Ray, Duke

Congratulations to Jamie Foxx for the Oscar.

Allow me to take this as a chance for a slacktivist flashback to one of my earliest posts, regarding the sad spectacle of Ray Charles singing jingles for the Pennsylvania Lottery:

Please, someone, intervene to preserve what’s left of Mr. Charles' dignity. Right now, a CD collection called "Ultimate Manilow" is raking in boffo bucks for the king of schmaltz – wouldn’t an "Ultimate Ray Charles" set do at least as well? Or just sit the man at a piano and record whatever he feels like singing. But please, please, please just stop with the lottery ads.

Please note what's sitting at No. 1 on the Billboard Album Chart. I'm just saying.

And while we're on the topic of American musical geniuses, check out this fascinating article on Duke Ellington from The Washington Post's Harvey G. Cohen. (The article is also syndicated here if you don't have WaPo registration.)

It's about:

… Ellington's longest extended work, the 45-minute "Black, Brown and Beige: A Tone Parallel to the History of the Negro in America" — a composition in three movements meant to illustrate the story of black Americans, from their abduction from Africa to their role in World War II.

Ellington, Cohen writes:

… had also written a verbal narrative — a uniquely personal window into how he viewed black history and his role within it. This "scenario," as Ellington biographer John Edward Hasse later called it, lay unnoticed for years … It is a fascinating, 39-page typescript, polished and sometimes poetic, and mostly written in free verse. …

The scenario begins in Africa and focuses on a black Everyman whom Ellington calls Boola. …

Cohen offers tantalizing snippets of Ellington's long scenario. Including fascinating bits like this reflection on the cross pollination of music and religion:

While whites have long enjoyed black spirituals, Ellington's narrative suggests that the process worked the other way as well: The music emanating from a white church is so beautiful and "strange" that it makes the blacks outside think, "Maybe the master is not a bad man, either . . . / Maybe he just doesn't understand."

And while the "spiritual" section expresses the comfort religion can bring, it also notes the disturbing aspects of religion in a culture of oppression. He quotes the book of Proverbs to make this point: "They spoke of love of all mankind . . . . . What then was this? /Did they not hear: /'A false balance is abomination to the Lord; /But a just weight is his delight.' "