30 Jan 2011
by arlenecorwin
in 2011, circling round vanities, circling round woman
Year Of The Moustache: 2010
I’d hinted at it,
Speculated,
Seen it in and on the best,
The rest of womankind.
Turkish maidens, Indians from India,
Beautiful, desirable,
And then,
Two thousand ten
The whole kaboodle spouted,
Sprouted.
Blonde, but definitely there!
Hair overlip!
The chin demanding its first nip,
The cheek!
And I, each, every other week
Am there with mirror large in place;
Eyeglasses I must bear, two pair
Of tweezers, just in case…
Now I’m addicted –
Let us say dependent.
Wax?
Relax into it?
Plan pre-termined,
I’ve turned into woman-man.
I’ve even cut my hair– and love it!
Maybe loving is the answer.
©Year of the Moustache 1.30.2011
Circling Round Vanity; Circling Round Woman;
Arlene Corwin
24 Nov 2010
by arlenecorwin
in 2010, a sense of the ridiculous, circling round vanities, circling round woman
Plucking Eyebrows In The Sun
I’m taking a poll.
It’s whimsical.
I’m plucking eyebrows in the sun,
Well, really, plucking eyebrows on my chin.
How many women
In my boat,
Admit it?
Come on, honestly.
Tell me.
After all,
It’s just a poll,
And I won’t tell
(Not one sole soul)
Female or male.
©Plucking Eyebrows In The Sun 10.16.2010
Circling Round Vanities; Circling Round Woman; A Sense of the Ridiculous;
Arlene Corwin
12 Nov 2010
by arlenecorwin
in 2010, circling round nature, circling round time, circling round vanities, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles, pure nakedness
Frozen In Time
The tendency,
The wish to be
The shiny sun of twenty-one
That looked out from
A malleable place
Inside that face
Of innocence and gullibility;
Mute kingdom
Of the ignorant.
One sees the now-jowls,
Howls,
And asks oneself
Would I prefer to be
Time frozen, young forever?
Never!
I know all about it.
I’m re-routed;
More alive than Arlene
Twenty smooth-faced Nover ever
Was.
Circling Round Wrinkles; Circling Round Nature; Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin
© Frozen In Time; 5.1.2010
22 Oct 2010
by arlenecorwin
in 2010, circling round vanities, circling round woman
Plucking Eyebrows In The Sun
I’m taking a poll.
It’s whimsical.
I’m plucking eyebrows in the sun,
Well, really, plucking eyebrows on my chin.
How many women
In my boat,
Admit it?
Come on now, honestly,
Tell me.
After all,
It’s just a poll,
And I won’t tell
(Not one soul)
Male or female.
©Plucking Eyebrows In The Sun 10.16.2010 Circling Round Vanities; Circling Round Woman; Arlene Corwin
10 Aug 2010
by arlenecorwin
in 2001, 2004, birth death & in between, circling round time, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles
My Middle Name Is Faith
It’s not that I don’t like it,
It’s that I’ve not yet embraced it,
Happening as it does, or seems
To do, so quickly overnight.
A process that I still don’t understand – not quite.
An age, the wrong side of the wrong side;
Stronger, weaker, ripened, mellow;
Still a seeker; seasoned fellow
Still preparing.
There are signs of maturation,
Both the rotting and the sprouting,
Yet the outer still concerns me:
Hanging, wrinkling, liver spots,
Graying hair and graying grin,
Growths like grain,
Red blotches, blots
Of pigment loss on what was porcelain;
Dropping off, a muted snore,
Dryness in the privates sore;
Swellings, shrinkings, pills galore -
Costing more
Than they are worth.
It comes so quickly, or it seems to –
Deficits and extra needs
In karmic keeping with the deeds.
Still, it fosters going inwards,
Digging deeper, hunting it;
Hunting something fall- and spring-less,
Everything-ness
In its self.
My middle name is faith.
