YEAH MAN: THE MAD SWING & BOLD PROPHECY OF CLEO BROWN’S “WHEN HOLLYWOOD GOES BLACK AND TAN”

 

Behold “When Hollywood Goes Black and Tan.” Recorded in 1935 by singer-pianist par excellence Cleo Brown, the piece swings in the most nourishing ways. Our musicology team has been working overtime to present complete lyrics (below) and, as ever, our critical acumen. Let’s examine the mechanisms of a bright tune that will propel us into the air, jumping.

a proper overview of the song

The opening riff circles energetically a few times before the band enters and the song drives toward the vocals. Brown’s voice veers between propulsive forcefulness and angelic flourishes. Meanwhile, she confers a torrential workout upon the keyboard, with her notoriously powerful left hand. As a listener, Dear Reader, you may feel “swung” — but can you imagine what the piano must’ve gone through? It experienced dizzying sensations that few uprights have ever encountered. We love how the call and response verifies the bold vision (in 1935) of a Black and tan Hollywood.

roots in ellington?

The royal Duke Ellington may have partly inspired this song. He first recorded his own composition “Black and Tan Fantasy” in 1927 and then, a couple of years later, starred in the early talkie Black and Tan. This short fictional film would introduce the magnificent actress and dancer Fredi Washington in her big screen debut. Not simply a musical, Black and Tan turns surprisingly elegiac at its conclusion, with the Ellington Orchestra playing “Black and Tan Fantasy” in a dimly-lit apartment setting as the character played by Washington passes away. Added to the National Film Registry in 2015, Black and Tan offers a remarkable conduit for the Ellington composition, which has since been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. 

a bold vision

If Ellington’s composition began to foreshadow societal change, the Brown recording situated this coming transformation in the “promised land” of Hollywood, among the country’s elite performers. Composed by the brotherly songwriting duo of Leon René and Otis René, “When Hollywood Goes Black and Tan” introduces a host of burgeoning African American talents. Louis Armstrong, for instance, had already made his mark as a jazz trumpeter and singer. Other names may not be quite as familiar: musician Bob Howard, actor Stepin Fetchit, actress Nina Mae McKinney, and singer Ethel Waters. By comparing these new Black stars to established white talents such as Fred Astaire and Ina Claire, the pianist-singer Brown and her bandmates propound a very compelling Black and tan reality. Notably, “The Mayor of Harlem” may refer to African American dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.

here’s good news and it’s the newest

While a boxing match between champion James Braddock and contender Joe Louis may have been “in the air,” the bout itself wouldn’t transpire until 1937, about two years after this song was recorded. In the end, Louis defeated Braddock, capturing the lineal heavyweight title. In time, Louis would become the first national African American hero, after he knocked out the German fighter Max Schmeling on the eve of World War II. In celebrating the rise of Louis and other stars, “When Hollywood Goes Black and Tan” doesn’t advocate the old dance moves of “wing-and-buckin’” but insinuates that “Everybody will be truckin’” instead. Yeah man! 

the career of miss brown

Born in 1909 in Mississippi, Cleo Brown moved as a young teenager with her family to Chicago in the early 1920s. She learned stride piano from her brother and, before long, began performing in Chicago speakeasies. There, she met the likes of King Oliver and Louis Armstrong. Over the next several years, she toured regionally with different groups and notably, in 1934, performed at the same club (The Three Deuces) as jazz pianist Art Tatum. In addition to Tatum, she met a who’s who in jazz circles while performing at The Three Deuces. In 1935, Brown moved to New York, where she took over Fats Waller’s radio show, signed a recording deal with Decca, and produced her first recordings. Over the next 15 years, she toured all over the country before dropping out of show business to become a nurse and a church musician. In the 1980s, pianist Marian McPartland rediscovered Cleo Brown living in Denver and brought her to New York to record a segment for McPartland’s show Piano Jazz that aired on NPR. A short while later, the NEA awarded Cleo Brown a Jazz Masters Fellowship. Based upon the NPR broadcast, just about anybody would note the graciousness and kindliness of Miss Brown. She passed away in 1995.

complete lyrics

“When Hollywood Goes Black and Tan”
Cleo Brown, 1935
 

Creole babies from Manhattan
Will be leaving Harlem if they can
Yeah man! (Oh yeah, man!)
When Hollywood goes black and tan

Louis Armstrong with his trumpet
Will be heading westward with his band
Yeah man! (Oh yeah, man!)
When Hollywood goes black and tan

Harlem crooners with a swing
Will be singing at the studio
Makes no difference if you can’t sing
Just say, “Heedie-heedie-hidie-ho!”

