The Joy and Genius of Erroll Garner
This week: a conversation with Robin D. G. Kelley about piano titan Erroll Garner. Listen today at 2 pm or anytime at our website.
The historian Robin D. G. Kelley already wrote the book on Thelonious Monk, and now he’s made the podcast on another piano genius: Erroll Garner. In each installment of the “Erroll Garner Uncovered” series, Kelley’s asking, “Who is Erroll Garner to you?” It turns out: a source of awe and wonder and joy, to so many, including Ted Williams:
On this week’s Open Source, Kelley talks about all the dimensions of Garner—Garner the maverick, Garner the joyful genius. Says Kelley on our show:
Erroll Garner is at least three things.
One: perhaps the most underrated musician or pianist in the jazz tradition in the 20th century. That’s one thing.
The second thing I would say: that Erroll Garner is a master composer. Now this is someone who did not, who chose not, let me be clear, chose not to read or write down music. He did his writing on the keyboard and he laid out his melodies and his harmonies. And each one of the introductions to his songs, whether it’s a standard . . . he would play these intros that were so elaborate and so original that they’re like mini compositions in and of themselves.
And then the third thing I would say about Garner is that he was a maverick. He and Martha Glaser . . . his manager, longtime manager, were mavericks in their commitment to try to become independent of big corporate labels.
On the matter of Garner’s joyful music, Kelley says, there might be something about musicians from his hometown of Pittsburgh:
So many of them actually do bring. . . whether or not their their demeanor is happy, they bring happy music. I mean, you know, Mary Lou Williams was basically his mentor.
Ahmad Jamal, Billy Strayhorn, you know, these are all folks coming out of Pittsburgh who really knew that you made music not just for yourself, but for the people who came, whether they’re paying, whether they’re dancing, whether it’s just a rent party, they want to be moved. And whether you’re in church or in the club or up in a loft somewhere, you’ve got to move the people.
And here’s Kelley on Garner’s piano genius:
One thing that you can’t avoid is the fact that Erroll had an advanced sense of harmony. He starts out as someone who really can navigate virtually all of the prevailing genres or subgenres of jazz in the 1950s when his recording career takes off.
In the recording career, the joy and the genius both had their part in one of the major dramas of Garner’s life. Kelley says:
So much of his life was about how to get this music around the world, how to keep making this music. And that was his source of joy. But also he did it under circumstances where he came out having to wage a war against one of the biggest corporate machines in the world. And that left a mark on him. He was at the top of his game in many ways at the time when Columbia Records did a number on him in terms of releasing music that he did not want released.
Kelley’s podcast is, again, Erroll Garner Uncovered, and it is not to be missed. Joining Kelley in conversation: Vijay Iyer, Chick Corea, Jason Moran, and Helen Sung (all pianists) and the drummer Terri Lynn Carrington.
Listen: An Erroll Garner Youtube Playlist
Conor made this excellent Erroll Garner playlist on Youtube. Let it be the playlist for your holiday season.
Listen: Kamasi Washington and more
We’ve been hearing of all kinds of Garner resonances since the debut of this week’s show. Garner’s quotation of Debussy suggested, to Open Source alum Zach Goldhammer, Kamasi Washington’s cover of “Claire de Lune”:
Echoes of Garner, literally and figuratively, abound. We also learned of this: Studs Terkel’s not-yet-public interview with Garner. One day . . . Last but not least, our pal Yarden Katz told us about Erroll Garner: No One Can Hear Your Name, a film that features archival materials and interviews with loads of Erroll’s friends, family and fellow musicians.
Read: Frank O’Hara’s Christmas Poem
Speaking of mid-century joy and invention, here’s Frank O’Hara’s “Christmas Card to Grace Hartigan”:
There’s no holly, but there is
the glass and granite towers
and the white stone lions
and the pale violet clouds. And
the great tree of balls in
Rockefeller Plaza is public.
Christmas is green and general
like all great works of the
imagination, swelling from minute
private sentiments in the desert,
a wreath around our intimacy
like children’s voices in a park.
For red there is our blood
which, like your smile, must be
protected from spilling into
generality by secret meanings,
the lipstick of life hidden
in a handbag against violations.
Christmas is the time of cold air
and loud parties and big expense,
but in our hearts flames flicker
answeringly, as on old-fashioned
trees. I would rather the house
burn down than our flames go out.
Watch: Unconventional Christmas Movies
The crescendo of voices declaring all sorts of movies Christmas movies continues, re: films like Die Hard, Star Trek: Generations, and Eyes Wide Shut, which has maybe gotten the most recent attention as an Unconventional Christmas Classic. There’s no reason to put limits on this category: genre-wise it’s always been expansive. Even A Christmas Carol is a genuinely creepy ghost story.
Salute: Conor Gillies
Our producer Conor is leaving for new sonic adventures; the Erroll Garner show will be his last Open Source show. But what a conclusion, what a testament to his audio acumen. Clearly, he’s on his way to continued greatness. Upward and onward!
This week’s ephemeral library
Joshua Rothman on unlived lives. Jelani Cobb on Black Americans and the COVID vaccine. n+1 on the similarities between deregulation and deconstruction. The Paris Review’s favorite books of 2020. Fred Wiseman: great American non-novelist.
We’ll be back in two weeks. Thanks to all of you out there in radio and podcast land. Happy Holidays, Happy New Year.
Love,
The OS Band
