Gentleman Occupations: Bandleader

Hello,

Today we continue the gentlemanly tradition of researching occupations that many before us have pioneered. Today we will turn our attention to the bandleader. The golden age of big bands (we here at The Gentleman prefer to call them “a conglomeration of fine men examining their musicality”) is, unfortunately, long behind us. It is for this reason that the HL Griffith Institute of Time Travel Research is now operating in an outpost on Griffith Manor.

The first thing a band leader must do is lead a band. As Count Basie used to say,

“Don’t forget to count, Big Bird”

                      – Count Basie

Of course, this is not exactly relevant. But needless to say, if you can lead a band, you can do almost anything. Including captain a yacht or catamaran.

Count Basie had to occasionally leave gigs early to sail his yacht with a poop-deck full of bikini-wearing ladies.

Another delightful part of the 1940s music industry was that your knowledge of scotch and cigars somehow played a very important role. Many bandleaders would spend more time studiously investigating these areas than they would playing or writing music.

Miles Davis telling us what number Scotch he's on.

Some bandleaders to familiarise yourself with include Count Basie (who led Count Basie and His Orchestra and worked extensively with Sinatra), Miles Davis (most notable for his quintet and sextet), John Coltrane, Duke Ellington and many others.

Duke Ellington gets excited for tea and scones.

The wonder of many of these people was that they were exceptional on many different instruments. Where you or I see a simple trumpet-shaped piece of brass, Miles Davis saw an instrument. That is what set these gentlemen apart.

John Coltrane released three albums where he played the cigar instead of the saxophone.

A little known fact about Brixley and I is that we started a Latin jazz band back in the 1960s. It ended conflict in the Middle East for a period and had the Pope renounce his faith, but all this good work was undone when we disbanded to safari in Africa. In fact, many notable band leaders either started out or finished in completely different professions.

Dave Brubeck started out as a stand-up comedian. Audiences criticized him for being "too side on" and he eventually turned to music.

Just remember that if you are looking to pursue a career leading a convocation of brass-toting gentleman, there are hardships faced when touring the world for years on end. You may not see eye-to-eye with everyone and you can get stressed or depressed. But don’t worry, The Gentleman is your online counseling service. Whatever is getting to you, wash it away your problems with a few tall glasses of your favourite Islay and a tightly-rolled cigar.

Cab Calloway takes a swing at Steve 'The Colonel' Cropper for stealing his bean taco. Luckily, Calloway has no depth perception.

So get out your turntable, dust of the vinyl, take a seat on your chesterfield, light up a cigar, pour yourself a scotch, put on your dressing gown and get ready to pass the hours enjoying the fruits of one of the gentlemanliest of occupations: the bandleader.

Lionel Hampton often insisted that he be the only person in his band to stand up (by punishment of having your thick-rimmed glasses revoked).

Until next time,

HL Griffith.

The Winter Gentleman

Hello there,

For those of us in the antipodean hemisphere, it has become all too apparent that winter is upon us. Here I will outline the five most important items a gentleman must have to survive the colder months.

Scarf

A gentleman should have a trusty scarf. This has the dual purpose of both keeping your neck warm and also as a makeshift weapon if your arch-nemesis attacks you while you’re strolling along a cliff edge.

No one would dare attack Sean Connery now that he's armed with both a scarf and his hard-cover autobiography.

You can also use your scarf to polish your spectacles, monocle, pipe, brogues or camera lens.

Paul Newman, just after using his scarf to polish his camera-shaped pipe.

Umbrella

A gentleman should always be prepared for rain (and the requisite associated musical number). Both involve an umbrella.

Gene Kelly was over the moon when I taught him the proper way to use an umbrella. If you're wondering who he is in this photo, I've written his name in cursive next to him.

For more information on umbrellas, please check out The Gentleman’s Umbrella. You may even think of employing a wood-smith to install a compartment into the handle to conceal an emergency supply of scotch. Which brings me to my next point.

Hip Flask

If your stage-coach gets held up and cannot take you home from the theater one evening, what are you going to do? You will be as bored as a guy in a Swiss patent office if you wait for a new coach. You may have to venture home on foot or take some form of public transport. To keep you company, you should have a dram of your favourite single-malt on hand. With only emergency amounts concealed in your umbrella handle, you should also have a hip flask.

