Dave Brubeck: Camptown Races
Musicians:
Dave Brubeck (piano), Paul Desmond (alto sax), Eugene Wright (bass), Joe Morello (drums).
Composed by Stephen Collins Foster
.Recorded: Los Angeles, April 23, 1959
Rating: 89/100 (learn more)
The racist dialect of "Camptown Races" (1850) is lampooned in Mel Brooks' s Blazing Saddles (1974), where black railroad laborers bamboozle their ofay overseers into enacting the song minstrel-style only to have boss Slim Pickens ride up and excoriate the hapless whites: "I hired you people to get a little track laid, not to jump around like a bunch of Kansas City faggots!" That America's most popular jazz group in 1959 could've similarly bamboozled themselves is revolting. "I hired you people to get a jazz track laid, not to jive around like a bunch of corn-fed minstrels!" Good Desmond, bad judgment.
Reviewer: Alan Kurtz
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