Giddins on Waller & Miller in the New Yorker

[ghost of miles]

Has Giddins been in the New Yorker before? I'm posting the article as opposed to a link, in case the link vanishes:

STRIDE AND SWING

by GARY GIDDINS

The enduring appeal of Fats Waller and Glenn Miller.

Issue of 2004-05-31

Posted 2004-05-24

Glenn Miller and Fats Waller were born in the same year, 1904, and died on the same date, December 15th. In 1943, returning from a tour of the West Coast, Waller died of pneumonia at the age of thirty-nine. One year later, Major Glenn Miller’s plane disappeared over the English Channel en route to a victory concert in Paris. He is now believed to have been the victim of Allied bombers dropping payload from a higher altitude. The works of both are now available in anniversary collections that illuminate the enduring appeal of mush and mockery at the hotly contested border between jazz and pop.

Few pop idols survive changing fashions unscathed, but Miller and Waller seem to have done just that. One might have expected the renown of Glenn Miller, a hard-nosed martinet who devised the big-band sound most associated with reveries of the nineteen-forties, to fade with memories of the war in which he lost his life. Instead, critics who once denigrated him as a humorless purveyor of diluted swing, banal novelties, and saccharine vocals are reassessing a sound that clings relentlessly to the collective memory. The ongoing preëminence of Thomas (Fats) Waller is perhaps less of a surprise, given the dazzle of his pianism, the thumping pleasures of his small band, and the frequent hilarity of his satire. Still, considering how much of his popularity derived from vocal parodies of Tin Pan Alley detritus, one is inclined to echo his trademark meditation: “One never knows, do one?” Waller’s comedy has grown in stature; critics no longer write of it defensively, blaming RCA Victor, his record label (and Miller’s), for forcing him into the role of jester. In short, as with Miller, the public was right and the critics are playing catchup.

We do better to consider the overlooked similarities between Miller and Waller than to belabor their obvious differences. Too much has been made of a racial divide that turned them into emblems of black cool and white corn—stereotypes typified by, say, Waller’s serenade to marijuana, “If You’re a Viper,” and Miller’s plea for home-front fidelity, “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree.” It’s true that Miller reached millions of whites for whom the names Ellington and Basie meant little and that Waller was characterized as “that hot man of Harlem” trafficking in “rhythmic hot-cha.” But everyone danced to Miller, and more whites than blacks bought Waller records.

They had much in common. Waller recorded his share of unadulterated corn while Miller’s resourceful swing arrangements mitigate his many soggy vocal records. They also shared a penchant for hiring capable but unexciting musicians, notably their tenor saxophonists—Miller’s Tex Beneke, who also sang, and Waller’s Gene Sedric—who were little more than B-list versions of Coleman Hawkins (whose centenary also falls this year). The era inspired similar goals: Waller encouraged people to laugh through the privations of the thirties; Miller induced them to romanticize American values during wartime. Both kept America’s feet tapping and bodies swaying with a steady beat, and both used jazz as a conduit to reach a larger public than jazz per se could command—witness their prompt summonses to Hollywood. Both were defined by the times; now they define those times for us.

Waller’s pinnacle as a recording artist, from 1934 to 1939, directly preceded Miller’s (which began in 1939, with “Moonlight Serenade”). But Waller had been a force in New York from the beginning of his career, achieving widespread recognition for the stream of popular songs—including “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Black and Blue,” and “Honeysuckle Rose”—he wrote for the 1929 revues “Hot Chocolates” and “Load of Coal.” Among musicians, he won greater acclaim for an astonishing body of piano music, which brought a Mendelssohnian composure to the charged Harlem stride style of James P. Johnson. Waller’s serene touch, unerring rhythmic tact, and treasury of melodic ideas established him in New York’s jazz and theatrical vanguards long before he moved into the mainstream, in the mid-thirties, with a six-piece band, Fats Waller and His Rhythm.

