SOTW: Spring Songs by Carmen McRae and Clifford Brown (w. Max Roach)

It was an unusually cruel and punishing April of killer flus, and catastrophic health dramas for my loved ones--all sandwiching triumphant, but physically draining show openings for the BdP and Hector Silva. So on the heels of ATV's lovely, mellow gold offerings, do forgive if I indulge my emo-bear instincts and share as my first SOTW after a long hiatus, the soul- scarring rubato of Carmen McRae's "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most." Featured on McRae's aptly titled Bitersweet album released in May 1964, "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" has to be the saddest spring song ever written. The intro brandishes a little society wit before we find out the spring fling tanks, as the melody begins its dizzy swerves from major to minor and back again:

Now a spring romance hasn't got a chance
Promised my first dance to winter
All I've got to show's a splinter
For my little fling...

Written in 1950 by "the jazz world's answer to Dorothy Parker," Fran Landesman and her collaborator, pianist/composer Tommy Wolf for an unsuccessful musical about beatniks, "Spring..." makes elaborate octave leaps, and skips its way through the circle of fifths in a brilliantly schizoid ode to the season and its hushed co-dependency with the death and dearth of winter. [Landesman is pictured right, seated atop the piano next to JR Ewing himself, Larry Hagman. Wolf is seated at the piano. ]The song demands that anyone who tackles it work like an agile instrument, nailing each turn at the peak of every precarious arpeggio, only to lay bare the very brokenness of the chords forcing the voice to run.

Set in the glorious ruins of Carmen McCrae's low and dirty, smoked-out, coked-out, inimitable voice, this version of "Spring" resists its own histrionic momentum--exploited by other diva interpreters like Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler-- towards the melancholy conclusion, "when you keep wishing for the snow to hide the clover." Carmen keeps it low and low key. But it's her unruly take on the phrasing and rhythm that always threatens to burst weed-like through the frigid surface, and offer the lovesick something truly springy to sneeze at. Listen over and over again here.

On a much happier note, allow me to close with one of my all time favorite spring songs--an instrumental I love to both listen to and play. (Or that I loved to play when my saxamophone-playing hands still had some agility). My dad, a jazz pianist, taught the song to me when I was at the peak of my instrumental prowess with the alto, and playing in several jazz ensembles during my mid to late teens. The tune is "Joy Spring," trumpeter/composer Clifford Brown's best known work. He was a prolific composer, and amassed some remarkable recordings within 4 short years, collaborating with Max Roach to form a quintet that included the young Sonny Rollins on tenor sax. [The Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet (from L-R): Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Richie Powell, Max Roach, George Morrow]

Brown and his wife's lives were cut tragically short in a car crash when he was only 25. But before we let that detail plunge us into more May gray, let some damn fine unison lift your spirits. Here Brown's trumpet and Sonny Rollins' tenor don't compete for virtuosity, but rather pace each other, like a couple of championship long-distance runners grooving on draft and adrenaline:




With that offering I wish us all a happy spring into spring for realz. For a last minute Oh! Industry twist, and as a bonus for all the "ChickenJoy" loving Pinoyz, choir dorks, lost Sweeney Sisters fans, and a capella aficionados out there, here's Manhattan Transfer's super-tight, sequined and harmonic take on "Joy Spring." Anghang sarap!!!- (KT)