Sammy Davis Jnr. about to take a swig from his microphone-shaped hip flask. He is also singing to the crowd with a cigarette-shaped microphone.

Make sure you top your hip flask up as soon as you return home, as to never be caught dry.

Warm Coat

Of course you need a coat. You knew that. In fact you probably already have one. But there are some specifications that you need to make sure are built in. Your coat should be mostly (preferably entirely) wool and have inside breast pockets. This is where you keep your third backup scotch (after your hip flask and umbrella), important letters, envelopes, jade-figurines (for bartering with international ancient artifact merchants) and a hand-gun (for when you get on the merchant’s bad side and need to save an attractive lady, which is inevitable. This often involves traveling to the subcontinent).

Michael J. Fox is handed a letter (straight from a typical 1950s gentleman's breast pocket). Too bad Fox didn't have an umbrella, scarf or a hip flask.

Well-stocked humidor

It is a direct bi-product of winter that more scotch is consumed. Its warming qualities and (presumable) abundance in your place of residence make it perfect for the winter gentleman. Of course, a direct bi-product of drinking scotch is smoking cigars. This means that your humidor needs to be topped up immediately to see you through the cold.

This is not just a picture of a cigar and a glass of scotch. It is also a rigourous mathematical formula. And I should know, I studied the mathematics of gentleman at Oxford in the '40s.

I studied the mathematics of gentleman under the tutelage of M.S. Birch at Oxford and came up with this equality as part of my doctorate.

M.S. Birch, seen here in one of the only known photos of him, was one of the hardest working professors at Oxford. He died of a combination of liver failure and lung cancer.

Until next time,

H.L. Griffith

The gentleman in the Subcontinent.

Hello there,

The gentleman may lounge about all day sipping pims and playing lawn tennis but every now and again the gentleman’s natural yearning for adventure gets the better of him and he sets off to satiate his desires.  Therefore if you are in such a state may I suggest you set a course for the subcontinent.

Just look how much the fun Sean Connery is having in the subcontinent. Here he is getting a bespoke suit.

Many great gentlemen have explored the subcontinent from Harrison Ford to Cary Grant and every gentleman in between.  There are many reasons for this including but not limited to the food, the culture, freeing slave children from a murderous cult and being able to wear a pith helmet wherever you go.

Cary Grant and Gunga Din were always getting up to mischief of some kind in India.

The largest country on the subcontinent is India, home of musical films and site of the original space landing.  The other countries include Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.  We here at The Gentleman recommend you take eleven of your most gentlemanly friends along with you and challenge any locals you can find to a cricket match.

Teatime during a match in which Griffiths and I narrowly defeated a local Indian team. We didn't gloat though, a gentleman is always a good sport.

If you are entering in your Autumn years and can no longer play a five day test then why not try to immerse yourself in the culture and don some local clothes instead of your regulation British military uniform.

Here we see Sir Alec Guinness (middle) really get in to the spirit of the subcontinent (although he looks bored whilst chaperoning this date)

However you must have your wits about you in a place like the subcontinent.  The main thing to watch out for is the Thuggee religious cult.  Not only were they the main antagonists of Harrison Ford during his sojourn to India, they also tried to kill Cary Grant and Gunga Din.  Now that’s just not cricket.

The gentlemanly Rudyard Kipling was born in India. He was soon thereafter lost in the jungle and raised by animals. This can all be read in his autobiography "The Jungle Book"

But don’t let crazy religious cults deter you (due to the fact they were vanquished by Ford with the help of the Indian and British armed forces).  Instead just put on a nice white tuxedo and live and let live.

Roger Moore does a traditional "Indian sabre dance" with this fellow enthusiast to an adoring crowd.

If you ever get home sick there is one proven way to ease your nerves and that is with a cup of tea.  That or just have another Scotch.

The best way to meet people in India is to free them from servitude. Although this technique does work around the world.

So there you have it.

G.O. Brixley

A gentleman and his moustache

Hello there,

It has come to my attention that some people think that moustaches are just for “Movember”.  Just like the idea that “puppies are only for Christmas” I can tell you that this idea is categorically wrong.  I should know because I categorised it myself.

Gentlemen should aspire to be more like Clarke Gable if only for his immaculately groomed moustache (and if not for it, for everything else about this picture)

A gentleman and his moustache may have a love/hate relationship but growing a moustache (or indeed any facial hair for that matter) for one month a year is more hate than love.  Therefore the ratio needs to be corrected.

