Children's Stories

"Kreutzer" and "Spring" Sonatas for Violin and Piano; Itzhak Perlman, violin; Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano

When I got back to the barracks after playing for the recipients of the Medal of Arts and Humanities Award on that snowy evening in late December, I quickly changed out of my “special full” Marine Band uniform and into some jeans, hiking boots, a turtle-neck and my black and red Snoopy hockey jersey to begin my traditional over-night cross-country drive to South Dakota for Christmas.

As I drove out of town, I called Mom to let her know that I was on the road and to tell her about all the excitement I saw at the White House. The next morning as I drove into Indiana, Mom called me and asked, “Did you see Ms. Driving Hawk?” Mom, I know all those words and that sentence makes no sense. “Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve (SNEE-vee) receives one of the Medal of Humanities Awards today. I just saw it in the newspaper. She would have been at the reception you played at last night. She’s from – and still lives in – South Dakota and is married to one of Dad’s high school class mates.”

Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve’s name reflects her Lakota Sioux heritage. Born and raised on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, Ms. Sneve attended South Dakota State University, receiving Bachelor of Science and Master of Education degrees. She has served as an educator in the public schools, an editor at a small publishing house and a member of the board of directors of several organizations that reveal her passion for those things that identify her, and us, as thinking, feeling and communicating human beings.

Ms. Driving Hawk Sneve received her Medal of Humanities, however, for her commitment to a place of peace and understanding where cultures meet and mingle. Through the mediums of writing and storytelling, she has endeavored to preserve the stories of countless generations of Native Americans by bringing her tales to the eyes and ears of children in a bold effort to go beyond tolerance, where love, appreciation and celebration of ethnic, intellectual and artistic differences don’t divide, but bind. As he presented her with her Medal, President Clinton remarked that, “Her stories have helped us to better define the American experience, to understand the Native Americans who were here before us … We thank her for sharing her timeless wisdom.”

The State Dining Room was full of talent on that evening that I played for the Medalists. In addition to Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve and Quincy Jones, singer Eddy Arnold, poet and author Maya Angelou, dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, author Toni Morrison, jazz saxophonist Benny Carter, theatre director Harold Prince, playwright Horton Foote, singer, actress and film director Barbra Streisand and several others strolled about the room.

The only one who didn’t stroll sat in his chair one foot behind and one foot to the right of my piano bench. After Quincy Jones tapped on the piano, I looked to my right and violinist Itzhak Perlman smiled.

Credits: To Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, for bringing the world to a “special place”. I’m sorry I didn’t know who you were that evening. That would have been one of those great South Dakota get-together experiences where complete strangers chance upon each other and talk about old times.

Hip, dude

L.A. Is My Lady; Quincy Jones and his orchestra; Frank Sinatra, vocals

The first time I heard Quincy Jones was when I stopped in to see Greg and Sam across the hallway in Brown Hall at SDSU. Sam: “Erik, you’ve got to hear this CD.” Greg: “We don’t think that you can find any dude hipper in this world to announce the ‘arrival' of a dude than this dude on a track called ‘The Dude’ on Quincy Jones’ album called … wait for it … ‘The Dude’.” They were right. We sat in their dorm room and tapped into a level of hipness and funk that our Midwestern bland, straight and narrowness could barely contain. You guys, I said, I don’t think I can ever be that cool. “We don’t think that we can either.”

The first time I saw Quincy Jones was in the State Dining Room at the White House in December of 2000. Mr. Jones, along with several other artists, would receive the National Medal of Arts the next day, but this evening, the President hosted a reception for the recipients. I had played the piano for a host of other guests who had come to enjoy the Christmas decorations in our nation’s “first house” and was told to remain for a little while longer. It turned out that they needed someone to entertain the Medal winners in the State Dining Room “holding room”. I tried not to be star-struck and to concentrate on what I was doing. But just as the guests left the room, Quincy Jones tapped on the piano and said, “Dude, that was cool.” Well, who am I to argue?