©My Middle Name Is Faith 4.19.2001 2.5.2004
Circling Round Woman; Time; Circling Round Nature;
Birth, Death & In Between; Circling Round Wrinkles; Arlene Corwin
09 Aug 2010
by arlenecorwin
in 2002, 2004, birth death & in between, circling round nature, circling round time, circling round woman, I Is Always You is We, nature of & in reality
More Examination Observation
Sixty eight and something’s new:
Breasts are lower – larger too.
The bad, the good -as usual.
Relatively new, I need new time
To melt into a new quiescence,
Seeing beauty in two breasts
That used to stand and stick right out.
Time to see them not as symbol
When I thought them much too small,
Not as symptom,
But as guests whose fall
Gives rise to modesty,
An I-less anonymity:
A mild, non-thought, non-value thing -
But valued as an old dear Ming,
An autumned spring, a non-inviting flavoring
Enduring, non-alluring, lowering:
Time for giving in.
K. can always see the bright side.
I see death come closer;
Chains and series; night ride
To a darker place.
I’ve got no choice.
(It could be worse.)
It’s time to go from strength to strengths,
From self-display to coming-out
To celebrate an ageing part;
Leave behind the body doubt
And gadding ‘bout
And preening what was only wart
To an arlene-ing of the heart,
The voice and head
Instead.
© More Examination, Observation 02.8.7 (revised04.9.20)
Circling Round Nature; Circling Round Woman; Nature In & Of Reality;
Birth, Death & In Between; I Is Always You Is We; Pure Nakedness; Time;
Arlene Corwin
Sixty eight and something’s new:
Breasts are lower – larger too.
The bad, the good -as usual.
Relatively new, I need new time
To melt into a new quiescence,
Seeing beauty in two breasts
That used to stand and stick right out.
Time to see them not as symbol
When I thought them much too small,
Not as symptom,
But as guests whose fall
Gives rise to modesty,
An I-less anonymity:
A mild, non-thought, non-value thing -
But valued as an old dear Ming,
An autumned spring, a non-inviting flavoring
Enduring, non-alluring, lowering:
Time for giving in.
K. can always see the bright side.
I see death come closer;
Chains and series; night ride
To a darker place.
I’ve got no choice.
(It could be worse.)
It’s time to go from strength to strengths,
From self-display to coming-out
To celebrate an ageing part;
Leave behind the body doubt
And gadding ‘bout
And preening what was only wart
To an arlene-ing of the heart,
The voice and head
Instead.
07 Aug 2010
by arlenecorwin
in 2010, a sense of the ridiculous, circling round eros, circling round woman
Everyone’s Titties
Everyone’s titties are mammary glands,
The glamour of mammary glands
Being temporal –
Nothing to get excited about.
Mommies and mammories –
That’s their significance.
Men who desire
The chest bone attire,
Who somehow or other
Are drawn to an udder
Whose breast-iny
After an age is to flop
Or to drop –
Well, let’s say perception at best,
Is projection,
And leave it at that.
© Everyone’s Titties 6.16.2010 A Sense Of The Ridiculous; Circling Round Woman; Circling Round Eros; Arlene Corwin
07 Aug 2010
by arlenecorwin
in 2010, circling round vanities, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles
Aging By The Minute
They used to think I was his daughter.
Age caught up with vanity.
Now I’m thinking surgery –
A little from the neck perhaps,
Or cheek drawn back a bit, perhaps.
And then I think,
If I’m to be a paradigm
For future ages,
Age has got to hum for me.
But damn, it’s still hard come
To see the muscle disappear
Like snow caps melting more each year;
Bewildering and scary when
The knees and thighs were high and here
Just yesterday.
I’ve got to shift that mirror.
