Yankee Songbird

My wife and I spent an enjoyable few hours Wednesday afternoon, at San Francisco's St. Francis Yacht Club. The occasion was a lunchtime presentation by Medea Isphording Bern, author of the just-released photo memoir, San Francisco Jazz. (I discussed this book at length in a previous post.) Medea included us on her guest list, and I must say that the club prepares an impressive lunch spread. Her talk covered the background and creation of her book, accompanied by nifty PowerPoint highlights of the photographs within.

Although we arrived with the expectation of enjoying Medea's presentation, the event delivered an unexpected bonus. We were seated next to veteran jazz chanteuse Pat Yankee, 87 years young, who has mischievous eyes and an impressive memory for details stretching back more than half a century. (That's Pat on the cover of Medea's book, by the way, in an award-winning 1962 publicity shot by photographer Emilie Romaine.)

Medea, who knows of my interest in All Things Guaraldi, had orchestrated the seating arrangement for a reason; this became obvious the moment we were introduced to Pat.

"I knew Vince quite well," she said, "and he accompanied me once."

Do tell, I encouraged her.

"This was when I was working at Goman's Gay '90s, which would have been from about 1952 to '56," she continued, settling into the story.

[Goman's Gay '90s operated from 1941 to 1967, initially at 555 Pacific Avenue, in the old Barbary Coast. In 1956, the club moved to 345 Broadway, where it remained until it closed.]

"Everybody knew everybody back then. Enrico Banducci — he owned the hungry i, you know — he had a television show at the time. This was when the Keanes had all their paintings up in the little gallery room. Vince had his piano there, and he'd be playing when people came out of the big room."

[That would be Margaret and Walter Keane, who became famous in the late 1950s and '60s for her wildly popular paintings of wide-eyed, often gloomy-faced children; they're the subjects of Tim Burton's recent film Big Eyes.]

"Enrico used this space for his television show. He'd interview people, before they performed something; he was quite a character. So he said, 'Come on over, and be on my television show.' So I did. And Vince played for me.

"Now, it wasn't Vince's thing to play something like 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find,' but he did, and he was just wonderful.

A century of San Francisco

By name, Arcadia Publishing may not ring a bell, but you've likely seen their books; you may even own a few. They're best known for the uniformly sized (6.5-by-9 inches) softcover "Images of America" series that showcases towns and cities throughout the United States. Each book is designed as a historical document recorded mostly via pictures: in essence, a lengthy photo essay. Chapters open with brief text introductions, mostly to set the stage for a fascinating collection of vintage photographs, all accompanied by lengthy captions.

I've done well by Arcadia, in my personal life; there's a volume devoted to the Southern California region where I grew up (Palos Verdes Estates), and two that cover the Northern California university city where I've lived since obtaining my college degree (Davis, California: 1910s-1940s and Davis: Radical Changes, Deep Constants).

But the series isn't devoted solely to municipalities per se; many titles focus on sports, lifestyle and other topics that are equally fascinating to observe, through the lens of vintage photographers ... everything from architecture to amusement parks, natural disasters (floods and earthquakes) to natural wonders (rivers and mountain ranges).

And music. Including, for our purposes, jazz.

Arcadia's backlist features a respectable assortment of jazz-themed titles, from Detroit: Ragtime and the Jazz Age to New York City Jazz. I'm here to praise the newest arrival in that sub-category: San Francisco Jazz, which just hit bookstores on January 5.

You absolutely must add this to your library.

Author Medea Isphording Bern has gifted us with a loving tribute to the Northern California jazz scene, starting with the upstart prologue around the turn of the 20th century — ragtime and the bawdy Barbary Coast — that essentially vanished in the wake of Prohibition. The bulk of the book is devoted to jazz's post-WWII resurgence, and the scores of clubs — and musicians — that turned San Francisco into a Mecca in the 1950s and early '60s.

The photos are captivating and illuminating, at times amusing and even poignant. They're all wonderful shots, each one telling a story, conveying a mood, or capturing a performer at a particularly electrifying moment. At times, I could almost hear music echoing from the pages.

Bern divides her study into eight roughly chronological chapters that chart regions, artists and venues: from "In the Beginning" and "The Fillmore Years" to "The Turk Murphy Era" and "Dave Brubeck and the Birth of West Coast Cool." Another chapter focuses exclusively on "Jazz Women of San Francisco," which gives the long under-appreciated ladies a well-deserved moment in the spotlight.

