What I worry about in this format is that all this info
will get buried. I believe we should lobby Wayne to make this
forum first in first out or whatever it means to display
newest posts at the top of the list or the thread title with the
most recent entries.

I wanted to add Kitty Margolis to my list of female
vocalists. A very similar delivery reminiscent Nancy Wilson.
Kitty can keep time and she doesn't run out of breath that
I can hear.

The tune I'm concentrating on is "Sleeping Bee". This to me
is really infectious and I never knew much about it before.
As i recall from the over-the-air notes by Parlocha, lyrics
were written by Truman Capote. A must find for you and a
special delivery to a youngster I know.

There are very few tunes-- especially jazz I betcha that a kid can
wrap his or her head around. Waters of March was one I thought of
since it has no narrative per se, narrative being the moon and
June elements of most pop music. Another one is "Voom" by
Blossom Dearie. "Voom" is a French tune. I don't think it even
matters what language you hear it in. I heard it in French
first as the outro of film called _Toto the Hero_ (I think.)

You see, the Signifying Monkey started out as a 'toast'.
Toasting was the earliest predecessor of rap according to
things I've read from places like Rounder Records (but I have
no original research.) Round likely still has this in
their catalog. Rounder Records is in Cambridge Mass.

You see, back in those days --early 80's -- when the
records were coming our way, Rounder Records compiled a
album full of toasts under the title "Ups On The Farm" I think.
The toasts were gathered from prison inmates in much the
same way that whatshisface John Simon (?) did in Apallachia to
record the original musics of the hill peoples.

Well anyway, the Signifying Monkey was one of the original
toasts-- folklore. That's why there's The Monkey, The Elephant,
The Buzzard, etc.

Unfortunately these oral traditions based on The Dozens
contain many expletives. The Monkey has been fed over the
years by entertainers as diverse as Oscar Brown Jr, Rudy Ray
Moore, Johnny Otis and Nat "King' Cole.

Right here I'll make another pitch for the value of point
to point file sharing because without it I'd have no access
to the couple of Signifying Monkey routines that Rudy Ray
(The Human Dynamo) Moore does-- one as a duet with Big Daddy Kane!

--> Important note: Big Daddy will be covered under
it's own well-deserved heading. Not Big Daddy
Kane, Big Daddy (plain).

These materials would be lost or extremely isolated if
some individuals had not posted them from their record
collections.

The Monkey even has a book written about it by a big time
black literature historian which I can prob'ly find yet
because it is only a couple years old.

I suppose the first Monkey you hear is always the
favorite. First one I heard was from a quintet called
"Snatch and the Poontangs" which was later identified for
me as Johnny Otis working under a pseudonym.

The most accessible version of the Monkey toasts was
written by Oscar Brown Jr. who recently passed away:

"Said the Signifying Monkey to the lion one day,
There's a big bad elephant coming down your way.
He talked about your mother and your sister too,
And he didn't show too much respect for you.

Lastly, the the Signifying Monkey and Nat King Cole:
the song "Straighten Up And Fly Right" is another
take on this 'monkey business.'

This is all oral history: just things I remember.

I am no book author myself but I'd be glad if these musings
didn't go down the black hole of web authorship along with other
stuff I have written. Problem with net authorship is that the
search tools are so poor. But a look at the wiki for
Signifying Monkey if there is such a thing would be worthwhile.
Perhaps the wiki has these things already.

More when manualblock asks me something....

Rebecca Kilgore is their featured vocalist who always seems
fresh and able to keep time-- you know, not behind the beat or
in front of it. Streams of the show are available from the
Riverwalk site.

I tend to be a minimalist as far as hardware is concerned.
Over on the DIY forum one of the regulars was saying that
his kids wanted to build a BIB (Bigger Is Better design from Terry
Cain). The kids are 8 and 5. The one won a cheap cd player and
they want to fire it up with a Sonic Impact amp and run it
to some BIBs. They want to paint flames on the BIB's.

The pair of 3" Tangband W871 I never found a suitable enclosure
for-- nothing sounds right. But there is a design out there
for bipole if I wanted to recut those boxes and add the rear
facing drivers and a tweet that shoots out the top.

Apparently J. Krutke got good results out of the driver
with use of a BSC which he describes at zaphaudio.com I built
his highboy enclosures for use with the computer here: desktop
box at 16 in high for ear level. But I never cared for the
sound esp. sealed. I ran them bare with no circuit correction
because I am electronically challenged.