Images of 1930’s Paris carries the romance of all that is special regarding that great city and nowhere is it more identifiable than the associated music of that time and place. The city was the home of many cabarets and musical talents that created a distinct Parisian sound from the glamour of the streets, the influences of American swing jazz, and the living cadences of folk melody and sentimentality. King of the Parisian sound was the jazz swing group “Quintette du Hot Club du France” led by guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grapelli. Reinhardt in particular created a unique technique for the guitar borne out of a tragedy. His left hand was severely burned in a house fire at age 18 and Django had to relearn to play the guitar with the use of just two fingers on the fret hand. the style became a melody driven punctual sound that seamlessly fell right into the swing sound of Grapelli’s violin musings. The sentimentality of the time unconsciously predated the emotional sense of loss created by the chaos and uprooting of World War II and makes the music seem even more poignant. The few of us lived it, the culture has placed on a pedestal that special time of pre-war Paris into a time of sophistication, class, and civilized interaction that we all wish were recreated in tody’s more pessimistic world. The song “J’Attendrai”(I shall return) captures perfectly all the elements of the time, whether through Reinhardt and Grapelli’s swing version or Tino Rossi’s wistful beauty and takes us back to the left bank cafe’ where we can imagine ourselves living the moment and thinking, life is good, and living grand.
The Voice
We know it immediately when we hear it- the unique expressive voice that was Luciano Pavarotti’s. It is telling that we miss it so much, now that it is three years since Pavarotti passed from the earth’s stage to take on perhaps more demanding celestial roles. There are many fine singers, but few created such a guttural emotion when you heard the man at his best. The voice was a crystal bell, a high timbred but melodious ring that seemed forever youthful and idealistic, in the wake of so many other more adult and more musically polished interpreters. There was a sense of yearning, of hopefulness, of such choir like beauty that he frequently brought the most hardened audiences to tears. It was an extended love affair Pavarotti had with his audience that let them overcome his many perceived slights of cancelled concerts and sudden colds. The critics did not always understand, but the listener knew that Pavarotti’s gift was a very fragile one, and he wasn’t able to fake the effect on a bad night. They forgave him, and always came back for more.
Pavarotti owned the solo aria of Italian opera for twenty years, and made many signature recordings that secured his position as one of the great tenors of the twentieth century. The Italian operatic arias of Puccini and Donzetti were tailor made for him, emotional, theatrical, and deeply founded on the structure of the Italian folksong. He didn’t create the high C, but was able to spring it forward like a church bell in the valley, that all recognized as the way the note should be heard. He not only sounded the part of a great Italian tenor but he looked the part, with his pocket watch and massive handkerchief as props that highlighted his massive smile and equally generous rotundity. He wrapped the theatrical singing with an Italian accent that was crisp as his notes were bell-like, not one ounce forced, but rather, recognizable as what sung Italian diction should sound like- the unmistakable echoes of his hometown of Modena, Italy.
In his later years, like all faced with the inevitable ravages of age, the live performances were weaker in quality and content, but his personality often brought people back time and again to hear the memorable shadows of his former magnificence. And magnificent it was at his height of performing power, the early to mid-1980’s, when a mid-forties Pavarotti in his prime presented us with such sublime creations of primordial force and depth of feeling that is the human voice:
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
The wonderful 1944 musical Meet Me In St Louis directed by Vincente Minelli contains one of the most treasured Christmas songs ever written. Performed by Judy Garland at the height of her artistic powers, sung to the emotionally distraught child actress Margaret O’Brien, the song and setting resulted in one of the most poignant and memorable moments in cinematic history. The song never fails to capture for me the interwoven connection of the American public to this holiday through song, and the recognition of so many great song writers of the 20th century of this unique connection of the holiday to the American experience.
Written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane for the musical, the song frames the need for Judy Garland’s character Esther to try to explain to her little sister Tootie, played by O’Brien that a planned move from St. Louis to New York by the family will somehow turnout alright, though neither sister really believes it. the lyricist Martin conveyed the impact of uprooting the family through the lyrics in desperate fashion:
“No good times like the olden days, happy golden days of yore; faithful friends that were dear to us, will be near to us no more”
“But at least we will all be together, if the Fates allow; From now on we’ll have to muddle through somehow“
The lyrics painted such a dark sheen on the moment that Martin was asked by Garland to restore some hope to the lyrics, or she was not sure she could get through the song without both she and O’Brien collapsing in tears. Martin did make an attempt particularly in the first lines, as :
“Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may be your last. Next year we may all be living in the past” became “Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be light. Next year all our troubles will be out of sight” – a significant emotional reliever.
