Can you imagine our second grade teach, P.S. 208 ‘s Mrs.Bautzer, trying to align our left handed penmanship to the conforming calculus of the Brooklyn’s dominant right handedness as thou depression laden yesterdays weren’t enoughfor a breath of fresh air, no less accord conformity.
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But she persisted not unlike Roy Eldridge on his horn, hssignature birthdays repeating the body and soul of his tatt tt tat through the same cosmos she attributed our rebellious nature…….playing ringaleveo, jumping rope, tick tack toe,getting caught up in a pickle, running back and forth, avoid being tagged “out”!
Punch ball with the Linksman kids from the corner houe on Avenue B and East 92nd Street……Izzy, Irving, Manny and their sisters Rosy and Pearl. Their mother a master chef, inviting “Hubsy” in for a grand feast, while our own mother fought her way thru Pitman shorthand, while scraping a few bucks as a steno to Jimmy Cagney’s vaudeville booker Erlanger and Blackin I the Big Apple.
Flo Zigfield and Molly Picon, Sophie Tucker, Ethel Merman,Billy Rose waiting in the wings. Molly’s posters plastered on theChurch Avenue Utica Avenue lampposts
The Roy Eldridge horn toot tooting away into in to his universe of “free” association. Cryptic muse over the 1909 lifeline gigs.…...
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But how could a six year old kid know that left handedness wasa stigma in a right handed conventional battleground where theAdlers demonstrated their stage presence in Yiddish theater downtown. Jimmy Cagney of RedHook, hoofing it, steno Esther,his Pitman scribe as a steno taking the whole “Wabash stomp”swing era in. (Chicago’s “Little Jazz”, improvising the upper register into Hollywood…”Ball of fire” Barbara Stanywck, GaryCooper gig.. .
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From the Hotel Pennslyvnania and Gene Krupa on the drums, Anita O’Day warbling ”Green eyes” Roy Eldridge on his trumpet…..”the Wabash Stomp the Florida Stomp The big fat momma”…Jelly Roll Morton..Dixie Land. On 54thStreet…..Jimmy Dorsey coming to hear “the Bird”.
Into New Jersey’s Fort Lee, Gene Krupa on his drums as the leader, Roy Eldridge toot tooting…a jam session “You ain’tgone so long” (up tempo)….”the “Stomp” and its beats in cadence, Krupa into his dissonance ,the beats smashing….. Frank Sinotra caught his Hoboken dream on Major Bowes amateur hour at the Capitol Theater on Broadway..
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But getting back to the second grade teach at P.S.208, wrapped up in right handed conformity, yet the left handedness……..”Route 23 on the New Jersey Turnpike, just 15 miles from New York City”…..
Who cares if Charlie Parker, Roy Eldridge, Gene Krupa is left handed? Not Lefty Gomez, the Yankee ace southpaw….. Post Gas House Gang…Harry “the Cat” Brecheen? Howie Pollet?
Unregimented, improvising..
Southpaw Andy Petite?, the retired Yankee southpaw, with the menacing pickoff move at first base.
Left handed genius, Mrs Bautzer? Right handed conformity? Whether the winds blow. Swing the boogey.. Whether we go….the New Jersey Palisades….…..the upper registeraggressive cat A Chik Webb audition! at the Savoy Ballroom....
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In the Anita O’Day sound, Ella Fitzgeralkd was promoted by Norman Granntz of L.A.’s Boyle Heights, her lefthandedness…., the clubs and hotels “Sorry, the gig is fillede”her vocals left handedness “The man I love” Pearl Bailey, the post WW 2 airs not yet tolerating the sounds of Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne Ethel Waters recognized for what it was….. “Cabin in the Sky”!
….Hazel Scott’s celebrated Cotton Club …a fresh breathe of air in the land. .Roy Eldridge’s `104th birthday.
Left handedness in a right handed orbital universe 8 decades later?.
“Say it ain’t so, Satchmo?”.
January 30, 2015. The City that never sleeps on trumpeter Roy Eldridge’s 104th …
