Poetry Wednesday 07/08/09: Cabaret

Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Barney Bighard
star in “New Orleans”, 1947

New Orleans was a 1947 musical drama featuring Billie Holiday as a singing maid and Louis Armstrong as a bandleader; Holiday and Armstrong perform together and portray a couple becoming romantically involved.

During one song, Armstrong’s character introduces the members of his band, a virtual Who’s Who of classic jazz greats, including trombonist Kid Ory, drummer Zutty Singleton, clarinetist Barney Bighard, guitar player Bud Scott, bassist George “Red” Callendar, pianist Charlie Beal, and pianistMeade “Lux” Lewis. Also performing in the film is cornetist Mutt Carey.

The music, however, takes a back seat to a rather conventional plot. The movie stars Arturo de Cordova and Dorothy Patrick. features Marjorie Lord, and was directed by Arthur Lubin.

The Cast of “New Orleans”

Arturo de Cordova … Nick Duquesne (as Arturo De Cordova)
Dorothy Patrick … Miralee Smith
Marjorie Lord … Grace Voiselle
Irene Rich … Mrs. Rutledge Smith
John Alexander … Col. McArdle
Richard Hageman … Henry Ferber
Jack Lambert … Biff Lewis
Bert Conway … Tommy Lake
Joan Blair … Constance Vigil (columnist)
Louis Armstrong and His Band … Original New Orleans Ragtime Band
Billie Holiday… Endie (Miralee’s maid)
Woody Herman and His Orchestra … Themselves
Shelley Winters… Miss Holmbright (Nick’s Chicago secretary; uncredited)

Cabaret
By Sterling Allen Brown

(1927, Black & Tan Chicago)

Rich, flashy, puffy-faced,
Hebrew and Anglo-Saxon,
The overlords sprawl here with their glittering darlings.
The smoke curls thick, in the dimmed light
Surreptitiously, deaf-mute waiters
Flatter the grandees,
Going easily over the rich carpets,
Wary lest they kick over the bottles
Under the tables.

The jazzband unleashes its frenzy.

Now, now,
To it, Roger; that’s a nice doggie,
Show your tricks to the gentlemen.

The trombone belches, and the saxophone
Wails curdlingly, the cymbals clash,
The drummer twitches in an epileptic fit

Muddy water
Round my feet
Muddy water

The chorus sways in.
The ‘Creole Beauties from New Orleans’
(By way of Atlanta, Louisville, Washington, Yonkers,
With stop-overs they’ve used nearly all their lives)
Their creamy skin flushing rose warm,
O, le bal des belles quarterounes! *
Their shapely bodies naked save
For tattered pink silk bodices, short velvet tights,
And shining silver-buckled boots;
Red bandannas on their sleek and close-clipped hair;
To bring to mind (aided by the bottles under the tables)
Life upon the river–

Muddy water, river sweet

(Lafitte the pirate, instead,
And his doughty diggers of gold)

There’s peace and happiness there
I declare

(In Arkansas,
Poor half-naked fools, tagged with identification numbers,
Worn out upon the levees,
Are carted back to the serfdom
They had never left before
And may never leave again)

Bee–dap–ee–DOOP, dee-ba–dee-BOOP

The girls wiggle and twist

Oh you too,
Proud high-stepping beauties,
Show your paces to the gentlemen.
A prime filly, seh.
What am I offered, gentlemen, gentlemen. . . .

I’ve been away a year today
To wander and roam
I don’t care if it’s muddy there

(Now that the floods recede,
What is there left the miserable folk?
Oh time in abundance to count their losses,
There is so little else to count.)

Still it’s my home, sweet home

From the lovely throats
Moans and deep cries for home:
Nashville, Toledo, Spout Springs, Boston,
Creoles from Germantown;-
The bodies twist and rock;
The glasses are filled up again. . . .

(In Mississippi
The black folk huddle, mute, uncomprehending,
Wondering ‘how come the good Lord
Could treat them this a way’)

shelter
Down in the Delta

Along the Yazoo
The buzzards fly over, over, low,
Glutted, but with their scrawny necks stretching,
Peering still.)

I’ve got my toes turned Dixie ways
Round that Delta let me laze

The band goes mad, the drummer throws his sticks
At the moon, a papier-mache moon,
The chorus leaps into weird posturings,
The firm-fleshed arms plucking at grapes to stain
Bending, writhing, turning

My heart cries out for
M U D D Y W A T E R

(Down in the valleys
The stench of the drying mud
Is a bitter reminder of death.)

Dee da dee D A A A A H

Hello, and welcome back to Poetry Wednesday 7/08/09. You can sign in today and take the tour thru Thursday, so take your time.

I’ll be your hostess again this week. My sister, Sans Souci, has completed her poetry book, and is taking a break, but she will check in.

Before we get started, please make sure that your post has a link to get back to this page to make it easier to take the tour:

1) Copy and paste the following link that I have provided for you from this page to somewhere on your poetry post.

Link back to the Poetry Wednesday tour on Laurita’s page

2) Leave the link of your poetry post in the comments section below. This is the link guests will click on to read your poem.

Sterling Allen Brown (May 1, 1901 – January 13, 1989) was an African-American professor, author of works on folklore, poetry and literary criticism. He was interested chiefly in black culture of the Southern United States.

Brown was born on the campus of Howard University inWashington D.C. His father, Sterling N. Brown a former slave, was a prominent minister and professor at Howard University Divinity School. His mother Grace Adelaide Brown taught inD.C. public schools for over fifty years. Brown was educated at Dunbar High School and graduated as the top student. He received a scholarship to attend Williams College. Graduating from Williams Phi Beta Kappa in 1922, he continued his studies at Harvard University, receiving an MA a year later.

The same year, he became an English teacher at Virginia Theological Seminary, a position he would hold for the next three years. In 1927 he married Daisy Turnbull. They had two children.

Brown began his teaching career with positions at several universities, including Lincoln Unhiversity and Fisk University, before returning to Howard in 1929. He was a professor there for forty years. He taught and wrote about African-American literature and folklore. He was a pioneer in the appreciation of this genre.

Brown was known for introducing his students to concepts then popular in jazz, which along with blues, spirituals and other forms of black music formed an integral component of his poetry.

In addition to his career at Howard University, Brown served as a visiting professor at Vassar College, New York University (NYU), Atlantic University, and Yale University.

Some of his notable students include Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Kwame Nkrumah, Thomas Sowell, Ossie Davis and Amiri Baraka (aka LeRoi Jones).

In 1969 Brown retired from his faculty position at Howard and turned full time to poetry.

He was also a life member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, one of the first African-American fraternitees.

In 1933 Brown published his first book of poetry Southern Road. It was a collection of poetry with rural themes and treated the simple lives of poor, black, country folk with poignancy and dignity. It also used authentic dialect and structures. Despite the success of this book, he struggled to find a publisher for the followup, No Hiding Place.

His poetic work was influenced in content, form and cadence by African-American music, including work songs, blues, and jazz. Like that of Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurson, Langston Highes, and other black writers of the period, his work often dealt with race and class in the United States. He was deeply interested in a folk-based culture, which he considered most authentic. Brown is considered part of the Harlem Renaissance artistic tradition, although he spent the majority of his life in the Brookland neighborhood of Northeast Washington D.C..

[mp3j track=”themthereeyes.mp3″]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_(film)
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_Allen_Brown