When they start to swing that rhythm
I’ll be heading for that promised land
Yeah man! (Oh yeah, man!)
Yeah man! (Oh yeah, man!)

You won’t find them wing-and-buckin’
Everybody will be truckin’
It’s gonna be grand
When Hollywood goes black and tan

The mayor of Harlem says he’ll be there
To give those boys a helpin’ hand
Yeah man! (Oh yeah, man!)
When Hollywood goes black and tan

Old Bob Howard made a promise
To latch onto that baby grand
Yeah man! (Oh yeah, man!)
When Hollywood goes black and tan

Stepin Fetchit’s gonna sing and dance
Like Fred Astaire
Nina May don’t have to sing
Cause she can be petite like Ina Claire

Waters [is] gonna do a fan dance
And shake those feathers off her fan
Yeah man! (Oh yeah, man!)
Yeah man! (Oh yeah, man!)

Here’s good news and it’s the newest:
Braddock’s going to meet Joe Louis
It’s gonna be grand
When Hollywood goes black and tan

discography
Personnel: Cleo Brown (vocals, piano); Bobby Sherwood (guitar); Manny Stein (string bass); Vic Berton (drums); backup vocals likely by band. Recorded Nov. 20, 1935, in Los Angeles. “When Hollywood Goes Black and Tan” released as Decca 632 and Brunswick 02123 B-side b/w “When” A-side. Lyrics by Otis René and Leon René. [Interestingly enough, both songs on this release share the same first word, even as they are very different songs. Most of all, never underestimate the B-side!]

sources of information
—Whitney Balliett, American Singers: Twenty-Seven Portraits in Song. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 2006.
—Eugene Chadbourne, “Cleo Brown.” AllMusic Guide to the Blues. Backbeat Books, San Francisco, 2003.
—NEA Jazz Masters page for Cleo Brown.
—NPR page for Cleo Brown’s appearance on Piano Jazz.
—Brian Rust, Jazz Records 1897-1942: Volume 1. Arlington House, New Rochelle, NY, 1978.
—Mary Unterbrink, Jazz Women at the Keyboard. McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 1983.
—Wikipedia page for “Black and Tan Fantasy.”
—Wikipedia page for Black and Tan (film).
—Wikipedia page for Cleo Brown.
—Wikipedia page for Leon René.
—Wikipedia page for Otis René.

JUMP AROUND: THE 25 GREATEST JUMP BLUES SONGS (+5 EARLY JUMPS) (+5 NOVELTY TUNES) WHICH YOU MUST LISTEN TO BEFORE YOU CAN HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH ME ABOUT MUSIC THAT REALLY ROCKS.

Roy Brown: the greatest jump musician?

In a previous post dedicated to exemplary American musicians, I shied away from determinations of greatness, and opted, instead, to establish importance. It felt sturdier to crown Louis Armstrong as the most important American musician than to propose a greatest American musician, who, in all likelihood, would be John Coltrane. I need not recite the many arguments in favor of Armstrong’s enduring influence on trumpet, cornet, dixieland, swing, gravel-sweet singing, scatting, composition, ensemble playing, band-leading, ambassadorship, typewriting of letters, collaborative recordings, in-public performance, and most substantially, the virtuosity of the soloist. The essence of Armstrong spreads out amongst many players of many instruments. Armstrong informs one generation, and that generation informs a subsequent generation, adding elements of Armstrong, either tacitly or in plain view. “Really?” you say. Even Cypress Hill’s joke about “[hitting] dat bong” the way that “Louis Armstrong played the trumpet” in their 1993 pop hit “Insane in the Brain” demonstrates that the man’s legend appeared generations later, in hip hop and rap. (Louis, too, happened to be fond of weed.) One would have to present a mountainous argument—over many months of intense negotiations—to chip away at one corner of one brick in the Great Wall of this proclamation. Satchmo’s greatness is considerable, too, but he’s probably not the greatest American musician.

