The Jazz Approach To
Cooking
I look at edibles around
the house,
And suddenly,
They turn into ingredients;
Perhaps not greed-ients -
Standing all alone.
They’re things: some
frozen, died,
Half tried, half fried:
Unappetizing on their own.
The jazzy mind lets go the
tether,
Puts two, three small
tastes together:
Zing!
A meal for a king
With nothing in between
Except perhaps, the queen.
After bandleader Artie Shaw jilted Judy Garand in favor of Lana Turner in early 1940, she began a relationship with musician David Rose, who gave her an engagement ring on 10 June, her 18th birthday. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, her movie studio intervened because he was still married to actress/singer Martha Raye. They agreed to wait a year to allow for his divorce to become final (which happened on 19 May 1941), but in the meantime she recorded a duet with 30-year-old singer/songwriter Johnny Mercer, singing Cole Porter's "Friendship.” Mercer’s father had just died, he had just adopted a daughter, and both Mercers were heavy, acerbic drinkers; as a chorus girl in the 1920s, one of her early suitors had been Bing Crosby, one of Mercer’s frequent collaborators, an additional source of friction between them. The Mercer’s friends thought Garland was sexually predatory and worried that he "wandered around in a lovesick daze." On 27 July 1941, to end the affair, Garland married Rose, but the effect on Mercer lingered, and the following day he gave her the song “I Remember You” to express his affection for her. At the insistence of her mother, MGM, and Rose, Garland aborted her pregnancy in 1942, agreed to a trial separation in 1943, divorced Rose in 1944, recorded "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" 1946 with music by Mercer and Harry Warren, (earning Mercer the first of his four Academy Awards for Best Song, after eight unsuccessful nominations), and resumed her affair with Mercer, a pattern she repeated throughout her various marriages, serial infidelities, and bouts with pills, alcohol and suicide attempts. The Mercers stayed married until his death in 1976, but for the rest of her life his wife refused to allow mention of either Garland or “I Remember You” in her presence. The song, with music by director Victor Schertzinger, was sung by Dorothy Lamour in the 1942 Paramount film “The Fleet's In.” Paramount had made a 1928 film with the same title, but the Schertzinger movie was actually a remake of the 1933 Kenyon Nicholson–Charles Robinson stage play “Sailor, Beware!” Lamour and Cosby had already made the popular “Road to Singapore” (1940) and “Road to Zanzibar” (1941) films directed by Schertzinger, who died at 53 before “The Fleet's In” was released. He had directed 89 films and composed music for more than 50.
ReplyDeleteWas it in Tahiti?
Were we on the Nile?
Long, long ago,
Say an hour or so
I recall that I saw your smile.
I remember you,
You're the one who made
My dreams come true
A few kisses ago.
I remember you,
You're the one who said
"I love you, too," I do.
Didn't you know?
I remember, too,
A distant bell,
And stars that fell like rain
Out of the blue.
When my life is through,
And the angels ask me to recall
The thrill of them all,
Then I shall tell them
I remember you.