Praise Be

Of all the MGM musicals ever made, spanning over half-a-century, only 2 have been memorialized on a US postage stamp.  One is, unsurprisingly, The Wizard of Oz, which I have discussed on this blog before.  The other?  Not any of the usual suspects, like Singin’ in the Rain or The Band Wagon or Meet Me in St. Louis.  The only other film is King Vidor’s Hallelujah (1929).

That was part of a 5-item postal issue on early Black Cinema (also discussed in an earlier post) and Hallelujah is easily the most famous of the 5, and a seminal work in the genre because even with sound in the movies less than 2 years old, you can see Vidor pushing the aesthetic envelope.  There’s certainly a lot to dissect about the film, from its ground-breaking origins (it was one of the first Hollywood studio films with an all-black cast) to its troubled legacy because of the narrative it helped fuel about African-American stereotypes.

But something that makes this film stand out among musicals is also something it has in common with another all-black MGM musical 14 years later, Vincente Minnelli’s Cabin in the Sky (1943).  And that’s the unique role that religion plays in both films.  For integral to both films’ messages is the ways church and God, music and ritual are hard-wired into black culture.

Hallelujah is about a sharecropping family whose eldest son Ezekiel (Daniel L. Haynes) gets lured into assorted temptations (gambling, women) and it’s his religious rise as a rabble-rousing pastor and eventual fall from grace, a victim of his vices, that comprise the backbone of the film.  Throughout, we see that singing—in the cotton fields, with neighbors, in church and nightclubs—is an important part of the family’s life.  Musicals have often been criticized for being “unrealistic” in having their characters spontaneously burst out in song, but in Hallelujah, it feels completely normal because song and community are intimately entwined.  Music brings people together, providing inspiration and comfort in a hard-scrabble life and so all the music numbers have an almost naturalistic feel—both the traditional spirituals but also the ones written for the film (most notably “Waiting at the End of the Road”, by Irving Berlin).

Cabin in the Sky is actually pretty similar in that Joe (Eddie “Rochester” Anderson) has his soul fought over by competing angels and demons as he is also tempted by gambling and women and faces a troubled path toward redemption that isn’t without its own pitfalls and distractions.  While Hallelujah is presented as melodrama and cautionary tale, Cabin is played for laughs and uplift, but it also has musical numbers that take place in the wide array of African-American centers of community: church, juke joints, backyards and work gangs.  Here, the musical heavy lifting is done by the marvelous Ethel Waters, who sings the title tune as well as the Oscar-nominated “Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe” (by Harold Arlen and E.Y. “Yip” Harburg).  But she gets tons of great support by Lena Horne and cameos from Louis Armstrong (as a demon) and Duke Ellington.

But it’s interesting that when you look at the films, the churches act as spiritual centers and this is in sharp contrast to decades of mainstream Hollywood musicals that rarely use churches as much more than narrative devices.  Ezekiel whips his camp meeting congregation into a religious fervor, and while his personal story is one of backsliding and hypocrisy, the message of love and confession is one that touches a nerve in his flock (and which is upheld without irony by the rest of his revivalist family).  Joe’s afterlife in eternity is genuinely at stake and fidelity and responsibility are depicted as paths toward a better marriage and better living.  The square Rev. Green (Kenneth Spencer) may not be nearly as fun as Rex Ingram’s hilarious Lucifer, Jr., but he has Joe’s best interests at heart—not just to follow a set of prescribed rules but to improve Joe’s relationship with the devoted Petunia (Waters).

I’m hard pressed to think of many examples of the great canon of American musicals pre-1970 that touch on central religious themes that way.  Sure, churches are abundant for social gatherings or weddings (“What a Lovely Day for a Wedding” from Royal Wedding or “Get Me to the Church on Time” from My Fair Lady).  Bible stories are alluded to in song lyrics, from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’ “Sobbin’ Women” to Elvis singing “Hard Headed Woman” in King Creole.  But they’re little more than plot points, without any larger thematic resonance.  Heck, even Bing Crosby as a priest in Going My Way is rarely a fount of theological insight but rather a source of warm, friendly, homespun advice.  Ditto the nuns in The Sound of Music.