As America’s popular music for many decades, jazz underwent numerous transitions. In one change, the central instrumentation in many recordings switched from brass to reed, from trumpet (and perhaps clarinet) to saxophone. Coleman Hawkins, by no means the first jazz saxophone player, nevertheless has been credited as the first jazzman to endow the instrument with significance. Numerous followers—Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and John Coltrane, to name three—would build their own idioms upon this foundation. Coltrane, in particular, can batter a listener to rubble, if we can define “batter” as (Coltrane’s) relentless invention across many forms of voice, and if we can define “rubble” as the shocking moments of (the listener’s) emotional realizations. At the beginning of Coltrane’s career, before he appeared as a sideman on several monumental Miles Davis records—including the Workin’, Steamin’, Cookin’, Relaxin’ series, as well as Milestones and Kind of Blue—he played with rhythm and blues groups in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Lewis Porter’s masterful biography, John Coltrane: His Life and Music, describes R&B gigs in the early to mid-50s with bandleaders such as Johnny Hodges. According to Porter’s book, the Hodges band toured with several rhythm and blues stars, including Billy Eckstine, Ruth Brown, and the Clovers. Benny Golson, a sax player also retained by Hodges, “marveled at the things [he] heard [Coltrane] play” on the tour. Trane famously entertained a number of influences throughout his career but where did this R&B sound originate?

Illinois Jacquet's solo on "Flying Home" inspired other horn players.

At the very least, jump blues began with a variety of groups active in the 1930s, including orchestras led by Jimmie Lunceford, Cab Calloway, and Lucky Millinder. These early songs featured hopping rhythm, rambunctious horns, and increasingly mischievous lyrics. Just as jazz began to adopt the saxophone as its central instrument—to deliver the fleet or searching or muscular work of the soloist—so did jump blues offer rowdy saxophone solos, “jumps” if you will, in the midst of a tune, and oftentimes, woven throughout a piece. Arguably, the most famous early jump saxophone solo belonged to Illinois Jacquet, a sideman at the time with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra. His workout on “Flying Home” in 1942 inspired saxophone players to emulate his honking sound. Indeed, many horn players would dwell in the upper or lower registers of their horns, effecting the kind of chaotic riotousness that drove audiences to crash around and scream. Audience members couldn’t seem to believe what they were hearing; it nourished a need of theirs that they may not have been able to articulate, in advance. I wonder if the musicians ever expressed similar feelings. Jump blues burned brightest from the late 1940s through the mid 1950s. The music would eventually be covered, gentrified, and absorbed by other genres long before Miles Davis affixed the flickering embers of jazz to wailing electric guitar lines in A Tribute to Jack Johnson, and the album’s outtakes, among other jazz-rock material. Still, jump music added shape to rock, R&B, and avant garde saxophone from its wealth of rowdy excess.

White audiences hadn't heard anyone like Big Jay McNeely.

The heroes of jump have nicknames like Tiny, Big Jay, Big Mama, Sugarboy, Mr. Five by Five, Big Joe, Fats, and Bull Moose. They are criminally under-celebrated. Here are, in chronological order by date of recording, 35 greatest hits—25 prime jumps followed by five early numbers and five magnificent novelties:

Eddie Lockjaw Davis: “Ravin’ at the Haven” (1947)

Roy Brown: “Boogie at Midnight” (1949)

Ruth Brown: “Hello Little Boy” (1949)

Freddie Mitchell: “Pony Express” (1949)

Johnny Otis: “Good Ole Blues” (1949)

Wynonie Harris: “Bloodshot Eyes” (1950)

Tiny Bradshaw: “I’m Going to Have Myself a Ball” (1950)

Joe Liggins: “Going Back to New Orleans” (1950)

Roy Milton: “Oh Babe” (1950)

