Oh, Good Grief

Happy Anniversary, Charlie Brown!; Various Artists from the GRP label

Charlie Brown taught me how to read. He taught me the word “sigh”. He taught me the word “touché”. He taught me the word “fussbudget” … and “psychiatrist” … and “enigma”. And the learning didn’t stop with reading.

You shouldn’t look directly at a solar eclipse. They cover the pitcher’s mound with a tarp during a rainstorm in the big leagues. Beethoven was born on December 16. Coyotes eat bunnies. They hold the annual World Wrist-Wresting Championship in Petaluma, California. Wintergreen candies make little blue sparks in the dark when you bite down on them. And little girls can punch just as hard as little boys – if not harder.

My association with Peanuts started within a few days of my birth. O. brought me a Linus pillow the first time she ever saw me. And “A Charlie Brown Christmas” aired exactly eight weeks after I arrived in this world.

When I was in high school, I wanted to take part in the annual all-school play. But each year, Mr. H. would catch me in the hall and tell me that he needed me to play the piano for the play. The plays weren’t musicals, but there were a few songs to be sung, and that would knock me out of a part in the play. The last year, however, my senior year, Mr. H. decided to do “You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown” and he cast me as Charlie Brown. All humility in tact – I was a great Charlie Brown.

I never really outgrew my love for Peanuts. I found other interests, but my eye will forever catch the passing reference to Charlie Brown, Sally, Lucy, Linus, Shroeder, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Snoopy, Woodstock, Patty, Violet, Franklin and Shermy. The storylines were always squeaky clean. Charles Schultz once commented that over the course of fifty years of strips, with a particularly prominent pooch in the mix, not one strip included a reference to a fire hydrant. The comic strip was never about that at all.

It was about childhood, and what it would be like to go through it with a psychiatrist at your side. It was about never getting to kick a football. It was about never winning a baseball game. It was about practicing the piano and playing catcher. It was about unrequited love. It was about having a crabby big sister. It was about Joe Cool and the World War I Flying Ace. It was about suppertime at five o’clock. It was about a hockey-playing grandmother. It was about a security blanket.

It was about sustaining the daily afflictions that eight-year-olds undergo all over the world - and, in the end, to live another day.

Credits: To Charles Schultz, one of my greatest heroes – ever.

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

An apology

Piano Concerto in A Minor; Edvard Grieg,
composer; Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra; Dimitri Kitayenko, conducting; Leif Ove Andsnes, piano

Dad’s cousin L. lives in Norfolk, Nebraska. The locals call their town “Nor’fork”, a derivative of “North Fork”. The tenth largest city in Nebraska, it claims Jeromey Clarey, an offensive tackle for the San Diego Chargers, Jim Buchanan, a pitcher for the St. Louis Browns, Johnny Carson, from The Tonight Show, and Thurl Ravenscroft, the voice of Tony the Tiger and the singer of “You’re A Mean One, Mister Grinch” as notable home town boys.

Through the many years of family reunions, weddings and funerals, L. and his family always came up to South Dakota to see us. I decided, one day back in the spring of 1993, to make the trek down to Nor’fork to see the family. On the way down US Highway 81, I listened to Public Radio. Just as soon as I came up out of the Missouri River Valley that separates the eastern part of the southern border of South Dakota and Nebraska, South Dakota Public Radio was gone and I had to look for Nebraska Public Radio.

It was a special afternoon. In just a few day’s time, the great violinist Itzak Perlman was performing Johannes Brahm’s Violin Concerto with the Omaha Symphony. Nebraska Public Radio studios in Lincoln had invited the violin master to spend this afternoon with its radio hosts. For the occasion, they had asked Mr. Perlman to bring his favorite recordings. Expecting a folder of CD’s, they about filled their pants to discover that he had brought along reel-to-reel recordings from several years’ worth of live performances.

