Fresh Air - Canonical Lyricist Ira Gershwin Gets His Due

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

Ira Gershwin wrote the lyrics for some of the most enduring songs in the Great American Songbook, including "I Got Rhythm," "S'Wonderful," "Embraceable You," "Love is Here to Stay," and "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off." Biographer Michael Owen talks about Ira's collaboration with his brother George, his writing process, and the line he added to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Later, jazz historian Kevin Whitehead remembers drummer Roy Haynes.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The marketing for the movie Wicked has been inescapable. There's all the green and pink merch and Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo have been everywhere. But does the movie live up to the hype? We know you've been waiting for this one. We've seen Wicked and we have thoughts and we'll get to them all, including some weirdly heated opinions on defying gravity. Listen to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. Hi, it's Terry Gross. Before we start our show, I want to take a minute to remind you that it's almost Giving

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It's a win-win. So join us at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org. Or you can always make a gift at donate.npr.org. Thank you, and thanks to everyone who's already supporting us. And now on with the show. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. The classic songs, Lady Be Good, Embraceable You, Wonderful, Love Is Here to Stay,

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, Fascinating Rhythm I got rhythm. I've got a crush on you. My ship. The man that got away. Long ago and far away. I could go on. They all have lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Most of his best known songs were written with his younger brother, the pianist and composer, George Gershwin. But Ira also wrote with Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, and Kurt Weill. My guest Michael Owen is the author of the new book, Ira Gershwin, A Life in Words. Owen was the archivist for the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trusts until those papers were given to the Library of Congress. Owen now works with the Trusts as a consulting

archivist and historian. He's also the author of a book about the singer Julie London. Let's start with Ella Fitzgerald singing Lady Be Good from her 1959 album Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook. It's the title song from an early Gershwin musical. And lovely lady be good Oh lady be good to me Oh, please have some pity Michael Owen, welcome to Fresh Air. I love the Gershwin's music, so it's a pleasure to be able to talk with you about it. I opened with Lay to Be Good because I think it ties together the early part of Ira Gershwin's career with the part in the 1950s when he wasn't really writing much and his career,

his songs like needed a boost and Ella Fitzgerald's Gershwin song book really helped give him that. So can you talk a little bit about the importance of both of those ends, you know, the Lady Be Good musical and the Ella Fitzgerald Gershwin song book? Thank you first off for having me on. 1924 was absolutely a big year for Ira. Ira and George had brought them together for the first time as a songwriting team to write a Broadway show. And because Lady B-Good was such a success, it fostered the rest of their career together. But by the time the late 1950s came around when F.G. recorded the songbook, Ira's career had come to an end.

He might not have known that at the time, but it did. We know that now. And the song book, one of a series of song books that Eddell Fitzgerald did of other songwriters of the period, brought a new light, a new focus on the songs that the brothers wrote. And so it was a commercial success, it was an artistic success. And it brought on a wealth of new recordings of those songs and others in the catalog and helped Ira financially quite well. —George and Ira had very different interests and personalities. George was more extroverted. Ira was more like shy or wanted to stay more in the background. And you know George was very musical. Ira was immersed in words. He read a lot. He kept a record of

what he read. He started writing light verse that was published in the college magazine or newspaper and other places. Were they close as children, being so different from each other? They were only two years apart and they were the first and second children of Morris and Rose Gershwin. So they grew up together even though their interests were very separate. George was somebody who went out and got into fights and came home with a black eye. Iroh was back in his room reading newspaper articles and magazines and books. So his life became more one of observation rather than activity, whereas George's life would have been a 180-degree difference from that. When Iroh was young, either in high school or college, he became friends with Ia Parburg,

the lyricist probably most famous for writing the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz. And he also wrote the very famous lyric, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? And not only were they friends, and they often like talked about not only poetry and light verse but also lyrics together. Ira actually contributed a couple of lines to Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz. What was Ira's contribution? Well all three of the writers who were friends, Harold Arlen, the composer, and Yip Harburg and Ira, who had been classmates and writing partners together before, when Arlen and Harburg

had been hired to write the score at MGM for Wizard of Oz, they played the tune, Arlen's tune that became Over the Rainbow for Ira, because he was a sounding board. I must say that that was the way it was with all these writers of that period. They were all generally friendly to each other. I don't think there was a lot of competition. I mean, there was competition, obviously, but there wasn't angry competition. So when the song was finished, or at least when Harburg and Arlen thought the song was finished, they came over to Ira's house and Arlen sat down at the piano and played the tune and Harburg sang the song. And

Ira liked it a lot, but he felt like that there was something missing at the end, a coda to the song. And so Ira was the one who came up with the line about the bluebirds flying at the end, which is one of the more famous lines from the song. But... If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why oh why can't I? Right. And I think that sums up the song in many ways. It sums up the film.

