A Quick One, In Ragtime

The cemetery is a fine spot for the curious to wander, and you will often be rewarded with a genuine curiosity. Odds are you didn’t know that a superstar of the turn of the last century, the “King of Ragtime,” who made his name in St. Louis, wound up in an unmarked pauper’s grave in western Queens.

 

Beginning with the smash hit success of “Maple Leaf Rag,” in 1899, Scott Joplin went on to be a popular and prolific composer of ragtime, the syncopated synthesis of African American dance music and European classical and marches. His music was an important foundation for jazz, and by extension, every other pop form of the Twentieth century, but he’s mainly known nowadays due to a brief ragtime revival sparked by the movie soundtrack album for 1973’s The Sting, that featured several Joplin tunes (including “The Entertainer,” which peaked at number 3 in the Top 40 singles chart). His reign was short lived. The ragtime fad didn’t last long and Joplin’s fame wouldn’t either. Institutionalized for dementia caused by syphilis, he died in 1917 at the age of 49 in the Manhattan State Hospital on Ward’s Island and was buried anonymously in St. Michael’s Cemetery, East Elmhurst, Queens.

Each year St. Michael’s puts on a free concert to honor Joplin, and we have attended many times. The cemetery is a little tricky to get to on public transportation, so it is usually a small affair, a few dozen locals and fans, a band, free hamburgers and hot dogs. This year marks the centennial of Joplin’s death, and the turnout was much bigger than usual, probably because of better publicity. The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra was the perfect choice for this one hundredth anniversary of Joplin’s death. The Paragons were eleven pieces strong and the program was mostly Joplin rags with a few other timely selections to provide some context.







Joplin’s grave bore no marker until 1974 when ASCAP donated a simple bronze plaque. This year a memorial bench was dedicated as a somewhat grander tribute. Your Grade “A” Fanciers, of course, had other ideas about paying homage to the great musician. We were joined in a toast to Scott Joplin by our friends Gabrielle and Scott.

We devised an honorary drink for the occasion and named it The Maple Leaf Rag. Shooting for something that might have been downed at the turn of the century, this was composed with an Old Fashioned in mind, and it wasn’t too far a fetch that we'd add some maple syrup to salute Joplin’s first big hit. The Amaro Sfumato adds a little smoke for a barroom of the period, and a garnish of toasted walnut lends a trace of woodsy-ness and some tannins to counteract the sweet maple. Gab reminded us that walnut wood is used on pianos, which suited us swell.

The Maple Leaf Rag Cocktail

Advance prep:
• Toast as many walnut meats as drinks you will be serving
• Dissolve maple syrup 1:1 with hot water and let cool

Drink ingredients:
2 1/2 ounces rye, or a combination of Canadian whiskey and rye
1/4 ounce Amaro Sfumato Rabarbaro
2 teaspoons maple syrup dilution, or to taste
Dash Angostura Bitters
Dash Fee’s Old Fashion Aromatic Bitters

Shake lightly with ice and strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a cocktail cherry and a toasted walnut. (Alternatively, this could be built as an Old Fashioned, in the namesake glass over ice.)

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After the concert we took a moment to visit another ought-to-be-famous resident of St. Michael’s. Just down the lane from Joplin is the modest grave of another African American legend, the man they called “the Black Edison,” Granville T. Woods.

Born a freeman in 1859 in Columbus, Ohio, Woods was an electrician and inventor with 60-odd patents to his name. One invention, a multiplex telegraph, spurred a lawsuit from Thomas Edison challenging its patent. When Edison lost he offered to make Woods his partner, but was turned down. His work was also crucial to the development of electric trolleys and third rail transit systems. His remarkable life is way too crammed with accomplishment to recount here. We should pause a moment to remember him and consider how paltry this simple marker is as a testament to his legacy.

A Quick One With Texas Guinan

New York City is a boîte boneyard, a nite-spot necropolis, a potter’s field of cabarets, oyster palaces and hotel lounges.

 Some names of past hotspots live on in popular lore — your Stork Club, your El Morocco. But there were so many others, maybe smaller in size and fame, that were at one time just as legendary with a certain clientele. Today they are nearly unknown. The heyday of these storied joints can never be recreated.  Well, if we can’t step inside, let’s loiter outside and toast, in salute to good times past. We may be a little late, but we have time for a quick one.

In today’s installment of A Quick One, A Little Late, we call on Texas Guinan on the anniversary of her death, 82 years ago today. Guinan was one of the most famous and colorful characters of the Prohibition years. That’s really saying something given that the era of the Noble Experiment boasted a splendid trove of interesting characters:  cynical newspapermen, flamboyant gangsters, inventive saloonkeepers, daredevil rumrunners, hot-cha songwriters and tin pan alley tune pluggers, hep musicians, imaginative undercover Feds, exceptional bohemians, and underage chorus girls.

Some of those chorines like Ruby Stevens (Barbara Stanwyck) and Ruby Keeler worked for the most notorious niteclub hostess, Texas Guinan. While the Twenties were roaring, Guinan was always news; reports on her doings -- clubs opening, clubs padlocked, and court and jail appearances were constant fodder for the press. Her greeting of “Hello, Suckers!” shouted at her guests was as ubiquitously popular as Little Orphan Annie.

