I Was Doin' Allright


 If you click the above image you'll hear one of my favorite songs of all time, from the master, Dexter Gordon, who starred in the movie 'Round Midnight




Which, if you haven't seen, and you even remotely like jazz, you oughtta. OMGosh it's a great film.
Where I am these days we're heading into what they have dubbed June-Gloom. It's the last cool respite before summer hits Los Angeles. When I lived on the East Coast I was seldom a fan of rain, but in Los Angeles, rain, gloom, it's sort of for pretend, not real, like so many other things, and you can put on your role for the day, whether it be like Singing in the Rain, or Jazz for a Rainy Afternoon, another favorite jazz album of mine.
When I began writing, I was probably in third grade, and started writing skits along the lines of my two skit heroes at the time, Lilly Tomlin and Flip Wilson. My skits starred either a Charlie Chaplin like character, or a crotchety old lady years ahead of Momma from Carol Burnett, but just as mean. Both characters were incredibly clumsy, and I was (I guess) good at falls, ridiculous, and I used to rope my friends into performing them with me (they were always the Abbotts to my Costello), and my teacher, Miss Morrison, probably as tall and blond as a woman could be, and my ideal of perfection, always let me perform them in the class. In my early 40s I found my report card from her class, and it had something written in it about my grades not being what they should be, and me being down, and was there anything she could do. I remembered, in a flash, that was the year my sister was born, and my father was off with a girlfriend, and my mother was not coping, and my brother was discovering how alcohol and weed could help with parents like that, and I was writing comedy. Or, should I say, comedy gold. Am I right? 😉 I remember the class loving it, but also not being picked for the dodgeball team until last, so it was probably a mixed bag. 

In high school, and during my BA degree, I was writing short stories and plays, not for sharing, except with my teachers, and, in the 80s in Philly, who did you share your one-act plays with anyway? My favorite playwright may have been Eugene Ionesco
and I think my favorite play was THE RHINOCEROS, and I remember one summer directing it in the park at my local library (my friends taking the parts), to a crowd of eights, or maybe nines; there might have been nine people there. I believe one friend wrote music to go with it that she played on her electric piano, and the library wondered why they'd set up the stage.

There is a certain can-do attitude I seem to have had my whole life that I can't quite seem to shake which is probably why I'm swamped with a publishing company being run by two hapless fools who love reading, but that's for another day.

At some point after college, working with people with developmental disabilities, but having no where to go career-wise, and though I loved the people, the paperwork of social work will drown you and is boring as f~, I made the move to grad school. And in grad school, at my little suburb college that was mostly for jocks who wanted to become gym teachers, there happened to be one heck of a teacher, poet Christopher Buckley. There are two Christopher Buckleys who write(go figure), but this one is mine. And, because it was so small, it offered poetry in the fall, and fiction in the spring. And I (aside from some filthy limericks), had never written poetry. And so I needed to write some poetry, People.

And that is where I turned to my new obsession (having moved on from Eno, Bowie, and Iggy) jazz.
I don't know how I found jazz, but it was just what I needed for my poetry, very specifically, and for my writing in general.

It's about the music, and how the writing gets done. I'm obsessed with music. I tortured my poor child on the ride to school this morning with the following: Suzanne Vega, Beatles, Radiohead, Tracy Chapman, Nirvana,  and Death from Above 1979. I was trying to teach her something about music and mood. She said that none of them were bad, and none of them were good either. A diplomat.

But because I am so obsessed with music, if I can sing it, I will sing it, and when I am singing someone else's words, I cannot write my own.

And, so jazz. Not as dramatic as classical, not dentist-office or The Living Strings, though I have two of their albums too. And not modern jazz. The old, with brushes on the drums kind of jazz. And it can be light, like Brubeck, or heavy, like Davis, or somewhere nice and worn down in the groove, like Dexter Gordon.

My very first poem I wrote was about jazz, actually, about how streetlights, at night, when you're in the car, are a type of jazz, familiar and improvisational all at the same time, and they mark out time as you drive, especially if you drive over the New Jersey highways that have the gaps in them so that the car bumps, dah dah dum, dah dah dum.... and on you go, excited, or bone weary, maybe warm in your body, or gone from it: in the clouds looking down on your own route home. My first poem began life as a short story, but it was about atmosphere more than plot, and I had been unable to finish it. Then Buckley gave me one week to hand in a poem, and there you have it. It was three pages long. I remember, when it was my turn, sitting in the workshop, to read the poem. There was like 30 of us there, and Chris didn't really know any of us, and we sat in a huge circle, and he looked  around the room, everywhere but me, to see who he thought had written the poem, and he never looked at me, and then finally he asked, "Who is Dianne Pearce?" And I put up my hand, and he raised an eyebrow at me, and his face crunkled, and I thought I was already failing. And after class he stopped me to introduce himself, and tell me that I had written a good poem, and to ask if I could keep it up. And for Chris I could keep up anything. And he laughed in my actual face a few times when I wrote crap. No one was precious, nothing was precious, but the words on the page. That also helped. It's the honesty that makes us love someone, not the gifts. Or the honesty is the gifts. Who knows? I started studying poetry anyway folks, dropped fiction for quite some time and plays all together, all because my college offered poetry first. Well, and Chris, and jazz. Maybe poetry is how I can make music.

