You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 1044

PLAYS: 447

("Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your . . . .never mind")

Since debate on the issue of our current Immigration laws should be heating up soon, this may be jumping the gun. But it's never too early to start getting some historic perspective on issues. So this post is about the debate over the McCarran/Walter Immigration Bill of 1952.

The program, American Forum Of The Air, hosted a debate on the bill with Senator Herbert Lehman (D-New York) and Congressman J. Frank Wilson (D-Texas)on May 17, 1953.

Sen. Herbert Lehman: “Aliens already in this country can be apprehended and placed in custody. In some cases they can be deported without even the benefit of a hearing. Mister Blair, the McCarran -Walter Act took over all the worst features of all the immigration laws which have been enacted over the last thirty or forty years. But it added many new provisions that were equally bad and combined the whole structure into a legal code which is anti-humanitarian, anti-foreign and, in the profoundest meaning of the word Un-American. It is a complex law and very difficult to summarize in all of its details. But if we are to keep faith with our American traditions, this law, in my opinion must be completely revised and rewritten.”

Then, as now the subject of our Immigration Laws was the object of much heated debate. In the 1950s, with the Red Scare in full bloom, the fear was mass migration of Communist subversives and assassins - however, then as now there was the racial/ethnic overtone which seems to be really what the debate is always about.

Some of it isn't so subtle.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 35

PLAYS: 12

(East Berlin 1953 - Getting to be an all-too-familiar image: Rocks vs. Tanks)

As the Cold War trudged on during the 1950s, there were a few uprisings that became wrinkles in the Iron Curtain. One was the East Berlin riots that began in June of 1953. They were quickly joined by other disturbances around East Germany, with a few cities in the Eastern Bloc joining in. They were quickly extinguished but gave the West a glimpse that not all was as it was portrayed to be. As these newscasts from June 17-23rd attest.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 47

PLAYS: 21

(Birdland on 52nd Street - A hotbed of Jazz activity in the 1950s)

A live set from July 3, 1952 featuring Arnett Cobb and his Orchestra and The George Shearing Quintet at Birdland on 52nd Street in New York.

NBC radio, throughout the 1940s and 50s did weekly live sets from Birdland, as did all the other networks from various clubs and ballrooms around the country. Live music on the radio was a nightly embarrassment of riches with bands, small groups, singers - just about everybody with a union card, getting their 15 to 90 minute musical messages across to millions of interested listeners.

And this was one of those nights.

Via Mashable:

The only existing film footage of Anne Frank has been uploaded to YouTube by the Anne Frank House. The Amsterdam museum is hoping to bring attention to Anne’s story and diaries and reach a new generation who may be unfamiliar with her story.

At the 9 second mark in the clip, you can see Anne Frank leaning out of a second-story window as she watches a bride and groom exit a neighboring address. The Guardian reports that the scene dates back to July 22, 1941 and was provided to the museum by the couple in the 1990s.

The story also goes that in the 1950s, once Anne’s diary became public, the couple recognized Anne in their wedding video. So they decided to contact her father, Otto Frank, to whom they gave a 5 second version of the clip.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 39

PLAYS: 21

(Aime` Barelli - The Kenton/Ellington influence hit big-time)

Aime` Barelli was one of the great trumpeters to come out of the early French Jazz scene. He was part of the ensemble Jazz de Paris in the 1930s and 40s, playing alongside the likes of Alix Combelle, Hubert Rostaing and many of the other pioneering figures in France at the time.

After the war he formed a big band and got into the styles of Progressive Jazz along the lines of Stan Kenton, Boyd Raeburn, Claude Thornhill and Duke Ellington. In the 1950s he continued his wide appeal throughout France and Europe recording a number of albums for the Pathe` label as well as frequent tours through the continent.

This track, Je Ne Sais Pas is from 1954, when the band was at its most popular. Rock n' Roll was just around the corner, but for the moment Aime` Barreli and his orchestra said everything that needed to be said.

And then some.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 39

PLAYS: 17

(Jazz in Paris in the 1950s - it was definitely happening)

In the 1950s the Jazz scene in France exploded. It was Mecca for visiting Americans and it was a reservoir of French talent that assimilated Modern Jazz and added their own points of view. The studios in Paris were working overtime with sessions featuring a mix of Americans and French sitting in on each others projects.

A lot of talent came out of those sessions - the Algerian born pianist Martial Solal became an international name. Americans like Lucky Thompson, Gerry Mulligan, Kenny Clarke, Dexter Gordon and countless others found enthusiastic audiences and an instant fan base and some even settled in France, making the Paris scene their home.

Typical of the sessions that came out of Paris at that time was one featuring the drummer Gerard Ponchonet leading a quartet that consisted of Martial Solal on piano and Lucky Thompson on Tenor sax and Jean Pierre Sasson on guitar. This track, Undecided is also augmented by Pierre Michelot on Bass and Michel Hauser on vibes. The session was recorded on March 14, 1956 and released on the French Swing label.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 38

PLAYS: 26

(Jerry Mengo - French bandleader, film composer, prolific recording artist. Doesn't ring any bells?)

Continuing our romp through French Jazz and Big Band - Jerry Mengo was a prolific band leader and film composer who was active for several decades in France. He had massive popularity throughout France and Europe and, like Jacques Helian, was widely regarded by American musicians who visited and worked in Paris during the pre-war and post-war periods.