From then on, Waller’s regimen in the studios was unparalleled. He recorded some five hundred sides, working with no time for rehearsal, and often with material that few others would touch. He proved himself able to alchemize even the dreariest songs (“You’re Not the Only Oyster in the Stew”) into nuggets of pure swing. In doing so, he transformed himself into the irrepressible derby-crowned dandy instantly recognizable today. This was hardly a sellout. Waller’s technical ease and emotional undercurrent are no less apparent on his popular records than in his formal solos. The feathery detachment and weighty bravura juxtaposed in “Then I’ll Be Tired of You” is, in its way, as impressive as the dense compositional ingenuity of “African Ripples.” His nimble vocals, whether droll or moving, reflect a knack for instantly sizing up which notes or lyrics are best served straight up, mixed with bitters, or injected with spritzer. Thus he bestows a kind of immortality on songs never intended to transcend their provenance.

These numbers are included on Bluebird’s “Centennial Collection,” selected by Mike Lipskin, himself an accomplished stride pianist, who has daringly ignored obvious hits (no “Honeysuckle Rose”) in favor of a fresh program. By contrast, Miller’s “Centennial Collection” is a predictable assemblage, which means too many Ray Eberle vocals and an obligatory dose of wartime infantilism—“The Boogie Wooglie Piggy,” with Miller’s rather creepy vocal group, the Modernaires, harmonizing the oinks. This is too bad, because Miller is overdue for a compilation of his best work, which might include, for example, his splendid forty-two-piece Army Air Force Band’s startling performance of “Mission to Moscow.” (The piece was arranged for Miller by Mel Powell, who later made his career as an avant-garde classical composer.) Instead, we get a mood-killing electronica remix of “Pennsylvania 6-5000” and a DVD with home movies in which no one is identified.

By the time Miller achieved stardom, at the age of thirty-five, he had endured more than a decade of freelance arranging and whatever sideman gigs his limited abilities as a trombonist allowed, and it seems likely that this left him somewhat bitter. He once told the critic John Hammond, who had reviewed him disdainfully, that he ought not to be criticized, because his only interest was in making money. Miller exuded little warmth on or off the bandstand, but once the band struck up its theme, audiences were done for: throats clutched, eyes softened. Can any other record match “Moonlight Serenade” for its ability to induce a Pavlovian slaver in so many for so long?

It was James Stewart who created a suitable posthumous personality for Miller, in “The Glenn Miller Story,” the 1954 film that inaugurated a genre of musicals about white bandleaders. These pictures, though basted in conformity, flattered the taste of the nineteen-fifties audience by recasting them as young radicals braving ridicule. Miller was depicted as an innovator hunting for an elusive sound, and Stewart had to recite breathtaking inanities like “To me, music is more than just one instrument. It’s a whole orchestra playing together.” Miller himself offered a more credible precept in the lyric to his 1942 hit “Juke Box Saturday Night”: “Mixin’ hot licks with vanilla.”

That modest recipe gave him his identity. It remains unmistakable: a clarinet playing lead, supported by closely harmonized saxophones with responses from a large brass section (often muted to minimize vibrato) and a politely clumping four-man rhythm section. Less widely noted were Miller’s affinity for dissonance and his tendency to combine the twelve-bar blues with thirty-two-bar song form. Yet, once he found a winning combination, he did not much waver and soon delegated “the Miller sound” to superior arrangers like Jerry Gray and Bill Finegan, who, in effect, out-Millered Miller.

