Boredom in Paradise

20; Harry Connick, Jr.

I have to admit that the scene I stepped into when I joined the crew and band on board the S.S. Oceanic at Port Canaveral shortly after the new year in 1991 more closely resembled the vision I had in mind when I first conceived of the idea of cruise ship musician. Clear water, white sand, palm trees and hammocks; barbeques, colored drinks with little umbrellas and Calypso music; late night buffet, evening star-lit skies and refreshing tropical breezes. Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh. Paradise.

Well, for a while. I made friends quickly. I had my own room. The person who occupied my room before me had bunked the bed so that it sat level with the port-hole window. The first thing I saw when I woke up in the morning was the sea. We had every Saturday off. The band was outstanding, the food was delicious, the weather was terrific, the scenery was beautiful, the snorkeling was wonderful. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

The first ship I worked on, the Golden Odyssey, had blown all of my pre-conceived ideas of cruising out of the water. Centuries old cobblestone streets as opposed to sand and surf; museums, cathedrals and castles instead of grass thatched shacks and gaudy casinos; filet mignon, consommé and capers as an alternative to hotdogs, jerk chicken and Jamaican rice. Rome, Venice, Istanbul, Athens, Barcelona, Lisbon and Yalta vs. Cocoa Beach, Florida, and Nassau in The Bahamas.

The template for our itinerary had been laid out long before I arrived. Mondays and Fridays at Cape Canaveral; Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays in Nassau; Thursdays at sea. It only took two weeks for me to realize that boredom and misery were on their way.

I called my contractor and said, I will honor and finish my contract with you and serve on this ship for as long as I said I would. But, after that, I gotta’ go someplace else. I’m going to go stir crazy here. “Well, there’s an opening on the Crown Odyssey in the middle of July. You would meet the ship in London. How does that sound?” Ooooohhh, yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhh, baby. That’s more like it. Thank you.

So over the course of the first twenty weeks of 1991, I went to the Bahamas forty times. And, with each passing week, grew more and more jaded with the impression that I had formulated of paradise.

To give myself something to do, I decided to transcribe one of the piano solos from the album “20” by Harry Connick, Jr. “Avalon” stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard it. It struck me as the quintessential improvisation. He played the tune in the style of New Orleans jazz pianist James Booker and, for all its rambunctiousness, made no mistakes.

Al Jolson, Buddy DeSylva, and Vincent Rose “wrote” “Avalon” in 1920, and several people, including Jolson, of course, have recorded it over the years. I say “wrote” because they lifted the melody from the aria “E Lucevan le Stelle” from Pucinni’s opera “Tosca”. Mr. Pucinni’s publishers sued Jolson and his friends for use of the melody and were awarded twenty-five thousand dollars and all subsequent royalties of the song.

Transcribe means exactly that; to write down, note for note, what the man improvised on the recording. It took me four weeks and ten sheets of staff paper to finish the job. And I did it away from the piano, strictly through listening.

The itinerary on the Crown Odyssey suited me much better than my time on Premier Cruise Line’s Oceanic. Premier Cruise Line gave up the ghost in 2000 and a Japanese cruise line bought the Oceanic.

All things being equal, I have nothing against the beach and palm trees. I just don’t need to go to them. A picture will do just fine.

Credits: To Al Jolson, for his resolve to “never leave the stage until everyone in the audience has been entertained within an inch of their lives.” Thank you for “Avalon” and “The Jazz Singer”.