If It Wasn't for the Irish and Jews

MICK MOLONEY

If It Wasn’t for the Irish and the Jews

Compass 7-4525-2

* * * *

To all my Jewish friends, Happy Rosh Hashanah! And here’s an ecumenical offering for the holidays.

In the conventional telling, Irish-Americans were xenophobes by the late nineteenth-century. Maybe that was true for the Lace Curtain crowd, but on the streets and in the music halls, plebeian Irish and Jews not only hobnobbed, they combined their creative talents. Musician and folklorist Mick Moloney explores their collaboration in this fascinating collection of vaudeville and Tin-Pan Alley offerings. Billy Murray popularized the title track, but William Jerome and Jean Schwartz penned it. It’s probably the least “Irish”-sounding track on the CD. It’s also one of the few direct references to Jews, but their fingerprints are all over the material. Who knew that the pre-World War I ditty “I Didn’t Raise My Son to be a Soldier”—popular in both America and Ireland—was composed by Al Piantodosi (which was probably an assumed name for Irving Berlin)? Who would suspect that songs such as “There’s a Typical Tipperary Over Here” had Jewish connections, or that famed vaudeville star Nora Bayes was Jewish? In all there are fourteen collaborations between Irish and Jewish songwriters, or Irish-themed songs originally sung by Jewish-Americans. Moloney’s mix of poignancy, sentimentality, defiance, and whimsy is ably backed by a cast of Irish- and English-American musical stalwarts such as John Doyle, Billy McComiskey, Joanie Madden, Susan McKeown, and Athena Tergis. If you know those names, you will very much appreciate how each departed from their usual patterns to capture the sound and feel of the music hall. Fun stuff, Mick, but one small gripe: Where’s the Gallagher and Shean?

Birdsong at Morning Vigil More of the Same

Birdsong at Morning
Vigil
Blue Gentia 3
* *

Some times ideas that seem and sound good just don’t pan out in application. Alas, this problem plagues a promising thought from the trio Birdsong at Morning. The concept was to offer musical meditations on solitude and the passing of time, and to draw inspiration from the enigmatic images of 19th-century photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. Instead of a single release, put our four EPs staggered every three months of so—a literal passing of time mirroring the contemplative core behind the concept.

I was mightily intrigued by the debut, Bound, and was still tuned in for part two, Heavens. Somewhere early in the third installment, Vigil, however, I stopped caring. I listened and nothing happened—no profound philosophical breakthroughs, no realizations of life’s ephemeral nature, and absolutely no hummable musical hooks. It lay on my desk for months before I cared enough to comment upon it. It’s not a bad album. Far from it—Alan Williams has a fine voice and the lyrics are thoughtful. The problem is that the album’s six tracks are basically sonic soundscaping. This makes the music remote in the way that an object behind glass can be—we can only admire from a distance and cannot touch. When we walk away and the image fades, what is left behind?

The other issue for me as a listener is that there have been no discernible mood shifts in the first three installments. On a cognitive level this makes no sense to me. The idea is to show the passage of time. Fine, but isn’t the only constant change? Even aesthetes, hermits, and cloistered mystics experience varying moods and physical change. If Birdsong wants us to feel time’s passing, shouldn’t the musical logic echo this?

I’ve listened and I’ve walked away. Not much lingers except the idea itself. That’s great if we’re studying ontology, but it’s not exactly a ringing musical endorsement. I think I’ll pass on the fourth volume.

Labor Day and Illegal Immigration

Want to stop this? Hold employers accountable.

Today is Labor Day and tomorrow I start teaching. Even though I’m at the very university from which I graduated and at which I’ve taught on and off for over twenty years—including the last five—I couldn’t sign a contract until my social security number was verified and I produced a passport and another photo ID. I also had to take an online ethics quiz. Ridiculous, right? Not really. It all took about ten minutes. I’ve no problem at all with needing to prove that I’m a legal citizen. In fact, the entire debate over illegal immigration could be solved if we had in place national laws like the procedure I just followed—employers should be required to verify the legal employment status of each employee and they should be held accountable for every one on the payroll who is undocumented.

