Stan Freeberg / Was Great Jazz Quotes
Jowett, Garth S.
YES! The pianist on "The Great Pretender".......
He finally gets upset to the max, and says: "Hey Man! Like there's
something wrong here. Like I got the same chord all the way through!"
He also says at one point:
"I don't play that 'clink..clink...clink jazz'; like I come from a
different school...Garner, Shearing, dig...." and he plays a few bars of
bop. The A&R man screams...."You play that 'clink..clink...jazz" or
you won't get paid"......the piano immediately starts to play the
chord...CLINK...CLINK...CLINK....
There is a rich mine of material in Freeberg's work for jazz fans.
Garth " A Fan Of Hugo Winterhalter" Jowett,
Houston.
Michael Palmer
>To Tony Corman:
: Yes! How about the bongo player in the "Banana Boat Song"? Oooh,man not
tarantulas.
--
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Michael Palmer ....It don't mean a thing if
mich...@werple.apana.org.au it ain't got that swing...
Fred W. Huntington
close enough for jazz."?
--
Fred Huntington
fhu...@eis.calstate.edu
Chula Vista, CA
Kay Cazzo
mill...@excellence.Corp.Sun.COM (Gary Milliken) wrote:
> >
> >>There is a rich mine of material in Freeberg's work for jazz fans.
Well, this isn't Freeberg, but it's a jazz/beatnik type on a novelty
record.
The record's called "The Mummy" (I forget who did it, but it's on
Dr.Demento's '50s anthology). This mummy is going around trying to find a
copy of "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb, and the beatnik character says,
"Woh, I don't dig that stuff. I dig George Shearing, Dave Brubeck, the
Modern Jazz Quartet." The beatnik is the only person in the "sketch" who
doesn't run screaming from the mummy, all he does is say "Like, help" at
the end.
Gary Milliken
>>There is a rich mine of material in Freeberg's work for jazz fans.
>
>: Yes! How about the bongo player in the "Banana Boat Song"? Oooh,man not
>tarantulas.
In Freberg's American history satire "The United States of America", his
generic bebop beatnik character shows up during the Revolutionary war,
playing fife (actually piccolo) in that famous trio of marching musicians
with an old drummer, a child drummer, and a wounded fife player.
In Freberg's version, the fife player is a jazz hipster named Bix who
took the gig because he thought it would be at the Officers' Club dance
and instead he's up near the cannonballs. The old drummer is THE original
"Yankee" Doodle who is straight as an arrow and is in constant conflict
with Bix about how to play the songs (primarily "Yankee Doodle"). Bix
says the bandage he's wearing (since the fife player had a wound in the
famous picture) is just to try to muffle the sound of Doodle's playing.
The kid drummer is on Bix's side -- he says "You've influenced me a lot,
Bix", to which Bix laconically says "Yeah, well, you know..." A general
comes back to investigate the problem and says "What's all this bickering
in the ranks? Do you want the war to end on a note of triumph or disaster?"
to which Bix replies "Well man, like, either way, just so it swings!
Scooby-doo!"
Marc Sabatella
> Wasn't it Freeberg on his parody of Heartbreak Hotel who said "That's
> close enough for jazz."?
Interesting. We used this expression all the time in high school, and I still
hear it from time to time, so I figured it must have come from somewhere. I
thought I heard Max Klinger mutter that once in an episode of "M.A.S.H.",
which really had me curious - the phrase seemed well-known enough to make it
into a setting that had previously shown not the slightest bit of interest in
jazz, and was set in the 1950's at that. Would the Freeberg parody have
explained this?
--
Marc Sabatella
ma...@sde.hp.com
--
All opinions expressed herein are my personal ones
and do not necessarily reflect those of HP or anyone else.
Stan Jones
>Fred W. Huntington wrote:
>> Wasn't it Freeberg on his parody of Heartbreak Hotel who said "That's
>> close enough for jazz."?
>Interesting. We used this expression all the time in high school, and I still
>hear it from time to time, so I figured it must have come from somewhere. I
>thought I heard Max Klinger mutter that once in an episode of "M.A.S.H.",
>which really had me curious - the phrase seemed well-known enough to make it
>into a setting that had previously shown not the slightest bit of interest in
>jazz, and was set in the 1950's at that. Would the Freeberg parody have
>explained this?
As I remember it (an adult at the time Freeburg's USA was released -
a young adult) the phrase was widely known and the humour in
Freeberg's use of it was that it was obviously not a jazz setting.
OBE1858
Jones) writes:
>> Wasn't it Freeberg on his parody of Heartbreak Hotel who said "That's
>> close enough for jazz."?
