Box of Rain (2013 Remaster); remembering Phil Lesh (1940-2024)

Sometime in the mid to late '70s -- why this sticks in my mind I don't know -- I saw a large piece of graffiti, simply "PHIL LESH," on the side of a building. I remember thinking he was part of the Grateful Dead, but wasn't sure what part he played. Whatever it was, I thought, it must be important to justify such a tribute.

Now that he has died, I know from his New York Times obituary that he played bass, sang harmony, and occasionally did lead vocals. His vocal is the lead in "Box of Rain" (video above), a song he co-wrote with frequent Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, as a tribute to Lesh's father, who was dying of cancer at the time.

Lesh's father, a piano player, encouraged his young son to take up music. Lesh is part of that small set of rockers, like Elton John and the Van Halen brothers, who can be described as "classically trained." His early training included learning to play classical pieces on violin and trumpet, and later he studied under the contemporary Italian composer Luciano Berio. Lesh was also fond of big band and be-bop jazz. These influences showed in his performance as the Dead's bassist. As New York Times pop music critic Jon Pareles put it in this piece, 

Lesh’s bass lines hopped and bubbled and constantly conversed with the guitars of Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. His tone was rounded and unassertive while he eased his way into the counterpoint, almost as if he were thinking aloud. Lesh’s playing was essential to the Dead’s particular gravity-defying lilt, sharing a collective mode of rock momentum that was teasing and probing, never bluntly coercive.

As Pareles also noted:

His bass lines held hints of Bach, jazz, bluegrass, blues, Latin music and far more, as he sought out new interstices each time through a song.

The reference to bluegrass, a style of music I've long enjoyed, intrigued me. According to the Times obituary, Lesh first met Jerry Garcia when Jerry was playing bluegrass banjo at local East Bay nightclubs. The obituary quotes Lesh on hearing Jerry on banjo:

That was my first intimation that music with that kind of directness and simplicity could deliver an aesthetic and emotional payoff comparable to that of the greatest operatic or symphonic works.

Lesh told Jerry he was interested in learning to play bass. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Goodbye, Mets.

I'll say the obvious comforting thing: they did better than expected. They started inauspiciously. At the time I noted that the pundits' consensus was for them to finish fourth in the National League East division. In fact, they finished the season in third place. They had an identical record, 89-73, with their frequent nemeses, the Braves, but the Braves were awarded second place because they had a winning record against the Mets for the season. On September 7 I was cautiously optimistic. I thought the worst they could do was finish third, which they did, though this still got them a wild card slot. They won their three game wild card playoff against the Brewers 2-1; then won the five game divisional playoff against the red hot Phillies 3-1. Some dramatic late inning scoring leading to victories in several games had "team of destiny" chatter going. 

It was not to be. The Mets' regular season record against the Dodgers was 2-4; that also proved to be their record in the National League Championship Series. The Dodgers will now be facing the Yankees in a World Series for the twelfth time, though the first since 1981. Their 1955 Series, when the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, is memorable for me. This time, though, I'll be rooting for the Yankees.
 

Kris Kristofferson, 1936-2024

Kris Kristofferson, songwriter, singer, and actor, died yesterday at 88. I put "songwriter" before "singer" because that's how he had his greatest success in music. In the clip above he sings my favorite of his songs, "Sunday Morning Coming Down," in a memorial concert for Johnny Cash, his friend and mentor, who had a hit with it in 1972. He also wrote "Me and Bobby McGee," a posthumous hit for Janis Joplin in 1971. My friend Marshall Chapman mentions another of his songs in what I consider her signature song, "Why Can't I Be Like Other Girls?" She recalls trying to make it as a singer and songwriter in Nashville. One night she's performing at "the Doubleknit Bar" (very '70s) when some lout calls out, "Hey, little miss, sing one by Kris/ I'll help you make it through the night/ But I had written the song/ And when he couldn't sing along/ I knew I had it coming all right."

Kristofferson had a prolific second career as an actor, appearing in over fifty movies. A favorite of mine is Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), in which he plays a rancher who has a stormy but ultimately successful relationship with the widowed mother Alice, played by Ellen Burstyn, who wants to make it as a singer. In the 1976 version of A Star Is Born he played opposite Barbra Streisand, and sings this lovely duet with her:

Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition's "Salon des Refusés" Exhibition features works by Andrea Biggs

 The photo above is of our friend and neighbor Andrea Biggs with three of her recent paintings. Top to bottom they are: "Burst of Energy"; "3 Emerging Roses"; and "The Inception." They are part of the Brooklyn Artists Waterfront Coalition's 2024 Salon des Refusés exhibition, which opened yesterday. Many of Andrea's paintings, like these, are based on floral imagery, but depart from pure representation to express vibrancy and dynamism. She also does landscape paintings that show the influence of the nineteenth century Hudson River School artists. One of these, I'm glad to say, hangs on the wall of our living room, along with one of her floral paintings.

The Salon des Refusés exhibition includes works of painting, sculpture, photography, and multimedia by many artists. It is open Saturdays and Sundays from 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM through October 13, at the BWAC Gallery, 481 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York.

How 'bout those Mets?

 The 2024 season started badly for the Mets. At the time, I noted that "most pundits" predicted they would finish fourth in the National League East. Things began to look better as the season progressed, and I was tempted to post some encouraging words, especially when they completed their four game season series with the Yankees with four wins, thereby securing New York City baseball bragging rights, however temporarily. Fans of the Bronx Bombers will remind me that their team has an 81-60 record while the Mets' is 77-64, that the Yanks are a mere half game behind the division leading Orioles, while the Mets are tied for second in the NL East with their often nemeses, the Braves, and are eight games behind the streaking Phillies.

So I've held off posting. With each bit of encouraging news, I've  remembered what I posted sixteen years ago, about the Mets' "ability to rouse hopes, then smash them like cheap china." Now, as I write this, the Mets are sitting on an eight game winning streak, which could end in what is now a rain delayed game against the Reds. Last night the Mets prolonged their streak with a 6-4 ten inning win over the Reds in an at home series opener. As so often, there's a dark side to this: second baseman and reliable slugger Jeff McNeil is lost for the season with a wrist injury. 

