Giant meets Giant

Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson

Look at these two giants, sitting so casual on a couple of bar stools. Satchmo, the old master, and Oscar, the piano giant, could just as well be standing back to back, physically and metaphorically holding each other up with a sturdiness that would be best described as rock solid, or even better yet, “jazz solid”.

The relationship here, though, is peculiar. Mr Peterson serves in an accompanying manner. He gets top billing but he doesn’t play that way. He stays in the background, reflecting any residual spotlight for Ol’ Louis. And yet, Oscar plays brilliantly, as does the rest of his quartet: Ray Brown, Herb Ellis and Louie Bellson. These guys lay down a harmonic and rhythmic foundation completely devoid of chinks and fissures. All Mr. Armstrong had to do was float on top.

I particularly like the rendition of “What’s New” that shows off Mr. Peterson’s solo accompanimental skills. And Louis gives no more delicate performance, vocally or instrumentally, than during “You Go To My Head”.

The casual pose on the cover sets the tone for the whole show on this album. Every tune is relaxed. Each contributor to this project brings a full measure of attentiveness to their craft and every now and then a zap of intensity, and yet, overall, they’re all hanging loose. That’s my kind of album.

Credits: To the artistry of Ray Brown, Herb Ellis and Louis Bellson, who throughout their careers received the acclaim they deserved as master instrumentalists despite the “background” nature of their job.

What do you mean by "music"?

Music To Watch Girls By; Andy Williams' Greatest Hits Volume 2

I got caught in the trap of “The Sixth Sense”, a movie made by M. Night Shyamalan. I bought it hook line and sinker. K. didn’t. She had it figured out in ten minutes. I have brilliant sisters. So, like everyone else, whenever I watch a flicker-show by Mr. Shyamalan, I keep a lookout for “the twist”.

In the movie “Signs”, also by Mr. Shyamalan, the title of the movie itself teases the mind and possibly confounds the viewer. The beginning of the show concerns itself with the sudden appearance of crop circles all over the world. Anyone would naturally assume that the film title refers to these harvest yield-reducing phenomena. But it doesn’t. I won’t tell you what it actually does refer to in the interest of letting you, dear reader, find out for yourself.

Like most theatre fans, I honed in on the word play in the title of Stephen Sondheim’s 1973 musical “A Little Night Music”. Audiences and musicians have, for years, commonly refered to Mozart’s Serenade No. 13 in G Major as “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”. The English word-for-word translation for Mozart’s serenade nickname provided Mr. Sondheim with the title for his musical. And there, audience members assume, do we find the tail end of the gag. “Eine Kleine Nactmusik”. “A Little Night Music”. Ha ha ha. Very amusing. Few theatre spectators, though, follow the word gag all the way to its actual conclusion. The “night music” refers to the romantic din generally associated with an evening rendezvous of love, of which, many occur in this story.

I remember “Music To Watch Girls By”, (horrible grammar, by the way,) from the aforementioned bus rides to elementary school. I probably remember the Al Hirt version. But I know that Andy Williams recorded the tune in 1967. I love the words.

The girls watch the boys while the boys watch the girls who watch the girls go by

Eye to eye, they solemnly convene to make the scene

Who listens to the words? I don’t. I’m too busy grooving on the James Bond chord sequence and falling in love with this music by which the lyrics instruct me that I am to watch girls.

Which is the name of the game, watch a guy watch a dame on any street in town

Up and down and over and across, romance is boss.

These lyrics sound like Stephen Sondheim lyrics. Or maybe Cole Porter lyrics.

It’s keepin’ track of the fact watching them watching back

That makes the world go ‘round

What’s that sound each time you hear a loud collective sigh?

They’re making music to watch girls by

Wait a minute. Play back those last two lines.

What’s that sound each time you hear a loud collective sigh?

They’re making music to watch girls by

Sooooooo, the music by which I'm to watch girls isn’t the actual tune to which someone would sing the lyrics to “Music To Watch Girls by”? Fascinating. So, if I have this right, the tune is just a tool; the real music to watch girls by sounds like a collective sigh, like this:

OOOOOoooooohhhhhh.