Over the course of the conversations and portions of violin repertoire, the inevitable question presented itself: “Mr. Perlman, don’t you ever get tired of playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto?” “I cannot allow myself to go there,” replied Mr. Perlman. “You know, as well as I, that each and every day, someone discovers the Pachelbel Canon for the very first time and it opens a gate into a brand new world. I have certainly heard the piece to my life-long satisfaction … but we can’t just stop playing it because we’re tired of it. The Pachelbel Canon, whether we like it or not, is a classical music beacon and it leads the way for those wonderful people who don’t know that they want to become classical music aficionados – until they hear the Canon.”

That was the day that I woke up to my classical music snobbery. It’s one thing to be aware that you’re a snob and be comfortable with it – and quite another to shamefacedly discover that you’re neck-deep in it.

Here is the degree to which snobbery had suffused my being: I knew that the Piano Concerto in A Minor by Edvard Grieg was one of the most popular piano and orchestra pieces around. Everybody knew, knows, the first few moments of the piece. Get a load of this: I never got around to listening to the rest of the piece – because, I figured that if Joe Q. Public liked this concerto, then it must not “measure up” musically with the other piano concertos. This was “pop” classical music. And I didn’t have time for it.

World, … I apologize. To all of you. You are not shallow. You just know what you like. If ninety percent of you love the same portion of music, who am I to declare that all of you are under some type of delusion? I stand in front of you all with my head hanging low … begging for your pardon.

In the fall of 1993, I entered a CD shop in Bergen, Norway, and heard the opening crashing chords of the Grieg Piano Concerto. I thought, Maybe I better listen to the whole thing some time. So, I checked out the recording at the register. Norwegian pianist with a Norwegian orchestra playing the music of a Norwegian composer – how can you go wrong there?

One day later, I was sleeping in, in my stateroom aboard the Crown Odyssey, and I got a phone call. “Get yourself up here!” Where? “On the deck!” Why? “Fjords!” Really? “Yes! Now!” I looked out the window and saw solid rock ushering past. I rushed upstairs to come face to face with … the ... most ... beautiful ... scenery … ever. I asked myself, Is it really this beautiful? Or is it beautiful because I’m Norwegian?

Later that day, toward evening, I listened to Mr. Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor by the moonlight. What I heard was the aural, musical personification of everything I had seen that day: the water, the mountains, the snow, the waterfalls, the green, green grass, it was all in the music.

I LOVE Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor.

Credits: Mr. Pachelbel, for your lovely Canon. In D. Indeed.

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

NYC

On The Town; Turtle Island String Quartet

I’m like Barnaby from “Hello Dolly”. I’m more inclined to spend the money to see the giant whale at Barnum’s than I am to go out to dinner, drinks, a show and then dancing. The dinner part sounds like fun; and going to see a play, or a musical, or a concert. But, by the end of the evening, I will have thrown down possibly two to three hundred dollars if I took a guest. That’s not me. So, when I go to the Big Apple, I tend to see things that amuse me at a smaller cost than the aforementioned “night on the town”.

In 1987, I went to New York City for the first time to attend the national convention of the Music Teachers National Association. My friend D. had won a spot in the national brass auditions in conjunction with the convention. During free time, I saw the Statue of Liberty – went all the way up to the crown – saw Madison Square Garden, Times Square, the World Trade Center and the Empire State Building.

I accompanied two South Dakota music teachers to the top of the Empire State Building. After a special afternoon concert, we figured that we had enough time to catch the late afternoon view from the ESB, enjoy a little dinner and make it back for the evening recital at the hotel. So, we hailed a cab. “Where to?” Empire State Building. “I’ll have you there in a minute.” And he wasn’t kidding. He drove fifty-five miles per hour up Sixth Avenue, the Avenue of the Americas, passing cars, changing lanes, honking his horn, barely missing pedestrians, talking on the radio – all the while, eating a sandwich. Three grassy prairie Lutherans sat in his back seat, completely immobilized phonetically, unable to watch what was happening, yet couldn’t stop looking – and all the while crossing ourselves. Everything after that paled in comparison.

