPPENINGS, WARHOL, V. UNDERGROUND, FLUXUS, FILMS
Plus Walt Whitman and E. E. Cummings. 11/15/17, 12/6/17
BRIEF NEW YORK ENCOUNTERS Brother Theodore and Moondog 11/21/17
E. E. CUMMINGS His peculiar forms of poetry. 11/27/17, 11/24/17
15. ARTSY ETCETERAS
INTRO TYPEBOX PHOTO type tray –Many people have such 5/10/17
IDEAS A tribute to a delightful TV commercial celebrating ideas 11/21/15,
INTESTINAL DISTRESS TV ad: annoying, obnoxious commercial, 6/3/16
VARIATIONS ON THEMES 8/26/17, 8/20/17, 8/17/17, 8/11/17
SPIRALS, AMMONITES, NAUTILUS. Synthesis-circle and straight, 4/16/17
ELEGANT FUNCTIONALITTY Skeleton watches and astrolabes. 3/26/17
TORN BILLBOARDS Wind, rain, and deliberate human intervention. 3/11/2017
PUZZLES Playing around with the form of the jigsaw puzzle. (10/28/17)
EASELS ARE FACES Faces—I see faces everywhere. 4/10/2017
WATERCOLORS & CRAYOLAS (sketchbook/T. Thomson 3/19/19)
JAMES A. MICHENER The Novel & Japanese= 2/5/19
WACKY AIR DANCERS We see these street buskers all the time. 7/12/16
MOM’S VIOLIN, PARAKEET, and EGGS Marjorie Crosby Bergmann, our family’s original artsy fartsy artist supreme. 4/13/17
16. THE HUNTING OF THE ARTSY
“JEAN SHEPHERD, ABRAHAM MASLOW and THE STRESS AND PRESSURE OF RECENT (political) EVENTS” 7/17/14, 7/23/14
17. MUCH OBLIGED [Acknowledgments]
My parents, Allison Morgan Bergmann & William Riffelmacher. 6/3/17)
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James A. Michener—in his book, The Novel:
Professor: “Movies and books are important, yes,
but if you want to probe the
secrets of great writing, you must pay attention
to music and painting, too.”
Aspiring editor: “Is life long enough for all that?”
Professor: “Why else were you put on earth but to explore
the finest fruits of human endeavor?”
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shepquest 