Honorary Members of Speakeasy

Monte Smith · April-2nd-2003, 01:01 AM

Listen up, Easy company:

Not everyone who could make the new Speakeasy a great place to hang can be with us. In honor of these people--anyone who you choose to introduce to us--I submit this thread.

And my first inductee is my grandfather. The following photo shows what type of guy he was--almost. Don't know if you can make it out, but he's twirling a lasso around himself. He was a cowboy. He was a homesteader in Montana and a veteran of the First World War. During the Depression, he was fortunate to get a job on the Hoover Dam. The rest of his life he spent as a carpenter and handy-man in Ontario, Calif. His favorite jazz musician was Nat King Cole.

He died in the early 80s before there was even an internet, but I post this for him.

The back of the photo reads "Harry H. Smith, age 90." Pretty good.

cookie · April-2nd-2003, 01:23 AM

Very cool thread concept and your grandfather sounds like an amazing person. A cowboy! Neat!

moneyp · April-2nd-2003, 02:02 AM

That is a very cool concept. So what would Harry's user name and avatar be?

I nominate my buddy Brian Zavitz up in Vernon, BC. He's a hardbopper of the first order, but work, family, a crappy dial-up connection prevent him from participating.

Tom Storer · April-2nd-2003, 02:03 AM

Great idea! Love the photo of Grampa Smith. This explains why you're such a cowboy yourself, of course.

I'll have to think of an inductee myself. Unfortunately I have no scanner.

Monte Smith · April-2nd-2003, 02:30 AM

Thanks, all. Tom, a Canon scanner costs $99.

"So what would Harry's user name and avatar be?" --Mone.

Hm. I am slow to speak for Harry, but I am thinking username: Asskickin' Grandpa (though he was the gentlest of men) and an avatar of wide open spaces.

"Oh, give me land, lotsa land underneath the starry skies/don't fence me in."

Ron Thorne · April-2nd-2003, 02:54 AM

Very cool idea, indeed.

There are many I could nominate here, but first I'll post a photo of someone who was a very dear friend, and who had a profound influence on me ... the late saxophonist, Jim Pepper. Jim's musical legacy is well-documented and will continue to grow as undiscovered recordings, including ones in vaults are released. There aren't/weren't too many Native Americans who found a path to jazz expression, but thanks in large part to his friend (part Choctaw Indian) Don Cherry, Jim blossomed as a jazz artist.

As a point of interest, Jim also played the now-famous sax solo on the hit, "Spooky" by the Classics IV.

This is a classic photo of Jim with a dancer, taken by renowned jazz photographer, Enid Farber.

You must not forget me
When I'm long gone
Because I love you
So dearly, Sugar Honey

-- Jim Pepper

jesus marion joseph · April-2nd-2003, 07:10 AM

I nominate that dancer! Woo hoo!

walto · April-2nd-2003, 07:19 AM

Besides writing a zillion plays, short stories, novels, hundreds of political, philosophical and religious essays, and tons of gorgeous poems (he won the Nobel Prize for lit. in 1913), Tagore also established some of the first world class schools in Bengal, and WROTE OVER 2,000 SONGS! One is now the Bengali national anthem. A lot of these tunes (called "Rabindra Sangheet") can be said to "swing" in their own peculiar way.

Also, he pestered the hell out of his buddy Gandhi and pushed for technological development and trade rather than Luddism as among the cures for India's poverty.

I'd love to read some of his rants at the Alley, and there's little question that he'd not only be the most interesting character here (unless of course Mrs. Thelil ever shows up), but he'd also compete for "Highest Volume Poster."

Self-taught as a musician/composer, incidentally.

Canuck Don · April-2nd-2003, 09:56 AM

I like to add my Mother to this thread if I may.She is 84 years old .Before she retired because of early arthritis at age 53 she worked for 30 years as district suppervisor for large Ladies store called Reitimans.She was in charge of 20 stores all throughout Ontario .She was my rock.Without her I feel to-day I would be maybe dead or whatever.Like most Mothers ,she was there for me since I was a youngster always helping me and being by my side and always with the the perfect advice for me whatever my personal problems were at the time.I can always rely on this lovely Lady to help me in anything.I was far from being pampered though.If I was in wrong ,she would help me but I would get her wrath real good.She has the kindest heart of anyone I know .She helps anyone who needs help and like always forgetting her needs which are many.Her children ( my Sister and myself ),and grandchildren and great grandchildren and friends of hers love her enormously.For her name in this forum we will use Babusia which is Grandmother in Ukrainian.
ya liubow Babusia nazawz'dy meaning I love Gram forever.
dyakuyu-thank you.
The young Lady with my Ma is my daughter Kelly.

Tom Storer · April-2nd-2003, 10:06 AM

I think Mark Twain, Will Rogers and H.L. Mencken would be right at home in the Alley.

Monte,

"Tom, a Canon scanner costs $99."

So? I'd have to sacrifice more than my monthly CD budget! Impossible.

April-2nd-2003, 10:11 AM

Canuck Don, let's take your mom and daughter out of the green room and do them justice...

Jimmy Cantiello · April-2nd-2003, 10:22 AM

Another one of my nominees.............

April-2nd-2003, 10:24 AM

Oscar?