It sums up Dorothy's journey. But I think he just was helping out his friends. And whether he got credit for that or not, didn't really make that much difference to him. Danielle Pletka And he did not get credit as a person. John Huston He did not get credit, no, no. Danielle Pletka Why don't we just hear that code up, just hear the end of the song. If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why oh why can't I? That was the end of Somewhere Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz. And we heard those last couple of lines,

which were actually written by Ira Gershwin. Ira read so many books and wrote light verse. And some of the lyrics have really fun, funny literary references in them. And an example for that is But Not For Me, which is a beautiful song. And it has a line, I found more skies of gray than any Russian play can guarantee, one of his famous lines. Can you talk a little bit about that song and how it originated?

Well, But Not For Me was one of the songs that was written for the 1930 musical Girl Crazy, which featured a very young Ginger Rogers that was a song that Ginger Rogers sang in the show, a ballad that she sang. And it was also the show that brought Ethel Merman to everybody's attention. So, I Got Rhythm is in the same show. And it was perhaps the height of the Gershwin's silly shows by 1930 before they went into some of the political shows of the few years after and then Porgy and Bess. But Not For Me is, it's a very romantic ballad and you can take it that way. But if you listen to the lyrics closely, you can hear both Iber's influences,

because as you say, he read a lot and he had a huge library, but also his tricky rhymes about wedding knots and being that that was not for me. Part of the lyric, and it's the end of the lyric, goes, when every happy plot ends with a marriage knot and there's no knot for me So right a click right on words Absolutely correct and and I think that one of the things that Ira Complained about sometimes was that in a theater Most people were never going to get that sense of the song

They were going to hear the two words and the two sounds, not and not, and they'd think they were the same thing. And it was only the people who actually studied the sheet music or who sang the song professionally who might pick it up. But he did this on purpose. Why? Because he always wanted to have some fun with the lyrics. I don't think he ever thought of lyric writing, particularly in his early years, as a job so much as it was his way of making his thoughts about love and art known to the world of musical theater and film music and popular songs. And whether people got that or not, that certainly wasn't up to him.

But he was very protective of his lyrics. And when singers would sing songs not in the way that he wrote them, singing I've Got Rhythm instead of I Got Rhythm. You know, he was somewhat offended by that in a humorous way. He was the same with Wonderful. Oh, absolutely. If somebody sang It's Wonderful, he'd get pretty upset. And I was listening to the Lee Wiley, she did a whole set of Gershwin songs, and she sings It's Wonderful. It's supposed to be wonderful.

But she's such a great singer. Anyhow, let's not get too distracted and hear, let's hear but not for me. Should we hear Lee Wiley singing it? Absolutely, let's hear Lee Wiley. And this is on her recording from the 1930s, right? Yes, Lee Wiley was, she's generally a forgotten name in the world of popular song these days,

but she was one of the first performers to do what we now call songbook albums. So let's hear Lee Wiley's recording from the 1930s of George and Ira Gershwin's, But Not For Me. They're writing songs of love, me. For me with love to lead the way I found more clouds of gray I was a fool to fall and get that way. I'll stand on for lack of day. Although I can't dismiss the memory of your kiss, I guess he's not for me. As Lee Wiley, recorded in the 1930s, singing the Gershwin song, But Not For Me,

my guest Michael Owen is the author of a new book called Ira Gershwin, A Life in Words. What was their approach to writing together? Everybody wants to know what came first, the words or the music. And their approach to writing together changed over the years. It did. Ira jokingly would usually say that what came first was the contract. Sammy Cahn used to say that too. Yes, I think they all said that. I think they all said that, yeah. Yes, in the early days, and I would say that it would have been from the 20s into the mid-1930s, it was usually George's melodic ideas that started the ball rolling for a song.