Which make Cabin and Hallelujah interesting to me, since they aren’t afraid to immerse themselves in the middle of a part of the American social fabric that most musicals are reluctant to touch.  Those other films may implicitly embrace what some might consider religious “values”, but Hallelujah explores the complex relationship between faith and character, and Cabin finds joy in spaces that can be both reverent and rambunctious.  Once the 70s kick in, we see stage adaptations like Fiddler on the Roof or Jesus Christ Superstar that more explicitly examine (and question) beliefs and traditions, but these early MGM musicals not only paved the way in bringing African-American casts and culture front-and-center to white audiences, but its worship sensibility, too.

Now, I did mention that only 2 MGM musicals have been depicted on a USPS stamp, but I should make a technical concession to Show Boat (1951, Sidney) for while the film itself is not on a stamp, the original Broadway musical is.

Hallelujah was released in time for the 2^nd annual Academy Awards, and it was King Vidor’s second Best Director nomination.  He would earn five in his career—a record number in that category for someone who would never earn a competitive one.  He did receive an Honorary Oscar in 1978.  His nomination for Hallelujah is unusual in that the director nomination was the only one the film received.  This has only happened a handful of other times since: The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, Alice’s Restaurant, Blue Velvet, The Last Temptation of Christ, Short Cuts and Mulholland Dr.

Cabin was Minnelli's first feature film, and he would go on to helm two Best Picture winners that were MGM musicals: An American in Paris and Gigi, the latter earning him a Best Director statue, too.

For more entries in this weekend’s MGM musical blogathon, go here.

-->

Luminous Beings

In what now seems a lifetime ago, I once had to go through tens of thousands of feet of 16mm behind-the-scenes footage from the original Star Wars trilogy.  Most of this was not shot on the set, but rather with the effects crew, model and creature shops, and other artists commonly known as “below the line” but critical to any movie’s success, especially those.  So you rarely saw much of the cast, but one memorable sequence was Carrie Fisher in her (in)famous slave bikini outfit from Return of the Jedi (1983, Marquand) sunbathing in the Arizona desert during a break, side by side with her similarly costumed stunt double.  And it was a jarring moment because you actually saw her interacting with another woman.

For let’s face it—the original three films are a sausage fest and Bechdel test nightmare.  There are only 3 female speaking parts in the whole trilogy—the short-lived Aunt Beru, the blink-and-you-miss her Mon Mothma (recently revived in the terrific Rogue One), and Princess Leia Organa.  So Carrie had to do the heavy-lifting for all 3 films when it came to female characterization, since she was both love interest and leader of the Rebellion.  Powerful, commanding, willing to stand toe-to-toe with anyone she came up against (Vader, Tarkin, Jabba) but also kind, caring, and authentic.  One of the highlights of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was seeing her back in action, still filled with authority and compassion.  The fact that the last two franchise films have had women at the center of the heroics is due in large part to her influence. 

Of course, since then she has also proven herself a witty writer and raconteur, smart aleck and cinematic sidekick, member of a vibrant-but-troubled Hollywood dynasty, an object lesson about addiction and an ambassador for destigmatizing mental health issues.  And she leaves us just a few months after her co-star Kenny Baker (who played R2-D2) and, tragically, one day before her mother Debbie Reynolds.

Just a month ago, I saw a sneak preview of Bright Lights (2016, Bloom/Stevens), a documentary about Carrie & Debbie.  It's a marvelous film in how it shows the once tumultuous mother-daughter relationship that evolved into one of deep love and support, but leavened with an enormous amount of playful ribbing, snark, and self-deprecation.  They had come to terms with the demons of the past and were both continuing to dive into creative pursuits fueled by wisdom and nostalgia.  So much of their personal bad luck and bad choices were scandal sheet fodder for so long, that there was little choice but to face the future with bravado and pluck.  The film follows each of them individually (Debbie rehearsing a one-woman show, Carrie attending a scifi convention), but the best parts are when they are together.  They come off as best of friends and savvy partners in crime, and it really did seem hard to imagine how one could exist without the other.  Both full of such indomitable spirit in the film, and both gone much too soon (Carrie at 60, Debbie at 84).

Another wonderful thing the film highlights is Debbie’s tireless campaign to save the artifacts of Hollywood history, particularly the costumes—not just of her films, but of films that predate her and that would have otherwise been thrown out by studio departments who were, back then, far less interested in preserving their past than making space for the latest productions.  Pieces that she purportedly saved over the years (through fundraising and her own backlot connections and initiative) include Charlie Chaplin’s bowler, Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra headdress, Marilyn Monroe’s subway grate dress from The Seven Year Itch, and Judy Garland’s Oz ruby slippers.

