October 13th: Art Tatum's 100th Birthday

I first heard about Art Tatum almost forty years ago. I read about him in a book by Leonard Feather. Like other critics and jazz authorities, Feather described Tatum as a genius and master non-pareil of the jazz piano. After reading that, I searched around record stores in Montreal for a Tatum album ( this was the early 60s) and found one, the name of which I have forgotten. I listened to it multiple times, and was confounded and befuddled, and not sure what the fuss was all about.

On the album, Tatum payed, as he almost always did, solo, and favoured syrupy standards to which I didn't relate very well, way back then. There were songs such as "I Surrender Dear" and "When Your Lover Has Gone". They weren't the best known tunes in the great American songbook, and I had never heard them before - not knowingly, at any rate.

In any case, I was not fond of Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Dinah Shore, Judy Garland middle-aged peoples' music at that time. It was one thing for Miles Davis to deconstruct "Bye Bye Blackbird" at the Blackhawk in Chicago, in such a way that one forgot the sentimentality and cheesy lyrics of the original. (Footnote: I no longer eschew the lyrics of such standard tunes. Au contraire, I appreciate their lyrical and poetic worldview). It was another for Perry Como to oh-so-smoothly croon those standards, wearing his trademark cardigan, and making all the housewives swoon. I have a lot more time, now, for the classic singers of standards than I did in my teens. They seemed embarrassingly sweet and sentimental to me then, at a very unsentimental stage in my own life.

To me, it seemed that Tatum's approach these corny, old pop tunes was closer to the commercial world of Perry Como and his ilk that to the jazz world of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. It took a while for me to understand that Tatum specialized in what one writer, in a very different context, called "impacted fractionalism". What Tatum was doing was, seemingly, playing the songs straight, while slipping in a mind-boggling panoply of out-there musical innovations woven into the interstitial ornamentations that he threw away so effortlessly.

Just imagine a work of fiction, that, on the face of it seems like conventional, chronological, 19th century narrative. All very familiar and predictable, except for one wrinkle: the author has included extensive footnotes, written in a wildly experimental fashion, presaging or echoing Joyce,Lowry, Kafka, Hawkes, Kerouac, Eliot, etc. You can still just read the conventional "story" and have it make sense. The author has cleverly consigned all his/her literary innovations to the margins, in that way allowing his novel to appear to be nothing more than another commercially acceptable work of conventional storytelling.

That is what Tatum was up to, either by accident or design (or, maybe, a little bit of both). He played pop tunes of his time, and entertained folks who were used to what Dave McKenna, in describing himself, called "saloon pianists". He made no pretense of being a pure artist, re-thinking and de-constructing the repertoire. Tatum just played away, as though he had no higher purpose than entertaining us. But, laced into those entertaining readings of the standards, were complex Rococo runs, ornaments, obbligato and "trompe-d'oeil" tricks, (where he seemed to be wandering away from the form, while all the while keeping a steady beat and never losing track of the underlying harmonic sequence).

At times one can easily find Tatum's playing overly flamboyant and technically over-wrought. It seems, sometimes, like he is cooking with too much sugar and spice -- and maybe flambé-ing his dishes in cognac to wretched excess. A jazz broadcaster once told me that after listening to Tatum she sometimes feels like brushing her teeth!

But the more you listen; the more you hear -- and the more you realize that, hiding just behind the smiling, effervescent entertainer, was a great and inimitable artist. Like so many great artists of the jazz world his candle burned too bright and for too short a time. He died, if memory serves me right, more than half a century ago, in part, victim (they say) of his own prodigious appetite for alcohol - especially beer, in industrial quantities. Fortunately, he left an extensive record of his genius on disc, now more available in CD reissues and other more avant-garde forms than when I was in my teens, searching for anything he recorded.

Had he lived, October 13th, 2009 would be Tatum's 100th birthday. Happy Birthday Art. We're still entertained, and blown-away, by your timeless and always-brilliant takes on those old, corny and sentimental tunes.

Working on Peace can Mean Getting Attacked by Hardliners on Both Sides

Bob Rae’s expulsion from Sri Lanka is a reminder of how a peace process that seemed so promising when it started seven years ago, went so wrong.