I visited the Empire State Building a few months ago with my friend J. He is from New Jersey and had never been up there and was completely blown away. We followed it up with some sushi.

That’s what I like to do when I’m … on the town.

Credits: To Jerry Herman, for “Hello Dolly”. Hey, Mr. Herman, I went to CCM, too.

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

Music to eat to

Four Parables ~ Four Souvenirs ~ Cafe Music; Paul Schoenfield, composer; James Ahnes, violin; Edward Arron, cello; Andrew Russo, piano

It’s rare for a Marine to be standing where he or she stands without proper paperwork authorizing him or her to be standing where he or she stands. That’s why I found it a little unnerving for the Chief Warrant Officer to send me over to the White House one snowy December morning without a security list. A Marine, you may surmise, without a security list is a lost Marine, indeed.

This particular White House job had come to the attention of the Marine Band Operations office very early in the morning and they called me at zero-five-thirty. At ten-hundred hours, my driver chauffeured me over to the White House, and all the while there I couldn’t stop thinking, How am I going to talk my way into the White House? “What are you doing here without a security list, Marine?” The President needs me. “Nonsense! He’s been here for eight years and never needed you before!” But his piano isn’t getting played. “That’s no work for a Marine! Go back to the barracks and clean your gun, Jarhead!”

So, what really happened is this: As I was just about to show the security guard my military ID, he looked at me and asked, “You Apland?” Yes, sir. “Go on in.” Now, that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

I really didn’t know what function I was playing for. Everything had happened so fast. I think I heard something about lunch. When I got to the head usher’s office, he asked, “What are you doing here?” Um, lunch? “Ohhhhhhh. Say. Well, you’re going to have something to talk about when you go home tonight.” Oh? “Wait here for about thirty minutes and I’ll take you upstairs.”

After about a half hour, the head usher escorted me up to the private residence … in the private elevator … and shepherded me over to the grand piano. Ten minutes later, President Clinton and President-Elect Bush galumphed through the atrium, bid me hello and sat down at a table in the next room to have Presidential lunch. It seems that I was there to protect my Commander in Chief and his successor from bad lunch music. And, may I say, I was victorious.

I have been all over the world and have seen it as the penultimate symbol of high class and status: live music while dining. A perk historically reserved only for kings and queens, high-appointed officials and parents of music students who practice at mealtime, the joy of munching, crunching and chomping to the lovely strains of “The Beautiful Blue Danube”, “Moonlight Serenade”, “Embraceable You”, “Feelings”, “Memory” from Cats, “Let’s Give Them Something To Talk About” and “Take This Job And Shove It” has descended from its lofty peaks and spilled over into much more common and mainstream venues like sidewalk cafes, country clubs, tea rooms and McDonald’s.

Murray’s Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge has been a part of the Minneapolis dining scene since 1946 and remains one of the few independently owned eating establishments of its kind in the Twin Cities. They have had, through the years, and still have, live music for dining. I’ve never visited this place, but they have piano and strings. Quaint, huh?

Composer Paul Schoenfield writes about his piece called “Café Music”:

"The idea to compose Café Music first came to me in 1985 after sitting in one night for the pianist at Murray’s Restaurant in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Murray’s employs a house trio which plays entertaining dinner music in a wide variety of styles. My intention was to write a kind of high-class dinner music – music which could be played at a restaurant, but might also (just barely) find its way into a concert hall. The work draws on many of the types of music played by the trio at Murray’s … 20^th century American, Viennese, light classical, gypsy, and Broadway styles are all represented.”

I love this piece. And I’m going to play it some day.

By the way, President Clinton spilled something on his tie and had to tap into his necktie stash before heading back down to the office. President-Elect Bush remained tidy-tied during the whole experience. I got bread crumbs on my red coat during my lunch, which, I must tell you, occurred without any music ... and without any security list.