And it might just have been a fragment of a melody. And Ira had a very good memory for melodies, even though he couldn't really play the piano. But he did remember them in a certain way that kept them in his mind and could bring them back and try to remind his brother of something that might have been brought up a few months earlier. And it was a very unique relationship. I mean, I know that every songwriter worked in a different way, songwriting partnerships worked in different ways. But typically, over the years, Ira would be at a little card table next to George at the piano.

And he would have his big sheets of paper with him. And he would just scribble out ideas. And if you looked at some of the archival material that I used in writing this book and went through Ira's papers as I did, you can see the vast amount of changes and ideas that flowed through his head as his brother was elaborating on these melodies. But eventually eventually over the years, it became more of a joint partnership that it wasn't always the music that came first, particularly as they got into the so-called political musicals of the 30s, the I Sing and things like that, where the lyrics came more to the forefront of the show rather than the music.

Memorable music though it is, but it is the lyrics, the satirical nature of those lyrics that brought Ira to a new level where people were starting to compare him to one of his idols, Gilbert, W.S. Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame. So let's hear a song that the Gershwins wrote for a movie musical. And the musical is Shall We Dance. And the song is They Can't Take That Away From Me. Did they like writing for Fred Astaire? I love his singing as well as his dancing. They did love writing for Fred. And there was something about Astaire's voice. It wasn't necessarily the most powerful or the most evocative, but he had the rhythm and he had the feel for what George and Ira had in mind.

And so even in the years after George's death, Ira wrote the songs for one of Fred's movie musicals, his reunion with Ginger Rogers in the 1940s, the Barclays at Broadway. And Fred Astaire did the movie version of Funny Face in the 1950s with Audrey Hepburn. And he did his own song book, Gershwin's song book collection, or not a Gershwinwin songbook collection, but one that had a number of Gershwin songs on it. So yeah, it was, they loved writing for him and Fred was just, and Adele, his sister who was actually more of a star in the early days than Fred was, because they just had a certain

rhythm. If you listen to the recordings that Fred and Adele did with George Gershwin in London in the 20s. You don't hear that sort of rhythm anymore from singers. You know, it was something special. Was it highly syncopated? Very syncopated. And I think that people talk about, you know, how the interpretation, and this is going off into a different subject a little bit, but the interpretation of George Gershwin's music has become more flowing and romantic, lyrical in a way. Whereas if you listen to George Gershwin playing the piano on the old recordings, it's very staccato, very syncopated. And you can really get a sense of what the 20s might have been like from listening to those songs, more so than if you

listen to a more contemporary recording, even the ones that are excellent in their own way. So, this is a song from the 1937 movie musical, Shall We Dance? And the song is, They Can't Take That Away From Me. Any insights into how this song was written? It was actually written very quickly. When George and I came to Hollywood the second time in 1936 to write for Arcade Pictures, to write for Astaire and Rogers, who were already a successful team, they came to Hollywood with a fair number of ideas already in mind. So the songs for that first of the three movies that they wound up doing in LA in the 36, 37 period,

they all came together very quickly. The songs were written to fit certain sequences in the film. This was one of them. And one of the best. The songs that came from this movie and the other two movies are, in most people's opinion and mine too, the top flight songs that George and I wrote. Okay, so this is Fred Astaire singing, That Can't Take That Away From Me. The way you wear your hat, the way you sip your tea, the memory of all that No, no, they can't take that away from me The way your smile just beats The way you haunt my dreams. No, no, they can't take that away from me. We may never, never meet again on the bumpy road to love

Still I'll always, always keep the memory up The way you hold your knife The way we danced till three. The way you changed my life. No, no they can't take that away from me. There's Fred Astaire singing, They Can't Take That Away From Me. My guest is Michael Owen, author of the new book, Ira Gershwin, A Life in Words. Let's take a short break here and then we'll talk some more. I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air. ["Fresh Air"]

It's almost Thanksgiving, and if you're hosting this year, how well do you know how to cook the main event? A turkey in the grand scheme of things, not actually that hard. There's just a couple little things you have to keep in mind. It requires a little bit of planning ahead. On a new episode of Life Kit, we talk turkey. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Holiday travel is stressful, especially if you're dealing with family baggage on top of your actual baggage. I'm going home. I'm going to revert back to old family roles that are stressful. And so this traffic jam is the straw that's breaking the camel's back. But don't worry, we're here to bring you some relief. Listen to the Life Kit podcast.