The other bad news is that the Mets now face a challenging schedule until the end of the season.  They have seven games against the division leading Phils, three against the Braves, and end the season, as they started it, with three games against the Brewers, the same team that swept them in their season opener.

What can I say now? The best I can anticipate is that the Mets overtake the Braves, finish second in the NL East, get a wild card slot, and Carlos Mendoza is named Manager of the Year. The worst is that they finish third in the division, at least a bit better than pre-season predictions. 

Update: it's now a nine game winning streak; the Mets beat the Reds 4-0 today. Also, it looks likely the Mets will go a full game ahead of the Braves, who trail the Blue Jays 6-1 in the bottom of the 6th.

Woody Guthrie's "Union Maid"

English singer and songwriter Billy Bragg, along with Mike Merenda and Ruthy Ungar (banjo, fiddle, and vocals), Dar Williams (guitar and vocal), and the New York City Labor Chorus do a stirring rendition of  Woody Guthrie's labor anthem, "Union Maid." The performance took place on May 3, 2009 at Madison Square Garden, during a concert in honor of Pete Seeger's 90th birthday. 

Willie Mays, 1931-2024

In the summer of 1954 I was eight years old, and my parents and I returned from a three year sojourn in England, where my father, a U.S. Air Force officer, had been stationed. I had been the only American in an English school, so I had been thoroughly Anglicized. I knew of cricket, of what my schoolmates had called "football" but we call soccer, and of something called "rounders," which I later realized had some vague resemblance to baseball. Of baseball itself, though, I knew nothing. Neither of my parents were fans, so it hadn't been part of my acculturation. 

On September 29, 1954 my third grade classmates at the Eglin Air Force Base Elementary School and I were excused from our classrooms early in the afternoon to go to the "cafetorium," where a big black-and-white TV was set up on the stage for us to watch the opening game of the World Series, pitting the New York Giants against the Cleveland Indians. I don't recall having any rooting interest, though I may have favored the Giants since I had been to New York but never to Cleveland (I still haven't, unless you count the airport). One thing remains engraved on my memory from that game: Willie Mays of the Giants making "The Catch" (video above). That was enough to convince me that baseball was something worth watching, and knowing. Thank you, Mr. Mays. 

Willie Mays, considered by many the greatest all-around baseball player ever, died today at 93. I can't help adding that he ended his playing career with the Mets, and that his last hit was a run scoring single in game 3 of the 1973 World Series. Joan Whitney Payson, then the Mets' principal owner, had promised that his number would be retired, but she died in 1975 and her promise remained unfulfilled until Old Timers' Day in August of 2022.

Peter Myers, Octogenarian

The photo above is of three stalwarts of the Bells of Hell, a Greenwich Village pub that served as my second home from the summer of 1977 until it closed in the fall of '79. On the left is Barry Murphy, who tended bar and provided lively conversation. In the center is Pierce Turner, who, along with Larry Kirwan, as Turner and Kirwan of Wexford (their Irish hometown), were the house band at the Bells during much of my tenure there. On the right is Peter Myers, half owner of the Bells from the time he and Tony Heyes bought it from its founder, Malachy McCourt until the late weekend afternoon in '79- I was present at the time - when Peter and Tony got into a physical scuffle, started by Tony and Gary Sellers, the first person I met after first crossing the Bells' threshold in '77, and which resulted in Peter making Tony the sole owner while he went on to found Myers of Keswick, Keswick being Peter's English hometown. 

The occasion of the photo was a party to celebrate Peter's 80th birthday, given at Myers of Keswick. It was a grand affair, bringing together a sizeable collection of surviving Bells alumni. Specialties of the house, including Cornish pasties, Scotch eggs, and sausage rolls, were in profusion, as were beer and wine. I was able to catch up with some old friends I hadn't seen in some years. The store is now managed by Peter's daughter, Jennifer Myers Pulidore, whom I remembered as a kindergartener. By all appearances she's doing an excellent job. I also had some pleasant conversation with Peter's wife, Irene, whom I hadn't seen since the Bells days. 

The photo was taken as the party was ending, and Pierce was singing "The Parting Glass."

The clip above is of an exquisite rendition of this beautiful song by Celtic Woman.

As I was leaving the party, I saw Peter and a friend sitting on a bench outside the store. I stopped for a bit of last minute chat. Peter reminded me that, after his unfortunate encounter with Tony, I had offered my opinion that Tony's words, "It's your f---ing bar!" were not sufficient to transfer ownership, especially given Tony's state of intoxication at the time.  Peter was happy with this advice. 

I then recounted an anecdote I'd read some years ago, about an anthropologist who visited one of the remotest of the Scottish Western Isles and sought someone who would have a long memory and knowledge of the island's lore. He was directed to an old man who, when asked his age, said seventy-something. The anthropologist asked if there were any octogenarians on the island. The old man said, "Octogenarians ... oh, yes, there were two. But my brother shot the one, and the other flew away." I suggested that Peter should avoid the Western Isles. "I go there all the time," he said. Good luck, Peter.

The "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 - Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chorus

Today is the 200th anniversary of the first public performance of Beethoven's Ninth, or "Choral" Symphony. It was unique in its addition of the human voice in the fourth, final movement. In his analysis of the Ninth in today's New York Times, Daniel Barenboim states that, of all Beethoven's works, it is the one "most likely to be embraced for political purposes."

It was played at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin; it was performed in that city again on Christmas 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Leonard Bernstein replaced the word “Joy” in the choral finale with “Freedom”; the European Union adopted the symphony’s “Ode to Joy” theme as its anthem.

Nevertheless,  Barenboim argues, "[m]usic on its own does not stand for anything except itself," and that the "greatness" of the Ninth "lies in the richness of its contrasts." In this respect, Barenboim states for music what Frank Stella did for visual arts.

The video above is of the climactic "Ode to Joy" finale of the Ninth, performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chorus, under the direction of Thomas Søndergård.

