Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss

I am watching the National League playoff game, Cincy Reds at Phillies, and pinch hitter Mike Sweeney loops one into left field for a base hit. The left fielder bobbles the ball slightly as the runners advance and I find myself humming “Bemsha Swing” by Thelonious Monk.

In my thread here about how the brain works — if mine is at all typical or exemplary, and it may not be — I marvel at this because I had just been thinking, some time over the last few days or weeks that I used to be able to whistle that tune but that I could not recently recall how it goes:

“Duh-dunt, dun, dun donna donna, dunt dah// Duh-dunt, dun, dun, donna donna, dah” or something.

Meanwhile: the first thought that went through my mind when Sweeney ball was fielded was the word “dropsies” meaning the Reds seemed to have trouble catching the ball cleanly — they had committed four errors so far in the game and had squandered a four-run lead to fall behind 6-4, most egregiously when the right fielder missed a ball in the lights and then the relay man had the ball slip out of his hands, to let the go-ahead and tying runs score.

From “dropsies” I thought of the song title “Doxy”, a standard by Sonny Rollins  (I had to look that up — All Music has 242 occurrences of “Doxy”, and 358 for “Bemsha”).  And when I thought of “Doxy” — which for the life of me I could not now this minute hum for you, although I would say 6-to-4 I could name in it three bars if you give me a multiple choice “Name That Tune” pop/jazz quiz — I heard “Bemsha Swing”.

And my explanation: both of those songs were new to me until 2004 when Jack Walrath was visiting me in Palo Alto and we cut a proposed live album (with Jeff Pitson on keys, as a duo) at a little dive bar in Pacifica called “The Octopus” (which Billy Cohen booked us into as a last minute deelio — we actually played there twice and dragged a little rig to record the second session). Further: around that time, I started dating a woman in Philly and would go back there quite often, like 20 times in two years, for about six or seven months cumulatively (enough, for example, that I joined NARAS there, took a class from Aaron Levinson at UArts and discovered Man Man — well, because Jim Romeo was their agent, and Ryan “Honus Honus” Katner was my barrista of choice at Last Drop, he had a day job — I also frequented Ars Nova and met Mark Christman and first heard, for example, Mary Halversen playing with John Tchai, but I digress). Maybe I dredged up the melody of “Bemsha Swing” (or my version of it, at least) because seeing the Phillies triggered that part of my brain, my tunes from 2004-5?? I remember I used to make a point of whistling this melody rather ostentatiously in public feeling I was doing my little part to spread the word about Monk — not that anyone ever stopped and asked me what I was doing.

Actually I wrote a note to a grad student at Penn (I think her name was Bethany Levy or Bethany Klein) who posted a flyer around town asking people to describe “their song” — I never heard from her so I assume she thought I was some kind of flake. (she may have been fishing for people who like either “Celebrate” by Kool and the Gang OR the Celine Dion song from “Titanic” (is it “Our Love Will Go On”? — whatever, I prefer the Straitjackets version…I was off her charts, most probably, no pun intended).

Here is a link to Either Orchestra’s version of “Doxy”, from their debut album. Amazon here lets you get a 30 second sample of the performance. Notably, this, from 1986, features band leader label founder Russ Gershon on tenor and Josh Roseman in the trombone section — although their homepage credits Ken Freundlich for the arrangement “New Orleans style”.

But here’s a version of  “Bemsha Swing” by Medeski Martin and Wood, from their 1993 release “It’s a Jungle in Here” with additional horns by Steven Bernstein, David Binney and Josh Roseman among the section. It’s actually a medley into “Lively Up Yourself” which I am just learning is appropriate perhaps because according to a wiki post “Bemsha” –actually by Monk and Denzil Best, is a variation of  the word “Bimshire” which is a geographical reference to Best’s homeland, Barbados.  I did not know that, I am hearing, in a Ed McMahon tone. (I just, for yucks, tried to quickly dredge that soundclip out of the archive, to no avail; although who knew Woody Allen guest hosted “The Tonight Show”?)

Bemsha:

Go, Giants. (Go, Giants of jazz!!!)