One of my favorite songs is “Graceland” by Paul Simon, who was once married to Carrie, and whose relationship with her is documented in that song (among many others).  It’s a song about renewal and second chances, and when I drove across country last year, I listened to the whole Graceland album as I approached Memphis to visit Elvis’s legendary estate of the same name.  In the song, Simon writes about his ex:

She comes back to tell me she's gone
As if I didn't know that
As if I didn't know my own bed
As if I'd never noticed
The way she brushed her hair from her forehead
And she said losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you're blown apart
Everybody sees the wind blow

Life is a pilgrimage and we should all be so lucky as to have it filled with grace (in both the poetic and spiritual dimension).  Yoda says to Luke, “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.”  2016 was a rough year for a lot of people for a lot of reasons.  May the road we take in 2017, portentous clouds notwithstanding, be filled with the light, courage, good humor and fierce resolve that they both embodied so well.

Carrie and Kenny share a USPS stamp, essentially, from the Star Wars issue back in 2007.  That is Scott #4143f .  The X-wing fighter is #4143m.  The Wizard of Oz stamp is #2445, Judy Garland #4077, and Yip Harbug #3905.  The music stamp from the American Filmmaking series is #3772d.  And Elvis is #5009.  Incidentally, the first film poster on a postcard I ever owned was a gift from my high school girlfriend.  It was for Singin’ in the Rain, still one of my favorite films ever.  I’ve included it here, along with the inscription she wrote on the back, since this whole blog & collection originated, in a sense, with her.

My 10 favorite films featuring Debbie*, Carrie+, or Kenny#.

1. Singin’ in the Rain (1952, Donen/Kelly) *

2. The Empire Strikes Back (1980, Kershner) +#

3. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986, Allen) +

4. Time Bandits (1981, Gilliam) #

5. Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989, Miyazaki) *

6. The Elephant Man (1980, Lynch) #

7. When Harry Met Sally… (1989, Reiner) +

8. Mona Lisa (1986, Jordan) #

9. Star Wars (1977, Lucas) +#

10. The Blues Brothers  (1980, Landis) +

 

2015 Yearly Wrap

Martin Ramirez set, Scott # 4968


Medal of Honor set, Scott # 4822b


Coastal Birds set, Scott # 4994.  California condor stamp (1971), Scott # 1430


Penguins issue, Scott # 4989


Summer Harvest set, Scott # 5007


Elvis Presley, music icon series, Scott # 5009


Ingrid Bergman, Scott # 5012


Paul Newman, Scott # 5020



A Charlie Brown Christmas set, Scott # 5025

An Aloha State

I’ve been to Hawaii twice. 

The first time, my family took one of those island-hopping cruise ships—still the largest boat I’ve ever been on, but tiny compared to some of the mega-liners that exist now.  I was in the throes of puberty and its typical self-loathing, and there seemed to be plenty of things to do for adults or kids, but not much in that limbo range of early adolescence.  I don’t remember much about the boat except playing chess with my dad in one of the lounges, and spending a lot of time in the movie theater they had on board, in the bottom of the ship.

They would loop the same movie all day, a different movie each day.  Usually, it was a bad contemporary movie (City Heat with Burt & Clint, Oh God, You Devil with George Burns) but they also showed Blue Hawaii (1961), my first real exposure to Elvis, since we didn’t have any of his music in the house growing up.  Directed by Norman Taurog (the only Oscar-winner who would helm The King), it wasn’t very good but it was my first exposure to Angela Lansbury outside of Murder, She Wrote (a staple in our home) and the first time I ever heard “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, the only decent song in the film.

Love and Romance, back then, were just an abstraction—seemingly unattainable, completely alien to how I saw my life, myself.  But overflowing with hormones, I was still swept up with the longing of it, if not the hope.  That song, so simple, talks about Fate, the sheer inevitability of feeling that happens when your heart is affected.  There’s no reciprocation in the song, no relationship.  It is simply confessional, embracing the truth that at the right time, the heart knows what it wants.  Even if it keeps that truth to itself.  I had grown up along the Pacific, but it had never seemed so big than when I was on that boat.  And me, so small.

The second time I was in Hawaii, I was married.  A good friend was a pilot for the now-defunct Aloha airlines and we paid him and his girlfriend a visit.  My wife and I loved taking road trips so all we did in our free time there was circle Oahu by car, stopping every couple miles to visit one magnificent (and deserted) beach after another.  At one point along the drive, we encountered what looked like the remains of a terrible plane crash—except there were no emergency response vehicles, but a more sedate bustle and a road block that cut our excursion short.  It wouldn’t be until the following fall’s television season that this mysterious sight would be explained.  But mostly, the two of us just used paradise to escape, with the beauty of the island surrounding us.  Honolulu held little interest.  This was about exploring and getting Lost together.