We'll help you out this holiday season. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terri Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Michael Owen, author of the new book Ira Gershwin, A Life in Words. He knows a lot about Gershwin's life and music. For about a decade, he ran the Ira Gershwin Estate Archive. And then after that, he became a consulting historian and archivist to the estate. Is it fair to say that one of Ira Gershwin's favorite songs was Embraceable You of his own songs? I think he was hard put to say what his favorite song was.

He always said that it was like choosing your favorite child. I think it was one of his father's favorite songs because his father seemed to think that the line, come to Papa do was about him. No, really? Yes. It's a love song. The way that I would describe it in his book, Lyrics on Several Occasions, is that whenever

that line would come up in the song, Morris Gershwin, that's his father, would sort of beat his chest and say, you know, that's about me. That's hilarious. I mean, isn't it like, don't be a naughty baby, come to Papa Doo? Come to Papa Doo. My sweet, embrasable you. Who talks about their father that way? Well, you know, everyone has their own interpretation of lyrics. Yeah. You know, in a lot of ways, it's a beautiful song. In a lot of ways, the lyric is pretty simple.

And you write that George was always saying to Iris, simplify, simplify. Why would he say that? Well, I think it goes back to George maybe having a slightly better understanding of the popular audience, that they weren't necessarily interested in tricky rhyme schemes and such. And name checks of Schopenhauer. Yeah, and name checks of Russian composers and politicians and that. Largely because, as I think I said earlier, a theater audience isn't certainly in the earlier days when amplification wasn't de rigueur. It was hard for people sometimes to hear the actual lyrics being sung, particularly if the band was loud, the pit band. And in some cases it was quite loud. And so this idea that keeping a song simple was better was not always, you know, a happy thing for Ira to do in at least a couple of instances, you know, he

would be almost forced in a way to submit lyrics that he wasn't quite happy with, but he knew that the time was up and he had to do it. That was particularly the case with something like Love Walked In, which was a big hit from the Golden Follies in 1938. And the song Long Ago and Far Away that he wrote with Drum Kern in the 1940s for the movie Cover Girl. He was never overly happy with those lyrics, perhaps thinking that they were slightly too simple. But they were, conversely, two of his most financially successful songs. And very, very singable. And very singable, yes. You don't have to fall over a tricky beat somewhere.

So why don't we hear Billie Holiday's recording of Embrace me, my sweetplaceable you. Just to look at you My heart grows tipsy in me You and you alone Bring out the gypsy in me. That was Billie Holiday singing the George and Ira Gershwin song, Embraceable You. The Gershwins, along with DeBose Heywood, wrote what I think is considered the first great American opera, and certainly first, you know, like jazz-inflected American opera, Porgy and Bass. And it's always kind of confusing who wrote what lyric,

because Ira Gershwin is known as the lyricist for Porgy and Bass, but some of the lyrics are actually written by Dubose Hayward, and some of the lyrics are credited to both of them. Can you straighten that out a little bit? I can try to straighten it out. It's, it'll still probably remain slightly confusing. So George Gershwin and Dubose, Heyward did not actually write together very often. Heyward was in the Carolinas and George was in New York. There are certain songs that we know that Ira wrote himself. Those were generally, people who have generally said the songs that were written for Sport and Life, it ain't necessarily

so and there's a book that's leaving for New York. Whereas some of the more operatic songs, particularly in the first act, were largely the work of Dubose Hayward. And some actually were joint numbers, whether it was because Hayward happened to be in New York at that time and the three of them could work together. Or Ira had taken a phrase or two from the libretto or from the novel or the play and turned it into the lyric and so therefore he felt that this was a song that could be jointly credited to them. And the lyrics for the opera are credited to, in the original credits, to Debois Hayward and Ira Gershwin jointly without any indication of who wrote what in that sense.