The song in the emotional setting of World War II with so many separated and disrupted families was an immediate sensation both nationally and with the far flung troops. The spectacular singing performance of Garland and the tears of her co-star O’Brien seemed to tear at the fragile stability each family felt with the war’s upheaval and perhaps better than any other Christmas song evoked the underlying bond that Americans feel toward family unity and the focal point for this unity that is associated with Christmas.
It has been performed many times since by hundreds of artists , including a special version by Frank Sinatra, but nothing comes close to Judy Garland and the vulnerable, beautiful and sentimental performance by her in Meet Me in St. Louis:
People We Should Know #6 : Evgeny Kissin
Child Prodigy is an overused description for almost any child showing unusual talent or potential. The candidates extend from three year old Tiger Woods showing a classic golf swing on the Michael Douglas show to the various Lil’ Orphan Annies’ belting out “Tomorrow” on a Broadway revival. The true test is really the development of adult level interpretative capacity and technical skill at an age associated with the superficial emotional depth and life experiences of youth, and no place is this more aptly expressed as in the classical music genre, particularly the classical piano. Interestingly our greatest pianists often studied in obscurity until a performance break exhibited their prodigious talents, and often required years of mundane musical years in the “wilderness” before becoming identified as superb interpreters of the piano compositional canon. In a very few cases, the spectacular potential of youthful prodigy becomes fully realized in adult form in a continuous path, and one such prodigy is Evgeny Kissin.
Mr. Kissin is in 2010 only 39 years old, but has been recognized as one of the foremost interpreters of the late romantic piano literature since age 12. It is a strange capacity that allows a twelve year old to have unique interpretative powers and such affinity for the music, and no scientist is likely to be able to specifically represent the portions of the brain that allow such a gift. In Mr. Kissin’s situation, it was as if he was born with the adult emotional latice to provide definitive versions of composers such as Chopin and Rachmaninoff, so profoundly expressed that one wonders if the religious concept of re-incarnation and the spirit of Liszt himself found a home in Evgeny’s body. What ever the source of such genius, Kissin has managed to maintain and expand on his youthful powers and become as an adult one of the foremost performers on the classical stage seen in the last 100 years. Born in 1971 in the former Soviet Union, Kissin was already recognized at age ten as a profoundly special talent, and at age 13 had an international best selling performance recording of the Chopin Piano Concertos. In his twenties and thirties he has performed with every A-rated orchestra in the world and is among the most sought after performers in our time. In an age where fifteen minutes of fame provide fleeting veneers of supposed genius capacity, Evgeny Kissin has lived up to and surpassed any estimation of his potential and is a modern musical Prometheus that will be for decades to come one of the People We Should Know.
Enjoy Evgeny Kissin’s performance of Chopin at age 12, age 15, and recently Rachmaninoff:
Imagine
This past week was the 30th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon, legendary member of the Beatles rock group, and an emblem of the fragmented value that comes with celebrity status in western society. Lennon is an unfortunate member of a small group of public figures who were assassinated for the notoriety it would bring the assassin rather than any other identified specific cause or perceived societal effect. On the night of December 8th, 1980, Lennon and his wife were returning to their mid town West Central Park condominium from an outing, when they were approached by Mark David Chapman, who wordlessly shot Lennon four times in the back as he passed. Chapman had stalked the entrance to the Dakota complex awaiting Lennon’s return, assured of Lennon’s presence as several hours before as Lennon had left the Dakota, Chapman had asked Lennon to autograph a Lennon album and Lennon had complied. In the vein of Arthur Bremer’s attempted assassination of politician George Wallace in 1972, or later, John Hinckley, Jr’s. attempt on President Ronald Reagan in early 1981, the crime victim themselves bared very little impulse for the disturbed stalker assassin who simply reveled in their ability to achieve their own personal celebrity through their act. Lennon was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, but was unable to be re-susitated and died that night. Chapman subsequently was arrested and convicted of murder, and has been in jail since his conviction.