I’m not married anymore, but no talk about my past travels is adequate without discussing my ex.  Like I’ve said before, we made a good team, and that was no truer than when we explored the world together.  We had different interests and tastes, but the pace at which we took things complemented each other perfectly, and the world seems, in a certain way, smaller without her.  Left to my own financial devices now, it’s certainly more inaccessible.  I’ve been to some truly amazing places, but there are many I’d still like to visit someday.  Perhaps I will.

When I first stepped foot on Kauai, it was literally the most beautiful place I’d ever been in my life.  But I’ve been to the islands twice now, and other places call to me far more.  But more than that, there is something unique about Hawaii for me.  Distinctive in its nature.  Whatever travels I see in my future, I foresee doing them alone.  And that’s ok—I love traveling, exploring, discovering by myself.  Which is why I probably will never go back to Hawaii. 

Because Hawaii is different.  Hawaii is for sharing.


Top 10 places I've been with her
1. Paris, France
2. The Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
3. Budapest, Hungary
4. Bryce Canyon, Utah
5. Kruger National Park & safari across South Africa
6. Venice, Italy
7. Tokyo, Japan
8. Coastline of Maine, north of Portland
9. Barcelona, Spain
10. Siena, Italy

Top 10 places I've been without her
1. Amazon rainforest, Ecuador
2. The Catacombs - Paris, France
3. The Library of Congress nitrate film vaults - Dayton, OH*
4. Edinburgh, Scotland
5. Savannah, Georgia
6. 80 corridor, Wyoming
7. Kauai, Hawaii
8. The Tate Modern - London
9. Arlington Cemetery, Virginia
10. The Cat Cabinet - Amsterdam

*since relocated

10 places I still hope to visit one day
1. Machu Picchu, Peru
2. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
3. Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
4. Angkor Wat, Cambodia
5. Musee d'Orsay - Paris, France
6. Pordenone Silent Film Festival, Italy
7. High Sierra Camps, Yosemite Nat'l Park, CA
8. Santorini, Greece
9. Antelope Canyon, AZ
10. MLB Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY

The Classic Elvis stamp (Scott #2721) is paired with a Hawaii statehood stamp (#4415).  The Steamboat Geyser stamp was part of the Wonders of America series (#4059), here paired with another Yellowstone geyser, Old Faithful (#1053) and one celebrating the park itself (#744).

Sunset

She said we didn’t argue enough, and perhaps she was right.  We were best friends, and it was hard to stay mad at each other for long.  I can hardly remember a time when we let the sun go down on our anger.  As it probably should be.  But it also meant that things that needed to be talked about, weren’t.  They were perpetually shelved in the wake of our love and good feeling in each other’s company, left to be addressed (or not) for another day.

I don’t tell people when my birthday is.  It’s a date, a milestone that’s generally meaningless to me.  My age is a number that holds no real relationship to how I look or feel.  So I couldn’t care less about it.  At my last job, everyone would celebrate each birthday in our department, and after a few years, they noticed they never celebrated mine, so I told them that if they wanted to celebrate a date, then choose my wedding anniversary.  Because that was a date that held real value for me.  They never did.

It would’ve been 14 years today.  But now, it’s just a date like any other—one with plenty of memories and associations, but nobody with whom to share them.  Everyone thought we were a good couple, but what we actually were was a good team.  Our strengths played off each other well, and helped cover the things the other wasn’t so good at.  We started as colleagues, then quickly friends.  Before we were even a couple, she was the best friend I’d ever had.  Nobody understood me better, looked out for me more.  But a good couple has not just light, but heat.  Friction and frission.

Adam’s Rib (Cukor, 1949) is probably the most celebrated pairing of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.  It is about a married couple, both lawyers, who take opposing sides in a domestic violence case, highlighting and amplifying the hypocrisies and complications of gender roles and expectations in a marriage.  It was written by a married couple (Garson Kanin & Ruth Gordon) and Hepburn & Tracy’s ongoing love affair is one of the most venerated of the classical Hollywood era.  So the anxieties and nuances of being a couple are in the film’s DNA.