Since it sounds like we're certain that Ira wrote, there's a boat that's leaving soon for New York, I thought we'd hear that and also hear it from the 1977 Houston Grand Opera recording of Porgy and Bass. Because I think this song really exemplifies how the Gershwins combined opera and jazz. And the arrangements are so good too, which I assume George Gershwin did. Correct. George arranged the and orchestrated the entire opera. Yeah. So let's hear this 1977 production. The singer is Larry Marshall. Before we hear it just set up briefly the context of the song. This is a song from late in the opera where Sport and Life. Who's a pimp the pimp. Yes, the drug-dealing pimp in catfish rail

Tries to bring Bess back to his side by persuading her that That he can he can bring her to New York. She can have a happy life as a prostitute and And wear the finest fashions and take some happy dust and and You know move away from these country folk Who you know you're more like me Bess you you're not one of these you're not one of these people So that's basically the idea behind the song. Okay, let's hear it. There's a boat that's leaving soon, on New York, come with me.

That's where we belong, sister. You and me, we're going to be together. That's where we belong, sister. You and me can live that high life in New York. Come with me. Yeah, you can't go wrong, sister I'll buy you the swellest mansion Up on, up on Fifth Avenue And through Harlem we'll go strutting, we'll go strutting

And there'll be nothing too good for you And there'll be nothing too good for you. I'll dress ya in silks and satins In the latest Paris styles. And all your blues you'll be forgetting, You'll be forgetting, there'll be no bread, Just nothing but smiles. That's a song from Porgy and Bess and this was from a 1977 Houston Grand Opera production featuring Larry Marshall singing.

And my guest is Michael Owen, author of the new book Ira Gershwin, A Life in Words. We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. Let's get back to my interview with Michael Owen, author of the new book, Ira Gershwin, A Life in Words. Ira Gershwin's career stalled at some point. Why did it stall? Was it changing times? Was it George's death? What was the problem? More the former, I think, than the latter. By 1954, when Ira wrote what turned out to be his last two significant

works, the songs for Stars Born and for the drama The Country Girl with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, which was also written with Harold Arlen, he wrote a few songs for that. At times he changed. Musical theater had changed. Ira had had a couple of unsuccessful shows in the 40s with Kurt Weill and the composer Arthur Schwartz. So he was somewhat put off from writing for Broadway just because it seemed to him that it was too much effort, too much cost, and not enough that was coming back to him. And music was changing. Obviously, we had rock and roll arriving in the 1950s and what was popular was changing. And although the Gershwin songs, as you've mentioned, you know, were becoming part of the world of what we call standards now, and

people like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett and Peggy Lee and Billie Holiday were increasingly doing the songs on recordings and making for Ira quite a pleasant amount of money. He just wasn't interested in what was going on in the world of movie musicals and theater at that point, enough to want to work in them anymore. How did Ira Gershwin's life end? Well, Ira died in 1983.

He had been housebound for a number of years. His last real work was in the early 1960s. So after the end of the 1960s, which was basically the last time he traveled, he increasingly stayed at his house. He had had a stroke and various other physical ailments over the years, which were leaving him more incapacitated. And so he was hospitalized on a number of occasions for different things related to his heart. And but I will say that his final years actually were quite good

ones because among other things was the arrival of a young man by the name of Michael Feinstein, who I know you've had on your show, who was hired initially to sort of entertain Ira and wound up working on Ira's archive. And I did some similar work to what Ira did, to what Michael did in terms of the archive, but certainly not entertaining Ira. I wasn't around then. And there was a piano that was brought up into Ira's bedroom, and Michael spent a lot of time at the house singing for Ira some of the more obscure corners of Ira's catalog, which entertained a man who had become somewhat isolated. But it was a good life.

It was a successful life. And it's certainly one that is well remembered by those of us who love great songs, great lyrics and the great American songbook. So why don't we end with Love Is Here to Stay, a George and Ira Gershwin collaboration, one of the really enduring songs, sung by Rosemary Clooney, who was Ira's next door neighbor and a great interpreter of Gershwin's songs. Is this a song you particularly like? I do. I shouldn't really give it away, but it is kind of how the book ends. Yeah, yeah. A fitting ending. And it's the way Rosemary Clooney used to end a lot of her shows.

