Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Around the world wherever there are people of Irish heritage, Catholics who honor St. Pat, or just folks (and some pets) who get into the joy of it all, there are parades and celebrations galore. Here in New York, everybody, including me, is a little bit Irish today.
I’m not actually Irish, of course. But as a kid I grew up with a love of leprechauns because one of my parents’ favorite Broadway shows was “Finian’s Rainbow.” Several of their friends were in the musical, we had the cast album, and I knew the words to every tune. I even thought of it as my birthday play, because the original production premiered on Broadway in 1947, the year I was born.
For those unfamiliar, “Finian’s Rainbow” is a tale about a leprechaun’s pot o’ gold being stolen from Ireland, only to end up in the made-up town of Rainbow Valley, Missitucky, where the townspeople, white and Black alike, are poor and exploited, while the white politicians are openly crooked and racist. The leprechaun follows his gold from Ireland and all kinds of magic and mayhem ensue.
”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 200 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.
Written during the 2009 revival of the musical, Gwen Orel’s review in The Irish Examiner concisely explains what makes “Finian’s Rainbow” so special.
It's an unusual Broadway plot, mixing music, magic, mythology and - political commentary. Finian McLonergan (Jim Norton) and his daughter Sharon (played by the luminous Kate Baldwin) leave Ireland and settle in the mythical state of Missitucky to hide their stolen leprechaun gold. Sharon soon falls for a handsome sharecropper, Woody (played by appealing crooner Cheyenne Jackson). So far, it's a cute Boy-Girl romance, and Celtic imagery was somewhat trendy - Rodgers and Hammerstein's Brigadoon also debuted in 1947, just a few months later, amusing Broadway audiences with fictional Scotland).
But in Missitucky the Lonergans encounter not only American capitalism, which runs (then and now) on debt, but also racial division and a bigoted Southern senator. Og the leprechaun follows them to retrieve his gold - the loss of it threatens to turn him mortal - and his magic gold inadvertently grants hot-tempered Sharon her hasty wish: that the bigoted senator turn black. When he does, he becomes a better man. Blending Irish mythology with social criticism of the United States was something entirely new.
Rodgers and Hammerstein's ground-breaking criticism of racism in South Pacific came a year after Finian's Rainbow debuted. And although South Pacific's song "You Have to Be Carefully Taught" questions racism hauntingly, the show did not look at the racial divides that still existed within American borders. Broadway Producer David Richenthal believes that it's Finian's edginess in commenting on American racism at home that "has scared producers off. In 1946, who was standing up against the scourge of racism? Yip Harburg and Fred Saidy were, courageously."
Though this plot twist, the idea that racism can be solved by turning someone Black for a day (as well as a performance requiring blackface) may compel negative reactions today, it’s important to understand that in 1947, these ideas were far more radical than the above-mentioned “South Pacific.” The play’s politics and subject matter contributed to the blacklisting of “Rainbow” lyricist and co-librettist Yip Harburg, who I wrote about in 2014’s “Blacklisting the Rainbow.” Some of the critiques and background are discussed in Patrick Healy’s New York Times review of the 2009 revival, “Another Trip to Deepest Missitucky.”
Interestingly, but not a surprise, the staging of “Finian’s Rainbow” in the time of racist Donald Trump’s rise was duly noted in 2017 by Sarah Lawrence College professor Nicolaus Mills, writing for The Observer.
In Trump Era, 70-Year-Old Finian’s Rainbow Matters More Than Ever
Billboard Rawkins becomes the villain in Finian’s Rainbow when he tries to evict the black and white tenant farmers whom Finian and his daughter are living with from the land the farmers occupy after two geologists conclude the land is rich with gold. The geologists don’t realize that they have conducted their survey near to where Finian has buried the leprechaun’s gold.
Rawkins’s strategy is to acquire the land without paying for it by relying on a covenant that says blacks can’t live there. When Sharon Finian, outraged by the senator’s racism, says she wishes he were black and could see life from the perspective of the blacks he treats so badly—presto—she gets her wish. Without realizing it, she has been standing above the leprechaun’s pot of gold that her father buried in the ground. The pot immediately grants Sharon her wish, and Rawkins turns black.
