Department of Clarification

"Department of Clarification" was once an intermittent feature of The New Yorker, in which the magazine moved to clear something up, or just make a correction. Which, now, we are about to do, on something appearing in the August 6-13 edition of The New Yorker.

There is a short, front of the book piece about Parker Posey (who sounds like a fun person to know, in an unpredictable way). In it, Posey is quoted saying, of someone, "She was a moldy fig" and then explaining, "Moldy figs were jazz enthusiasts who thought Duke Ellington was a sellout."

Having been around in the late 1940s when the term "moldy fig" was coined, we must tell you this is not what it meant. A moldy fig was someone who rejected the new jazz of that time--the Charlie Parker-Dizzy Gillespie led bebop movement--and wanted to stick with the more accessible swing of the big band days.

There was even a bop recording called "No Figs," and when this was played on a radio show, and one of the guests--an accomplished musician of the old school--dismissed it as junk or noise or something, we suggested that he was himself a moldy fig.

We still regret this. Sorry, Mr. Burrell.

P.S.: "No Figs," composed by the brilliant Lennie Tristano, was recorded by the 1950 Metronome All-Stars. It is a great blessing that we can still hear it, on YouTube.