newcritics

Last Thursday night, The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) had its 40th annual Deems Taylor awards for outstanding articles, books, and broadcasting. The ceremony was held at the beautiful Allen Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center. It appeared the snow had imposed a foreboding tempo; the awards had gone on much later than anticipated. However, the highlights of the evening were not underscored by the weather, and most of the honorees were on hand to accept their accolades.

In television broadcasting, Les Paul, a self-taught musician was born in Wisconsin in 1915, a 5 time Grammy winner. During the 1950’s he had a program that featured him and singer Mary Ford. The audience watched a clip from a film that featured Les Paul playing guitar—his nimble fingers glided along his guitar strings at such an incredible fast speed—numerous jazz and country sounds overlapped. Upon accepting his award, he shared a memorable anecdote—Paul conveyed when he was a young boy he successfully stared down a sewer worker for his harmonica–his mother immediately grabbed the dirty instrument and boiled it. Paul exclaimed that his boiled harmonica was the beginning of a tenacious and fruitful career.

In radio broadcasting, another great was honored the outspoken and beloved Vin Scelsa who hosts Idiot’s Delight. In addition, Scelsa celebrates his 40th year on radio. Scelsa gave his posthumous thanks to Scott Muni for giving Scelsa the freedom to create a show that was not mainstream, and to Allison Steele for her valuable contributions as a radio personality in a male dominated field.

In the literary field, Theodore Craig Levin and Valentina SÏ‹zÏ‹kei, were awarded the Béla Bartók Award for thier erudite contribution in ethnomusicology, “Where Rivers and Mountains Sing: Sound, Music and Nomadism in Tuva and Beyond”. Tuva near Siberia is in a desolate part of the world, and what makes them known (only to an elite few–I’m certain) is their unusual Tuvan singing—throat singing that resonates different pitches to produce a primal and animalistic sound. Tuvan singing was and is currently sung by men—traditionally male herders—however more woman are becoming versed and trained in this unusual art form.

for more info about ASCAP: www.ascapfoundation.org

And for those who are interested, Les Paul performs every Monday night at Iridium—check it out: www.iridiumjazzclub.com