Or:

MMMMMmmmmmmm.

Or:

AAAAaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Interesting. Anyway, I heard it in a movie a few years ago, downloaded it onto iTunes and now it’s trapped on my iPod. Good song.

Credits: To M. Night Shyamalan, for bringing the element of surprise to his movies. Thank you, Mr. Shyamalan. Keep on twistin’.

Reading books

Soundtrack: The Lord Of The Rings; The Return Of The King; Howard Shore, composer

I learned to read at home. It came very quickly after Mom showed me how it worked. If genius runs in the family, well, then, K. and D. learned how to read just as quickly if they didn’t learn how to read in the womb. Dick, Jane, Sally, Puff and Spot, though, didn’t have the comedic timing of Charlie Brown and Snoopy. I doubt that a Peanuts comic strip exists that I haven’t seen. They still crack me up.

Mom took us to the public library frequently enough. Our family's favorite book to borrow was “Morris The Moose Goes To School”. During the summer, I must have done some reading, though I don’t remember very many of the books that I read. Required reading to stay in the family came from the pen of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Dad’s family came from the DeSmet, SD, community and the last four of the “Little House” books take place in that town.

I dutifully read all that my teachers required of me while in school (except for Macbeth, which didn’t hold my attention). But for the most part, I had an awful lot of practicing to do. Even while in college, I read for information gathering purposes almost exclusively.

When I went to CCM for graduate school, I had, as you can imagine, a more music intensive curriculum. It came as a relief, now and then, to lose myself in some more recreational reading. I found a copy of the Sherlock Holmes stories at the university bookstore for five dollars. And during preparation for my oral examination, I took time out to read Tom Clancy’s “The Hunt For Red October.”

Before heading out to sea on the Golden Odyssey, someone gave me “The Phantom Of The Opera” and “Les Miserables”. I read “Patriot Games” while docked in Venice and during a couple of days at sea I read Jules Verne’s “A Journey To The Centere Of The Earth”.

During my tour of duty on the SS Oceanic in 1991, I waded my way through C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles Of Narnia”. Then somebody who had come to the end of his contract with the company gave me “The Hobbit” and all three books of “The Lord Of The Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien.

I had heard that Peter Jackson had taken on the task of creating a film version of Mr. Tolkien's trilogy some three years before the first film, “The Fellowship Of The Ring”, made its way to the big screen. Jackson and his crew did virtually all filming in New Zealand. Having visited New Zealand six years before, my excitement for the release of this series of motion pictures reached a fevered pitch.

I consider Peter Jackson’s “The Lord Of The Rings” movies one of the most inspired accomplishments in all of cinematic history. Not only for its breadth and scope, but also its constant attention to detail and its first-rate performances by the actors, film artists and costume and set designers. Mr. Jackson, it seems to me, endeavored to apply quality film-making to a story already made perfect by its author. If he strayed anywhere from that perfection, he did so through his instinct of knowing which facets of the story should remain in the book and off of the screen.

My iPod doesn’t contain very many movie soundtracks. I have downloaded this not only because the film score won an Academy Award, but because I like its old-fashioned symphonic approach, a throwback to the great composers like Elmer Bernstein, Max Steiner, Maurice Jarre, Ennio Morricone, Franz Waxman and, of course, John Williams.

My favorite portion of this wonderful music by Howard Shore appears during the references to Hobbiton, the part of Middle-Earth where the Hobbits live. Hobbits live a pastoral lifestyle, working the earth, growing vegetables, socializing and eating, often seven times a day. I like these folk. I have often wondered whether Mr. Shore intended the first seven notes of his “Hobbit” theme to match, exactly, note for note, the first seven notes of the great pastoral hymn “This Is My Father’s World”. One of my favorite hymns.

This is my father’s world

And to my listening ears

All nature sings, and round me rings

The music of the spheres

This is my father’s world

The birds their carols raise

The morning light, the lily white

Declare their maker’s praise

Credits: To our nation’s public library system, for providing the availability of not only books but information. For free. The very best of the history of humanity, accessible just right down the street. Thank you.

