Food

Four Parables ~ Vaudeville ~ Klezmer Rondo; Paul Schoenfield, composer; The New World Symphony; John Nelson, conducting; Jeffrey Kahane, piano

I would suppose that the first food that I learned to prepare by myself was cereal; Cap’n Crunch, Froot Loops, Quisp and Apple Jacks. And probably toast. I don’t remember the lessons. But I do remember when Mom taught me how to steam a hot dog. That’s all I ate for the next full week in an effort to perfect my technique. Scrambled eggs came soon after. Popcorn came on the heels of scrambled eggs and then rice.

Around the time that I turned nine years old, Mom saw a contraption at the local Coast to Coast store called a PrestoBurger. Put the ground beef on the hot part of the gadget, press the lid down on the beef and you had a perfectly round hamburger in about two minutes. Shortly after that, she bought the Presto FryBaby. We really lived high on the hog from then on. I mean, honest-to-God crinkle-cut french fries … just like at the restaurants.

Soon I learned how to make macaroni and cheese, molasses cookies, Shake-N-Bake, grilled cheese sandwiches and oyster stew. Of course, I didn’t need the talent to make any of these things while I was in college. But, when I went to CCM, I had to summon all of the cooking and baking competence that I had achieved up to that time. While I can’t boast of a wide variety of food that I kept in the kitchen of my apartment, I can tell of how I ate out only four times during the first three months of my post-collegiate matriculation.

The summer of 1995 found me between jobs. Dad had always told us kids, “If you need to come home for a while after college, your rooms will always be here. There’s plenty for you to do around here until you figure out what comes next.” So, I stacked bales, cultivated corn and hauled grain wagons for Dad during July and August.

I remember the first day … about an hour before noon. Dad said, “Son, why don’t you go inside and fix us something for lunch.” I complied. Whatever it was that I prepared, apparently, hit the spot because the same thing happened the next day. “Son, why don’t you go inside and fix us something to eat.” I tried different things; pancakes, french toast, pork chops, beef stew. A couple of times I rustled up some home-made soup.

Now, on a scale of one hundred miles, with a carnivore on one end and a vegetarian on the other, my plot on the scale is about ninety-nine miles away from the vegetarian. But, can you believe that during that summer, I found that one-mile degree difference between my father and me? One day I made home-made cream of vegetable soup for lunch. He tasted it and said, “Say, this is pretty good. Maybe next time you can find some meat to add to it.” Full-blooded carnivore. I suppose it’s asking a lot for a man with a herd of cattle to sustain a plate of food that didn’t give up an awful lot to make an appearance at his table.

While I was fixing lunch one day, I heard on public radio an incredible piece called “Four Parables” for piano and orchestra. Someone had suggested to the composer that he compose a piece based on stories from his life. The suggestion resulted in these “Parables”. The story associated with the last movement of this wonderfully creative work involved his neighbor’s children and the death of the family dog. He found the children crying near the curb one day upon his arrival at home. To console them, he cheered them up with the story of doggy heaven, where the streets are lined with bones and there’s a fire hydrant on every corner. And, so, the last movement of “Four Parables” is what he imagines a jazz bar would be like in “Doggy Heaven”. It’s kind of like if Igor Stravinsky wrote “Rhapsody In Blue”. Mark my words: I am going to learn this piece and play it with an orchestra some day. Just you wait.

On the issue of vegetables, let me relate what I heard a friend say: With regards to pizza, I prefer not to include vegetables. If it didn’t die a horrible, horrible death, I don’t want it on mypizza.

Credits: To the Quaker Oats Company, maker of Cap’n Crunch, “an important part of this nutritious breakfast”.

This is the thirty-third of my final forty-five CD’s.

Nickel Creek!

This Side; Nickel Creek

I have held off for as long as I can. I’m frankly surprised that I could last three hundred fifty-one days before blurting out this inborn, personal truth: I LOVE LOVE LOVE Nickel Creek!