© Aging By The Minute 6.24.2010 Circling Round Vanities; Circling Round Woman; Circling Round Wrinkles; Arlene Corwin
27 Dec 2009
by arlenecorwin
in 1992, birthday book, circling round woman, love relationships, special people special occasions
To Obedience©To Obedience: A Birthday Poem 92.2.8
Circling Round Woman; Love Relationships;
Special People Special Occasions; Birthday Book;
Arlene Corwin
Knowing what I know,
Even with the women crowing
Nastily about their plight,
It’s nice to be a passive
Individual, whose bite is
Like a cream puff.
Only yesterday, I learned to say,
‘Victory to passive women!’
Every woman can throw off the
Yokes of autonomy, (they can be chains) – learn
Obedience, and not spurn an
Unalloyed and gallant care.
15 Dec 2009
by arlenecorwin
in 1949, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1969, 1984, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, a sense of the ridiculous, arlene corwin's biography, autobiography, biography, birth death & in between, birthday book, cat book, circling round baths, circling round computers, circling round energy, circling round eros, circling round nature, circling round reality, circling round time, circling round vanities, circling round woman, circling round wrinkles, circling round yoga, coffee book, defiant doggerel, definitely didactic, doggerel, God book, I Is Always You is We, I Was Thinking..., lessons to be learned, life, love relationships, love relationships; circling round eros, lyric, mother book, nature of & in reality, numbers, on the way to the post, our times our culture, pure nakedness, recipes, revelations big & small, small stories book, special people special occasions, swedish book, the processes creative thinking meditative, to the child mystic, Uncategorized, vaguely about music, war book
Arlene Corwin’s Poetry
Just another WordPress.com weblog
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Arlene Corwin’s Open-Ended Biography
(10.3.2007 updated 10.24.2007 updated 1.3.2008; updated December 15, 2009, October 2010 )
Arlene Corwin (born Arlene Faith Nover) is an American jazz singer and pianist, poet, teacher and practitioner of Yoga. Born November 8, 1934 in the Williamsburg Maternity Hospital, Brooklyn, New York. She has two children. Jonathan Eric Corwin (born July 24. 1956 and) Jennifer Nover Council (born February 2, 1964). Mother Margy Lillian (born Brown). Father Albert S. Nover. Both were hairdressers, owning a beauty salon together. Everyone was musical on both sides of the family. Mother sang, could play some piano. Father was a gifted sculptor and wood carver, played a little harmonica and mandolin. The family is Jewish.
Early Life
Started studying piano age 8. Studied voice at the famous 1650 Broadway with ‘coach’ Matty Levine. Did a little recording at aged 10 in Nola Studios. (The record has since disappeared) At 12 she started studying harp with Meyer Rosen (Julliard and NBC Orchestra) and the occasional piano lesson with an NBC pianist who taught her how to read chord changes, seeing at once that she was not interested in learning classical piano.
As a child she had already sung at weddings, bar mitzvahs and for the USO, raising bonds for the war effort. At 13, having a boyfriend who played the saxophone and who listened to Symphony Sid, jazz disc jockey whose late night show originated from Birdland, she awakened to jazz, listening to the late night show “under my blanket”. “A turning point”, she says. (Well before “Lullaby of Birdland” was put to words Arlene had written a lyric of her own – a lyric she still sings today) At 14,she was playing for a dancing school once a week. Then she got an accidental job (“slipping in on a banana peel when the singer got sick”) in a Brooklyn nightclub singing with a group. “Mom and dad chaperoned, of course”.1950s
She began to sing regularly when again, out of the blue, an agent rang offering a job for a hundred dollars a week to play at the Mayflower Hotel in Manhattan. It was a restaurant owned by Bob Olin, a former light heavyweight world champion. “I was so naïve I played the whole evening without ever taking a break. Who knew about breaks? Why they kept me I’ve no idea.” But they did and the steady salary of $100.00 a week (which she gave directly to her mother, any other choice never occurring to her) and the experience of having to make a varied program led to her singing to the piano, and eventually to playing to the singing. At this time she was still in high school as attending the prestigious High School of Music & Art as a harpist.She graduated from Music & Art getting a scholarship to Hofstra College as a music major.
