(Jsagnyry): Opening music in Mati Hari (1932)

[Guest ariceffron]

Do you know what im talking about. What sun ra was doing in jazz in the 50s must of been going on in the 30s because it sounds exactly the same. what do you think

[JSngry]

Ra was into all kinds of "exotica", and I don't doubt but that he had heard this.

[catesta]

Ohhhh, so you're Jsagnyry.

[Guest ariceffron]

i know. in the 20s and 30s they had weird people from other places playing music like that. it must of been out of control! hell yea

[shrugs]

have you heard Harry Partch?

[7/4]

have you heard Harry Partch?

Yep. I've even played the instruments at an open house. But how well known was he music back then?

[JSngry]

Partch was stilll very much a cult figure when I "discovered" hum for myself in the 70s. I'd say that by any reasonable deinition of the term, he remains one today, unfortuately...

Aric, next time you get a chance to see the original "Mothra", check out the song the two girls sing in their cage. Pretty darn interesting.

Now if you want to talk about "exotic" music and Hollywood, remember that California, and the whole Pacific Coast area, historically had an influx of Asian peoples and cultural flavors a lot earlier than the rest of America did. Probably a geographic matter entirely. But I'd think there had to be all these "exotic" strains in the air that had an effect on the overall esthetic of the region, just as the American South is steeped in African-American influences and the American Northeast is in the various European immigrants' cultures.

[JSngry]

Ohhhh, so you're Jsagnyry.

Some people call me Maurice...

[connoisseur series500]

Perhaps a tad off-topic, but I'd really like to read a good, comprehensive book on the Shanghai jazz scene of the 1930's. Buck Clayton spent some time over there and talks about it a little in his memoir... Two books, BLUE NIPPON and YELLOW MUSIC, touch on the place and era, but don't go into it in depth.

Awesome subject, GOM.

I've got a book called, "Secret War in Shanghai." Haven't read it yet, but pre-Mao Shanghai was a fascinating (and sinful! ) place.

[brownie]

Seems that Teddy Weatherford was the big name in jazz in pre-WWII Shanghai.

Weatherford was the piano player in the 1926 Erskine Tate band that also had

Louis Armstrong in its trumpet section. Weatherford travelled to Asia that same year

and started working in Shanghai in 1929.

Buck Clayton was recruited by Weatherford in Shanghai and played a season for him

in 1934.

Weatherford visited Paris in 1937 and made several recordings then before returning

to Asia. He died of cholera in Calcutta in April 1945.

Jazz and Shanghai, fascinating subjects.