The Man Who Coined The Word "Gig"

During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when millions of people nationwide were laid off their jobs and had to apply for unemployment benefits from the state and federal governments, there was talk of including people who were part of the gig economy. These individuals, called gig workers, ordinarily didn't qualify for unemployment, because they were not on anyone's payroll. They were freelancers, independent contractors. Due to the unusual circumstances brought on by the pandemic, they got to collect unemployment checks.

That brings me to the origin of the word "gig." While reading a book called Footnotes: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way by Caseen Gaines (Sourcebooks, 2021), I learned where the word came from. It's "a term," writes Gaines, an award-winning New Jersey-based author and journalist, "[African-American band leader James Reese] Europe coined [in the late nineteen-teens] to describe a one-night performance, which quickly caught on in the jazz community."

Now we know who should receive credit for creating "gig," a word that has become applicable to people both inside and outside of show business.

Revisiting TV's First Golden Age

 Ben Brantley, a New York Times drama critic, wrote an article that appeared in the Arts & Leisure section (August 30, 2020) with the headline, "Enjoying Live Theater, Decades Old."

Since Broadway shows are shutdown until January due to COVID-19, Brantley has had to content himself with watching plays that were originally broadcast live in the 1950s during what has been called the Golden Age of Television, via YouTube.

He recalled when he was five years old walking into his family's living room in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and seeing what he later learned was the tail end of Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House," starring Julie Harris and Christopher Plummer. He remembered their characters arguing which left him "both upset and enthralled by what I had witnessed."

No doubt this televised performance planted the seed of theatregoing in his mind that later blossomed into a (so far) 27-year career as a drama critic.

His depiction of the racial landscape on television in those long ago days caught my attention: "...the faces on the screen are still overwhelmingly white, a reminder that the United States was still very much a culturally segregated nation."

I think it was the black writer John Oliver Killens who wrote that blacks on TV were so rare that whenever a black performer came on the screen, black people all over America would race to their TV sets to see them.

Accompanying the article were three black-and-white photos (one of them of writer Rod Serling) from the 1950s. The photo I found the most arresting was the one of the actors seated around a table during a rehearsal of "Twelve Angry Men" in 1954. The photo caption says the rehearsal was for CBS's Playhouse 90. Actually, it was for Studio One. According to The Complete Directory to Prime Network TV Shows, 1946-Present by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh (Ballantine Books, 1979), "Reginald Rose contributed teleplays for Studio One and it was Rose's 'The Twelve Angry Men' in 1954 that won Emmys for writing (Rose), direction (Frank Shaffner), and performance by an actor in a drama (Bob Cummings)." 

Behind the actors are three cameras and crouching down behind one of the cameramen is a black man in short sleeves and wearing a headset. Although television back then was "overwhelmingly white," here was this black man (and possibly a second one in a far corner holding what looks like a still camera). But definitely the one behind the white cameraman is black.

Who was he? What was his job title? How did he get hired as a crew member on a major network show? What became of him? Did he encounter racial discrimination and racist comments while on the job? Does his name appear in the end credits? I have so many questions.

Just seeing him in the photo was a pleasant discovery. Who knew there was at least one black person among the crew members working on plays for the anthology series Studio One? He would have been, to reference a James Baldwin essay, a fly in buttermilk.

Stephen Sondheim On Upper Broadway

In 2018 I attended the "Wall to Wall Leonard Bernstein" program, an eight-hour tribute to the life and work of the conductor/composer/pianist, at Symphony Space, a cultural gem at the corner of 95th Street and Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

This year Symphony Space honored jazz saxophonist John Coltrane with a "Wall to Wall" program that I also attended. I was able to see and hear bassist Reggie Workman and saxophonist Gary Bartz perform live. Both men are jazz legends.

While browsing the theatre's brochure for the 2019/2020 season, I was delighted to learn that in May there will be a "Wall to Wall Stephen Sondheim" program that, like all the previous "Wall to Wall" events, will run for eight hours (3 pm to 11 pm) and will be free to the public (donations are suggested). The program will celebrate Sondheim's creative genius as well as his 90th birthday.

Sondheim, a co-creator of West Side Story (along with Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, and Jerome Robbins), as well as the composer/lyricist of other Broadway shows, is one of my favorite composers. And next year I'll get the chance to hear for the first time his music live in a theatre. All other times have been via television, film, and sound recordings.

Humphrey Bogart's F.Y. Fund

In 1934, Humphrey Bogart starred on Broadway as a gangster in Robert Sherwood's The Petrified Forest. The play (later to become a movie also starring Bogart) was so successful, it allowed Bogart to put aside some money in what he called the F.Y. fund. (The F.Y. no doubt stood for Fuck You.) The F.Y. fund, writes Stefan Kanfer in Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart (Vintage Books/Random House, 2011), was "money that would give him the freedom to spurn trivial roles from now on."

We should all follow Bogart's example and establish a F.Y. fund. It would be the perfect safety net.

Talking (Briefly) To The Uncola Man

I heard about actor/choreographer Geoffrey Holder's death at the age of 84 during a radio newscast. (I think it was NPR.) Listening to his Paul Robeson-like deep voice (with a Caribbean flavor) as an excerpt from one of his 7-Up "Uncola" commercials was played, reminded me of the only time I got a chance to speak to him. It was at a Broadway revival of  The Wiz (which he choreographed). This would be about thirty years ago. As I headed for my seat, I told him that I wanted to interview him. His odd response was, "Yes, but not right now." I never got to do the interview.

A few years later, I saw Holder and his wife, dancer Carmen de Lavallade, getting out of a car in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan. Our eyes met, but I kept on walking.