TOURING TIN PAN ALLEY, DONALDSON WITH TEX WYNDHAM

The Time: 2:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, May 22nd, 2011
The Place: Community Arts Center, 414 Plush Mill Road, Wallingford, PA
Tex Wyndham, piano, vocals

Back in January, 2011 Tri-State Jazz Society kicked off its piano series. The first pianist for the series was Mark Kramer, a pianist better known in modern jazz circles. In reviewing the January concert, I felt it was a half-hearted effort. While Mr. Kramer got the facts right, his performance lacked the spirit of the period. In contrast, watching Tex Wyndham perform Tin Pan Alley tunes and songs by Walter Donaldson on Sunday, I could not avoid the joy in the man’s eyes and body language as he performed.

Mr. Wyndham told me before the concert, that he was looking forward to this concert. Piano, he said, was his main instrument, and after touring the country at festivals, and cruises, this Sunday was his first piano concert in his hometown. What a pity that it was the lowest attended concert this year.

As I alluded to in an earlier paragraph, Wyndham divided the two sets, with the first set a tour through “Tin Pan Alley’s Golden Age” and the second a tribute to composer Walter Donaldson.

Songs from 1903 to 1940 were performed in the first set, which was the bulk of the Tin Pan Alley period. As he described in between songs, the music had a cheerful, feel good quality – qualities, he said, that are nowhere to be found in today’s popular music. Tunes ran the gamut from light rags (Leo Berliner’s “Africana,” Abe Olman’s “Candlestick Rag”), stride (Hoagy Carmichael’s “Come Easy-Go Easy Love”), and controversial (for the time) numbers ( Irving Berlin’s “Dance of the Grizzley Bear”, Kahn-Egan-Whiting’s “Bimini Bay”). The wittily suggestive “Grizzley Bear” and the alcohol-induced “Bimini Bay” were the best of a very diverse selection of songs. Most unusual was Weston and Lee’s “With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm,” about the ghost of Anne Boleyn haunting England, seeking revenge on Henry the VIII.

At Sundown, Changes, Cuckoo In The Clock, Dancing In the Moonlight, Did I Remember?, I’d Be Lost Without You, I’ve Had My Moments, It’s Been So Long, Just Like A Melody Out Of The Sky, Little White Lies, Mister Meadowlark, My Baby Just Cares For Me, Riptide, Sleepy Head, That’s What I Like About You, What Can I Say (After I Say I’m Sorry) have one thing in common: they were all composed by Walter Donaldson. Donaldson songwriting career almost mirrored the lifespan of Tin Pan Alley, composing songs as early as 1915 and continuing until a few years before his death in 1947.
To open this Donaldson tribute, Wyndham began with a lively number “That Certain Party” from 1925. The anecdotes Wyndham shared during this set almost stole the show from the performances. There was the story about Thomas Edison who turned down Donaldson’s “Carolina In the Morning” because of its lack of melody. And the story about “My Buddy,” thought by many to be a song about World War I, but which was in fact a memorial to Donaldson’s fiancée who had succumbed to influenza. Most touching was the story of Donaldson walking in Manhattan, approached by pan handlers of varying degrees of poverty. With each one who approached, the composer extended his hand for a handshake, discreetly slipping a $20 bill into their hands.

Having been exposed to the Red Lions for many years, it was a refreshing diversion seeing Tex at the keyboard, not only performing the music of Tin Pan Alley and Walter Donaldson, but exuding their spirit and joy.