As far as I know it was. And it occurred during the guitar solo
which devolved into chaos as all the strings suddenly went out of tune,
twas then that Elvis/Stan quips, "That's got it, that's got it. Close
enough for jazz."
One "e" in Freberg, by the way.
Genie Baker
Can someone explain to us young kids :) WHO Stan Freberg is? I've
been following the posts and enjoying the quotes, but still can't tell
if he's a real person, a movie character, &c, &c...
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Genie Baker gba...@umich.edu
Tim Strikemaster Bowser
> Okay, I give.
> Can someone explain to us young kids :) WHO Stan Freberg is? I've
> been following the posts and enjoying the quotes, but still can't tell
> if he's a real person, a movie character, &c, &c...
He's real, he's either brilliant or irritating (depending on the setting),
and he's still with us. Stan was the unctious voice behind the
Encyclopedia Brittanica ads a few years back; the one with the teenager who
"got a 'B'; too much material". There was a cartoon episode last year with
a Freberg twist to it, the "Tazmania" show with the two gators and Taz
being put through setting after setting to please the director (Freberg)
and his syncophantic assistants. Northgate Computers hired him to liven up
their ad campaign, which goes with the E.B. thread I suppose.
--
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Tim "Strikemaster" Bowser, | "The only thing 'PC' here is the computer..." |
frustrated editor & sysop, |------------------------------------------------
Iron Horse InfoSys | str...@steam.rome.ny.us | 20 year USAF vet |
Robert Orr
Jerry Prather
: Okay, I give.
For real, Genie! Try his "Christmas Dragnet" where he parodies Sgt. Friday
who arrests someone for not believing in Santa Claus. This from a 1956
teenager's memory and record collection.
--
Jerry Prather pra...@infi.net
Consult Computer Concepts! Voice (804) 486-0602, Fax by appointment
3512 Sandy Point Key (These are my opinions, but you can
Virginia Beach, VA 23452 borrow them if you wish.)
Genie Baker
>Genie Baker (gba...@econ.lsa.umich.edu) wrote:
>: Okay, I give.
>: Can someone explain to us young kids :) WHO Stan Freberg is? I've
>: been following the posts and enjoying the quotes, but still can't tell
>: if he's a real person, a movie character, &c, &c...
>: --
>: ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>: Genie Baker gba...@umich.edu
>
>For real, Genie! Try his "Christmas Dragnet" where he parodies Sgt. Friday
>who arrests someone for not believing in Santa Claus. This from a 1956
>teenager's memory and record collection.
Shoot; I thought I was catching on; someone else mentioned he was a
pitchman for Encyclopedia Britannica.
You seem to indicate he released records? Comic or musician?
Maybe it would help if I mentioned I don't do tv. (Don't like it,
don't own one.)
I promise I will give up after this post...
FROGMORE
and put out some funny Lps in the 50s & 60s... I think I've seen a couple
reissued on c.d.
... but that's not why I'm posting. I wanna put in my 2 cents of what I
know about "close enough for jazz".
The expression dates back at least to the late 1920s. This was a time
when lots of "classically trained" music critics REALLY didn't understand
jazz.... literally; blue notes were misinterpreted to just be bad
intonation and elaborate syncopations and counter-rhythms were passed
off as simple inability to keep time! (Check out some old issues of
Etude... very little mention of "jazz" for some time, and when it is,
little positive). A few musicologists (like Bill Russell) did catch on,
but others still wrote garbage equating improvization with sloppyness
as late as the mid 30s. Lots of non-musical people may have enjoyed
jazz casually, but didn't take it seriously and took the "experts" words...
Hence the humorously used "Close enough for jazz", meaning inaccurate,
but adiquate for undemanding purposes.
Hummm... anyone have a reference for first recorded use of this
expression?
Frog
Michael Palmer
> Okay, I give.
> Can someone explain to us young kids :) WHO Stan Freberg is? I've
> been following the posts and enjoying the quotes, but still can't tell
> if he's a real person, a movie character, &c, &c...
: Where you been? (as we say) Stan Freberg is/was one of America's
greatest humorists/parodists. Check out your record store for Stan
the Man especially on Capitol reissues. You can't go wrong with anything
he did but my fav. of all time is "Ol' Man River / Elderly Man River"
From..the jivey old man
Jerry Prather
Comic. At the time I only had access to a 45 rpm record player, so what I
had was on 45s released in the mid-Fifties. I also heard a good number of
radio cuts featuring him around that period. Don't know of anything he's
done recently, however. He's dropped out of my sight. I'd appreciate a
pointer to anything available these days.
