The There There Letter: Holiday, Holiday, Holiday
Three things from DAH. Free every Friday!
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DAH is me, David Anthony Hance. One day blown away, the dust of history. But not yet. Not yet.
First up this week, Holiday …
Yesterday was Billie Holiday's birthday. Lady Day, a nickname given by her music partner, Lester Young, is recognized for her influence on jazz and pop singing. Frank Sinatra, born in 1915 (the same year as Billie Holiday) owed a debt to Lady Day.
You can subscribe and browse past issues HERE
DAH is me, David Anthony Hance. One day blown away, the dust of history. But not yet. Not yet.
First up this week, Holiday …
Yesterday was Billie Holiday's birthday. Lady Day, a nickname given by her music partner, Lester Young, is recognized for her influence on jazz and pop singing. Frank Sinatra, born in 1915 (the same year as Billie Holiday) owed a debt to Lady Day.
Sinatra first saw Holiday perform sometime in the late '30s; he became an instant devotee. In 1944, Holiday told columnist Earl Wilson that she'd offered Sinatra advice on his singing. "I told him certain notes at the end he could bend … Bending those notes — that's all I helped Frankie with." Sinatra made no secret of his debt to Holiday: "It is Billie Holiday … who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me," he said in 1958. (Jody Rosen, NYTimes, Oct 19, 2015)
Sinatra visited Billie Holiday in her hospital room, on her deathbed, in July 1959. After she died, Frank holed up in his penthouse for two days, weeping, drinking and playing her records.
Billie Holiday died at age 44, heroin-addicted and almost broke. Her Grammy awards were all posthumous. Sinatra lived until 1998, a millionaire recognized in his lifetime as one of the greatest singers of his century. Tough to balance those books.
Billie Holiday -- God Bless the Child
Second up this week, Holiday …
Today is celebrated in Japan as Buddha's Birthday. The date in other countries varies (the actual date was based on Asian lunisolar calendars). But, in Japan, it's fixed on the Gregorian calendar. Easier for Anglophones, which makes me sad, actually. But, to my point: I like holidays. I like days and dates that mark something, whether in my native culture or another. I find them grounding. They inspire thinking about things beyond me. They're a chance to celebrate the comforting familiar and the intriguing unfamiliar. For me, a calendar without holidays is a bleak expanse lacking definition. Without holidays we've only weekends to long for.
Who Is The Buddha?
Third up this week, Holiday …
Except that when I was growing up in my expat English family "holiday" still meant "vacation." It took a few years for this to sink in. Of course, there are lots of English words that mean something different in the USA (biscuit, bonnet, boot). When we're off for our seaside holiday we don't mean Independence Day on the Jersey Shore. Well, we might, in fact, mean that. But we didn't, in my family. Our seaside holiday was likely a car camping vacation near Half Moon Bay. But a holiday was also just a holiday, like a bank holiday (taking a break from work because the banks are closed). I'm grateful for both.
Why does the UK have bank holidays?
A Book I'll Finish When I Unpack: Why Jazz Happened, by Marc Myers
Yes, I'm moving again. And I appear to have packed this book already! "… this study focuses on a 30-year stretch, 1942 to 1972, outlining 10 developments, both within and outside jazz, that were instrumental to the music’s evolution" (Matt R. Lohr, jazztimes.com, April 25, 2019)
And a bit more:
Dreams, by Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
And that's all for this week.
From Mary Oliver’s poem Sometimes …
Billie Holiday died at age 44, heroin-addicted and almost broke. Her Grammy awards were all posthumous. Sinatra lived until 1998, a millionaire recognized in his lifetime as one of the greatest singers of his century. Tough to balance those books.
Billie Holiday -- God Bless the Child
Second up this week, Holiday …
Today is celebrated in Japan as Buddha's Birthday. The date in other countries varies (the actual date was based on Asian lunisolar calendars). But, in Japan, it's fixed on the Gregorian calendar. Easier for Anglophones, which makes me sad, actually. But, to my point: I like holidays. I like days and dates that mark something, whether in my native culture or another. I find them grounding. They inspire thinking about things beyond me. They're a chance to celebrate the comforting familiar and the intriguing unfamiliar. For me, a calendar without holidays is a bleak expanse lacking definition. Without holidays we've only weekends to long for.
Who Is The Buddha?
Third up this week, Holiday …
Except that when I was growing up in my expat English family "holiday" still meant "vacation." It took a few years for this to sink in. Of course, there are lots of English words that mean something different in the USA (biscuit, bonnet, boot). When we're off for our seaside holiday we don't mean Independence Day on the Jersey Shore. Well, we might, in fact, mean that. But we didn't, in my family. Our seaside holiday was likely a car camping vacation near Half Moon Bay. But a holiday was also just a holiday, like a bank holiday (taking a break from work because the banks are closed). I'm grateful for both.
Why does the UK have bank holidays?
A Book I'll Finish When I Unpack: Why Jazz Happened, by Marc Myers
Yes, I'm moving again. And I appear to have packed this book already! "… this study focuses on a 30-year stretch, 1942 to 1972, outlining 10 developments, both within and outside jazz, that were instrumental to the music’s evolution" (Matt R. Lohr, jazztimes.com, April 25, 2019)
And a bit more:
Dreams, by Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
And that's all for this week.
From Mary Oliver’s poem Sometimes …
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
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