Wandering

Not All Who Wander Are Lost; Chris Thile

One of the most satisfying trips I ever took occurred early in 2003. My family and I had convened at Mom’s place for Christmas. D. and her family had returned to their home a few days after the holiday and K. had hit the road a few days after that. I had stayed long enough to see some friends from college and to help take down the Christmas tree. After New Year’s, though, I started to think about heading back to my apartment in San Antonio, TX.

After leaving the U.S. Marine Band in November of 2002, I had heard that Jim Cullum had a piano opening in his Dixieland band down in San Antonio. So I moved for a short term down to Texas and resided in a chic apartment right down by the Riverwalk.

I realized, shortly after leaving Mom’s place in 2003, that I didn’t really need to hurry anywhere. As I recall, I actually pulled over in Sioux City, IA, to look at the map and to check my options. I looked at Nebraska and Kansas. Kansas. Kansas. Something in Kansas. It seems to me … hmmmmm. Many years before, I had read an article in the Reader’s Digest about an interesting place out in the middle of Kansas called Castle Rock. I checked the map. Yup. There in the middle of Kansas, and about three inches to the left, lay a tiny red square with the words “Castle Rock” beside it. I needed no more urging than that. One minute later, I had my route back to Texas and there were no straight lines.

I spent the first night in a small town motel in the southern part of Nebraska. And after a rousing Egg McMuffin the next morning, I headed toward that red square. The closer I got to the site, the more unsophisticated, rural, artless and unrefined the signs pointing me to the location became. Four of the last five miles of road leading to Castle Rock featured beautiful Kansas gravel. The last half of a mile of road, after the cattle grate, featured beautiful Kansas dirt, with beautiful Kansas ruts. The owner of the land must have trusted that visitors would have enough sense not to drive over the cliff at the end of the road, as there is no sign advising that they shouldn’t. There also is no sign signaling the presence of a cliff. As a matter of fact, I saw no signs, except those that proclaimed “Castle Rock” and the direction, relative to the sign, indicating its whereabouts.

I pulled up to the edge of the cliff at about noon, stumbled out of my truck, and stood dumbfounded at what lay before me: miles upon miles of barren plain to the north and east. And nobody around but me and my Durango. About a quarter of a mile in front of the face of the cliff stood Castle Rock, a limestone and chalk formation, in the shape of a castle, sitting on an ancient seabed. If I had stood at that very spot millions of years before, I would have been looking at the ocean. In the middle of Kansas. For forty-five minutes, I stood there by myself, with nobody else around for miles, drinking in the starkness, the wildness, the remoteness. And, most impressive of all, the solitude.

Close to one o’clock, I saw the cloud of beautiful Kansas dust of another Castle Rock visitor approaching, and chose to grant them the same privilege of seclusion that I had enjoyed. I headed west about thirty miles to a similar spot called Monument Rocks, an area of giant chalk pyramids, some of them seventy feet high. My Durango looked like a Matchbox Car next to these colossal formations. I moved on from there to stay overnight in Las Vegas, NM, drove through Santa Fe, rode the Sandia Peak Tramway and made a left turn at Albuquerque to drive through El Paso, TX, during rush hour. And after that I was still five hundred and fifty miles from my flat on the Riverwalk.

Chris Thile (pronounced THEE-lee) plays the mandolin like a dream and composes exceptionally creative music to feature his musical gifts. He has toured and recorded with Dolly Parton, Bela Fleck and bassist Edgar Meyer. He also made up one third of the ensemble “Nickel Creek”. He plays what he likes to call bluegrass and “newgrass”. Bela Fleck features prominently in this album called “Not All Who Wander Are Lost”. I did, indeed, listen to this album during that unforgettable detour through Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. It provided fitting road trip music of a roving nature.

The title of the album is inspiring. It comes from a poem included in J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic trilogy “The Lord Of The Rings, alluding to an integral part of the plot:

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the askes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.

My Dixieland piano playing and the Jim Cullum Band’s Dixieland playing didn’t mesh well. When the temperature began to rise to a point too high for me to bear, I loaded up the Durango and wandered in another direction. Wandered. But not aimlessly.

Credits: To the wanderer, who finds the zest for life during the journey.

Movie music.