The senator’s transformation shocks him. He soon finds out how tough life is for someone forced to live with the Jim Crow laws he has always supported. Rawkins is changed back to white only when Sharon is about to be hanged as a witch for transforming him. The leprechaun, who has now regained control of his pot, opts to save her by using his final wish to return Rawkins to his original color. But the change does not leave Rawkins as he was. Living as a black man for just a short time converts him into a racial progressive.
We can all think of a whole long list of MAGA-publicans who deserve the same fate. Where’s a leprechaun when you need one?
But now, let’s dive into the music. I did an informal and unscientific survey of my friends of all ages, and most had never heard of “Finian’s Rainbow.” However, when I hummed a few of the tunes from the show (songlist here) they recognized most of them. Songs from “Finian” have truly entered the Great American Songbook.
First up: “How Are Things in Glocca Morra,” sung by Maxine Sullivan.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Sullivan, here’s a brief, illustrated introduction.
Hannah Grantham wrote her bio for the Smithsonian NMAAHC.
A Life Well-Sung: Maxine Sullivan (1911-1987)
Singer Maxine Sullivan (1911-1987) used her voice to represent the Bronx community she and other jazz artists called home.
In 1937, a swinging version of the traditional Scottish folk song "Loch Lomond" captured widespread attention and catapulted young jazz singer Maxine Sullivan to stardom. The song, her only big hit, followed her over the course of a 40-year career, but behind the sweet voice was a woman juggling multiple roles and a passion for giving back to the Bronx community she loved. A portion of her life's work housed in the Museum's collection tells the story of Maxine Sullivan as a jazz musician, a mother, a wife, an entertainer, and an active community organizer.
Maxine Sullivan, born Marietta Williams in Homestead, Pennsylvania, in 1911, began singing and playing music at a young age. Although none of her family members were trained musicians, many of her relatives played musical instruments and contributed to the sounds of what she fondly called the family's "front porch orchestra"— an informal type of musical education common across the United States in the early twentieth century. During this period, Marietta honed her singing skills, learned to play trumpet and valve trombone, and sang around Homestead and nearby Pittsburgh sitting in with various bands taking advantage of her status as the only singer in town.
[...]
To keep the momentum going following "Loch Lomond," Maxine released a number of other swing arrangements such as American composer Stephen Foster's (1826-1864) popular parlor song "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair." Hollywood too came knocking on Sullivan's door, eager to feature her in musical films including Going Places (1938) alongside other jazz star Louis Armstrong and St. Louis Blues in 1939. Both films placed Maxine in the few roles open to African American women at the time, maids and singers. Maxine returned to New York City in 1939 and quickly rejoined Armstrong to star opposite him and many other African American entertainers in Swingin' the Dream. The musical, a jazzed up version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream set in 1890 New Orleans, ran for only nine performances and went down in history as a disaster. Despite the failure, the musical featured Maxine introducing the world to the beloved jazz standard "Darn that Dream" as Queen Titania. The song became a huge hit for fellow Swingin' the Dream musician, Benny Goodman in 1940 with Mildred Bailey on vocals.
With all respect to the Irish, we’re making a detour to Scotland for Sullivan’s hit “Loch Lomond.”
Back in the Rainbow Valley, “How Are Things In Glocca Morra” is a tune that’s caught the ear of a cross-section of jazz instrumentalists. Tenor saxophonist and composer
Sonny Rollins recorded it
in 1956.
The inclusion of "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" has been cited as a curious, if adventurous, choice for a bopper. But Rollins demonstrates his deftness at crooning a ballad, a la
Johnny Hartman or
Al Hibbler, then switching to break apart the melody harmonically, revealing a multidimensional, cubist vision.
[...]
Personnel: Sonny Rollins, saxophone; Donald Byrd, trumpet; Wynton Kelly, piano; Gene Ramey, bass; Max Roach, drums.
Give it a listen!
On “Standard Time, Vol. 3: The Resolution of Romance,” released on in May 1990, jazz trumpter Wynton Marsalis teams up with his father, Ellis Marsalis Jr. for a lyrical, gentle version of “Glocca Morra.”
Dinah Washington was one of the greatest female vocalists to have sung jazz and popular music in the 20th century. Her style and delivery have been emulated by many that followed but few have had a voice to match the Divine Miss D. Her life was the stuff of movies, but even Hollywood shied away from trying to capture it on film as it was just too complicated. Fortunately, her immense talent on record has been well documented and she sounds as good today as she did when she made all those classic albums.