Frank Stella, 1936-2024

Frank Stella, an American artist whose works included painting, sculpture, printmaking, and architecture, died today at his home in Greenwich Village at the age of 87. The video above, by Christie's, shows him giving a tour through his studio in 2019 in which he shows some of his works and talks about his creative process and his views about art.

According to his New York Times obituary:

Mr. Stella, a formalist of Calvinist severity, rejected all attempts to interpret his work. The sense of mystery, he argued, was a matter of “technical, spatial and painterly ambiguities.” In an oft-quoted admonition to critics, he insisted that “what you see is what you see” — a formulation that became the unofficial motto of the minimalist movement.

Despite his early committment to a minimalist aesthetic, his later works, some of which can be seen in the video, are exuberant in color and design. This might be expected of an artist who has cited Caravaggio as an influence.

Of Tom Rush, Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young

Tom Rush has been a favorite singer of mine since I first heard him in the spring of 1968 on Boston's WBCN, which had recently adopted what came to be known as an "underground rock" format. I was in Cambridge then, finishing my first year of law school, and missed the chance to see him live at Club 47, now Passim. The clip above shows him singing "The Circle Game" at the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport, Massachusetts on January 31, 2020. At 82 he's still doing shows, although he's limited his early 2024 travel to the New England and Middle Atlantic coasts.

In January I got on my Facebook home page this link to a post by Canadian music historian John Einarson that tells the story behind the song "The Circle Game." I had forgotten that it was written by Joni Mitchell, whom Rush got to know when they were both on the Boston/Cambridge folk circuit in the late sixties. Einarson quotes Mitchell from a talk she gave during a concert at London's Albert Hall in 1970:

"In 1965 I was up in Canada, and there was a friend of mine up there who had just left a rock 'n' roll band (...) he had just newly turned 21, and that meant he was no longer allowed into his favourite haunt, which was kind of a teeny-bopper club and once you're over 21 you couldn't get back in there anymore; so he was really feeling terrible because his girlfriends and everybody that he wanted to hang out with, his band could still go there, you know, but it's one of the things that drove him to become a folk singer was that he couldn't play in this club anymore. 'Cause he was over the hill. (...) So he wrote this song that was called "Oh to live on sugar mountain" which was a lament for his lost youth. (...) And I thought, God, you know, if we get to 21 and there's nothing after that, that's a pretty bleak future, so I wrote a song for him, and for myself just to give me some hope. It's called The Circle Game."

The friend who inspired Mitchell to write "The Circle Game" was Neil Young. It would be some time before the "better dreams and plenty" promised near the song's close came his way. As Einarson tells it, he went through a time of frustration trying to succeed as a folk singer in Toronto, where "Young's career stalled amid stinging criticism of his material." In December of 1965 he traveled to New York and the offices of  Elektra Records. He "remains unsure who secured this" but hoped for a full scale studio recording session. Instead, he was sent into the tape library and greeted by Peter K. Siegel, whom I heard discussing his experiences as a producer at Folkways and later at Elektra last November at the Brooklyn Folk Festival. Siegel gave Young what he, quoted by Einarson, described as "this funky old tape recorder" and told him to sing into it. 

One of the songs he sang into that tape recorder was "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing." According to Einarson,  

"Young identified 'Clancy' as his former Winnipeg high school classmate Ross 'Clancy' Smith. Young described Smith as a 'strange cat'—an aberrant figure tormented by others for singing blithely."

Young did not sing "blithely" for Elektra's tape recorder; consequently, Elektra had no interest in signing him. The clip above is audio of Young singing "Clancy," accompanied only by his acoustic guitar and by piano, at Carnegie Hall in December of 1970. In the five years since his failed Elektra session, he'd had plenty of "practice" to get there. This included his time with Buffalo Springfield (1966-68), which recorded "Clancy," with vocal by Richie Furay instead of Young, and issued it as their first single. It became a local hit in Los Angeles. It was also included in their self-titled first album.

Now, back to Tom Rush. The song that made me a fan of his in the spring of 1968 was his cover of another Joni Mitchell song, "Urge For Going."

The clip above, audio only, is the version I heard on WBCN many times as I sat at my desk, often into the early morning hours, trying to focus on what I needed to know for my forthcoming first year finals. It was springtime in Massachusetts. Why did this song about autumn falling into winter resonate so with me? 

For thirteen years, from 1954, when my parents and I returned from our three year sojourn in England, to 1967, I had lived in Florida. We had "seasons" there, but nothing so dramatic as going from a New England winter with the ground covered in snow for months on end to a riotous spring with almost  every tree on Cambridge Common in bloom. Perhaps it was this sense of what I had missed that made the melancholy of "Urge For Going" meaningful for me.

"Spring Breeze" by Yuxian Deng, performed by the Joshua Guitar Band

A treat for Earth Day:

Why is a widely used app named for a tenth century Scandinavian king?

Your smartphone, like mine, likely has the logo at left on it somewhere. I knew that "Bluetooth" was the name given to an ancient Scandinavian king, but had no clue why the app was named for him. Now, thanks to Rick Spilman in The Old Salt Blog, I know the reason. 

The logo is the Viking rune of King Harald "Blåtand" Gormsson, "Blåtand" is "Bluetooth" in English. The rune is a "bindrune" that combines the runes for "H" and "B." Bluetooth was a Danish king (940-981) who united Denmark with Norway. According to Spilman, Jim Kardach, an engineer who was heavily involved in developing the technology that became Bluetooth, was responsible for giving it that name. Spilman gives a helpful link to an article by Kardach that explains the history. It's a long, complex, but amusing story, including an account of "a pub crawl through wintrily [sic], blustery Toronto." Kardach sums it up as follows: 

When asked about the name Bluetooth, I explained that Bluetooth was borrowed from the 10th century, second King of Denmark, King Harald Bluetooth; who was famous for uniting Scandinavia just as we intended to unite the PC and cellular industries with a short-range wireless link.

So, sometime soon, I will raise a glass of Aquavit and toast Harald Bluetooth, who inspired my ability to play WQXR on my stereo sound system from my smartphone.