John Lennon was a difficult human being with multiple run-ins with family, friends, band mates and governments. His status in western culture, however, will always be secure due his exalted role as leader of the revolutionary musical force known as the Beatles, and his combative but spectacularly prodigious membership in the song writing duo of Lennon and McCartney. The duo,with minimal formal training, produced a song catalogue that ranks with the great song writers and songwriter teams of the 20th century. For the 5 year period from 1964 to 1969, Lennon and McCartney changed forever the role of the musical group, who to that time had been performers rather than creators of original music; after their spectacular run no quality act could proceed to be seen as elite without producing original material. Lennon was the stronger wordsmith who often corrected McCartney’s tendency toward saccharinelyrics and brought depth, wisdom and at times angst to the simplest expressions. He was personally not a revolutionary but formulated a revolutionary style that created new sound motifs, visual poetry, and a competitive personality to always try to top the band’s last creative impulse with each successive effort. By 1969, the pressure of continuous originality and brilliance exhausted all the members, but particularly Lennon, and he sought and succeeded to gain a way out of the group, and the madness. Like all creative but unstable personalities, he continued to occasionally produce epic music thereafter, but missed the steadying influence of his musical partners. It appeared at age 40, he was finally seeing the gentle stabilizing influences of adulthood when his life was cut short by Chapman’s bullets.
We struggle in western society to accept celebrity as an indicator of achievement, rather than artificial status. The reimbursement for creativity is often dis-proportunate, the public exposure, claustrophobic, and need to maintain status inevitably self-destructive. Peculiar to the western societal model, is the desire of certain people to achieve the illumination of celebrity without the hard work and talent that often is required. The effect is the disturbing glow that is cast on those who succeed at destroying a celebrated person, and through denying the society access to the individual’s further contributions, disturbingly cementing in their own influence on events in a memorable way. Our continuing weakness for elevating people to impossible heights often contributes to their destruction. The price of a free society unfortunately will always be the danger of free will to those in society who wish to effect their influence beyond their capacity, for the sheer thrill, and “fifteen minutes” of recognition.
Whatever John Lennon was, or would have been, was focused on the night of December 8th, 1980, in the hands of an individual who cared about neither.
Puccini and the American West
The Metropolitan Opera of New York City is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the world premiere of Giacomo Puccini’s ode to the American West , La Fanciulla del West. The opera was first performed by the Met in 1910 as a crowning showpiece of the Met’s then 20th year in existence with a first performance commissioned from the leading opera composer of the time. Puccini was a fan of the perceived view of the American frontier promoted by Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show, who had toured Europe with an fantasized version of the west identified by outlaws and cowboys, Indian “savages”, shoot’em ups, and fearless gun play. He enjoyed setting opera in non-traditional settings that made for spectacular sets and no more fantastic backdrop for an opera existed than the American western frontier that had so captured the imagination of Europe at the turn of the century.
With the aggressive and physical presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, the world began seeing a new American power endowed with a unique free spirit culture that many in the tradition and hierarchy bound European society so envied. Puccini on a trip to New York had seen “Girl of the Golden West”, a play by American playwright David Belasco. Belasco had been responsible for one Puccini’s earlier triumphs, Madame Butterfly, a story line regarding an American naval officer in Japan that had translated seamlessly into operatic structure. 
Puccini saw the Girl of the Golden West in a similar vein. He was intrigued and attracted to the “native” elements of American music form and composed motifs of American song, Indian chant, and western expanse into the musical score. Exotic or not in locale, the opera libretto was in Italian and followed the traditional Italian 19th century operatic success story. Boy meets girl. Girl meets another boy. Boys fight. Girl expresses her love for boy. Boy expresses his love for girl. Boys fight. Boy turns out to be bad, but good. Girl defends him. Boy meets tragedy – or something along those lines. The dramatic overtones of love, violence, life, and death made wonderful ingredients for Puccini’s masterful sense of drama and melody, and he possibly was the greatest serious composer of saccharine music. The aria was the pinnacle weapon of Puccini’s popularity and no one was better at creating the dramatic star vehicle that would leave audience members humming the melodies as they left the theater. That made opera stars very, very happy and they were rabid to associate themselves with Puccini’s melodies. The premiere was no different and had the world’s greatest tenor Enrico Caruso in the lead tenor role of Dick Johnson.