From their CD’s – the only way that I have encountered this group, by the way – I perceive a spiritual, artistic and musically virtuosic deftness … a youthful effervescence, an almost athletic exuberance that draws ebullience from a charged and bottomless well of animation, verve, fire and dash. And all of that without the assistance of a drummer.

I purchased this CD in 2002 shortly before my trek home for Christmas. And, while I certainly enjoyed it on the way to South Dakota, it was while I cruised around Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico to get back to San Antonio, Texas, after my Christmas break, that the inspired music on this CD carved a niche in my soul. As with other CD’s when I traveled around in other places, “This Side” provided a travelogue soundtrack as I drank in the raw, open and wild Southwest.

Credits: To Nickel Creek. Wow! Wow! All I can say is Wow!

This is the thirty-second of my final forty-five CD’s.

On the road to Cincinnati

'Round Midnight; Nelson Riddle and his Orhestra; Linda Ronstadt, vocal

The word German word “bitte” means “please”. If you wanted to politely ask for a menu during your trip to Dusseldorf, you would say, “Ein Speisekarte, bitte.” It’s a very nice word. The Germans also use the word in the same way that we Americans say, “what?” or “huh?” or “I beg your pardon?” or “What’s that you say?” or “Could you repeat that?” or “I’m sorry?”.

Cincinnati is a German town. Her first mayor, David Ziegler, a veteran from the Revolutionary War, came from Heidelberg. Her Oktoberfest is the largest in the U.S. and she finds a sister city in Munich.

It is common to find native Cincinnatians whose vernacular allows them to use the English translation for the word “bitte” when they ask for people to repeat a statement, saying, “Please?” if the speaker’s words became lost in the wind.

I didn’t know that when I came rolling into town in August of 1988. Dad had bought me a car for three hundred dollars from D. who lived just down the road. “Would you drive it a thousand miles to get to Ohio?”, Dad asked. “Yup,” said D. “I’d change the oil first.” That was good enough for Dad. I had spent some time with family in the Twin Cities and then headed on down the road, bound for the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

I pulled into town right at noon. So, I stopped at the Wendy’s Hamburgers drive-thru. The following exchange took place.

Wendy’s Employee (WE): Welcome to Wendy’s. Can I take your order?

Me: Yes. I’ll take a bacon double cheeseburger with no ketchup, a large fries and a medium coke.

WE: Please?

Me: ….. Okay, I’ll play your silly little game. I’ll take a bacon double cheeseburger with no ketchup, a large fries and medium coke, PLEASE!

The poor little waif that took my money at the window had nothing but scowls for me. And I had no way of knowing why … until about three weeks later when one of my professors happened to mention the regional idiosyncracy during class. Have you ever experienced delayed embarrassment? I have. I did. I think I turned beet red just sitting in class and reliving my encounter with the Wendy woman.

All the way across Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana, I listened to my dual cassette ghetto blaster. No CD’s, yet. Just cassette tapes. The one I listened to the most on my way to Ohio was Linda Ronstadt’s jazz album trilogy “What’s New?”, “Lush Life” and “For Sentimental Reasons”. All of the songs were arranged by Nelson Riddle. He passed away shortly after these albums. His last chart was for the tune “Goodbye”.

Credits: To D., for selling me a car.

This is the thirty-first of my final forty-five CD’s.

Uncle Paul and Aunt Vi

Give Me Jesus ~ Spirituals; The Moses Hogan Singers; Barbara Hendricks, soprano

Every once in a while, on the way home from church, Dad would say, “When we get home, I’m gonna feed the cows, let’s have a quick bite to eat … and then let’s go visit Uncle Paul and Aunt Vi.” Typically, whenever Dad made that announcement, there was a celebration of jubilee in the back seat. My sisters and I spent some of the best Sunday summer afternoons of our lives at the home of our Uncle Paul and Aunt Vi. What about our favorite great aunt and uncle captivated us? To be sure, lots of things.

Number one: a cuckoo clock. We didn’t know anybody else who had one. Parents, take note. Few things will quiet the children more than the anticipation of an impending cuckoo.