In 2002 the Sri Lankan government lifted the ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as part of a comprehensive peace process. Violence, for the most part, ceased. Trade and commerce between the predominantly Tamil North and East and the rest of Sri Lanka could resume and security restrictions imposed on all Sri Lankans were relaxed.

Canada was deeply involved in the peace process largely through the work of the Canadian-based international network on federalism, the Forum of Federations.
The Forum provided information and counsel on how some sort of federal arrangement might be able to square the circle for Sri Lankans. A federal arrangement could afford a significant measure of autonomy to the Tamils, while maintaining the unity of the country.

Canada provided one model of a federal system that peacefully and democratically accommodates diversity. Other models included Switzerland, Spain (despite its ongoing difficulties with Basque extremists), and Sri Lanka’s giant neighbour, India.
Mr. Rae was deeply involved in that work, both as Chair and acting President of the Forum, and as one of the experts who worked on the ground in Sri Lanka and at the various venues, in Europe and Asia, where the negotiations took place.

As the Forum’s Director of Public Information at the time I had a ring-side seat to this effort. It is remarkable now to remember how courteous and relaxed the main negotiators for both sides were with each other. The Sri Lankan Minister leading the Government team, G.L. Peiris, would casually address his Tamil counterpart, Anton Balasingham, by his first name, and one almost had the impression that they were old friends. There seemed to be a genuine willingness on both sides to come to a political solution that would reinvent a country torn by more than two decades of civil war.

Now. the Sri Lankan government accuses people such as Bob Rae of being LTTE sympathizers. That’s ironic because during the peace process the Forum got much more criticism from LTTE supporters and sympathizers, especially here in Canada, than from those on the Sri Lankan government’s side. This happened because Forum experts, especially Mr. Rae, did not shy away from vigorously criticizing the LTTE and its leadership. In public and private statements, Bob Rae and others were blunt in pointing out to the Tamils that a meaningful federal solution would require major compromises on their side as well as on the government’s.

The Forum’s experts repeatedly argued to the Tamils that federalism and democracy go hand in hand. While a federal solution would require that the Sri Lankan government accept devolution of power to other orders of government, it would also mean the LTTE would have to change. It could not expect to rule any newly created Tamil territory as a one-party, authoritarian state. The LTTE would have to embrace multi-party democracy; a respect for diversity, plurality and minority rights; the constitutional rule of law; and democratic principles such as freedom of speech and assembly. In addition – and Bob Rae was particularly insistent on this point – it would have to stop recruiting child soldiers and intimidating members of minority ethnic groups and Tamils who did not share their political views.

These words-to-the-wise were not always well-received. Especially in Canada, LTTE supporters were quick to attack any criticism of their movement and its leadership, through web sites and more direct means.

I recall a letter the Forum received from an elderly lady purporting to speak on behalf of a Tamil seniors’ organization. The letter took a very hostile and accusatory tone toward the Forum and Mr. Rae personally and said, in essence: “How dare you criticize the LTTE. The only bad guys here are the Sri Lankan government.” When I called the person who signed the letter, she was flustered, did not seem aware of its contents, and admitted that it had been written by others in the Tamil community who asked her to sign it.

There were those on the majority Sinhalese side who were also suspicious of our efforts. I had the chance to lead a speakers’ tour through Sri Lanka of journalists from a number of federal countries (including Canada’s Graham Fraser, then with the Toronto Star), where we showed a documentary film on accommodating diversity through federalism and held public question and answer sessions. The questions from Sinhalese participants – especially older men – were often quite pointed and sometimes verged on the hostile. They tended to see a federal solution as the thin edge of the wedge, a step to Tamil secession. When we managed to get younger and female participants to speak, we found attitudes that were much more open and flexible.

Looking back, now, the peace process seems like a golden opportunity that was lost. The hardliners on both sides probably always wanted to use the process more to gain advantage for themselves than to forge a genuine compromise. In the end they, and not the moderates, prevailed.

But Bob Rae and the others who tried to facilitate the process were hardly partisans for one side or the other. They tried to tell it like it is, and got bitten by both sides for their efforts.

Karl Nerenberg k_nerenberg@yahoo.ca

Just starting this blog. Will have time to sit down and enter stuff later.

kn