Giacomo Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West is not his most aria glorifying but is one of his more inventive and serious musical scores and has plenty of beautiful “Puccini moments”. Placido Domingo has managed to make the Johnson role his own and for twenty years was the signature performer. Below is his performance in London in 1983 with Carol Neblett in the role of Minnie:
Roger Wilco
The theater that is a modern rock band is always soap operatic, full of artistic idealism, ego, special collective inspiration, and messy divorces. The rock band Wilco is a prime example of this, itself borne of a messy divorce and full of line-up changes that would make a purist dizzy. Through it all, however, they have time and time again produced evocative and progressive music that has led the band to be considered an icon of the alternative rock scene and a special favorite of music critics. They are an amalgam of Americana folk, American pop, 60’s and 70’s mainstream, Beatlesque experimentation, and occasionally bombastic electronic chaos. In a time of artificial talent and fained musicianship, Wilco is at the heart of what is left of the talented few groups carrying on the tradition of roots rock centrally created by artist musicians.
The soul of the band is the lead singer and composer Jeff Tweedy, responsible for most of the compositions and all of the drama. Tweedy and Jay Farrar were the dynamic duo of the seminal alternative country rock band Uncle Tupelo, and as is typical of two egos with alternative visions of music, the band fractured in 1994. Farrar left to form a band of similar bent, Son Volt, and Tweedy picked up the remnants of Uncle Tupelo to form Wilco. The initial Wilco efforts, the album A.M., presented little variation form the Tupelo sound, but with Being There and Summerteeth, a new Wilco sound evolved, full of Tweedy’s special capacity to write witty and melodic verse and experiment with varied sounds and influences. Critics began to take notice, and so did Tweedy, becoming more and more sensitive to outside influences messing with the group. This led to moving Wilco from one record company to another, after a particularly acrimonious set arguments with his fellow band mate Jay Bennett and Warners Records executives regarding the album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and its perceived lack of crossover radio appeal and Bennett’s incessant need to overproduce the Wilco sound and not trust the musicianship, A Tweedy mortal sin. Moving to Nonesuch Records with an album nobody seemed to want, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot proved to be the album everyone said it was not, holding crossover appeal to the tune of 600,000 albums sold, and winning critical aclaim as one of the 100 most important rock albums of all time by RollingStone magazine.
The albums and awards have continued to flow for Wilco, including two Grammys and five nominations. Each album stands on its own as a prismatic reflection of multiple musical influences as diverse as an album of forgotten Woody Guthrie songs in Mermaid Avenue that re-established that populist poet as a writer of first rate songs, A Ghost is Born and Sky Blue Sky as reminders of the height of American Band Pop, and Kicking Television as pinnacle of live performance album rock. The newest album Wilco (The Album) is the perfect reflection of music twenty years in the making, with all influences represented and all the excellent musicians of Wilco getting a chance to make their contribution. Wilco stands, after all its experimental heart , in the epicenter of the tradition of great American music.
People We Should Know #2- Jacqueline Du Pre’
What is the spark of celestial dust that every once in a while creates a supernova of human genius out of the most mundane of environments? Every time it happens we are left in awe of its randomness, making the creation all the more special. Jacqueline Du Pre’ (1945-1987) was one of those special creations, and in her short life she made all aware of the special nature of human expression. She left an indelible mark on western civilization through her unrivaled interpretation of the unlocked passion of classical music.
She happened upon the world with almost immediate recognition of her talent, and happened to be a musical and generational compatriot of hall of fame performers such as Pinchas Zukerman, violist, Itzak Perlman, violinist, and Daniel Barenboim, the pianist that she eventually married. What Jacque Du Pre’ brought to music was unique to her, however, in that she had the special ability to provide audible reproduction of the better nature of the human soul, no matter what she played. No one was able to express the Haydness of Haydn, the Elgarness of Elgar, the Dvorjakness of Dvorjak such that all versions that followed seemed to be imitators of the Jacque style. Like all supernovas, however, Jacque was unstable and at times personally lost. The story of Jacqueline Du Pre’ was made ever more tragic by the attack of Multiple Sclerosis at the too young age of 28, which cruelly stole her physical genius to the point where she could no longer play, then no longer lift her arms, and finally at age 42, after 14 insufferable years, extinguish her life. She left life like an advent candle, once brightly aflame, slowly reduced in intensity, and then finally, a thin smoky ghost of its former luminescence. The strange juxtaposition of a inner human fire that produces such exuberant physical gifts , and a disease that drains the fire with such wanton suppression is an irony too painful to contemplate, but it was Ms. Du Pre’s fate never the less.
