Word: binging
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Mike Connor (Frank Sinatra): I have heard, among this clan/ You are called the forgotten man. C. K. Dexter Haven (Bing Crosby): Is that what they?re sayin'? Well, did you evah?/ What a swell party this...
...This musical badinage, from the film "High Society," refers to the Bing Crosby character, a Newport aristocrat on the outs with his fellow swells. But it might also refer to the status, then and now, of the original Groaner. In the early '30s Crosby had created, or certainly synthesized, the craft and tone of modern pop vocalizing. The summer of 1956, however, when "High Society" premiered, was the sweltering season of "Hound Dog." Genteel warbling of the Crosby stripe was two generations passé. First it was supplanted by Sinatra's aggressive poignance; then it expired in the steam Elvis...
...disappeared, but it has dimmed. In "The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz," a standard reference, Crosby gets less space than his younger brother Bob, who fronted a Dixieland band in the '30s and beyond, and who may be the only bandleader of the time who could not play an instrument. Bing is hardly to be seen in Ken Burns' 19-hour documentary "Jazz," though he employed many jazz masters on his records and radio shows, and teamed with Louis Armstrong more often than any star except Bob Hope. Ask people over 40 to describe Crosby in a few words...
...that Crosby would care. His worldview was famously imperturbable (say the word as Bing would, with the blowfish p's and b's). He?d most likely respond to the rare slur or setback with a blithe "Well, did you evah?" Crosby's last words, before the heart attack that killed him in 1977, at the conclusion of a foursome on a Madrid course, were "That was a great game of golf, fellas...
...walk away. And while I hope Jacky and Bing and Big can one day do the same, I doubt they ever can. They have so little to walk toward...