Number two: a windmill. When we turned south of the main highway that came west out of Oldham, South Dakota, we could see an old windmill that appeared on the horizon right after a rise in the gravel road. It amused all of us to no end because it looked like it stood right in the middle of the road, and that, were we to drive a little further than Uncle Paul and Aunt Vi’s farm, we would have to drive around it.

Number three: a magnificent backyard. Our aunt and uncle had thinned out the trees in the backyard just enough to provide a canopy from the hot rays of the sun. They had a huge stone chimney barbeque grill right in the middle of it all.

Number four: the coolest barn ever. We had a barn on our own farm, of course, and many hours of good times were had there by my sisters and me. But Uncle Paul’s barn had a haymow full of fresh hay and a Tarzan vine from which to plunge into the heaps of dried grass and alfalfa. If you have a mother, it is best not to tell her how much fun you can have in a barn until you are thirty-seven.

Number five: a reel-to-reel tape player. We listened to a seemingly endless barrage of stories from Bill Cosby one evening.

Number six: five hundred photo albums. We would sit in chairs and pour for hours over pictures of families, trips, graduations, baptisms and weddings. My sisters and I learned a lot about our family history by looking at those photo albums and listening to Uncle Paul and Aunt Vi tell stories.

Number seven: lunch. Aunt Vi must have had a section of the refrigerator set aside for when our family came over. She could lay out such a spread – usually involving cookies and pumpkin bread.

I could also tell you about a motorcycle, a spookhouse in the barn, a vegetable garden in last year’s cowyard, family picnics, new tractors and a bank of toys. Uncle Paul had that zest for life and story-telling that characterized the wagon load of Aplands that drove up to South Dakota out of Iowa one summer in the late 1800’s. He found a woman who matched his ardor, ounce for passionate ounce. And, together, they passed on their joie de vivre to three sons; who have also done the same.

In the fall of 1995, Dr. C. told me, “Erik, you have to come up and listen to my choir sing ‘Joshua Fit De Battle Of Jericho.” Ah, the old chestnut. “Oh, no. I have the new arrangement by Moses Hogan.” Moses Hogan. Moses Hogan. Moses Hogan. Where have I heard that name before? “I don’t know, but the brother can arrange a spiritual, I can tell you dat.” Moses Hogan. Moses Ho…

Ah, HA!! Yes!! I remember!! Moses Hogan was the pianist who played Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky piano concertos with the Minnesota Pops Orchestra under Mitch Miller at Orchestra Hall so many years before; the night that I knew that I wanted to be a professional musician. After hearing how Mr. Hogan had transformed this traditional spiritual into a heated sermon, I knew that I needed more.

In January of 2003, I received the news that Uncle Paul had passed. I couldn’t go to the funeral. So I did the next best thing. I dug through my CD’s, searching for solace amongst the spirituals sung by the Moses Hogan Singers and soprano Barbara Hendricks. After finding it, I commissioned them to bear me up in light of this segment of childhood that had slipped away. They failed me only once – when they sang that ….

There’s a man going round taking names.

There’s a man going round taking names.

He has taken my father’s name,

And he’s left my heart in pain.

There’s a man going round taking names.

__________

Death is that man taking names.

Death is that man taking names.

He has taken my mother’s name,

And he’s left my heart in pain

Death is that man taking names.

__________

There’s a man going round taking names.

There’s a man going round taking names.

He has taken my brother’s name,

And he’s left my heart in pain.

There’s a man going round taking names.

I listened to this album twice within a month. The second time I heard it was upon the death of Moses Hogan, himself. He died on February 11, 2003, at the age of forty-five of a brain tumor. Within a month, two stalwart men,my favorite uncle and the man who awoke the inspiration for a musical career, entered the heavenly farm and concert hall of the Lord. These were “growing-up” moments.

Credits: To my great-grandfather Elias Apland, for moving to South Dakota. I hope you were as happy to move there as I was to grow up there.