 

Mets swept at home in season opening series

The Mets were swept by the Milwaukee Brewers in their season opening three game series at Citi Field. The last time the Mets began a season 0-3 was in 2014. That year they finished 79-83, tied for second in the NL East. Nothing great; but not disastrous. They did better than the fourth place finish that most pundits have predicted for the Mets this season. 

 

There's some reason for hope. Starter Kodai Senga is back to throwing in a recovery program that is said to be "making progress" and closer Edwin Diaz is back and has pitched one inning, allowing no runs and getting one strikeout. Still, injury problems keep cropping up. Tylor Megill, who is taking Senga's place in the starting rotation, was taken out of today's game after four innings, having struggled with control and feeling shoulder tenderness. He will get an MRI.

Along with problems on the mound, the Mets were weak at the plate. They were outscored 14-9, and had twenty hits to the Brewers' thirty one. In one respect the Mets were better: Mets batters struck out twenty one times to the Brewers' thirty. 

A reason to be upbeat is that so many times I've seen a hot start devolve into a "meh" season. My wife is a Red Sox fan. She believes it's a good sign if the Fenway lads struggle as the season begins. They're 2-2 now, in a three way tie for last in the AL East.  I guess she can feel cautiously optimistic, as do I about the Mets.

Pierce Turner, "Hail Glorious St Patrick"

Pierce Turner is an old friend from my days in the late '70s when I was a regular at a Greenwich Village club, the Bells of Hell, where Pierce and fellow Wexford native Larry Kirwan, as Turner & Kirwan of Wexford, were the house band for some time, playing songs that "mixed traditional Irish folk music with full-blown progressive rock."  Later they added a bassist and a drummer (as Turner & Kirwan, Larry banged a drum using a pedal while he played guitar and sang; Pierce played Moog and sang) and became The Major Thinkers. In 1985 Pierce returned to Ireland and began a very successful solo career as a singer and songwriter. Larry remained in New York, became frontman of Black 47, and later conceived and co-wrote the musical Paradise Square, which was nominated for ten Tony awards, including Best Musical. 

The song "Hail Glorious St. Patrick" is "[b]ased on a hymn that was first published in 1853, with words attributed to Sister Agnes, of the Convent of Charleville, County Cork." The music, according to Pierce, "is credited with being 'ancient' -- an apt description, as the melody is as familiar as your mother's scent -- it slips on like an old woollen winter coat, there is no avant-garde challenge." For his version, Pierce kept the chorus and second verse of the original, and "rewrote the rest updating the song for the 21st century, for a world where 'a new kind of evil has blinded our minds.'" 

Pierce's old partner, Larry, has this to say:

Pierce Turner is an Irish national treasure. So, what better man to reimagine Hail Glorious St. Patrick. This is a track for the ages. But don't just take it out for the big day -- it will sound great on the other 364 too. I'll be playing it.

Beannechtai na feile Padraig!  

Flaco the Owl, 2010-2024

Flaco ("skinny" in Spanish, though he appeared anything but), a Eurasian eagle owl, was hatched in a sanctuary in North Carolina in March of 2010. Two months later he was taken to New York's Central Park Zoo, where he lived alone in an enclosure until February 2, 2023 when a vandal broke the screen and allowed him to escape. In the photo (Wikimedia Commons) he's peering through the window of poet, playwright, and lyricist Nan Knighton. 

During his year of freedom, Flaco was often seen in and around Central Park, though he occasionally ventured to other parts of the city. Not surprisingly, he became a local celebrity and favorite photographic subject. To the dismay of his many admirers, though to the relief of the local rat and pigeon populations (but they still have to contend with red-tailed hawks), yesterday Flaco was found dead on an Upper West Side sidewalk, apparently the victim of a collision with a building.

Adios, Flaco. Gracias for the joy you gave to so many during your flights around the city.

Peter Schickele ("PDQ Bach"), 1935-2024

Peter Schickele, who died Tuesday at 88, was a serious composer of "more than 100 symphonic, choral, solo instrumental and chamber works" who also did arrangements of folk music for Joan Baez and Buffy Sainte-Marie; however, somewhat to his regret, he was best known for a fictional character he invented, P,D.Q. Bach, the least known of Johann Sebastian Bach's myriad children. Schickele claimed to have discovered P.D.Q. and his works while serving as professor of music at the University of Southern North Dakota's branch campus at Hoople.

The clip above shows Schickele introducing P.D.Q. Bach's "Classical Rap," followed by audio of the piece. Schickele explains that P.D.Q. wrote it about a neighborhood in early 19th century Vienna, but that he modified it to describe life on Manhattan's Upper West Side. 

Martha and I were fortunate to attend several P.D.Q. Bach concerts some years ago. Most began when Schickele "slid down a rope suspended from the first balcony." If I recall correctly, the opening number for one was another favorite of New Yorkers, the Concerto for Horn and Hardart. For non-New Yorkers, Horn and Hardart was the company that owned the famous "Automat" restaurants.

Thomas Curtiss, Jr., 1941-2023

The photo is of one of the the last times Tom Curtiss and I were together, some years ago, when he and his husband, Charles Neeley, visited New York from L.A., and Martha and I had lunch with them at a Midtown restauruant.

Tom and I were classmates at Harvard Law School from 1967 to 1970.  He stood out in the photo book given to entering students because he was wearing a dress Marine Corps officer's uniform. It showed his home as Novelty, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. We didn't have much contact during our first or second years. The third year we both joined a club for law students called Lincoln's Inn, named for one of the London Inns of Court. After we had been together there during meals and parties, he invited me to join a group that met in his large corner dorm room on Friday evenings to drink beer or cheap Scotch, socialize, and listen to tapes on his Akai reel-to-reel deck. These included Joan Baez's Farewell Angelina, Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home,and a collection of Wagner orchestral pieces, including the overture to Die Meistersinger.

The gatherings at "Club 222," as we called it after Tom's dorm room number, were typically all male. Tom was known to date women from time to time. One, a fellow Clevelander, became known by the sobriquet "Long Suffering Kate." There was a proposal to open membership in Lincoln's Inn, which had been male only, to women. I was in favor. Tom said, "A woman should be a date on your arm, not a competitor for a seat at a table." Tom lost; women were admitted. 

