Wednesday, May 03, 2006

TEA PARTY: VINTAGE REEFER SONGS

I certainly was surprised to see the news that Mexico is planning on legalizing drugs for personal use. Any drug: heroin, pot, LSD...hell, snorting elephant tranquilizer, for all I know. It should be an interesting experiment: will they now have to worry about illegal Americans crossing the border?

Which reminded me of this page that features some great vintage jazz recordings. Some of the greatest legends in jazz, like Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, and Ella Fitzgerald, sang weed's praises. Now, I don't indulge in anything heavier then a martini, so I'm not endorsing anything here. I just love the spooky feel of jazz recordings of the '30s and '40s - the far-away sound of low-fi 78s, and hipster slang like "viper" (pothead), "blowing gage," and "smoking tea."

The Barney Bigard Sextet: Sweet Marijuana Brown
Bea Foote: Weed

UPDATE: Or not. As Scott pointed out in his comment, now Prez Fox is reconsidering.


3 comments:

Scott said...

No so fast, keemosabe.

Dubya musta got on the blower to Vicente Fox, who sent the bill back to the Mexican congress for "rewriting," i.e., shitcanning.

It took about a day.
Surprised it took so long.

Anonymous said...

"Refer Man", especially the Cab Calloway version, is a great reefer song as well...

Jonny said...

This is a really old post and I doubt anybody will read this comment, but for anyone interested in the history of reefer-inspired jazz music should check out a two-CD collection put out by Trikont records called "Dope & Glory." It has all of the songs listed on that far-out Web site and hours more. The instrumentals I find particularly amusing. Plus, the next time your mother is waxing poetically about how wholesome that Nat King Cole was you can spin his rendition of "Hit That Jive Jack."