1957-05-18 — Page 5

یکه این نوید

Chapter 7

Count

Badie

e

M

العملة

14

[THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1957.

Pard 5

LL good things have A the bubit of coming to

an end; and the Basie band Was no exception. What would have happened if it had not been for Adolf Hitler is anybody's guess. But the war came. Many musicians joined the urmed forces. Many bands broke up.

The Bacle band was, quitaya time in folding. It Bucces continued for it while, with concerts at Carnegie Hall among its most outstanding contribu- tions to the mudcat scene.

In 104), the band was rejds- tered nfth in Down Beat's an- nual Swing Poll.

+

By 1942, as Hasle's style de- veloped sill further, the band began to feature colos closely integrated with the ensemble.

The music became suave, The reeds and brass were killel in bumorous and wrestle tonal

nections. Basie's rhythm often breathless and frenetic kept him on the way to commer- cial sucesi.

Music critic Wilder Hobson wrote: "In small and informal places, such as Negro exuntay" club in New Jervey “The Shady Rest” ~Basic's group gave examples of the most ex- elling large band playing.

The band played with aps parent effortleness, 14 men attacking as freely and spirited- ly as ve might "do, always giving a sense of ample ressive power."

In 1942, when the band joined the William Morris Agency, bookings were lined

-for months ahead.

In 1043, the band was fea- tured in two films, "Revetlle for Beverley,"

and "Hit Parade."

AYAL ACADÉPI

HANGING

COMMITTER

ROVAL ACADEMY OPENE

SIR ALF TRIE

WAS HAND AT 64GATI

'Woll, what's the verdict this yoar hang the hanging committee? Hang everybody? Or abolish hanging altogether?"

TOO MUCH FUSS-

IKE the spring flowers, that sleepy building in Picadilly comes to life. Flags fly. Big A cars pull into the courtyard. And as the Royal Academy blooms again the tinkle of cocktail glasses mingles with the big names of the art world.

Art is smart, and the Royal Academy nowadays has a following even in homes where the curtains clash with the carpets Painters and sculptors are invested with the glamour of film stars-and more awe.

Personally.

think

ridi-

colous furs

Many of the band's Tumbers nade about were now regarded as jazz clas-them

by HARRY FIELDHOUSE

I think pictures an be ctelites with refusing to be

sies, among them, of course, statues are absurdly over-valued, put off by others' indifference. their theme tune, "One O'Clock and that the social presalge

The British military attache in

FAR too much-

ABOUT ARTISTS!

Generations of art students Vermeer was thought to be the have struggled to copy this artist became mere curios when

they were found to be humble Van Mergeren.

cffect.

But, alas ferr their teachers!

The cleaners recently went to work on the picture, And when the grime of canturies bad been removed it was found that the

aleture had nothing to do with

The night, but was in fact an *fternoon reene.

The FAKE artist

by

The STARTER man

WHY do I mention these illus Wtrations? To demonstrate that the intellectunt pretendons that make art so fashionable are spurious enyway..

more than any man since Henry Ford to spread notoring to the millions. But Kettering," now at his eighties

for and retired, years drew a fet salary us a vice president of General Motory.

Whittle too made a killing out of his jet engine-he received a Government award of £100,000. Inventors who die in poverty, like Baird of TV fome, are now

Fare.

I

A design at the beach must That does not appease me.

and glory pens the crucial test of whether want to see honour

Jump." "Jumping at the Wood-necorded to the Academy von Bene, whom they first tried to gUIERE was a similar shock for it works. ́ ́ A design at the easel for all these benefactors, as well

de," "Every Tub," and "One,

Two, Three O'Lairy.

Basie en many dises with Benny Goodman's Chamber Music group, and

with also Benny's Sextet. One of the best-remembered ides frum these sessions is a number made by the Sexlet—~“I'v@ Found

a New Baby."

Eut war or a war, 1943 was ane of the happiest years in the Count's life. For it marked the sequel of a chance meeting which occurred back in 1932 when he was in New York City playing plane with Bennie Molen's Orchestra

They

were playing at the

Theatre. Lafayette

which in- cluded a girl show. And in the chorus

a Rae chocolate- skinned giri, called Catherine,

Catherine was then working with the Whitman Sister:. After the show, the Count chat- tod with her and found they had a lot in common.

was

But it was not unlit some time latur in Kansau City that they met again. They worked to- gather at the Harlem Club. By this time, Catherine was doing speciality dances; the Count was sill with Moten.

The Count never was a be liever in rushing things are ticularly when it came to such a decisive slep as getting mar- ried. But, 11 years after the first meeting. he decided plunge.

"We were married by a judge it was nothing elaborate," re- calls Catherine. That was on August 21 the Count's 37th birthday.

The next year, Catherine gove birth to a daughter, Diane, who was to be their only child.

After four years of fo in Jurnished apartments round Count about the country, the bought a lovely home in St. Albans, Long Island, where he has remained to this day.

The war, and the ensuing col- lapse of jazz, finally destroyed what was left of the original band in the late Forties, The Count went on the road with a amall group, and toured America.

e more appropriate To 100

British lundries Far or new Design Centre.

interest in their discovery, told the the

them to e back after the war!

Its at the man in the smock who should

birl be honomed the man in the overał.

For This is the age of the lubatory, not the studio, And it

experts when Van Mregeren confessed to having forged a set of Vermeers.

Then, overnight, paintings I say that ne Muller is worth

Academyful of painters of reclaimed as masterpieces when coloured patterns and carvers of symbolic shapes.

111

is tune the chemists, the The CUSHION man

the electricions engineers, and who are transforming modern were given the social Living precedence their efforts deserve,

The DDT man

you

name--Paul GIVE Muller. Try it out in the pub ont a party. You will be lucky to find one person in a roomful

who has heard of it.

Yet this name belongs to n

BELIEVE that a man named E. A. Mercy and the team of Dunlop workers who devised latex-foam cushioning have con- tributed more to the well-being of their fellow-creatures thu all the works of Picasso put to- gether.

And if anyone suspects me of against the discriminating modem masters, let me ndd that the invention (by an 1.C.I. inboratory staff at Northwich,

whone discovery ha Cheshire) of polythene, the gay brought health to thousands who plastic that is brightening bath- ending breakages, formerly lived in simi-permaneet rooms and

seems to me to be infinitely more meritorious than the Mona Lisa. Dr, for that matter, then Rem- brandt's Night Watch:

Nickness.

Muller, and th: Gelgy Arm he worked for, are the Swiss originators of DDT, the insecti- elde that has wiped out the

I remember being taken to see Bularia mosquito in large tracts the Night Watch in Amsterdam of the earth, to say nothing of when I was a child. I thought ridding the kitchen of flies.

it an impressive picture, as 1 still do. And I remember being Not only did the Gelgy tum asked to observe in particular appreciate the immense potential Rembrandt's skill in depicting of their find but they must niso evening light.

ART TEDDY-BOYS

Taking the mickey

out of Jahn James Van Dyck

I want to hear the need pass no agreed test at all. as eash.

cocktail glasses Unkle

to their The pubile

may never give comes. + thought

Charles F

want to see the smartness Kettering, who invented the taken out of art, and, the

and thereby self-starter,

did stuffiness out of selence.

‚"HATURE OF BEAUTY

movement

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