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Ben Sidran
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A Good Travel Agent
Some of you know I like to talk about the history of this music.
I like to talk about the history so much that I can go on and on and on.
To save you the pain of that experience I have managed to condense everything I know about jazz in America into three simple constituent parts.
And it is my belief that after I lay these three simple elements on you, you too will know everything you need to know about jazz music.
How can he do it, they ask?
Can he do it?
Yes indeed he can.
You see I have studied scientifically how to synthesize this material, and in the caldron of knowledge known as the road, the bebop road, that goes on and on and on, I have boiled the information down to three little pearls of wisdom.
The most important thing about jazz in America – it has been true since the first note turned blue in 1902 – number one the most important thing in jazz?
It's a bad romance.
You got to have a bad romance to play this music.
Now I don't mean a little sad romance.
No baby.
I don't mean a little one or two week affair that just turned square.
No buddy.
I mean a really, really bad hurt, somebody had to get their just desert.
And given all the bad romance in the world today, it's a surprise there aren't more jazz players trying to play with us here today.
Number two, the second most important thing in jazz, what could it be?
It's a good travel agent.
The second most important thing in jazz music is a good travel agent.
Because nothing will get you out of town faster than a bad romance.
And I have proof of whereof I speak.
To whit:
Cast your mind back to that time when that note first turned blue, 1902.
The place, Lake Ponchetrain, Louisiana.
It's a hot summer night, it's August and the crickets are cricketing and the chirpings are chirping.
And out on the end of a pier, he's got a cornet in one hand, he's got his eyes on the prize way up in the skies, a wonderful trumpet player named Buddy Bolden.
Now let me ask you: how many people in the room here tonight have heard the music of Buddy Bolden?
No you're lying brother.
You never heard Buddy Bolden.
Buddy Bolden never recorded.
He didn't make record one.
And why?
He didn't have a good travel agent.
But that same night, that same pier, that same moonlight, that same year, another young man had a horn in his hand but he had himself a better plan.
He picked it up and put it down: he got out of town.
He went to Chicago.
He went to Kansas City, Kansas, way beyond, San Francisco, Moscow, Bejing, Seoul.
I'm talking about Pops, Louis Armstrong.
That man had himself a terrific travel agent.
You got to get out and move if you want to keep this groove.
This song is really about a young man whose true love was blind
He was crying all the time
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Thought he would find a new love
In Paris France (he's gonna do the Paris dance)
But when he got to town all he found was he couldn't speak French
He was sitting on a bench)
All alone not mentioned embarrassed
Ah but music is the language of love (play on play)
Bud Powell was in town
So he thought he'd make it down
And order a round of the rarest
(wine that is)
But as so often happens in this world of travail and cheap wine
The ridiculous becomes sublime
(it's part of the great design)
Your final reward,
It's down at the end of the line
Because just then someone put a side on the box
And Bird flew bye like he was chasing a fox
Bird fluttered by
Sang a hipper melody from the sky
Bebop bebop
Nothing like the sound of bebop
It's steady going on
And it won't never stop
But I digress.
I promised you three simple constituent parts to take to your hearts and have so far delivered only two: let's review.
Number one, the most important thing in jazz, a bad romance.
Number two, a good travel agent.
Number three.
What could it be?
I'll tell you right now.
Sea Food.
Well what do you think Buddy Bolden was thinking about back there at Lake Ponchetrain?
I happen to know: Soft shell crab.
And what do you think got Louis Armstrong out of town so fast?
He was gonna go out with some trout.
But nobody said it better than that fine philosopher of jazz, Thomas '
Fats' Waller.
He gave us those immortal lines, '
Shrimp and rice, mighty nice.
Give me some seafood mama!'
That's what I want, you know what I need...
Nothing like the sound of bebop going on and it won't never stop.
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