Groucho Marx had a grease moustache for years. In his Autumn years he grew a real moustache to satiate his desires. Here he has been upgraded to first-class due to his facial hair.

The simplest way to grow a moustache is to firstly stick a picture of your desired moustache next to your bathroom mirror, this informs your top lip that there is work to be done.  Next, stop shaving your top lip.  The final step is to groom to get the desired look.  It’s that simple (in fact, it’s even simpler).

Frank Sinatra even used to treat his top lip to a moustache once in a while and so should you.

Most of the greatest gentlemen in history, although not known for sporting the moustache, did dabble in it from occasion to occasion.  Unfortunately for many other gentlemen in the film industry, contracts and the like squashed their inherent lust for a hairy top lip.

Kirk Douglas has moustache envy and has recruited Brigitte Bardot to help him out.

If only there were more parts in Hollywood scripts for moustached gentlemen.  Unfortunately for other A-listers Errol Flynn and Clarke Gable had cornered that niche market.

Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn audition for "Gone With The Wind". They both didn't get the part because their moustaches were in fact fake.

This sad set of events doesn’t stop you though, so what is your excuse for not spontaneously growing gentlemanly facial hair?  The answer usually has to do with women, which I can tell you now is an old wives tale.  Gentle ladies are quite partial to the well groomed moustache, just ask any gentleman who has ever styled his moustache for recreational purposes and he’ll tell you.

Sean Connery doesn't need Brigitte Bardot's hair to fake a moustache, he grew one whenever he felt like it (within 4 hours generally). Although he does need Brigitte Bardot to model for him (pity she doesn't know where the camera is)

The moustache doesn’t just make you more appealing to the lady you are courting, it also makes you look smarter and more worldly.

Just look how much more intelligent and worldly David Bowie seems. All he needed was a simple moustache and some state-of-the-art technology (notice his "thinker" pose)

So there you have it.

G.O. Brixley

The Gentleman’s Occupations: Writer

Hello there,

To keep the momentum of our new Occupations category going I shall tell you about the wonders of the gentlemanly occupation of writing.  Many gentlemen have been writers and vice versa, however what really makes a good gentlemanly writer isn’t so much his books, but more so his name.

G.K. Chesterton didn't just have the greatest writer's name of all time, he also enjoyed having the grumpiest author's picture.

Before any gentleman can start writing literature he must work out the best way in which to write his name to make it sound like an author.  Try initialising your first or second name, if that doesn’t work initialise both of them.  In the case that your name will never sound like an author’s, there is a simple and well worn way to get that bookish ring, simply create a pen name.

Some say that J.R.R. Tolkien went overboard with his initials, however if anyone said anything about it Tolkien would just write them a 1000 page letter of rebuttal (These letters were later bound and renamed to The Lord of The Rings)

Many great writers used pseudonyms to cover up their awkward names.  Instances of these are Samuel Langhorne Clemens who wrote under the pen name Mark Twain, or Charles Lutwidge Dodgson who is better know as Lewis Carroll.  However sometimes the pen name has been used to worsen ones name in the case of C.S. Lewis (who correctly used his initials to good effect) who published some work under the inferior name of Clive Hamilton.

Ernest Hemingway didn't need to change his name because it was Ernest, which means 'writer' in Norse. Here he is seen writing over a typical breakfast of two Ostrich eggs and tea.

There are two main categories of writing that a gentleman may pursue, fiction and non-fiction.    Within these literary realms a gentleman literally has artistic license to write anything.

Ian Fleming took his artistic license wherever he went (pictured).

Within the writings of non-fiction the gentleman may want to write textbook style theses or instead opt for the more biographical recounting of stories and events (often but not necessarily whilst travelling).

Jack Kerouac changed travel writing with his unique style and the fact that he wrote all of his notes on a fence.

In the category of fiction a gentleman may write whatever he wants.  ’Whatever he wants’ can include such themes as secret agents, mythical worlds or private investigators.  The main component that makes up a good gentleman’s novel is a dynamic and interesting protagonist (see The Gentleman in Literature).  The story itself is always secondary to the characters.

Hunter S. Thompson (a good name) wasn't great at creating protagonists so he just made himself the protagonist.