This is the thirtieth of my final forty-five CD’s.

Thank you

Danke Schoen; Wayne Newton

In the spring of 1979, the music teacher for kindergarten through eighth grade at Sioux Valley Schools had the elementary school students perform a program of music through the decades with the first-graders singing a couple songs from the 1910’s, second graders singing songs from the 1920’s, and so on. When she got to programming music for the 1950’s, she decided that she wanted some bass and drums added to the piano. She also wanted to free herself up from the piano. She asked me to play the piano for the fifth and sixth grade classes. She also asked my friends John, who played bass, and Troy, who played drums, to play as well. Guess what. We were a huge hit. Guess what also what. We were terrible. But it didn’t matter. We were fourteen and fifteen years old. We made chord coordinated noise while somebody banged on a drum. That’s all you need at that age.

I always looked up to John. He was one of those “bigger than life” characters that all of us meet on the highway of life. He was more than the class clown. He was more than a show-off. He had pizzazz. He had panache. He had moxie, razzle, dazzle and zeal. He’s the only person I’ve ever met whose comedic and social shenanigans operated under a consistently full measure of serendipity and je nais sais quoi.

When I saw the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, I didn’t see Matthew Broderick on the screen. I saw my friend John. Like Ferris, John did funny things. Like Ferris, John said funny things. Like Ferris, John invented his own fast lane, and made it his own private drive.

Of course, the high point of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is when Mr. Bueller jumps on the float in the parade and lip synchs to Wayne Newton’s “Danke Schoen” and then “Twist And Shout”. I don’t know if John would have been in possession of the wherewithal of hipness to know the words to “Danke Schoen”. But he might have known the lyrics to “Twist And Shout”.

In 1999, the lighting of the National Christmas Tree at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., - called the Pageant of Peace – featured classical soprano Renee Fleming, country and bluegrass artist Marty Stuart and … you guessed it … your friend and mine … Mr. Las Vegas, his own ‘sef … Wayne Newton. “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band had been chosen to be the “house” band that year. And I had been chosen to be in the “house” band. We rehearsed with the musical guests on the day before the pageant at the Marine barracks. Wayne Newton, along with all of the other musical talent, was there to rehearse his numbers, was very personable, and took the time to talk with anyone who wanted to strike up a conversation with him. He wasn’t asked to sing “Danke Schoen”, for which he said “Thank you.”

Credits: To Wayne Newton, for warming hearts with your music and for his work with the USO. You’re a good man, Newt. And to John. I, to this day, revel in your impulsive, impromptu and expeditious nature.

Only three months until Christmas. Stores are open until ten o’clock after Thanksgiving.

This is my normal Saturday individual track posting.

Shakespeare under the stars

Scenes from Shakespeare; William Walton, composer; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; Sir Neville Marriner, conducting; Sir John Gielgud, actor; Christopher Plummer, actor

My first exposure to William Shakespeare, post-high school, occurred during the summer of 1987 when I worked at the Grand Lake Lodge at Grand Lake, Colorado. Six of us employees, one day, realized that we had the same night off. “Who wants to take a trip to Boulder?” Well, that sounds like fun. Okay. Count me in.

As soon as we got into town, we started looking for something to do in the evening. One of my friends said, “Hey, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival is going on and they’re doing a production of ‘The Tempest’ tonight. How does that sound to everybody?” “Yeah.” “Yeah.” “Yeah.” “Yeah.” Really? Hmmm. That’s what you want to do tonight? Well. I guess so. Let’s get tickets.

This production of “The Tempest” took place outdoors and not one cloud blotted out the stars. We sat in comfortable chairs in the throes of a cool summer evening breeze. I figured the weather would be the best part of the evening. Wrong.

I never imagined that I would get turned on by the acting out of a play by William Shakespeare. And, yet, I sat there amidst all the elements of an idyllic Colorado alfresco experience … and hardly noticed them … nor the time that went by. When Prospero, shorn of his powers, invited the audience to set him free from the island with their applause, I steadfastly refused. I wanted more. Right now. More.

