Poetry by Tad Richards!

I'm going to let Tad tell us about the picture above and his first poem below:

"There's a story that goes with this, and a picture. The picture is a portrait of Alexander Steinert by my grandfather, Frank Perley Fairbanks. Frank was a winner of the Prix de Rome, and a chancellor of the American Academy of Arts in Rome, and this is one of a series of portraits he did of his fellow Prix de Rome winners in the 1920s and 30s.

Alexander Steinert was from the Steinway family, and he studied with Ravel. His career may not have gone exactly the way he had planned it, but he made a successful living writing music, and my guess is that if we were to see "The Devil Bat's Daughter," we'd find that it was pretty good music."

 
 

CAREER TRAJECTORY

Alexander Steinert

winner of

the Prix de Rome

for composition

in  1931

now described

even by the

Academy as

“largely forgotten” still

found himself

in Hollywood

played the role of a

symphony orchestra

conductor

in Too Young to

Kiss with Van Johnson

conducted the soundtrack

for Bambi

and composed the

original score

for Strangler of the Swamp

The Unknown

Blondie Knows Best

Target for Today

The Devil Bat’s Daughter

STORIES

But all stories are

lies and few

if any have a point

and if they do

best not to trust them

take this one

with its half dressed woman

in the second

stanza offering

untold bliss

or the grime caked miser

who promises

mention in his will

for morphine

he’s in the third stanza

by the fourth you

you start to question

his motives

her fictive complaisance

you’re better off

listening to a

solo by

Dizzy Gillespie or

Charlie Parker

there’s truth in no words

THE DANCER AND THE TREE

The dancer:

Teach me the truth of stillness. Let me know

Xylem and phloem coursing from my roots,

Let me feel spring with new-curled leaves and shoots,

Band me with rings to mark each year I grow.

The tree:

Show me the way to freedom from the cruel

Strictures of nature: when the wind blows west

To east, let me bend east to west, to rule

My destiny, choose when to move or rest.

You may remember the next poem from the last time Tad appeared at The Song Is...

CHOOSING SECURITY

George Wallington played

in Dizzy's first bebop

combo on 52nd Street

in 1960 he gave

up jazz, went home

to Florida, joined

the family business

installing

air conditioners. Wendell

Marshall played with Ellington,

Coleman Hawkins,

Milt Jackson, Gerry

Mulligan, gave it up,

went back to St.

Louis, started his own

insurance agency. Teddy

Charles played swing,

played bebop, played

the far out stuff,

played with Miles, with

Mingus, with Wardell

Gray, gave it up

to get his captain's papers,

skipper a charter

skipjack on Long Island

Sound, in the Caribbean.

I’d go for that.

The picture above is of Teddy Charles at the Iridium jazz club in 2008.  In that year, his last two albums were released.

I had a hard time finding a YouTube video with Alexander Steinert's music.  This nearly thirteen minute video includes his Danse exotique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzhDAnkisis

The sound is terrible, but it gives you an idea of what the soundtrack of The Devil Bat's Daughter was like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPhehCD3LjM

Steinert conducted the orchestra in the 1942 film Bambi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMna-WSfuDM

I'll finish with some videos of Teddy Charles.  The first is "Laura," a song that he did with his quartet.  The bass player was Charles Mingus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMPj5zLjGck

The other is "Jay Walkin'," again with Mingus on bass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFg8s3hVUTk

This version of "Night in Tunisia" is from Charles' 2008 album with the Walter Wolff Trio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0p-WJB2Ke4