The next most important thing after choosing your name, genre and protagonist, is choosing whether to smoke cigars, cigarettes or a pipe whilst typing your novel in your library.  My personal preference is the pipe as it is a good instrument to help you mull over problems about character arcs and what to have for lunch.

P.J. O'Rourke didn't smoke a pipe and therefore could not mull over what to have for lunch. Luckily for O'Rourke the cigarettes that he smoked often were his lunch.

Now you know the basics you too can follow in the footsteps of many a gentleman and take up the occupation of writing.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wasn't just one of the most gentlemanly writer's of all time, he also had a magnificent moustache, something that is unfortunately eclipsed by his writing (much like his lips was eclipsed by his moustache).

So there you have it.

G.O. Brixley

The Gentleman in literature

Hello there,

A great source of a gentleman’s knowledge about gentlemanly activities, traits, habits and dress come from some quintessential gentlemen who never existed. These are gentlemen who can be found sitting in your library night after night (I mean this metaphorically, not literally – like the time I had to get a restraining order on Gregory Peck for persistent breaking and entering). Here, Brixley and Griffith will introduce you to some of their favourite gentlemen from the literature.

Phileas Fogg

The protagonist of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days, Phileas Fogg spent most of his days playing whist at the Reform Club. Upon a wager (from which he would not back down), he used all sorts of gentlemanly travel to circumnavigate the globe.

A somewhat grainy photograph of Phileas Fogg. Shortly after this was taken, Fogg angrily returned his new top-hat because it had been manufactured upside-down.

He also made sure to travel through some of the gentleman’s favourite destinations, including Yokohama, Bombay, Suez and London (where he lives). Not only that, but he wins the bet, marries an Indian girl that he meets on his travels, and punches the snide detective, Fix.

Phileas Fogg embarks upon one of the most gentlemanly (and comfortable) forms of transport known to gentleman - the elephant.

Jay Gatsby

The protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. In many ways, the only man a gentleman needs know about is Jay Gatsby. He throws lavish parties and has a large library. For what more could you ask? Well, in fact, Gatsby has much more. He is a bootlegger (the liquor kind), a war hero and built his fortune from the ground up (via the noblest of pursuits, bootlegging).

Jay Gatsby is feeling a little hungry after wandering about his massive estate all morning.

The story, though, ends when Gatsby is wrongly killed by a man who believes (incorrectly) Gatsby killed his wife. This is the fault of the perfect gentleman impostor – Tom Buchanan. Buchanan embodies all the traits that a gentleman should not have. I shan’t go into them here, because the quicker we move on from him, the better.

Gatsby, after eating a hearty lunch, is ready to spend his afternoon posing in front of his state of the art automobile.

Sherlock Holmes (and, to a lesser extent, Thomas Watson)

The smartest man that ever lived (after his brother Mycroft Holmes). He enjoyed opium, playing the violin and withholding the details of a crime until the very end of the story.

Watson was always envious of Sherlock's mind. Watson had a much greater gift, though. His mustache.

Sherlock Holmes invented the pipe, the magnifying glass and the deerstalker hat (which he used when he stalked or investigated suspects or deers) all in his abode at 221B Baker Street, London.

Holmes and Watson interrogate a chair over a jewellery theft. Although his methods were unorthodox Holmes' success rate speaks for itself, much like this chair.

Sherlock Holmes’ greatest nemesis was Professor James Moriarty, a villainous rapscallion whose brilliant mind rivalled Holmes’ (generally when fighting next to waterfalls).  Although they both fells to their deaths, Holmes used his power of ‘Literary Protagonist’ to stay alive and continued his adventures until retiring to become a bee keeper.

Holmes and Moriarty tussle next to the Reichenbach falls. Since they were both brains not braun the fight was a tie and they both fell to a watery grave.

With his keen sense of deduction Holmes has become a literary gentleman of epic proportions.  His powers of deduction were so good he could correctly split a bill and work out how much to tip a waiter after a short brunch.

Holmes splits the bill and works out an adequate tip.

There are, of course, many more gentleman to find in your very own library. We suggest you spend most of your time between sips of scotch and puffs of your cigar reading your gentlemanly literature and becoming well acquainted with the finest gentlemen there ever were.

Mr Darcy goes to a Christmas fancy dress party dressed as an anti-gentleman.

So there you have it and until next time,
G.O. Brixley and H.L. Griffith