Tom had the sort of background that, before I arrived in Cambridge, I feared most of my classmates would have, and that would make them consider me, a public school and state university graduate from the South, something of a yokel. He was a corporate executive's son with impeccable prep and Ivy credentials: Exeter and Yale. The friends he chose for Club 222 didn't conform to those specifications.  They were more like our class as a whole, except for the absence of women or Blacks, both of which groups were under-represented in our class.  They were almost all non-Ivy graduates, about half from state schools, and from middle class families with homes in various parts of the country.

As Tom and I spent more time together we found common interests beyond drinking and music. I was from a military family, and was in Army ROTC during law school as draft deferments for graduate students had ended the year I entered. Tom had deferred law school to join the Marines. He told me he had been accepted by both the Harvard and University of Virginia law schools during his senior year at Yale. When his four year Marine Corps tour of duty was almost over, he wrote to both schools, noting that he had been accepted before going on active duty, and asking if he could now attend. Virginia turned him down, saying their admission standards had increased, but Harvard said he was still welcome. Tom gave me some advice on what to expect during my active duty term. We also found a common passion in running. One time, after the party at 222 went later than usual, I collapsed on his couch. In the morning he said he was going for a run and invited me to join him. We ran down to the Cambridge bank of the Charles River, went about half a mile downstream, crossed to the Boston side, then ran back. We repeated this several times before graduation. 

I found a law firm in New York that was willing to take me on knowing I would have to leave for a possible two year Army commitment a year after graduation. Tom chose a firm in Los Angeles, a city he had come to love during his active duty Marine years. In October of 1970 I took my first vacation from my law firm and visited Tom in L.A., a city with which I was then unfamiliar. Tom was sharing an apartment with Joe, another Marine, Tom told me there's no such thing as an "ex-Marine"; one is a Marine for life. He suggested dinner at a Mexican restaurant. We got in his car and went a mile or so on the freeway, exited, and found the restaurant closed. He said, "There's another not too far away." We got back on the freeway and went what seemed like three or four miles in the direction opposite from which we'd come. We had a delicious Mexican meal, and I gained an appreciation of what "not too far" means in L.A. terms.

The rest of our short visit Tom showed me the Santa Monica Pier and some things off the usual tourist trail. One of these was a sprawling outdoor farmers' market. Several years later he told me he had walked by a live poultry stand and spotted an unusual looking rooster. Intrigued, Tom bought him and took him to the backyard of the house he'd bought on Micheltorena Street, where he made a coop. Hearing his staccato crowing the next morning, Tom gave him the ironic name Chanticleer.

Over the succeeding years Tom and I got together in L.A. and New York several times, and once at a Law School reunion. After a succession of housemates, Charles Neeley became a constant. I began to suspect that Charles was more than a housemate when Tom called and said both of them would be staying in New York for a few days before leaving on a trip to Europe.  During that visit Martha had a commitment one afternoon, so Tom, Charles, and I took Cordelia (then known as Liz) in her stroller on a tour of SoHo and the Village. Martha developed an immediate liking for both Tom and Charles.

Their last visit to New York was about fifteen years ago. They went with Martha, Cordelia, and me to mass at Grace Church, and after to brunch at Jack the Horse Tavern, a favorite neighborhood spot named for a lake in Minnesota, the owner's native state. During brunch, I asked Tom if, during our law school years, he'd been so far in the closet he didn't know he was there. He said , "No"; he had known he was gay since his teens. He also said he'd had a discreet affair with one of the Club 222 members.

After brunch I invited Tom and Charles to join me on a walk down to Brooklyn Bridge Park. Tom regretted that he couldn't; he was bothred by neuropathy. After that his health went into decline, and our communications became, apart from Christmas cards, exclusively electronic. It came as no surprise when Charles announced his death on December 23.

Tom's and my friendship lasted over fifty years. We came from different backgrounds and had some differing views, but it was a friendship from which I believe we both benefited. I will miss him.

"Angels We Have Heard On High" by the Portland Choir and Orchestra

This is one of my favorite carols, in part because of how "the 'o' of 'Gloria' is fluidly sustained through 16 notes of a rising and falling melismatic melodic sequence" (Wikipedia). It is based on a French traditional carol and on the nativity story in Luke 2:1-20. In the clip above an arrangement by Mack Wilberg is performed brilliantly by the Portland (Oregon) Choir and Orchestra, conducted by David M. Thomas and featuring soprano soloist Emily Thomas.

Andy Irvine's "Never Tire of the Road," a tribute to Woody Guthrie

I've been neglecting the blog lately. It's a combination of work (yes, I still do that), helping to keep the Brooklyn Heights Blog - a labor of love - going, and reading my old friend and colleague Jim Woods' gripping mystery novel The Niantic Caper. Then I came across this video of Andy Irvine, a singer I admire, doing a song he wrote about Woody Guthrie, whom I also admire. 

I had the pleasure of meeting Andy some years ago, after a performance at the old Eagle Tavern on East 14th Street in Manhattan. I was introduced by my companion that evening, the now late Zane Berzins, who was possibly the only native of Latvia to be fluent in Irish Gaelic. I once asked her if Zane was the Latvian equivalent of Jane. She said, "No, it's more like Carol." I later learned that Martha, now my wife of over 33 years, was at the same performance. I had yet to meet her.

I hope you enjoy the song, with its references to the Dust Bowl, California, World War Two Merchant Marine service, and a chorus that's hopefully relevant today.

Queen Claude and Anne Boleyn

In my post about the global art market I noted that my given name, Claude, is gender neutral in French. Today, thanks to Tina Brown's review of Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and the Marriage that Shook Europe, by John Guy and Julia Fox, I know there was a Queen Claude of France  (image above: School of Jean Clouet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons). She was consort of King François I from 1515 until her death in 1524. During their nine years of marriage, she and the King had seven children. One of them succeeded his father as King Henri II.

