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In the library the other night, the public library that is, I came across a Woody Herman biography, WOODY HERMAN, CHRONICLES OF THE HERDS, by William D. Clancy with Audree Coke Kenton. (And, there's a foreword by Steve Allen...!)

There's a passage on Woody's work with George Pal, the wonderful Puppetoon, "Rhapsody in Wood."

I'm not sure how much, if anything new is here in this passage from the 1995 volume, but I thought it might be neat to share Woody Herman's memories of the memorable, and colorful collaboration:


"...Woody made a film entitled RHAPSODY IN WOOD, a George Pal 'Pupetoon.' The film was mostly animated, utlizing puppets. Woody was seen, but the band played only on the soundtrack... Just before his involvement with Woody, (Pal) had made an eight-minute Puppetoon with Duke Ellington entitled DATE WITH DUKE."

Woody Herman: George Pal used to use a lot of jazz people. He did things with Peggy Lee and Nat Cole. He evidently liked our band. I think it was one of the best things we ever tried to do. Ralph (Burns--NO RELATION!!!, JB), wrote the music. George Pal always had a little story line with these things. This was the story of "Grandpappy Herman," supposedly how I got my first clarinet. It seemed that Grandpappy Herman was an old woodchopper and he used to go through the forest, and with one clean sweep, hundreds of these tremendous oaks would just like lie down. And then with just a few whacks of his axe, he carved out this clarinet, and I did a little opening "alive," sitting at a fireplace with a clarinet saying, "You may think this is just an ordinary clarinet, but it really isn't, it is a kind of Stradivarius of its type, because my Grandpappy was such a great woodchopper and he carved this clarinet out of a giant tree." Then at the end, I come back and say, "That's how it really happened, and that's the story of Grandpappy Herman and the old woodchopper." And out comes the little puppet in the doorway and he says, "Who are you trying to kid with this story? You know damn well you bought that in a hock shop for twenty bucks!" So we get into this terrible beef and that's the end of the short. But it all has musical value. Visually, he caught everything in the music, and of course vice versa. Ralph worked with him and just did some fantastic things and we took one little bit of it and recorded it (July 20, 1949) and called it "Rhapsody in Wood."

________________________


Now, no one ever said Damn, in a George Pal Puppetoon...!


;-)


James H. Burns