The formula reached perfection in three masterpieces of jazz-influenced pop. “Moonlight Serenade” began life as an exercise that Miller worked on for an arranging course. It failed as a conventional song with lyrics and might have disappeared had he not dressed it in what would become his trademark sound. The clarinet lead, handsomely intoned by Wilbur Schwartz, and the swaying melody pinned to the first beat of each measure evoke a vanished age, even for those who never knew the age. “In the Mood,” which all but defines swing for those who grew up with it in the forties and fifties (or the nineties, when it became the refrain of retro swing), is a blues punctuated by a sixteen-bar middle section. Miller’s recording is almost entirely patched together from jazz’s spare parts. The key phrase had previously served Wingy Manone in “Tar Baby Stomp” and Fletcher Henderson in “Hot and Anxious,” and the famous episode in which the orchestra fades down had been similarly used by Goodman to soup up “Don’t Be That Way.” The genteel saxophone exchanges imitate the genuine saxophone duels popular at the time, while the startling ascending coda by the brasses suggests an inversion of the legendary Louis Armstrong cadenza that opens “West End Blues.” Yet the resulting performance is unmistakably Milleresque in every measure. More affecting is “A String of Pearls,” a quintessential Miller piece that Miller didn’t write (it was the work of Jerry Gray). The undulating theme combines eight- and twelve-measure formats. The contrast between the high reeds and the bass-clef responses is palpable, and Bobby Hackett’s lyrical trumpet solo draws the blues as far from its roots as anyone could until Miles Davis explored related harmonies after the war.

Miller and Waller embody the A side and B side of a time when melodic tranquillity and robust rhythms found common cause. People who come of age in such a period think it will last forever—ask any veteran of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. But the swing era expired in short order; hip-hop is already twice its age. The end of the war brought about the end of the big bands, and the music that followed—bebop, R. & B.—moved away from gentle lyricism and foxtrot rhythms. But swing, however short-lived, has much to teach us. Beyond the pleasures of their performances, Waller and Miller provide an unexpected service: they humble critical stereotypes and show ways that jazz and pop once enriched each other, and might still.

[ghost of miles]

BTW, Giddins has a new book coming out from Oxford Press this fall--entitled WEATHER BIRD, so I'm assuming it's a collection of his Voice columns. OP is billing it as a sequel of sorts to VISIONS OF JAZZ.

[John L]

I generally like Giddins. But that is just plain weird. Miller and Waller strike me much more as opposites than similar. The perception of Miller as a "humorless purveyor of diluted swing" strikes me as rather close to the truth. Now Waller was most certainly not a "humorless purveyor of diluted swing." On the contrary. Turn that around 180 degrees and you get Fats Waller.

Happy birthday, Fats! You are worth a countless number of Glenn Millers to me.

Edited May 28, 2004 by John L

[Larry Kart]

My guess is that Giddins didn't really have much to say about Waller and Miller as a pair once he got past the accidental identity of their birth dates and death dates, so he simply mugged up some thumb-sucking platitudes -- e.g. that final sentence ("Waller and Miller provide an unexpected service: they humble critical stereotypes and show ways that jazz and pop once enriched each other, and might still") -- that really don't mean much of anything but sound like they should. I wouldn't be surprised if this piece were an idea that a New Yorker editor foisted upon Giddins, and he decided to run with it -- right into a wall. It's one of many journalists' diseases; I've done similar things myself and hated myself in the morning.

If the idea came from elsewhere, perhaps Giddins thought that this might be the first of many New Yorker gigs for him and didn't want to turn it down. If the idea was his own, maybe he thought it was just the kind of broad brush "think piece" that general interest magazines tend to like.

[MartyJazz]

My guess is that Giddins didn't really have much to say about Waller and Miller as a pair once he got past the accidental identity of their birth dates and death dates, so he simply mugged up some thumb-sucking platitudes -- e.g. that final sentence ("Waller and Miller provide an unexpected service: they humble critical stereotypes and show ways that jazz and pop once enriched each other, and might still") -- that really don't mean much of anything but sound like they should.

As someone who has subscribed to the New Yorker for years and who also has read and enjoyed GG's articles for over 30 years, I was pleasantly surprised to see Giddens' name and column in this favored magazine. However, I too couldn't fathom the link between the two men that GG labored to provide. Waller has always been a source of joy combined with impressive virtuosity while Miller.........well, what was it that Al Klink said years later when asked about the Miller sound? Something like, "Glenn should have lived and the music should have died".

(Note: I think it was Klink, it may have been another saxophonist who worked with Miller).

Edited May 29, 2004 by MartyJazz

[JSngry]

I too couldn't fathom the link between the two men that GG labored to provide.

Do the letters "RCA" ring a bell?