Big Jay McNeely: “Insect Ball” (1951)

Jackie Brenston: “Real Gone Rocket” (1951)

Big Mama Thornton: “Hound Dog” (1952)

James Sugarboy Crawford: “Overboard” (1953)

Jimmy Rushing: “Mr. Five by Five” (1953)

Big Joe Houston: “All Night Long” (1954)

Big Joe Turner: “Shake, Rattle and Roll” (1954)

Bill Haley: “Farewell So Long Goodbye” (1954)

Ray Charles: “I’ve Got a Woman” (1954)

Johnny Sparrow: “Sparrow’s Nest” (1955)

Dave Bartholomew: “Shrimp and Gumbo” (1955)

Amos Milburn: “Chicken Shack Boogie” (1956)

Louis Prima: “Oh Marie” (1956)

Fats Domino: “I’m Walkin’” (1957)

Memphis Slim: “Steppin’ Out” (1959)

Long John Hunter: “Grandma” (1961)

(+5 Early Jumps)

Jimmie Lunceford: “Rhythm Is Our Business” (1934)

Stuff Smith: “Old Joe’s Hittin’ the Jug” (1936)

Cab Calloway: “Do You Want to Jump, Children?” (1938)

Sammy Price: “Monkey Swing” (1939)

Lionel Hampton: “Flying Home” (1942)

(+5 Novelty Tunes)

Louis Jordan: “Caldonia” (1945)

Bull Moose Jackson: “Shorty’s Got to Go” (1945)

Paula Watson: “Hidin’ in the Sticks” (1948)

Lucky Millinder: “Who Said Shorty Wasn’t Coming Back?” (1950)

Big Bob Dougherty: “Bullfrog Hop” (1962)

The great Louis Jordan.

Some may quibble with my placement of Louis Jordan amongst the novelties, but I am as partial to these songs (and Jordan) as to the prime jumps. Jordan, an alto sax player and bandleader, recorded a number of great songs—including “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie”, “Beans and Cornbread”, and “Knock Me a Kiss”—but “Caldonia” is a special song. Other jump songs recorded by other artists refer to the character, Caldonia, who, despite her awkward appearance, inspires the singer, Jordan. He tells the listener that he’s “crazy ‘bout that woman ‘cause Caldonia is her name.” Indeed.

AM PLUTO WATERLY YOURS.

Louis ... Live ... at the Smith Corona!

Think that one kind of genius is 'trapped' within its own genius? Think again. Louis Armstrong reportedly purchased his first typewriter in Chicago, in the 1920s, and banged out letters on it, as a means of keeping time with loved ones back home in New Orleans. He crafted memoir, over the years, and articles, too -- rendered, at times, in jive, and through a unique system of punctuation which, according to Thomas Brothers, gives the reader clues as to how the musician would apply emphasis. Brothers is editor of Louis Armstrong in His Own Words: Selected Writings (Oxford UP, 2001) and author of a companion book, on W. W. Norton (2007): Louis Armstrong's New Orleans, said by one critic to be the finest book about Armstrong not written by the man himself. Consider the following excerpt from Selected Writings, the first sentence of a letter that Satchmo sent in 1967 to a marine serving in Vietnam: I'd like to 'step in here for a 'Minute or 'so' to "tell you how much--I 'feel to know that 'you are a 'Jazz fan, and 'Dig' 'that 'Jive--the same as 'we 'do, "yeah." Note the appearance of quotation marks (") outside their traditional function as well as the appearance of apostrophes (') at the front of words. Louis also underlines, capitalizes, and employs long dashes at surprising moments. How to pronounce the word "we" as Louis types it: 'we. Emphasis upon / within / to clarify / to reinvent Emphasis. Armstrong's writings instruct us to scan language for variations of stress -- in reverse of traditional English scansion, or on a separate axis entirely. There may be a 'new scansion' that the man himself invented, thus meriting close study by writer-folk and other creationists. If that's not enough, then read the Dipper's letters for his closing phrases. The man was, indeed, fond of his laxatives, and in closing "Swiss Krissly", for example, he endorsed the cleansing of things in the herbal way.