Frank Newton and Vic Dickenson Are playing ping pong in the kitchen From the window, Union Sq Listen! it’s Peewee Russell on the gramophone Peewee got a letter all the way from China To The Maker Of Heavenly Music Nick’s, USA And the pennies we always threw, by the net, in the rug Anybody who [...]
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Some Notes On The Education of Paul Greenberg
My father graduated from the eighth grade of Public School 89, Elmhurst, NY (Queens), in June of 1941. Like other kids graduating PS 89, he planned to go on to high school about a half mile away, at Newtown High School. According to his 8th grade autograph book, my father’s favorite author was Jack London, his favorite book The Sea Wolf ; Stardust was his favorite song; he loved baseball and worshipped Mel Ott.
Political Autobiography
Maybe it was 1937 when my oldest brother and I were in a local WPA theater production of Waiting For Lefty. I remember thinking that a union organizer was the noblest of all jobs even better than playing right field like Mel Ott. I also thought that Jewishsocialist was one word and that Jews who were not socialists were the exceptions even though my mother’s family was among the exceptions.
We were a decidedly secular family. Judaism was some old fashioned thing that my paternal grandmother held onto and it was sort of embarrassing. I did love seders at my Aunt Beck’s house because my Uncle Sam made Exodus come alive. To me Moses was a union organizer and socialist revolutionary and John L. Lewis all rolled into one.
Coming Round to Satchmo
It’s still Independence Day a few more minutes, which means it’s still Louis Armstrong’s putative birthday. My father was passionate about many things, perhaps most so about music, especially Jazz music from the 20s, 30s and 40s. So July 4th seems a good occasion to say a few things about my father’s love of music and how in in a certain sense it all began with the Pops Armstrong.
Some More on Ray Charles
Charles may have had the strength of character not to complain, yet his strength as a musician came from his mastery of European (“Classical”) traditions and diverse American vernacular traditions.
Frank Gets Lucky
3.
He saw
his own life—
New York, 1939: The 3 Deuces,
The Onyx —
Or in Chinatown,
where a hardhat tried to play him
for a nickel—calling
Christmas gift
Christmas gift
He looked up as it fell—
the girders
strung with lights
Or on Swing Street,
where a guy in uniform buys him
a whiskey because
“his color doesn’t matter
when he plays”—
Inaugural
I was born in 1969 when my father was 41. From about age 18 to age 36 (1945-1963) he was directly involved in many of the political struggles that shaped the American left—labor, disarmament, civil rights. From about age 14 to age 41(1941-1969), my father had close relationships with some of the finest jazz musicians of the swing era—Pee Wee Russell, Max Kaminsky, Rex Stewart and, especially, Frankie Newton. In the years following my birth, my father continued to be active politically and remained a passionate jazz listener, but the formative experiences that had shaped him were moving further into the past.
By the time I was growing up and could hear about my father’s earlier, exciting experiences, they had an air of unreality about them. In the suburbs of Albany, NY, talk about Minton’s and the Cafe Society or about labor or nuclear arms or civil rights activism seemed exotic. People Dad knew and worked with were names in History. At my public high school there was just the smallest handful of African-American students. At home, just a mile away from school, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, JR was simply Martin, my dad’s old boss. My father also was not one for keeping track of details or keeping chronologies straight. His memories were all in soft focus, warmed in the glow of his nostalgia.
I started researching my father’s life and times by accident . . .
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