My first real exposure to Frank Sinatra was on one of his last albums called “L.A. Is My Lady”, produced by Quincy Jones and featuring an all-star band. On the closing verses of “Mack the Knife”, the Chairman of the Board sings:

Ah, old Satchmo, Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin

They did this song nice, and Lady Ella, too

They all sang it, sang it with such feeling

That Old Blue Eyes, he can't add nothing new

__________

But with Quincy’s big band, right behind me

Swinging hard, Jack, I know I can’t lose

When I tell you about Mack the knife, babe

It’s an offer you can never refuse

__________

We got George Benson, we got Newman and Foster,

We got the Brecker brothers, and Hampton bringing up the rear

All these bad cats, and more, are in this band now

They make the greatest sounds you ever gonna hear

This album has more sentimental value to me than musical. I really enjoyed it at the time that I initially heard it in my college days. But as I’ve gathered more of his albums over the years, I’ve found that his work on “L.A.” barely hangs onto that old refinery and polish that he had fostered over the course of forty or more years.

But, I groove on Quincy’s arrangements. They’re cool, dude.

Credits: To Kurt Weill, for “The Three Penny Opera”. I don’t know if you ever thought “Mackie Messer” would sound so cool, but it does, dude.

Brass against Brass against Brass

The Antiphonal Music of Gabrieli; The Philadelphia Brass Ensemble; The Cleveland Brass Ensemble; The Chicago Brass Ensemble; E. Power Biggs, organ

In my third year of Symphonic Band at SDSU, Mr. McK. decided to open our winter concert with a piece called “Flight” by composer Claude T. Smith. Mr. Smith composed this march-like work for the United States Air Force Band, who premiered the composition on November 1, 1984, in the Milestones of Flight Gallery at the Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. At the request of the director of the museum, Mr. Smith included snippets of the Pachelbel Canon in D Major as the Canon plays as background music at Air and Space. The composer also makes a passing glance at the opening measures of the Air Force Song.

In the middle of the piece, the score calls for antiphonal trumpets. Typically, antiphonal brass ensembles divide themselves into groups of two and place themselves at opposite sides of the room, one answering the other across the expanse. But in this case, the composer just wanted a set of three trumpets to sit separate from the band, and Mr. McK. put me in the antiphonal trumpet section. It’s the only antiphonal playing I’ve ever done.

They say that the “Big Five” American orchestras are the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Thankfully, musical ensembles don’t instigate the rivalry that sports franchises do. As a matter of fact it’s refreshing to see the brass ensembles of three major orchestras come together to create a magnum opus for the ages. The master musicians came together in 1959 and 1968 to record this fanfare-ish and often triumphant music.

Credits: To James Smithson, the original “funding father” of the Smithsonian Institute, granting the United States 104,960 gold sovereigns in order to create an “Establishment for the increase and diffusion of Knowledge among men”. Congratulations, Mr. Smithson. The United States Government did something right with your money.

Recipes

We Are In Love; Harry Connick, Jr.

I bought Betty Crocker’s Best of Baking shortly after arriving in Annapolis in 1999. I don’t remember the circumstances under which I bought it. But I zeroed in on two cookie recipes: Giant Toffee Cookies and Triple Chocolate Chunk Triple Dipped Chocolate Chip Cookies. I made a couple batches of each before going home for Christmas that year. They were a hit and they’ve been expected every Christmas since.

My work at Christmas has become so sporadic in the past few years and I don’t know until a month or so before Christmas how much time I’ll have to be with my family for the holidays. So, I’ve taken to making Christmas cookies in August while I’m at my Mom’s place in South Dakota. It’s nice to have a little Christmas cheer during the dog days of summer.

In August of 2008, I drove all the way to South Dakota before I realized that I had left my Betty Crocker book back in Annapolis. What would you do? Here’s what we did: On the pretense of visiting Great Aunt Vi in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which we did and had a very nice visit, we stopped at the Barnes and Noble, found the Betty Crocker’s Best of Baking book, took pictures of the pages with the recipes and skedaddled.