This strikes me as a reasonable middle ground on the hotly contested immigration issue. Let’s start here: There is no reason whatsoever to respect the views of the GOP right on immigration. They would like you to see Arizona’s tough law as a model for the nation—when you go to the voting booth, that is. They are liars. They don’t want to curtail illegal immigration at all. God forbid they would cut off the supply of cheap grounds crews for their favorite golf courses, nannies to care for their spawn, or—most importantly—a secondary labor force for their corporate cronies. Suggest to the GOP that employers should be responsible for authenticating the documentation of workers and it will take all of three seconds before you hear the phrases “needless government regulations” and “unfunded mandates.”

The Arizona law should be resisted for what it is—a draconian crackdown on desperate individuals that is more in keeping with the Gestapo than with democratic institutions. Still, the liberal point of view is hopelessly muddled. Indulge me in another story. A few years back I was a paid researcher in New Zealand. I had to get a special work visa in order to earn money there—something akin to the “green card” we’re supposed to require in the United States (and which dozens of my academic friends have obtained). During a break I took a trip to Australia. When I tried to check in to fly back to New Zealand I was detained because I wasn’t carrying my return ticket to the United States! In what was surely the most convoluted logic I’ve ever heard, the Aussies feared that if I didn’t have a return ticket to the USA I might attempt to smuggle myself into Australia and take a job there. Huh!? I was already in Australia and was trying to leave it, but I still had to get Air New Zealand to fax a copy of my return ticket four months hence before the Aussies would allow me to depart.

Australia’s law is stupid, but the greater point is that the United States is practically alone in fostering a large group of citizens who somehow think that immigration laws should not be enforced. There are discussions worth having. If capital can cross borders freely, shouldn’t labor be allowed to do so? If immigrants need to get green cards, shouldn’t employers have to secure permits to move jobs? Should the U.S. do more to help impoverished neighbors to our south? Should citizenship be global? Let’s have those discussions. I’d love to have one on free trade, which I think is the biggest fraud ever perpetuated upon working people. But until the current laws are changed, the liberal position that we should not deport illegal immigrants is fruitless and mushy-headed. (Why not give them each an achievement ribbon while we’re at it?) More to the point, it’s also politically untenable. The vast majority of Americans oppose illegal immigration and it’s really, really bad electoral strategy for Democrats to take a contrary view in the belief that they will make up in Latino votes what they’ll lose elsewhere. (Hello—part of the constituency you’re trying to capture can’t vote!)

The automatic liberal position is to assert that “rights” are legally enshrined and that we cannot allow popular will to set these aside. If people could have voted, after all, the 1964 Civil Rights Act would not have passed, nor would gay rights be respected. That’s absolutely right, which is exactly why liberals who would turn their backs to existing immigration law are embarked upon a dangerous course. The very notion of “rights” is embedded within the larger of “citizenship.” Take this away and you open the door for allowing global capital to impose its own standards of human (and environmental) rights—the very reason why left progressives (a group much more realistic than most liberals) do battle with the World Trade Organization and other such bodies.

Illegal immigrants do not have the same rights of American citizens—that’s the whole damn point of citizenship! Illegal immigrants cannot be treated as disposable objects, but the rights they hold are enshrined in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, not the US Bill of Rights. Read it. It says many inspiring things, including the fact that people should be treated with dignity and cannot be subjected to cruelty or illegal detention—reasons enough for opposing Arizona’s harsh law. It also outlaws slavery, sanctifies property rights, and upholds freedom of conscience. But check out Articles 13-15. They guarantee freedom of movement “within the borders of each state,” not between them. They also guarantee the “right to seek” political asylum, but there is not a word about seeking employment; in fact, the article is mostly limited to political asylum. Article 15 is especially instructive as it upholds “the right to a nationality” as well as the right to “change” nationality. It does not uphold the right to go underground and pretend to hold nationality for the purpose of getting a job. None of the clauses on work and standards of living say a word about setting aside nationality.

