Ben Webster's Body and Soul

Ben Webster's "Body and Soul" is another gem of jazz of the 1930-1945 period. Schuller identifies it as an innovative take on the standard, but five years too late. Coleman Hawkins beat Webster to the punch with his legendary 1939 recording, transforming it into his own song. Webster does something similar here, particularly when he sped up the tempo. 

Eltonsbrody

Edgar Mittelholzer's Eltonsbrody is a strange novel. It's not quite as enjoyable or moving as his earlier work in the horror genre, but it does feature Barbados rather brilliantly. Each aspect of Barbadian geography, climate, and topography is vividly depicted, often with human-like attributes. Besides the actual Eltonsbrody home of Mrs. Scaife, where most of the story takes place, the various characters in the novel also highlight the nuances and contradictions of late colonial Barbados. Mrs. Scaife, a product of the Redlegs or white poor of the island, married a black doctor who worked his way up to a position of respectability in the colonial order. She cannot stand her Portuguese step-daughter, and despises her son, who cozies up to those in authority and status. Read in this light, the novel would suggest the madness of colonial society, but one cannot help thinking Mittelholzer was speaking more broadly. All the elemental facets of personality, inter-personal relations, social hierarchy, gender roles, or even family are thrown into question. Each causes disdain, horror, confusion, miscommunication or hilarity. By the conclusion of the novel, one does not know if Mrs. Scaife was just a prankster who wanted to go out with a bang or a truly insane person. Mr. Woodsley himself is not certain. 

Queer Notions

"Queer Notions" is one of the compositions of the swing era identified by Gunther Schuller as avant-garde or experimental for the era. It does indeed sound a few decades ahead of its time, almost as if it were a piece from the 1960s avant-garde movement. Clearly, Coleman Hawkins was a visionary for the period (early 1930s), as harmonically the piece does sound too "out there" for most of the bands of the decade. Unfortunately for us, the recording technology of the era meant the solo of Hawkins could not be stretched out. 

Toby

A gem representative of the bluesy Southwest style of jazz in the late 1920s and 1930s. Gunther Schuller's Early Jazz praises it as an exemplary piece, with good reason. Possessing an impeccable swing and drenched in the blues, one can see the origins of the Count Basie Orchestra with Bennie Moten's group. The swinging rhythm is infectious, truly jazz at its best in this era. Prince of Wails is also worth a listen. 

Porto Rico

The Manhattan Ragtime Orchestra playing Ford Dabney's Porto Rico. Composed in 1910, shortly after Dabney's stint in Haiti, the song is another example of Caribbean musical influences in American music. As an important figure in the development of jazz and black music in New York during the 1910s, one cannot forget the presence of Puerto Rican musicians in the band of James Reese Europe. This may explain how Dabney was able to compose a piece that almost sounds like a danza, which also possesses some similarities with the Haitian music Dabney must have heard previously. 

Directions

Randomly heard this yesterday and could not resist sharing. I have not paid proper respect to the fusion period of Miles Davis's career. 

R.U.R.

Perhaps like many young people, I was first exposed to Karel Čapek through an episode of Futurama. In the Futurama episode inspired by R.U.R. the robots are not synthetic humans manufactured in a factory, but the episode embedded the name Čapek into my mind. Finally, several years later, and on a whim, I read the short play which introduced the word robot to science fiction. The story seems to borrow elements from Island of Dr. Moreau (island setting where questionable experiments are conducted by a dangerous scientist) to offer a warning of the dangers of progress, industrialization, and exploitation. Written in 1920, the recent memory of World War I and the Russian Revolution surely influenced this, as the belief in boundless progress and further technological advances led to horrific wars, social unrest, and loss of life. 

Intriguingly, a Soviet film adaptation of Čapek's play exists, which presumably highlights the theme of alienation and exploitation of the proletariat. Helena's husband, Domin, does seem to have genuinely good intentions through the use of robots to alleviate the labor burdens on the working-class, but R.U.R., like the bourgeoisie, had also planned to turn robots against each other through the creation of "national robots." Thus, the manufacturer of robots was plotting to exploit the labor of beings and, through the exploitation of race and nationality, turn them against each other to prevent rebellion. By the end of the play, the robot revolution is at the doors of the R.U.R. factory, and the extinction of humanity is all but ensured. Yet, in the epilogue, despite never learning the formula to manufacture additional robots, two robots have managed to develop emotion, particularly love. Thus, in spite of humanity's misguided belief in progress and elimination of the need for humans' labor, there is a glimmer of hope among the robots for life to continue (Adam and Eve, or Helena and Primus).

Of course, R.U.R. is not quite great writing. It's interesting as a testament of its era of science fiction. It possesses an assured position in the annals of science fiction for the word robot. But subsequent writers have done a much better job with the themes of robot revolt or human-like sentient synthetic beings. Philip K. Dick, for example, did a better job at it. One cannot forget the plethora of science fiction films and TV that became hits in recent memory, either. Still, one owes a great debt to Karel Čapek for his use of the idea and the term robot, a great gift to the world of science fiction.