The 185 photos come from a variety of sources: the Library of Congress, the San Francisco Traditional Jazz Foundation, Stanford University's Archive of Recorded Sound, various private collections and professional photographers such as Harley Bruce, Brian McMillen and Jerry Stoll.

Photo courtesy of Marianne Kent

Additional ephemera is sprinkled among the photographs: newspaper display ads, concert and club tickets, LP labels.

It's hard to select favorites, because every photograph rewards close scrutiny. I laughed out loud at the matching zebra-striped shirts worn by the Pole Cats septet, in a 1950 shot; I'm enchanted by the image of Eubie Blake at the piano in Earthquake McGoon's, with Turk Murphy visible in the audience; you've gotta love the expression on the venerable Arthur Fiedler's face, as jazz chanteuse Marianne Kent teaches him to dance the twist at Bimbo's 365; and one can't help sighing over Harley Bruce's forlorn photo of the bland Tenderloin District parking lot that occupies the corner once home to the Blackhawk.

I know you're wondering, so yes, Guaraldi is mentioned a few times within these 128 pages ... but, alas, not pictured. That shouldn't be viewed as a sign of disrespect; Guaraldi is in phenomenal company, in terms of the many, many jazz icons who aren't shown. It would have been impossible to include them all, and also beside the point; Bern has deftly depicted the evolution of a music genre in a rapidly expanding city, and a "laundry list" approach to the photographs would have been distracting, even counter-productive.

That said, it does seem unfair that the Brubeck/West Coast Cool chapter is the book's shortest, at a mere six pages, and with a scant four photographs. But, then, I'm obviously biased...

Seriously, though, the book does have one significant failing, which absolutely isn't Bern's fault. Arcadia apparently doesn't believe in the index; their books never have one. That's quite irritating. Want to quickly find every photo of, say, George Murphy "Pops" Foster? Can't be done. You have to look through the entire book, page by page. I can't fathom why Arcadia behaves thusly; it wouldn't be that difficult to include an index, which probably would fill no more than two or three additional pages.

Anyway...

Photo courtesy ot Brian McMillen

Bern has resided in the San Francisco Bay Area for a quarter-century, during which time she has lived and breathed jazz, blues, funk, gospel and alternative music in venues as varied as The Independent and Davies Symphony Hall. Her work has appeared in print and online, and current projects include a collection of essays about growing up in her home town of Venice, Florida.

She also served on the board for several years at the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, the wonderfully eclectic performance venue in nearby Miramar, where she had the ear of owner Pete Douglas as a sort of unofficial advisor. No surprise, then, that her book's final chapter is devoted to the Bach, and enriched by Brian McMillen's marvelous performance photos of icons such as Art Blakey, Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson and several more of the many, many jazz cats who graced the venue's intimate, laid-back setting. Douglas died only a few months ago — as I discussed, in a previous post — and the Bach's fate still remains uncertain.

What is certain, however, is the enjoyment you'll get from each and every page in this book. It's clearly a labor of love, and a thoroughly engaging romp through a century of "jass" at Baghdad-by-the-Bay.

Stern Grove, August 1966

One of Guaraldi's most enthusiastic performance quotes came after his trio shared the stage with Turk Murphy's Jazz Band, the Rudy Salvini Big Band and the John Handy Quintet, on August 7, 1966, at the outdoor Stern Grove amphitheater. The concert was something special: After many years as a primarily classical music entity, the Stern Grove Festival decided to mount its first "Jazz in Stern Grove" event. As I note in my book, "The concert was a smash success, with a reported attendance of 20,000 fans: the largest audience ever to invade the cool green amphitheater and surrounding steep hillside ringed by towering eucalyptus trees."

As a delighted Guaraldi later recalled, the audience was "...hanging from the trees. I mean, they were hanging from the trees!"

The event was covered in considerable detail by local newspapers, but they weren't the only media representatives on hand. Guaraldi fan Robert Kapkin was present in the audience; he recently got in touch to share some of his memories ... and a rather important piece of information. Take it away, Robert!

*****

I was 17 years old and recently had become a fan of John Handy, later to become a teacher of mine at San Francisco State. I walked from my house, near the zoo, up Wawona Street to Stern Grove, to see my first live jazz performance. When I got there, the place was more crowded than I had ever seen it. Vince was correct, when he said people were sitting up in the trees. I could not find a place to sit, even up on the hill north of the stage. I worked my way down toward the stage and sat on the grass next to the benches, where people must have been waiting for hours ahead of time. The benches were to the right of me, and to the left was a huge television camera. In those days, they were monstrous. I remember on the side of the camera, it said "The Bell Telephone Hour, in Color."