[JSngry]

.........well, what was it that Al Klink said years later when asked about the Miller sound? Something like, "Glenn should have lived and the music should have died".

(Note: I think it was Klink, it may have been another saxophonist who worked with Miller).

My memory attributes that quote to Artie Shaw, but I could be wrong.

[MartyJazz]

.........well, what was it that Al Klink said years later when asked about the Miller sound?  Something like, "Glenn should have lived and the music should have died". 

(Note:  I think it was Klink, it may have been another saxophonist who worked with Miller).

My memory attributes that quote to Artie Shaw, but I could be wrong.

Shaw could be sarcastic (especially when talking about B.G. and the clarinet) but he didn't say that about Miller. I found the reference. It was indeed Al Klink. Bill Crow in his JAZZ ANECDOTES (page ix in the Preface):

"Al Klink was being interviewed by a radio disk jockey who was interested in Al's tenure on the Glenn Miller band.

"'That band was never really considered one of the swing bands, was it?"' asked the interviewer.

"'We were all too scared to swing,"' Al replied.

After years of hearing Miller's hits revived ad nauseum, Al commented, "'Glenn should have lived, and the music should have died.'"

[Don Brown]

As my friend Ted O'Reilly pointed out in an e-mail to the New Yorker, there is an error in Gary Giddins' Miller/Waller piece. Giddins says "In the Mood" was based on Wingy Manone's "Tar Baby Stomp". The correct title of the Manone piece was "Tar Paper Stomp".

[JSngry]

Al Klink it is then. My bad.

[Lazaro Vega]

Waller and Pops, or even Bing, but Glenn Miller?

[JSngry]

Nice to see Miller's tolerance (maybe even encouragement of?) dissonance noted by Giddins in an otherwise pretty meaningless piece, one that smacks of "doing a favor" for an RCA (or whatever they are these days) publicist to hype these "Centennial Editions". Stranger things have happened....

The Miller band had some pretty harmonically sophisticated charts in their book. Cats like Bill Finnegan & Jerry Gray could WRITE! Check out the intro to "Serenade In Blue" for a good example of dissonace waaaaay beyond what one would reflexively associate with Glenn Miller. There are plenty of other examples too. The band's "pure vanilla" reading of most everything it played shouldn't obstruct this fact.

HOW they played and WHAT they were playing were often two different things!

[blue lake]

Yeah, I wish I had the Mission to Moscow he mentions. Never put my hands on that, though the Goodman version is readily available.

[JSngry]

The Miller AAF set on RCA (most recently in Bluebird box form - look for the floating hat) contains that one, as well as enough other interesting-to-more-than-interesting moments of writing (as well as some truly great ballad singing by Joihnny Desmond, including a vocal version of "Moon Dreams" that predates the Davis/Evans version by 4-5 years) to make it a worthy pickup so long as one has realistic expectations about the rest of it. Lots of dreck. But the good stuff (again, the writing and singing - the interpretations are still pretty much Miller-fied, although Ray McKinley - probably the "fucking hillbilly" referenced somewhere - has a spirit that not even Miller could fully supress) is very good.

You have NOT heard "Pistol Packin' Momma" until you've heard the Miller AAF version. TOTAL mindfuck. Hear me now and believe me later, ok?

Edited June 1, 2004 by JSngry

[EKE BBB]

I generally like Giddins. But that is just plain weird. Miller and Waller strike me much more as opposites than similar. The perception of Miller as a "humorless purveyor of diluted swing" strikes me as rather close to the truth. Now Waller was most certainly not a "humorless purveyor of diluted swing." On the contrary. Turn that around 180 degrees and you get Fats Waller.

Happy birthday, Fats! You are worth a countless number of Glenn Millers to me.

Ditto, John.

And as for

They also shared a penchant for hiring capable but unexciting musicians, notably their tenor saxophonists—Miller’s Tex Beneke, who also sang, and Waller’s Gene Sedric—who were little more than B-list versions of Coleman Hawkins (whose centenary also falls this year).

[ghost of miles]

Is Giddins saying that Sedric was the poor man's Coleman Hawkins?!