Then in 1952, while still at Hofstra College (now university), she was playing on the weekends in a Hempstead, Long Island nightclub-restaurant when Slim Gaillard, who’d come to see Jack Teagarden (also working there) began to take notice of her. He started showing up regularly. There he met Arlene’s mother Margy, and the two eventually opened a jazz nightclub, the first to cater to blacks and whites. It was called The Turf and it, like Birdland had its own radio show, for which Arlene wrote the theme song “The Slim Gaillard Show”. Now she was standing as well as sitting, getting a chance to sit in and sing as often as she chose. The die was cast. It was jazz, cool jazz.
Early Influences
In 1954, on the day she ought to have been attending her college graduation, she married Bob Corwin, a 21-year-old jazz pianist with the Don Elliot Quartet. Because Bob toured, Arlene began her new stage of education: listening to Don’s group while they played on the same bill as the jazz greats of the 50’s. There was Helen Merrill at George Wein’s Storyville in Boston, Terry Gibbs and Illinois Jacquet in Detroit, Bill Evans, Cy Coleman, Bernard Peiffer, Tal Farlowe,Johnny Smith John Mehagan and Billy Taylor (who had also performed at the Turf) at the sophisticated Composer owned by jazz lover and connoiseur Willie Short in Manhattan. ” It was also a chance to see and listen to other singers of the day. New York was marvelous in those days. I saw Peggy Lee at Basin Street, became friends with Blossom Dearie at Trudy’s in the village, Oscar Peterson, Marian McPartland at the Hickory House, Sheila Jordan, Morgana King. It was THE university for me. I was introduced to and mentored by Tony Fruscella, the tragic, unsung genius of the trumpet, ‘who I took on my gigs, but to whom I was actually the apprentice’ – and through Tony to Morgana King and Beverly Getz, the talented [and equally tragic] wife of Stan Getz. I feel blessed to have experienced jazz at that time. The guys would gossip about who played ‘behind’ or ‘ahead’ of the beat, bass lines, good changes, bad changes. No Music & Art or Hofstra did that. I learned almost the whole of what is now called The American Songbook. And I, I was sounding like Sarah Vaughn with a little voice.”
Hanging Around Manhattan; Not This, Not That…
Living in New York, and looking for a niche she spent time, as other musicians did, at the Musicians Union Local 802 or Charlie’s Tavern where jobs could show up. In this way, there were weeks and weekends away with big bands: Tommy Dorsey’s Orchestra under the leadership of Warren Covington, Claude Thornhill and Larry Sonn.
“When you hang around New York all kinds of opportunities show up”. And so, she got a leading role in a B film called “Jukebox Racket’, wrote the score for another B film called, at the time “She Should Have Stayed In Bed”, later to be called ‘1,000 Shapes Of A Female: see IDMB (the company, called Exploit Films was owned by Errol Flynn “tall, big in every way, veins on his face, but exuding old world charm” He was quite, quite overwhelming.”
Then there was a bit part in John Cassavetes “Shadows”, followed by the lead in what has become a cult ‘beat’ musical called “The Nervous Set” by Fran and Jay Landesman where she introduced the now-standards “Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most and “Ballad Of The Sad Young Men”, both subsequently recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Bassey and numberless major artists. She studied acting with Joshua Shelley. “It was a time to find out who and what I was. “I was definitely not an actress. I was too introverted and none of those clothes fit” she says.
More Influences and more Not This, Not That…
In 1959 she met Johnny Burke (Burke & Van Heusen) who took her under his wing, taking her to Hollywood to demonstrate his show “Donnybrook” for Rosalind Russell and husband, producer Frederick Brisson “It was a glitzy time. I stayed at Bob Hope’s house in Palm Springs, met Frank Sinatra and his then fiancee Juliet Prowse, Jerry Lewis, Marlene Deitrich, had my own suite in Las Vegas , traveled first class, but was so introverted I always kept to myself, never saying much, definitely not participating in any of these scenes. Those clothes didn’t fit either.”