And there is a lot of arguing in Adam’s Rib.  Arguments in the courtroom and the bedroom—never cruel but very pointed.  The most dangerous thing about being a couple is that the other person knows you too well—your vulnerabilities and vanities, your soft spots and triggers.  We don’t like to be reminded of our flaws, our shortcomings, and nobody knows either better than the person we choose to spend the rest of our lives with.  But ironically, the things that flare our tempers also flame our desires--we may be humbled sometimes, but it often comes with a subcurrent of hot agitation.

Last spring’s Before Midnight is saturated in this state of marital tension.  While the first film in the Linklater/Hawke/Delpy trilogy, Before Sunrise, was about love’s possibilities and the second, Before Sunset, about love’s resonance, this third installment is about love’s consequences.  Choices.  Children.  Compromises.  We’ve never seen Jesse & Celine so at odds with each other, but never as sexual with each other, either.  Fighting and fucking are the yin & yang of their partnership, the way to build and release emotions that run deep, and a way to remind each other that passionate defenses and passionate rebuttals speak to passionate feelings that still rise to the surface and overflow.  It’s not my favorite film of the series, but it is the one that speaks the closest to me—of all the little details and dynamics I can relate to, and those I wish I could say I do after being married a decade, but can’t.

You can’t have great make-up sex if you never have a falling out.  Acceptance evolves into complacency, and a close affinity can slowly degrade and fester if it’s not challenged or fueled by disagreement.  We never really fought.  It wasn’t our style.  We had been friends for far too long and never tired of each other’s company.  Perhaps we were too eager to accept, too quick to forgive, too reluctant to provoke.  But an electric blanket is different than a roaring fire.  One is dependable and cozy while the other needs more watching and greater attention, but can accomplish so much more, even if it does involve frequent licking of one's wounds.  To be a good couple, there needs to be a balance between the two sets of qualities--compatibility and chemistry-- and a sense of direction, growth.  Otherwise, you’re just roommates with responsibilities and a shared romantic history—real enough, authentic and loving, but rudderless, and a shadow of what could be. 

I can’t speak for her.  All I know is that I was very happy in the restless way you get when you don’t know what happiness really feels like.  If we had fought more, we might’ve discovered this sooner and done something about it, for better or worse.  And while things happen for a reason, she deserved a better ending.  On that point, I'll always be guilty.  But Agape is not Eros, no matter how hard you wish it to be.  And when it came to Love, we were speaking different languages, so assured in our understanding of each other to notice any disconnect. 

The Katharine Hepburn stamp (Scott #4461) is paired with a jury duty one (#4200), while Frank Sinatra (#4265) is matched with a wedding ring stamp (#4397).  The stamp named Where Dreams Blossom from this year is Scott #4764.

Holiday

Given that he’s made nothing but crappy movies for the last 15 years or so, it’s easy to forget that Steve Martin used to be a small, cinematic treasure.  And revisiting The Jerk (C.Reiner, 1979) again, with its goofy unevenness, brought back to me a scene I had completely forgotten about: Navin and Marie (Bernadette Peters) singing the tender, poignant "Tonight You Belong to Me" on the beach, by firelight.

I’ve been told more than once that when it comes to music, I was born too late.  I don’t mind modern music, but the truth is that since I left college two decades ago, I’m exposed to it very little so don’t indulge in it much.  My heart truly belongs to the Great American Songbook and the great jazz singers of a bygone era.

But there’s something very curious about those songs that I love by Cole Porter and the Gershwins, Walter Donaldson and Rodgers & Hart.  I adore listening to them (and do so constantly), but never feel compelled to sing along to them.  My favorite sing-along album is We Shall Overcome, Bruce Springsteen’s covers of Pete Seeger songs, and if I ever do provide vocal accompaniment in my car, it’s usually to Johnny Cash or Marty Robbins. So the domain of classic folk and country are fertile territory for my (limited) vocal range.  But those jazz standards occupy a special place where I don’t feel entitled to tread.  

The USPS just announced that Cash will be getting his own postal issue this year.  And while many singing legends (Ella, Dinah, Frank, Patsy) got their own stamps years ago, it’s a tribute to his longevity that Cash was only recently eligible for the honor.  And while there are some legends of that time whom I’ve seen in concert (Blossom Dearie, Tony Bennett, Willie Nelson), I’ve always regretted never going to see him perform live.

