By David "Chet" Williamson Sneade
He is the songwriter’s songwriter, a genius, who is considered one of the first great American composers of popular song to seamlessly combine his words to his music.
As Sammy Cahn once said: “When I met Cole Porter for the first time in my life, it was one of the great thrills for me because I think that he, alongside Irving Berlin, are the two most gifted men of American words and music – because they wrote both.”
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| Dr. Daniel Webster Abercrombie |
Charles Schwartz, in his biography on Porter, writes:
“Harvard-trained, with a reputation among Worcester students and faculty as an
enlightened but demanding pedagogue, Abercrombie turned out to be an important
influence on Cole; in fact, practically a godsend for the youngster. Not only
did Abercrombie respond to Cole’s avid attention in class and polite ways by
taking a personal interest – almost as a substitute father would – in his
progress at the school and his development as a human being, but he also
influenced the youth’s future work as a lyricist-composer.
“Looking back on his stay at
Worcester after he had established himself in the popular music field, Cole freely admitted that it was
Abercrombie who first made him aware, by example, of the close correlation
between meter and verse in the epic poems of Homer and other great Greek poets,
of the importance of unifying music and text in his own popular songs. Speaking
about the lesson learned from Abercrombie as it related to his own work, Cole
said: ‘Words and music must be so inseparably wedded to each other that they
are like one.’ Cole’s songs are a testament to this philosophy.”
Young Cole, the violinist
Porter's connection to jazz is equally inseparable. Consider the repertoire without such classics as "All of You,” “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” “From this Moment On,” “I Concentrate on You,” “I Get a Kick Out of You, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin, “I Love You,” “In the Still of the Night,” “Just One of Those Things,” “Love for Sale,” “Night & Day,” “What is This Thing Called Love?” and “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” among others.
Singers also recognized Porter’s
lyricism as indivisible between its poetics and song. “I particularly like
Cole’s lyrics to sing because he made it fun to sing a song,” said Frank
Sinatra. “He gave it a freshness. When I first would see one of
his songs, the surprise of the couplet or the inner rhyme was always exciting
to me. Consequently, when I worked in clubs – particularly in clubs – the
material was fun to do because it was sophisticated enough for drunk
audiences.”
Cole attended Worcester Academy from 1905 to 1909. That year the
school’s registration numbered 240 students with 21 faculty members. Founded in
1834 as the Worcester County Manual Labor High School
In a 2004 profile in the New
Yorker magazine,
titled King Cole: The not so merry soul of Cole Porter, writer John Lahr
describes Porter’s state of being as he arrived in Worcester
“From the moment in 1905 when the
elfin fourteen-year-old from a powerful lumber and mining family in Peru,
Indiana — the pampered and only surviving one of three siblings — arrived at
Worcester Academy, in Massachusetts, with his paintings and an upright piano
for his dorm room, he cast himself as a kind of dandy,” Lahr wrote. “The
dandy’s strategy is to combine daring with tact, flamboyance with distance.
Instead of breaking the rules, Porter learned to play with them. “At boarding
school I was always taught,” he wrote in ‘I’m in Love,’ “not to reveal what I
really thought, / Nor ever once let my eyes betray / The dreadful things I
longed to say.”
In his book, The
Life That Late He Led, another Porter biographer George
Eells wrote this
about Porter’s arrival at Worcester Academy
Porter excelled both socially and
academically at Worcester Academy
If Porter was a favorite of the
headmaster, it was Mrs. Abercrombie who became his patron. Schwartz wrote: “In
her drawing room, she plopped a cushion on the piano stool (so that Cole could
reach the keyboard) and sat enthralled as he played selections from MacDowell.
Mrs. Abercrombie thought him brilliant and Cole soon realized that his musical
accomplishments were to stand him in even better stead in Massachusetts Indiana
While Porter reportedly wrote a
number of tunes while attending the school, sadly none of the pieces have ever been
located. Schwartz wrote that Porter had his own upright piano in his living
quarters where he played and sang popular tunes for his classmates. “Cole often
amused friends with musical takeoffs on the more obvious idiosyncrasies of faculty
members as well as with renditions of risque tunes of his own … From all
reports, all these early smutty songs were particular favorites of Cole’s
peers.”
According to Eells, Porter
characterized the songs years later as the kind of material that was heard in
second-rate dives. “But, in 1908 these songs garnered enormous popularity for
him as he performed them privately for his classmates and the more liberal-minded faculty members,” Eells said. “The only three numbers that he could
recall in later years were “The Tattooed Gentleman,,” “Fi Fi, Fifi,” and The
Bearded Lady.”
These bawdy tunes almost got Porter
expelled. Evidently Headmaster Abercrombie caught wind of the off-color pieces
and demanded that Porter play them for him. Legend has it that in the middle of
“Bearded Lady,” Abercrombie was so outraged by what he had heard he forbade
the composer to ever play the songs again.
Porter recounted the incident in the Eells biography. “My own peculiar talents in musical composition first came to light at
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| The old Park Theatre |
In 1983, Worcester Telegram & Gazette reporter Robert Connelly wrote about Porter’s near expulsion and his social life spent on campus. “Porter was known for entertaining his fellow students by banging out the songs of the day on the upright piano he had in his room,” Connelly wrote. “He also improvised many songs, most of which dealt with school life or contemporary issues.”