All the while she returned to the intimacy of New York supper clubs. They were the bottom line, singing and playing.
It was during the supper club period, she met Al Weissman who became her manager. She was signed to the Joe Glazer Agency and began to tour with her own trio. “Wherever I went they’d say, “You know, there’s just been a girl here who sounds like you. Her name was Barbra something. I suppose we had Brooklyn Jewishness in common. ” (She too was signed with Glazer.)
Although published by Frank Publishing (owned by composer Frank Loesser) years later she asked for the songs back because “nothing happened.” “It was a period of promise, a period I was not equipped to fulfill”.
1960s-1970s
In 1962 it was back to Hollywood with Al Weissman and high hopes. “I had some jobs, but never in my genre.” Back to New York. A little jaunt of songwriting with singer Dick Haymes. A short marriage of four months to Richard Robin Palmer.
Greece, Lebanon, Greece, Oxford – Yoga & Jazz
In 1966, by way of Paris, Greece (where she and husband Jim Council were neighbors with Leonard Cohen and Marianne) and Lebanon, “where I actually managed to do some television, singing jazz”, she settled in Oxford, England for the next 18 years, teaching yoga,(“lectured and demonstrated in what must have been a hundred Women’s Insitutes, posed for one of the very first health magazines called Health & Fitness, wrote articles on nutrition, had a weekly radio spot on a little radio show for BBB Oxford actually doing Yoga on radio while describing each pose with a microphone up my nose, did a tape on meditation – it was a lot of Yoga”) and singing and playing, being voted Best Jazz Singer in the Midlands 1972, appearing at Ronnie Scott’s three times. She did 3 television shows; a late night BBC jazz show called “In The Cool Of The Evening”, radio for BBC overseas, was invited over to Amsterdam to do Dutch radio, sang at universities around England, (“one night opposite Pink Floyd, “who were just starting out, I suppose”), the American air bases.
She appeared several times at The Stables in Wavendon (run by John Dankworth – now Sir John Dankworth – and Cleo Laine -now Dame Cleo Laine – while at the same time giving weekly yoga lessons to a group there, (which included Dame Cleo – “a wonderful
yogin”). The Wavendon All-Music Plan, later known simply as WAP “was the most stimulating and original enterprise I’ve ever encountered, pairing all kinds of musical genre. I even played on the same bill as Vladimir Ashkenazy.”
Starting in 1969 and all during the 70’s fate gave a push to the yoga side of things and Arlene was teaching yoga classes in doctor’s offices for hyper-tense, cardiac and overweight men. teaching regularly at conferences for IBM. She gave demonstrations, lectured all over for the Women’s Institute, posed and wrote for Health and Fitness Magazine (summer issue 1982) a book called The New Manual Of Yoga by Karen Ross (1973) wrote articles on nutrition, made a cassette called This Is Meditation. It was a full double life with Yoga taking half the time and singing the other half.
1980s to now.
In 1983 she once again ran into Slim Gaillard – this time in London. He asked her to appear on a television show he was producing that was to star himself, Kai Winding and Wayne Shorter. It was the last appearance she ever made in England.In 1984, finding Sweden fertile ground for singer/pianists, and meeting and falling in love with Kent Anderson, she moved to Sweden where she lives until today, performing, and writing regularly for “Live With Good Intentions” an online magazine.
Still growing, still changing
The latest news – 2009 and 25 years later, aged 75: a cd of her own songs for Imogen Records produced by George Reece, a concert of Johnny Mercer to commemorate his 100th birthday, poetry grown to 2000 poems (see Arlene Corwin Poetry).
2009 finds her favorite project on Google called Arlene Corwin’s Poetry, a project that started in 1949 or about 2,000 poems ago.
2010 landmark: First published book of poetry, “Circling Round Time” comes out in September “To The Child Mystic” the second due to come out in December.
Tags:arlene corwin’s background, biography, life
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