Yes, I saw Rosemary in one of her final performances in San Francisco. Not that I truly remember what she ended that concert with, but yes, she was always a great interpreter and she did a complete recording of Ira lyrics on one of her Concord records in her later years. LARSON Michael Owen, thank you so much for talking with us. O'BRIEN Thank you, Terry. It's been a pleasure. LARSON Michael Owen is the author of the new book, Ira Gershwin, A Life in Words. It's very clear

our love is here to stay not for a year Not for a year, but ever and a day. The radio and the telephone and the movies that we know may just be passing fancies and in time may go but oh my dear, our love is here to stay Together we're going a long, long way. In time the Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble, They're only made of play, but our love is here to stay. Coming up, jazz-isterian Kevin Whitehead has an appreciation of Roy Haynes, who played with musicians ranging from Lester Young and Charlie Parker to Pat Metheny and Chick Corea. Haynes died earlier this month. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. We're going to remember drummer Roy

Haynes. He died November 12th at the age of 99. He was one of the most in-demand drummers in jazz, working with Lester Young, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Stan Getz, and Sarah Vaughan, and many others before he turned 30, and later with Gary Burton, Chick Corea, and Pat Metheny. Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead calls him a powerhouse who liked to prod his fellow players. Drummer Roy Haynes, what saxophonist Stan Getz in 1961. Haynes was on one of his several hot streaks in the early 60s, enlivening a few classic records with drum intros that grabbed your attention and sparked the action. Here's Roy Haynes kicking off a tune by Oliver Nelson. And one by pianist Andrew Hill. And one more, Eric Dolfi's G.W. Behind the drums, Roy Haynes displayed power and intelligence. He was a quick and highly interactive listener who knew when to support a soloist and when to provoke them.

He grew up in Boston, picking up the sticks around age seven, and started playing professionally before he even had a full drum set. His parents were from Barbados, and a variety of Anglo and Latino Caribbean rhythms would inform his phrasing. On a 1951 Charlie Parker record date with a Latin flavor, Haynes on drum set seamlessly blends with Afro-Cuban conga and bongo players, then swings and straight jazz time on his own, moving easily from one groove to the other. I'm gonna be a good boy. You can often spy syncopated Afro-Cuban beats in Roy Haynes's music, as on a 1959 version of Caravan with Pianist Finest Newborns Trio. Roy Haynes had moved to New York as World War II ended, soaking up the music uptown and down.

He landed a choice two-year gig with saxophonist Lester Young in 1947, and by the early 50s leaders were vying for his services. Haynes left Miles Davis to join Charlie Parker. He did a season backing Ella Fitzgerald, then five years with the even more acrobatic singer, Sarah Vaughn. IDing the members of her trio on stage, Vaughn took to giving them an introduction

fans would echo ever after. Roy. Haynes. He liked smart clothes, fast cars, and staying in shape. Roy Haynes prided himself on his fluid beat. He wasn't one for practicing the rudimental exercises drum students learn early. Like other heavy swingers at the drums, he'd give two-beat patterns a triplet-y, three beat feel for tumbling headlong momentum. Haynes could be crafty, playing behind Phil quartet when Elvin Jones was unavailable. A few years later, he connected with a young pianist whose father he'd known in Boston,

Chick Corea. His trio album, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs, with Miroslav Vitos on bass, was an instant classic that had spawned a few sequels. Check out Roy Haynes' creative work on cymbals, hi-hat and snare drum on Matrix. He's a sleek modern designer and sound. Roy Haynes at age 43, 1968. In the 70s, jazz got louder and he bashed a bit more, joking later that his sticks resembled baseball bats. By the 1990s, Roy Haynes was a widely respected jazz elder known for his unfailing good taste. He was choosy about who he recorded with, not just anyone who

had the money. Besides leading his own bands, he'd reunite with former comrades like Chick Korea, Sonny Rollins, and Pat Metheny, and connect with young bloods like Christian McBride, Joshua Redmond, and Roy Hargrove. In the new century, Haynes assembled his so-called Fountain of Youth band, which featured a series of up-and-coming players. That band's last release session comes from 2011, when Roy Haynes was 86, capping a 65-year recording career studded with more jazz classics than we have time to even hint at. He was a heavy hitter whose limber beat could lift a bandstand. Kevin Whitehead is the author of Play the Way You Feel, the essential guide to jazz stories on film, Why Jazz, and New Dutch Swing, which has just been reissued. Tomorrow on Fresh Air for Thanksgiving Day, we feature one of our favorite interviews

of the year with the beloved cellist Yo-Yo Ma. He brought his cello to the interview and played music that's inspired him from his childhood to today. I hope you'll join us. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer is Adam Staniszewski. Our digital media producers are Molly Sivinesper and Sabrina Siewert. Thea Chaloner directed today's show.

Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross. All of us at Fresh Air wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.