My favorite song from Harry Connick, Jr.’s, 1990 “We Are In Love” CD is “Recipe For Love”. How’s this for cute?

A little bit of me and a whole lot of you

Add a dash of starlight and a dozen roses, too

Then let it rise for a hundred years or two

And that’s the recipe for making love

__________

It doesn’t need sugar ‘cause it’s already sweet

It doesn’t need an oven ‘cause it’s got a lot of heat

Just add a dash of kisses to make it all complete

And that’s the recipe for making love

__________

And if you’ve made it right you’ll know it

It’s not like anything you’ve made before

And if you’ve made it wrong you’ll know it

‘Cause it won’t keep you coming back for more

__________

I didn’t get it from my grandma’s book upon the shelf

I didn’t get it from a magical and culinary elf

No, a little birdie that you can’t make it by yourself

And that’s the recipe for making love

Over the past few days, Mom and I have been fabricating a Pho-ish low-carb chicken noodle soup, using brined chicken breasts, onion, ginger root, cloves, peppercorns, sage and other assorted “chemicals”. The freedom of cooking without a net is comparable to the liberation from printed music on the stand above the piano keyboard. Anyone who sets out to create a dish without a culinary blueprint is, effectively, a jazz musician at heart.

The first time that D. ate one of my Giant Toffee Cookies, she re-dubbed them Roast Beef Cookies, from the standpoint that they were so big that you felt like you consumed an entire roast beef dinner.

Credits: To Great Aunt Vi. Ninety-six years old and still makes minced meat pie. MMMMmmmmmmmmm. Minced meat pie……………

Christmas scenes

A Festival of Carols in Brass; Philadelphia Brass Ensemble

The first time I ever encountered the word “unique” was at the opening of the Brookings Mall some time in the mid-1970’s. The Cinema Unique offered another film option to what the State Theater and the College Theater had to offer downtown. I thought that you pronounced it “you-nee-cue”. I was roundly ridiculed by the family on that one and I NEVER pronounced it wrong again.

In addition to the Cinema Unique, the Brookings Mall offered White Mart, Cover to Cover, Shriver’s, The Optical Shop, Hy-Vee Food Store, Perkin’s, U.S. Army recruiters, U.S. Navy recruiters and a host of specialty shops. When the mall first opened, I looked forward to going inside to see all of these stores in one place. It was practical. We didn’t have to watch for traffic inside. And I liked running up the wheelchair ramps.

As Christmas approached, I couldn’t wait to see the decorations at the mall and to test drive the brand new Christmas shopping venue. The first time we went Christmas shopping that year, the plan was announced that we would go to the mall first (Yayyyyy!!) and finish up downtown (Okay, whatever). The decorations at the mall couldn’t have thrilled me more, and D. and I had fun racing around from store to store without having to go outside.

After the mall, Dad parked the car downtown and said, “Everybody check your watches and let’s meet back here in one hour. Then let’s go have a hamburger.” Well, I spent the first fifteen minutes grousing because we weren’t at the mall. But the more time I spent downtown, the more I liked it with the outdoor lights and decorations, the snowfall, better places to hide when you don’t want to be seen by a family member when you’re buying their gift … and a much more accurate winter, Christmas scene.

Christmas imagery is so powerful; those mental snapshots that portray the quintessential Yuletide setting: the tree with a thousand lights, the sled going a hundred miles down the hill, the holiday dinner table laden with cranberries, mashed potatoes, the Christmas goose and chestnut dressing, the outside of a church with its stained glass windows all aglow, a horse-drawn sleigh, a snowman with a red scarf, a toy train, a Raggedy-Ann doll, a wreath on the door, stockings on the fireplace mantel … and Christmas cookies, Christmas pies, Christmas cakes, eggnog, hot chocolate and candy canes …..