Soundtrack to "Good Night, And Good Luck."; Dianne Reeves

I saw Dianne Reeves live for the second time at Maryland Hall in Annapolis, MD, on December 16, 2005. A number of my friends came along. Ms. Reeves had released a Christmas CD the season before and had several of her Christmas charts “at the ready” in her set list. She also, during the previous year, had been tapped to provide the music for a film directed by George Clooney called “Good Night And Good Luck”, a period piece about the conflict between Edward R. Murrow and US Senator Joseph McCarthy. The studio had released the movie in October and the soundtrack had attracted a lot of attention.

Ms. Reeves had brought her own band. When introducing the members, she made much ado about her pianist. He had, just months before, lost virtually everything in Hurricane Katrina. He sounded wonderful.

At one point in the concert, Ms. Reeves talked about her experience with Mr. Clooney. The studio had decided to place her and her combo in a number of scenes within the movie. She spent a moment or so talking about her adventures in movie acting with a famous actor as the director. She earned herself a big laugh when she revealed this singular aspect about George Clooney: “He’s really fine”.

Since the film takes place in the early 1950’s, not only did the songs need to come from that era, but the time period’s style needed to infuse the musical selections as well. Ms. Reeves’ genius lies here: She delivers an inspired performance with each jazz standard on this album, nestled deep in the musical elegance, sophistication and poise of the time. Musical art deco, if you will, modest and conservative. And, yet, I can hear, in my musical imagination, places where she would normally escape the confines of measure and melody in order to mount a more stirring rendition of the songs in the manner in which she, and her audience, is accustomed.

She won her audience at the concert that evening, and she won her larger audience with this album. She received her fourth Grammy Award for Best Vocal Jazz Performance with her performance on this soundtrack CD.

We went to a coffee house afterward and talked about the show. B. asked James F., a bass player, what he thought of her singing. “I really didn’t listen to her,” came the reply. “What?” “I really don’t care for singers so I zeroed in on the bass player and the drummer.”

Professional musicians quite often have the facility to isolate various aspects of the music to which they listen. James had the ability, in this case, to procure satisfaction from the musical performance by digging the groove set down by the bass and drums, and filtering out what he didn’t want to hear. I like to compare musical performances with visits to museums. During a trip to a museum, an art enthusiast can see the same pieces as other visitors and, yet, can walk away having encountered those pieces in a completely different way. Two audience members at a concert can have two very different reactions to, and notions about, the music emanating from the stage. Just like two Americans can listen to the same State of the Union address, but can hear two completely different speeches.

Credits: To Edward R. Murrow, one of broadcast journalism’s greatest figures. Thank you for sharing with us your honesty and integrity.

Let's talk about the weather...

The Long, Long Winter Night; Leif Ove Andsnes, piano

Dad had equal parts Norwegian and Danish blood in his veins. He boasted loudly of both, and, because of the comparative rarity of Danes in the local vicinity, he enjoyed “memberships” in both the huge community of Norwegians and the fairly exclusive club of Danes. Frequently, before a meal, we would hear the Danish prayer he learned when a child, we would “chow down” on the Norwegian bread-like delicacy of lefse, Mom would make spherical pancakes with her Danish aebleskiver iron, and, at Christmas time, we would sing “Jeg Er Sa Glad Hver Julekveld” with the rest of the congregation in Church. My sisters and I knew our Scandinavian roots, and, to this day, they mark us.

When I worked on the Crown Odyssey, the ship often visited the very handsome and beguiling cities of Copenhagen and Oslo. I instantly felt at home in both of these two motherland cities and the countries that they adorned. We viewed these jewels at their very best: imbued with the abundant summer light.

You can imagine, then, the visual and maybe not-so-temperate climate in Norway from late November until late January. The sun doesn’t rise very high on the horizon in even the southernmost part of the country.

The music on this CD, from some of Norway’s greatest composers, takes into account the iron-fisted chill of what some would consider harsh and uncompromisingly savage environs. The composers have echoed in their creations the spirit of the dark, mountainous terrain and the nature and mental games of epic time structures – the aesthetics of long, long wintery nights, in this case, categorically FEELS Nordic. Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes matches a formidable technique to his consummate musicianship on these works.