Jimmy Cantiello · April-2nd-2003, 10:26 AM

The one and only............

April-2nd-2003, 10:29 AM

Then we might as well throw in Esther Williams, Ethel Smith, and Carmen Miranda...no?

Jimmy Cantiello · April-2nd-2003, 10:31 AM

Sure, why not? There's nothing like diversity.............

April-2nd-2003, 10:33 AM

Then we could toss in Ethel Merman, and destroy the thread!

steve(thelil) · September-28th-2003, 06:05 PM

I vote this guy in

steve(thelil) · September-28th-2003, 06:07 PM

and this guy

steve(thelil) · September-28th-2003, 06:08 PM

forget that guy. This guy

September-28th-2003, 06:38 PM

Like Monte, I owe a lot to my grandfather, who was his youthful self until his death, at 90. Here he is in 1922, an officer in the Royal Danish Navy.

patricia · September-28th-2003, 07:39 PM

At the risk of being totally sappy, I'd like to nominate my late father to the Honourary List.

He was born and raised in Norway, but he finished college and set off, speaking no functional English, to make his fortune in Canada when he was nineteen. He decided that his fortune lay in B.C. and he had an uncle who lived in Vancouver. He travelled alone, across Canada, by rail, and often told me that he lived on donuts and coffee because he couldn't order anything else in English.
Because of that, he worked as millworker until he learned to speak passible English. He then learned how to be a carpenter and then a fine cabinet maker, then joined the Army at the beginning of Canada's involvement with World War 11 in 1939.
He had moved to the Central Interior of BC by then and was dating a young woman, who turned out to have a cousin in London. So that he would have someone to contact because he was going to be stationed there, his girlfriend gave her cousin's address and phone number to my dad. He looked the cousin up, a woman several years older than he was and she turned out to be my mother.
She loved classical music and he was a jazzer, although his family were quite well known in classical music circles. A couple of them were composers of some note. The rest of them were atheletes and teachers. My aunts combined the two and were gymnastics instructors. My father, following in his father's footsteps, was a well-known ski-jumper in Norway and then in Canada. His trophies littered our house when I was growing up. One of my Saturday chores was to polish them so I probably thought there were more than there actually were.

I still remember how much Dad treasured his jazz records. He kept them pristine in a locked cabinet. When mother would go out, Ellington, Pops and all the other musicians whose music he loved would blare in the house. There were many pictures of Dad, around the house, in his spiffy pin-stripes and fedora, with various rather comely lasses at jazz clubs all over Canada, the U.S. and London. He was a fun guy, clearly.

I am what I am because of his influence, good or bad and I still miss him. I particularly miss his intelligence, his humour and his compassion. He was up and around and very rakish mustache in his eighties and still had an eye for a well-turned ankle, until he died at ninety-two.

I was very close to my father and were he still here, he would have much to discuss with the members on this board and he KNEW STUFF about music and had lived the Jazz Age and would love it here.

Dr Dave · September-28th-2003, 08:55 PM

One grandfather was a railroad man for the Chicago and Northwestern, and was known never to use two words when one word would do. He named one of his sons "Gordon" and proceeded to call him "Jim" until his dying day. He was noted mainly for being irascible with children.

The other grandfather was an inventor and a drunk, dead at 40.

Neither of them would have any use for The Alley.

GoodSpeak · September-28th-2003, 09:48 PM

My Mom.

She was a lover of children and a patient Saint.

She never got to see either of my kids because she died the year before [almost to the date] of our first born.

She would have loved this place. An artist that never was and a creative genius squelched by the 50s and 60s mentality...she could definitely relate to what happens here. And she was spunky enough to fire back...what a great Gal ;-)

I miss you, Mom.

Very much.

Pete C · September-29th-2003, 12:54 AM

EXTRA! MARCEL DUCHAMP ABANDONS ART TO POST FULL TIME ON JAZZ CORNER

graypencil · September-29th-2003, 01:38 AM

Davey Tough: a very literate, witty , ironic ranconteur ..from what little I've read from
him ...

It's not too late.. to get Artie Shaw to participate

Tom Storer · September-29th-2003, 02:13 AM

Based on evidence in Bill Crow's indispensable "Jazz Anecdotes," I nominate the one-armed trumpeter Wingy Manone, who would introduce his own part in anecdotes he told with the phrase "Now here comes Wingy!"

moneyp · September-29th-2003, 02:17 AM

I don't know about all you people inviting your parents to join. Think of what you couldn't say on here.

steve(thelil) · September-29th-2003, 07:43 AM

I could serve as a liason to the parent and grandparent community to ease the transition.

patricia · September-29th-2003, 09:16 AM

steve(thelil)'s offer, to serve as a buffer between us and our parents and grandparents, while it is generous, wouldn't be necessary for me. My parents, while very proper, owned senses of humour and nothing surprised them.
They went with the flow. If any of you ever wondered why you seldom see me post swear words, that came from them. They weren't straight-laced fuddy-duddies. They just considered base vulgarities as lacking imagination. My three brothers and I learned how to deliver an insult by deliberately avoiding swearing, but getting our point across nontheless.
My father could stop conversation cold without using one base vernacular.
I miss that about him, but he would love it here.