How about this one: a group of carolers in Dickensian English attire on the street corner – or the Salvation Army brass choir stationed outside the department store? Yeah, this is the one that revs my Christmas scene engine. No, I never saw them on Main Street in Brookings, South Dakota, on our Christmas shopping night so long ago. But I can put them there and it’s just as good.

Before there was a Canadian Brass and before Mannheim Steamroller broke all records with their Christmas albums, the hottest LP on the Christmas market came by way of the Philadelphia Brass Ensemble and its repertoire of twenty-five Christmas carols. Outselling virtually all of the regular orchestral recordings made by the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Eugene Ormandy in the 1960’s, the members of the Philadelphia Brass Ensemble invested their efforts, here, in an expert blend of sound and orchestration, rather than in laborious and superficial pageantry. When they play each carol, they seem to want you to sing along, playing one verse after another with no interlude in between, indicating the conclusion by slowing down at the end.

Just the way Christmas carols are supposed to be sung. How unique!

Credits: To Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives, for truly commanding winter-time and Christmas imagery.

Only five months before Christmas!

Sibling Rivalry (or lack thereof)

Sisters; Irving Berlin

Earlier this summer, I played a wedding reception where the bride had asked, a few weeks before, if she and her sister could sing a song together. Certainly. What song would you like to sing? “Sisters.” I don’t think I know that one. “You haven’t seen ‘White Christmas’ with Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney?” You know, I’m going to have to see this movie sooner or later. This is the second song that I’ve heard from this movie and didn’t know that it came from this movie.

Sisters, sisters

There were never such devoted sisters,

Never had to have a chaperone, no sir,

I’m there to keep my eye on her

Caring, sharing

Every little thing that we are wearing

When a certain gentleman arrived from Rome

She wore the dress, and I stayed home

All kinds of weather, we stick together

The same in the rain and sun

Two different faces, but in tight places

We think and we act as one

Those who’ve seen us

Know that not a thing could come between us

Many men have tried to split us up, but no one can

Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister

And Lord help the mister, who comes between me and my man

Here are what a few famous people have said about sisters:

If you don’t understand how a woman could both love her sister dearly and want to wring her neck at the same time, then you were probably an only child. ~ Linda Sunshine

Sisters never quite forgive each other for what happened when they were five. ~ Pam Brown

A ministering angel shall my sister be. ~ William Shakespeare

A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves – a special kind of double. ~ Toni Morrison

Big sisters are the crabgrass in the lawn of life. ~ Linus

I am a better man today for having both an older and a younger sister. ~ Erik Apland

Credits: To K. and D., for being excellent sisters. I love you both for who you are to me, and for who you are to each other. You’re awesome.

More tango

Tango: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack; Lalo Schifrin, composer

A friend of mine from my steamboatin’ days lives in Corpus Christi, Texas. He was the drummer in our Dixieland band. I drove to his home to visit him one day while I lived in San Antonio. After getting caught up and getting a little tour of his home, he wanted to share with me a recent DVD acquisition from Amazon.

“Tango”, a film by Spanish director Carlos Saura, tells the story of a theatre director in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who puts together a musical about the Tango. The movie received a nomination for the 1998 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The composer of the soundtrack is named Lalo Schifrin. He actually appears in the movie along with his performing musicians.

A Paris Conservatory-trained pianist, composer and conductor, Mr. Schifrin is mostly known for his television and movie scores. His most recognizable and enduring theme is the opening title to “Mission Impossible”. He also composed the music for “Mannix” and “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”. His film scores include “Cool Hand Luke”, “Dirty Harry”, “Enter the Dragon” and “Kelly’s Heroes”.

I had never had exposure to the Tango culture of Brazil and Argentina before visiting my friend. What I found in this movie was alluring and intoxicating; certainly the dancing, but the music, even more. It speaks of a different time, cultivation of life, definition of mores and a different perspective of love.

This is a favorite rest area on my iPod highway.

Credits: To Lalo Schifrin, for the theme to “Mission Impossible”, one of the greatest 5/4 songs ever. It’s right up there with “Take Five” and the second movement to Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6.