On the school’s Website under the heading of “History: Influential
Alum” there is a profile of Porter. Frank
Callahan, class of 71, Director of Planned Gifts at
Worcester Academy, is singled out for his contribution to the article that
reads: “Cole was small and not athletic, but he had an ebullient personality
and gained many friends by playing tunes on the piano. Most classmates remember
him either playing the upright in his room or playing the Chickering grand
piano in the Megaron. His formal performances were with the school band, then
called the Mandolin Club, but sometimes Cole wrote and performed on the Megaron
piano comical impersonations of the faculty.”
Callahan is a kind of on-campus expert on Porter. A couple of years ago Callahan produced a video about the great American composer called Cole Porter at Worcester Academy and Beyond. He says the first few minutes include pictures of Porter in
“I did it in anticipation of the movie, De-Lovely coming out,” Callahan says. “He is our celebrity alumnus, so I wanted to tell the students about him. I also have some clips from the first movie done about his life, called Night and Day, with Cary Grant. They do have Yale in it but nothing about Worcester Academy.”Callahan also noted that the school has a Grammy Award on campus that the Porter family donated to
In addition to three aforementioned tunes, Porter also wrote the “Class Song” of 1909. Unfortunately, that tune is also among the missing.
In his four years at Worcester Academy Germaine Street
In the school history of 1909 it mentions that socially, there were dancing classes held at Dean Hall in the city. “Seniors were given a reception at
William McBrien, in his book, Cole Porter, A Biography, wrote: Cole’s senior year is described in a history of
Porter also tried his hand at acting, appearing in the commencement play as Bob Acres in Richard Sheridan’s The Rivals.” In a publicity photo, published by
The history also states, “Cole Porter
starred again with a violin selection from Flotow’s opera Martha.
Applause was prolonged, and as an encore, he sat down at the piano and sang …
‘original squibs on school life and faculty,’ which brought down the house.
Never again would he be tied to the violin.”
In 2003, Robert C. Achorn, a former editor, publisher and president of the Telegram & Gazette wrote a terrific piece on Porter after the announcement of the making of De-Lovely, which at the time had the working title of Just One of Those Things.
Achorn opens with “At first glance, Cole Porter and Worcester are an odd mix. Porter
was a small-town boy who lived most of his later years in a grand house in Paris Venice Waldorf Towers New York Worcester Academy
“Worcester bursts forth as the place he first attached clever lyrics to jaunty tunes and launched a career that ultimately produced 800 popular songs, many of them brilliant — songs such as “Night and Day,” “Begin the Beguine," “Anything Goes,” “You’re the Top,” the entire glorious score of “Kiss Me, Kate,” and the classic pop number “Just One of Those Things" (”a trip to the moon on gossamer wings …”).
Achorn then proceeds to write that a
half-dozen biographies of Porter tell certain stories about his Worcester
“There is no Cole Porter building on campus, no Cole Porter room. The archives from 1905 to 1909 — Porter’s time — cry for further indexing and study. When the academy created its Hall of Fame in 1976, the oh-so-famed Porter was not in the first group to be honored, or in the second. In fact, it took five years before his name was added to the 25 men and women already honored.
The harshest criticism Achorn fires
at the school may be directed towards the fate of one of the pianos Porter
played. “He was allowed to bring an upright piano into his dormitory room. He
played it often for the enjoyment of fellow students,” he wrote. “At other
times, he played classical works, and some of his own, on the Chickering grand
piano in the Megaron recreation hall right behind Walker Hall on campus. The
Megaron is still in rich use today, but the Chickering, replaced and in
disrepair, collects dust in the attic. The contrast with the Waldorf-Astoria’s
long-term zeal in keeping “Cole Porter’s piano” in a place of honor in its
Peacock Alley restaurant may be suggestive of a campus attitude.”
Achorn lists a litany of reasons why Worcester Academy Worcester
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| Cole Porter at the time of his graduation at WA |
Achorn said that Callahan still hopes that academy records will produce the “Class Song” Porter wrote for the June 1909 graduation. “It might be printed in the graduation program,” he wrote. “That at least could provide some hint of the quality of his work in
In summation, Achorn wrote that the
broader influence of Worcester
This article was first posted in JazzSphere on
This article was first posted in JazzSphere on November 24, 2007
STANDARDS
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| Bill Evans |
"All of You" -- performed by Bill Evans --
"Begin the Beguine" -- as played by Artie Shaw
"Dream Dancing" -- as sung by Stacey Kent --
"From This Moment On" -- Diana Krall --
"Just One of Those Things" -- as performed by
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
"Love for Sale" -- performed by Charlie Parker --
"Night and Day" -- as sung by Helen Merrill
"What is This Thing Called Love"
Ben Webster --
"You'd Be So Nice to Come Home to" -- Art Pepper
Popular Songs
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| Patricia Barber |
"Don't Fence Me In" -- sung by Bing Crosby --
"Easy to Love" -- sung by Patricia Barger --
"Every Time We Say Goodbye" -- as performed by John Coltrane --
"I Get a Kick Out of You" -- Erroll Garner --
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| Dinah Washington |
Recommended
"Could It Be You?" -- performed by pianist Simon Lapointe --
COLE PORTER
DOB: June 9, 1891
DOD: October 15, 1964
Resources:
This is a work in progress. Comments, corrections,
and suggestions are always welcome. Write to walnutharmonicas@gmail.com Also see: www.jazzriffing.blogspot.com
