Book Review: Making Music American

Making Music American: 1917 and the Transformation of Culture
E. Douglas Bomberger
History, music

In December 1916, "real" music in America meant music that was (a) classical, and (b) European--most especially, German. With the entry of the U.S. into World War I, that changed. Whether it changed so much or so dramatically as Making Music American wants us to think is open to doubt.

The things I liked best about this book are structural. Bomberger picks a limited cast of characters, emblematic of the changes he's talking about. He gives good introductions of those characters. He doesn't pretend to be inclusive. Each chapter of the book is a single month, and each chapter follows several of those characters through the month. It's a nice format.

The narrative, by contrast, takes a while to get going. There are only so many lists of concerts and repertoire that a body can take before the message starts getting repetitive. Things pick up as the year goes on; the U.S. fell into a depressingly contemporary-seeming slough of jingoism, cheap patriotism, xenophobia, and rabid flag-waving, and the "Germanophile" musical establishment had to cope with it. The depth of animosity, and the speed with which it developed, must have seemed bewildering at the time. The same must have been true of the shallowness, provincialism, and downright stupidity of the so-called patriots. Then, as now, there are plenty of people who imagine that genuine patriotism is interchangeable with symbolic, performative patriotism.

On the American side of the equation, the narrative is less clear-cut. Yes, jazz was clearly in the ascendant in popular culture. It's not particularly evident that the events of the year either advanced or retarded it, though. Nor is there any sign that individual listeners switched from Wagner to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, or even put the two in the same category. Here, I think, the small cast is a double-edged sword; Bomberger omits a lot of significant figures, and can't quite tie his anecdotes into the larger narrative of American music.

I didn't dislike Making Music American, but I thought it oversold its promise. It's well-written enough, but not so compelling as to drag in a reader who's not already invested in the subject matter. The research is very deep, but not very broad. If you're a serious musicophile, in other words, give Making Music American a look. If not, it's skippable.

Book Review: Night Drive

Night Drive: Travels With My Brother
Garnet Rogers
Biography, music

I live in a parallel musical universe. In my universe, almost any name you're familiar with is a non-entity. (Or a punchline.)

In your universe, you poor sucker, people will actually pay real actual dollars to listen to something that goes 

Bitch better have my money
Bitch better have my money
Pay me what you owe me
Bitch better have my
Bitch better have my
Bitch better have my money*

Poetry, sheer poetry. I'm sure it will be a lasting cultural contribution, one that will tug at the musical heartstrings of generations yet unborn.

My ignorance of popular music is a thing that I cherish and love and nurture. See, over in my universe, there are people you've never heard of who are musical gods.

Stan Rogers was one of them.

Even though you've never heard of Stan--hell, even if you can't stomach his music (it's not your fault; you were brought up wrong)--you should read Night Drive. It's side-splittingly funny, for one thing. And it's achingly wistful. And raw, and honest, and angry, and insightful, and illuminating. It's not a conventional biography; it's only mostly chronological, and its arrangement is a bit haphazard. Garnet is more raconteur than author. If Night Drive were a painting, it'd be Impressionist: not photographic, not precise, not posed, not even complete, yet withal absolutely true.

Trying to make a living playing non-commercial music is clearly the act of a desperate person. If you've ever had any ambitions in that direction, Night Drive should cure you. (If it doesn't, you've soared past "desperate" and are well over the border into "deranged".) This is an unsanitized look at what gods are like when they're not really gods, but young men with outsized gifts and dedication and idealism and egos and ambition and inability to function conventionally and no more wisdom than most young men have, which is a number so small that mathematicians haven't diagnosed it yet. By the end, their livers must have had the consistency of Hostess Ding Dongs.

Thanks to Garnet for writing what must have been an agonizing book. Thanks to Stan and Garnet's parents, who were supportive and loving and forgiving to a degree that I can't even envision. Thanks to the other band members. Thanks to the club owners (including my seventh-grade social studies teacher). Thanks, finally, to Stan for the music. I never heard him live--for no good reason; he was in my home area often enough--but I've got a dozen of his songs in my repertoire. 

I can't do them justice. But I can pass them on.

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*NO, I did not know that. I just googled "stupidest song lyrics" and there it was.

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Night Drive is available through Garnet's website.

My Hard Fun

For some time now, my old pal who goes by the secret identity "B. S. Donovan" has been posting his ongoing progress in Japanese calligraphy--"hard fun" is his excellent phrase. As he's one of my oldest and dearest friends, my reaction is (of course) bitter jealousy and an urge towards one-upsmanship. Unfortunately, I don't have his courage. He's willing to display his baby steps; I hate to confess to anything until it's ready for prime time.

However, his continued success has goaded me beyond endurance. Here's some hard fun of my own. This is a well-known Irish session tune, "The Kesh Jig."

(This is DADGAD tuning. Note to purists: yes, I've transposed from G to D. It sounds better on this guitar.)