Another Clown Band

 

THE CLOWNS

Their flour hands forever learning

To be tongues and speak, the clowns

Pull down their flags, they collapse

As tents over poles.

The clowns haul down their hearts

Like kites.

They open their loves like oysters.

They open

To seek the clever eyes of love.

(Papa, what are clowns?)

(They are fools, son.)

The clowns are making us beggars,

They dance in a ring,

They have the metal eyes of birds

And have traveled from country to country.

(Papa, what do clowns do?)

(They make us laugh, son.)

Clowns cannot be tripped, like dancers,

Nor broken, like banjos,

They sometimes wrestle with weather

Like old trees.

by Richard O. Moore 

Poetry, vol. 67, no. 4 (Jan., 1946)

The preceding poem was the work of Richard O. Moore (1920 – 2015), an American poet  associated with the San Francisco Renaissance. This movement in modern poetry and other associated artforms was also connected to poets and writers working at Black Mountain College, a private liberal arts college that operated from 1933–1957 in Black Mountain, North Carolina. The composer John Cage (1912–1992) also taught there, but I do not know if Richard Moore ever had any direct link with the college. By coincidence Black Mountain is only 15 miles from where I live now. I chose Moore's poem by chance because I thought it fit the image of this German clown band. It was published in January 1946 in Poetry, A Magazine of Verse. 

The six costumed musicians pictured on this postcard are Charly Petrelly's Orig. Clown-Capelle ~ Original Clown Band. The clown standing center with a violin is the leader, Charly Petrelly. They seem to be on a stage surrounded by an assortment of musical instruments. In addition to Charly's fiddle there are several brass instruments, a blackwood flute, drums and three trapezoidal xylophones which were a popular folk instrument in Central Europe in the 1900s. On the left backwall is a shelf displaying some wine and/or liquor bottles which I believe were played like a tuned percussion instrument. There is also an upright piano with a pair of long herald trumpets above. Hung along the top of the wall are over a dozen ribbon awards. Perhaps commemorating prizes won at some clown contest? It looks more like a clubhouse than a theater's stage.

The postcard was sent from Bremen, Germany on 22 March 1914 to a soldier's address in Sondershausen, a central German town in Thuringia, west of Leipzig. The handwriting is difficult to make out clearly, as the addressee's rank looks more like Musketier than Musiker, though neither uses an umlaut ü. What amuses me about the message is that at least three, maybe four people, have written a greeting in grey, red, and blue, orienting the lines along four directions. On the front picture of the band two of the clowns have signatures written in pencil on their white collars, so maybe the card was sent by the clowns.

Lübecker Volksbote
23 September 1913

Charly Petrelly was known as „Die fidelen Leipziger” ~ The jolly Leipziger as featured in this German theater notice from September 1913. He and his Klown-Kapelle performed at the  Konzerthaus Zauberflöte ~ Concert Hall Magic Flute (Mozart's most famous opera) in Lübeck, a port city northeast of Hamburg on the Baltic Sea. They were known as Die 7 Blödsinnigen ~ the Seven Idiots, an appropriate name for a bunch of foolish clowns.

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Here is another postcard of Charly Petrelly and his comical crew. [Pardon the image quality but I just found it online today and have not yet purchased it.]

Here the group is a quintet, not a sextet as in the other postcard. They display mostly brass and percussion instruments with three of long trumpets carefully arranged at the front. The three clowns in the center appear to be floating in the air but are actually lying on a thin tabletop. The postmark date is 14 September 1910 from Leipzig. 

What kind of music did Charly Petrelly's clown band they play? Did it include singing too? I imagine their act was an absurd imitation of a real musical ensemble with lots of foolish pratfalls, weird noises, and other outlandish behavior like throwing pies. However I suspect that the humor of a clown band from 1913-14 would still make a 21st century audience roar with laughter, whereas the jokes of a standup comic from the same era would be very stale and unamusing. 

To be successful entertainers Charly Petrelly's clown band needed to practice its timing, coordinate its banter and buffoonery, and hone the act to a sharp edge of absurd slapstick. Being funny in show biz is a serious business. It's all about finding the invisible balance between pathos and cheer. The world could use more clown bands right now.

Here's a suitable video to accompany this postcard.

It's a clip from the 1948 MGM film The Pirate

starring Judy Garland and Gene Kelly.

This scene features a memorable song by Cole Porter
and a dance number that features Gene Kelly (the pirate)

and the fabulous Nicholas Brothers, 

Fayard (1914–2006) and Harold (1921–2000).

And for a musical bonus here is a clip

from another Gene Kelly movie

Singin' In The Rain

which was released four years later in 1952.

The song is "Make 'Em Laugh"
written by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown

which perceptive listeners will hear  

bears a very strong similarity to Cole Porter's song in The Pirate. 

It is performed by Donald O'Connor.

From the Wikipedia entry for "Make 'Em Laugh":  

O'Connor's performance for  is noted for its extreme physical difficulty, featuring dozens of jumps, pratfalls, and two backflips. Hollywood legend states that O'Connor, though only 27 years old at the time but a chain-smoker, was bedridden for several days after filming the sequence.

The song was a last minute addition to the film and was acknowledged as "100% plagiarism" as both the music and lyrics of "Make 'Em Laugh" are nearly identical in form and style to "Be a Clown". Although Cole Porter had unchallenged reason to bring suit, he never sued for copyright infringement.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where everyone is clowning around this weekend.

And by pure chance
this talented clown and his sidekick 
were performing yesterday (16 February)
here in downtown Asheville, North Carolina.

Make 'em laugh, indeed!