The connection between Queen Claude and Anne Boleyn is, as Ms. Brown notes, that Anne served as the Queen's "teenage demoiselle" following her service as "maid of honor" to Margaret of Austria. About these youthful exposures to women in Continental courts, Ms. Brown quotes Mr, Guy and Ms. Fox, "Anne found herself in a world in which women could exercise power in strikingly different ways." This was, according to Ms. Brown, in contrast to "the dour, dutiful sewing circle serving Katherine of Aragon at the British court," to which Anne returned. She found Henry still in his unhappy marriage to Katherine, and Anne's younger sister Margaret as his favorite mistress. During and after the divorce from Katherine, he turned his attention to Anne. What ensued is well known. Ms. Brown notes that a special executioner "had been summoned from France" and that "the only remnant of Anne's Francophile influence was her executioner's axe."

The supreme irony is that, although a reason for Anne's execution was her failure to produce a male heir, her daughter, Elizabeth, eventually succeeded to the crown and became one of Britain's most revered monarchs.

Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris. "Hickory Wind"

The clip above is from Dj Pj-roc Reacts, a hip-hop Dj's exploration and appreciation of country music. It includes audio, with photo montages, of what is considered Gram Parsons' signature song, "Hickory Wind." It begins, following some commentary, with a version from late in his career that he sang with Emmylou Harris. Here's a link to a clip, audio only, of the original 1968 version from Gram's brief time with the Byrds, in which he appeared on their album Sweetheart of the Rodeo.

Today's New York Times has this story by Lindsay Zoladz, in which she argues for a new focus on Gram's role as, if you'll pardon my use of a fashionable buzz-word, a disruptor. She quotes Gram's friend, Keith Richards, in his autobiography, written with James Fox, Life, that Gram "changed the face of country music, and he wasn't around long enough to find out."

Addendum: before her story linked above was published in the Times, Lindsay Zoladz had a piece in the paper's "Amplifier" column,  The Legend of Gram Parsons in 12 Songs in which she links to videos of performances of his songs she considers most memorable. Ten of them feature Gram on vocal and guitar, either solo or with groups he was in: the International Submarine Band, the Byrds, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, in chronological order. One is by Elvis Costello: "I'm Your Toy," his re-titled cover of "Hot Burrito #2"; the other is Emmylou Harris' heart wrenching version of "Boulder to Birmingham."

While Gram was still in high school he played in several rock bands and later in an acoustic folk group, the Shilohs. His stepfather, Bob Parsons, opened a "teen age night club" called the Derry Down in downtown Winter Haven, in large part to provide a venue for Gram and his groups to perform. In 2016 I attended the grand re-opening of the Derry Down, featuring a Cosmic American Music Festival. "Cosmic American Music" was what Gram called his style, which combined elements of country. rock, blues, and soul. 

Does being romanticized in a 1960s or '70s pop song spell present day disaster for a city?

 

I wonder how many of my fellow Baby Boomers, on hearing of the dreadful earthquake that struck southern Morocco, had this 1969 Crosby, Stills & Nash song playing in their heads.

I also wonder if, over the past week or so, some of us have had this 1973 Loggins & Messina song in our heads.

I hope this Scott McKenzie song from 1967 doesn't portend another Big One for the Bay Area (or, for my Tampa friends, the Other Bay Area).

That terrible events may have summoned these songs from memory doesn't diminish my horror at the loss of thousands of lives and homes, as I'm sure it doesn't for others. Indeed, in my instance, it increased it. If you would like to contribute to relief for the victims of the Morocco earthquake, you may donate here; to contribute for victims of the Maui wildfires, you may donate here.

Secrets of the global art market, revealed through family drama.

The painting above, Caravaggio's "The Lute Player,"circa 1596 (image: Caravaggio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons), now on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is part of the vast collection of the Wildenstein family. This New York Times story by Rachel Corbett tells how two women, Sylvia, widow of Daniel Wildenstein and Jocelyne, widow of his son Alec, were cheated out of their inheritances by claims that, in Jocelyne's case, Alec  was penniless because he had been an unpaid assistant to his father, and in Sylvia's that Daniel had amassed ruinous debts. Jocelyne, who lived with Alec in New York, retained lawyers here and got a judge to rule that Alec's claim of poverty "insults the intelligence of the court." This resulted in a very favorable settlement for Jocelyne, reported to be in the low billions.

The Times story focuses on Sylvia's case. It begins with her stepsons (Daniel's by an earlier marriage) Alec and Guy convincing her to give up her inheritance, which she did readily given a promise that she would be taken care of financially. A matter of particular concern to her was the family's stable of thoroughbred horses, which Daniel had entrusted to her care and which she considered her "babies." After some time she got word they were being raced under a name other than "Mme. Wildenstein"; that of a company owned by her stepsons. This spurred Sylvia to consult a lawyer, Claude Dumont Beghi (a woman; I learned that "Claude" can be either a man's or a woman's name in French when a philosophy professor told me I had the same name as his wife), who sent a letter denying that ownership of the horses had been transferred.

What Dumont Beghi heard from Sylvia concerning her renunciation of her inheritance convinced her, in the words of the Times story, that "there was more going on than a dispute over horses." With Sylvia's permission, Dumont Beghi began an investigation, described in detail in the Times story, that led to a court order undoing the renunciation because, based in part by evidence from Jocelyn's case, it was procured by fraud. 

For me the most interesting, and disturbing, fact that is disclosed in the Times story, not a secret but a little known fact except by those involved in the art or other valuable goods markets, is the existence of "free ports" which "allow traders [including art merchants] to ship and store property without paying taxes or customs duties." The free port at Geneva, Switzerland is "the size of 22 soccer fields" and "is said to contain more art than the Louvre." There are six more free ports, in Zurich, Luxembourg, Singapore, Monaco, Delaware and Beijing. While these free ports have legitimate, sometimes valuable uses, unfortunately in some instances significant art works may languish in them for many years. A buyer who is a speculator may put a purchased work there and leave it until offered an attractive price. If the second buyer is also a speculator, the work may remain locked up, possibly for years, until another attractive offer materializes, and so on. The argument for free ports is that they greatly reduce transaction costs, thereby making it easier to buy and sell artworks. In and of itself, this is a benefit to artists or to their estates, so long as the artists or their heirs don't mind their works being hidden from sight, perhaps for a very long time. 