Born in Alabama, Ruth Lee Jones grew up in a staunch Baptist family in Chicago, singing and playing the piano in the choir at her local church and quickly becoming adept at gospel’s characteristic off-beat, syncopated rhythms and bent or sliding notes. At the age of fifteen, she performed “I Can’t Face The Music” in a local amateur competition hosted at Chicago’s Regal Theatre, won and was soon performing in Chicago’s nightclubs, such as Dave’s Rhumboogie and the Downbeat Room of the Sherman Hotel.
‘She had a voice that was like the pipes of life. She could take the melody in her hand, hold it like an egg, crack it open, fry it, let it sizzle, reconstruct it, put the egg back in the box and back in the refrigerator and you would’ve still understood every single syllable of every single word she sang.’ – Quincy Jones
Here she is:
A completely different take on “Look to the Rainbow” was an offering from singer and vocalese master Al Jarreau.
Al Jarreau’s unique vocal style is one of the world’s most precious treasures. His innovative musical expressions have made him one of the most exciting and critically-acclaimed performers of our time with seven Grammy® Awards, scores of international music awards and popular accolades worldwide.
His live jazz album, “Look to the Rainbow,” was selected by Albumism’s Brandon Ousley as one of the 50 greatest live jazz albums of all time.
Culled from various performances during his illustrious 1977 European tour, which brought him tremendous acclaim in his early career, Look to the Rainbow may be the purest example of why Jarreau rose as the greatest male jazz vocalist of his era on stage and on record. It also finely captures how fluent and unconfined his vocal dynamism was in a live setting, as most of his studio output often presented his vocal talents in measured contexts.
Here’s Jarreau performing “Look to the Rainbow” live in 1977.
Can’t leave “Look to the Rainbow” without a mention of the diva, Miss Patti LaBelle herself, who released an album from her own “Look To The Rainbow Tour” in 1985.
Here she is performing at the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame 20th Anniversary “Magic of Music” Concert at Radio City Music Hall in 1989, which was hosted by Dick Clark and Anita Baker.
Moving back to the “Finian’s Rainbow” songbook, Second Hand Songs currently lists 432 covers for “Old Devil Moon.” Even including just the ones by Black artists here would be impossible, so I’ve been listening and dithering for days over which to include. There truly are so many!
The vocalists include Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Eckstine with Hal Mooney and His Orchestra, Barbara McNair, Diahann Carroll, Lurlean Hunter with Phil Moore and His Orchestra, Lena Horne, Gloria Lynne, Carmen McRae & Betty Carter, and Terri White.
Instrumentalists include The Miles Davis Quartet, The Gene Harris Trio, The Ray Bryant Trio, Jimmy Smith, The J.J. Johnson Quintet, Joe Newman, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Evans Bradshaw with George Joyner, Philly Joe Jones, Sonny Rollins, Eddie Davis with Shirley Scott, Ahmad Jamal, The Ramsey Lewis Trio, The Bobby Timmons Trio, and many more.
I’ll post more in the comments section below, but here goes.
When in doubt, Ella Fitzgerald is never a wrong choice, so I’ll start with her interpretation from her 1969 “Sunshine of Your Love” album, recorded live in 1968 at the Venetian Room at San Francisco’s The Fairmont.
From the instrumentalist list I decided to choose Sonny Rollins’ live version from from his 1957 album “A Night At The Village Vanguard,” from Blue Note Records, because his opening interaction with the audience gave me a laugh. You’ll have to play it to hear it!
Next up: “If This Isn’t Love,” which “Sassy” Sarah Vaughn performed live on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in June 1957.
Shifting back to instrumental mode, alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley swung it uptempo with Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on double bass, and Jimmy Cobb on drums in this 1959 cover.
Finally, I like to give props to younger artists, and I’ve already celebrated Samara Joy here in the past. Here she is in 2021 with Emmet Cohen on piano, Russell Hall on bass, and Kyle Poole on drums.
I have so much more music from “Finian’s Rainbow” to share in the comments, where I hope you’ll join me. I’d also love to know your favorite tune from the show, if you have one, and if you don’t, what tune you liked most today!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
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