I found out later that the Colorado Shakespeare Festival is one of the three finest of its kind in the country. And I don’t doubt it. To turn an unbeliever into a believer within the confines of a couple of hours is a rare feat. I would like some day to go back.

When Lawrence Olivier directed his Shakespearean “Trilogy” for the cinema – Henry V, Hamlet and Richard III – he called on one of his fellow countrymen, British composer Sir William Walton, to provide the soundtrack. The music for each film speaks of regality, bravery, heart and hope.

The music for these films has been put into suite form. When Neville Marriner decided to record this music, he asked Shakespearean actors Christopher Plummer and John Gielgud to recite specific soliloquies between the suite selections. William Shakespeare, William Walton, Christopher Plummber, John Gielgud, Neville Marriner – noble Englishmen all. It just doesn’t get any better than this.

Credits: To Laurence Olivier, for excellence in Shakespeare interpretation. Chris, Johnny – you’re pretty good, too. Bravo.

This is the twenty-ninth of my final forty-five CD's.

Another guitar album

Let It Fall; Sean Watkins, guitar

When I listen to some of my instrumental jazz and pop CD’s, I tend to consider them as a whole. It usually happens when I don’t know any of the tunes that the artists choose to play. If I should chance to listen to an Oscar Peterson album where he features music by Master George Gershwin, then I will, typically, mentally compartmentalize each tune on the recording because I know so much of the music of Mr. Gershwin. I can compare his interpretation to one by other artists … not from a standpoint that one is any better than another … but from a perspective that the differences in style therein are absolutely valid and can be celebrated.

When I listen to Sean Watkins’ 2001 CD “Let It Fall”, I hear a complete work. I don’t sit in a chair and listen to the recording with the set list in front of me. Since they are instrumental and I’ve never heard them before, the titles don’t really mean that much to me. But the music does. And I like to listen to how each tune connects to the next. I suppose you could conjecture that I listen to the music in the same way that I would listen to a symphony.

Beethoven didn’t construct a symphony by pasting together a bunch of pretty tunes. In his head, each movement related to each other. In a similar fashion, I have to believe that Mr. Watkins had a iron-clad conception of how his tunes – all of the tunes, except one, on this album, by the way, came from the pen of Sean Watkins – would fit together on this album.

I’m not saying that this is the “right” way to listen to an album. It is, however, the way that I listen to instrumental jazz recordings.

There is one exception: the title song, “Let It Fall”. It has words and, in my mind, stands separate from the others. It’s a beautiful song. They say that Mr. Watkins wrote this song with a specific singer … a famous singer … in mind. And when it came time to record the song, he went to the famous singer and asked him if he would. I have to say that it takes a special kind of fiber, determination and pluck to ask a recognized musical artist to come and sing a song on your album. But that’s what happened.

Glen Phillips played guitar, sang vocals and wrote songs with and for the alternative rock band Toad the Wet Sprocket. When Sean approached Mr. Phillips with the song, he tried it and liked it. It takes the number two position on the album “Let It Fall”.

My kingdom’s walls have fallen down

But I know that

I don’t wear an undeserved crown

And though it seemed to fit me well

Underneath it

I would certainly fall down

__________

Last summer we left things unsaid

That should be now a long time dead

And now it seems that time has put it well

The words can chase away a friend

But to a lie they’ll bring an end

And Throw it down the darkest, deepest well

__________

Let it fall

Let go.

I found this album at Rock’n Rudy’s in Missoula, Montana, during the Christmas of 2001. I like the orange color on the front of the case. It reminds me of when I came back to my sister’s apartment after purchasing the CD. Mom and my sister K. had been feeding my nephew N. carrots one right after the other. His face was completely orange.

Credits: To Glen Phillips, for a wonderful singing voice and for choosing a great name for a band. Toad The Wet Sprocket. Wow!

This is the twenty-eighth of my final forty-five CD's.