I also learned from the Times story that the Wildensteins held a substantial number of paintings, perhaps 180 out of the estimated 700 or so the artist had produced, by a painter I admire, the French "post-impressionist" (it seems now that everything artistic is "post" something) Pierre Bonnard. In 2009 I saw an exhibition of his paintings and drawings at the Met, "Late Interiors," and posted about it here. The photo at left, which comes from another post about "Late Interiors" in Carol Gillott's "Paris Breakfasts" blog, shows Bonnard at work, using his unconventional technique of painting while his canvas is fastened to a wall,

Bonnard died in 1947. His wife predeceased him and they had no children. According to the Times story, his most proximate heirs were "three estranged nieces-in-law." Daniel found another relative with a colorable claim, bought his inheritance rights for $1 million, and funded a lengthy lawsuit on his behalf that led to a settlement in which Daniel acquired 500 paintings and the nieces got 25, though "Daniel promised them more to avoid further litigation." The Times story tells how Dumont Beghi and an appraiser went to the Geneva Free Port to examine the Bonnards kept there by Daniel. She found there paintings by an artist "known above all for his radiant use of color" that were "locked behind an armored door" in a "gloomy bunker."

As an example of Bonnard's "radiant use of color" consider his "Corner of the Dining Room at Le Cannet" (Pierre Bonnard, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons).

So it is that three determined French women, two widows, Jocelyne and Sylvia Wildenstein, whose late husbands' family tried to cheat them of their inheritances, and one very conscientious and thoroughgoing lawyer, Claude Dumont Beghi, broke through what the Times story (which you should read to get the full detail and flavor) calls the Wildensteins' "code of omertà" and, in so doing, brought to light the shadowy corners of the global market for fine art works.

Jimmy Buffett, "A Pirate Looks at Forty"

His New York Times obituary calls him a "rougish bard of island escapism." According to his website, "Jimmy passed away peacefully on the night of September 1st surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs."

The video above is of my favorite of his songs, "A Pirate Looks at Forty," a wistful mid-life take on what he'd seen and done and what he wished for. I liked his melange of country and calypso, and his commitment to the environment. Fair winds, Jimmy.

A bold prediction; a chastened update.

 The Mets will be a better than .500 team for the rest of the season; this despite what appears to be a daunting schedule. It won't be enough to make the playoffs, but may at least lift them to third in the Eastern Division.

Why? Because of something I suggested in a post seven years ago. They will no longer be burdened by expectations. I've seen them display this sort of resilience in the past when, say, a key player suffered an injury, and the rest of the team responded with better play.

Update: call me a cock-eyed optimist. Since I posted this, and since the departures of Scherzer, Verlander, and Canha, the Mets are 0-6 with a combined score of 14-39. So much for resilience. Coming up is a three game series with the Cubs, followed by four with the Braves; hardly encouraging. It would be like the Mets to confound me and suddenly get hot, unlikely as that seems. Please, let me be confounded.

Sinead O'Connor - Oro Se do Bheatha Bhaile, an Irish Rebel Song

Thanks to my long time friend Dermot McEvoy for sharing with me and many more of the old Lion's Head crew this clip of Sinead O'Connor singing Óró Sé do Beatha ‘Bhaile. Dermot noted that the song was written by Padraig Pearse. one of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising. In a post in 2012 I gave a link to Sinead singing "The Foggy Dew," a song about the 1916 Rising, In the post, I told how Pearse, and thirteen other of the leaders of the Rising, were executed by firing squad in the courtyard of Kilmainham Gaol.

Looking for an English trnslation of Óró Sé do Beatha ‘Bhaile, I found there are two versions. of which Pearse's is the second. Pearse's version, written just before the Easter Rising, imagines an Irish army, led by the "pirate queen" Grace O'Malley (also known as "Grainne," 1530-1603), coming to free Ireland from British rule. The earlier Jacobite version evidently expresses a desire for "young Charles," grandson of the deposed Stuart (and Catholic) King James II, to come to Ireland "[w]ith French and Spanish volunteers" to overthrow British rule. Unfortunately for the Irish nationalists, Bonnie Prince Charlie's 1745-46 campaign ended in Scotland with his army's defeat at Culloden.

In my email to Dermot thanking him for the link to Sinead's version of Óró Sé do Beatha ‘Bhaile, I called it "poweful" and noted that it brought to my mind the concluding line of William Butler Yeats' "Easter, 1916": "A terrible beauty is born."

Tony Bennett - "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams"

 

If you've wondered what Tony Bennett's first hit was, this is it.

He was born Anthony Dominick Benedetto (the late British humor magazine Punch did a fake Italian to English phrasebook in which both Basso Profundo and Tempo Rubato were translated as "Tony Bennett's real name") in Long Island City, Queens, on August 3, 1926 to Giovanni and Anna Benedetto, who both came from Calabria, in southern Italy. Giovanni (later John) arrived as an immigrant at age 11. Anna was a native born Amrican, having arrived in the womb. 

Despite his most remembered song being "I Left My Heart in San Francisco", Tony Bennett was devoted to his native New York. At the age of ten his music teacher arranged for him to sing with Mayor Fiorello La Guardia at the opening of the Triborough (now Robert F. Kennedy) Bridge.  Later, he began to get paying gigs, but his budding career was interrupted when he was drafted, He served in the Army in Germany, was involved in combat in the late days of the war, and was among the troops who liberated the Landsberg concentration camp.

Back in New York after the war, he began to get work as a singer in night clubs, using the stage name Joe Bari, a name he took from a port city in southern Italy. He was working at a club in Greenwich Village when the owner offered to make Pearl Bailey his headline act. She agreed, but only if he kept Joe Bari as her opening act. One night Bob Hope (I've given a link to Bob Hope on the optimistic theory that I might have one or two Gen Z readers who have never heard of him, even from their Gen X parents) was there to hear Ms. Bailey, and ws so impressed by Joe Bari that he offered to make him the opener for his show at the Paramount Theater. The conditon was a change of name; Mr. Hope didn't like the name Joe Bari. After a bit of rumination on "Anthony Benedetto," he came up with "Tony Bennett," 

At this point I could write, "The rest is history," but I want to mention a couple of perhaps lesser known facts about Tony Bennett's life. The first is his committment to the struggle for civil rights for Black people, perhaps springing in part from his friendly relationship with Ms. Bailey, and also with Harry Belafonte. He joined the Selma to Montgomery, Alabama civil rights march in 1965 and sang with many other stars at a rally near the end of the march.