Credits: To Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, for “Moonlight Serenade”, “In The Mood” and “String Of Pearls”. Good stuff, fellas!

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

Small Towns

The Land Of Might-Have-Been; Jeremy Northam, vocal; Christopher Northam, piano

Tiny as it is, Bruce, South Dakota, has an American Legion Post. Dad belonged to this company of military veterans for many years. As long as I can remember, Dad held the office of post adjutant and took on the job of making telephone calls and sending out post cards to alert members of upcoming meetings and events. Dad’s friend, E., was treasurer of the organization. He and Dad worked well together, along with other officers, to make it a serviceable group. They gave out scholarships to students, organized weekly bingo, provided help for unfortunates, put together a Memorial Day program every May and did much, much more.

E. worked at the bank. Whenever Dad needed to discuss financial issues concerning the farm, he would drive into town and talk to E.

More than likely, at stome point, Dad and E. served time together on the council at Grace Lutheran Church. In addition to all of this, they shared an interest in guns and hunting.

I could tell you similar stories about my Mom and her involvement with the ladies organizations at church and with the American Legion Auxiliary. There’s an awful lot of crossover as far as memberships are concerned.

Oh, and by the way, to top it all off, as I have been told and reminded for almost forty-five years, most of the citizens of the town of Bruce are related to each other.

Community in Small Town America, as you can see, is a dense network of relationships. It’s not about if you know each other. It’s about the ways that you know each other.

In the big cities, you can create sudo-communities. You can put together bunches of people that have similar interests. For that matter, you can also ignore people that live in your general vicinity. I suppose it more resembles a club … than a functioning community. As human beings, we (mostly) have that “herd” mentality in common. There’s more efficiency in working together than in working alone. So, I don’t begrudge the tightly-knit circles of friends that form in thickly populated areas.

But if you want to experience a real community – where your place is not conditional upon race, vocation, politics, beliefs, religion, health, level of education, work ethic, abilities or opinions – just you and who you are, being a body amongst a few other bodies, offering who you are to, and what you can do for, the general needs of the collective – a willingness to coalesce a lattice of kinsmanship or kinswomanship amidst a microcosm of the world so far away – to belong if only because this is where you live – then park your laurels in a small town for a season. When population precludes quantity, the bonds of rapport, camaraderie, amity and friendship have sinews of steel.

You really have to pay attention for the first half hour of the motion picture “Gosford Park”. Director Robert Altman assembled a “dream” ensemble cast for an upstairs/downstairs-type murder mystery in which every member of the sixty-one member company is important. At the outset of the show, family and guests arrive at the English country home, Gosford Park, of Sir William McCordle. And they all bring their butlers, maids and chauffeurs. Your job, as a viewer, is to keep track of which butler, maid, or chauffeur downstairs belongs to which family member or guest upstairs. As you can imagine, the result is not very unlike the matrix of social and family connections in a small town.

The film takes place in the 1930’s. One of the characters in the movie is the British composer and actor Ivor Novello. His claim to fame is the writing of the World War I song “Keep The Home Fires Burning”. Several times during the picture, actor Jeremy Northam, as Ivor Novello, sits at the piano and performs several of Novello’s songs. But one stands out: “The Land Of Might-Have-Been”. Director Altman chose it for the movie’s closing scene where the cars are driving away from the mansion.

Somewhere there’s another land

Different from this world below,

Far more mercifully planned

Than the cruel place we know.

Innocence and peace are there –

All is good that is desired.

Faces there are always fair;

Love grows never old nor tired.

__________

Shall we ever find that lovely

Land of might-have-been?

Will I ever be your king

Or you at last my queen?

Days may pass and years may pass

And seas may lie between –

Shall we ever find that lovely

Land of might-have-been

Credits: To the citizens of Bruce, South Dakota, complete with faults and strengths, still, a community extraordinaire.

