feature photo: John Labble
If you’re at or near retirement age, you’re probably old enough to remember the public campaign from the International Ladies Garment Workers Union whereby through a simple ditty sung by union members urged American consumers to buy clothes with “the union label” on them. By then, the ILG was already off their peak of a half million members and was looking to shore up their sagging fortunes but since those TV commercials ran, it only got worse for them; nowadays Americans buy nearly all their clothes from eastern Asia.
Theo Bleckmann is a jazz singer who has a well-deserved reputation for thinking (and singing) outside of the box and the constrictive confines of The Great American Songbook. His latest left-turn project is a collaboration with the young, equally imaginative quartet of brass horns who call themselves the Westerlies. Just a year earlier we saw what these four hotshots did with a mid-nineteenth century spiritual.
Their upcoming product This Land is themed on songs of American societal struggles and sanctuary. Most of the tunes chosen are last-century hymns touching on these themes, mixed in with a couple of originals and that ILG jingle “Look For the Union Label,” their rendition of which is debuting in the video above.
Bleckmann explains why he decided to tackle the “Look For the Union Label” song:
I was attracted to this song in particular because it was written as an anthem, a hopeful, well-intentioned marching song to be sung by the workers themselves (or so we’re made to believe). It was well known due to its constant TV coverage at the time. More importantly, the song is asking the listener to make a conscious choice in consumeristic behavior. This idea could not be more current in our culture of fast fashion and toxic consumption today. The concept of the American dream being dependent on supporting each other through conscious shopping and the willingness to make choices based on altruistic behavior seem completely at odds with the American principles of individualism and freedom of choice at all costs (quite literally). Because of this paradox and its obvious failure (fast fashion and plastic won), the ending of this arrangement drifts off and dissolves into a minor key, slowing fading into darkness and questioning its premise.
Bleckmann inserts a whole lot of flair in his arrangement that the Westerlies are primed to carry out and at the same time invests conflicted sentiments through his nuanced vocal delivery. It becomes ever more glaring the tremendous transformation job Bleckmann and the Westerlies pulled off when seeing a video of one of those original commercials:
Stream “Look for the Union Label” here.
This Land by Theo Bleckmann & The Westerlies is coming out January 29, 2021 from Westerlies Records.
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