The other relates back to his love for New York, as well as for children and for the arts. He and his wife provided the funds to establish a high school for the arts in New York City. In a typical gesture of humility, they insisted that it be named for his friend, Frank Sinatra.

Perhaps the best summing up of Tony Bennett's personality is this passage from his New York Times obituary, linked above, that quotes Simon Hattenstone in the Guardian: 

“He mythologizes himself, name-drops every time he opens his mouth, directs you to his altruism, is self-congratulatory to the point of indecency. He should be intolerable, but he’s one of the sweetest, most humble men I’ve ever met.”

I can't give up on the Mets

 

The All Star Break is a traditional time to assess a team's performance and its prospects for the rest of the season. On May 21 I expressed optimism based on the Mets' seeming to have recovered from a deep slump that, in typical fashion, followed a hot start. That optimism was quickly proved unfounded as the Mets went into a vertiginous tailspin that included a three game sweep by their divisional archrivals, the Braves. 

Recently, they showed some improvement. Their record over the last ten games before the break is 6-4. Still, at the break they are in fourth place in their division, six games under .500, and 18.5 games behind the NL East leading Braves. They are also ten games behind the second place Marlins and six behind the third place Phillies. There is still a miniscule chance they could be a wild card team but, "Ya gotta believe!" aside, it stretches credulity.

Nevertheless, I'm yet to be in a funk as bad as I was in June of 2008. The presence of a very deep pocketed owner who is happy to sign checks but by and large willing to let the baseball pros make decisions, even if they're not always the best decisions, helps. I also took some cheer from this New York Times column by David Brooks. No doubt I'll take some brickbats from my compatriots on the left for this, but I've long liked David Brooks. Knowing he's a fellow Mets fan confirms and strengthens my liking him. We disagree on some very important things, principally that described by David Coates here:

"David Brooks’ recent essay on 'The Character Factory' would have us believe that 'nearly every parent on earth operates on the assumption that character matters a lot to the life outcomes of their children' while 'nearly every government anti-poverty program operates on the assumption that it doesn’t.'”

It's the statement about anti-poverty or, as I think of them, "safety net" policies, not that about parents, with which I disagree. I'll have more to say about that in a future, non-baseball post. I must also note that there are some things, other than Mets fandom, about which I agree strongly with Brooks; for example, I believe in, and identify with, his notion of a "second mountain," on which I find myself now.

I've ascribed my Mets fandom to a penchant for supporting underdogs, one that, in baseball, was first manifest in my decision to cheer for the Brooklyn Dodgers -- I lived nowhere near Brooklyn at the time -- in the 1955 World Series against the Yankees. It was re-awakened in 1985 when I attended my first Mets game with my friend Pat Carroll, who said, "What you have to know about the Mets is that they're the Brooklyn Dodgers continued by other means." (I have friends who were New York Giants fans in their childhood who would dispute that claim.)  My timing was impeccable; the following year I got to see the Mets win their second, and to date last, World Series. 

At 77, I think I have a fair chance of living long enough to see another Mets championship. If I do, it's likely to come about in a way that can be described by the adjective used by their first manager, Casey Stengel, to describe a first season expansion team that set new records for futility, "Amazin'."

 

Alan Arkin, folk singer (and more), 1934-2023

Alan Arkin, who died last Thursday at 89, was blessed with many talents. Before his career as an actor began in earnest he played guitar and sang as part of a folk group called the Tarriers, who were formed from a group of musicians who would gather in Washington Square Park in the mid 1950s to play and to share songs. You can read more about the Tarriers and about my encounter with Erik Darling, who had been a member of the group, here 

A big break came for the Tarriers when Art D'Lugoff, music promoter and owner of the Village Gate cabaret, asked them to back Vince Martin on "Cindy, Oh Cindy."  (You can read about my duet with Vince, which came courtesy of Rick Danko, here.) The song was co-written by Robert Nemiroff and D'Lugoff's brother, Burt, under the pseudonyms Robert Barron and Burt Long. The record was released in 1956 and reached the top ten in the pop chart that year. It was quickly covered by Eddie Fisher, whose version also charted. In my memory, I associate the song with Boy Scout camp in the summer of 1957. Here's the Martin/Tarriers version, with Arkin on guitar and harmony vocals:

The Tarriers followed "Cindy" on their own in early 1957 with "The Banana Boat Song" which made it to number four on the pop chart. Almost contemporaneously, Harry Belafonte released "Day-O (Banana Boat Song)" which charted at number five, but is better remembered than the Tarriers' version today. Here's the Tarriers' version:

 

Note that the record label lists the authors of the song as "Arkin-Carey-Darling." Bob Carey, who along with Arkin and Darling made up the Tarriers, was Black. I had assumed that he was the lead vocalist on "Banana Boat," but in this interview he said it was Arkin.

Carey also said that the Tarriers, with the lineup of himself, Arkin, and Darling, did a version of "Tom Dooley" that predated the hit version by the Kingston Trio. On this, Carey had the lead vocal

Alan Arkin left the Tarriers in 1958 to pursue his acting career. I have little to add to all that has been written about that, other than to mention that I especially enjoyed his portrayal of the anti-hero Yossarian in Catch-22 (1970), directed by Mike Nichols.and based on the 1961 novel by Joseph Heller.

Arkin excelled as a director as well as as an actor. He directed another "dark comedy," Little Murders, by Jules Feiffer, first as an award winning off Broadway stage production, then as a 1971 movie in which he also played a role as an hysterical policeman. I used Little Murders as the opening theme in my 2008 attempt to answer the question, "What is Art?"

Alan Arkin brought his keen mind and artistic sense to whatever he did. He will be sorely missed.