She hosted clubs through the era, usually partnered with legitimate businessman Larry Fay. Some of her joints: the El Fay, the 300 Club, the Century Club, the Texas Guinan Forty-Eighth Street Club, Salon Royale, Club Argonaut, Club Intime and a roadhouse called Texas Guinan’s Show Palace (later La Casa Guinan), on Merrick Road in Valley Stream.

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Mary Lousie Cecilia Guinan grew up in Waco, Texas. She had a career in vaudeville as a showgirl and songster. Beginning in 1917 she featured in silent pictures, cowgirls a specialty, and continued right through to talkies. In 1933, when she appeared in her last movie, she pretty much played herself. All tolled, she had 51 credits to her name. In 1945 Paramount released a posthumous Hollywoodized biopic called “Incendiary Blonde,” starring Betty Hutton.

 We came a-calling on a warm, sunny Halloween afternoon.  Miss Guinan’s final resting spot in Long Island City's Old Calvary Cemetery is literally monumental, but it betrays none of the bawdy hell-raising glamour of the notorious Queen of the Nightclubs.  It’s an elegant crypt, only steps from the noble limestone beehive chapel, a mini Sacré-Coeur built in 1895.

 
We brought along a flask of Corpse Revivers, because, you never can tell.  But did you know? A corpse reviver isn’t a recipe, it’s a category. It is the morning pick-me-up, alternatively known as an eye opener. That’s why you’ll see entirely dissimilar cocktails named Corpse Reviver in your how-to manuals.  We concocted a thermos-full of our favorite formula, a healthful revitalizer known as Corpse Reviver #2.  It’s a shaken gem of gin, Cointreau, lemon juice, Cocchi Americano (stepping in for the extinct Kina Lillet) and absinthe. Our guests for this semi-spooky jaunt were pals Scott and Gabrielle, who thoughtfully supplied a tin of All Soul’s Day cookies, which were the perfect nosh for our spirit-raising mission.

A toast to Texas Guinan,

“Give the little lady great big drink!”

Six Feet Under the Borough of Jazz

Bright and warm as it was the other day, we were itching for an outing. An adventure seemed to be in order, and what says excitement better than a cemetery? Queens is known as "the Borough of Jazz" because of the hundreds of working musicians who made their homes here, and Flushing Cemetery could be called "the Necropolis of Jazz" since it is the final resting place for several top players, foremost being the man whose legacy extends beyond jazz to all popular music, Pops himself, Mr. Louis Armstrong. His house – now a museum – is just a few miles away in Corona (an essential and super-fun pilgrimage if you've never been) but we had never visited his monument, so we loaded up the Thermos and set a course for Flushing.

We hustled through the cacophony and congestion of the subway and sidewalks of Main Street, and a short bus ride later were breathing easily in the peaceful leafy luxury of Flushing Cemetery. We found our man resting side by side with his wife Lucille.

 

For a guy whose instrumental virtuosity and unique vocal style left music forever changed, Armstrong's headstone is fairly humble, as he was in life. Although he is clearly the person responsible for his own nickname "Satchmo," I've never liked it. Fine for Louis to self-deprecatingly refer to himself as "satchel mouth" (or variations like "dipper mouth" or "real estate jaws") but it's always seemed less than respectful, and sometimes a little creepy, when squares call him Satchmo. Well, it was part of the Armstrong brand, so there it is in gold script.

A toast to the preeminent innovator, Louis Armstrong.

 

Our next stop was the grave site of the legendary Johnny Hodges, for decades Duke Ellington's lead alto. No question that we have the right fellow, because below "John C. Hodges" is helpfully inscribed "Alto Sax" and in one corner "Rabbit," a nickname bestowed by bandmate Harry Carney who was tickled by Hodges' love for lettuce and tomato sandwiches. Hodges won the admiration of the best players in jazz for his lyrical solos and "a tone so beautiful it sometimes brought tears to the eyes," as Ellington eulogized at his funeral. But boy, could he blow some blues, too.

To Rabbit.

That should be plenty of talent for one graveyard, but this being Queens, there are more big stars in repose. Reportedly, Charlie Shavers, a trumpet player's trumpet player if ever there was one, resides somewhere in Section 31. Pianist and singer Hazel Scott takes five (and more) in Section 9. Woefully, the graves are unmarked.

Most surprising, the one trumpet player whose legacy rivals that of Armstrong himself also rests somewhere in Section 31. John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, founding father of bebop, outstanding proponent of Afro-Cuban jazz, virtuoso instrumentalist, composer of both serious standards and goofy novelties, and an all around mensch, lies modestly in an unnamed plot.

That Gillespie and Armstrong, two men who each created a revolution in jazz music, should find themselves sharing eternity a few hundred yards from one another is a wee bit mind blowing. But that's kooky Queens for you.

 

Imbibliophiles will want to know what cocktail we tipped in toasting these fine musicians. It was our own special concoction, devised for this field trip, which we are calling

The Groove Juice Number 1

2 ounces gin – for all the gin mills the cats played in

1 ounce Suze – for a bittersweet occasion

A dash of orange bitters (ditto)

Shake until cold as the number 7 subway in summer, strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a cherry (don't you forget!)

 

words, photos, recipes ©2015 McBurnie/Hammer