Henry Salvia
Stan Freberg is an American satirist, basically, who was most active in
the '50's. Think of a mix of Pogo (a comic strip of the time, a work of
genius, all hail Walt Kelly! [I like it] 8^), and Mad magazine, with a dash
of 50's "hep-cat" thrown in for a rough idea of his style.
He released some albums and singles (the Bananna Boat song
parody, I think was his biggest "hit") in that time, and I swear I remember
seeing him do some of his bits on Ed Sullivan in the early '60's.
I am pretty sure his "real job" is in advertising, and I am pretty sure he
is still in it (some Round Table pizza commercials I heard a few years
ago were his, I'm sure: 1 was a guy from the "Federal Cheese Repository"
(Stan) dropping of a free 5-ton block of processed cheese that the
Round Table guy said didn't want... (ya hadda be there 8^). Stan has
a *very* distinctive voice and style of talking, so he's easy to spot once
you know what he sounds like. He also used a regular cast of character
voices for his stuff; the one name I remember is Daws Butler (he did
a lot of the old Hanna-Barbara voices, Hucklberry Hound was probably
the best known and closest to his "real" voice).
I think Stan may be an aquired taste (for someone younger than me,
anyway 8^), but give him a chance. You might find some of his records
at a public library to check out. In addition to the Christmas Dragnet
one (which *is* great), I also recommend one (whose name of course
escapes me) where a bunch of advertising executives are talking about
using Christmas as a selling tool (with lots of examples): It takes on
a little more meaning if you remember what he does for a living, plus
there are some *great* carols sung in it... The bits he did satirizing
rock'n roll are a bit dated (like Steve Allen reading "Be Bop a Lu-a"
over a jazz trio as poetry long ago...), but you get a flavor of the media
image of a jazz musician in the 50's (which started this whole thread off).
Oh yeah, the encyclopedia thing: the kid w/ the glasses on the screen
is Stan's son, the pompous voice-over is Stan.
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>Genie Baker gba...@umich.edu
---
Henry Salvia - Mfg SW. Eng. | "Donuts: is there anything they *can't* do?"
Cadence Design Systems, Inc. | (Homer Simpson, role model for the 00's)
San Jose, CA (h...@cadence.com) | [ how *will* we pronounce the '00s? ]
| Like Jethro Bodine? (the double-naughts)
David Egan
Collector's Series. It contains all the 50's singles including what The Banana
Boat song and probably his biggest hit which was St George and T
the Dragonet (the first of a whole series of Dragnet parodies. Check that one
out if you're interested. Some of it is really a scream!
George Howell
Suggest a read of his book, "It Only Hurts When I Laugh" published by Times
Books, ISBN 0-8129-1297-7. It's a good read.
Stan was a prominent satirist of the 1950s and early 1960s concentrating on
advertising, popular music and lifestyle of the time. He had a few series of
radio programs in the early to mid 1950s. Two volumes of these were released on
vinyl some years ago.
He established a successful advertising agency. The success was based on his
particular satirical approach.
I understand he still travels annually to New Zealand to participate in their
advertising conference. Or at least did up until recently.
Have a couple of interesting sound items in my collection. One is the
Butternut Coffee/Omaha commercial, the others are two commercials made for
Australian radio several years ago. One of these uses Sarah Vaughan. They were
released a few years ago on an LP compiled by a Australian R&R guru, Glen A Baker.
The album contains the regular stuff as well as these items contributed from
the collection of my jazz broadcasting associate, Bob Taylor.
If anyone is interested a record and CD list, let me know and I will try to
compile one.
George Howell.
Johnny McCrory
: : Shoot; I thought I was catching on; someone else mentioned he was a
: : You seem to indicate he released records? Comic or musician?
Freberg began as a comic doing parodies of many of the ridiculously
stupid songs coming out of the Pop industry in the 50s and 60s...an
earlier 'Weird Al Yankovic,' if you will, but smarter. Comic songs were
his forte, and not all were parodies. For example, on his album, _The
United States of America_, a sort of history of the country in music,
there is the song, "Take an Indian to Lunch, this week." (It's strikingly
simlar to Tom Lehrer's "National Brotherhood Week," actually.) The second
line is: "Tell him he's a regular guy, this week!"
To my mind, Freberg's top songs are collected on _A Child's Garden of
Freberg_, though I'm unaware what the re-issues contain. The original
"Dragonet" parody is here--Jack Webb does St. George....and the dragon.
As I understand it, towards the end of the sixties, Freberg quit the parody
schtick for a more lucrative career in advertising.
That's all I know.
Johnny Mac