When
asked the other day if we should get tickets in advance I responded that nobody
would be there. Who would be interested in ancient musical shorts by completely
forgotten vaudeville performers?
Well,
obviously a lot of people. We arrived to discover tickets had already been all but sold out online,
and a line had formed for what seats remained. By the time the box office
opened, a huge crowd had gathered.
And
what a crowd! There were a considerable number of people who might have actually seen
vaudeville in person. But there were even more were younger fans, many dressed in antique
costumes from the 1920s through the 1940s. Or if not in costume, at least
wearing distinctly pre-21st century hats.
And then there were
Vitaphone fans, and old movie fans avid for novelties.
And then celebrities
like Leonard Maltin and Robert Downey, Jr. and entourage arrived, and the
atmosphere really got festive.
And
rightly so: it was a beautifully put together program. It was a history lesson
in the history of American vaudeville and its overlap with the history of
American movies.
And
it was also a lesson in aesthetics. The period 1927-9 brings to mind Al Jolson,
Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club, Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five, Fletcher
Henderson, Bessie Smith, and movies like The Jazz Singer, St. Louis Blues,
Hallelujah, Black and Tan Fantasy, and Disney’s jazz cartoons, etc. …. But that
is only if you look at pop culture as art, and focus on significant individuals
and works.
This
approach tends to ignore activity such as
- Val
and Ernie Stanton singing “Alice where art thou going?” about a girl so thin
she disappears down the bathtub drain,
- Carlena
Diamond playing the harp while tap-dancing,
- Harry
Fox delivering both a song and a soliloquy about towels,
- Frank
Whitman playing a violin with a match,
- Born
& Lawrence miming the words while they sing “Sleepy time gal,” etc. etc.
Watching
these performances captured by Vitaphone made me appreciate how far back in
time American the freak show extends. And just how vast and varied is the
American tradition of bizarre humor, outrageous gimmicks, folk dada/surrealism,
attention-getting stunts and public silliness. Marilyn Manson, Lady Gaga and Rush
Limbaugh are merely the latest editions.
This
was an overwhelming program, almost too much to take in.
My
favorite was probably the slapstick musical routine of husband and wife Myrtle
Glass and Jimmy Conlin, (before he became a Preston Sturges regular). Myrtle
tries to sing and keeps pushing Jimmy to the piano to get him to play. Pushing
him into the piano and all over it. Meanwhile guys behind the curtain shout
nonsense and push the piano around the stage. There’s lots of banging and
crashing and pratfalls, and it achieves delirium. This was perhaps the
highpoint of an evening filled with performers abusing their instruments. Among
other things it seems a path that connects John Cage, Harry Partch, and Nam
June Paik with Jimi Hendrix.
P.S.
See my single-page online poster about music in the Vitaphone era, Jazz Discovers Sound.