This is my normal Saturday individual track posting.

A grown-up movie

Soundtrack to On Golden Pond; Dave Grusin, composer

I don’t like to swear. I don’t swear. Swear words have always made ugly sounds in my ears. I don’t even have to make a concerted effort not to swear. In fact, it would take a concerted effort to bring myself to form the swear words with my mouth. Know, for sure, friends, that if I swear in your presence … then I’m pretty damn mad.

I’m not entirely convinced that Mom and Dad knew what kind of movie they were dropping their fourteen- sixteen- and nineteen-year-old kids off to see when “On Golden Pond” came to town in 1981. I suppose the title is a bit disarming. In retrospect, the language in the movie really isn’t any worse than anything in the movie houses today. But back then, D. and I had never encountered a movie like this before, and we kind of giggled whenever a BS-bomb tickled our protected ears.

Still, it was enough that I felt kind of guilty for a few weeks; guilty that I had heard these words. Isn’t that weird? I swear, it’s true.

But I walked away from the movie having seen beautiful cinematography and heard a soundtrack to match. Dave Grusin brought a new sound, a new aspect to cinema underscore. It’s hip, it’s touching, it’s tender, it’s goldish, it’s pondish.

I bought the LP soundtrack a few years later. The LP includes dialogue from the movie. I’ve listened to it enough that I can do a fairly respectable impression of Katherine Hepburn. If you happen to remember when you next see me, ask me to conjur it up for you. It’ll be as much fun for me as it should be for you.

What made D. and me laugh the hardest?

Bill: Uh, are there any bears around here?

Norman: Oh, sure … Black bears, grizzlies. One came around last month and ate an old lesbian.

Credits: To Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda, two class acts at their finest.

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

Favorite songs

Mel And George Do World War II; Mel Torme, vocal; George Shearing, piano

One of my favorite times in music comes when somebody approaches me after a concert, or during a reception, and says, “I loved it when you played ______. My husband and I used to dance to that song.” Or, “That was my mother’s favorite song. You don’t hear it very much any more.” Or, “My father used to play that song on his clarinet late in the evening while my sisters and I would drift off to sleep.”

As much as I revel in the velvet tones of ever-so-smooth Mel Torme, I must confess that I favor that portion of “Mel and George Do World War II” where George Shearing plays a few numbers without Mr. Torme “backing him up”. I’ve never heard “I’ve Heard That Song Before” with more subtlety, class and elegance. The girl in the German song “Lili Marlene” never looked more glamorous, arresting and forlorn. But I heard the angels sing when Mr. Shearing serenaded me with “I Know Why And So Do You”.

I played this song at a reception following a concert a few years ago. It’s one of my top ten “first-call” songs when I provide a backdrop of music at the piano. Three days later at a rehearsal, a lovely woman came to the piano and asked, “How in the world do you happen to know the song ‘I Know Why And So Do You’? You’re way too young.” I heard it on a World War II album. “Thank you for playing it. It was my husband’s favorite song”.

The melody of the tune is out of this world. But, even better than the melody, are these words:

Why do robins sing in December

Long before the spring time is due

And even though it’s snowing,

Violets are growing

I know why and so do you

__________

Why do breezes sigh every evening

Whispering your name as they do

And why have I the feeling

Stars are on my ceiling

I know why and so do you

__________

When you smile at me

I hear gypsy violins

When you dance with me

I’m in heaven when the music begins

__________

I can see the sun when it’s raining

Hiding every cloud from my view

And why do I see rainbows

When you’re in my arms

I know why and so do you

I know why and so do you

THAT. Is a lyric, my friend. I would fall in love with anyone who could express themselves like that.

Credits: To George Shearing, jazz pianist extraordinaire. Fan: “Mr. Shearing, have you been blind your whole life?” Mr. Shearing: “Nope. Not yet.” Inspired!!!

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