Sadly, almost none of his material has ever been available in the U.S. and this track Un Ciel Bleu en Hiver, recorded in 1953 is one of the great instrumentals from the early 1950s. It borrows heavily from the Claude Thornhill/Gil Evans-Stan Kenton school, but it's more of a tribute to solid arranging than performing a facsimile.

A good track to break the ice with.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 131

PLAYS: 18

(Teenage gang members of the 1950s - West Side Story for real)

One of the upshots of the leaps in technology of the 1950s was the tape recorder - yes, that strange contraption with reels, part of that substrata lovingly referred to as "analogue".

When tape recording became popular, especially in broadcasting, it created a whole new generation of gathering news and documentary material that wasn't available before. Because it was portable (and reasonably light-weight), it was now possible to get up close and personal with the subjects you were trying to shed light on - take things to the streets, as it were.

And because of that, a whole series of documentaries started cramming the airwaves, covering everything from Atomic Bomb tests to Cow milking.

One series of documentaries, produced by a special department of CBS Radio News was called Unit One. Several weeks ago I ran another Unit One Documentary called "38th Parallel U.S.A.".

This Documentary, aired on April 21, 1958 and narrated by Edward R. Murrow, focuses on the rise in juvenile delinquency in New York City. "Who Killed Michael Farmer?" looked at the problem of teenage gangs in the 1950's through the eyes of the gang members and the court system.

Gang member: “It was ten-thirty when we entered the park. We saw couples on the benches in the back of the pool and they all stared at us. I guess they musta saw the gang there, I don’t think they were fifty or sixty feet away. When we reached the front of the stairs we looked up and there was two other gang members on top of the stairs. There were two smaller ones, and they had Garrison belts wrapped around their hands. They didn’t say nothin’ to us, they looked kinda scared.”

Gang member #2: “I was scared. I knew they were gonna jump them and everything but I was scared. When they were comin’ up, they were all separated and everything like that”.

Gang Member: “I saw the main body of the gang slowly walk out of the bushes, on my right. I turned around fast, to see what Michael was gonna do and this kid come runnin at me with a belt. Then I ran myself and I told Michael to run.”

Interesting material that wasn't covered this way before. Remember, we're looking at a slice of society from 51 years ago that was, for the most part, ignored by the mainstream press. In 1958 they started pointing a microscope at it. In many ways, it helped change the perception of our society.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1037)

PLAYS: (1596)

Chris Matthews seems to think that bloggers don’t do any fact checking, and that we’re going to lose that if the newspaper industry goes out of business. While it’s true that beat reporters and those doing the footwork out there are sorely needed, to say that bloggers don’t fact check is just a cheap shot at the on line community that he and his ilk have such disdain for, probably because we’re the main ones fact checking the likes of him.

What Matthews fails to note here is why the industry is in such bad shape. The Economist lays out some of the problems in their article Who Killed the Newspaper.

Nobody should relish the demise of once-great titles. But the decline of newspapers will not be as harmful to society as some fear. Democracy, remember, has already survived the huge television-led decline in circulation since the 1950s. It has survived as readers have shunned papers and papers have shunned what was in stuffier times thought of as serious news. And it will surely survive the decline to come.

That is partly because a few titles that invest in the kind of investigative stories which often benefit society the most are in a good position to survive, as long as their owners do a competent job of adjusting to changing circumstances. Publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal should be able to put up the price of their journalism to compensate for advertising revenues lost to the internet—especially as they cater to a more global readership. As with many industries, it is those in the middle—neither highbrow, nor entertainingly populist—that are likeliest to fall by the wayside.

The usefulness of the press goes much wider than investigating abuses or even spreading general news; it lies in holding governments to account—trying them in the court of public opinion. The internet has expanded this court. Anyone looking for information has never been better equipped. People no longer have to trust a handful of national papers or, worse, their local city paper. News-aggregation sites such as Google News draw together sources from around the world. The website of Britain's Guardian now has nearly half as many readers in America as it does at home.

In addition, a new force of “citizen” journalists and bloggers is itching to hold politicians to account. The web has opened the closed world of professional editors and reporters to anyone with a keyboard and an internet connection. Several companies have been chastened by amateur postings—of flames erupting from Dell's laptops or of cable-TV repairmen asleep on the sofa. Each blogger is capable of bias and slander, but, taken as a group, bloggers offer the searcher after truth boundless material to chew over. Of course, the internet panders to closed minds; but so has much of the press.

Ironically we see Bob Woodward saying journalism lives on after playing stenographer for the Bush crowd to get some books sold rather than reporting on what he found out. And he holds up Tina Brown’s operation at The Daily Beast as a business model for making money on line and some hope for journalism's future.

Just how different would this conversation have been with a completely different panel? The viewers might have learned something had it been our own Dave Neiwert and Susie Madrak who’ve worked in the newspaper industry and turned to blogging instead, and Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo and Eric Boehlert from Media Matters, who’s sites look more like the future of journalism to me.

When the fourth estate doesn't do its job, people are going to turn to other sources that will. Something that seems to completely elude Chris Matthews and his panel here.

Another thing Matthews fails to note is that most bloggers who use other people’s reporting link back to that material and allow their readers to evaluate their assertions for themselves. We are not just taking stenography from press releases or other people’s reporting. And when we get something wrong, there’s generally a swift retraction. Something you cannot say for too many in our “mainstream media” who tend to circle the wagons rather than admit mistakes. And while Joe Klein is claiming that his commenters “fact check” him, just how many of those comments does he actually read?

Transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »