A Favorite Cold Weather Song

A song about the cold weather that can make one feel cozy and warm is the ballad, "Baby It's Cold Outside."   This song has been sung by a number of great artists who collaborated to bring us a wonderful duet.   One of the outstanding recordings of "Baby It's Cold Outside" is by Lou Rawls and Dianne Reeves.  Another is the one by Ray Charles and Betty Carter in the video above.

Essays about Paris in Notes of a Native Son

 

Recently I opened Notes of a Native Son (originally published in 1955), by one of America's greatest writers, James Baldwin (1924 - 1987).  The Francophile in me made me turn first in this book of essays on life in Harlem, the protest novel, movies, and Americans abroad to the two essays about his experiences in Paris, France.  

 

As I was reading Baldwin's Paris essays, I was thinking how sad that his early relationship with the City of Light could not have been more positive.  However, as a quote I once came across says,  "Everyone develops his or her own personal relationship with Paris."

 

One of Baldwin's two Paris essays, “Equal in Paris” reveals the hard times he had with surviving, adjusting to life, and making friends during his first year in Paris.  In the stark realism of this essay about Baldwin’s personal experiences, there are mentions of various places he frequented, including the historically literary landmark, Café de Flore:

… for as soon as I was out of bed, I hopefully took notebook and fountain pen off to the upstairs room of the Flore, where I consumed rather a lot of coffee, and as evening approached …

There is a general mention of the cafés of St. Germain des Près:

… in one of the cafés of St. Germain des Près, I was discovered by this New Yorker and only because we found ourselves in Paris we immediately established the illusion that we had been fast friends back in the good old U.S.A.

The Gare St. Lazare and Ile de la Cité are also referenced in "Equal in Paris."

The other Paris essay in Notes of a Native Son is titled “Encounter on the Seine:  Black Meets Brown,” which speaks to the differences between Africans’ and American Negroes’ experiences in Paris, based upon the differences in their histories.  Places such as Chez Inez, La Sorbonne, and the Place de la Concorde are mentioned in this essay.  
_________________________________________________________________*Note:  Baldwin's personal relationship with Paris, France, eventually became better; for he lived in the South of France for most of his later life, and he died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.

Lester Young in Books, a Paris Recording, and a Museum Exhibit

Known as President of the Tenor Saxophone, Lester Young was one of the most influential tenor saxophonists of the Twentieth Century, according to scholar and educator Douglas Henry Daniels, who wrote the most definitive biography of Lester Young.

In his book, Lester Leaps In:  The Life and Times of Lester “Prez” Young, Daniels points out that Young’s music style was unique and Young was an individualist, always experimenting.  Daniels also informs readers that Young was a gifted musician, a superior musician, and that although he was a colorful character, he was actually a gentle, sensitive artist.  At times he was also aloof and elusive.

 

There's a jazz poem “Lester Leaps In” (from a book titled Something About the Blues, by American poet Al Young ) that speaks to saxophonist Lester Young’s personality.  It says:

Here lived a man so hard and softspoken/ he had to be cool enough to hold his horn/ at angles as sharp as he was heartbroken/ in order to blow what it's like to be born.                                                                                                 
The poet probably named his poem “Lester Leaps In” after Lester Young’s original jazz music standard of the same title.

According to another Al Young poem, “Prez in Paris, 1959,” saxophonist Lester Young had moved to Paris by 1959, when his health was poor.  He recorded the album “Lester Young in Paris” at Barclay Studios, on March 4, 1959.  He died the next morning.

A portrait of Lester Young is included in the American Cool Exhibit currently on display at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.  Lester Young was considered to have been one of those major American talents to have ushered in the concept of certain persons being “cool.” The exhibit will be on display until September 7, 2014.