Jazz, and especially my guy Dexter, helps all of my writing. It keeps me conscious of my own pacing and my own loose grasp of form. And it settles me down into the work, when there are so many other things calling to me, especially, now that I work as a publisher and editor, there are so many pieces better than mine calling to me, that it makes it hard to justify the space for my own writing. But Dexter is my signifier; he tells me it is my time to put my wheel in the old groove on the vinyl, and see where we get.

Does music help you at all? I'd love to hear.






Comments

Neil McGowan said…
Hi Dianne, great post. I'm a firm believer in music helping the creative process, and, similar to your car ride selection, my tastes are eclectic - I've played brass in a band, guitar in a rock band, and nowadays seem to mostly pick classical to listen to (I find lyrics can distract hence preferring instrumental music). I came to jazz quite late, in my mid-forties, and whilst I do appreciate it now, I always think I've barely scratched the surface of it.

I've tried writing without music, but it just feels wrong, too dry (currently working my way through a Mozart symphony cycle even writing this). There's something about music you enjoy (whatever the genre) stimulating the creative juices.
Dianne Pearce said…
Thank you Neil for reading, and your comment! My daughter and I are huge Mozart fans, so we're with you on that.
Mentioning Mozart made me also think... I am a whistler, which seems to be a lost art. I whistle A Little Night Music all the time.
Do you whistle as well as play? I never had good dexterity in my fingers (I'm a terrible typist), but wish I could play an instrument!
:)
Dianne
Peter Leyland said…
Hi Dianne,

Lots in this.I used to work behind the bar at The Stables here in England run by Johnny Dankworth, now dead, and Cleo Laine, where they had Jazz every Friday night. I am a massive Beatles fan and in my last post (May 2nd) I wrote about them. If I knew how to do what you did with Doin' Allright, I would have put Arthur Alexander's 'Anna' next to the article. As I say in my piece, it was covered by John Lennon on The Beatles' first LP.

You mentioned The Rhinoceros by Ionesco and I looked back at that. It is a really appropriate play for my country at the moment which is becoming very right wing, some would say 'fascist' concerning immigration, and I can also see this in America's Trump.

But my real music love is Bob Dylan who I have seen any number of times. As he is a Nobel Prize winner for Literature I expect I will someday be writing on this site about him.

Thanks for a great post.

Dianne Pearce said…
Peter! "You say he loves you more than me, so I will set you free. Go with him."

I love that song so very much. And "Misery" too. I am partial to early Beatles myself. AND Bob Dylan is another love of mine (maybe"Visions of Johanna" is my favorite), and I just went and read your post. What lucky bastards those students were!
Your mom sounds nice. And now I have to find your Macca post. He was supposed to marry me, back in the day, but he hooked up with some photographer when I was in kindergarten, dammit.

We were 3 kids in my family, one born in the 50s, now gone, one born in the 60s, and one born in the 70s. It was my brother, born into the 50s, who got me into all good music (minus the jazz), and had a Rolling Stones cover band for most of his life. He used to do "Dead Flowers" for me whenever I was able to go see them play. My sister, born in the 70s, rebelled against the good taste of her older siblings. She loved metal bands and big hair. You can't win 'em all....

I remember in the 80s being supremely worried about the state of my nation due to Reagan. But the Trump years are worse, and yes, Ionesco, Albee, they're very relevant again. I should probably re-read some Vonnegut. Everyone should. Are you guys having massive book-banning campaigns? We are.

If you're reading this, World, go write a book that's gonna get you banned.
Peter Leyland said…
That's great reply Dianne, witty and serious at the same time. The 'A Meeting with Macca' post was on January 2nd 2022 and you will find it if you scroll back. Visions of Johannah, well yes 'I was there' as they say and it was/is a great favourite.

The Trump years: I really have to thank you Dianne for reminding me about that play Rhinoceros. It just has so much relevance for what is happening today in our countries. There is no book banning here thank goodness but I have heard about those in the States. I even read that To Kill a Mockingbird was banned in some places. The play of the book, shown in London, was the subject of one of my recent posts.

Don't get me wrong. I love America and have travelled there, once taking a 15 day Greyhound trip and stopping in New Orleans. There I heard Blueberry Hill by Rocking Dopsie and The Cajun Drifters. Unforgettable.

Music and poetry and novels. You have them all. Thanks for replying

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