I am in no way advocating that the United States should ignore world problems, but open borders is a non-starter under current law (and current weak economic conditions). We’ve no need to adopt heatless laws like those in Arizona, but there’s not a damn thing wrong with making every employee jump through the same hoops I did. Can’t we at least agree that the real problem here is one of supply and demand? It’s time to end the debate by putting responsibility where it belongs. How about a million-dollar fine for every undocumented employee on the payroll and mandatory jail time for employers who do not seek documentation? And, yes, we’d need to impose harsh sentences for those falsifying documents as well. As long as we countenance employers willing to hire illegal immigrants we’re going to have them. Call it the National Dignity Law—one that would make everyone assume that those with an accent or dark skin are green card holders, not a job-stealers.

South Korean License Madness

Cha Sa-soon with her new license. Be afraid--be very afraid.

It’s one of those items that newspapers and the Web can’t resist: the human- interest story. From South Korea comes the news that Cha Sa-soon, 69, had just gotten her driver’s license. What made it newsworthy was that it took 960 tries to obtain it. Yep—that’s right—she flunked 959 times between April of 2005 and August 2010.

What’s really weird is that no one seems to be questioning whether such a person should be behind the wheel. The testing agency was happy when she passed, her driving school instructors burst into applause, and Hyundai gave her a new car, and she’s now starring in a TV commercial. Has South Korea gone collectively insane?

Shall I raise the obvious? Somebody needs to! The woman is 69, a time in which her reaction time will certainly have slowed. Don’t you think that someone who flunked 959 times might just need a tad more reaction time? And how does one flunk a friggin’ driver’s test 959 times? If you look to the highways and byways in your town you will quickly notice that there are motorists out there with IQs surpassed by the average potted plant. Let’s face it, the only test on the planet easier than a driver’s test is a urine test and if you flunk the first test 959 times it makes one wonder how Cha Sa-soon would fare on the latter. How does one even get to take the test that many times? Note to South Korea: Put a lifetime cap on how many times one can retest.

Second note: Shouldn’t one investigate the qualifications of the driving “school” that Cha Sa-soon attended? If an elementary school flunked a first-grader this many times, wouldn’t you shutter it? And a new car? Sheesh, this woman wouldn’t be safe in a Brinks truck. Suggestion for Cha Sa-soon: Sell the car and buy a water buffalo and cart. To my friend who lives in South Korea: Please don’t drive; it’s not safe.

The only virtue I find in this story is that it makes us realize that the United States doesn’t have the market cornered on bad ideas.--LV

Natalie in motion--the only way you'll ever see her!

Natalie MacMaster
August 20, 2010
Calvin Theater
Northampton, MA

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been following Natalie MacMaster’s career for almost a quarter of a century. It seems like only yesterday she was a corkscrew-haired teen prodigy. Now she’s a mature 38, has three kids, and is introducing wunderkind of her own, including Emily Jean Flack, a sixteen-year-old niece who’s a singing and step-dancing sensation, and Nathaniel Smith, an accomplished cellist who is also just sixteen. But make no mistake—Natalie is still the star and when she turns it on, nothing stands in her way—not rising talent, not slick band members, not even a fourth child just three months from its debut.

As for turning it on, that took MacMaster all of about ten seconds during her recent show at the Calvin Theater. She stepped on stage, waved, and hit the gas. I once described MacMaster as a “musical perpetual motion machine” and that remains accurate. Two things happen when MacMaster puts bow to fiddle—the music flows like crashing waves and her body surfs the notes. To say that she moves with the music is the understatement of the year—Natalie MacMaster becomes the notes that pour from her instrument. Most of us joke about not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time, but watch this gal for a few minutes and you will feel like the klutz in the bad joke. It’s not enough that she tears off jigs and reels with perfection and ease—she does so while step-dancing, clogging, moon-walking, and fancy dancing. You read that correctly—she plays and dances at the same time. When she wants to get really serious she puts down the bow and let’s her feet thunder to Thor-like cadences.

MacMaster enjoys the well-earned reputation of being the living exemplar of Cape Breton fiddling. It would, however, be a misrepresentation to hang an exclusive label on her current repertoire. To be sure, Cape Breton’s fast-paced reels, driving strathspeys, and energetic jigs continue to shape her set list, but MacMaster has expanded her horizons considerably. The Calvin show was shot full of jazz, Americana, pop, and experimental sounds. Her original tunes, once so identifiably Celtic, now use that core to create a global sound. And if your last experience seeing her on stage was as a shy and self-conscious twenty-something, you’ll be shocked to see how confident she’s become. She doesn’t merely play with the band, she orchestrates it and isn’t at all hesitant to fly across the stage to dual with her bass player, trade riffs with her pianist, make her cello player skedaddle up and down the strings, or challenge her drummer to match her clogging feet beat for beat. In short, Natalie MacMaster has become a spectacle to match her enormous musical prowess.