Through the power of recording we have luckily been able to secure the brief heights of her musical genius, and the world is better for it. Maybe for a brief moment in Elgar’s Cello Concerto 2nd movement through Jacqueline Du Pre’s hands we can briefly glimpse just how great the devine is, as expressed through the living that are so devinely inspired.
The Curious Case of Isreal Kamakawiwo’ole
The human voice creates at times a special kind of beauty that transcends the visual expectation. Perfect pitch, perfect phrasing, and perfect expression are often attached to artists that do not meet our desire to focus the visual and the aural senses as a singular expression of beauty. Recently talent show winners such as Paul Potts and Susan Boyle have defied our expectations and have produced moments of sonic beauty that surprise the listener who expects that commonplace individuals can not produce uncommon lyric expressions.
A special case is a native hawaiian singer and musician by the name of Isreal Kamakawiwo’ole, known as IZ. Born in Honolulu in 1959, IZ had achieved a local noteriety as an interpretor of native Hawaiian folk music, but reached world wide acclaim just before his death for a rendition of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”, a Harold Arlen / E.Y. Harburg song from the Wizard of Oz movie, made famous by Judy Garland. IZ created a unique Hawaiian folk inflection to the song that was re-inforced by his classic and extremely nimble ukulele technique that elevated the song into an unforgettable projection of the Hawaiian paradise. His talent was far more than one song, however. He brought a serene tenor voice to both original and classic songs as well as Hawaiian folk music that evoked visual images of meditative beauty that few fans will soon forget. He was a proud native Hawaiian who never stopped promoting Hawaiian language and culture in a respectful way that had often previously been reduced to somewhat superficial and cartoonish expressions by earlier Hawaiian performers such as Don Ho.
Iz Kamakawiwo’ole was limited in his artistic achievement ultimately by his one personal fatal flaw – an inability to control his own weight. By his adult performance years, he grew to a eventual weight of 757 lbs that eventually killed him at the young age of 38 secondary to weight related respiratory ailments. His physical girth created a strange juxtaposition – the subtle,beautiful tenor instrument that was his voice eminating from such a large physical creature. It brings a special kind of tragedy to his gift that makes it more special for its impermanace. It makes us ever more aware the God given gift of human talent comes in all kinds of packages and and unexpected directions, and is ever more special when we are caught unawares.
Country Guitar Master
We are frequently biased when we think of musical masters of the guitar to the technical virtuosos classically trained like Segovia, or the electric guitar giants such as Eric Clapton or Les Paul. Country music has a bit of a “bumpkin” reputation associated with guitars used as props and casually strummed, but the superficial bias is totally unfair. Revolutionary, technically prodigious playing has come out of America’s backwoods and has produced some superior guitar master musicians such as Chet Atkins, Doc Watson, and Glen Campbell. One of the least recognized, and maybe in the guitar finger picking style the most capable virtuoso, was the little known Jerry Reed.
Jerry Reed is perhaps most physically recognized for his sidekick role as “Snowball” to Burt Reynolds in the 1970’s movie series “Smokey and the Bandit”. His media role was the stereotypical “good ol’ southern boy” that was assumed by the rest of America to be the sum parts of this talented musician.
Jerry Reed, however, could play the guitar with the best of them and was a spectacular performer in the finger picking style. His musical career began in the late 1950’s, but took off when the King, Elvis Presley, determined to record Reed’s solitary country hit “Guitar Man”, hired Reed himself to perform the guitar licks on the song as it seemed no studio musician and certainly not Elvis himself was capable of the rapid fire crystal clear musical delivery. Presley used Reed in several other collaborations, and eventual Reed’s capacity to additionally sing and write led to Nashville success. The 1970’s were a popular time on television for country music inspired television shows, with Hee Haw, Glen Campbell Good Time Hour, and Johnny Cash Show offering previously underexposed performers such as Reed and Chet Atkins a national stage for their unique skills. Reed, a naturally ebullient man, never failed to create live performance electricity and often brought out the best in his fellow musicians in duets.
Jerry Reed is one of those faces you’ve seen but don’t quite place, but deserves to be remembered as an American virtuoso. He died in September, 2008, at age 71 of complications from emphysema, but thankfully we have a video record to treasure of his extraordinary capabilities and unique style.