newer fellas

Dear gentlefolk of Newport
Or maybe I should say hats and cats,
I want you to lend an ear
Because I want you to hear
Some really shimmering sharps and flats.

For these cozy virtuosi,
Just about the greatest in the trade,
Are fixin' to show you now
Precisely how
(Or approximately)
Jazz music is made.

Well you take some skins, [drums]
Jazz begins,
Then you take a bass [bumm-bumm-bummbummbumm]
man now we're gettin' some place
Take a box, [piano]
One that rocks,
Take a blue horn -- New Orleans - born!
[Louis Armstrong begins playing trumpet...]

Ah you take a stick, [clarinet]
With a lick,
Take a bone, [trombone]
Ho- ho- hold the phone!

Take a spot,
Cool and hot,
Now you has
jazz jazz jazz, jazz, jazz!

...Le tout ensemble...!

Ahhh --

that's positively...

thera-peutic...!

Now you has -- jazz jazz jazz...!

Messrs Hall and Young,
Ah said Hall [trombone]
And Tommy Young [clarinet]
Now you has Messrs Kyle and Shaw [piano]
That's Billy Kyle [bass]
Arvel Shaw
Now you has Mr. Barret Deans [drums]
Well listen to -- well you know who...-- [Louis Armstrong plays] -- Rah-dah-dah-dahdahdah--dah-dah, dah--...

BING CROSBY:
Say hey pops, you wanna grab a little of what's left here?

LOUIS ARMSTRONG:
Yeah daddy yeah

BING CROSBY:
Here we go.
I-i-i-ff you sail --

Louis Armstrong:
a-sailin' sailin'

BING:
Over the sea,

LOUIS:
When you wait for me,

BING:
Take my tip, they're all molto hip -- in -- Italy.

Louis:
Well air-uh-vuh-dooch-ie!--
As for France--

BING:
Oh I know you're very big there --

LOUIS:
Yes, believe it or not!

BING:
I do believe, I do indeed-!

LOUIS:
The Frenchmens all,
prefer what they call,
"Leh - zzshazz -- Hot"!

BING:
[something - "me down..." ]--
Put me down?
Blow me down?
Vote me down?
...

BING:
Take a plane.

LOUIS:
[scat-singing: "Vo-de-oh-vo-doh-doh" -- or Something...]

BING:
Go to Siam.

LOUIS: [scats wildly, Bing gets an involuntary laugh in his voice as he sings the next line --]

BING:
(ha-ha)-In Bangkok,
today 'round the clock,
Well they all like to jam...

LOUIS:
[scats]

BING:
Indians on --
LOUIS - scat
BING - The Amazon
LOUIS - wild scat
BING - Beat one bar, and all of 'em are --

LOUIS: Ah well, gone, man, gone!!

[LOUIS back to trumpet]
BING:
Ah -- from the Equator
up to the Pole,
Everybody wingin'
Everybody singin'
That rock, rock, rock, rock, rock and roll.
From the East to the West
From the coast to the coast --

Jazz is king,
Jazz is the thing --
that folks --
dig --
m-m-m-m-ost!!

[Wham-bam-bahm-bahm with the percussion...]
Ba-dah-dah-da-da-da!--now THAT'S jazz!

--------------------
{"Now You Has Jazz." written by Cole Porter, for the film, High Society, in 1956}
I was surprised to hear the phrase "rock and roll" in this song...I didn't think Bing Crosby or Cole Porter "knew from" rock and roll. ...

It was so brand new, then. Musicologists debate what was the First rock and roll song? --
Ike Turner's "Rocket 88" (1951), or
Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" (1955), or
Ray Charles' "What'd I Say?" (1959)...?

Well by 1955 or 56 when Cole Porter would have been writing the songs for this film (a musical re-make of "The Philadelphia Story") he could have heard "Rocket 88" and / or "Maybellene" -- (obviously "What'd I Say?" could not have been an influence because it didn't come out until three years later).

Bing Crosby singing the songs, and Cole Porter writing lyrics and melodies, both for at least three decades, had been outsize influences on American music and it seemed really interesting and arresting, how, with this song in this film, they gave a nod of polite & respectful recognition to Rock And Roll (the "new thing") without actually producing any of it themselves. "Now You Has Jazz" is not a rock song; it's swingy, jumpy jazz.

But it mentions rock-and-roll, and sort of -- claims it, or "welcomes" it, as a second cousin, or something, of jazz.

In another scene in the movie, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby are singing and Bing goes into a slow, short scat -- ba-dah-dah-DAH-da-da... in the 30s and 40s style -- and Frank Sinatra stops him and sings in a playfully argumentative tone, "Don't dig that kinda croonin' chum..."

Bing Crosby stops singing and speaks, genial as always -- "You must be one o' those newer fellas."

(His persona was always "laid-back." No-sweat. Cool. Let's enjoy this evening -- AND -- life...! That was his style.)

"You must be one o' those newer fellas." Newer fellas. Meaning -- Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins. Etc.

How exciting to imagine that pivotal moment in the evolution of popular music.

-----------------------
Shimmering sharps and flats.

Well they all like to jam.

Beat one bar,
and all of 'em are --
gone, man, gone!

-30-