We all, in our own ways, find connection and belonging through music, though most of what I listen to was made long before I was born.  Maybe that’s why one of my favorite musicals is Pennies from Heaven (Ross, 1981), also with Martin and Peters, because its entire soundtrack is full of these vintage beauties.  But as far as great musicals go, the film is still unusual because it inhabits the gulf between the fantasy life which music provides and the real life we actually face.  Throughout the film, nobody sings; rather, they all lip synch to those classics from the 20s and 30s.  But they never do these mimes as performers in the story.  What they do is lip synch in their own fantasy dreamscapes, psychologically allowing the songs to fill the ache, the emotional void that we feel every day but keep hidden.

As a result, I know of no other musical which is as heart-breaking, not because of the tragic things that happen in the plot, but because the movie reminds us how fundamental music can be to buoy our spirits and provide an escape valve for the darker truths that our choices and damaged lives represent.  I guess that’s why I never sing to those songs.  Because I’m too busy listening, inhabiting, breathing them in.  

But I love hearing them and have a sense of awe for people, professional or otherwise, who can sing them with such affection.  Singing in front of people solo is something I’ve never done (never even privately, one-on-one).  I always find safety in large numbers.  Church?  Fine.  Karaoke?  I’ve been tempted, but have never summoned up the courage.  Even the thought of such a simple duet as the one in The Jerk unnerves me—not  because I’m a bad singer (I’m not), but because it means opening up to something vulnerable (be it raw or playful) in myself.  That's something I rarely do.  Public speaking in front of large crowds scares some people but it’s never bothered me one bit.  But to sing is something different.  More naked.  Exposed.  Which is also why I admire people who can do it with joy and fearlessness.

But while solo singing might fill me with deep trepidation, there is something else that fills me with actual fear—and that’s the dentist.  I won’t go into the childhood trauma I had that’s resonated with me since I was very young.  My dentist at the time was not a sadist (unlike the musical Steve Martin from Little Shop of Horrors), but what happened still had an effect on me like few other moments in my life.  Even now, the closest I’ve ever had to a full-scale emotional meltdown as an adult was because of that chair.

But that fear has been tempered by one simple thing, and this, again, is where music sustains me.  For of all the singers I love, there’s one I never actually listen to for fun.  And that’s Billie Holiday.  I own her CDs, and while a jazz compilation may bring up a song of hers periodically, I never sit down for an hour of her music like I can do effortlessly with, say, Nina Simone.  And that’s because whenever I go to the dentist, it’s a Billie CD I listen to.  I discovered quickly that Ella’s warmth, Blossom’s flirtations, Nina’s soulfulness aren’t what work for me at that moment of dread.  Maybe that’s because they represent my own aural dreamscape of what I long to be and feel.

But Billie’s sadness, even in the face of love and redemption, have always spoken to me in a special way—not in how I long to feel, but how I usually do every day already.  And so that’s why I cherish her and secrete that voice away in my heart and head.  Because like anything that sweet and precious, I only bring her out at those times when I need to be so fortified and comforted.  So in that chair is when I need her the baddest, and treasure her the most.  Her blues are my solace and in her voice, my fear doesn't just take leave, but evaporates altogether.  Without fail.  There may be singers I love more, but none whom I rely on so fervently.  Fine and Mellow indeed.

The Billie Holiday stamp is Scott # 2856, Nat King Cole # 2852, Ella Fitzgerald # 4120.  The Jazz stamp is Scott # 4503.

If I had to list 10 songs from that school of songwriting which I revisit most regularly, I suppose I might pick these:

* "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens" (Kramer/Whitney) - Louis Jordan
* "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" (DeLange/Alter) - Billie Holiday
* "I Loves You, Porgy" (Gershwin/Gershwin) - Nina Simone
* "If I Had a Ribbon Bow" (Prince/Singer) - Maxine Sullivan
* "Mr. Meadowlark" (Donaldson/Mercer) - Bing Crosby & Johnny Mercer
* "Shine On Harvest Moon" (Bayes/Norwoth) - Betty Carter
* "St. James Infirmary Blues" (Primrose) - Cab Calloway
* "Stardust" (Carmichael) - Nat King Cole
* "They Say It's Spring" (Clark/Haymes) - Blossom Dearie
* "What'll I Do?" (Berlin) - Johnny Mathis

2008 Yearly Wrap

Bette Davis, Scott # 4350

Black Cinema series, including The Sport of the Gods, Scott #4337

Disney: The Art of Imagination issue, including 101 Dalmatians, Scott # 4342

Frank Sinatra, Scott # 4265