It makes sense in a way. Cape Breton music is fabulous fun, but it’s not known for being subtle. MacMaster threw out some astonishing runs, trills, and ornamentation, but her music always returned to its danceable roots. This was true even of the pieces that were clearly jazz-influenced. They began edgy and contemplative, but most of them finished with that full-bodied flourish that is MacMaster’s trademark. The audience clapped, swayed, tapped their feet, and cheered lustily. How not? MacMaster made it nearly impossible to sit still.

To be balanced, it was not a flawless performance. There were one or two transitions that seemed forced—as if the slower intro had to be overcome in order to get to the quicker-paced tunes. Paradoxically, there were also times in which the show appeared too slick—perfectly timed abrupt endings, dramatic poses, stagey interactions…. And though I think that Flack has an amazing voice for a sixteen-year-old, I just don’t think kids that young can really sing songs such as “When You’re Smiling” or “Somewhere over the Rainbow.” Like most young singers, Flack hit the notes but missed the essence. Put simply, one needs more experience to sing jazz effectively and more depth to impress with a show tune. Flack was at her best showcasing her agile dancing ability, an activity at which she appeared accomplished rather than apprenticed.

But here’s the deal—these were things I noticed because it’s a critic’s job to notice them. Most of the large audience in attendance surrendered to the spectacle, and who can blame them? Even though not everything gelled, I can’t imagine that too many people left feeling as they hadn’t gotten their money’s worth. Natalie MacMaster is, simply, one of the most electrifying performers you’ll ever see. If you get a chance to hear her before she takes time off to have her baby, by all means do so. Natalie MacMaster is an original talent—the sort best labeled a force of nature. As for nature, with all that jumping about I suspect the newest addition will dance its way out of the womb!

Eilen Jewell Butcher Holler Honors Loretta Lynn

EILEN JEWELL
Butcher Holler: A Tribute to Loretta Lynn

Signature Sounds
* * * *

In the 1960s Loretta Lynn was the biggest star in country music. Her glow was fading a bit by the time Sissy Spacek portrayed her in the 1980 biopic Coal Miner’s Daughter. Get ready for the next resurrection—Eilen Jewell’s stunning 2010 tribute to Lynn is sure to spark interest. Jewell covers a dozen Lynn classics, including “You’re Looking at Country,” “Whispering Sea,” and “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl,” but it’s the racier material that really stands the test of time. Lynn knew hard times; she was married at 13 and had four of her six kids by the time she was 19. She stayed married, though her husband cheated in her repeatedly and often told interviewers that he never hit her without getting hit back. She sang about all of this, with a plastered on smile framed by seriously big hair.

Jewell shines on Lynn’s tougher material. She offers a kick-butt “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” some wink-wink naughtiness on “Deep as Your Pocket,” and hints at violence in “Fist City” and “Don’t Come Home a-Drinkin’ (with Lovin’ on Your Mind),” songs that remind us of how gutsy Lynn’s repertoire was for its time. Jewell is smooth and swingy where Lynn was twang and honky tonk but, if anything, Jewell—ably insisted by Johnny Sciascia’s walking bass lines, Jason Beck’s slap percussion, and Jerry Miller’s robust guitar—enhances Lynn’s do-me-wrong-and-I’ll-do-you-worse defiance. This is the kind of album that makes you look into his eyes and smile as throw a right hook to the bastard’s jaw.

Still More Signs of the Times

I'm so relieved. I hate it when my Norse buddies drop by and we run out of mead (or Spam)!
Salem, MA
















In Kennebunkport, but shouldn't it be in Provincetown? I'm just sayin'.
























Picky, picky, picky! Lexington, MA


















Owner did not major in marketing. Kennebunkport























I knew civilization was lurking somewhere! Sign in Ottawa, Canada but apparently one must go to Gatineau, Quebec to escape savagery.