I feel sorry for those who experience perfect weather on each and every day of their lives. The seasons of the year and the variety of atmospheres they kindle chase away doldrums for me. My friend M. and I have declared ourselves fans of inclement weather. I’ve known for years that the climate outside – rainy, sunny, cloudy, windy – generally does not dictate to my over-all friendly default mood setting. My friends know that I prefer the colder weather, but I can enjoy a warm sunny day. And I WILL endure the occasional horrible, horrible hot and hundred-degree day. Why? Because the cool day that I earned with that blisteringly hot day feels all that much better in retrospect. Or, to express an odd proverb, “After being struck in the head with an ax, it’s a pleasure to be beaten with a club.”

Credits: To the hearty people of Norway. I love your fjords. You can keep your lutefisk, but thank you for the lefse.

Chauffeur

Mecca For Moderns; The Manhattan Transfer

I sang in the South Dakota Honor’s Choir during the summer of 1982. The South Dakota Chapter of the American Choral Director’s Association held the event on the campus of Augustana College in Sioux Falls. My roommate during the week of rehearsals, Brian S., attended Washington High School, also in Sioux Falls, and relished the opportunity to be away from home for a week, even though a ride home from the college would last only seven minutes.

Both Brian and I sang in the Honor’s Choir the following summer as well. We had different roommates that year, but it was nice to see my friend again. We kept in touch for a few years.

In July of 1984, after I graduated from high school, Mom got called for jury duty in District Court in Sioux Falls. Wary of big city driving, Mom asked if I could drive her to court for the first couple of days until she got used to the route. After dropping her off at the court house, I decided to spend the rest of the day hanging out with Brian. I found out upon my arrival at his house that Brian spends the first hour of the day reading the newspaper. So when I arrived, he handed me the USA Today while he read the Argus Leader. I had never seen nor heard of the USA Today before. Readership hadn’t found its way to small town South Dakota yet.

After newspapers, Brian told me about the concert that he and his parents had tickets to attend down in Omaha on the following weekend. “The Manhattan Transfer’s comin’ to town.” Who? “The Manhattan Transfer.” That’s what I thought you said. What’s that? “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Sorry. I don’t listen to a lot of pop music. “Haven’t you heard of ‘Boy From New York City’?” Oh. Yeah. Yup, I’ve heard of that one. “THAT’S Manhattan Transfer. They’re a vocal jazz quartet. I think you’d like them. You should check them out.” Well, I guess “Boy From New York City” is an okay song. “Actually, real Manhattan Transfer fans pan that song.” Why? “They tried to become more mainstream with that song, kind of abandoning the genre and the fans that made them famous in the first place. But they came back to the pack.”

His family owned four of their albums, so over the course of the next few hours, I encountered Manhattan Transferance. As it turned out, Brian knew me pretty well. With my love for close harmony, such as I stumbled upon in my barbershop quartet, and my penchant for lush, extended harmonies, like those that I adored in the music of Rachmaninoff and Debussy, this musical group only lived a few houses down from what I tended to listen to anyway.

So, the next day, after delivering Mom to the District Court House, I brought some blank cassette tapes to Brian’s house. And, after reading the newspapers for about an hour, we recorded the music of this exceptional ensemble onto my blank cassette tapes, until such a time as I could purchase their CD’s in order to burn them onto something called an iPod.

In October of 1984, I saw that the Carlton Celebrity Room in Bloomington, MN, had booked the Manhattan Transfer for a Saturday night concert. So, five of us took a road trip to hear this fantastic quartet. The high point in the concert came on the second encore when they sang “A Nightingale Sang In Barkeley Square”, completely a capella.

When we first drove into town, I called Cousin W. to let her know that we had arrived. She told me that she had just heard on the radio, a few moments before I called, the Manhattan Transfer on the Prairie Home Companion singing an original advertisement for Powder Milk Biscuits.

Credits: To the Carlton Celebrity Room in Bloomington, MN, now defunct, but who provided for many years, in the days before casinos, a venue for world-class musicians and performers to share their music with devoted fans. Now you’re a mall. That’s good, too.